Broken Honor

by Potter, Patricia;

  Once the door was closed, she opened her laptop computer and checked her E-mail. A message from Sherry. She’d convinced the tenure committee that Amy had a family emergency, and the hearing had been postponed until Monday. It could not be postponed any longer because the department head planned to leave for Europe for the summer.

  Amy sat still for a moment, then realized she’d been holding her breath as she read the message. “Yes!” she said. Then quickly wrote to Sherry, “Great job. Will be there. I owe you a dinner, no, a week of dinners. A year of dinners.”

  She continued to read her E-mail. Some spam messages. One from a graduate who wanted to tell her he’d won a professorship he wanted. Her heart lightened at that.

  Then an E-mail address she didn’t immediately recognize. Its heading, though, was “Urgent.”

  She opened it. “Found information you wanted. I’ll be at Dustin’s house in Georgetown. Need to see you as soon as possible.” It was simply signed, “Sally.”

  Amy typed her own message. “Coming.” Then, “Address?”

  If she couldn’t help Irish, perhaps she could retrieve the information they needed.

  All she had to do was convince Sam.

  But she knew she couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave without Irish’s okay, and Irish, she suspected, would not be amenable.

  Dustin’s house would be safe. He obviously thought so, if Sally Eachan was there. There would be protection. He was the one of the four who had not been touched. She would be careful. And Irish was making sure the bad guys would be after him. He was waiting for them.

  If Sally Eachan had really found something, they could get the attention of federal authorities.

  But how to get rid of Sam?

  He entered then, a six-pack of soft drinks in hand and a container of ice. She turned on the television, trying to get CNN, but there were only a few local stations. Sam sprawled on a chair next to her.

  They would have to go for supper before long. She’d never committed car theft before, but she was seriously considering it now.

  Someone had been in Dustin’s bay house. Whoever it was had been very careful, but the slight aroma of aftershave hovered in the room.

  Irish and Tag looked at each other.

  Tag didn’t say anything but went immediately to the cameras. The film in two was in place, but a quick look showed it had been exposed. Apparently the intruder hoped no one would check that. Two others, one in a chandelier, the other in a cavity hollowed out in a thick frame of a painting, appeared untouched. Both had film that should have been exposed when the sensors detected movement.

  “They’re good,” Tag said. “Not good enough. He—they—evidently didn’t have any film for replacements.”

  “Let’s see the film before we conclude that,” Irish said wryly.

  Mike checked the windows. All but one were locked. The one that was unlocked was shielded by bushes.

  They exchanged glances before continuing. Mike checked the house for strange smells, objects that shouldn’t be there, such as bombs or accelerant. He also used Sentry, a detection device, to spot any new listening devices.

  They ate some sandwiches Mike had bought earlier. Tag took a stroll around the neighborhood. No strange cars, but that didn’t mean much. When it grew dark, they went to the vacant house next door, leaving several lights on upstairs and a makeshift silhouette form in the window of Eachan’s home.

  In the neighbor’s darkened house, the three took positions that could not be seen from the road.

  They waited.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Dustin received Sally’s message as he cooled his heels in the Executive Offices. War had broken out in one of the African countries he oversaw, and its president had been captured. There was no way he could leave now. It wasn’t only his job he worried about. It was the situation. The African leader could well be killed if diplomacy didn’t free him. Renewed civil war would create another orgy of mass murder.

  He didn’t want to call his home. After Flaherty’s call, he’d had a professional check his phones. The expert had found—and removed—a listening device, but still …

  Yet now he had no choice. Sally had given him none. She didn’t answer the cell phone he’d insisted she keep.

  He called his home. When his message center came on, he said, “Sally, if you’re there, answer.”

  He hung on for several seconds and then heard her voice.

  “Why in the hell are you here? You’re supposed to be at.…” He stopped suddenly, knowing how much she hadn’t wanted her mother involved.

  “Something happened that I have to talk to you about,” she said. “Several somethings, in fact.”

  Dustin considered asking her to leave there immediately. But where would she go? What if she were followed? “You’ve locked everything and put on the security system?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll ask a friend to get someone over there,” he said. “But don’t let anyone in the house. If someone shows up at the door with credentials, make them identify themselves by asking them for a word we agree on.”

  “You think that someone with credentials might be.…”

  “Credentials can be faked, and you wouldn’t know the difference. Think of something.”

  “Remember when I was sixteen, and you asked me what I wanted for my birthday.”

  Dustin paused. He remembered only too well. “I don’t think that will work. What about the color you hate most.”

  He heard her laugh. It was relaxed. What did she want to tell him?

  “All right,” she agreed. “But I like mine better.”

  He grinned at that. He did, too. What she’d wanted was a kiss. A kiss that had turned into something more altogether. “Go, now, and make sure the house is secure.”

  He hung up and called his friend at the FBI. “I’ve had a threat. Can you send someone over to my house? My cousin is staying there. I want to make sure she’s safe.”

  “You know a request needs to go through channels.”

