Covert Affairs: Partnership : A Covert Affairs Romance (Book One)

by Valerie Vaughn

  “She’s babying me.”

  “It’s called being polite. You should try it sometime.” God, trust Jeanette to never take his shit. He snorted. “Lord, injury leave always puts you in such a mood. I’ve half a mind to assign you to Perrin for the duration and take advantage of his ability to keep you in line, but then I might lose a deputy.”

  Arthur scowled. “You called me about a briefing?”

  The Director shuffled through a stack of files, passing him a copy. “Yes, latest reports on the situation in Montreal and an update on that Pyrona business.”

  “Ah. Yeah, S told me about it last night.” He flicked through the Montreal report, already considering which agent would be best suited for the joint operation now that he was out.

  “Oh good, any chance you understood a word of what he said?” She waved a hand at the updated dossier, several pages thick and almost certainly filled with technobabble beyond either of their comprehension. He wondered idly if his handler had attempted to explain the finer points of ‘block chain on steroids’ to Jeanette.

  “Got the gist. Whoever’s behind the financial hacks is laying encryption protocols to protect information on what they’re ordering without the knowledge of the companies involved, and a similar firewall prevented remote access to Oliveria’s financial ledgers. It’s hyper-advanced, impossible to crack without detection, and he refuses to entertain the idea that they’re stealing funds to build a death ray.”

  Boothman pursed her lips. “I share his sentiments.”

  “I’m telling you, one of these days—”

  “No,” she concluded. “So, still a dead end there. Continue to wait and see it is.”

  He sighed, rubbing at his left knee when his leg gave a brief spasm. “I really don’t have a great feeling about this.”

  “Neither do I, but until they show their hand, there’s nothing to be done for it.” She shuffled to the Montreal case report. “Now then, onto business we can actually make headway on.”

  ---

  Arthur saw himself out of the Director’s office around noon, at loose ends after a morning spent ironing out the details of the joint operation with the Canadian government. He briefly considered going home early, but being left alone to feel sorry for himself didn’t hold any appeal, especially with the weekend looming. The gym was out, body still too beat up even by his own admittedly low standards. He sighed, hitting the button for sub-floor two before slumping against the elevator railing. If he was going to be a glutton for punishment, he may as well go spend the afternoon trying to woo his unrelenting handler.

  He limped his way to the operations bullpen, swiping his card for access, and came up short at the crowd milling around, wondering if there was an emergency. Every desk was full, technicians and junior staff officers swarming, all three shift managers present, and both department heads bent over the command desk computer speaking too quietly to be heard over the din. He made his way over to Syler, crowd parting to let him through and gawp in his wake. He fucking hated being so openly injured; it felt like being the center ring main event at a circus.

  “What on earth is going on in here?” he asked, lurching gracelessly to a stop beside his handler. Hazel eyes darted up from the monitor, startled. His ridiculously fluffy pompadour had gone from artfully mused to chaotic mess over the course of the morning. Arthur desperately wished he had a free hand available to smooth it out.

  “Bi-monthly training seminar. Sorry,” he darted his eyes back to the computer, “we had a last minute change of agenda. Did you need something?”

  Arthur didn’t.“A chair would be nice,” came out instead, and he immediately cursed his own stupid mouth for piling on the other man’s work load.

  Syler’s brows furrowed, glancing around for one, frazzled mind apparently just remembering Arthur was hurt. He bit down on the urge to snort. At least someone wasn’t making a spectacle of him, more’s the pity it was the only person he might have welcomed it from. His own mouth was doing a fine enough job of making up for it, at any rate.

  “Have mine,” he replied, hopping up.

  “No, it’s fine.” Syler was having none of it, gently pressing a hand down on his shoulder. Arthur gave in with a graceless slump, neck automatically turning to chase his hand. God, he was pathetic. “I have to present in a few minutes anyway.”

  “On?”

  Syler winced. “Erm, your Mexico mission actually. Tutorial on rapid coordination of resources in response to the need for a new exit strategy.”

