Was it possible that Whitman had sold him and the operation out?
That would mean that Whitman had gone rogue, a possibility that Cal ordinarily would have rejected as impossible. He’d known Whitman for a number of years, and the guy was a straight-arrow, by-the-book operative whose integrity he’d never had any reason to doubt.
But someone had gotten to Hendricks and Ezra. Hendricks he could, very dimly, envision being corrupted by any number of unsavory interests. Ezra? Cal once would have said, never could happen. It had happened, though, and the only way Cal could envision that going down was if Ezra was approached by someone like, say, Whitman, their trusted CIA handler. With some plausible reason why Rudy should be prevented from returning to the United States and why Cal should be kept in the dark about this, along with a promise, coupled with the power to follow through, to make the less-than-positive repercussions from their losing Rudy after obtaining him from the Kazakhs go away. Plus the money. Thirty million was a lot of money. Having that much on the table certainly would have inclined Ezra to listen when Whitman talked.
When Ezra had shot Cal, he hadn’t been shooting to kill. In what possible scenario could Ezra have thought that was going to work out? Not killing Cal after turning traitor on him and shooting him was like leaving a live grenade in your own house, and Ezra would have known that.
Unless Ezra had been assured that everything would be smoothed over and explained once the alternate disposal of Rudy was accomplished. Just about the only person Ezra might have trusted to be able to smooth over what he would have known Cal would see as a base betrayal was their CIA employer, Whitman.
Ezra had said Cal would get his share of the money. He would have been counting on ten million dollars going a long way toward mollifying Cal, too.
The scorched-earth magnitude of the response to his survival would have been exactly what he would have expected if the CIA—that is, Whitman—was directing it.
If he was right in what he was thinking, and Cal profoundly hoped he wasn’t, he and Gina were in exponentially more danger than he had thought. Cal knew his own skills and abilities, and had every confidence in them. But if Whitman, with his CIA resources, was behind this, the technology and manpower they might be facing would be overwhelming. With Cal alive, Whitman would have everything to lose. He would stop at nothing to make sure no one who could tell the tale lived to do so.
There were other possibilities, of course. So many bad players on the world stage made for a large pool of suspects. But Cal kept coming back to that Texas twang. What were the chances that there were two drawling Texans involved in this?
Very small, Cal judged. In fact, almost infinitesimal.
Shit.
Nothing to do about it at the moment, he told himself grimly. Tomorrow would be time enough to deal. For now, he needed to sleep.
Gina was still sleeping soundly when he stretched out beside her, but she must have felt him slide the pillow beneath her head and then subconsciously registered the warmth of his body next to hers, because she turned over to snuggle against him. He managed to get her tucked up against his side and pull half the sleeping bag over them both without waking her. They had these few precious hours in which he judged they were relatively safe, and he had no idea when they’d get an opportunity to sleep again. If he had any chance in hell of getting them out of this alive, he would need a clear head and a body that was as functional as possible. On that thought he closed his eyes, concentrated, and was gone, falling fathoms deep asleep in an instant as his military training had taught him to do.
CAL WOKE abruptly, shaken out of a sound sleep by—he didn’t know what. It was pitch dark. His body was comfortably covered, but the air around him was cool and smelled like musty earth. He couldn’t see a thing—but there was a woman in his arms, warm and slim and silky soft. Naked, just like he was naked. Then realization clicked, and he was fully alert, fully aware of where he was and of the identity of the woman sleeping with him and the deadly situation they were in.