by Tinnean
“Yes, sir.” I stood and put my cup on the tray near the urn. “Just one last thing. This is the second time my senior special agent has been interfered with. If there’s a third time….” I let the threat hang.
“Really, Mark?”
“Mr. Wallace, you made me director of my department. I take care of my people.”
“Yes, you do. Do whatever you have to. I’ll back you up.” He offered me his hand.
“Thank you, sir.”I took his hand and shook it before turning and walking out.
Gershom was standing by the elevator, a satisfied smirk on his face. I stared at him until he began fidgeting, jabbing the call button for the elevator. It finally arrived and he bolted into it.
For a moment I was tempted to get in after him, but I could smell the flop sweat on him. That elevator would need to be fumigated once he got out.
I opened the door to the stairwell and trotted down to seven, putting him out of my mind.
***
Wednesday was a quiet day. Matheson was back, a bit gimpy and with a love bite on his throat that looked like Dracula had chowed down on him, but he was whistling.
And the next day, my secretary would be back. Not that the temp hadn’t been decent. He did his work and stayed out of my way.
Just before I left for the day, The Boss sent me an e-mail. I had to take a 9:00 a.m. meeting at the OIG with General Kirkpatrick.
Well, wasn’t that special.
I left a note on my secretary’s desk and went home.
Chapter 3
Ms. Parker looked up from her computer as I walked into her office. “Mr. Vincent!” She sprayed cracker crumbs over her desk. “Sorry, sir.” There was a box of saltines beside her keyboard. She covered her mouth and mumbled, “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
I didn’t expect her to see me either. General Kirkpatrick of the OIG, the asshole I was supposed to meet, had canceled at the last minute because that even bigger asshole, Major Jonathan Drum II, had gotten himself into some kind of a mess, and Kirkpatrick had to clean it up. I figured I might as well go in to the WBIS, since I was still playing catch-up.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Thank you for the lovely flowers. I rescheduled all your appointments!” There was a crease between her brows, and she worried her lip.
“That’s okay.” Hadn’t she been with me long enough to know I wouldn’t blame her for acts of God or me?
“Sorry, sir. I was assigned to Mr. Perry while you were away, and… I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wasn’t really sick. I just couldn’t deal with working for him. I’m… I’m still not myself.” She took a cracker from the package and nibbled on it.
“What? What were you doing with Perry?”
Perry was Deputy Director of Security. He’d worked that department at Huntingdon Phoenix and I’d run into him last year when I’d been at the Sago Palms Golf Resort practicing my golf swing and incidentally making the guys who were running that job in Arizona nervous. He hadn’t liked me, I hadn’t liked him, but there were twenty-three hundred miles between us, so it hadn’t mattered.
Unfortunately, he’d transferred to WBIS headquarters at the beginning of the year.
Ms. Parker flushed. “I was told you agreed I should work for other directors as necessary. And I understand completely, sir! It’s just that Mr. Perry is very… ” She coughed lightly. “He likes things done his way.”
And I liked them done mine. “Goddammit!”
She flinched.
“You didn’t think to question those instructions?”
“Of course not, sir. If those were your orders….” She shut up when she heard me grind my teeth.
Yeah. If she was told I’d given the okay, she wouldn’t challenge them, any more than she had objected when she’d been requested to “date” that CIA shit who’d finally been transferred to Turkmenistan. Who was fucking with my secretary? And more importantly, why?
“Mr. Vincent?” Were those tears in her eyes?
Fuck, I’d upset her. “This isn’t your fault, Ms. Parker. Who did the assigning?”
“Human Resources, sir.”
“Humphrey?” What the fuck was wrong with him? Humpy Dumpty was a director. He knew better than to—
“No, sir. It was Mr. Morris.”
“Who?”
“Morris. He was bumped to deputy director over Mr. Bixby.”
“Yeah? I’ll have a little talk with this Morris. So he was the one who assigned you to Perry?”
“Yes, sir.” She was secretary to the Director of Interior Affairs—which was me—and she shouldn’t have been passed around to another director like someone’s sloppy seconds.
“Okay. For future reference, you only work for me, no matter what anyone, including The Boss, tells you. Don’t worry about the schedule.” I went into my office, dropped my umbrella into the stand in the corner and hung up my overcoat. Then I shot my cuffs. How the fuck could I be expected to get any work done when people persisted in fucking with my department? I went back to the outer office. “I’ll be on four.”
Her eyes lit up, but otherwise she kept her expression neutral. The fourth floor was where Human Resources had their offices.
“Yes, sir.” She reached for another cracker.
I ran into Bixby just as I came out of the stairwell on four. “Vincent.” He looked like someone had been dancing on his last nerve.
“Bixby.”
“You’ve come to visit us again. I suppose I should thank you for not scaring off that temp.”
“You’re welcome. Where’s Morris?”
“In his office. The only time he leaves it is to go home.”
“What, not even to take a piss?”
“Not even then. It makes me wonder if he wears Depends. You know something? I don’t think anyone would recognize Morris if he walked up and kissed their ass.”
“And is that likely?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” He raised an eyebrow when I didn’t move, then scrubbed his face and nodded. “Right. His office. Sorry. It’s three doors down this corridor and on the left.”
