Operation Zulu Redemption: Act of Treason - Part 4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

gaze with a nod. “I know we weren’t supposed to, but I needed some closure. Something to stave off the nightmares. I wrote down the names. There were only a few publicly mentioned, three.” Her pale blue eyes looked like pools of water. “I memorized them”—she nodded to the wall—“Qayyima, Akifa, and Sawsan. They’re on that list.”
    “Wait,” Téya finally spoke up, her hazel eyes wide. “Look.” Her complexion paled.
    Confused, Trace glanced at the screen. Then back at Téya. “What are you seeing?”
    “It’s what I’m
not
seeing—the Lorings!” She brushed her hair from her face. “The kids aren’t listed there.”
    “But they didn’t die,” Annie said.
    “That’s not a list of the dead. There are too many,” Nuala said. “It’s a list of the children cared for by HOMe.”
    Boone came alive. “Think Jessie somehow got this from HOMe?”
    Though he didn’t want to believe a list actually existed, Trace couldn’t discount it. “It came from someone in the know. Hope of Mercy told us a list didn’t exist, that the facility was too new.”
    “Apparently not.”
    “But still—the Lorings.” Téya asked. “Why aren’t they on there?”
    “And now, they’re missing. Mighty convenient.” Boone rapped his knuckles on the table. “Ladies and Gentleman, I’m thinking we had the enemy right in our midst.”

Trace
Lucketts, Virginia
10 June – 1015 Hours
    “May I have a word?”
    At the intrusion of Téya’s voice, Trace looked up from the table where he was reviewing the files Houston had uncovered. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat back, tossing his pen down. “Sure. Come in.” Whatever she wanted to say, he hoped it brought answers about the two missing hours.
    Téya entered and took the seat at the corner next to him. She slid a small flash drive on the table. “What they promised.”
    He expelled a breath. “I’d started wondering if they pulled a fast one on me.” Pocketing it, he noted she hadn’t moved. “Heard you had some excitement on the mission.”
    She almost smiled, her expression taut as she stared at the table, seemingly lost in a memory.
    Trace sat forward. Leaned into her. “Téya, I’m on your side. Whatever—”
    “Red Wing is my stepfather.” She said it so fast and with such little emotion that Trace froze. Processed words he hadn’t expected. But then he recalled her military records. He’d studied each dossier in depth. “Hold up—your stepfather was a base commander, right? Records show him dying—”
    “In an accident that supposedly killed him and my mother. Apparently, my mother was the only unlucky one in that.” The news had hit Téya at the core of her being. Trace knew from her dossier that losing her mother had devastated her to the point of needing a therapist.
    Téya sat there, processing.
    And Trace took the time to do the same. To also note the cuts, bruises, and swelling on her face. “What happened, T?”
    “The mission went bad from the get-go. It’d been too many years since I’d been there. Things had changed. We got in, but we had to crawl through raw sewage. When I got in there, I realized the man I thought to be Nesim was in fact The Turk.”
    Track jerked forward in his seat. “What? I thought you were rescuing him!”
    “That’s what they told us,” she said with a nod. “But he lured me into that facility for one purpose—I thought it was to kill me once I realized who he was. But then he took me to a security room where I saw the camera feed. My stepfather is in that facility.”
    “I’m not following.”
    “Good,” she said with a laugh. “Because I wasn’t either. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just tell me. Majid said that he knew I wouldn’t believe him if I didn’t see for myself that Georg was still alive.” She had this wistful smile now as she talked, and it unnerved Trace. Especially when she sat for several long minutes staring blankly at the time. But the flickering