Worthy of Trust and Confidence

by Kara A. McLeod

  I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

  Allison didn’t reply, but she did go back to glaring at her phone, her fingers hovering over the keyboard as though she was itching to type something but was either trying to think of an appropriate reply or to talk herself out of replying altogether.

  I sighed heavily and rolled my good shoulder in an attempt to ease some of the tension in the muscles of my back. We had at least ten minutes until we reached our destination. Not at all an ideal amount of time, but with the way our lives had been going, it looked like we’d need to squeeze in the important talks when and where we could. Now seemed like a good time.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked quietly. My fingers trembled on the steering wheel, and I held my breath as I awaited her answer.

  She was silent for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I’d started running through a list of other possible questions I could ask her that would get her to talk to me. I’d just decided on one and was trying to locate the courage to actually voice it when she spoke. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that any more than you believed me when I said I was fine.” I made sure to keep my tone light, not wanting her to think I was being snarky right now.

  She rubbed the palm of one hand across her forehead. “Fair enough.”

  The blanket of quiet that settled on us then was a little too heavy. I swallowed against the buzzing in the back of my throat. “That your boss?”

  “How’d you guess?” I didn’t think her cutting tone was necessarily meant to wound me.

  “You don’t usually glare at your phone like you’re trying to set it on fire. Not unless it’s a telemarketer.”

  My attempt at humor fell flat, and Allison went back to alternating between staring at her phone and gazing out the window.

  We rode along in silence again for a bit before I couldn’t stand it any longer. “So are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Allison shook her head, eyes still focused on the outside world. “Not right now.”

  “Oh. Okay. And why’s that?”

  “It’s just not the time to get into this. My stupid boss can wait. We need to focus on Mark now.”

  “But you will tell me? Later?”

  Allison finally turned to look at me, and the glimpse I caught of the sad smile she favored me with made me ache. “Yes. Of course. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Okay.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. She was right. We did need to put our personal issues aside so we could concentrate on this situation. But that didn’t stop me from obsessing about them in between wondering whether this hail-Mary play I was about to attempt was even going to work and fearing for our lives.

  We pulled up in front of Hurricane’s building and hopped out of the car. Again, I scanned every inch of the street I could see, searching for any type of threat, but I didn’t detect anything. Nevertheless, my heart thundered the entire time we were making our way from the curb to the door, and the skin between my shoulder blades prickled and burned as though I were being watched.

  “What are we doing here again?” Allison asked me as we entered the lobby.

  “I don’t think I told you what we were doing here in the first place,” I murmured absently, focused on calling the command post upstairs. Since Hurricane didn’t have an event, there was no agent in the lobby, so I needed them to key the elevator to let us up. I’d emailed Hannah before we’d left NYFO to make sure she wasn’t busy, so she was expecting us.

  “That’s right. You didn’t.” Allison’s tone was sarcastic. “Surprise, surprise.”

  I grinned at her, edging in the direction of so exhausted and burnt out that everything was hilarious. “You said it yourself. We need help.”

  “Oh, of course. Well, that certainly clarifies everything.”

  The elevator ride up to the floor where Platform was located was silent. Allison had once again lapsed into silent brooding, while I was diligently going over what I was planning to say in my mind. I’d only get one shot at this, and I didn’t want to mess it up.

  Hannah greeted us on the landing, looking as serious as ever, but I caught a faint undertone of concern in her eyes that sparked a measure of guilt in me. I hadn’t meant to worry her. I just hadn’t been sure who else to turn to.

  “Hannah. You remember Allison, right?”

  Hannah inclined her head toward Allison in greeting, a gesture that Allison returned. “Is everything okay? Your email was a little cryptic.”

  “It’s complicated. And I’m sorry about that. I…uh…I need to get in touch with SAIC Quinn. I don’t suppose she’s still here, is she?”

