Nick went to the bathroom and began to remove his makeup and facial hair. Aria followed and leaned against the doorjamb. "Wear the green earphones and keep the microphone pointed in the direction of their hotel room. If the phone rings, hit record on the box, put on the blue earphones, and keep the microphone pointing that way. You'll hear the person calling in your right ear and Harrington in your left," Nick said.
As soon as he was done and out of the way, she went to the sink and removed her wig and makeup. When she came out of the bathroom, Nick was already stretched out on his bed. "Turn out the lights and sit near the glass door. You'll be able to hear better there. If the light on the box turns red that means their door opened." Aria looked at the box and saw a green light.
"Do you want me to wake you if I hear anything?"
"Only if the light turns red, or if you hear a call that tells you they're meeting right then. Otherwise, let me sleep. I'll wake up in about two or three hours." His eyes were already closed, and Aria turned out the lights, pulled a chair near the door leading to the deck, and sat down.
It was weird, she thought after an hour, how easily you could eavesdrop on someone when they thought they were safe in their seclusion. It was actually kind of eerie, and it made her wonder if anyone had ever done this to her. Anyone with this simple piece of equipment could hear anything they wanted.
She heard Peter's daughter, Becky, call her mother, she heard Peter and Becky argue about what they would do the next day, she heard the shower running, and one time when the microphone slipped, she heard the couple in the room next to Peter's discussing the poor service at the hotel restaurant.
Peter and Becky got ready for bed, arguing the entire time about anything they could argue about, then the light went off in their room. Aria moved the black box closer to her so that she could see the light if it switched to red, and settled in her chair, preparing herself to sit for another couple of hours.
¯¯¯¯
THE agent code named Hecate, called Kate, stared down at the sleeping man. His round body lay curled around a pillow and he regularly mumbled in his sleep. She reached over and slapped at his shoulder. "Wakey, wakey, Ricardo."
The small man jerked awake and gave a startled cry. When he saw Kate standing over his bed holding a gun on him, he sat up and scooted quickly back against the headboard.
"Wha —?"
"Shh," Kate explained, smiling as she put a booted foot up on the bed and leaned forward. She had to keep herself from gagging at the stink of the breath panting in and out of his open mouth. "I'll do the asking."
For her own health and well being, she straightened some and put a little bit of distance between them. "Now, a man and a woman came to you a couple of days ago. She had long dark hair and they probably didn't speak much English. Know who I'm talking about?"
"I don't know nothing," Ricardo said defiantly.
"It's anything," Kate corrected. "As in, 'I don't know anything.' But it's a common misuse. Now, tell me, what names did they give you, this couple? Carlos Garcia? And what was the girl calling herself?"
Ricardo crossed his arms and stared down the barrel of the pistol. "I … don't … know … anything. Comprende?"
Kate reached into the boot she wore on her foot she currently had propped up on Ricardo's mattress and slowly withdrew a long knife. "Oh, my. How very impressively macho," she observed, clucking her tongue. "I see I'm going to need to jog your memory. I bet if I surgically removed the source of some of that machismo it might just help you to recollect some details."
Ricardo looked into her eyes and realized that he did not want to proceed further down this conversational path, not with this woman. He held both hands up and whispered, "Florida. I took them to Florida."
"Better," she said gently as she resheathed the knife. "Now, I bet you remember where you took them in Florida, don't you?"
¯¯¯¯
ARIA sat quietly in the dark. She sat so still Nick thought she might have fallen asleep until she lifted her hand to rub her eyes. He rolled over and stood next to the bed, raising his hands above his head to stretch the tense muscles. He shook off the feelings left behind from the dream, and walked over to Aria, kneeling beside her chair. She jumped a little when he touched her leg, then gave him a small smile.
"You look much more rested," she declared.
Nick hadn't realized he'd looked tired before and merely raised an eyebrow at her remark. "You don't," he asserted.
She laughed and quickly leaned over, planting a quick kiss on his lips that both surprised and pleased him.
"Anything exciting happen?" he asked as he pulled another chair over to sit next to her.
"Not unless you count that I learned Peter snores," she answered, then added, "loudly." She lifted the earphones off her ears for a second, then put them back in place. "I couldn't have fallen asleep sitting here if I'd have wanted to. It sounded like two rhinoceroses fighting."
Nick reached over and unhooked the wire that ran from the earphones to the recorder, then hit a button on the box. The sound of Peter's snoring filled the room, and Aria gratefully removed the headset from her ears. She had propped the microphone up with some pillows from the bed.
"I always thought that secret agents lived exciting, action filled lives. If this is the norm, you can have it."
Nick smiled. "I told you before, Aria, the times that there is some 'action,' as you call it, more than make up for these long hours of inactivity." He took a drink from the cup sitting next to her chair then made a face. It was coffee. Cold coffee.
He forced himself to swallow then asked, "How do you even drink this stuff?"
"It requires an adult palate," she acknowledged, enjoying how he narrowed his eyes at her teasing. "Do you like your job, Nick?" she asked.
Nick shrugged. "It's what I do."
"Sure, but do you like it?"
