by Lisa Hughey
He shrugged a sorry.
I peered out the back window, helping search for the tail or any kind of surveillance as we roared down the street. No one seemed to be following.
Houses transitioned to industrial warehouses and factories. The streets were pretty much deserted, as first shift had gone home or to the bars, and second was not quite ready for lunchtime.
Hitting a pothole, the car bounced as we turned onto a more main thoroughfare. So far, no lights behind us. Could they have let us go?
The old man performed another series of turns, pulled into a packed parking lot, trolled to the middle of a row and pulled in between an SUV and a Prius. After he shut off the headlights and turned off the engine, the car became invisible.
No one said a word.
We all held still, like prey trying to outwit a predator.
“You’re sure we lost them?”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
He was old. Older than I’d originally thought. But he knew his stuff. “Who are you?”
I had a feeling I would get more out of him than I would Katerina. That might be the way to play it. That way she could honestly deny she gave out information if her supervisors asked.
“Leave him alone,” she growled again like a mama bear protecting her cub.
“Deniability, babe.” If you won’t answer someone else has to. “Let’s try this. We’ll exchange information until one or the other of us is...uneasy.”
Katerina started to object, but the old man shook his head, patted her hand. His love for her was plain. “It’s okay, Rina.”
As he reassured her again before answering me, a pang of loss hit me. Their relationship was definitely close and clearly affectionate.
“I'm a friend of the family.”
Evasive driving expertise and a highly developed sense of impending danger made me think he was more. “Anything else?”
Katerina opened her mouth, and the old man ran a quick hand over her hair stilling her objections. Discounting the manner in which they set up their meeting, these were two people with a long-standing personal relationship. Not a working relationship.
Suddenly something occurred to me. “Bodies were never found.”
“Excuse me?” Stalactites dripped from her words.
“The bodies of your grandparents were never found.” I met the rheumy gaze of the old man in the rear view mirror.
“Is there a point to your rambling?” Katerina’s gaze shifted to the old man.
“Lost at sea. Never recovered.” I let that settle for a minute.
The old man answered my insinuation. “I’m not her grandfather.”
Yeah. I already knew that. But just who the hell was he? “Never recovered.” I took a shot in the dark. “Never killed?”
No one spoke.
“I was supposed to kill them,” the old man finally piped up.
Okay. That one threw me. “You were....” Supposed to kill the grandparents. That meant, he hadn’t? Or had he?
“A sleeper.”
Wow. Hadn’t seen that one coming.
I wondered why he’d told me. Just offered up that shocking revelation as if we were at a cocktail party making small talk.
My heart sped up, thumping rapidly in my chest. The spit in my mouth dried, and for a second, I wasn’t sure I could speak as another thought occurred to me. Could he have been the one who killed my grandparents?
I finally croaked out, “Did you have more than one target?”
“No.”
Relief flooded me. Jordan’s hand was solid and strong in mine, my fingers aching with the force of my grip. I was supposed to be a big, tough agent, but the thought of sitting calmly in a car with my grandparents' killer was beyond my emotional capabilities.
I focused on the old man. “Why were you activated?”
I waited for his answer, possibilities roiling through me. Taken alone the deaths were accidents. Together they formed a pattern impossible to ignore, but we hadn’t come up with any common denominators.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve had my suspicions but nothing concrete.”
“Did you notice anything about the dates of the murders?” Jordan finally spoke, the soft rumble of his voice comforting and just a little bit welcome.
He’d been solid and stalwart beside me, not taking over but listening and thinking until he had something relevant to impart.
“Some are October 19th and some are October 20th.”
Today. Grief clawed at my heart. I couldn’t let myself think about the significance of the date.
“If you convert all the dates into Greenwich Mean Time, all the people were killed within six hours of each other.”
“That indicates some sort of blanket order,” I said.
“I didn’t know the other people involved. All I knew were my orders.” The old man tipped his head toward Katerina in apology.
“What were your orders?”
“If I got the call, I had a limited amount of time to make the hit.”
Katerina flinched.
“Why those people? And if they were hits, why did they go to so much trouble to cover them up and make them look like accidents?”
I ran through the ‘accidents’, climbing accident, mugging, car bomb--although that made sense it was the preferred hit of the times--, car accident, drowning.
“Every sleeper tailored the hit to the individual people,” Jordan posited.
I winced, disconcerted to discuss the most devastating moment of my life so casually even if it was necessary. “Required advanced planning and knowledge of your targets.”
“Yes.” The old man didn’t elaborate.
“Why?”
“I was given this job as a way to fulfill a...debt to the U.S. government.”
“But you didn’t do it?” I commented.
“I couldn’t.” The old man clasped Katerina’s fingers with his. “The Wolfes were...are my friends. And I’d known them long enough to know that whatever they’d done, they had clearly been model citizens since that time.”
“So what did you do?” I was fascinated, even though I was pretty sure their non-death was irrelevant to my investigation.
