by Amelia Autin
Alec didn’t know why her answer mollified him—Zakharian men could be wolves, too. But then again, Zakhar was fifty years behind the times in many ways. Men still treated women with old-fashioned courtesy here—unless the women were trying to move into jobs that had previously been reserved for men. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing from Tahra’s perspective. He didn’t want anyone pressuring her—
Then McKinnon walked into the outer office right at eight o’clock, and Tahra’s date was driven from Alec’s mind. “Come on in,” he told the other man. To Tahra, he said, “I don’t want to be disturbed for anything or anyone other than the ambassador. And that reminds me. Try to set up an appointment for me with him, will you? This afternoon, if possible, but if not, as soon as he’s free.”
Once in his office with the door closed and locked, Alec indicated one of the chairs in front of his desk and settled himself behind his desk. “Unless you object, I’m going to take the ambassador into my confidence regarding the investigation,” he said, almost before they two of them were seated.
McKinnon shook his head. “No objection from me—we’d already cleared him. Last night’s meeting was just confirmation.”
“I agree,” Alec said before moving on to the next topic. “I talked with Keira when I got back to my apartment. You didn’t waste any time calling D’Arcy, did you? And apparently he didn’t waste any time, either. Keira told me he’d already contacted her, told her to give us anything we need. Whether or not we ask for it.”
“Yeah, sounds like D’Arcy. So I take it you already gave Keira the list of names last night?”
Alec nodded. “But I forgot to tell her I was going to ask Angeli—Lieutenant Mateja to—”
McKinnon cut him off. “You’re still trying to kid me you and she aren’t involved?” He snorted. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
Alec stiffened. “Whatever’s between me and Lieutenant Mateja doesn’t have anything to do with this case,” he said coldly.
“Maybe not. But I’ll say the same thing you said to me back when I was falling for Mara. If it was important to the case, you’d tell me. Right?”
Something in that steady blue stare reminded him of the way he’d looked at McKinnon when he and Liam had confronted the other man about Princess Mara. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. “I had a hell of a nerve back then, didn’t I?” he admitted.
“Back then?” McKinnon laughed suddenly. “You still do. But that’s okay. You get the job done, and that’s all that really matters. It must run in the family.” He shifted gears. “So, what were you starting to say you didn’t tell Keira about Lieutenant Mateja?”
“Oh, right. I forgot to tell Keira I was going to ask Angelina to make a list of everything she could remember about her cousin. Everything that might possibly help Keira track her down. I know it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but—”
“But if anyone can do it, your sister can,” McKinnon finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“Sounds good. So what do you want me to focus on?”
“Keira’s checking out the seven names. But I need notarized witness statements—or the Zakharian equivalent—from the two canaries the police have in custody if we’re going to apply for search warrants, including wiretaps. I also want you to interview those two men, see what kind of witnesses they’d make in an American court.” He didn’t have to say it—both men knew American juries tended to distrust criminals with foreign accents. Especially criminals who were trying to cut a deal by testifying. The propensity for lying or stretching the truth to make their own sentences lighter made them less than trustworthy witnesses—or so the defense attorneys would allege. Another thing they’d have to contend with.
“And if you can, I’d like you to interview the other three Zakharians who are in custody. I don’t have to tell you how to do your job—”
McKinnon cut him off. “That’s right, you don’t.”
Alec smiled at how the tables had been turned on him in this, too. “Humor me,” was all he said. When McKinnon made a gesture signifying for him to continue, he added, “I was thinking if you interviewed them all together, and they thought you spoke only English...”
“You read my mind,” McKinnon said in fluent Zakharan. The two men smiled at each other in perfect understanding. “Speaking the language didn’t do us a damn bit of good when the State Department wanted us to spy on Mara for them,” McKinnon said judiciously, “because there wasn’t anything to learn. But in this case...”
“There’s nothing like having an ace up your sleeve when you’re playing poker with men who’d just as soon slit your throat than let you win a pot,” Alec said with a laugh. “Okay, we’re on the same page there. I think that’s it for now. I want—” The buzzer on Alec’s phone sounded, interrupting what he was going to say. He frowned. “I told Tahra I didn’t want to be interrupted unless it was the ambassador, so maybe...” He hit the speaker button. “Yes, Tahra?”
“There’s someone to see you, sir,” Tahra said. “I told him you were in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed, but he said it can’t wait. He’s quite insistent.” There was an odd tone in Tahra’s voice, and it was the tone more than her words that made Alec say, “I’ll be right out.” He disconnected and told McKinnon, “Give me a minute. Something’s not right.”
Alec crossed the room and jerked the door open. Captain Marek Zale was standing by Tahra’s desk at military attention, an attitude that seemed to afflict all those who served in the Zakharian National Forces even when they weren’t in uniform. Alec didn’t know how the captain had managed to get past Security downstairs, unless Tahra had authorized his entry. From the captain’s stony-eyed expression and the way he was studiously avoiding looking at Tahra, not to mention the distress and betrayal on Tahra’s face, Alec put two and two together and came up with...four?
