Leah Braemel - Deliberate Deceptions

“Good.” He nodded in approval. “Then tell him the rest. About the Brigade, about Thalia’s part in committing you to that asylum

She stilled. “You know what she did?”

“I overheard that fight you had with her, remember? About how she’d told you Chad had remarried.” Troy had been the one who had told her Chad barely even dated. “I also told you, I got into your files, remember? After I read yours, I read hers.”

“Oh.”

“You need to tell him, Lauren. He needs to know.”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘By the way, Chad, your sister is a lying bitch who manipulated me and I was so stupid I let her’?”

“He deserves the truth, damn it. Not many men these days live with the type of code he holds himself and others to. If you want to keep him, you’ll effin' come clean to him. He deserves that much after what he’s given up for you both. He gave up his career to protect her.”

“Going against orders was his choice.” The hurt, the betrayal she’d felt when she’d learned what he’d done raked her again. Not that he’d gone against them, but that he hadn’t talked to her first. But even if she’d known, what would she have said or done? “He could have asked her to stop going to that damned place until Vandeburg was captured.”

“He had. She refused.”

Lauren stilled. “He never told me.”

Troy sighed. “All right, so save Thalia for later. For Christ’s sake, at least tell him who Cooper really is and have him banned from that damned club before he brings trouble to its doors. That’s the last thing either Sam or Chad need after sacrificing their careers for it.”

“Yes, Lauren. Tell me who Cooper really is. Tell me why he should be banned from his own club.”

Her own expression couldn’t have looked any less guilty than Troy’s when they both stared at Chad, who stood in the connecting doorway.

Tension radiated from him as he stalked into the room, his fingers flexing as if they wanted to go for his weapon. Or punch Troy in the jaw. When he looked at her, the warmth that had been in them just minutes before had been replaced with ice.

“Who the hell is Cooper, Lauren? What’s he doing that should get him banned from the club?” Chad repeated.

Troy’s shoulders slumped; he ran a hand through his thick mane of hair. “Cooper’s running-”

“Troy, stop,” Lauren interrupted, sensing he was quite willing to throw her to the wolves. “I’m sorry, Chad, but Troy can’t tell you anything about it. You need to forget what you just heard.”

The glare he turned on her could have withered a nun’s wimple. “Like hell I’m going to forget what I heard. Now, you tell me what Cooper’s up to.”

“We can’t.”

“You won’t,” Chad corrected.

“No, I mean we can’t. I signed a secrecy agreement.”

“What’ll happen if you break that agreement? You’ll be slapped on the wrist? Fired? You’ve told me you’ve already quit.” His voice could have frozen the Potomac in July. “What the hell is he doing? Is Cooper the man you were investigating? Is he the one who hired Harris?”

When she didn’t answer, he yelled, “Tell me, damn it!”

“Cooper was my boss. That’s all I can tell you. And even that can get us all in trouble.”

Troy apparently didn’t feel the same boundaries. “Fuck that. Cooper is head of The Brigade. It’s a multi-government, black-op, hostage rescue unit that operates separately from any of the government agencies in order to provide plausible deniability.”

Chad jerked back as if he’d been shot. He straightened and looked between the two of them, processing the various scenarios from the little information he’d gleaned and added it to his conversation with Sam. “You lied to me. Both of you.”

“We had to,” Lauren agreed quietly. “The Brigade often has to infiltrate terrorist organizations. If the wrong piece of information gets out, if the wrong person finds out about something, people could die. If we talk to someone who we’re not authorized to talk to, we can be charged with treason and tried in a very private court with a very private-and very final-sentence.”

His stomach felt as if he’d been buckled into a roller coaster that was doing loops and spins, ready to rocket off its rails. He hated roller coasters.

He glanced at Troy, who was staring stone-faced out the window. “How long have you known about this?”

“About eight months. It was the Brigade who extracted our guys in Colombia.” Troy slumped on the windowsill. “Lauren was running the op. I don’t remember seeing Weir there, but things got pretty hairy and…well, maybe he was there and I just missed him.”

“Does Sam know about any of this?”

“No.”

Which explained why Troy had worked from home for weeks after he’d returned from Colombia.

The roller coaster they were riding flipped over in a dozen different directions then abruptly stopped. She’d owed him no explanation. If she’d been working with a black ops team, she wouldn’t have been able to tell him anything. They’d each had to keep certain parts of their work secret from each other before. How was this any different?

Troy was a different matter. He may have possibly put not only Hauberk but the club members at risk. However there was nothing to be done about it at the moment. Not until they’d solved this current situation.

“Is there really a threat? Is there really a Jack Harris?”

“Yes, there’s really a Jack Harris. He’s after me because I had him taken off active duty. And you’re a target because he may try to get back at me by hitting you.”

Could he believe her? She’d given him a completely different story in the gazebo. Was this tale any closer to the truth than that one? “Who is he really?”

“He’s a former British agent. He’d been working undercover to infiltrate an offshoot of the Shining Path when his cover got blown. He didn’t like the way his government handled his case after he got back so Cooper recruited him.”

“Why did you have him taken off active duty?”

She took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you we noticed he was having problems after a mission went sour in Somalia.”

“PTSD?”

She nodded. “Among other things.”

Somalia, with its war lords and lawlessness. She’d been facing those thugs? Chad pinched the bridge of his nose. Too many scenarios flashed through his mind. Too many questions. Troy had said Colombia had been a hell of a firefight; where else had she been? “Were you in charge of the op that went bad? Is that why he’s after you?”

“No, I was in charge of his next mission. He wigged out and damned near caused us all to be killed. When we got back Cooper put him on administrative leave. Because I was the one who signed the report, he’s focused on me as being the cause of all his problems.”

“A variation of the ‘kill the messenger’ response.” He’d seen it before. “Was Weir part of the decision making process?”

“No. Ed was part of the team, but I’m the only one he’s targeting.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” There was no way to break it to her gently, and no time either. “Weir’s dead, Lauren.”

Beside him, Troy swore and turned away. Lauren said nothing but color drained from her face.

“He was found this morning in a seedy hotel room up near Fredrick. According to the news reports, other guests reported hearing an argument in the middle of the night and called the front desk. When the police arrived, the room had been trashed and Weir was dead. His throat had been slit.”

He narrowed his eyes at Lauren’s curse.