Tracy smiled.
So much for isolation.
The ranch’s position might be remote but Steamboat Springs was still a small town and Tracy was the mother of one of its more troublesome teenagers. Her mind ran over the possibilities as she walked to the door.
School counselor?
Principal?
Irate mother of an eighth grade cheerleader?
Sheriff?
Oh God, please not the Sheriff. Blake would hit the roof if Nick had been running one of his scams again. Last time he’d managed to reprogram the school library computers to show that half of the middle-school students were entitled to rebates. The school had erroneously paid out more than two thousand dollars to Nick’s buddies before the head librarian got wise and called the cops.
Sheriff Reeves had gone easy on Nick that time. But one more screw up and he’d have to make an example of him.
Tracy put on her most gracious smile and opened the door.
A waft of freezing air hit her. Tracy shivered.
Two men were standing on her porch. Both wore long cashmere coats, trilby hats and scarves. One of the men she didn’t recognize. The other, very unfortunately, she did.
“Hello, Tracy.”
Agent Milton Buck of the FBI attempted a smile, but was so out of practice it came off as a leer.
“This is my colleague, Mr. Gregory Walton of the CIA.” Buck gestured to the much shorter man standing next to him, hopping from foot to foot against the cold. “May we come in?”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, TRACY and the two agents stood awkwardly around the kitchen table. Tracy had offered them each a cup of coffee. Coats had been removed, pleasantries dispensed with. It soon became apparent that the shorter man, from the CIA, was in charge of proceedings.
“Thank you for letting us in, Miss Whitney.”
Bald, softly spoken and scrupulously polite, Tracy immediately liked Agent Walton a lot more than Agent Buck. Then again there were tapeworms that Tracy Whitney liked more than Agent Buck. The two of them had history together, none of it good.
“It’s Mrs. Schmidt here,” Tracy said. “And I wouldn’t leave a man to freeze to death on my doorstep, Mr. Walton. However much I didn’t want to see him,” she added pointedly, looking directly at Milton Buck.
“Please. Call me Greg.”
“OK.” Tracy smiled. “Greg. Let’s skip the pleasantries. Why are you here?”
Walton opened his mouth to say something, but Tracy wasn’t finished.
“I had a cast-iron guarantee from the Bureau, after I helped them neutralize Daniel Cooper and arrest Rebecca Mortimer three years ago, that my family and I would be left in peace.”
“I understand that,” Greg Walton said reassuringly. “And you will be. You have my word on that.”
“And yet here you are in my kitchen.” Tracy raised an eyebrow archly and crossed one long, slender leg over another.
Greg Walton thought this lady’s quite something. Not for the first time in the presence of a very beautiful woman, he felt relieved he was gay.
“What we need to talk to you about today, Miss Whitney, has nothing to do with that case or with your past. It’s a matter of national security.”
Tracy looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps if you listened, you would,” Milton Buck snapped. He was still handsome in a brutish, arrogant way, Tracy noticed. And every bit as charmless as she remembered.
“What Mr. Walton is saying is that we’re not here to prosecute you for your crimes as a jewel and art thief.”
Tracy said, “I should think not as I haven’t committed any.”
“We’re here to demand that you do your duty for your country.”
“Is that so?” Tracy’s eyes narrowed. As far as she was concerned Milton Buck could stick his demands where the sun didn’t shine. Three years ago the bastard would have left Jeff to die, strung up on a cross by that maniac Cooper in the hills above Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was only Tracy, and her friend Jean Rizzo from Interpol, who had saved Jeff and brought Daniel Cooper to justice. Although of course the FBI had basked in the credit, no one more so than Agent Buck.
“Not demand,” Greg Walton corrected, shooting Buck a dirty look. “Request. We’re here to request—to ask you to help us. The long and the short of it is, Tracy, we need your help.”
Tracy studied Walton’s face distrustfully. She looked at her watch.
“I’m picking up my son at five thirty. You have my attention for the next hour, but after that you must leave.”