  “Oh good,” Arthur scowled, darkly. “I can serve as a visual prop of what happens when the agent in question fucks up their own intel gathering job.”

  “You don’t have to stay.” Syler brushed his hand consolingly over the back of his neck, movement absentminded, attention already returned to the monitor displaying security cam footage of his rooftop escapade two days prior.

  Arthur kicked his bad leg up onto the desk, aiming for casual as he suppressed a wince. “Nothing better to do. Go on, whiz kid. Lecture to your adoring fans.” His handler rewarded him with a fond look, shaking his head, riot of curls somehow going further askew. “Oh for god’s sake, hold still.” He reached up, hands going to work in the bird’s nest the young engineer called hair, just as fluffy as he expected, smoothing it neatly back into place. The other man froze in his position bent over the desk. He withdrew his hands reluctantly, finger curling a wayward dark strand before letting go completely. “There we go, that’s better.”

  Syler blinked owlishly, glancing at his reflection in the chrome trim of the monitor. “How the actual fuck did you do that? It never behaves for me!”

  “Patience and persistence have their own rewards, sweetheart. I’ll teach you after we get done visiting my tailor.”

  “Oh please tell me you’re not still on about that.”

  “Promised I would, didn’t I?”

  Syler grumbled, tugging self-consciously on the hem of his sweater before returning his attention to the computer. Arthur settled deeper into the chair, content to watch.

  “Arthur, how are you feeling?” Thompson called, voice rising over the noise of the room as he appeared at his side, returned from wherever he’d darted off to. The man was damned quiet for a retired army officer pushing 70.

  “Been better.” He shrugged.

  “Happens to the best of us. You’ll be back to work before you know it, so enjoy the vacation while it lasts.” The Colonel paused, glancing to his deputy then back at Arthur, considering. “Make the most of it. You never know what can come from some unexpected time off.” His voice pitched lower on the last comment, for all that Syler was entirely too engrossed in his coding to pay them a lick of attention.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” Thompson grinned, tone conspiratorial. “Yes, I think it is.” Arthur couldn’t help feeling buoyed by the tacit approval.

  The Director of Operations cleared his throat, settling a hand on Syler’s shoulder to draw his attention before addressing the rest of the room. “Now then, everyone, we’re running behind enough as it is. To your stations so we can get started, please.”

  Arthur slumped a bit deeper into the command chair as the cacophony increased then cut off altogether, suddenly reminded what this damned meeting was actually about. He liked to believe he was above such paltry feelings as embarrassment, but being faced with the prospect of a detailed play-by-play of his inglorious fuck up daunted even him. He turned his eyes to the space in front of the command desk, settling on the main monitor bank, his handler, and the Colonel, the later of whom had taken up a position off to one side.

  “Alright, time and date for the record is 1205 on 16 October. Training session begins now. Deputy Perrin, if you will?”

  “Right. Situation as follows. On 11 October, our agent was deployed just outside of Mexico City to begin surveillance on identified drug trafficking leader Salvador Sanchez with the final objective being elimination of the target. On the night of 14 October, SA Duf
ault—” Arthur couldn’t help throwing up a jaunty wave, brazen in the face of his humiliation.

  “Yes, thank you Dufault. You are, as always, a known entity to all of us.” Syler quipped, offhand. “As I was saying, at approximately 1100 hours, our agent was posted on an upper floor of the office building across from the cartel’s headquarters. Initial intel gathered pointed to Sanchez being located within the neighboring building with plans to leave for a drop meeting with another cartel head sometime that night. As we later learned, Sanchez actually changed the time and location of the meeting, leaving with his men an hour prior through a concealed side door outside the range of our CCTV coverage, and returned shortly after 1100. With a convoy. This—” he paused to emphasize, “is what we call things not going according to plan.”

  Arthur snorted, momentarily forgetting they had an audience. “When does it ever, honestly?”

  Syler hummed along, unbothered. “First rule of providing support to a field officer—accept that no plan stands up to contact.”

