Page 97 of Until the End

It was the most honest response he could give.

Sanborn looked him over with a searching gaze. “Castle, adhering to protocol isn’t just for the sake of national security. It’s meant to protect an operative. Even from himself.”

There was no room for fear or doubt in this business. He’d made up his mind and wasn’t going to second-guess it. Carefully, Castle said, “I understand.”

“Is there anything else you have to say to me?” Sanborn tucked the hard drives under his arm, looked as if he wanted to say something more, but flashed a brittle smile.

“No, sir.”

Sanborn shook his head and gave a long, blustery sigh. The look of disappointment darkening his eyes stirred up nausea in Castle’s gut. “You are not just a man. You are a Gray Box operative and one of my finest. Cutter will replace you and you’ll go back to black ops. That is an order. I trust you’re still following those.”

“There’s no way I’m letting him behind the wheel of my truck. Give me twenty-fours. To drive back. To rest up.” To figure out how to get around this.

“Fine. You have twenty-four hours. Get whatever is going on between you and Ms. Westcott out of your system. Sublimate your personal emotions, hand her over to Cutter, and then help find Khan.”

Sanborn knew, somehow, about Castle and Kit.

The gravity of that revelation sent a chill creeping down Castle’s spine.

Sanborn put on his Oakleys, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Kobayashi fucking Maru.

34

Rye, New York

5:10 p.m. EDT

Parked in front of a coffee shop that had free Wi-Fi, Kit sat with Castle’s laptop plugged into the power outlet and propped on her legs.

Combing through the copies on the external hard drive, she fished for any clues as to how the Outliers had gotten into this mess. She’d assumed Jasper had gone looking for a big payday, but what if Bravo had found him instead?

The idea hadn’t occurred to her until Castle suggested the possibility.

Last Monday, Jasper had saved several links to messages on Pastebin in a folder on his computer. The only way to see them was directly on the website.

“They’re copies of chat logs. Floating messages he wanted to keep. You were right,” she said to Castle, who stared out the window. “Jasper misrepresented himself as the new handler for the Outliers. Bravo approached him about the job.” She scrolled through the rest of the text. “Insisted on meeting in person for—”

Kit stopped talking, because he clearly wasn’t listening.

“Castle.” She put her hand on his forearm. “Did you hear me?”

“Hmm.” He seemed to rouse from a daze. “Yeah, Bravo found Jasper, not the other way around.” His focus remained outside the window. “Good work.”

“You’ve been quiet since we got on the road.” Since he’d spoken with Sanborn. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

Two minutes in Sanborn’s presence—that was all it had taken to drive a wedge between them. “I can tell something is bothering you.” Distress radiated off him, more toxic than gas fumes. “What is it?”

A heavy weariness had settled over him that she longed to banish. She set the laptop on the footwell under her legs and turned to him, but he still didn’t look at her.

“Tell me,” she insisted and punched his leg, hard enough to get his full attention but without hurting her fingers.

Castle scrubbed a hand over his head, gaze lowered to his lap. “Sanborn is like a father to me.” He paused, her heartbeats bleeding together for so long she wondered if he’d continue. “Calls me son. I know it’s just a figure of speech, but it’s one he doesn’t use with anyone else. Not even Knox. And I deceived him for the first time, trying to hide whatever this is we have going on.” He hissed an expletive and took a deep breath. “But he knows. Sanborn knows about us.”

A slimy ball of panic rolled through her stomach. “How?” She choked on the question. “Are you sure?”