Brigit took a deep breath and smoothed shaking hands down her shirt. “What are you doing up here?”
He lifted a set of files in his hand. “You still had these files and I need to return them to Halden’s secretary before she misses them. They were on your kitchen counter.” His eyes scanned her face. “You’re so damn pale, Brigit. Put on some blush.”
A cold had seeped into her bones. “I don’t own blush.”
“Of course you don’t. Where’s your lipstick?”
She needed a minute to compose herself. Slow down her pounding heart. She pointed at the bathroom. “There’s a drawerful in there.”
Truman took off for the bathroom and Brigit spun back around to the window. In the park below, the scene was the same. Children careened down slides and flung themselves from monkey bars. Mothers laughed and chatted. The man under the tree had disappeared as if he’d never been there.
“Wicked Woman?” Truman walked back into the bedroom and held up a tube of lipstick. “Drama Diva? Professional Pink? Brickhouse? Where on earth do you find these crazy colors?”
“The Rimmel beauty counter.”
“Have you ever worn any of them?”
Not often. Mostly she bought them for their names. They made her believe if she did wear them, they’d provide whatever their name promised.
She crossed the room and plucked the lipstick tubes from his fingers. “Professional pink is for the office. Brickhouse is for state dinners.”
Truman cocked a brow at her and dangled one of the tubes in front of her face. “And Wicked Woman?”
Brigit snatched it from his hand. “Clubbing, of course.”
“Clubbing. Uh-huh.” Truman knew she preferred her free nights at home with a Steven Pinker book about cognitive science over a club filled with hip-grinding music and sweating bodies. “Right.”
Chapter Ten
Langley
Michael slid his keycard through the door lock of his office, absently registering the green light and soft beep before opening the door. Nine o’clock and he was already late for his third meeting of the morning. Remnants of the last one still irritated the synapses in his brain. Illogical people were taking over the world, he was sure of it. While he lived and breathed the bloodless world of logic to make decisions and solve problems, most people seemed to ignore it, preferring emotions and drama instead. While he understood human nature well, he would never follow the thought processes of some human beings.
The door closed behind him with a soft shush. His office was dark except for a bit of daylight peeking through his closed blinds. He hadn’t even had time to open them or sit at this desk and have a cup of coffee yet. Flipping on the overhead lights, he knew his foul mood couldn’t be blamed on caffeine deficiency. The stress of Ella’s kidnapping, lack of sleep and the incompetency of others weighed on his shoulders like an elephant. If he wasn’t careful, the elephant would crush him, inch by inch, meeting by meeting.
In three steps he was at his wide mahogany desk. Piles of papers camouflaged the top, each one needing his review, and many requiring his signature. With a sigh, he scooted them out of the way, set his leather briefcase in the middle and dug around for his PDA. The briefcase had a separate pocket for his cell phone, pens and business cards, but his PDA was continuously getting swallowed up in the rest of the mess.
A voice from the corner of the room stilled his hands. “I’m glad to see you’re using the briefcase. After all that happened, I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t burn it instead.”
Michael looked up as Julia walked across the blue carpet of his office and stopped at the side of the desk. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled at him like nothing between them had changed in the past six months. Her hair was different, shorter and more professional. “Am I not allowed to pay you a visit?”
After she’d chosen to marry Flynn, Michael had used every form of logic and reason to shut down and stamp out his feelings for her. He’d only seen her a few times since and he’d known ahead of time she’d be in his proximity, so he’d prepped himself for the flood of memories, the gut-twisting loss. This morning, her presence was completely unexpected—he’d had no time to prep.
With a modicum of relief, he realized the only emotion inside him was a vague regret. He might not always understand the workings of the human mind, but he’d accepted his loss and moved on.
Tamping the regret into the mental place he reserved for all things Julia, he ignored her question in favor of his own. While no one had permission to be in his office if he wasn’t in attendance, Julia had never let rules or locks stop her before. “How did you get in here?”
She pointed a slender finger at the door on his left. “Elevator.”
Michael’s appointment to Deputy Director of the CIA came with a host of job perks as well as endless meetings and stupid people. He had his own personal bevy of assistants, a private bathroom and a luxurious sleeper sofa, which these days saw as little action as his bed at home. If it weren’t for Pongo, he’d live in this office suite without hesitation. “You evaded the cameras, violated all the security codes and rode in my personal elevator from my private garage.”
He waved off the mischievous look in her eyes. Her covert skills were the best he’d ever seen. Next to Flynn anyway. “I don’t want to know how you did it, just don’t do it again. It will get you in trouble.
Capiche
?”
