Word of Honor

by Radclyffe

  “I wish I knew that too,” Lucinda said, obviously frustrated. She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “Listen, Cameron. I don’t know who blew that van off the highway. Right now, we don’t even know how they did it. Have any thoughts on that?”

  “It might have been a car bomb triggered by a radio signal,” Cam said, “but judging by what happened out in the Atlantic last month, it could just as easily be a surface-to-surface missile again. You’ve got a team looking at the wreckage out there now, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unfortunately,” Savard put in, “I don’t think discovering the how is going to tell us anything about the who. Almost anyone can get military ordnance these days—foreign terrorists, domestic militants, your average Joe Survivalist down the street.”

  “Agreed,” Cam said. “What we need to concentrate on is who wanted Early dead.”

  “I would think Matheson would be at the head of that list,” Lucinda said grimly.

  “Possibly,” Cam said, far from certain. Matheson had eyes and ears in high places, that was clear. She didn’t believe for a second that Valerie’s handler was the only person in the Company with ties to Matheson. Operations like Matheson’s didn’t go undetected without more than a few people helping to keep it quiet. Every security branch had its share of hawks and superpatriots who believed that the end justified any means, if the end was preserving national supremacy. Such people were not above aiding militants, funding false flag operations designed to incite public support for armed retaliation, even orchestrating the assassination of political figures. “If Early had close ties to Matheson and was privy to things certain people didn’t want him talking about, it might not have been Matheson who wanted him out of the way.”

  Lucinda’s face hardened. “You’re talking about someone on the inside, one of us.”

  “On the inside, maybe,” Cam said grimly. “But not one of us.”

  “But those were federal agents driving that prison van,” Savard protested. “No one inside would…”

  “Collateral damage.” Cam leaned back, suddenly more tired than she’d realized.

  “The SUV ahead of us pulled over right before the prison van was hit,” Savard said, her disbelief turning to fury. “If we hadn’t been there, there would have been a clear shot at the van and both the lead car and the follow car would have been out of the blast zone. But then we pulled in behind the van and drove right into the field of fire!”

  “That’s my read too,” Cam said, rubbing at the tension between her eyes.

  Averill Jensen squared the empty pad of paper in front of him. He had uncapped his pen earlier as if he were going to take notes, but had written nothing down. “We’ll do everything we can from our end to trace the leak, if there was one. There won’t be a paper trail, but calls were made.”

  Cam shrugged. “It has to be done, but it could take weeks. I think we simply have to assume that none of our communications are secure.” She looked pointedly at Lucinda. “Not even in and out of your office.”

  “Where does this put us in terms of tracking down Matheson?” Lucinda asked.

  “About where we were before,” Cam said. “My people are combing personal histories, electronic data, reports from FBI and ATF agents inside the patriot organizations, looking for connections.” The dull throb between her eyes accelerated to a full-blown headache. “We’re monitoring known cells, tracking targets on watch lists.”

  “He’s running circles around us,” Averill said bitterly.

  Cam eyed him coldly. “Almost twenty men, none of them nationals, entered this country over a period of several years, established identities, trained on flight simulators, and managed to pull off an orchestrated terrorist attack without the combined power of all the security agencies in this country being able to detect them. Finding one U.S. citizen who has spent his entire life preparing to go into hiding is going to take plain old grunt work and a hell of a lot of luck.”

  “You don’t think we’ll get him,” Lucinda said wearily.

  “Oh, we’ll get him,” Cam said, “because we won’t quit until we do.” What she didn’t say, what she refused to think about, was what he might do first.

  *

  Blair felt all the eyes in the room on her as she walked over to Paula. “Let’s compare notes.”

  Stark smiled, but she looked worried. “Everything’s fine, nobody’s hurt, and it was just a little unexpected detour. Does that fit with your version?”

  “Pretty much. Did Renée sound okay?”

