“I feel as if I’m in competition with her,” she finally admitted. “Everything you have done all these years is for her.”
“For you,” he corrected. “But you won’t see her as you.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
He gently drew her away from the door. She wished he
would hug her, but he didn’t. Instead he gave her some of the files and papers he was holding.
“Go find out what you want, Nikki.” He lifted her chin with a finger. His eyes held hers. “Just don’t forget you will always be mine, whoever you decide you want to be.”
T
he trouble with women, Rick reflected with grim humor, was that, dead or alive, they still managed to grab you by the little hairs. There was his wife, who was dead, but who was alive, and yet was still technically dead. And there was Denise, who was dead, and once he received personal confirmation from his sources, he would then believe to be really dead. If he had to explain the situation to anyone but himself, he was sure he would be the butt of all departmental jokes. Not that there weren’t some of those already out there.
Rick strode up to his floor, ignoring some of the looks cast his way. The little anonymous emails they sent each other would be full of gossipy headlines.
Hard-On Had It Coming.
In the elevator, he stared at a colleague till he looked away.
Hard-On Kicked in the Balls. Hard-On All Hung Out to Dry.
He couldn’t begin to guess what they were saying about Nikki. Everything that went on in a review board was strictly classified, but rumors were bound to fly after what had happened.
Lastly, throw in Denise’s death, and he could imagine all the antacid being popped by the bureaucrats in the building. One thing to avoid at all cost in the bureaucrat rulebook was scandal. Scandal bred questions, which bred more questions. No one wanted to be held accountable.
Well, now he was a failed bureaucrat, too. Lately his very safely uncontroversial life had turned into a scandal-filled one. How could one woman move his world the way Nikki
Taylor had? She just showed up, and everything blew up. Everything.
He nodded at his secretary, opened the door to his office, and surveyed the mess for a moment. Greta was probably the only one who could still find anything around here.
“Greta, I’ll be unavailable for the rest of the day, except to Agent Candeloro.”
“Yes, sir.”
He pulled out his cell phone as he headed for his cluttered desk. “Agent Candeloro? Meet me at my office at once with Miss Ostler as well as your laptop.” Rick tossed the files down and swept the rest off onto the floor. “And Cam? Bring your damn snacks. I’m planning to stay late.”
Rick opened and closed drawers till he found some screwdrivers. He kicked some of the wires and extension cords out of the way. Where did they plug the phone lines in this place, anyway? He found one and followed it to the jack on the floor. Sitting down on the carpet, he loosened his tie.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulling out a slim leather slipcase. He took out the small reading glasses, stretched out the malleable frame, and with a practiced twist, unconnected one of the earpieces. He laid the small curved part to one side. Picking up the screwdriver, he unscrewed the panels off the phone jack and began loosening wires. There was a knock at the door, and his secretary informed him that Agent Candeloro and Patty Ostler from records were there to see him.
“Send them in,” Rick said, and didn’t look up when the door opened again. There was silence for a few seconds, then a cough. Rick kept his eyes on his chore as he asked, “I didn’t ask you to come here to stand guard at my door, Agent Candeloro.”
He heard their approaching footsteps, then Cam’s shoes came within his peripheral vision. “Sorry, sir, it’s not every day I see an office worse than mine.”
“I’m sure Miss Ostler is in shock too,” Rick observed dryly, finally giving them his attention.
Dressed in pristine white, the woman looked her usual immaculate self, standing in the middle of the shambles and
staring wide-eyed at the surroundings. Rick suspected she would look just as spotlessly neat in a tornado.
“They really took the place apart,” she said, clearly uncomfortable with the state of the room as she gingerly walked around different piles.
“Ummm, sir, are you all right?” Cam seemed more concerned with his O.C..
Rick cocked a brow. “Do I look ill?”
Cam shrugged. “Well, you’re not acting yourself, sir.” When Rick continued staring at him, he shrugged again. “You’re sitting on the floor with your tie looking like mine. You asked for snacks. I’ve never known you to eat anything but real food. Besides, what happened yesterday was pretty damn shocking to the system. I mean, it’s not every day someone you care for comes back from the dead. The whole team’s concerned, that’s all.”