“Waltzing through the front doors and past Con would get me in trouble too,” she countered. “I’m actually not here on a social call, but before I get into that, anything new on Ella?”
Michael sat in his leather chair and rubbed his forehead where a headache was kick-starting. “I spoke to the agent in charge about an hour ago. There’s been nothing more since the last call. They couldn’t trace it. Ruth’s close to a nervous breakdown, and Thad’s seriously considering pulling the plug on his run for president.”
Julia took a seat in one of the chairs across from him. “I’m so sorry, Michael. The FBI is doing everything we can.”
“Yeah, I know.” He let out a sigh. “So what brings you here?”
Shoving her hand in the pocket of her dark blue FBI jacket, she bit her lip before speaking. “I was working on an unofficial case last night and caught something interesting on video. I can’t bring it to my bosses or pretty much anyone else because they’ll ask questions I don’t want to answer, so I’m bringing it to you instead.”
She leaned forward and tossed a flash drive onto his desk. He eyed it with curiosity. Julia was one of the few people on the planet who was not stupid, her choice as a husband not withstanding. “Involving what?”
“Terrorists and a DHS employee. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I was hoping you could look into it and pass it on if necessary without involving me.”
Michael took the flash drive and stuck it in a USB port on the laptop in front of him. There was no point in chastising Julia for running outside the parameters of her job description. He was no longer her boss. Or her lover.
And if there was one thing he knew about her, besides the intimate details of their past relationship, it was never to ignore her gut instincts.
She came around the desk to his side as the seal of the CIA disappeared from the screen and a media program opened. A few seconds later, Michael watched a hostage exchange unfold on the screen. Julia’s nearness made the scar on his chest tighten like he’d just bench-pressed a hundred pound weight, but he forgot it the moment the green Ford entered the picture.
When Brigit Kent emerged and pointed a gun at the rusty Volvo, he tightened his grip on the mouse. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. He clicked on the volume button. Silence continued to emanate from his speaker. “Why’d you mute the video?”
“I wasn’t working alone,” Julia said. “It’s important my partner not get in trouble either so I stripped the audio.”
Was Flynn the partner she was protecting? After all, Michael had put Flynn on Brigit’s trail. But then why was Julia bringing this video to him? Why was she avoiding her husband two floors down in the counterterrorism department?
It wasn’t Flynn. Michael unclenched his jaw.
Julia pointed at the screen. “The woman with the gun is Dr. Brigit Kent. The woman in the knit cap is apparently her sister. Went by the name Tory. They discussed a man named Peter, and Tory mentioned she was involved with him and an international war. I searched the internet and found out Dr. Kent does have a sister named Tory.”
“The internet? Why didn’t you run Tory through the FBI databases?”
“All our databases are now connected. If the FBI runs a background on Tory, DHS will know about it. I ping anything related to Dr. Kent, somebody’s going to be crawling down my throat wanting to know why. I doubt DHS would be happy to find out she’s related to a woman who’s running with a terrorist group, and yes I’m sure Tory and her comrades are linked to terrorists. She mentioned Ireland, Afghanistan and Palestine while she was talking to Brigit. Called them all brothers and sisters in arms.”
Michael’s warning bell was ringing much too loudly now to be ignored. He forced himself to show no emotion as he watched the rest of the scene play out, saw Brigit embraced by the woman in the knit cap, saw the rusty Volvo drive away and Brigit slump against her car as if the life had just left her.
As the video came to an abrupt stop, he sat back in his chair and looked at Julia. “I can’t pass this on anonymously to DHS without the audio. The video will certainly raise questions, but nothing Dr. Kent can’t manipulate and sweep under the carpet without the audio or your testimony.” He rocked his chair and held his palms up. “If you want to pursue this, you either give up the audio and your partner or you give up yourself and offer the testimony you just gave me.”
Julia paced away from the desk. “You don’t want me to rat out my partner, and I’m not even sure it’s worth turning in. I’m not worried about Dr. Kent being a turncoat or aiding and abetting terrorists.” She paced back to his desk. “I’m more interested in the man her and Tory discussed. If you could just look into their background and see if this Peter does exist and what terrorist group he’s linked with…”
Her voice trailed off and Michael blew out a frustrated breath. She knew he would never do this favor for anyone but her. In his position, he could get away with asking things others couldn’t. At least, up until lately, he could. “I’ll see what I can do, but the environment here has changed, Julia. If I ask too many questions or try to dodge who gave me this information, my ass will be hanging out to dry with my mother’s bed sheets.”
Julia smiled at him as if the world would never question the Great Michael Stone. “I don’t want to screw up Dr. Kent’s career. I like her.”