  “She sounded pumped.” Stark laughed briefly. “There’s a reason she went into the FBI and I went into the Secret Service. She wants to chase bad guys, clean up the streets, strike a blow for justice. Me, I want to see that those responsible for justice stay safe. I don’t need the rush like she does.”

  Blair squeezed Paula’s shoulder. “She’s no cowboy. Neither is Cam. But I know what you mean. I got the same story you did, pretty much. Cam did tell me that Renée was okay.”

  “Renée told me the commander was okay too.”

  “Then I guess we can assume they’re both walking and talking.” Blair closed her eyes for a second. “You should take a break now. You’ve been on duty all day.”

  Paula glanced across the room at Valerie, who stood apart from Blair’s friends talking on her cell phone. “I’m too keyed up to sleep right now.”

  Blair knew she should sleep, but the bed would be too cold and empty and her mind too filled with unwelcome images of what life might have been like had things turned out differently. She announced to the room at large, “I’m going to work. Diane, Emory, you’re welcome to stay here tonight. The guest room is empty and—”

  “Actually,” Valerie interrupted, “for the time being, everyone is staying here. The deputy director feels that the situation is still too unstable to decentralize our personnel, and she doesn’t want anyone left unguarded. So I suggest you all get comfortable for the night.”

  Blair joined her friends while Valerie walked over to converse with Stark. “There’s food in the refrigerator and wine in the cooler under the counter. Diane, you know where all my clothes are. You and Emory can grab whatever you need.”

  “I’ve got an empty guest room in my quarters,” Dana offered.

  “Now that’s a lovely invitation,” Diane said playfully, “but I’m going to have to turn it down.” She raised an eyebrow in Emory’s direction. “Why don’t you take her up on it?”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Blair said, when Emory didn’t answer. “We’re all here until at least tomorrow, so everyone might as well be comfortable.”

  Emory shrugged, avoiding Dana’s gaze. “Sure, makes sense.” She hugged Blair and whispered, “I’m so glad she’s okay.”

  Blair returned the embrace. “So am I. Thanks for being here. And you are definitely not going back to Boston now.”

  “I surrender.” Emory laughed. “One of the many advantages of living with my mother is when I’m traveling and forget something, she can send it to me. I’ll have her ship what I need out to the resort. That way, when everyone’s ready to leave, I can go with you.”

  “Excellent,” Blair and Diane said simultaneously. Dana, Blair noticed, had a particularly pleased glint in her eye.

  *

  “The bedroom is down that way,” Dana said, pointing as she closed the door to the apartment. “Bathroom also. I didn’t have time to stock the kitchen, but there’s coffee, soda, and some snacks in the cabinet.”

  “I’m not hungry, thanks,” Emory said, holding the bundle of clothes she’d borrowed from Blair in her arms.

  Dana leaned back against the door, giving Emory as much space as she could. Emory looked tired and a little anxious. “Do I make you nervous?”

  “No,” Emory said in surprise. “Why would you?”

  “Well, there’s the reporter thing.”

  “That’s doesn’t make me nervous. It just annoys me.”

  “What about me b
eing a lesbian?”

  Emory stared, then burst out laughing. For a second, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. The entire day had had an atmosphere of unreality. She’d started out in a meeting with four uptight potential foundation donors who had the scientific knowledge of a colony of ants. It had taken her two hours just to explain what her research was all about and another two to convince them that it was worthy of their exalted contributions. Then she’d discovered that her friends had brought the enemy into their midst in the person of Dana Barnett, and try as she might, she couldn’t really bring herself to dislike her. In fact, she felt an unexpected attraction to her—or at least to her dogged determination and her absolute, unshakable sense of purpose. Then she’d been whisked out of the hotel and thrown into the midst of Blair and Paula’s nightmare, where she’d spent hours feeling alternately enraged and helpless. Now Dana was suggesting she might be worried about something as harmless as her making a pass? “In case you haven’t noticed, some of my best friends are lesbians.”