Tahra wouldn’t authorize just anyone to enter this restricted area of the embassy. Which meant she had to know Captain Zale in something other than his official capacity. Is he Tahra’s mysterious Zakharian date? Alec wondered. Is that how he managed to convince Tahra to let him in past Security?
And if he was the man Tahra was suddenly interested in, was it more than just a coincidence Captain Zale just happened to ask Alec’s shy administrative assistant for a date? And if I believe that, he told himself wryly, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn...
“You needed to see me now, Captain Zale?” he asked coolly. “It can’t wait?”
The other man folded his lips tightly together as if he was keeping hasty words in. Hot words he might regret. “No,” he said finally. “It cannot wait. It concerns Lieutenant Mateja.”
A dart of fear shot through Alec. Had something happened to Angelina? He’d left her safely in her apartment, but what if she’d gone somewhere? Traffic accident? He remembered telling Angelina that with the jobs they did, one of them could be dead tomorrow. If something had happened to her... Please, God, no. No! But all he said out loud was, “Come into my office, Captain.”
Captain Zale checked in the doorway when he saw McKinnon, who stood up, and said to Alec, “We were done, weren’t we, Special Agent Jones? I’ll get back to you about what we discussed.” He smiled easily at the captain. “Good to see you again.” Then he was gone, passing Captain Zale in the doorway and closing the door softly behind him.
Alec took a deep, calming breath and arranged his face in stoic lines, refusing to betray his reaction to whatever the other man was going to tell him. He held himself so tightly, his muscles ached. “What about Lieutenant Mateja?”
“Are you aware the lieutenant is under observation by the secret intelligence service?” the captain asked abruptly. “As are all the members of the security details since the assassination attempt?”
Alec let himself breathe, let his muscles
relax against the strict control he’d exerted when he thought he was going to be told the worst, that his Angel was dead. Not dead, his brain whispered. She’s not dead. For an instant nothing else mattered. Then he focused on what the captain had just said. If Zakhar’s secret intelligence service had Angelina under surveillance, then that meant...
“I wasn’t aware Lieutenant Mateja’s personal life was subject to military scrutiny,” he said with a nonchalance he was far from feeling.
“It would not be,” the captain snapped, “if you had not requested she be added to your team investigating the trafficking case. Can you not see you have compromised her?” he argued hotly. “Called her integrity into question? She is one of my best men, and now—”
Furious at having his own integrity impugned, Alec refused to let him finish. “My personal involvement with Lieutenant Mateja has absolutely nothing to do with this case, and you’d better believe it, Captain,” he said in clipped tones. “It’s crucial we find her cousin and convince her to testify, and Lieutenant Mateja can assist in that effort—that’s the only reason I asked the king to put her on my team.”
Both hot under the collar, both operating under intense emotion held under a tight rein, the two men stared narrow-eyed at each other for a moment. Then Alec took a mental step back from the brink. “Look,” he said reasonably, realizing honesty would serve him best here. “She didn’t want anyone to know— especially you—because she didn’t want you to think badly of her. She’s conscientious to a fault, devoted to her job and to you, and fearless in her determination to keep the queen safe.”
He waited for that to register with the other man. “But she’s human, and she has the right to be a woman as well as a fighting man. The king’s words—‘fighting man’—not mine,” he added dryly. “She has the right to keep her private life private so long as it doesn’t get in the way of doing her job. And it won’t. You should know her well enough to know that much about her. I shouldn’t have to tell you.”
An expression that in anyone else would be called chagrin crossed the captain’s face. “You are correct,” he said stiffly after a moment. “Lieutenant Mateja is, as I stated earlier, one of my best men. I can count on the fingers of one hand men I would pick for a mission before I would pick her. And not,” he was quick to add, “for any other reason than she is a woman, and there are still men in the Zakharian National Forces who resent women in the military. In every other way, she is an exemplary officer.”
He laughed unexpectedly. “She even threw me once in hand-to-hand combat,” he explained. “Me! She took me by surprise, of course, but still...” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Join the crowd,” Alec said with a self-deprecating smile.
“You, too?” Captain Zale asked.
“Yeah. And yeah, she took me by surprise, too, but still...” The two men shared a look of commiseration.
“Your secret is safe with me,” the captain assured Alec.
“Same here.” Now that they’d calmed down a little, Alec ventured to say, “Your respect means a hell of a lot to her. Even when you suspected her of being involved in the assassination conspiracy, even when she thought you were unfairly blaming her for having to kill Tcholek, she defended you to me. That kind of loyalty is rare.”
“I did not really suspect her,” Captain Zale was quick to say. “Majors Kostya and Branko—the king’s favorite bodyguards—they are the ones who raised the possibility. I knew in my heart she was innocent, but I also knew I could not prove it—not to their satisfaction. They are ruthless in their devotion to the king. So I allowed her to be questioned by them until it was obvious to all she was telling the truth.
“As for the other, you are right. I did not speak up when the majors implied a man would not have let his guard down with Tcholek. I should have. I should have told them I would have done the same with a man I had worked with so closely.” A tinge of color touched his cheekbones. “That I did not speak in her defense is a shame I bear.”
