by Toby Neal
A bubble of satisfaction swelled Sophie’s chest as she and Dunn stood in the doorway watching the tender reunion. The company’s on-call doctor had met them on the helipad to assess the children, and he’d taken the kids down to the clinic area to meet their mother.
Sharon Blumfield’s sunken eyes overflowed as she embraced her children, and both of them embraced her too, everyone crying. “We missed you so much, Mom! Why did you leave us?” Pele exclaimed.
“I had to. But I sent Sophie and Jake to get you. It was the best I could do,” Blumfield said.
“But what about our brothers and sisters? Where are their moms? Did they run away too?”
Where, indeed? That question was really beginning to bother Sophie.
Blumfield made soothing noises, and Dr. Kinoshita, Security Solutions’ psychologist, came forward. “You kids seem to have some questions. Come sit with your mom and me, and let’s talk.”
The doctor, with a nod to Dunn and Sophie, shut the clinic door to give the family privacy.
“You must be Sophie Ang. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sophie turned to face the male voice at her elbow.
“Sophie, this is Kendall Bix, our immediate supervisor in charge of operations,” Dunn said as Sophie shook Bix’s hand. The man’s grip was light but strong, and he looked her over with sharp brown eyes. Razor-cut black hair and an upright bearing showed a military influence. “Pleased to meet you,” Sophie said. “I thought I’d meet you yesterday, when we were planning the op, but Dunn said you were busy.”
“Not that busy.” Bix’s smile was a baring of teeth. “Let’s debrief upstairs.” He spun on a heel.
Sophie followed Dunn and Bix down the hall. They took the elevator in silence to the third floor. The whole five-story building on a quiet Honolulu side street was given over to the private security firm’s operations. The high-rise building Sophie had visited during a previous case she’d been on was only a small portion of the company’s holdings.
Bix waited until they entered a conference room before he lit into Dunn. “Dunn, you took a completely untested short-term contractor on a dangerous op with possible impact to human lives—children’s lives! Without even a heads-up to me! And no backup!”
“I knew what I was doing.”
Bix and Dunn faced off, bristling.
Apparently the FBI wasn’t the only workplace with protocols that Sophie already wasn’t following—not that she was taking any responsibility for this. She exhaled a long slow breath. “Mind if I sit?”
Neither man responded, so she sat.
“I had total confidence in Ang. And as you can see, she pulled it off,” Dunn leaned into his superior’s face. “We’re damn lucky she came on board. She can work a lot more than computers, it turns out.”
“That’s not the point. You had no experience working with her! We always rehearse, do a dry run. The case wasn’t time-sensitive. There was no reason to go all Rambo out there, making it up as you went along!”
“Worked out, didn’t it?” Dunn wasn’t backing down.
Sophie cleared her throat. “I apologize. If I was in violation of protocol, it wasn’t intentional.”
Bix’s brows went up. “I’m not blaming you.” He seemed a little mollified. “I’m sure this won’t happen again.”
“I can’t speak for Dunn, sir. Just let me know your standard operating procedure and I’ll do my best to follow it.” Sophie leaned in Dunn’s direction, conciliatory. “And Jake, it was a pleasure working with you. I wouldn’t have made it out if you hadn’t got that dog off me.”
Dunn gave her a brief glance of gratitude before resuming the stare down with his boss.
“Why didn’t you submit an operation plan and run this whole thing by me?” Bix said, raising his hands. “Including hiring Ang? I should have been in the loop.”
“I had orders to recruit Sophie from Remarkian himself, and even the case we were working. I think it was part of Remarkian’s effort to recruit Sophie—give her something he knew she wanted in on. I assumed you knew all about it, because orders came from over your head. So if you have a problem with this, Remarkian is the one to speak to.”
Bix breathed heavily through his nose a moment.
“Wait here.” He left.
“I pity Remarkian right now.” Dunn flopped into a molded plastic chair beside her.