  “Well, there was that one time in Montenegro,” he couldn’t help but interject.

  “There was no plan in Montenegro, Dufault. That entire situation was the absence of a plan.”

  “Precisely!” Arthur beamed, relishing in the exasperated face of his handler. Well, he had to die someday. May as well go out in a blaze of glory. “No plans, no problems. Well, except for the part where I nearly got decapitated by a machete-wielding—”

  “God help me, we are not talking about Montenegro today, Dufault. We’re talking about your moonlit rooftop escapade across Mexico City.”

  “Next session,” he promised, turning to grin over his shoulder at the assembled members of operations. He was met with assorted laughter and at least one whoop. Syler massaged his temples briefly.

  “Suffice to say,” he continued, “the original plan to exit at ground level and proceed undetected to a vehicle several blocks away was somewhat dampened by over a dozen armed guards spilling out of the convoy like angry hornets in response to the assassination of their boss. Which leads us to the aforementioned rooftop escape—”

  “So what happened to your leg, Dufault?” a particularly brazen technician called from somewhere in the back of the room.

  Arthur briefly entertained a slightly bloodthirsty fantasy before acknowledging that he’d brought this on himself by bantering with his handler in front of the minions. “Didn’t quite stick the landing.”

  “Second rule of providing support to a field agent,” Syler pressed on blithely, “despite your best efforts, they will constantly come up with new and interesting ways to give you gray hair. Now, let’s go over the framework for reworking an exit strategy, starting with the pre-contact ground work and moving into dynamic system breaches.”

  Arthur more or less lost the plot at that point, awash in a sea of coding jargon and digital asset acquisition far beyond his pay grade and skill, content to watch and listen as his handler presented a step-by-step guide to getting an agent’s ass out of a hot zone. He looked lighter, somehow, bright and skillful, entirely at home in his place at the front. Incandescent, if he was feeling particularly sappy and, honestly, when wasn’t he sappy about this raven-haired handler of his? He was starting to nauseate himself.

  Towards the end—and, oof, that landing really did look painful through CCTV footage—the Colonel caught his eye, nodding at Syler who continued on obliviously, brown eyes shining like a proud father. Arthur wondered at what sort of dopey expression he must have had on his own face, grateful he was at the command desk where the minions couldn’t see him.

  ‘Jesus, I’m so whipped.’

  ---

  By the time Syler finished his seminar, it was after two o’clock. He was fielding questions from inquiring techs and junior officers off and on for another two hours, eventually relocating to his office in hopes of shaking them off. Arthur followed, stretching out on the couch until the last of them had made their way out, nudging the door shut with the tip of a crutch, a clear sign to any passersby to try again on Monday.

  “My god, you had them hanging onto your every word. I think they’re going to found a new religion in your name.”

  “Oh,” Syler breathed, cheeks going pink. Flushed was such a good look on him. “Thank you. I’m still getting the hang of it.”

  Arthur smiled. “Seems to me like you’ve nailed it, sweetheart.”

  “The comic relief at the start helped a bit, I suppose.”

  “Yeah? I’ll come by for the next one!”

  “Please, please don’t.” Syler stood, slinging his messenger bag across his chest, hitching it higher up his shoulder as he did. “I’m going to head out. Do you want a ride home?”

  “Didn’t you walk?”

  “Self. Driving. Car,” he intoned, waving his tablet to display the progress of his Tesla toward the agency. “It comes when called.”

  “I suppose I can stand another evening in your engine-less monstrosity.” Arthur sighed, hauling himself up. “Want to stop for dinner on the way?”

  “Sure, but you’re buying for that comment.”

  He grinned guilelessly. “Why, sweetheart, if you wanted to make it a date, all you had to do was ask!”

  Syler huffed, shaking his head, curls awry all over again. Well, Arthur figured as he followed him out, maybe next time.

