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Manakin blinked, as though Will had spoken in a language he couldn’t comprehend, then continued, “Here’s how this will work: I ask questions. You answer. No one here reports to anyone but me. Understood?”
“No paperwork? I’m in,” Egret said, shoving off the wall to take the seat beside Sparrow. His arm immediately draped about her shoulder, fingers rubbing her arm.
Manakin noted the movement but said nothing.
Each of us nodded our assent to his ground rules, none of us eager to begin, but all knowing there was no alternative.
Manakin glanced at the page in front of him. “Operation Shadowfox was initiated with the objective of extracting Hungarian cryptographer Dr. László Farkas and his in-progress machine, codenamed Vega. Contingency was in place for Plan B—destruction of the machine and neutralization of the target in the event of compromise.”
We all nodded. That summed up what we’d been sent to do.
Manakin launched into one question after the next. Minutes turned to hours as he knocked over every stone, forcing us to recall every move, every step, the features of every minder and follower and guard.
Midway through the interrogation—because that’s what it felt like—he looked up, his eyes sharper than his voice. “Why didn’t you execute Plan B?”
I leaned forward, my shoulder aching from the movement. “Because Farkas had a daughter who’d become a Soviet hostage.”
Manakin waited.
Will picked up my answer. “She was kidnapped before the meet. She wasn’t in the brief. He didn’t show at extraction because she was being held. He told us he would go only if we got her out.”
“And so,” Manakin said, “you chose to abandon the mission as outlined and start a rogue third option. Extraction plus rescue.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And the result?”
“Farkas is dead, and his machine was destroyed.”
“Eszter is alive,” Will added, quietly. “We got her out.”
Manakin’s eyes flicked to him. “Yes. Eszter Farkas. Thirteen years old. IQ of 148. Knows Enigma theory and cryptographic patterning at a post-graduate level. We’ve already intercepted inquiries from the Soviets asking about a girl matching her description. They are most displeased.”
“Well, if Uncle Joe’s pissed—”
Manakin silenced him with a glare.
“She’s alive,” Will repeated. “They don’t get to be pleased.”
Egret shifted in his seat. “We didn’t abandon the mission. We adjusted.”
“You lost the target,” Manakin said.
Sparrow bristled. “The target was a man held hostage by his child’s life. He turned against his captors the second she was safe. He shielded her with his body. We lost him doing the right thing. Farkas died a hero.”
Manakin closed the folder. “I’m not disputing anyone’s courage.”
His voice didn’t rise. That was the thing about Manakin—he never needed volume to dominate a room.
“But I am responsible for reporting results. From Washington’s perspective, this was an expensive mission with zero deliverables and a dead scientist.”
“And a living prodigy,” I said, locking eyes with him.
“And a lost prototype.”
“The prototype wasn’t usable,” Egret snapped. “Farkas had the processor. It was in the damned box. That bullet didn’t just kill him; it also shredded every hope of that machine seeing daylight. We had the thing at the border, but the Reds shot it out from under us.”
Manakin sat back, lips pressed tight. “So you claim.”