  It’d occurred to me briefly before leaving NYFO that I might’ve asked that question before coming all the way over here, but in the end I’d decided it didn’t matter if she was here or not. In the event she wasn’t, I figured I could either wait for her or, if she was out of town altogether, get Hannah to assist me with a conference call.

  Hannah looked completely stunned. Her brow furrowed in confusion, and she put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, she’s upstairs. Hurricane literally just walked back in the door, and they’re going over her schedule for tomorrow. Why?”

  I fiddled with my necklace, nervously using the vaguely pleasant scraping of the chain at the nape of my neck to keep me present in the moment. “Would you mind asking her if she has a minute? I need to speak to her about something.”

  Hannah stared at me for a long moment before pushing the call button for the elevator. “Let’s go upstairs and see if she’s free yet.”

  When the elevator arrived, we all piled on wordlessly. I didn’t have a clue what the other two were thinking. My own thoughts were a wild tangle I was desperately trying to unravel. Butterflies took wing in the pit of my stomach, and I rested my hands across my abdomen in a vain attempt to quiet them. Despite the fact that she was clearly in a terrible mood for reasons I could only imagine, Allison placed a reassuring hand on the small of my back. I shot her a grateful look.

  The SAIC was just coming out of Hurricane’s apartment as we stepped off the elevator, and my nerves sizzled. She was dressed impeccably in a black pin-striped suit with a white button-down shirt. Her hair was loose and a little tousled, as though she’d been running her hands through it and had then attempted to finger-comb it back off her face. She also looked exhausted, which took me by surprise and highlighted for me even further how inconsiderate I felt for just dropping by like this.

  A flush rose in my cheeks. I barely knew the woman, and here I was interrupting her evening without knowing whether she was even the right person to turn to. I just had to cross my fingers she was—or that she could point me in the right direction if she wasn’t—because I was out of ideas.

  SAIC Quinn fixed me with a curious look when she noticed me, and I took that as my cue to start speaking.

  “SAIC Quinn. I know it’s late. My apologies for breaking in on your night. I’m not certain if you remember me. I’m Ryan O’Connor. We met the other day.” Had it only been yesterday? I wasn’t sure. The days had become a blur to me. “And you already know Allison Reynolds.”

  “Of course I remember you. And it’s nice to see you again, Agent Reynolds. Please, call me Claudia. What can I do for you?”

  “Again, I’m terribly sorry for intruding on your evening. May I have a moment of your time? I need to discuss a sensitive matter with you. And Hannah.” Technically, Hannah shouldn’t have been involved in this any more than the SAIC should’ve been, but I was craving the moral support her presence provided.

  SAIC Quinn’s face now was businesslike and deathly serious. She glanced at the agent standing post in the hall before she motioned for us to follow her. There was only one other apartment on the floor, and as far as I knew, no one lived there, so I wasn’t sure where she was leading us. I glanced to Hannah, but her expression gave away nothing.

  SAIC Quinn dug around in her suit pants pocket for a moment before pr
oducing a key. She opened the door and took a few steps inside. I hesitated, and SAIC Quinn turned around to face me.

  “Come on in.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. We couldn’t impose like that. We can discuss this here, if that’s all right.” I didn’t really want to get into all of this in front of the agent standing post in the hallway, who I didn’t think I’d ever seen before, but I also didn’t want to encroach upon her evening any more than I already was.

  “Nonsense. There’s no reason to stand in the hall. We might as well get comfortable. I was planning to make some coffee anyway. Join me.” And with that, she turned away, leaving us to follow her.

  I shared an uncomfortable look with Allison before trailing Hannah inside. I had no idea why she’d have keys to an apartment on the same floor as Hurricane’s and was unwilling to entertain any of the scenarios my mind was throwing out. It seemed strange to me that she’d want to reside this close to her protectee. Neither Allison nor I had that type of experience with anyone we’d been responsible for safeguarding, so we were both obviously uneasy with the situation.

  When I finally made it into the kitchen, SAIC Quinn was already getting out mugs for everyone.

