Smoked

The latter would be getting an earful from me, given I was the one who paid her salary.
Once back at the house, I showered and got in bed. A few minutes after lying there in utter exhaustion but unable to sleep, I picked up my cell and tracked Siren’s. According to the app Decker had developed and put on my phone back when I was hired for my first mission with the Invincibles, Siren’s phone was at Mansfield’s office since earlier in the day.
Maureen’s was at the rental from about an hour prior. While the locations didn’t trouble me, the fact neither had updated since that morning, did. Later, I’d have Decker check and see if that app had a glitch too. Knowing the man’s reputation, I doubted it very much.
By the end of the second day without hearing a word from either Siren or her nurse, I was equally pissed and worried. Especially after Decker assured me the app was functioning properly.
“Hey, Smoke, I have an update for you,” he said a few minutes later.
“Yeah?”
He led me into the office and pointed to something on his laptop.
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking at the flashing alert.
“The phones have been dismantled.”
Adrenaline streaked through my body as the ramifications of Decker’s words sunk in. I ran my hand through my hair. “What the fuck?” I mumbled under my breath.
“It appears Siren may have more of her memory back than you might’ve thought.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It takes someone with a certain amount of skill to know how to take a cell phone apart in such a way that it still shows up on most normal tracking programs as active.”
“You think she’s the one who did it?” I asked.
“I do.”
“Based on?”
“Instinct.”
I nodded. Sometimes, that’s all we had to go on. I trusted Deck’s gut as much as I trusted my own.
“I’ll start searching through security-cam coverage. What do you know about the nurse?”
I pulled up the contact information for the medical personnel placement agency I’d used to find her and forwarded that to Deck.
“While I do this, give them a call and see if they’ve heard from her.”
“Copy that.”
Both he and I realized the time difference simultaneously. “Guess you’ll have to wait,” he muttered when I calculated it was three in the morning over there.
“We have a hit,” he said less than ten minutes later.
“Who?”
“The nurse.”
I looked at the screen. “Is that Dulles?”
“Affirmative.”
“What time was that?”
“Seven last night.”
More than twenty-four hours ago, which meant Siren and her nurse could be just about anywhere in the world by now.
“Is Siren with her?”
Deck shook his head. “She’s smart enough to know how to beat facial recognition, Smoke.”
In the same way most in the intelligence business would. If one of us appeared on security footage, it was because we wanted to. What surprised me was that Siren hadn’t made sure her nurse wasn’t recognized either.
“Better read Rile in on this,” Deck suggested.
While it was a little later in Spain, it was still the middle of the night, so rather than calling, I sent him a text. Siren on the move for more than twenty-four hours. Current whereabouts unknown.
It wasn’t five minutes before my cell rang.
“Brief me.”
I told him everything Decker and I knew to this point.
“Do you believe her memory has returned?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“I think it’s time I contact Director Hughes.”
I had to agree. If we were wrong, we’d need IMI’s help. If we were right, there was a good chance he’d know her twenty.
“Got her,” said Decker.
“Hang on, Rile. Ashford says he has a hit.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, looking at the image on the screen of Siren walking into IMI’s secret headquarters, looking straight at one of the security cameras with her middle finger in the air.

II


18
Siren
“I refuse to jeopardize our relationship with MI6, the CIA, or the Invincibles by turning this into an international incident, Siren,” said my boss, Director Rory Hughes, slamming his fist on his desk. He leaned back in his chair. “It seems to me that Smoke was trying to help you. Not informing IMI of your condition is an issue I’ll take up with Rile DeLéon, but you know as well as I do that faced with the same dilemma, both of us would have done the same thing for him or any other agent as he did for you.”
I stood and walked over to his office window. I knew he was right; my pride was the only thing refusing to accept it.
“How are you now, Siren?” Hughes asked, his voice taking on a fatherly tone.
To begin, I was humiliated and heartbroken, but Rory wasn’t asking about my feelings. He wanted to know my medical condition. A few years ago, before I’d officially come on board at the Irish Military Intelligence and long before Rory Hughes was named director, he and I had a brief affair. There was no bad blood between us; the flame had just fizzled. When he became my boss, there was nothing untoward about our working relationship. It was as any other I had—except for Smoke and me. It still didn’t mean Rory would want to hear the sordid details.
I tossed the copy of my medical records Dr. Mansfield had included in what he gave me before I left his office, but he handed it back to me.
“Tell me how you are, Siobhan.”
“The mobility in my left arm is ninety-five percent.”
“And your memory?”
That was harder to answer, given on the flight from DC to Dublin, I’d read every word in Mansfield’s file. While I’d been furious he hadn’t shared my own life with me, now I understood why. I couldn’t differentiate between what I actually remembered and the images I conjured based on what I’d read.
I couldn’t remember anything about my relationship with Smoke other than what I’d dreamed and then overheard him tell Decker. When I tried to recall anything about him outside of my dreams, it was a blank screen.
“I don’t know how