Put that way, Rick supposed his men had reason to wonder about their operations chief’s mental health. He hadn’t been aware of how predictably straight-laced his men thought he was. “I’m fine,” he informed Cam quietly. “I don’t know whether I’ll be coming out of this fine, but I intend to at least have the truth on my side.”
“How’s Mrs. Harden?” Patty asked, setting down her laptop on the chair nearby.
“News travels fast,” Rick observed wryly, wondering how Nikki was doing out there, with all this talk swirling around her and him.
“I didn’t tell her, sir,” Cam said.
“I know. It’s difficult not to be the topic of discussion when you’re bleeding and carrying a woman out of the building escorted by your men,” he agreed.
“I’m from records, sir,” Patty countered. “I make it my business to know things that happen around here.”
“A good person to have around me,” Rick said. He shrugged out of his suit and gave them another dry smile when they exchanged glances. “Look, get comfortable. We’re going to be here awhile, and looking up at the two of you is giving me a crick in the neck.”
“Okay.” Cam started moving things out of the way.
“Did they find what they were looking for?” Patty asked, gesturing at the space where the missing computers and fax machines used to be.
“Not in here, but they found the same list we dug out of the other computer. Of course, they broke the encryption faster than we did, since they had Denise’s h…” Rick’s voice trailed off. He frowned. When did they get Denise to help them?
“Agent Lorens’s…?” Cam prompted, squatting down after clearing some space for himself. He peered at what Rick was doing with the phone jack.
Rick absently nodded, not really seeing, as his mind worked out what had suddenly occurred to him. “Agent Lorens’s dead,” he informed them.
“Dead?”
“Dead? How?”
Rick leaned back against the desk, pulling his leg up so he could rest an elbow on his knee. “She was murdered. And I was, until an hour ago, the number one suspect. But the point I had been about to make was that EYES had broken the encryption with her help, but that’s impossible.” He cocked his head, talking more to himself than to Patty and Cam. “She was dead when they found the list.”
“Which means someone else did it,” Cam said.
“Not only that. It means someone in EYES knew whom to go to to get it done. Denise was their main line, working undercover in the Department of Intel, but without her, who made it possible to get the encryption broken so quickly?”
“Wait, wait a minute, sir. Agent Lorens worked for EYES?” Cam asked. “I’m getting confused. She was both EYES and Intel?”
Rick nodded. “I guess I’d better give you more data on the case.”
“It’s a case now, huh?”
“For me it is.”
Cam grinned. “I’m damn glad we’re back at work, sir. It’s
been dull being in limbo. Paperwork is no fun.” He slanted a glance at Patty. “Well, some paperwork. Right, Patty?”
Patty Ostler reddened and turned away from them, opening the laptop. “Don’t push your luck, Agent Candeloro,” she muttered. “Your report is still in my care.”
Cam dramatically clutched at his heart area. His eyes were twinkling. “If you only knew what else you have in your care.” His voice was teasing, filled with laughter.
Patty pursed her lips. Rick could see she was trying not to lose her temper while he was sitting there watching them. It was strangely comforting to see these two. In contrast to Rick’s careful handling of Nikki, Cam just went for it, so sure that Patty was going to succumb to his charms in the end. He wished he could be so certain about his own love life. He grimaced inwardly. Love life. A month ago he would have never thought that would be his major problem.
“Besides, I care, too,” Cam continued, patting the space beside him. “See, I cleared a nice area for you.”
Rick chewed on the inside of his mouth as he watched Patty Ostler debate silently whether she wanted to sit on the carpet and wrinkle her white skirt. Finally she sighed and after stepping out of her heels, she did so gracefully, tucking her legs under her primly. Cam leaned close and whispered something in her ear.
“I’m going to punch holes all over your black heart, just like your report, if you don’t stop,” Patty warned. She was blushing so hard, the tips of her ears were red. She cleared her throat and with a determined lift of her chin, changed the subject. “I bet Agent Lorens’s death complicated things. There’s no one to catch or confront, nothing.”
Rick took pity on her and came to her rescue. She obviously had never worked with Cam before. The younger man didn’t have a serious bone in his body, but through the years, he had shown a remarkable eye at catching details. There was a lot more to Cam than what he showed the world. But that was for Patty Ostler to find out. His own plate was already full.