“Remarkian did tell me we reported to Bix,” Sophie said mildly. “I wondered why we didn’t have a sit-down with him before going in.” She longed for a shower. The dog bite, a bruise on the back of her calf, ached. “You should have checked the op with him, and I think you know it.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Dunn’s gray eyes crinkled with humor. “Thought you wanted to go get those kids.”
“Et tu, Brute? Some kind of slang?” Sophie still ran into phrases she wasn’t familiar with, after being born in Thailand, educated in Switzerland, and living in Hong Kong.
“Too obscure to explain. Google it.” Dunn extended long legs in muddy black trousers. His huge lug-soled boots had already marked the shiny floor. He stretched thick, ropy arms overhead and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Bix is just sore we didn’t get his rubber stamp of approval.”
“I don’t blame him,” Sophie murmured. “I would be angry too. After all, we plunged right in after a brief planning session with a topographical map and consult with the pilot. I was surprised we didn’t do more prep and rehearsal. So many things could have gone wrong.”
“But they didn’t.” Dunn surged up and began his restless pacing, back and forth in front of the windows. Dawn was sharpening the silhouette of Diamond Head, just visible between nearby skyscrapers. It was a familiar view, but from a different, unfamiliar angle.
Sophie missed her cool dim computer lab with a sudden fierceness. She missed the quiet, the corner where she liked to exercise and watch the sky, the private feeling of each computer bay, the way the tech agents left each other alone to chase perps down cyber-pathways.
This place, this way of working, this team were all so new and different. She wasn’t used to so much ad-libbing, to so few procedural safeguards. Dunn had none of Waxman’s objectivity, Ken Yamada’s detached professionalism, nor even Marcella’s quick sophistication.
Jake Dunn was competent, all right—but his style was raw and edgy, his modus operandi improvisational, his physicality intrusive.
Bix reappeared and addressed Dunn. “Todd explained the situation. He apologized but also told me he informed you of the chain of command.”
“I guess he did, Boss.” Dunn turned from the window with an unrepentant grin. “You gonna smack my wrist?”
“We’ll talk later, Jake. In private.” Bix turned to Sophie with a deliberate smile. “Let’s start over. Hi, Ms. Ang. I’m Kendall Bix, VP of Operations. All ops come through me, and go through me. You come to me for planning, approval, budgeting, and quality assurance.”
“Great to meet you.” Sophie stood, shaking his hand with a smile. “I’m happy to hear that you’re running a professional organization here, and it’s not just Dunn running around, playing commando.”
“Hey!” Dunn threw himself into the chair next to Sophie, mock-pouting. His ebullient personality was one of the things she was coming to like about him—he never stayed down or angry for long. “We planned. We had a topo map and everything.”
“Well, better late than never. Take me through all the steps of the op.” Bix sat and opened the laptop he’d carried in. “We need to log it and write it up for liability purposes. We might well be facing a lawsuit from that cult—if Sandoval Jackson is the children’s father, he’ll be justified in bringing one.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law in child custody cases,” Dunn said. “Mother has them now, and he can try to get them back—but I doubt he will. Didn’t you see that happy reunion scene?”
“I’m all about the professional objective. Did you get a deposit from the mother? You know our standard retrieval contract terms
, and they aren’t cheap.”
“Ah. No.” Dunn cleared his throat, displaying the first embarrassment Sophie had seen, a redness along his cheekbones. “She said she had rich relatives who would pay.”
Bix gave Dunn a long stare. “You better hope she was telling the truth. Now, step-by-step. Take me through it.”
Chapter Eight
Sophie made her strong Thai tea, and sat down in her home yoga corner the next morning. Cradling her mug, she called Marcella at her friend’s FBI office. “Got a minute? I want to catch you up on some things.”
“I sure do. Let me just close the office door.” Sophie heard the sound of the door closing, the rattle of the door’s blind being lowered and rotated. “Waxman’s on a rampage since you left. He’s ordered a top to bottom self-audit of all our cases, and Internal Affairs is sniffing around. I suspect they are auditing every case you ever worked.”
“What?” Sophie’s throat tightened. “Waxman’s looking for some wrongdoing? It wasn’t enough that he took DAVID?”
