Kelsey’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the tension. “What kind of gun did the shooter use?”
“Some kind of a semiautomatic pistol,” Noah told her. “Both of the bullets the doctor dug out of Devin were .45s.”
She analyzed this new detail and looked over at Cullen. “The FBI will handle the security detail.”
Cullen’s face reddened. “Our people should be involved.”
“It sounds like one of our people is definitely involved,” Kelsey countered, her stare not faltering. “If Salman or Medrano sent someone after Devin, they wouldn’t have been using a .45.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Ted asked.
“Salman deals in automatic weapons. The more bullets his men can shoot per second, the better,” Kelsey told him. “There’s no way one of his men would use a handgun for a hit. More likely this shooting really was by someone on the inside trying to make sure Devin didn’t share information.”
Ted took that information with a reluctant shrug. “You know, we can’t be sure the shooting was even related to this case.”
“No, but Devin was shot while trying to tell Noah his suspicions,” Kelsey said. “We need to explore the possibility that Devin did uncover something of value and consider that the information he gave us is correct.”
Noah’s posture relaxed slightly, and he spoke to Cullen again. “I think we’ve been looking at this all wrong. We keep searching for someone with ties to Salman or Medrano. We need to figure out who had ties to both FBI and CIA intelligence.” Noah’s gaze shifted to Kelsey before he continued. “We all know that our agencies aren’t always the best at sharing.”
Kelsey ignored the verbal jab. “So we are looking for someone with access. We’ve been focusing on lower-level employees, but it’s probably someone much higher up.”
“Right before Devin was shot, he said it was someone who was a CIA station chief,” Noah offered.
Cullen’s eyes sharpened. “Did he know where?”
“He didn’t get the chance to tell me,” Noah said in frustration. “That’s when he was shot.”
“People don’t get to that level without learning how to cover their tracks.” Kelsey turned to Noah. “Do you have any idea how soon we can get a look at Devin’s correspondence logs? That may help us figure out what he was trying to tell you.”
Noah hesitated slightly then said, “They’ll be here by lunchtime.”
Cullen looked from Noah to Kelsey. “In that case, everyone get back to work. We’ll shift our attention to those logs as soon as they arrive.”
Noah gave Cullen a curt nod and moved back to his desk. Kelsey waited until everyone scattered before she turned her chair toward him. “Noah, I’m really sorry about your friend.”
Begrudgingly, Noah glanced over at her. “Thanks.”
Kelsey considered for a minute, her mind skipping back to when she had asked about the correspondence logs. Something in his hesitation made her wonder if perhaps Noah had really trusted them with everything. She rolled herself toward him so there were only two feet between their chairs. For a moment, Noah seemed determined not to look at her, but finally, his eyes met hers.
Kelsey stared at him and asked, “Is there something you aren’t telling us?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, looking instinctively over her shoulder.
“When I asked about the correspondence logs, you hesitated. Obviously we’re both thinking the same thing: that if we can figure out who Devin was talking to, then we can figure out who tipped off the mole or whoever the shooter was.”
Noah stared at her, clearly waging some internal debate. Then he swiveled his chair to face her so they sat knee to knee. His voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Devin said he traced one of the calls from the station chief’s phone to a Canadian who was killed in Abolstan about six weeks ago. He thought maybe the guy was CIA.”
Kelsey could feel her face pale. Only a small handful of people would have known about Gregory, and fewer still would have had access to FBI files. If what Noah said was true, the mole they were hunting had access to a great deal of information, and the intelligence community was much more vulnerable than anyone could have possibly realized.
Noah stared at her, suspicion mixing with concern. “You know something.”
“The list of suspects just got a lot shorter,” Kelsey confirmed. “I’m going to call Manuel and Skip. I think that with their help, Devin’s correspondence logs will lead us right to the person we’re looking for.”
Chapter 23
Noah sensed her presence the minute he walked in the door. She didn’t wear perfume, nor was anything out of place, but something beyond his senses alerted him to Kelsey’s presence.
He gritted his teeth. Exhaustion, frustration. Both were strong and overpowering. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation he wasn’t yet prepared for. It had been hard enough working with her today, although he had to admit that once he stopped trying to ignore her, the leads he and Ted had uncovered had started making more sense.
The investigator in him wanted to know how she knew so much about the Middle East and the myriad players involved in arms deals and terrorist groups. He would have liked to think she was well informed because she had been working as an analyst somewhere, but he had a feeling there was more to her story than that. After all, why would an analyst have to be undercover within her own agency?
Bracing himself, he headed for the kitchen. He didn’t consider how he knew that’s where she would be. He simply shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it over the back of a barstool, and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“We don’t have much we can talk about.” He loosened his tie and then slipped it free of his collar. When he draped it over the stool on top of his jacket, he found himself wishing he could untangle his conflicted feelings for Kelsey so easily.