  “This is an emergency. If anything happens to my cousin, I’ll have your job.”

  “Dammit, Dustin. You have no idea how to make friends. Does this have anything to do with the photos you sent me?”

  “It could.”

  “Would you like to explain that?”

  “Yes. Probably. But not now. I’m waiting to meet with the President.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. I’m one of many.”

  A sigh. “I’ll send someone out there tonight.”

  “Now.”

  Another sigh. “All right.”

  “Tell him—or her—to identify themselves to my cousin. A word.”

  “Something exotic, I suppose.”

  “Purple.”

  “Purple?”

  “Just get someone over there. I’m being called.”

  He turned off his phone as he saw someone gesturing for him. He straightened his tie, made an effort not to smooth his hair, and followed the escort. For the first time, he felt no thrill at the prospect of being in the presence of the President. He just wanted to be home with Sally. He wanted to make sure she was safe. But Damon would see to that.

  Home with Sally.

  He erased the idea from his mind and, instead cataloged the options he had to offer the President.

  MARYLAND

  Amy suggested to Sam that they go somewhere for dinner. She’d planned to leave her purse in the car when she went inside the restaurant, then ask for his keys to retrieve it. She would then take the car.

  She’d thought about it, but when they arrived at the restaurant, she couldn’t do it.

  It wasn’t lack of will, it was too much conscience. She’d never used subterfuge. She wasn’t going to do it now.

  Instead, once they were in the car, she asked Sam if he could contact Irish.

  “Not unless there’s an emergency.”

  “There’s an emergency.”

  Sam look
ed at her for a long moment. “Yes ma’am,” he said.

  Although she was worried about Sally and the others, she felt a warm glow inside. This man, this dangerous man who had a heart of gold, respected her. Maybe even more, if she was right about the gleam in his eyes. For someone who’d never really enjoyed male attention, she was bemused by the situation. Had she changed that much in the past few weeks that she could attract a man like Irish? And Sam?

  How could she go back to an ordinary life?

  Sam was dialing a number. He handed the phone to her.

  “Irish?” The sound of his name came very easily now.

  “Amy? Anything wrong?”

  She delayed a moment. “Anything happening there?”

  “No. But someone’s been in the house. We’re waiting.”

  “Can they wait alone?”

  “Why?” His voice sharpened.

  “Sally E-mailed me. She’s at Dustin’s. I think she may be alone. She says she has something we need. I think Sam and I should go.”

  Hesitation on the other side. A muttered conversation she couldn’t hear.

  “I’ll go with you,” Irish said. “Sam can take my place here.”

  Amy was suddenly very grateful to her conscience. Her throat was too tight to reply.

  “Amy?”

  “I’m here. Where should we meet you?”

  He hesitated, and she could almost see him with that frowning twist of his lips as he considered the problem. “I’ll be at the motel in forty minutes. It’ll take about two hours to get to Washington.”

  “I’ll call Sally.”

  “No. There might be a tap on the phone.”

  “Surely Dustin would have had it swept.”

  “How recently?” It was a rhetorical question.

  She had no answer.

  “I’ll be there soon,” he said. The phone went dead.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Sally tucked her legs underneath her. Dustin’s phone was next to her on the sofa. She had all the lights on in the den, the curtains drawn against the blackness outside. Dustin had called to make sure someone from the FBI had arrived, and they had. Several hours earlier. She had invited him in, but he’d preferred to wait outside in the car.

  The alarm system was on. Hopefully, Amy Mallory would be here soon. Then Dustin. Hopefully, the nightmare would be over. But for the moment, she felt safe.

  She mulled over what she wanted to tell Dustin. How would he accept the information secreted in the painting? She knew how much the family name meant to him. Should she show it to him before confiding in Amy?

  She checked the clock once more. Near eleven. Where was Amy? Dustin, she knew, could be gone all night.

  She stood, went to the front window, and looked out. She loved Dustin’s house and the picturesque street it fronted. The FBI car was in front. In the light from the porch, she could see the figure in the front seat. Perhaps he would like some coffee. And making coffee would give her something useful to do.

  She padded out to the kitchen.

  MARYLAND

  Sam and Mike heard the cars approaching at the same time.

  It was as if the last twenty years had never happened. Each knew exactly what the other would do without words.

  They wanted the opposition to get inside Dustin’s house. Once there, they would become burglars. Irish wanted a hold over the prowlers. He also wanted them alive. He wanted names.

  Tag was already outside, watching from across the street. His job was to take anyone waiting or standing watch for the intruders.

  Mike watched from the window as a car drove up. He waited a few moments, then pressed a button that turned off the upstairs lights of the Eachan home. All the lights were off now.

  They expected the intruders to wait as long as an hour or so.

  Wearing night vision glasses, Mike watched from the darkened front window. Sam went to the back, where he had a view of the back of Eachan’s house. They did not want to be surprised.

  Minutes ticked off. Then an hour. Mike didn’t move. Then he saw a figure snake through the shrubbery, then another, both headed toward the window that had been unlocked.