“I told them what my orders were, helped them scuttle their boat. They’d had contingencies, bank accounts, identifications, escape plans, in place for years,” he paused. “The hardest part for them was leaving Rina and her brother.”
“Have you ever talked to them?”
“Defeats the purpose of letting them go,” he said sadly.
I blew out a breath. Dead end. Unless....
“Do you know where they are?”
“We know nothing.” Katerina said wearily. “I have no idea where they are.”
“I’ve given you information of staggering value. Now it’s your turn.” The old man's voice was hard. Old didn’t mean harmless. I should have remembered that.
“What do you want?”
“Leave Rina alone.”
I waited, knowing I needed to say this right or I’d get nothing from them.
“I’m not trying to bother her,” I said carefully. “I just need to understand why Major Vandenburg and the DIA released my name to the media. What do they think they have on me? If I have some context, maybe I can figure out who is behind this.”
The old man continued to speak for Katerina. “She doesn’t have anything to do with your problems.”
“You have to give up something of equal value,” she demanded, her pulse fluttering visibly against her throat.
If I was going to get any answers, I needed to fill them in. And frankly, I knew Katerina wasn’t going to reveal whatever I told her. She was rabidly trying to protect her son.
However, after an adulthood of sharing nothing, and working in a culture of absolute secrecy, starting to trust was difficult.
Jordan squeezed my fingers lightly with his hard callused hand, strong and resolute beside me.
“I was...investigatin
g 5491, a department of the NSA, and then I was in prison.” I said roughly, “I believe my imprisonment and subsequent ‘Armed and Dangerous’ status has something to do with my research. Except as far as I know I didn’t uncover much.”
“I’ve never heard of 5491,” she said. Her face and posture conveyed her earnestness. She really hadn’t.
“Me either.” The old man appeared to be telling the truth. His body had stayed relaxed, his demeanor alert and watchful.
“Katerina’s name is in the Department 5491 file. You get money from the NSA every month since your grandparents disappeared.” I hesitated. “Somewhere in there is a connection that we’re missing.”
“So?” Her tone said, why do I care?
“All the people receiving money are related or connected in some way. Brad Johnson is dead. Someone set me up to be killed. Just like my grandparents. For all we know someone is targeting the recipients of that money for assassination.”
“You’re assuming someone is systematically eliminating the 5491 recipients,” Katerina dismissed.
Brad Johnson was dead. I’d been captured in Afghanistan. If I hadn’t escaped I’d be dead now.
“I can’t afford not to assume that.”
“Okay. I’ll give you this much--I receive money.” She rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to warm herself or sweep away the dirt that seemed to be following the 5491 people around. “But Brad Johnson isn’t dead because of 5491. He’s dead because he took stupid chances.”
The fact remained he was dead. I’d been targeted. All the recipients of money who were also in espionage had been given a drug and then an antidote. “We have to figure out how it all relates.”
The old man said, “Why did you follow Rina?”
“She lives here in D.C. and my other sources are unavailable.” I thought about how phrase this next question. “Were your grandparents born here in the U.S.?”
Katerina stared at me, the parking lot light streaming through the passenger window, bisecting her features diagonally, illuminating the flat, even line of her mouth. “Ask me something else.”
“How is Major Vandenburg is connected to this?”
“He isn’t,” she insisted. “Look, word in the office is he’s gone a little around the bend.”
“Why?”
“His son was killed in an IED attack in Iraq.” Katerina hesitated. “He hasn’t been the same since.”
“Can you find out who in the DIA is gunning for me?” Please. Jesus, couldn’t I catch just one freaking break?
A car turned down our row, instinctively we all froze.
“I’ve got to protect my son,” she shot back.
Instinctively my fingers brushed my belly. And I had to protect the life growing inside of me. Even if I wasn’t sure I wanted a baby, I felt compelled to nurture the nascent life.
“My life is on the line unless I figure out why I’m being targeted.” I pushed. “Yours could be too.”
“Every second I spend with you puts me in more danger.” She vibrated with nerves, her breath coming in shorter and shorter intervals, the acrid scent of fear sharp in the car.
“Yeah. You can’t protect your son if you’re dead.”
“I’m giving you this information and then AMF,” she said.
“What?”
Adios Mother Fucker, Jordan mouthed.
“Those are my conditions. Agree or get out.”
“Fine.” Wow. Hard ass Katerina was back.
Reluctantly, she said, “Major Vandenburg had a meeting with Senator Jordan right before the press conference.”
In my peripheral vision, Jordan slowly turned to granite. His body tensing, muscle by muscle, until his face resembled a Greek statue, the sharp planes of his cheekbones, and the rock hard curve of his jaw, cast into shadow and light. I had to find out what connected him and the senator. Preferably yesterday.
Katerina said, “The press conference was literally scheduled within an hour.”
“We have to find out what they talked about.” But how?
Jordan sighed heavily. “I have a way to get to the Senator.”
“How?”
Finally, I’d find out what made Jordan tense up every time the man’s name popped up.