“I don’t know what Waxman’s doing besides being in a total snit over you quitting. We’ve got a shit-ton of extra work, and IA is all over the place. If they’re looking into you, it spills onto all of us since you did tech work on virtually all of our cases. I think it’s something to do with DAVID.”
“Monstrous offspring of a three-headed buffalo,” Sophie cursed. “Like it wasn’t enough for the Bureau to try to steal DAVID from me!”
“Just thought I’d give you a heads-up. I don’t think the shit is done rolling your way. So what’re you calling to tell me? Besides that, you’re out of that dark bedroom, which I’m glad to hear.”
Sophie filled her in on her first contract job for Security Solutions. “Jake Dunn is an interesting phenomenon.”
“He sounds hot,” Marcella said. “Is he hot?”
“Um. Yes. He is very physically attractive.” Sophie sipped her tea, seated herself in lotus position on the carpet in front of the floor-to-ceiling picture window that made her father’s penthouse her favorite place to watch the sky. “But I don’t like him like that. He’s my partner.”
“I smell a rat. You are into him.”
“No. He’s…kind of devastating in a way. You can’t ignore Jake Dunn. He’s bigger than life. And really very brave and competent. But a loose cannon. Not my style at all. I can’t imagine relaxing around him, and I don’t think he knows how to.”
“Fun, though.” Marcella was sipping something too, probably one of her many daily cups of black coffee.
“Fun, yes. And he likes to flirt.”
“So I take it you’re going to accept the job.”
“I’m seriously considering it.”
“You should. The pay alone blows the Bureau out of the water. But how did it feel being on the other side of legal?”
“Not good. I did not enjoy it at all. I felt guilty, and I still do. Especially about the children we left inside the cult.” Sophie filled in some more details. “It couldn’t have been more different from how the FBI would have gone about getting them out. Except the FBI decided it’s not a real case.” She heard the bitterness in her tone and modified it for her friend’s sake. “I never expected this, Marcella. I thought I would be in the FBI for the rest of my life.” Unexpected tears pricked her eyes and her throat closed. “I didn’t want to quit. But I couldn’t let them take DAVID from me.”
“That damn computer program. It’s been as much a curse as a blessing to you!”
“It’s a tool. Nothing more. But it’s a good tool, and I shouldn’t be punished for all I put into developing it.” Sophie’s resolve strengthened as she remembered the humiliation and frustration of the last couple of years as the FBI wrangled over what to do with her program. “I should go. I have to check in with my lawyer.”
“Come to dinner with Marcus and me. This weekend?”
“Maybe. I might be hike-running Dead Man’s Catwalk with Todd Remarkian.”
“The head of Security Solutions?” Marcella whistled. “You didn’t tell me you guys were hanging out. Talk about hot!”
“Remarkian is a friend,” Sophie said with dignity.
“Those eyes, those abs—and that accent! Mmmm.” Marcella gave an exaggerated moan. “I’m betting he’d like to be more than a friend.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“And Italian. I tell it like I see it.” Marcella ended the call.
Sophie was still smiling as she went into her morning yoga routine—but she hadn’t been at it more than a half hour when the doorbell rang.
Two agents showed at the peephole, holding up cred wallets. Her stomach dropped. She schooled her features into the compliant and neutral mask her ex had taught her with his fists. She opened the door. “Yes?”
“Sophie Ang, I’m Special Agent Pillman and this is Special Agent Rapozo from FBI Internal Affairs. We have some questions for you regarding the use of your data mining program known as DAVID.”
Sophie examined their cred wallets for form’s sake, but she recognized Pillman as the chilly-eyed agent who’d gone after her friend Lei Texeira on a case a few years ago. The man was a pit bull, relentless and cruel. That debilitating investigation had definitely had something to do with her friend leaving the FBI to return to local law enforcement on Maui. “I don’t believe you get to investigate me as I’m no longer with the FBI.”
Pillman seemed prepared for this. “All federal officers are subject to examination before and after working for the Bureau. You should have read the fine print of the contract. Now, may we come in?”
