Darcy walked back into the room carrying a small suitcase, having changed from casual clothes to a more formal red blouse and navy slacks. Power colors. They looked good on her, and as much a part of her personality as the elegance he had seen by the pool tonight.
“You need a kid’s bike in the garage.”
She lifted an eyebrow as she slipped in an earring.
“This illusion. It doesn’t work without the kid’s bike in the garage.”
She blinked at him, and then a small smile appeared, just at the edges of her mouth. She walked into the kitchen. “You want something to drink before we leave?”
“As long as you don’t offer me a juice box.”
She poured them both tall glasses of lemonade from a pitcher on the top shelf of the refrigerator. The juice boxes on the second shelf were fruit punch.
She held out one of the glasses. “You’re guessing.”
“Am I?” He drank the lemonade, studying her, smiling just a little because he was enjoying the moment. “I could look closely at that patio door to your small second-story balcony where you probably keep a small grill and a closed lid box for the charcoal bag. And there will be little handprints on the glass at your daughter’s height. The bathtub will have at least a few toys on the ledge and even the medicine cabinet will run to pediatric formulas of cough syrup.
“I bet your husband is the one who enjoys the neatness, and you’re the one who clutters the kitchen drawer with coupons and carryout menus. His razor items will be neatly aligned in the bathroom drawer, but there will be a few whisker hairs along the edge of the floor tiles where the broom wasn’t 100 percent thorough. You could tell me all about him and your daughter, but you’ll never make the sale.”
He reached out and ran a finger down her arm, stopping at her wrist by the new watch she had put on to replace the one that had gotten wet. “If you had a daughter and a husband who loved to go fishing, Darcy, you would know how to swim.”
She took one step back and then laughed. “You’re good.”
“After years training to see things, I sure would hope so.” She wasn’t married, she didn’t have a little girl, but it was a masterful presentation. And at the moment he didn’t want to explore why he was intensely relieved that this was an illusion. “You would be a jealous wife and mother. You wouldn’t be doing the job you do if you had a husband and daughter waiting for you to come home. You’d want to be spending your time with them.”
He’d pegged her, but he didn’t want to rub it in, so he smiled and looked around the apartment. “The lack of a wedding ring was also noticed, although that could easily have been explained as a reality of your job so as not to put your family at risk. They’re traveling tonight? Your mythical husband and daughter?”
“Her first chance to go with him on a business trip to the city, a day away from school for a father-and-daughter moment,” she offered with a smile.
“Yes, it would be a good memory. When was the last time you were actually here?” Why did she even ask him to make this stop tonight, try the deception out on him? She probably had her reasons, but he wasn’t nearly good enough to read a woman’s mind. Especially not this woman’s.
“Six months and seven days ago.”
He looked back at her, startled by the time period. He slid his hands in his back pockets, intrigued. “You’re what we would call rated in my business—very good at what you do that this level of cover would be maintained for such a spur-of-the-moment need.”
She nodded at the compliment. “I am very good at what I do but also truly retired. We need to go.”
He put his glass in the sink beside hers. “Mention to the woman who comes in to make fresh lemonade every week that she earned her pay.”
“I’ll do that.” She picked up the small suitcase she’d packed.
He shut off the lights behind them as they walked down to the garage. “Is this what you call a bolt-hole?”
She reset the security alarm. “The hotel was a bolt-hole, designed to be a safe place to disappear. This is more of a cover blind, a place to list as my residence that will hold up to the basic levels of a background check. And it is home, as much as any place on the East Coast is. Of course the cover blind in Paris is a bit more interesting.” She put her suitcase in the backseat and slipped into the passenger seat. “You’ll need to take a left at the light.”
“That was your territory? Europe?”
“For the majority of my years in the Agency.”
He followed her directions out of Bethesda toward McLean, Virginia.
“Would you mind one more stop?” Darcy asked. “The corner deli up ahead. I need good coffee for the upcoming hours, and I probably ought to drive the last mile to headquarters as security will pitch a fit with you. I don’t suppose you’re carrying three kinds of photo ID and your passport?”
He laughed. “I’ve got my charm.”
“That and waking up the Department of Defense liaison officer ought to do it.”
He tossed over his wallet. “There’s probably a Navy ID in there somewhere.”
SEPTEMBER 10
Monday, 12:24 a.m.
Central Intelligence Agency / Langley, Virginia
Traffic circled around the I-495 Capital Beltway to the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia, and a few cars took the exit marked with a small brown sign to the George Bush Center for Intelligence CIA/FHWA. The night shift was already here, but those who worked the European desks often preferred to work Europe day hours and were trickling in.
Darcy found her two IDs as she reached the security gate. She lowered the driver’s door window and handed over her IDs and Sam’s Navy photo ID. She endured the flashlight in her face, then the beam moved to travel around the interior of her car and stopped on Sam. Darcy blinked away the spots in her vision and reached for the coffee mug in the cup holder. “DIA will have called down clearance for Sam.” The security checks would take a few minutes.
“That stuff will kill you.”