Nick thought about it for a moment, never really allowing himself to have the internal debate before. The truth was that there were things about his work that he loved. There were amazing people in his line of work who he completely respected. But there were a lot of things he had done in the line of duty that didn't leave room for enjoyment, unless he was willing to become like Balder was in life. He would never allow himself to get to that point. If it meant living with the nightmares that came every time he allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep, then he would live with them. He would rather the past haunt him than celebrate some of the more questionable things he had done in the name of duty.
"I believe in what I do, but I don't always enjoy what I have to do."
Aria jumped a little with the sound of the telephone ringing. Nick put a hand out to stop her from answering theirs, and leaned over to press the record button on the box. Harrington's snoring stopped, and his voice filled the room as he answered his room phone.
"Hello?" Harrington's voice still sounded foggy.
"Enjoy your dinner?" the caller asked. Nick immediately recognized the voice of Assistant Director Simmons.
"Yeah. Sure. What's up?"
"The little shop in your hotel has a nice arrangement of beach bags. I especially like the blue straw one."
"I can understand that."
"Good. I should hit the beach around eleven-thirty tomorrow. Perhaps I'll see you there."
"Perhaps."
"I should send my condolences to you at the end of such a wonderful relationship." Nick heard Aria take a deep breath, holding it.
"She had mostly served her purpose. I would have had to do something soon, anyway." Nick's jaw felt like it might break, he clenched it so tightly. He consciously relaxed his jaw muscles, but clenched his fist.
"From what I hear, you need to keep a tighter grip on your boys," Harrington said.
"We're taking care of that. No need to concern yourself with it."
"How do you know he's not after me?"
"Because he's not stupid. From what I've learned, she's his priority. He has her in tow as precious
cargo. He won't risk bringing her within a hundred miles of you."
"Good. We're almost to the end. Another few weeks, and what they know won't mean a thing."
"Enjoy the beach tomorrow."
They heard the sound of a click followed by the sound of a bed squeaking. Nick's vision was close to red. He spared a glance at Aria who looked nearly white. He stopped the recorder, and reached over to grab her hand. She jerked away and stood so fast that the chair fell behind her.
"Don't," she said. She stepped backwards, looking like she wanted to flee, and her breath started coming rapidly.
"Aria," Nick said, but she held her hand up to stop him. The firmness of her stance was belied by the tears that filled her eyes, though, and he didn't care whether she wanted his compassion or not. He wanted to give it, so he went to her and grabbed her by her upper arms, giving her a little shake. "Get over it, Aria. You knew what he was. You've known for months."
She shook her head. "Not that. I didn't think he was that." Her voice cracked at the end of her statement. She put a hand over her mouth as if to stop the distress.
Nick folded her into his arms, and for a moment she was stiff and unyielding. Then she collapsed against him. Sobs tore from her so violently they practically wracked her body.
He picked her up and carried her to his bed, where he sat against the headboard and held her in his arms. He didn't know the words to give her, so he just let her cry, knowing this had been building for days. She'd been stronger than he would have given her credit for, and he knew her well enough by now to know that she would be even stronger when this night was over. He hated that any part of this whole situation had caused her to harden in any way. He wished there was a way he could turn back the clock and hand her innocence back to her.
She eventually stopped crying, but neither moved. Only when his arms began to tire did he realize she had fallen asleep, so he slowly moved her away from him and pulled the covers over her. He plugged the earphones back into the box and prepared his body for several hours of vigil.
¯¯¯¯
ARIA was going to rip her hair out by the roots in another second. "Nick, be reasonable. I would stand out more on the beach if I didn't wear a suit." They stood in the middle of the hotel room, almost nose to nose. If his eyes narrowed any further, she thought, he wasn't going to be able to see.
"I didn't say you couldn't wear a suit. I said you weren't going to wear that one."
"Watch me," she ground out. If Nick thought he was intimidating her, he was way off base. All he was doing was making her angry.
"He'll recognize you."
"He's never seen me in a swimsuit."
"You're going to draw too much attention in that thing."
"No I won't, Nick. Get over it."
"You know, I've been in countries where they beat women who show just an inch of skin."
"You're welcome to try it."
She watched as the shutter came over his eyes and he closed himself off. The look on his face took the satisfaction out of the argument she was sure she just won. "Fine. You blow this, it's your funeral. And I mean that literally."
The light on the black box switched from green to red, and Nick gave Aria one last long stare, then left the hotel room. She mumbled insults at him behind his back while she gathered their things and ran after him. He wasn't at the elevators, and she wasn't going to chase him down four flights of stairs, so she pressed the button on the panel and the elevator doors slid open instantly. She entered with a smug smile and accessed the lobby knowing she would be waiting for him when he came out of the stairwell if she didn't have to stop at any floors on the way down.
She forgot for a moment that they were already in full makeup and was looking for Nick, not her drug cartel boyfriend, so when she came out of the elevator and he grabbed her arm, she jumped and nearly screamed before recognition dawned. "What did you do, slide down the banister?" she asked.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, steering her through the crowded lobby to the door leading to the deck.
"How did you get down here so fast?"