Shit. Suddenly I put it together. And I wondered why I didn’t see it before.
“He’s my father.”
THIRTY-NINE
Fuck. He knew how to drop a bomb.
He’d never spoken those words aloud. Of course it was possible he was in cardiac arrest as his heart slammed against his ribs.
As he’d sat in this car, Jordan realized withholding information from the team had put everyone at risk.
“Holy....” Staci trailed off, her eyes wide in the gloom of the backseat.
“Yeah.” He clenched his teeth, knowing his expression did not encourage questions.
“Not your buddy.”
“No.”
She processed rapidly, understanding and some other emotion dawning in her gaze. He’d thought about all the things he’d told her about his father. Now Staci knew where he came from.
“We need to talk to him,” Staci said reluctantly.
Denial reverberated through him, but Jordan had already concluded a face-to-face was necessary.
“I know.” Whatever the senator and Vandenburg discussed led to the press conference that changed Staci's status. They needed to know what happened during that meeting.
“How?” Staci tapped a long finger against her mouth. Her face had started to regaining color. She’d kept down the cinnamon roll and the food Tía Lupe had given them.
Silence smothered the interior as all three waited. “Blackmail.”
The old man jerked.
“Only four people in the world know he’s my father. Possibly five,” Jordan amended, “if his wife knows.”
He glanced around the interior of the nondescript sedan. An innocuous setting for proposing an action guaranteed to have long lasting repercussions. “Seven now.”
He had to tell the old man and Katerina. He and Staci needed someone else to know and understand what was really going on, but damn, talking about his parentage was difficult. Sweat beaded on his face, and rolled down his temple to glide behind his ear. Adrenaline shifted his focus to higher alert, blocking unimportant sounds yet still filtering in possible threats. Physiological reactions he’d trained long and hard to ignore overwhelmed him.
“I'll threaten to go to the media unless he talks to me,” he stressed.
As a set-up it was near perfect. Unless the bastard said no. Acid gurgled in his stomach.
If the senator refused, Jordan would have to make good on the blackmail threat and take the secret of his parentage to the press. The publicity for Jordan and for his mother would be horrible. His entire life would be under scrutiny.
But it was past time Jordan stood up to the man who had fathered him. All these years he’d protected his mother’s secret. Now protecting Staci and their baby was imperative.
“You’d do that for...me?” Surprise, horror filled her slate blue eyes.
“And the baby.”
The baby they wouldn’t have, unless they figured out who was after Staci and why. There were so many complications and problems with his scenario, details he couldn’t control, emotions and reactions he couldn’t predict. Dammit.
“You’re pregnant?” Katerina gasped.
“Yeah.” Staci’s tone made it clear she didn’t want any comments.
He just had to hope the senator was too rattled by the threat to take evasive measures.
“Every time we turn around, his name comes up.” Jordan ignored the people in the front seat, speaking directly to Staci. “Every time.”
“Are you sure?”
“Too many secrets are what brought us to this point,” Jordan said tightly. “We need someone else to know what is really going on.”
“This is between you two,” Katerina protested. “I can’t be anywhere near this mess.
”
Staci held up her cell phone and took a picture of Katerina.
“What was that for?”
“When they get me, they’ll find your picture on my cell phone.”
“You bitch!” Katerina lurched toward the back seat, grabbing for the cell phone even as the old man tried to restrain her.
Staci flipped the phone closed and tucked it in Jordan’s back pocket.
“We need you to document this,” Staci reprimanded sharply. “And now we know you have no motive for wanting us captured.”
They were desperate. And finally, finally Katerina got it.
Jordan was quiet, calm, resolved. “He has the resources and the power to have me followed.”
He thought back to the surveillance team in New York City. They had never approached him or Staci. Followed, yes. Reported, probably. But they didn’t apprehend him. Same with the sedan earlier tonight. They followed but never made contact.
“Could it be while I thought they were after me, all this time they were after you? The surveillance we’d assumed on my townhouse. The ransacking of my house in the Bahamas.”
“Not all of it. The Senator had information about a situation,” he responded. He hadn’t picked up a tail until after the senator grilled him about the shooting in the Presidential Suites. Jordan fisted his hand, ignoring the strong urge to punch something, someone, in particular. “He wanted to know what I knew.”
Why? Could the senator be connected to the events at the Presidential Suites? Connected to whoever authorized Susan Chen and her accomplice's experiment? And if he was–did that mean he’d had something to do with scientists who had administered a DNA drug to unsuspecting agents?
From the moment of conception his father had been fucking up his life and he was tired of it.
“He is connected to me and you.” Staci rubbed her stomach, drawing him back to their more immediate problems.
“We need to get this resolved,” he said fiercely.
Staci turned away from the people in the front seat, to face him, her gaze earnest and intense. “I don’t want you compromised.”
He placed a hand over her stomach, feeling the pulse of blood through her body.
“Let’s use Carson to get to the Senator.” Staci shot Katerina a look. “I know you know him so don’t try to con me.”