She shifted the crutches that leaned against the wall beside the table and stood up. His eyes narrowed, and the question of why she was now using crutches burned on his tongue. Had she been using them at the office today? He thought back, suddenly realizing she hadn’t left her desk the whole time he had been in the office. Twice, everyone had gathered together to discuss ideas, but each time had been near her desk and she had remained seated.
“Let me ask you this,” Kelsey said, her voice seemingly calm. “If I had met you when you were involved in an undercover operation, would you have been allowed to tell me where you worked?”
Noah shook his head. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going. “No, but as soon as the op ended, I would certainly have told you.”
“And what if I had stumbled onto the truth before you were allowed to tell me?”
His voice took on an edge. “Obviously I understand how uncover assignments work. And I know they can get complicated.”
She studied him for a moment, her eyes serious and somber. “But you don’t want to deal with complications right now.”
“I need time to decide how complicated I want things to be.” Noah dragged his hands over his face. “Understandably, yesterday was quite a challenge. I need time to figure out what to do from here.”
“I see.” Her voice was soft and a little wistful. Part of him wanted to scoop her up and hold her tight. Another part of him wished he’d never met the Webers’ elusive daughter. He forced himself to remain where he was when she used her crutches to move toward the door.
When she reached the hall, she stopped and seemed to muster her courage when she faced him. “By the way, I called the hospital to check on Devin. He’s still under heavy sedation, but the doctor said he’s improving,” Kelsey said softly. “I thought you would want to know.”
* * *
Tears burned in the back of her eyes, but Kelsey refused to let them loose. She could handle this. She would handle this. She slammed the door behind her, took one look at the partially tiled kitchen floor, and bit back a sob.
; The contractors had told her that the day would come when they would tile the floor between the entryway and the family room where the refrigerator currently resided, but she hadn’t worried about when exactly that would happen since she had been preparing all of her meals at Noah’s. She had also assumed that she would be able to drive herself to one of the many local restaurants for the day or two that she would be cut off from her in-home food supply.
She took a deep breath, trying to clear her emotions. She knew it had been a risk to try to talk to Noah, but she had been so sure that once he saw how easily their roles could have been reversed, he would let things go back to the way they had been. How she wished she could go back to that.
Kelsey hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on Noah’s companionship until she had lost it. The loneliness of the past few years suddenly seemed unbearable, and she wondered how she had survived it. She tried to tell herself that her sacrifices had helped save American lives, but the words suddenly sounded feeble.
She moved into the formal living room and lowered herself into a chair. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that meal had only consisted of a yogurt and a handful of almonds. What would have been her lunch hour had been eaten up by a phone call with Manuel, and her afternoon had been spent working with Noah and Skip on Devin’s telephone records and credit card activity over the past few days.
The correspondence logs that had seemed so promising had been a dead end. Clearly concerned that someone in the Bureau might be involved, it appeared that Devin had deliberately not logged any of his communications while he was researching. He had also taken preventative measures to make sure his phone calls wouldn’t be traced.
Even though they didn’t have access to all of Devin’s research, Kelsey had already narrowed down the suspect list dramatically. When she had gone undercover in Salman’s organization, her handler had been working out of the station in Turkey. Graham Endicott had been the chief of station at the time, but she already knew he couldn’t be the mole.
Otherwise she wouldn’t still be breathing.
She pushed that reality aside and concentrated on the other facts. She tried to remember who had been chief of station when Gregory had inserted and was pretty sure that Graham had already transferred back to headquarters by then. Logically, Gregory’s handler would have been someone out of the office in Turkey, but she knew he could have just as easily been inserted through Saudi Arabia or one of the other Middle Eastern offices.
Her stomach grumbled, and she considered her options. She knew if she went over to the Hendersons’ she could certainly get Miss Patty to run her to the store for a few things, but it was just as likely that she would end up with a dinner invitation that would stretch out well into the night. Undoubtedly, she would also walk away with enough gossip to last two lifetimes.
Not in the mood to spend her evening with a nosy neighbor, Kelsey pulled her cell phone out of her purse and called one of the Chinese restaurants for delivery, including a request for paper plates and plastic utensils. Leaning her head against the back of the chair, she closed her eyes, determined to ignore her aching stomach for the next thirty to forty-five minutes.
* * *
Noah woke up from his nap famished and disoriented. After Kelsey had left earlier, he had kicked off his shoes, sprawled out on his couch, and slept like the dead. His body shaky from lingering emotions, exhaustion, and hunger, he forced himself to stand up in the nearly dark room and cross to the pantry. A glance at his watch proved that he had indeed slept for three hours, even though he still wasn’t quite sure if he was coming or going.
A quick study of the pantry was all it took to decide that cold cereal was the fastest defense against hunger. He grabbed a box of granola from the top shelf, ripped open the top, and ate a handful. Still struggling to get his bearings, he considered briefly then grabbed a bowl and some milk.
He shook his head. Cereal just wasn’t going to do it. He’d been spoiled for too long. Kelsey had spoiled him for too long, though how that had happened in just a few short weeks was beyond him.
