Page 3 of Once a Hero

Who wouldn’t?

But first, Jake had to recover from his wounds. Staying in the Paris apartment rent-free with Helen Hu and Reuben Costa while they were on their delayed honeymoon was weird, to say the least, but he mostly kept to himself in his space while they occupied the rest of the luxurious apartment.

In all his life, Jake had never met another couple working through their honeymoon.

Yet they had no choice. Molyneux had bombed Cannes one day after Jake was rescued. All that went into the report that caused Jake to get suspended.

If Jake hadn’t gone off script and agreed to meet an informant in Cannes, perhaps the row of historic hotels could have been saved from the blaze.

In any case, Jake didn’t get his meeting in Cannes either. Molyneux’s people got to him first.

He thought the informant was dead until she contacted him two days ago.

Which was why Jake was in a transatlantic private jet now, heading for San Francisco.

This time, the informant had better show up.

Stretched out on the reclining leather seat, Jake rolled his head to one side to look out of the window. It was all dark.

He glanced at his watch. He’d arrive in San Francisco in two hours, drive half an hour to the twenty-four-hour restaurant—traffic should be light at two in the morning—and pray that the informant would show up.

At some point in time, the wild goose chase had to end.

“That all we got on Molyneux?” A voice broke his muse.

Private investigator Earl Young tossed the folder back on the table between them. The way the seats were configured in Helen’s jet, Jake couldn’t reach for the folder from his reclining position.

Jake glanced over his feet at the end of the recliner. On the other side of the table, Earl was sitting up, swiping his iPad.

“There has to be something more. She didn’t become Molyneux the Doll overnight.” Earl didn’t look up. “What about family? Parents? Siblings? Spouses?”

“What you see is all we get.” Jake pointed to the table. “Four years of work right there.”

“And still no fingerprint, no DNA, no first names. For all we know, she might not exist.”

“Few people know her real name.” Jake crossed his feet. He wiggled his toes in his hiking socks.

The temperature in the cabin was warm, but once they get on the ground, he needed to dress warmly for the low fifties in the middle of the night. Days in San Francisco were mild, but the informant wanted to meet under the cover of night.

“She has to have been born somewhere.” Earl tapped his iPad. “Do we know if she has always been a French citizen?”

“You read my report from the Bay of Cannes incident,” Jake said. “I looked into her eyes and I talked to her, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she looked like a neighbor next door or down the street who probably owns a pair of gardening gloves. If she walked in the streets of Cannes or Paris or maybe even San Francisco, I might not be able to peg her as the world’s top terrorist.”

Earl nodded. “That’s how she has hidden from the law for the last ten years.”

“Or more.”

“I’ll dig into her past and see what I can unearth. How long are you going to be in the States?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. Frankly, just between you and me, I want to be done with this operation.”

“Well, the Bureau thinks you already are.” Earl leaned back and closed his eyes.

Jake had nothing to say about that. He was pulled into the operation when his FBI partner died in Vienna in the explosion. The man was celebrating his twentieth wedding anniversary with his beloved wife. The blast left his wife maimed.

After that tragedy, an opportunity came up for him to go on deep undercover in Molyneux’s organization. Being single and unattached, Jake took up the multi-year operation.

His sole contact inside the FBI, Stella Evans, had been his only lifeline to the outside world as he navigated the sewers of Molyneux’s operation for three years.

---