Page 121 of The Spy
"I'm going to give you a five-minute head start when we get there." He chuckled low and then nuzzled my neck. "I promise."
I could see it in his gaze. How did he not know he had a tell? "You are lying. You’re going to chase me up the stairs, aren't you?"
He shrugged. "It's disturbing that you know when I'm lying. No one knows. And that includes Saff."
"It's really easy to tell, actually." Why had I never noticed it before?
"All right. What's my tell? You tell me and I can fix it."
I shook my head. "Oh no. I am never telling you. I will take that secret to the grave. I don't need to know everything. I just don't want you to lie to me. I don’t want to feel manipulated."
He pressed his lips together. "There won't be lies, but there might be half-truths."
"I get it. Nature of the beast. Nature of who you are. Ops Command. But I want to know that you're going to be as truthful with me as you possibly can. How's that?"
"Deal. I can do that."
I could hold onto my worry and concern, or I could file it away for later. I chose later. "Let's go."
Tabatha
In the morning after I’d lain awake in Gabe’s arms for hours, sleep eluding me, we headed to the black site where we were temporarily holding Jennings Tate.
I hadn't been to one of the black sites before. Any interrogations I had taken part in had always been at Rogues. This time we were taken to a nondescript brick facility about thirty miles west of London in a forgettable village. I frowned. "This is far out."
"Just in the villages, darling. Just another industrial building that people have forgotten."
"It makes a perfect black site." I glanced around. Nothing was on this industrial road. A couple of other factories were maybe a mile down, but there was no one around to hear anything. Nowhere to run without being seen.
It occurred to me that after Drake, it was important for him to have me accompany him. A way to build a little trust.
The facility looked innocuous enough. A fenced perimeter with a Keep Out sign and a chemical sign which should do the job. Drums and barrels added to the motif. There didn't look to be any cameras, but for a trained eye, they were everywhere. Starting from the moment we turned on the road, I knew we were being watched.
"Wow, this is secure. Is this also where Drake is supposedly being kept?"
He winced. "You're still mad."
I shrugged. "I'm not mad, just between a rock and a hard place."
"His cover is important to MI5. Always has been. He's the only agent who has ever gotten this close to the Syndicate. All the intel we've gotten the last four or five years on the Syndicate has been from him.
"So when he comes into Rogues for questioning, you call up MI5, and what?"
"I bargain. Half my job is bargaining. If he's in town, it's easy enough. Take him around some route, slap some cuffs on him, make him look a little roughed up like he's been in a cell, maybe even put a jumpsuit on him."
Wow. "You know how to sell a story."
"His identity is a secret even from Oversight."
My eyes went wide. "Oh, fuck."
"Yeah, and it's imperative it stay that way. Gennifer might be MI5, but she has no idea who Drake Webster is. His file is one of those buried-so-deep scenarios."
"Wow. So he really just can't be out and about?"
"I'm sure I could set him up under the radar with a new identity. If he liked a quiet life, he could do that. But Drake is good in the field. I've never seen that kind of determination from anyone, ever. It's scary, honestly. He does not relent. It makes him a better field agent than anyone else."
I understood, but still, this was a game I didn’t want to play. "I understand. Your sister is still going to kill you, though."