Milton Buck looked outraged. He opened his mouth to speak but Greg Walton glared at him. “That’s a deal, Miss Whitney,” Walton said. “Now, let me tell you why we’re here.”
For the next forty minutes, Greg Walton didn’t draw breath. Tracy sat listening to him, leaning forwards over the kitchen table, her coffee growing lukewarm, then cold. Like most people in America, Tracy had seen the story of Captain Daley’s gruesome execution at the hands of Group 99 online. She knew about the controversial raid in Bratislava; how for all the government’s spin it had clearly been a failed attempt to rescue American journalist Hunter Drexel.
What she didn’t know, was that rather than still being in Group 99’s hands, as President Havers had explicitly told the nation in a televised statement, Hunter Drexel was actually on the run, for reasons unknown. Or that a woman, codenamed Althea but believed to be a wealthy U.S. citizen, was not only masterminding and funding Group 99 but had directly ordered Daley’s death.
“Wow,” Tracy said, once Walton was finished. “Havers must be out of his mind. To flat-out lie like that? What happens if Drexel suddenly pops up somewhere, Edward Snowden–style, and holds a press conference?”
“That would be extremely unfortunate,” Greg Walton admitted. “More unfortunate, however, would be a global escalation of violence and murder such as we witnessed with Captain Daley. Kidnappings, executions, bombings. Anything’s possible now that they’ve crossed this red line. We don’t know exactly how large Group 99’s network is. But we do know that it’s massive, and growing, especially in places where the economic divide is acutely pronounced. Like South America, for example.”
“On our doorstep,” Tracy mused.
“Precisely.”
Tracy processed all this for a moment before turning to Walton.
“This is all very interesting. But I still don’t see where I fit in.”
Greg Walton leaned forward. “This woman, Althea, sent an encrypted message to us at Langley a little over a week ago. In it, she mentioned you by name, Tracy.”
“Me?” Tracy looked suitably dumbfounded.
Walton nodded.
“What did she say?”
“That she’d outsmarted us just like you did. That only you could unmask her. That Agent Buck here should pay you a visit. She almost made it sound like a game. A competition between the two of you.”
If Greg Walton’s expression hadn’t been so serious, Tracy would have burst out laughing. This had to be a joke, right?
“Have you any idea who this woman might be, Tracy? Any idea at all?”
Tracy shook her head. “No. I wish I did but, no. This makes no sense to me.”
“Listen to this.”
Greg Walton played her the same recording of Althea ordering Bob Daley’s execution that he’d played for MI6 a few days earlier.
“Have you ever heard that voice before?”
“I’m sorry,” Tracy said. “I haven’t. Not that I remember.”
“Think hard. It may be someone from your distant past. From your childhood, even. Or the Louisiana Penitentiary?”
Tracy allowed herself a small smile. The voice on the tape was educated, sophisticated. Nobody from the penitentiary had sounded remotely like that.
“Could she have been a colleague at the Philadelphia Bank?” Walton pressed. “Or perhaps someone you and Jeff knew in London?”
From my days as a thief, you mean? Tracy finished for him
. No. I don’t think so.
Hearing Greg Walton, a man she’d never met before, reel off places and people in her life as if he knew her intimately was disconcerting to say the least. But she kept her composure.
“No,” she said. “I’d remember, I’m sure of it.”
“Well, you do know her.” Milton Buck lost his patience. “That much is a fact. So if she’s not from your past, she must be from your present. What prior contact have you had with Group 99?”
“What?” Tracy scowled at him.
There were no words to adequately express her loathing for Milton Buck, a man who was prepared to sacrifice anything, or anyone, for the sake of advancing his career. If Buck had had his way, Jeff would have been left to die at Daniel Cooper’s deranged hands. Tracy would never forgive him.
“Think very carefully before you answer, Miss Whitney,” Buck warned her. “If you lie to us now, any deal we may have made in the past will be off. Null and void.”
“I don’t need to think carefully,” Tracy shot back. “I’ve never had any contact with Group 99.”