“If possible, I’d like the report airtight, please,” he interrupted. “Cam, I didn’t want to, but now I think it’d be better if you come and testify by my side.” Rick paused. He hated sounding like he needed their help. Things were falling apart, and bringing others into his mess could make it worse.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Cam said, settling back against the wall. “We’ll get this thing done. We want our team back working, and I don’t care what EYES or that review board wants, we’re going to get you back as our O.C. Now, what’re we doing with that phone jack? Patty, uh, can work on the report.”
“Excuse me, this is
your
report. I’m only helping you,” Patty said, wrapping her arms in front of her.
Cam gave his “gotcha” grin. “Okay, how good are you at screwing the phone jack?”
“Children,” Rick interjected, shaking his head. He was just going to have to work alone later. These two obviously didn’t have work on their minds.
“Sorry, sir. What’re we doing again?”
Rick flipped the screwdriver in the air and caught it. He felt strangely lighthearted and he gave them a wicked grin. His smile widened at the shock on Cam’s and Patty’s faces. “We’re going to screw with the EYES computer files for a while.”
“Cool.” Cam pumped a fist.
“Won’t they know?” Patty asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Can’t they trace it back to here?”
“Not if we do it right, princess. If they start tracing, they will get to lots of different numbers first. Right, sir?”
“What are we looking for?” Patty leaned forward, holding on to Cam’s arm for balance.
Rick poured out tiny flakelike chips from one of the ears of the fake glasses. “I want to find out who Denise’s handler is. Files, memos, logs of any cases connected with what we’ve done the last few years. If we can find Denise’s password, even better. We can access her personal files and see whether there are any clues to the whereabouts of the real list.”
“Oh yes, that should take about…forever…” Patty sighed, smoothing her skirt as she sat back. She turned on the laptop on the chair.
“We’ve got to start somewhere, princess,” Cam pointed out gently. He glanced at Rick. “Didn’t know you knew how to do the fancy electronic stuff, sir. You always had Arms and Jones.”
Rick quirked his lips and didn’t answer. He had been Hard-On for so long, everyone had forgotten he was an EYES operative first. There was some other file he intended to access tonight. The thought had occurred to him as he had sat there listening to Nikki this morning.
She had mentioned that she didn’t mind being a ‘damaged wing,’ but she had hinted that her group hadn’t been abandoned because they were caught. If that was so, the implication was that they were given up intentionally.
“Damaged wing” was an asset abandoned because there was no way to save it without loss of manpower or cover. It was an accepted practice in covert life; all operatives knew the risk of being abandoned. Because of what had happened, the whole crew, including Leah Harden, was considered “damaged wings”—unsalvageable.
But Nikki had worded her warning very carefully. Enough so that EYES had stopped pushing him to sign the agreement. What had she found out about that operation? He was going to pull out the old original file that Nikki had and read it himself. Something in her story didn’t coordinate with his version at all. He thought he knew what his truth was, but now he was no longer certain.
“Grandmother, I’m scared. I don’t like these prophecies.”
She was brushing her grandmother’s fine silvery hair. She stood on a little stool so she could reach the top of her head, pulling the round hairbrush from the hairline gently all the way down. Her grandmother’s eyes were closed, enjoying the soothing comfort of each stroke.
“What happened when the Manchurians stormed the last real empress and her consort?”
She had all the old historic fables memorized. She loved the ancient Chinese romances, passed down from old to young. Her grandmother had a gift of telling stories of Chinese warriors and dynastic struggles. The story of the last empress and her consort was famous. Her grandmother, like all the older generation, considered the Ming Dynasty the last real dynasty. The conquering Manchurians, like the Mongols, were barbarians.
Dutifully, she replied without hesitation, “The Manchurians gave them one night to think of signing their kingdom away, and they would then be allowed to live under their protection as long as they did as they were told. Rather than betray their honor, the last empress and her consort drank poison.”
In the oval mirror, she saw that her grandmother had opened her eyes. They looked at each other for a few seconds. Then her grandmother lifted her hand and stopped her brushing. “Do you think they were scared?”
“Yes.” Who wouldn’t be?
“Why didn’t they take the easy way out? Signing an agreement isn’t that bad. They get to live, and still have money.”