He breathed deeply. “Then she interrogated the remaining would-be assassin and tricked two names out of him no one else had been able to obtain.” Admiration colored his words. “You should have heard her. A man could not have done what she did.”
“So what are you going to do about this latest accusation of impropriety?” Alec asked. “I can talk to the king, tell him the truth about Lieutenant Mateja and me, and explain that I—”
“No.” Captain Zale shook his head firmly. “I will handle it. She is my officer. My responsibility. I will handle it.” He turned to go, but Alec called him back.
“Captain, wait a minute, please.” When the other man turned around, Alec found himself torn. Despite the original accusation, despite the confrontation, Captain Zale had turned out to be a fairly decent guy. How to say what he felt he had to say?
Straight out, he told himself firmly. That’s the only way. “I have to ask,” he said frankly. “Tahra—my administrative assistant—you have a date with her tonight, right?”
“I had a date with her, yes.” Captain Zale’s face gave nothing away except the fact that he now believed his date was in jeopardy after he’d used his personal connection with Tahra to gain admittance to this restricted area. “When she authorized security to let me in, I let her think I came to see her.”
“Tahra’s very trusting,” Alec told him. “Did your date with her have anything to do with me? What I mean is,” he rushed to add, “if you only asked her out to pump her for information about me, please don’t. She doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment, and I don’t want her hurt.”
If anything, the captain’s face turned even more wooden. “That was not why I... She is very sweet. A man would have to look far and wide to find someone like her.”
He didn’t say anything more, but Alec read between the lines and was satisfied. “Then on your way out, why don’t you make sure your date for tonight is still on. She was really looking forward to it. I’ll give you five minutes’ privacy. If you can’t convince Tahra of your sincerity in five minutes, you’re not the man I take you for, Captain.”
* * *
Alec waited for Captain Zale to leave before he picked up the phone and dialed a number he already knew by heart. “Hi,” he said when Angelina answered. “How’s everything going? Making progress?” He wouldn’t normally call to check so soon—he didn’t hover—but he had an urgent need to hear Angelina’s voice. To know she was safe.
“Progress,” she confirmed with a hint of excitement in her tone. “Yes. I had not realized I had so many memories of Caterina. Perhaps because I did not want to let myself remember them. But I already have ten pages, with many more to go.”
“Great,” Alec said. “Don’t skip over anything. Not even the smallest detail. My sister’s got a knack for figuring things out, sometimes based on the tiniest clue. Kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with nothing to go on but the shape of the pieces. But the more she has to work with, the better off we are.”
“I understand.”
Alec hesitated. Then figured, What the hell, and asked, “Tell me something.”
“Yes?”
“It’s been bugging me for days, ever since McKinnon and I first learned Caterina might be alive. As soon as I heard there was a hit out on her, as soon as I heard how high the price tag was, I figured she either knows something or has some kind of evidence. Evidence Vishenko is afraid she’ll take to the authorities. Which means wherever she is now, at some point she was with Vishenko.”
At first, Angelina didn’t respond. But then she answered Alec’s unspoken question. “She would not stay with a man like Vishenko. Not by choice. Yes, she wanted more out of life than she could have here in Zakhar. And yes, she believed modeling was the way to achieve these things. But she believed in hard work. Believed in achieving success by her own efforts. She was a good girl on th
e brink of becoming a good woman. She would not sleep with a man for what it would get her—that is what you are thinking? That Caterina would choose the easy way?”
Alec was sorry he’d brought it up. But now that he had... “Are you sure, Angel?” he asked softly, knowing the question would hurt no matter the answer.
Her voice didn’t waver. “I know her. I know she would not any more than I would. If she was with Vishenko, it was not by her choice.”
“Then why? If she was forced into prostitution and eventually escaped that life, why didn’t she go to the authorities? Especially if she had evidence against Vishenko. That’s what doesn’t make sense. And if she couldn’t bring herself to press charges—if she was afraid for her life—why didn’t she just come home?”
A long silence followed. “Caterina did not come home because she was ashamed,” Angelina said finally, and Alec knew she was swallowing back tears because she didn’t want to admit she was crying. Again. Tears from the woman who swore she never cried. “Because she blamed herself. Because she believed everyone would blame her for what happened. Because she believed I would blame her.”
Suddenly it all made sense to Alec. Rape victims weren’t to blame for what happened to them any more than robbery victims were, or victims of home invasions. And yet the perception persisted in the minds of many that they were to blame. Alec wasn’t naive. He’d been posted in countries where fathers and brothers of rape victims killed the victim—not the perpetrator—to salvage their family honor. Honor killings were still acceptable in many countries, countries with which the United States had diplomatic relations.
“I’m sorry,” he said now, wishing he were there with Angelina, wishing he could hold her and somehow convey that he understood her pain and shared it.
“That is why she did not come home,” Angelina said. “She did not want me to know. Her parents were dead before she ever disappeared, but they would have blamed her just as my parents would. She did not want anyone to know what she had suffered. She would rather live alone for the rest of her life than admit the truth.”