  “So…uh…I didn’t know you lived here,” I said in a feeble attempt to make small talk while SAIC Quinn made sure everyone was set up with something to drink before we all got settled in the living room. Allison shot me a dirty look, and I lifted my hands in reply. She had to know I was going to ask.

  “Oh, I don’t,” the SAIC said as she retrieved some creamer from the fridge. “No one does, actually. Building management lets us use it on the sly since they don’t have a tenant. I’m short-changing tomorrow, and I occasionally crash here so I don’t have to lose sleep on a long commute.”

  I winced at the news and surreptitiously checked my watch. I was seriously cutting into her sleep time, and the knowledge hit me hard and sparked a little fire of guilt inside my chest.

  “So, what can I do for you?” the SAIC asked as soon as we all had our respective drinks and had taken seats in the living room.

  I swallowed hard, playing with my coffee cup as I attempted to decide where to begin. Trying to mentally calm my jangling nerves, I took a deep breath. “What I’m about to tell you is extremely unbelievable. It isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense to you—hell, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me—and I know I’m breaking a whole slew of rules and jumping about eighteen chains of command by coming to you with this.”

  “Why did you come to me with this?” SAIC Quinn asked. Her voice held just the right amount of gentleness and curiosity to put me at ease. Well, as at ease as I could be, considering the circumstances.

  “Hannah trusts you,” I said immediately, sharing a meaningful glance with the woman in question. “She told me once you’d be a good person to have in my corner. I need you in my corner now.”

  SAIC Quinn appeared to consider that statement for a moment. She sat back in her chair and crossed her right ankle over her left knee and took another sip of her coffee. “Go on.”

  I exchanged a look with Allison, who was sitting next to me on the couch. Without a word, she slipped her hand in mine. I smiled at her a little nervously, hoping my gratitude for the gesture showed in my eyes.

  “I need to talk to you about the assassination attempt on the president of Iran,” I said, mulling over the words as they left my mouth. I was still a trifle uneasy about discussing this whole thing outside of the JTTF. I wasn’t technically supposed to talk about a terrorism-related matter with anyone but another task force member; and while I’d kept the discussion with Allison vague enough that the rules were bent instead of broken, I wouldn’t have that luxury now. In order for SAIC Quinn to be able to help me, I’d need to get into the weeds with her. I didn’t like it, but the way I saw it, I needed someone with her pull and connections in DHS to help me sort this out as quickly as possible. I figured that necessity overrode rules. Probably. And if it didn’t, well, I really hoped I could rock orange as well as the women from that prison show.

  Both SAIC Quinn and Hannah appeared shocked. Allison seemed more anxious than anything else, but that was to be expected, seeing as how she knew exactly what I was about to say. I felt her hand clamp tighter on mine, and she fidgeted in the seat next to me.

  “Only it wasn’t an assassination attempt on the president of Iran,” I went on. I cleared my throat. This next part was only one of the ones I was worried about. If they didn’t take my word for this, it was unlikely they would believe me about who was responsible. “It was an assassination attempt on me.”

  SAIC Quinn’s eyes drifted away from mine to focus on something I couldn’t see in the corner of the room. Her gaze became distant, glassy. I kept all my attention on her, afraid to see Hannah’s reactions to that revelation.

  “That makes sense,” SAIC Quinn said slowly.

  “It does?” I didn’t even try to hide my shock at her words.

  She nodded thoughtfully, still staring blankly into that corner. “It does. You were the Intelligence Advance for the visit, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where were you standing when the shots were fired?”

  “Next to the trunk of the limo. I’d just been pushed off the door by one of the shift guys and was headed back to my own car.”

  “So you were, what? About four feet from the president?”

  “Maybe five. I’m not good with distances.”

  SAIC Quinn finally shifted her eyes back to me. “You were too far away from the president for him to have been the target. And all of the shots hit you. None of them got anywhere close to him. Or anyone else, for that matter, with one obvious exception. If someone goes to the trouble to hire a hit man, he doesn’t hire one that sloppy. You generally don’t get a second chance at an assassination attempt. So when you have your opportunity, you make it count.”