The voice helped her place who was on duty tonight. Dressed in black, walking in the dark, he’d been a man with a flashlight. Darcy blew on the coffee to cool it. “Not in the next five minutes. So far no one has tried to tamper with the coffee bean shipments.”
“They do, and this will be a nation of sleepy, surly people. Nice to have you back, Dar.”
He stepped into the security booth to check her ID against the clearance sheet.
The bomb-sniffing dog jumped up to put two paws on the open window. Darcy bobbled her coffee. The German shepherd smelled the cinnamon roll she’d picked up in a moment of weakness at the deli counter. “Henry, you know as a rule I don’t share.” Her fingers were sticky with melted sugar, but she ignored the resulting mess to rub her hand under the dog’s muzzle. “You’re cute and you know it.” They were buddies even after two years of absence. Her noon jog had her passing his kennel, and he was often allowed out to run with her.
“Down.”
Henry obeyed his handler.
“You’re clear, Dar. And your friend has an admiral vouching for him, so I suppose we’ll let him pass. An escort will be waiting at the front door with his visitor’s badge.”
“Thanks, Kevin.” She accepted back the IDs, surprised at the easy treatment. She pulled into the complex and glanced at Sam as she handed him back his ID. “Your security clearance must be pretty high to get you off so lightly on the checks.”
Sam lifted his ID and blew off a thin film of powder. “Probably higher than yours,” he offered, amused.
“Sorry. I should have warned you they’d lift your prints.”
“Don’t be. I’m just amazed the Department of Defense agreed to send over mine for comparison.”
Darcy tucked her IDs in her pocket and hesitated. “Gabriel didn’t make the decision that I go alone to the meeting.” She felt it needed to be said. She knew when Sam met Gabe he’d be judging her partner based on what had happened.
Sam tucked his ID
away. “He’s your partner. He should have been there or had someone else there, if only in the background.”
Darcy knew partnership had a unique implication for SEALs. If one went into danger, his partner and his team would be right beside him. “It’s not so easy in my profession, Sam. The message Sergey sent through his embassy requested a one-on-one meeting with me. The diplomatic dance over such procedures is part of the foundation of how we function.”
“What went wrong?”
“I wish I knew. For the same reason the director needed to honor the request, my safety should have been guaranteed. The fact it wasn’t will ripple for years. A spy war may have started tonight and I don’t understand why.” She worried about the five agents who had yet to report in, afraid the body count would go higher. “Gabriel’s a good man. This wasn’t his fault.”
“Relax. I promise to suspend judgment.”
She was overprotective of her partner’s reputation, but she didn’t want these two men misreading each other. She had a feeling Sam might be in her future, and he had to get off on a good footing with Gabriel or she would find herself in a tough position—stuck between a man she’d trusted for years and someone new she wanted to trust. If forced to choose, she’d come down on Gabriel’s side out of loyalty.
She parked beside her partner’s car. “Welcome to the place we call Langley, the name itself the first of many myths you’re about to walk into. There is no such place on current maps, as Langley no longer legally exists.”
“Dar, you haven’t seen myths until you start to talk to SEALs about our jobs.” Sam got out of the car and scanned the campus. “Should be interesting.”
* * *
Their escort took them to the third floor of the old headquarters building, and from there one of the four security guards for the floor took them the rest of the way to Gabriel’s office in the code word–cleared hall.
The office hadn’t changed since her days on the job. Darcy had a habit of beginning her day in Gabe’s office, reading the overnight intercepts, debating the importance of news and adding color commentary. Gabe made this job survivable. He understood her often-scattered way of connecting information.
He had his wheelchair up to his desk, his head back, his arms crossed over his chest, apparently napping. She lifted a corner of the towel over his face. “Hi.”
“You know, I’m really missing the days when I didn’t have a partner. When was that, 1970? ’80? When Carter was president? Or was it Ford? The good old days where my age came from fast living and beautiful women, not pacing because my partner got into a jam without my company and took her time calling me.”
Darcy grinned down at him. She had really missed him. She’d promised Marla she would keep him alive, and she’d done it for years. Then he’d come home and gotten married. He had been hit by a car shortly thereafter and left needing crutches to walk. When the exhaustion was bad, he accepted the wheelchair to keep his mobility. He hadn’t been home today, if his rumpled clothes and six o’clock shadow were any indication. Darcy kissed his frustrated forehead. “Sorry. I missed you too.”
“Sam, hi. Join us,” Gabriel ordered, his gaze never leaving Darcy as she settled on the couch. Sam took the second chair. “And, Dar, the blouse and earrings from our last Paris trip is a nice touch, but I’m not ready to be distracted even by a subtle reminder of our past successes. What happened to that street-fighter uppercut you were famous for?”
“Professional courtesy. I’d hate to let it be said that I hit first.” She stuck her coffee mug in a holder she’d improvised two years ago from a cutoff map tube that still sat on the shelf by the couch. “You look good, Gabriel. Marriage agrees with you.”
“Marla is an angel, but don’t change the subject. I want to be annoyed with you a while longer.”
“You can’t; I’m too cute,” she countered, knowing he’d eventually forgive her for the fright she’d given him. Gabriel laughed. “The doctor swears I’ll be fine,” she promised. “Is Sam cleared for this discussion?”