“Thanks. You’re not going to advise him he has a visitor coming?”
“And spoil the surprise? Are you kidding, Vincent? I’d pay good money to see you in action! I heard about the time you told Davies you’d turn the tenth floor into a wasteland. Do me a favor. Persuade Morris he doesn’t want to work here any longer!”
When I got there, the secretary in the outer office glanced up from what she was doing—filing her nails—and her face turned a sickly greenish-gray when she saw me.
“M-M-Mr. Vincent!”
“Miss Jones.” I knew I could have that effect on people at times, but she had even more of a reason to be alarmed. I thought I’d made it clear I wanted her out of the WBIS, but apparently someone wasn’t paying attention.
She’d been Matheson’s secretary when he’d first been promoted to senior special agent. Of course she’d been blonde then.
Matheson suspected something was off when he couldn’t access her file in Personnel, so while I sent him out of town on a job, I looked into our Miss Jones. What I learned was she was actually working for Anson Davies. Another asshole who’d been happy enough when I was in the field, but now I had a position commensurate with his, not so much. He’d like nothing better than to see me out of the WBIS. And if my special agent was collateral damage, that would suit Davies down to the ground.
I’d leave when I was ready, unless The Boss told me to go sooner.
At that time, I’d had a little chat with Davies, and then made sure Matheson got a secretary who would be loyal to him. Arianne DiNois filled the bill.
“Y-you’re mistaken,” Miss Jones was saying now. “My name is Smith!”
“Uh-huh.” Did she think changing the color of her hair would alter her appearance that much? Never mind, I’d deal with her later. “I’m here to see Morris. Is he in?”
“Yes, but he’s�
� wait! You can’t—”
“Can’t I?” I walked past her desk and opened the door into Morris’s office.
“Miss Smith, I thought I told you I wasn’t to be disturbed!” The man behind the desk flushed darkly and shoved something into the top drawer. Just before he slammed the drawer shut I got a glimpse of the cover. It was a copy of Playgirl.
Which he probably got just for the articles.
“Who are you? I’ll have to ask you to leave at once!”
“I’m Vincent, and I’ll leave when I’m fucking ready.” I pulled up a chair, made myself comfortable, and looked him over.
Morris wasn’t a choice specimen of manly pulchritude; he had no chin and a receding hairline. Still, there was a ring on his finger. Someone must have found something appealing about him.
“Oh! Of course! Heh, heh, heh. I don’t believe we’ve…er… that is, it’s very nice to meet you.” The color in his cheeks faded, revealing a pasty-faced complexion. He swallowed so hard I thought his Adam’s apple was going to pop out through his mouth. “What… uh… what can I do for you, Mr. Vincent?”
“What’s Miss Jones doing here?”
“Eh? Who?”
Were we going to play Twenty Questions? “Miss Smith.”
That threw him. “I… I don’t understand. She’s my secretary.”
“She was your secretary. If she’s not out of this building within the next three minutes, I’ll escort her off the premises myself, and trust me, neither you nor she will like it.”
“You can’t do that! Can you?”
“Watch me.” I got to my feet and crossed to the door.
“No! Stop! She’ll sue us for wrongful termination!”
Not if she wanted to stay healthy, she wouldn’t. “Miss Jones….”
She was gone.
“Shit!” There had to be a reason why she’d bolted. I picked up the phone on her desk and put in a call to Security. “This is Vincent.”
“Mr. Vincent. It’s Dev Howard.” He’d been transferred to Security about six months earlier and he was doing a decent job. I’d kept an eye on him for a time while he was still in my department, since he was senior to Matheson and in other agencies would have been given the promotion to senior special agent after I’d been bumped to Deputy Director. He’d actually seemed relieved; The Boss and I were probably the only ones aware of that. And maybe Matheson, although he kept his mouth shut.
***
“Face it, Mark,” Mr. Wallace had said. “You’re intimidating.”
“Me?”
He’d laughed and mused dryly, “I can’t imagine why anyone would tread warily around you.”
“Yeah. Beats hell out of me too.”
***
“Mr. Perry is taking the day off, and Mr. Gershom is away from his desk. What can I do for you, sir?” Howard asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“There’s a woman I want you to find and bring to my office. She was last seen on four. She’s about five eight, one twenty pounds, red hair, blue eyes, and she’s going by the name of Smith this time around.”
“This time around?”
“She used to be Miss Jones.”
“Uh… would that be the woman who got canned last spring?”
“Yeah, that’s her. How is it you’re aware?”
“I was still in Interior Affairs at the time, and I saw her in Matheson’s office once or twice. Xander happened to….” He choked over his words. “What I meant to say was when I first came to Security, I remembered her, and I was curious and checked her out and… um… I’m on it, sir!”
“Thanks, Howard.” So he’d gotten the word from someone within the WBIS. It didn’t make any difference, as long as it had Howard on the ball. I hung up and went back into Morris’s office.
He was screwing the cover back on a thermos, and as soon as he finished, he set it aside and reached for something in his pocket. I had my Glock out and aimed for his head.