That made one of them. The phone on his desk buzzed. Probably his executive admin assistant, Irene, reminding him he was late for his nine o’clock. Michael shoved more papers aside and hit the blinking red button. “I know, Irene, I’m late. Call Max and tell him I need to reschedule. Something’s come up.” He glanced at Julia and shook his head in resignation. “And can you get Dr. Brigit Kent on the phone for me?”
Julia raised an eyebrow as if to say,
You’re going to call her
?
He looked away. How he went about dealing with Dr. Kent and the video was now up to him. Irene’s voice came over the speakerphone. “I can do you one better, Deputy Director. Dr. Kent is here in the waiting room. That’s why I was buzzing you. She says she needs to speak to you. It’s an emergency.”
Michael locked gazes with Julia. Her eyes were wide with disbelief.
The drumming in his temples ramped up a notch. How was it he could not escape Dr. Kent even at Langley? He poked the intercom button again. “Give me a minute before you show her in.”
Motioning at Julia, he pointed toward his private bathroom. “Wait in there and listen to what she says.”
Her gaze zipped from him to the bathroom door and back. “You want me to eavesdrop on your conversation?”
“I may need you as a witness.”
“A witness to what?”
Good question. Silence for an answer, he waved her toward the bathroom. “Go.”
Julia’s instincts about Dr. Kent might be right on the money, but at the moment, that didn’t matter. Michael’s own instincts were flaring red. His world had grown too small in the past twenty-four hours, thanks to Brigit Kent, both personally and professionally. She was trouble, and while Michael disliked trouble to his core, he never ran from it. The only way to deal with it was balls first.
Dropping the flash drive in his pencil drawer, he put on his game face and listened to the bathroom door click shut. He was about to find out just how much trouble Dr. Kent really was.
The intelligence community considered information only as reliable as its source. If the source was bogus, so was the intel.
Brigit sat in a padded chair near Michael Stone’s secretary and fiddled with her BlackBerry, playing Brick Breaker to keep her mind and fingers distracted while she waited to speak to the man. It also made her look busy and important. Not that she needed to look busy and important to anyone, but the secretary—Irene, her nameplate on the desk read—was the reincarnation of the multi-armed Hindu goddess Durga, fingers flying over her keyboard, handling multiple calls with her headset, fishing through her file drawers and sipping her bottle of Sprite as if she were accustomed to deftly juggling so many tasks. Which she probably was. The CIA’s secretarial pool had to be as elite as the men and women they served.
She shot Brigit a dirty look, which was due to the mobile in Brigit’s hands. The little black ball on the screen careened off into BlackBerry oblivion and a message flashed on the screen.
Game over
.
Brigit sighed at the terrible score, nowhere near her high, and hoped she’d do better breaking through Director Stone’s brick wall. The information she was about to lay in front of his baby blues was based on nothing more than inconclusive evidence and her own best guess. Since she wasn’t on the director’s Top Ten People to Trust list, she doubted she’d get far with her mission. Just like the little black ball on the screen, she was about to land in oblivion. Only, knowing her luck, she’d probably land in a special oblivion for people who repeatedly stepped on Michael Stone’s Turnbull & Asser loafers.
“Deputy Director Stone will see you now,” Irene said, rising from her chair like nobility and motioning for Brigit to follow her. “Remember this is a special case. It’s rare anyone gets in to speak to him without an appointment.”
That was the second time she’d mentioned the obvious fact the man behind the door was just as busy as his secretary. Brigit tucked her BlackBerry into her trench coat pocket, flashed Irene an insincere smile, and lifted the chain around her neck to wave the gold four-leaf clover pendant in front of the woman’s glaring brown eyes. “Good thing I wore my lucky charm today then, isn’t it?”
Irene’s red lips thinned in a strained smile, an edge to them sharp enough to cut leather. Her eyes slid sideways in what Brigit recognized as a covert eye roll. She’d done the same thing more times than she could count during meetings and diplomatic parties when someone tried to pull lamb’s wool over her eyes.
The moment the door to the inner office opened, though, all thoughts about Irene and her cutting charm evaporated. Michael Stone rose from behind his desk, wicked handsome in his black suit, the jacket now unbuttoned and showing off a beautiful sky blue silk tie she’d noticed earlier that morning in the Oval Office reception room.
“Dr. Kent,” he said, moving around one end of his desk with the grace of a lion. The stiffness she’d noticed in him at the White House had disappeared and in its place was a controlled confidence. This was his domain, his lair. Here, in his suite of an office, he was totally at home.
And she was totally a nervous wreck.
As if he sensed her unease, he reached out to shake her hand and flash her a welcoming smile. “Please come in and have a seat.”