  Eighteen

  Arthur racked the barbell with a clatter before awkwardly maneuvering himself into a seated position on the bench, workout finally finished just as the first of the agency day staff made their way to the facility gym. He’d hauled himself in here early knowing full well he didn’t want an audience privy to the spectacle he was going to make of himself in trying to modify his weight routine. Monday was rough enough without help, thanks.

  He hoisted himself up, panting slightly, already regretting the extra abuse he’d ladled on his upper body as he made his way to the showers. Twice as long to do half as much work. Seemed to be a running theme, lately.

  By the time he made his way to operations and let himself into his handler’s office, he wasn’t even pretending he had a decent excuse to be there. Miranda shook her head at him fondly as he went in, all high heels and crisp collared shirt, neat braids pulled into an artful twist at the back of her neck rendering her the very picture of a functional adult. He wondered if Maria would commiserate with him over the tone of voice contained in her judgmental stare. She lived with her after all. Willingly, even.

  He just wanted somewhere quiet to catch some shut eye, utterly fucking exhausted. Syler wasn’t anywhere to be found, apparently off doing his job, so Arthur stretched out on the sofa, tugging the throw over top of himself and nodding off to the muffled sounds of the day staff going about their work.

  ---

  Arthur came back to wakefulness with a hand carding through his hair again, slim fingers working gently at the space behind his ear, groggy enough to know that several hours had passed. He was smiling before his eyes opened, slow to adjust even in the dim room. The other man must not have turned the lights on when he found him.

  “Have you been here all morning?” Syler murmured.

  “Mm,” he nodded, giving into the urge to nuzzle into the engineer’s hand. “Just a little nap while I waited for you. What time is it?”

  “Just before noon. I was getting ready to take a lunch break.” The other man retracted his hand, straightening. Arthur took that as his cue to sit up himself, ruffling a hand through his hair and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What did you need, Dufault?”

  Arthur finally moved his attention beyond the lovely face and fingers he’d woken to. Lord almighty, the tweed was back. Just the too long trousers, paired off with a white button down rolled to the elbows and a sleeveless camel brown sweater vest that were actually somewhat decent together if one overlooked the flame red skinny tie sandwiched between the layers. He glanced over to the desk, seeing the matching suit jacket thrown carelessly over the back of his office chair. �
�To introduce you to Gerald.”

  Syler’s brows furrowed. “Who now?”

  “You’ll see. Come on.” He levered himself up, plan already forming. Honestly, the whole ensemble wasn’t bad. Charming, even. It was just in dire need of taking in if the higher ups were ever to treat him seriously in meetings. He looked like he was playing dress up, practically drowning in the material. “Bring your coat.” Curiosity piqued, the other man unrolled his sleeves and slipped into his jacket, meeting Arthur at the door and following him out to the elevator. “Call Auto, would you?”

  “Auto?”

  “Yeah, your car. Auto. He’s a boy, because normal cars get named after beautiful women and he just isn’t quite normal.”

  Syler huffed, amused despite himself as they stepped into the carriage. “I suppose naming him is the first stage in you accepting the path to the future.”

  “Sweetheart,” Arthur deadpanned, hitting the button for the garage. “I will never accept that as my future.”

  Syler rolled his eyes, stepping out into the garage as his vehicle glided into view, doors already opening. “Going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I’m not going to like it, am I?” Arthur shrugged, easing himself into the passenger seat and reaching over to program the GPS. Best not to tell him, least the other man point blank refuse and ruin all of his fun. He had a point to make.

  The trip to Gerald’s shop was short, punctuated by Syler quietly filling him in on his morning spent in the development lab testing his new drone. When the car came to a stop at their destination, it helpfully self-parked in the empty slot out front of the boutique. Syler fell quiet, blinking. Arthur hauled himself out of the vehicle before the other man could put the pieces together, banking that he wouldn’t leave him stranded here once he figured it out.

  “Dufault!” Well, at least he was getting out of the car. Promising start. Arthur made his way to the entrance. “You did not seriously drag me to your tailor on my lunch break!”