He thought of their talk earlier, now coherent enough to consider the point she was trying to make. Uncomfortably, he forced himself to replay Kelsey’s questions through his mind. Had their situations been reversed, wouldn’t he have done everything possible to make her understand the demands of his job? Would he have expected that if she really cared for him, she would try to accept that undercover work was sometimes necessary?
His fingers raked through his hair. Absolutely he would have done that. Right after his job was done. The case would have come first, especially if it involved a possible terrorist threat.
The idea that Kelsey was CIA, or even more, deep-cover CIA, was just so foreign to him. Knowing who she really was, knowing that she had been leading some sort of double life for years, irritated him on principle.
Noah already dreaded the next Weber family meal. Undoubtedly, her name would come up as it always did, her brothers, sister, and parents wishing she were there with them. How would he stand it, knowing he understood why she was really gone while her brothers lamented that Kelsey was once again being too selfish in her own life to put family first?
He had bought into that logic before he met her. He could admit now that he had struggled initially to reconcile the Kelsey her family had talked about with the woman he had pulled a gun on. He should have suspected something was off the moment he first saw her. Kelsey hadn’t screamed or tried to run away. She hadn’t threatened to call the cops or a neighbor for help. She had simply assessed the situation and worked her way through it.
Even the simple gesture of calling the hospital to check on Devin proved that she was a far cry from the carefree and sometimes selfish woman her siblings believed her to be. Heaven help him, despite knowing the truth, she continued to fascinate him. He loved how a wisp of an exotic accent sometimes flavored her voice when she relaxed enough not to prevent it. He was amazed at her fluency in Arabic and the quiet authority she exercised when they were at work.
Everyone might think that Cullen was the person in charge of this taskforce, but Noah was starting to believe Kelsey held the real power. Cullen had been adamant about assigning a CIA security detail to Devin, but as soon as Kelsey had said no, the subject had been dropped. The same had been true when Manuel had questioned the identity of Salman’s sons. Cullen had treated Kelsey’s analysis as the final word.
So just what had Kelsey been doing over the past few years to have earned such a level of respect from her superiors? And what did she hope for in her personal life? Did she ever want a home and family like he did? Or was she already living her dream by working for the CIA?
The questions took seed and started a slow, uncomfortable burn. Facts continued to surface and roll through his mind, like the way Lewis had made a point that Kelsey’s missions remained need-to-know. Shouldn’t his involvement with the taskforce qualify him as needing to know?
Kelsey had been vague when she had come over to talk earlier, but he also suspected that she had been willing to give him more details than what Lewis had offered him during their short meeting.
Hoping for some answers and perhaps a dinner companion, Noah shoved the cereal back into the pantry. He yanked open the front door, took two steps outside, and then stopped and stared. A dark-haired man stood beside a silver sedan, one hand resting on the open passenger door and the other hand holding Kelsey’s purse.
Already seated in the car, Kelsey looked up at the man and traded her crutches for her purse. The exchange was smooth—too smooth. Clearly this routine wasn’t a new one, the man opening the back door and setting the crutches in the backseat at just the right angle to make sure they wouldn’t fall when he closed the door.
Noah’s jaw set. He had told Kelsey that he needed some time to figure things out, but he hadn’t expected that she’d pick up the phone and decide to go out with some old boyfriend or whoever this guy was.
His emotions stormin
g, he watched the car back up and pull away, Kelsey never even glancing in his direction. Very deliberately, Noah turned away from her house, stepped back inside, and slammed the door.
Chapter 24
“What have you got?” Kelsey asked the moment Manuel’s face popped up on the plasma screen. When James had arrived to deliver the message that Manuel had called her in, Kelsey had seen the extra work as a convenient distraction. She had already eaten her dinner and had been looking for anything to help get her mind off Noah.
“We filtered the phone numbers you gave us. I think we’ve finally connected the dots.” He hit a button and a sound bite started. The conversation was mundane, spoken in Arabic, but one of the voices was masked.
“Is this the same person who was on that other call with Salman?”
“We think so.”
“How does this help?” Kelsey asked. “It could be any of Salman’s suppliers.”
“Not when you take into account that the very next call from that cell phone number is spoken in English.”
“Do you have a recording?”
“Yes. Listen to this.”
We have a new lead. I’ll meet you at the usual spot with the details.
I have some new information too. Can you push up the meet time two hours? This is important.
Okay. I’ll be there.
Kelsey’s face paled. She recognized the voices. Both voices. “When did these calls occur?”
“The first was at ten in the morning local time on February 17. The second occurred at five o’clock that night.”
“I’m going to give you some phone numbers. I want anything you pull on them from that day.”
He reached for his keyboard. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Kelsey recited three phone numbers from memory.
“Let’s see what pops up.” Manuel’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, and he looked up at Kelsey. “Do you know what these numbers are to?”
Deep Cover Page 15