  Dana grinned. “This is probably the only time I’ve ever heard that cliché when it is so not a cliché. But your best friends are, like, girlfriends.” Her eyes grew smoky. “I’m not.”

  “Do you intend to seduce me?”

  Dana’s heart nearly stuttered to a stop, then raced so fast she was breathless. She hoped she still looked cool and collected, because her temperature had just shot up over the boiling point. “Do you want me to?”

  Emory hesitated, suddenly wanting to be very very clear. Dana watched her as if her next words were the most important words Dana would ever hear. Did she want Dana to seduce her? Was she inviting her to? The idea of being with a woman wasn’t foreign to her—how could it be, when Blair and Diane had become her friends so quickly and so deeply. She’d felt attraction to women now and then throughout her life, but the pull had never been overwhelming. She had written the fleeting feelings off as being perfectly natural and had always assumed she was heterosexual, until she married a man for whom she soon discovered she had no particular passion. What had surprised her most about her marriage was that she yearned for more. Their eventual divorce had been mutually agreeable and completely amicable, even though what underlay her discontent eluded her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” Dana tried to appear relaxed while every muscle in her body was vibrating. She wanted to cross the few feet between them and take Emory’s face in her hands. She wanted to kiss her, very gently and very thoroughly. She wanted Emory to say yes.

  “I feel like I’ve given you the wrong impression.”

  “You haven’t.” Dana smiled wryly. “You’ve been crystal clear about your opinion of me.”

  “We’re not talking about you being a reporter,” Emory said.

  “Sure we are.” With another woman, Dana might not have pressed the point, but Emory wasn’t just any woman. “I’m a reporter, and you might forget it for a few hours, but it will be there in the morning. It will be there between us the next time I ask Blair Powell a question you think will hurt her. It will be there when you confide in me and then wonder if you can trust me.”

  “You’re right. I must be more tired than I thought to have forgotten that.” Emory ignored the pang of disappointment, and secretly thanked Dana for being honest and more realistic than she was apparently capable of being at the moment. “I’m going to go take a shower and then go to bed.”

  “Good night, then,” Dana said.

  “Good night.” Emory started down the hall and then slowed to look back over her shoulder. Her smile was a little sad. “You don’t have to stay out there, you know. I trust you not to seduce me.”

  Dana pushed away from the door and followed her, wondering why she had not taken advantage of what she had seen in Emory’s eyes. For a moment, there had been both vulnerability and desire.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Before dawn, Saturday

  Dana awoke to the soft sound of footsteps in the hall outside her bedroom. She wondered if Emory had had as much difficulty falling asleep the night before as she had. Knowing that only a thin wall and her own reluctance separated them had kept her in a hot sweat for hours while her conscience warred with her body. Rationally, she knew that one wrong step would destroy any chance she had of any kind of relationship, even friendship, with Emory. But her libido taunted her for being a coward and not taking advantage of the hesitation she’d seen in Emory’s eyes. For a long time she had stared into the dark, her skin as hot as it had ever been under the desert sun, her nerves jangling with the anticipation of incoming mortar fire, while she debated knocking on the bedroom door next to hers. She’d never been as aware of a woman she hadn’t even kissed.

  Finally she had fallen asleep and dreamed of shells bursting in a moonless sky, raining fire down on an earth that shuddered under the onslaught of exploding mortar rounds until the sound of Emory’s movement outside her closed door had pulled her from the midst of battle. Dana swung her legs over the side of the bed and scrubbed her hands over her face. She’d gone to sleep as usual in a T-shirt and boxers, both of which were damp now. She cocked an ear but heard nothing, the apartment as quiet as if she were alone. Maybe she was. Maybe Emory had gone upstairs to see her friends. Maybe she’d decided not to stay after all and was on her way uptown to her hotel.

  Dana bounded from bed and was ridiculously relieved when she opened her door to see light coming from the other end of the apartment. She walked down the hall and discovered Emory sitting at the kitchen table staring at Dana’s computer.

