“Probably one of ours,” Riley growled. “And it gives the contact full credibility because St. George doesn’t know there’s a difference between us and Talon. All dragons are the same to them. So the Order goes to kill a dragon, a rogue is slaughtered and Talon wins all around.”
“And the Patriarch is now in league with the organization,” I finished softly. There were other recordings on the drive, but I didn’t need to listen to them to know how they would play out. Unable to resist, the Patriarch would continue to meet with the mysterious agent, who would continue to provide intelligence about the locations of other dragons. And the Patriarch would send St. George after them, killing off a rogue or another dragon Talon wanted out of the way. Not knowing that with every death, he was entrenching himself further into Talon’s machinations. Until one day, the agent would reveal who he really worked for, and the Patriarch would be trapped. St. George would not care that Talon was using the Patriarch to kill more dragons. They wouldn’t care that he had been duped by the organization, and he would never have taken the offer had he known. All they would see was the Patriarch’s corruption. He was working for Talon, accepting money from the Order’s greatest enemy. The highest of betrayals. If this evidence became known to St. George, they would kill him.
And that was exactly what we had to make happen.
“Well,” Riley said, and the undertone of satisfied glee in his voice made me wince. “I’d say we have a pretty damning case against the Patriarch, wouldn’t you agree, St. George? If the Order doesn’t flip their shit when they find out, we’re all screwed. Only question is, how are we going to get it to them? I doubt they’re going to let us stroll up and knock on their front door.”
“I might be able to send it to them electronically,” Wes offered.
“No.” I shook my head. “Within the Order, the Patriarch’s word is absolute. And anything that comes in from the outside is subject to immediate suspicion. The Order knows Talon and how they work. We can’t take the chance that they might destroy the evidence, or that someone might warn the Patriarch. We have to make sure this is known to all of St. George. And that means we’re going to need someone on the inside.” I paused, knowing Riley wouldn’t like this, then added, “We have to meet with the Order, face-to-face, and show them the evidence ourselves. It’s the only way to be sure they understand it.”
“And how are we supposed to do that, exactly?” Riley demanded. “St. George isn’t going to listen to us, much less agree to a meeting where they’re not slaughtering everyone there. A group of dragons and the guy on their most-wanted hit list right now? We could be offering them the Ark of the Covenant, and they’d still pump us full of holes the second they see us. Unless you’ve got a completely insane trick up your sleeve, I don’t see how we’re going to get any of them to stop murdering us long enough to pay attention.”
I sighed. I could think of one person in St. George who might be willing to listen. It would be a gamble; he hated me now, thinking I’d turned on him and the Order to side with the dragons. The fight outside the laboratory certainly hadn’t helped. He saw me as the enemy, and I was fairly certain that he would have killed me back there, sliced my throat open, if I’d let him. Even if he’d regretted it later, he was a soldier of St. George, and duty was everything to him. I wasn’t entirely certain I wouldn’t walk into an ambush and be shot dead before I even laid eyes on my former partner.
But I had few options, and this had to be done. Andrew had said there were those in the Order who were sympathetic to me, but Andrew was oceans away, too far to do anything. And he’d said flat out that he wouldn’t touch anything to do with the Patriarch. Tristan was the only one close enough to help. If he decided to help. I only hoped our past friendship, brotherhood and the times we’d saved each other’s lives would be enough for him to give me the benefit of the doubt and not shoot me in the head the first chance he got.
“I know someone,” I said, feeling a heavy weight settle on me for what I had to do. “It’ll be a risk, contacting him, but I don’t have a better choice. He’s the only one in St. George who might agree to a meeting.”
“Might?” Riley echoed, crossing his arms. “What you’re really saying is, he might agree to a meeting, but he also might tell everyone in St. George so they can be lying in ambush when we show up.”
“Not we,” I said. “Me. He’ll never agree to it otherwise. I have to meet Tristan alone.”
SEBASTIAN
Three years ago.