“Hmmm.” Milton Buck’s upper lip curled. “You admire them, though, don’t you?” He seemed to delight in pressing Tracy’s buttons. “All that subversive, antiestablishment baloney. It’s right up your street.”
“I did quite admire them once,” Tracy said defiantly. “Before Daley’s execution I was impressed by their techniques. But then so were a lot of people. I mean, there’s no doubt they’re smart. Hacking in to the Langley computers is no mean feat.”
“No. It isn’t,” Greg Walton muttered bitterly.
“They’ve outsmarted governments and intelligence agencies and Big Oil,” Tracy went on. “But, I never shared their views, Agent Buck. Other than their dislike of the fracking industry. And I certainly don’t admire terrorists, or murderers.”
“So you don’t believe in redistributing wealth away from the top one percent?” Milton Buck asked skeptically. “Robbing the rich to help the poor?”
“Certainly not,” said Tracy. “Look around you, Agent Buck.” She gestured to the expensive oil paintings hanging on the walls and the cabinet full of polished silver in the dining room. “I’m part of the one percent. Then again, from what you describe, so is this woman Althea.” She turned back to Greg Walton. “If she’s rich enough to funnel millions to Group 99, isn’t she part of the problem, in their eyes?”
“There’s a lot about Group 99 that doesn’t make sense to us right now,” Walton replied. “A lot of inconsistencies. Together with the British, we’re piecing together a clearer picture of their changing objectives. But what we do know is that their days of peaceful protest are over. We have a hostage out there right now whose life is in imminent danger.”
“I know that,” Tracy said, chastened. “Hunter Drexel.”
“And he won’t be the last. We believe Althea may hold the key to the entire network, Tracy. We need your help to find her. Come back to Langley with us.”
Tracy’s eyes widened. If the situation weren’t so serious, she would have laughed.
“You want me to come to Langley? Right now?”
“We don’t want it,” Greg Walton’s tone was deadly serious. “We need it. You’re our best hope.”
“No,” Tracy said, on autopilot. “I won’t. I can’t. I have a son . . .”
She stood up and walked over to the window. It was totally dark now. All Tracy could see was her own reflection.
I look like a housewife, standing in her kitchen.
This is ridiculous. I am a housewife, standing in her kitchen.
Turning back to the two agents she said, “Look. I don’t know this woman. That’s the God’s honest truth. We’ve never met. Clearly she knows who I am. But that doesn’t mean the reverse is true.”
Greg Walton leaned forward urgently. “Even if that’s true, Tracy. Even if it turns out you don’t know her, you can still help us.”
“I don’t see how.”
“You and Althea have a lot in common.”
Tracy frowned. “How do you figure that?”
“You’re both wealthy, independent women, with a background in computers, who’ve successfully evaded detection by the authorities in multiple countries. You both play by your own rules, conceal your identities, and rise to the top in what are traditionally all-male environments. You’re both risk takers.”
“Not anymore,” Tracy said firmly. “My reckless days are over. She’s a terrorist, Mr. Walton.”
“Greg.”
“I’m a housewife.”
“She knows you,” Walton insisted. “And at a minimum, you can help us understand her strategy, her MO. If we can predict her next move and identify her weaknesses, we stand a chance of stopping her. How is she slipping through the net? Who’s helping her? What would you do if you were in her shoes?”
“I don’t know what I’d do.” Tracy’s frustration was mounting. “Group 99, Althea’s world, it’s a closed book to me.”
“So let us open it.” Greg Walton’s tone was becoming more insistent. “We’ll brief you on Group 99, everything we know and British intelligence knows. Trust me, Tracy, if I weren’t certain you can help, I wouldn’t be here. The president himself asked us to approach you.”
Tracy looked skeptical. “Really?”
“President Havers would be happy to call you himself to confirm it,” Walton said, leaping on her hesitation. “Finding Althea and cutting Group 99 off at the knees is the White House’s top national security objective right now. Bar none. A call from the White House can be arranged if you’d like that.”