  “You’re up early,” Dana said.

  Emory regarded Dana as she stood at the end of the hallway. Her dark hair was disheveled and her face pale beneath her tan. Her nondescript gray T-shirt clung to her torso, damp in places with sweat. Her arms and legs, her whole body, was lean and tight. She wasn’t beautiful, not in an ordinary way, but she was nevertheless breathtaking.

  “I woke you. I’m sorry,” Emory said.

  “No.” Dana’s voice was brittle with fatigue. “I got thirsty.” She made her way to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda. She held it up. “Want one?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Dana leaned against the counter and sipped the soda. Barefoot, Emory wore a white ribbed tank top and loose navy sweatpants. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and it was obvious. Although petite, her breasts were full with a hint of dark nipples beneath the white cotton. In the desert, Dana had gotten used to seeing women and men in various states of undress, and although she might notice a woman’s attractive body, it hadn’t made her throb the way looking at Emory did. She had to concentrate not to reach down and pull her boxers away from her suddenly very sensitive flesh. Aware that Emory was watching her, she asked, “Are you okay?”

  Emory drew one foot up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knee. “Restless. I didn’t think I was going to fall asleep, I was so keyed up, and when I did…” She shrugged.

  “Bad dreams?”

  “Anxious ones.” Emory contemplated what terrors had visited Dana in the night, because she gave every sign of having awakened from a nightmare. “How about you?”

  Dana was so used to avoiding any kind of personal conversation, she almost gave one of her noncommittal answers. Then she thought about the fact that she was alone with a woman at four thirty in the morning, and she didn’t want to pretend it didn’t matter. “I’m still getting the last skirmish out of my system. It’ll be another few weeks before I adjust to sleeping in a bed and not listening for incoming fire.”

  Emory frowned. “Are all your assignment so dangerous?”

  “No, usually they’re really cushy ones like this.” Dana smiled and Emory laughed.

  “Oh yes, tonight was nothing but fun and games.” Emory glanced toward the digital clock on the stove. “I wonder if Cam is back yet.”

  Dana noticed the familiarity with which Emory referred to the deputy director. Whatever had happened to bond that group t
ogether, it had been significant. “When did you meet all of them?”

  “Last month in…” Emory shook her head. “I don’t even know how to have a conversation with you because I’m afraid anything I say will end up in print.”

  Dana pulled out a chair and sat down facing Emory. She nodded toward her computer. “Were you looking for something? My notes on Blair Powell, maybe?”

  “What? No! I saw it and wanted to check my e-mail for messages from the lab, but then I realized I couldn’t just use your computer.” Emory couldn’t believe Dana was insinuating she might be going through her personal documents. “Why would you even think I was reading your notes?”

  “I don’t.”

  Emory narrowed her eyes, astonished that Dana could anger her so easily. She was used to dealing with confrontational, argumentative, even obnoxiously rude people without losing her temper. Dana made a mildly insulting insinuation and she completely lost her composure. “Then why did you ask? You don’t know me well enough to make that kind of accusation.”

  Dana rested her elbows on her knees and supported her chin on her interlaced fingers, grinning slightly. She tilted her head from side to side. “Well, you don’t know me, either, but you suspect the worst.”

  “With good reason,” Emory snapped. “I watched you questioning everyone you could tonight, including me. That’s what you do. It’s all a means to an end for you, isn’t it?”

  “I was working part of the time tonight, you’re right,” Dana said, struggling not to let her temper take over. “Does it make any difference to you that the White House specifically requested that I do this job? And the deputy director—Blair Powell’s lover—insisted that I do it? Do you think I like following the first daughter around, imposing on her privacy?” Angry at the situation and angrier still that Emory blamed her for it, Dana shot to her feet. “I’d rather be back in Afghanistan being bombed.”

  Emory jumped up as Dana stalked away and grabbed her wrist. “Don’t say that.”