"I came down the stairs." He pushed open the door and they exited into a crowd twice the size of the one they'd seen two days earlier. Now the place was full of tourists and local kids. She saw Nick scan the crowd on the deck next door, and spotted Peter and Becky come out of their hotel and walk down the steps leading to the beach.
Nick kept an eye on them and said to Aria, "Go get us some sort of tropical looking drink with fruit and umbrellas and stuff. No alcohol but make sure they look alcoholic."
Nick secured a table at the far corner of the deck closest to the other hotel. Aria worked her way through the crowd at the bar, and ordered virgin pina coladas, then waited the nearly fifteen minutes it took the harried bartender to serve them. She carried them over to where Nick sat and set them down on the table, then she pulled her sunglasses out of her bag and put them on as she took her seat.
"You might be more comfortable if you took your shirt off," she said, noticing the sweat beading on his brow in the ninety-degree heat.
"I can't," he said, taking a sip of the drink then grimacing.
"Why?"
"My scars would give me away." How could she have forgotten that already? He turned his back on her and looked down at the beach. "Do you see them?" he asked her.
She pulled her mind away from his scars and looked in the direction of his gaze. "No."
"Look at my shoulder, then go about two degrees to the right," he directed.
She spotted them almost instantly. "I see them."
Peter sat on a towel, taking his shirt off, and Becky stood with her hands on her hips, arguing with him about something. She probably wanted to take her top off, Aria thought. Her mouth almost dropped when she saw the glint of metal flash off Becky's stomach.
Aria looked at her watch and saw that it was eleven-fifteen. Something in her told her that the drop would be exactly at eleven-thirty, so she raised the camera that Nick had given her and pretended to shoot several pictures, trying to appear professional about it.
"Look, love. Remember when we used to be that young?" Nick said with a Spanish accent, pointing his video camera at a volleyball game going on not far from Peter's towel. As she watched him, Jerry Simmons passed her, glancing down at them.
She tipped her glasses down her nose, gave him a slow, seductive wink, and responded to Nick. "I'm still that young, Carlos. You wouldn't be here with me if I weren't." Simmons almost tripped going down the stairs, and Aria belatedly noticed his companion, who was glaring at her in fury. She grabbed his arm and steered him down to the beach.
"Good girl, Aria," Nick complimented under his breath.
"Who's that with him?" she inquired.
Nick trained the video camera on her and took several seconds to answer. "That, Aria, is none other than Special Agent Nancy Warren, whose specialties happen to lie in the field of nuclear weapons technologies. She and Jerry Simmons have also been an item for about two years now."
"Did you know she was here?" Aria whispered. She raised her camera and took several shots, both of the couple and the people around them.
"Nope, and I wouldn't have recognized her with all of that blonde hair if it weren't for the tattoo on her hip. The wings of the butterfly are showing." He kept the video camera on them and didn't see Aria look at him.
"Exactly how do you know she has a tattoo of a butterfly on her hip?" she demanded.
"Aria, some things are better left to the imagination."
"No, Nick, really. If you had a relationship with her, you run the risk of exposing both of us."
"Keep taking pictures, Aria. I know she has a butterfly on her hip because we were undercover together one time, and she played the role of a stripper. I don't get involved with women I work with."
"Why not?" Nancy Warren and Jerry Simmons made it down to the beach and stopped next to Becky and Peter.
"Because emotional entanglements risk lives
," Nick said distractedly. The two agents on the beach spread their beach towels on the sand next to Peter and Becky, and Aria started snapping pictures of Nancy Warren as she set her blue straw bag next to the one that Peter brought. "Am I an emotional entanglement?" she quizzed while still taking pictures,
Nick kept sweeping the area with his camera. "Aria, this isn't really the time for this conversation."
Aria stopped taking pictures long enough to look at him. She had just started to raise the camera back up when she bit out, "Are there no emotions involved? Is that why you feel safe with me?"
Nick lowered the camera from his eye, but kept it trained on the beach. "Three things, Suarez. First, this video camera is recording sound, too. Second, this is neither the time nor the place for this discussion. Third, you've been an emotional entanglement to me since I fell in love with you when I was fifteen years old." He put the camera back up to his eye. "You better start taking pictures, or we'll have nothing that will help you."
Aria's heart leapt at his admission of love, but she lifted the camera and started snapping pictures again. She took pictures as Nancy Warren sat on her towel and grabbed the blue straw bag that had been Peter's and looked through it, pulling out a bottle of sunscreen. Simmons was on the towel next to her, pretending to be asleep on his back with sunglasses perched on his nose. Then she took pictures of Nancy Warren as the woman put that bag next to her hip and slowly pushed it against the one she had brought, until the bags had switched places. Becky lay on her stomach with her head turned the other way and didn't see any of it take place.
Nick stood with the camera. "We need to get film of what's inside the bags. Go down to the beach and flirt openly with a couple of guys, then at my sign, back into her bag and try to knock it over."
Aria snapped a few pictures as she walked down, then turned to see Nick following her, filming her. She was now in sight of Nancy, so she blew a kiss at the camera, and caught the eye of a young, muscular college student. She winked at him and waved, and his jaw dropped.
An Aria for Nick (Christian Romantic Suspense) (Song of Suspense) Page 22