Sophie stood aside and they stepped into the shining foyer area. Pillman’s sharp eyes tracked the luxurious surroundings, and she felt his judgment as he turned to face her. Her heart thudded. “What is this regarding?”
“We’d like to ask you some questions. Beginning with how you afford this penthouse.”
“The apartment belongs to my father, Ambassador Smithson. Perhaps you’d like to contact him in Washington for verification? He can be reached at the White House.” Sophie held Pillman’s gaze. She had done nothing wrong, and was not without resources. “What legal counsel am I entitled to?”
“You may no longer use FBI union representation, of course, but you are free to employ private counsel.” Rapozo was a short, dark-complexioned man who reminded her of a pigeon, with a puffed-out chest and short, bandy legs that seemed to tip him forward.
“You gentlemen have come far enough into my father’s apartment. I will be obtaining legal counsel for any further meetings.” Sophie stood tall and gripped the doorframe so tightly that it hurt. “Thank you for stopping by.”
Pillman held his ground for a long moment, pale eyes scanning the apartment and returning to her, sweeping her body with a contemptuous stare that took in her cropped hair, exercise bra, and yoga pants—and stripped her naked. “We’ll be in touch.”
“So be it.” Sophie closed the door softly behind them, to compensate for the urge to slam it. Ginger, who had been unusually quiet through the proceedings, padded up and leaned against Sophie’s leg, whining.
“It’s okay, girl.” Sophie leaned her head on the door, stroking the dog’s ears and feeling a wave of panic sweep over her.
She felt blind and cut off without DAVID, and she was under attack. Her enemies, and even the Ghost, knew where she lived, how to get to her.
She had to get off the grid and figure out how to go on the offensive. She’d never be able to relax here now, knowing someone she needed to defend herself from could show up at the door anytime.
The apartment that had been such a haven didn’t feel safe anymore.
Sophie breathed through the panic, calming herself by making a quick mental list of tasks. She booted up her rigs with the key fob as she placed a series of calls and packed a bag.
Chapter Nine
The cash-only rental apartment had what Sophie needed: an internet cable already installed and a wheezing window air conditioner. It was a
corner unit five floors up with good visibility from a sun-battered deck. Sophie wore a ball cap, sunglasses, and a white eyelet sundress, the furthest thing she could find in her limited wardrobe from her usual clothing.
“I’ll take it.” Sophie handed an envelope of cash, enough for a deposit and three months’ rent, to the manager. The sun gleamed on the greasy strands of the man’s comb-over as he licked a thumb and counted the money.
“Making sure you have the dog deposit in here,” he muttered.
“Of course,” she said politely, Ginger’s leash tight in her hand, the bag over her shoulder heavy with computer gear. “What kind of security does the building have?”
“What? You get sometin’ fo’ hide?” The man’s pidgin was thick as he looked up at her with beady brown eyes.
“No. Just a woman alone. I have to make sure my home is safe.” Sophie smiled.
The landlord thawed visibly, caterpillar brows bouncing. “Oh, you safe heah. I keep an eye on you.”
“No, that’s fine. I just wondered if there was any—video surveillance? Alarm systems?” Sophie kept the smile pasted on though her cheeks ached.
“What you need all that foah? Get gold in that bag?”
“Ha ha. I’ll take my key now.” Sophie put out her hand and the man slapped the key into it, then clasped it between calloused, sweaty palms. “Don’t you worry ’bout nothing, pretty girl. I watch out for you.”
Sophie pulled her hand away and wiped it on her skirt. “Thank you.”
Sophie blew out a breath as she left, and tugged Ginger inside the apartment.
There was no furniture, and the linoleum floor was stained. The walls had been so freshly painted that the place still reeked of it. A contact she’d met through the Bureau had provided her a new ID. Sophie still had to bring up her other bag, a duffel of clothing, from the beater white Ford truck she’d bought for cash and registered in the name she was using, Mary Watson. Her pearl-colored Lexus SUV was parked in a long-term rental lot, and her ID, credit cards, and everything else that identified her as Sophie Ang was now in the secret safe deposit box where she’d kept a copy of the DAVID software.