  They were not as professional as he’d expected. Perhaps good help really was hard to find these days.

  A true professional would have been suspicious, even of a window he knew should be unlocked. These guys weren’t. He watched as one went around the side of the house, probably in an attempt to turn off the alarm system. Tag had rigged it so it wouldn’t be that difficult. That should have made them suspicious, too.

  It didn’t. He watched as one man entered the house, then the second. When it was apparent no one else was following, he left the room and met Tag. “There’s one watching in the back,” Tag said.

  “Hopefully Sam has taken care of the driver,” Mike said. “Take the back. I’ll take the window. Sam will take the front door.”

  Tag nodded. He was the most successful of the three of them, but they had reverted into an unit where each knew where his—and the others’—talents lay.

  Another moment, and Mike saw Sam moving toward the front. Tag signaled Sam with two fingers, then went to the back. Mike waited at the window. When two minutes went by, Mike lifted himself and quietly entered through the window the intruders left open.

  He heard cursing above. The intruders had seen the dummy forms in the bed, maybe even the dummy in the chair in the other room. He stood just inside a door that led to the stairs. They would be down soon. Sam pressed himself against the wall next to the stairs. Tag appeared from the kitchen.

  The intruders were amateurs, at least in Mike’s opinion. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have left someone downstairs as lookout.

  The cursing was louder. So were the footfalls coming down the steps. The room was dark, but he had his night vision glasses. The intruders did not.

  As the third reached the bottom of the steps, Mike stepped out, jabbing his Glock into the man’s side. Sam suddenly appeared at the back of the last man down the steps. Tag took the middle one.

  “What the hell?”

  “Call the police, Mike,” Tag said. “We’ve caught ourselves some burglars.”

  Keeping his weapon on “his” intruder, Mike turned on the lights. The men were all dressed in black and wore ski masks. Tag used his gun to poke the mask off his target, then pushed it back down. “No wonder you wear a mask.”

  Seeing an opening, the man swung at him. It was exactly what Tag wanted, Mike knew. As the man swung, Tag landed a blow in his midriff, then another on the back of his neck as the intruder bent over. Tag stepped back as the man spiraled and fell to the floor.

  “Who are you?” one of the downed man’s companions asked.

  “We are guests of the high Department of State official whose house you have just invaded with illegal weapons. It’s not only burglary but assault on a federal officer. And now, gentlemen, you can each take off your masks. We are going to have a conversation.”

  Mike admired him. The federal officer bluff was a huge one. The intruder’s face paled. He probably had a lengthy record.

  Still, it was obvious he knew where the conversation was leading. “What do ya want?” he said morosely.

  twenty-nine

  WASHINGTON, D. C.

  Sally made the coffee, found an insulated mug, and filled it. She realized then that she didn’t know what the agent liked in it.

  She wondered whether Dusty ever got used to having bodyguards around him. She knew he often had security when he traveled overseas. The thought made her wonder again when he would be back. She wanted him. She needed him.

  She took the coffee out to the car. That certainly should be safe enough with a real-life FBI agent outside. The window of the car was down, and she looked into the dark interior. The agent was slumped in his seat. She knew enough about first aid to check his pulse. Thank God, there was one. Then she saw the blood running from his head.

  Panic seized her, and she froze in place. He
r gaze darted around the street. All the houses were dark. She forced herself to move toward the nearest one, her throat too constricted with terror to scream. She had taken only a step or two when a figure stepped out from behind one of the large trees that lined the street. He put his arm around her neck, and his other hand went over her mouth. She felt him hesitate a moment, then move again, as if he’d made a decision. He dragged her back into the house and slammed the door shut with his foot. Another intruder appeared from another room. He must have slipped inside when she approached the car.

  She could barely breathe. What a fool she’d been not to be more careful. She hadn’t thought anyone would actually attack Dustin’s home. And then she’d felt safe with the agent outside. Dear God, the agent. He needed help!

  She slumped against her assailant for a moment as if she were fainting. He had to let go of her neck, and she spun around and kicked him in his crotch. Then she started for the door, screaming as she went.

  A rough hand grabbed her and turned her around. She saw a fist coming at her and tried to squirm away. Pain slammed through her. She struggled to keep on her feet, then the second blow came. Everything went black.

  “We have the Eachan woman.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Eachan’s home.”

  “What about Flaherty?”

  “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  Hesitation. “Get the hell out of there. Now.”

  “Should we take her?”

  Hesitation. “You’ve been listening?”

  “We managed a new tap on the telephone this morning. She said she had ‘something’ to tell him.”

  “Hell, that could mean anything.” A loud curse. “Find out if she knows anything. Then give her an overdose and leave her there. Make it look sexual.”

  “That should be easy. She’s a sexy number.”

  “Get what you need and get out of there.” He paused. “Do you have something with you … to give her a nice long sleep?”

  “Heroin?”

  “That should neutralize Dustin Eachan. How is he going to explain a woman dead of a drug overdose in his house?”