  I let out a shaky breath and collapsed back into the couch, completely drained. “You believe me.”

  Her lips quirked in some semblance of a wry smile. “Would you be surprised to learn I’ve actually been thinking about that day a lot and that several things about it never quite added up?”

  My relief was palpable. It hadn’t dawned on me until that moment how much I’d needed to hear that I hadn’t been imagining things, that I wasn’t crazy. Even though I possessed hard evidence to support my theory, a teeny part of me had doubted anyone would accept it.

  “But I suspect that’s not exactly the entire reason you came to see me tonight,” SAIC Quinn said.

  I sighed, knowing the most unbelievable part was yet to come. “No, ma’am. It isn’t. I’m here because I know who tried to have me killed.”

  SAIC Quinn regarded me intently for a long moment, and I held her eyes, still deliberately ignoring Hannah and Allison. But I didn’t need to look at Allison to know her entire body had tensed and she was seething. I was touched to learn she could be spurred to violence on my behalf. It was very sweet, in a twisted sort of way.

  “Shouldn’t you have gone to your boss with this information?” SAIC Quinn wanted to know.

  I snorted, unwilling and unable to hide my derision. “I can’t exactly do that. Seeing as how my boss is the one who tried to off me.”

  “What?!” Hannah almost shouted.

  “That’s a pretty serious allegation,” SAIC Quinn said after a moment.

  “I know. Believe me, I wish it weren’t true.” My tone was caustic as I spoke, and I scowled.

  “Can you tell me what makes you think that?” The SAIC’s tenor was even, impassive.

  And with a deep breath, I launched into the story. I told her how I’d first started looking at Akbari and about Mark’s odd behavior when he’d found out. I laid out the trails I’d followed between telephone numbers: from the number Akbari had dialed immediately after Meaghan and I’d left the night we’d interviewed him to Fallahi, from Fallahi to Golzar, from Golzar to the unidentified burner phone. I spelled out
how that same burner phone had also made several calls to Golzar in the days leading up to “the incident,” including one about ten minutes before I’d been shot, and how after that call, Golzar had then immediately called another burner phone that I suspected belonged to the actual shooter. The hardest part to tell, as it turned out, had been how I’d just discovered that the first burner phone, the one that’d been called the night this ball had started rolling, had belonged to Mark.

  “Holy shit,” Hannah whispered softly.

  “Yeah.” I smiled at her a little ruefully.

  We were all quiet for a long time.

  “You have documentation to back this up, I assume?” the SAIC asked finally.

  I nodded, unable to speak. A lump had formed in my throat that was making it hard for me to swallow, let alone form words. Much like with Lucia’s death, reality washed over me at the oddest times, crashing into me hard and then ebbing away, only to sneak up on me later and pound me all over again like a vengeful sea. This was one of those latter times. My boss tried to have me killed. Life was so surreal sometimes.

  “I don’t know why he still has the phone,” I murmured almost to myself. “If he’d just gotten rid of it, I never would’ve known it was him.”

  “Well, lucky for us, he does have it,” SAIC Quinn announced. “It’ll be easy for us to track him with it. And tough for him to deny involvement after he’s arrested holding it in his hand. But it does make time an issue. We need to move on this before he dumps it.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” I was still trying to accept the situation for what it was and failing miserably. “Why wouldn’t he have tossed it? He’s a federal agent, for crying out loud. He knows better. He can’t be that stupid.”

  “Who cares why he still has it?” Hannah asked. “All that matters is we can link him to the sniper.”

  Against my better judgment, I glanced at Allison. Her face was a mask of righteous fury, her dark eyes glinting with barely contained rage. When she noticed me watching her, however, she took a deep breath and adopted an air of forced calm. My heart fractured at the gesture. It shattered completely when she slipped her arm around me and pulled me closer. I sighed and rested one hand on the top of her thigh.