“He’s cleared higher than me.”
They both looked at Sam. “NEST job,” he said simply.
NEST as in Nuclear Energy Search Team. They recovered lost, stolen, or accidentally made live weapons. The nasty stuff that gave her nightmares, and Sam was perfectly correct to simplify—she did not want to know details.
She looked back at Gabe. “How bad has it been tonight?” she asked softly.
“The last five have reported in, limiting the losses to two.”
“Still unbearable. How’s the investigation coming?”
“It’s a muddled mess of jurisdictions at the moment. It will be midmorning before we know much concrete. Let’s leave those discussions for later, Dar. We’d just be speculating now. What happened tonight?”
She retrieved the soggy note from the portfolio carefully drying out between two Kleenexes. “Sergey left a note.”
Gabe took it carefully. “‘It was necessary.’ Is it okay if I swear?”
“About my sentiments too,” Darcy agreed. “Necessary for what?”
“Sergey’s old school. Maybe he knew someone was going to grab and sweat you for names of contacts and he tried to kill you with kindness first so they couldn’t grab you.”
Darcy winced, as did Sam. “Why don’t you start off with the cheerful assumptions here.”
“Okay, maybe he wants the bounty on your head,” Gabe offered.
“If he was motivated by money, he would have taken the five million dollars I offered him years ago to work for us.”
“True. Our Russian friends at the embassy were stunned when they heard about the attempted hit. Given the aggressiveness of their denials and outrage, they probably were in the dark. They’ve been somewhat helpful in the hunt to find him, although we’ll probably find Sergey dead if they reach him first. I’m stumped because we don’t have enough on the other two hits tonight to suggest a connection to you beyond the obvious one of timing.”
“Any idea where Sergey went when he left the hotel pool area?” Darcy asked.
“Does the business Bluebird Charters ring a bell?”
“Never heard of them.”
“Sergey apparently got on one of their boats near Miami.”
“He gets seasick.”
“I know. It’s curious. A gate attendant at the Tallahassee airport also swears Sergey caught the 11 p.m. United flight to Dallas. He also drove to Georgia, and/or got his picture taken at a twenty-four-hour deli buying red hair dye.”
“He vanished.”
“Basically. Most civilians want to be useful, so they’ll remember what didn’t happen trying to help out.”
“Sergey’s good. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be,” Darcy commiserated.
“You have the transcript as best you remember it?”
She handed him the lavender-colored pages of notes. “Have we been able to locate Sergey’s family?”
“The last good intel is from Spain but it’s four months old. They haven’t been watching so closely now that he’s retired. The station chief is checking it out for me.” Gabe handed her a stack of intercepts. “I pulled everything NSA had. There was one intriguing lead on where Sergey may have been recently.”
She started reading the intercepted calls the National Security Agency collected from all over the world. “Guam? What do I know about Guam?”
“Not as much as you’re going to.”
“That’s all I need, another island to add to my mangled sense of geography.” She turned pages. “Did you keep my reading music?”
“Darcy.”
“You kept my goldfish.” She tapped the glass, then leaned over to look closer at the fish tank. “No, those are smaller than my fish.”
“I killed yours; I was hoping you wouldn’t notice the switch.”
She laughed. “Mine swam in tight circles like a spinning top when someone tapped on the glass. It took months to train them.”
“You had too muc
h time on your hands. Your tape is on the top shelf on the left, headphones too. Although how you can think with that noise is beyond me.”
“Habit.” She got up to get the cassette player.
“She’s partial to opera,” Gabriel explained to Sam. “Before I read this transcript, would you take me through what you saw tonight? Focus on the approximate times?”
Darcy stretched out on the couch with the headphones on, tuning out the guys’ discussion as she read through several months’ worth of scraps of information on Sergey and his family. Some were phone intercepts; some were sightings by intelligence services. Some of it was financial records. Gabriel had been able to find a large amount of information in the few hours he had been working the problem. What had Sergey been doing in Guam three months ago? Meeting someone?
* * *
The old clock on the wall chimed 3 a.m. Darcy closed the stack of reading material and rubbed her eyes. “I’m missing stuff. It’s time I got some sleep.”
Sam turned in his chair beside Gabe’s desk to look back at her. “You’ve been quiet for so long I thought you were asleep.”
She shifted the headphones and the sound of Verdi’s Rigoletto at full volume filtered into the room. “I was thinking.” She swung her feet to the floor. Gabe and Sam were still going strong. They’d hit it off after Gabe’s comment about opera and turned their attention to analyzing the transcript. She’d known the two of them would be like two peas born in the same pod.
“Stay at Marla’s place today, okay? Just for my peace of mind?” Gabe asked. “The Brits are there, but they’ll make room for you.”
Her partner’s wife had kept her former home as they had been in no hurry to sell it after the wedding. The security system there was world-class. Since it would let Darcy offer Sam more than just a hotel room for his stay, she nodded her thanks. “I appreciate that.”
Sam got to his feet. “Thanks, Gabriel.” He handed back the folder he’d been reading. “This was useful.”