Roberta shook her head. “If they did, they’d be getting the American ambassador out of bed and demanding to know what we were doing over there. Becker must be running some sort of rogue operation and you walked into it. He’s captured JD but he’s kept it off the books. He’s probably finding out what he knows. And then…”

She didn’t say it but we could all finish the sentence in our heads. And then he’ll kill him. “Well then we’ve got to get him back,” I said, my voice tight with fear. “Tell the Germans what happened, tell them this Becker guy is dirty and he’s holding one of our people!”

Roberta sighed. “No.”

“No?” Kian leaned closer to the screen. “What do you mean, no?”

“It can’t come out that we were running an op in Germany,” said Roberta. “We can’t get involved. We have to disavow JD, claim we don’t know him. I’m sorry.”

Kian stared at the screen, speechless, then stabbed the end call button so hard he almost broke the keyboard. We all sat there fuming. I’d always known this was a possibility, if something went wrong. This is why the government used people like us, because we were deniable. But I hadn’t thought it would ever actually happen.

“I’ll call the Sisters of Invidia,” said Kian. “See if they can find out where this Becker guy is holding JD.” The Sisters were an all-female hacking group he knew, the best in the business. One of them, Lily, was also the person who supplied all our fake passports. Kian stood up. “And when they find him, I’m going with you to get him back.”

“What?” asked Emily.

He turned to her. “We’re a man down.”

She looked terrified. “But—”

“I stayed here last time and look what happened!” he snapped.

“That’s not your fault!”

“I’m going and that’s the end of it.” He looked at me and jerked his head for me to follow him, then marched out of the room.

I hurried after him and caught him out in the hallway. He was looking back towards the briefing room, his face troubled. Probably regretting snapping at Emily. Then he turned to me. “We need a new field leader,” he told me.

It took a second before I realized he meant me. “But I’m—Wait, no, I’m not….” I knew how to drive and how to party and that was it. “You’re coming along, you do it!”

“I’ve been out of the field too long. You know these guys, you’ve fought beside them.”

I stared at him. I was reliving that moment when I’d given the order to leave JD behind. The toughest moment of my life…and now Kian wanted me to take over, to make decisions like that all the time. “I can’t.”