Tracy ran her hands through her hair. “I’m sorry, Greg. I’m flattered, I really am. But if the president thinks I can help then I’m afraid he’s been seriously misinformed. I give you my word that if I think of any connection between myself and Althea, or any sort of lead you could use, I will pick up the phone. But I’m not coming to Langley. I have a son.”
“I know,” Greg Walton sighed. “Nicholas.”
“That’s right. The last time I left him, I almost didn’t make it back. I swore then, to him and to myself, that I would never put myself in harm’s way again.”
“Not even for your country?”
Tracy shook her head.
“I love my country. But I love my son more.” She looked at her watch again. “And now, gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me. It’s time for me to go pick him up.”
Milton Buck got angrily to his feet. “You don’t get to call the shots here, Tracy. Do you think anybody cares about your soccer mom priorities, when Americans are out there being kidnapped and tortured and American companies are having billions of dollars wiped off their balance sheets? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“That’s enough.” Greg Walton didn’t raise his voice, but the look on his face made it plain that he was livid with his colleague. “I apologize, Miss Whitney. We’re grateful to you for giving us your time.” He handed Tracy a card. “If you change your mind, or have any information or questions, please call me. Day or night. We’ll see ourselves out.”
He walked to the door, with Milton Buck following like a sullen child.
As they left, Tracy said, “I’m sorry.”
Milton Buck waited till Greg Walton was out of earshot before hissing in Tracy’s ear. “You will be.”
FOR FIVE MINUTES THE two men drove down the mountain road in stony silence.
Then Greg Walton turned to Milton Buck.
“Fix this,” he said. The avuncular tone he’d used with Tracy was gone now. The two short words dripped with menace.
“How?” Buck asked.
“That’s your problem. I don’t care how you do it, but you get Tracy Whitney to Langley or your career is over. Is that clear?”
Milton Buck swallowed hard. “Crystal.”
NICK AND TRACY SAT at the dinner table, watching a video on Nick’s phone.
“That is awful,” Tracy said, tears of laughter streaming down her face.
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br /> “I know,” Nick grinned. “I’m putting it on Vine.”
“You are not,” Blake Carter said thunderously. “Give me that phone.”
“What? No!” said Nick. “Come on, Blake. It’s funny. I’ll bet it goes viral.”
“It’s disrespectful is what it is,” said Blake. Ignoring the boy’s protests, he took the phone and deleted the footage of the principal of the middle school glancing around what he clearly believed to be an empty corridor before farting loudly.
“Mom!” Nick protested.
Tracy shrugged, wiping away the tears of mirth. “Sorry, honey. Blake’s right. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Not ‘people,’ ” Blake corrected her. “Adults. Teachers, for crying out loud. In my day you’d have had a whip taken to ya for something like that.”
“In your day they didn’t have phones,” said Nick, still angry. “Your idea of fun was hitting a ball on a string. You know what your problem is? You don’t know how to have fun.”
“Nick!” said Tracy. “Apologize.”
“Sorry.” The word dripped with sarcasm. “I’m going to my room.”
Seconds later Nick’s bedroom door slammed.
Blake looked at Tracy. “Why do you encourage him?”
“Oh come on. It was funny.”
“It was puerile.”
“That’s because he’s a kid,” said Tracy. “You don’t always have to come on quite so ‘Sam Eagle’ about everything.”
Blake looked hurt.
“I’m not his friend, Tracy. I’m his parent.” Realizing what he’d just said, Blake blushed. “Well, I mean . . . you know . . . I’m . . .”
“You’re his parent,” Tracy said seriously, laying a hand over Blake’s. “He’s lucky to have you. We both are.”
Tracy felt tremendous love for Blake Carter. Pushing seventy now, the old cowboy had been a wonderful father figure to Nicholas and the dearest friend Tracy ever could have wished for. She knew that Blake loved her. He’d even proposed once, years ago. And though she couldn’t love him back in the same way, she absolutely considered him family.
“Is something the matter, Tracy?” Blake asked her. “Besides Nick?”
That was the other thing about Blake Carter. He saw right through her. Trying to hide things from Blake was like trying to hide them from God—a wasted effort.
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