Free I Spy a Wicked Sin by Jo Davis Page A

the more like an outsider he felt. Confused by the turmoil inside him, he retreated and carefully made his way back in the direction from which he’d come.
    At least he had tonight to look forward to.
    Even if the prospect of his liaison with Tamara no longer seemed quite as exciting as before.

Five
    L ily stepped out of the shower and toweled off her hair, humming. The afternoon delight with a certain hot chef had done wonders for her mood. It had been liberating to ditch her cold, calculating alter ego, if only for a while.
    Maybe she didn’t have to be “on” every single second. What would it hurt to loosen up some, see things from a different perspective? What if Jude wasn’t—
    The soft tune vibrating her cell phone dispersed the thought before it could form, and she crossed to the dresser and flipped it open. She didn’t need three guesses as to who would be on the other end.
    “You don’t waste much time,” she said by way of greeting SHADO’s interim boss.
    “We don’t have any to piss away, Agent Vale,” Dietz answered with deceptive calm. “Stay focused and locate those remaining two missing files before they wind up in the wrong hands. The last thing we need is the press getting a whiff of one of our best men going bad, stealing a weapon of mass destruction, and selling it to our enemy. SHADO will be roasted in the news and the government will go up our asses and around the corner.”
    She frowned and sat on the edge of the bed. “I still don’t understand why St. Laurent would send out six worms containing damaging evidence of his own guilt. I mean, he had to know we’d eventually be able to trace the route back to him as the source.”
    “He did know,” Dietz reminded her. “He’d already completed his dirty deal and the weapon is gone. Terrorists love to grand-stand, Vale, and publicity is as great a weapon as the weapon itself. The majority of them don’t care about capture, death, or anything but their cause. They don’t do it for the money. Tell me I’m wrong.”
    She couldn’t. St. Laurent certainly didn’t need the extra millions in the bank. But something kept nagging her. “Then what is the root of his motivation? What would turn a man so completely against his country?”
    “Lily,” he sighed, dropping the formalities. His voice became sad, as though the world rested on his shoulders. “When your upbringing is as pathetic and hardscrabble as St. Laurent’s, it can damage a man. Sometimes to the point of no return. I can only imagine that his resentment simmered and grew year by year as he clawed his way to the top, obsessed with someday being in the position to do exactly what he did.”
    “Stick it to everyone who failed him, in the most spectacular way,” she said, drawing the conclusion. “I know he refused to cooperate, even under torture, so why did you bother with the mind sweep instead of just putting him down?”
    This was the longest conversation they’d ever had, and she took the opportunity to continue asking him the questions that had been bothering her. Usually, he simply relayed the information and barked the next orders. Today, he seemed uncharacteristically patient, as though making a concentrated effort to be more like Michael.
    Perhaps Dietz was taking some heat for his methods, which were cold even by Lily’s standards.
    “I was attempting to buy SHADO time to unravel what St. Laurent had done, discover his contacts, and find the files he planted. On the off chance we’d need him, I didn’t want him eliminated just yet.”
    “And now? I’ve found four of the six files.” Encrypted files she’d been ordered to hand right over to Dietz with no time or way to decipher them.
    “Depends. Is the sweep holding?”
    She knew what was coming, and a part of her dreaded telling him. Even considering what Jude had done. “Honestly? I think it’s starting to break down. He says he’s having migraines and nightmares.”
    “All right. That’s it,