“A handkerchief! I was getting a handkerchief!” He had alcohol on his breath. Whatever he had in his thermos must be spiked.
I gestured with the Glock for him to go ahead, and when I saw it was a handkerchief, I holstered the gun.
“I’m not used to working in an environment like this!” He rubbed the handkerchief over his mouth and chin and the back of his neck. “What… what’s going on?”
“Last year, Miss Jones was involved in the attempt to discredit one of my agents.”
“Why do you keep calling her that? Her name is Miss Smith.”
“Kind of forgettable as far as names go, isn’t it? Anyone and his brother could be Smith.”
“I know nothing about that.”
“How’d she get another job here?”
“I… I assure you I have no idea. She was here when I started two months ago.”
Two months? I’d been in and out frequently during that period, but Ms. Parker would have been aware, and so would Ms. DiNois. Which meant that either the Jones bitch had been lying low—and from first impressions, she wouldn’t know how to do that—or someone was helping her play a deep game.
I cracked my knuckles, and Morris whimpered, bringing my attention back to him and reminding me what had brought me to his office in the first place. “Why did you tell my secretary I’d given you permission to assign her to another department?”
“Who is your secretary?”
“Ms. Parker.”
“Oh, yes. I could see she was going to be stubborn about it.” He took one look at my face and turned green. “It was more cost efficient my way! She would have been sitting doing nothing…. I must tell you dealing with something in this manner was highly thought of in my previous place of employment. I… I was awarded a plaque for it!” He could tell I wasn’t impressed, and his mouth took on a sullen twist. “The... the truth of the matter is she’s become involved with someone within this organization!”
“So?” I wasn’t about to ask him if he had any idea what my secretary had done for the WBIS—as per the request of this organization, she’d been in a relationship with a spook who liked to talk after sex. That had lasted until he’d been transferred to Turkmenistan. I wasn’t going to object to where she found a measure of happiness.
“I was told to deal with it however I saw fit.”
“By who?”
His eyes skittered off mine.
“By who?”
He jumped and admitted reluctantly, “Mr. Davies.”
“So assigning her to Perry was a form of punishment.” I kept my temper under wraps, but it was a close thing.
“No, of course not! That would be unethical. But this… this sort of involvement isn’t permitted!”
“Since when?” I knew Howard was dating Davies’s personal assistant, and for a time Browne had been living with Max Futé, the little French doctor I’d offered a job here at the WBIS when I’d learned he’d kept Quinn alive after Quinn had been kidnapped by the nut job who ran Prinzip, an antiterrorist organization situated in Paris.
“It’s never good policy!”
“But it’s not against any regulation of the Washington Bureau of Intelligence and Security. It’s just you who doesn’t approve. Tell me something, Morris. What do you think of this organization’s policy regarding same-sex relationships?”
“I think it’s wrong! The military has the right of it!”
“You see anyone around here wearing a uniform? Trevor Wallace implemented that policy when he took over the WBIS back in the day. You want to challenge him about it?”
“No!” His eyes almost bugged out, and I shook my head. He was a teapot tyrant, and Bixby was right. Morris needed to leave. “But even Mr. Wallace would see what Ms. Parker is doing as going too far!”
“Okay. So who is she dating?”
“I really shouldn’t say. It’s confidential.” But he was bursting to tell. “That… that cross-dresser!”
“Granger?” I couldn’t help grinning. I’d run into Gabe during a CIA affair on New Year�
�s Eve a couple of years ago, when we’d both been working. He’d mentioned he was interested in my secretary.
So Granger had made his move, and she’d said yes. I’d been so wrapped up in Quinn it had completely bypassed me. I’d just known that for the past six months, my secretary had seemed happier than she had for a long time before that.
“And… and that senior special agent’s secretary!”
“What?” Ms. DiNois? That could cause problems. Even WBIS agents got jealous. “Do they have any idea of this?”
“Of course they’re aware! They’re in a… a…” His gaze darted around the room, and he lowered his voice, although there were only the two of us here. “A ménage a trios!”
“Ménage a what?” What a moron.
“You know what I mean. Three people instead of two… a man and a woman, which is what’s normal!”
Like that spook Quinn worked with and the two spooks in skirts? I didn’t laugh, although I wanted to. It looked like the WBIS and the CIA had at least one other thing in common, aside from me and Quinn.
“That is not amusing!” Morris slapped his palm on his desk blotter. It didn’t have the effect he must have been hoping for, because while I just gave him a bored look, he’d actually succeeded in startling himself. “In fact, it’s disgusting!”
“Yeah? How about saying that to Granger’s face?” Jesus, what a hypocritical prick. “Where did you work before you came to the WBIS?”
“What difference does that…?” He gulped when he saw my expression. “I was in the health insurance industry.”
“Uh-huh.”
“As the Human Resource manager!”
Big fucking whoop.
“Let me tell you something, Morris, not that it’s going to make any difference to you here at the WBIS. You don’t assign directors’ secretaries to anyone else, ever. And you especially don’t assign mine to someone else. I don’t care if she sits on her ass for eight hours and does nothing more than…” I thought of Miss Jones. “…file her nails.” My cell phone rang, and I took it out. “Vincent.”
