“We were hired to infiltrate the yacht and find sensitive information that had been left there by an asset,” Marielle explained.
“Not to exfiltrate the asset?” Hanna asked, her voice brittle.
“No, that wasn’t our mission,” Omar confirmed. “But Marielle and I weren’t going to leave you on that boat.”
He raised the binoculars and scanned the coastline again, his broad shoulders tense, bunched near his ears. “We need to keep moving.”
Marielle stood and offered Hanna her canteen. “Water?”
She shook her head. “I’m good.” Her gaze sharpened. “Your name is Marielle?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m Omar.”
“Not Margaux and Oscar,” Hanna murmured. “Marielle and Omar.”
“Always use a name similar to your real one,” Omar said. “Gives you time to catch yourself if you slip.”
Hanna wasn’t listening. She stared out across the hillside with a thoughtful expression.
Finally, she stood. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t leave the information for you to find.”
“That was a smart play on your part,” Omar told her.
“It wasn’t a strategic decision. I was scared. Once my handler went dark on me, I wasn’t sure anyone would have my back if things went south.” Hanna laughed. “Turns out I was right.”
Omar flashed Marielle a look. She nodded. Their asset had leverage, and she knew it.
As they headed back through the grass toward the path, Marielle spoke in a low, urgent voice. “We’re going to help you, no matter what. But the information you have is clearly important. Will you tell us what you know?”
Hanna twitched her mouth to the side and tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. Then she tilted her head, bemused.
“I’m not sure yet.”
She edged past them and continued up the hillside, her footing sure and steady.
They watched her stride away and were silent for a moment.
Then Marielle whispered a string of French profanity.
“You can say that again.” Omar nudged her shoulder with his. “Come on. We have to keep her close. She might think she’s safe now, but…”
But she wasn’t. None of them were.
There were two foolproof ways to keep Hanna from telling them what she knew: kill her, or kill them.
Two
They climbed in silence at a fast, but manageable, pace. As the elevation rose, the earth beneath their feet changed from dry limestone to sandy soil, and the shrubby vegetation gave way to olive trees, myrtle thickets, and the region’s ubiquitous strawberry trees.
Omar stopped under an olive tree to scrub his hand over his forehead and eyes and press his thumb and middle finger firmly into his temples. Vise-like pain wrapped around his head in a tight band. The headache wasn’t a surprise.
The first one had been. He’d been a rookie with the DEA on his first undercover assignment when a drug buy went bad. Locked in a warehouse with more than a dozen heavily armed, poorly disciplined gangbangers eager to go to war, he’d managed to diffuse the conflict. But the moment the danger had passed, the headache gripped him.
After the third time, he’d mentioned it in passing to his partner, who nodded sagely. “Tension headache. Nothing you can do about it.”
So he accepted the headaches as an inevitable part of the job—until he left the agency to work for Jake.