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“I told André I had a gut instinct that something had changed with the PHP and they were becoming dangerous. Which wasn’t a hard idea to sell given that they were headed for Khartoum, the birthplace of many of the world’s biggest terrorists. And I wasn’t wrong that they’re dangerous, was I?”

Ian powered down fractionally. He’d been in the business long enough to know that gut instincts were worth paying attention to. And her guthadbeen right, damn it.

“Why did you lie to me?”

Crap. He was back in her face, possibly even angrier than before, his voice low and charged. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I never lied to you.”

“Don’t split hairs with me. You didn’t tell me about your association with the PHP. And you damned well should have.”

“Would you have trusted me if I had?”

“I fucking don’t trust you now!” he burst out. “What has all of this been? A ploy to spy on the government on behalf of your family? Blood’s thicker than water, isn’t it, Piper?”

Pain sliced through her. If their positions were reversed, she wouldn’t trust him, either. “Blood may be thicker than water, but it’s not thicker than right and wrong. My family is doing something bad. Really bad. And I’m doing my damnedest to stop them. If I hadn’t blown the whistle on them, nobody would be watching them. Nobody would have any idea that they’re working for a terrorist.”

Ian stared hard at her, his hand hovering dangerously near the deadly field knife in its sheath at his hip. “You do realize that every bit of intel you’ve ever given Uncle Sam on the PHP is now discredited, right?”

“I’m sorry,” she tried in desperation. “I should have told you. I should have trusted you. I was wrong.”

He was silent, stress tight across his forehead.

“What was that under the tarp?” she asked in a blatant attempt to distract him and diffuse his anger and betrayal. “It looked like a big motor. Why did you insist on going back to have another look at it?”

His jaw tightened and he said nothing.

He wasn’t going to answer her? Did he distrust her so much, then? A hot knife of hurt pierced her, startling her. Since when did she care so deeply what he thought about her? They’d hooked up a few times, but that did not a relationship make. Right?

Wrong, a little voice in the back of her head whispered to her.

“Look, Ian. We could stand here and argue all night over whether I should have told you about my relationship to the PHP. The fact is I spotted my father and brother heading to Sudan. And I told the authorities. Now we know they have something to do with Yusef Abahdi. That’s more than we would have known had I not been tracking them on the side.”

Ian shoved a hand through his hair. Exhaled hard. “You have to tell your boss. You have to let everyone running the op know. Now.”

She stared at him in dismay. “Really? Is putting my mistake to rights more important than finding the virus and stopping Yusef from killing thousands of innocents?”

“Your intel is discredited. Youhaveto let the analysts know.”

But it wasn’t discredited, dammit. She’d never been anything but honest and forthright in her reports on the PHP to her boss. She’d collected data and done her level best to be objective…

Okay, Fine. She couldn’t technically be classed as objective where her own family members were concerned. Her relationship to the PHP might plausibly have put a slant on the reports, but in no way discredited them outright?—

“Make the call.” Ian held out his cell phone to her expectantly. She looked up at him in desperation but not even a hint of relenting cracked the granite façade of his expression.

She took the phone. It was five a.m. here on the West Coast, which made it eight a/m. in Washington. André, an early rise, would already be at work.

Silently, despairingly, she typed in André Fortinay’s office number. The receptionist patched her through to her boss’s desk.

“Hi, André. It’s me. I have a confession to make. A big one. And it’s going to make you mad…”

Her boss listened in grim silence as she explained her relationship to the PHP. He also listened in silence to her avowals on stacks of bibles that had done her absolute best to be objective, fair, and honest in her reports on the group.

At the end of her monologue, all he said was, “You’re off the case.”

“Am I fired?”

“To be determined,” was her boss’s terse response.

“Okay. Fair enough.” She sighed heavily. “I’m really sorry.”