Without another word to Erin, she walked out of the bedroom. The living area was a hum of activity. Simon and Hutch were both at laptops. Theo was moving luggage into the hallway, and Ten was on his cell.
“We have a situation. I explained that to you, you little piece of shit bureaucrat. Get me to the director. I don’t care what time it is.” Ten grimaced and brought the phone back down. “They won’t put me through.”
Theo stacked their equipment. “That’s not a good sign.”
Ten turned and his face softened when he saw her. “Hey. Why don’t you go lie down for a while, sweetheart? I’ll tell you if we find anything.”
Erin was right. She hated when Erin was right. Ten was going to treat her like she was made of glass. She wasn’t and she had to pull it together because she was not losing another man she loved. She wasn’t going to lose Jesse. Not without one hell of a fight.
She’d asked herself how long she would have to wait. She knew the answer. She wouldn’t wait at all. This time she was stronger. This time she would be the one searching. If she’d done anything wrong when Jamie died, it was leaving the fight to Ten. She was stronger than that, strong enough to search and never stop. If she was an old woman with a fucking cane, she would still look for her husband because Jesse would endure. He would trust her and find a way to survive.
Faith. She had to suck it the fuck up, as Erin so lovingly put it, and have a little faith.
“I’m not going back to bed. I need to see Ace’s file. I don’t care how the hell we get it. I’ll pay the nastiest hacker in the world to figure out who wrote his recommendation.”
“I am the nastiest hacker in the world, thank you very much,” a voice from her left said. “Turn me around, babe. I believe Hermione is impugning my reputation.”
Simon turned his laptop and Chelsea Weston glared out at her from the screen.
“You know calling me Hermione isn’t an insult,” Phoebe explained. “She was kind of badass.”
“Yeah, well, she was also in a kid’s book, so there’s that.”
She wasn’t ever going to win with Chelsea. “What do you have on Ace?”
Even through the screen, she could see the way Chelsea flushed. “They’ve purged his records. I need something else. I need somewhere to look. The Internet’s a big fucking place.”
“Politicians keep records.” She was taking a big step that would likely blow up in her face, but she had to do it. “I need you to hack into Senator Hank McDonald’s files.”
“Phoebe!” Ten put his phone down, staring at her in obvious shock. “You’re talking about a United States senator.”
And why wouldn’t he be shocked? She’d been the perfect little Agency soldier. She’d done everything she was told, with the singular exception of ignoring the kill order on Jesse Murdoch. She played everything by the book because that’s the way her father taught her. But this wasn’t her father’s Agency anymore and she wasn’t going to let a man she loved die because she couldn’t take a chance.
“On it.” Chelsea’s eyes lit up and her hands flew across the keys.
Simon shook his head and took a long breath as though he was used to worrying about the NSA showing up at his house.
“Phoebe, do you know what they’ll do to you?” Ten asked quietly.
“I don’t care. He’s involved, Ten. I can feel it. He’s the connection. He’s the line between Eli Nelson and Hani al Fareed and The Collective.”
“He’s also a goddamn United States senator with the kind of pull you can’t even imagine.” Ten put his hands on her shoulders. “This is the kind of thing that gets an operative killed.”
“Then what are we fucking fighting for, Ten? He doesn’t get to use us. He doesn’t get to dishonor his vows and sell out his country. And as far as I can tell, we’re the only ones who can even try to stop him. If I’m right, he’s already cost me one husband. I won’t let him take another. I’ll take him down even if I have to go down with him.”
“Bingo. Son of a bitch has a file of recommendations,” Chelsea said. “Mostly it’s kids getting into military academies, but Ace Monroe is here. There’s no recommendation for the CIA job, but Ace’s father worked on McDonald’s campaign for Congress way back when. He wrote the recommendation that got Ace into the Air Force Academy. There’s your connection.” Chelsea winced. “He also has some e-mails to al Fareed. They date back years. He asks how al Fareed’s experiments are going. He knew what the fucker was doing. Phoebe, I think you’re right. There’s nothing here that would hold up in a court of law, but when you put it together, there’s only one logical conclusion.”
Ten had gone a little pale, but he wasn’t arguing.
Hutch stood up. “Sir, I request permission to leave.”
Ten frowned. “Of course. The next plane home will be here in an hour.”
Theo moved in beside Hutch. “Me, too, sir. But Hutch isn’t talking about leaving the team or the operation.”