He ignores it. For all I know, there’s more you aren’t telling me.
Only the stuff I can’t.
So, if I were with DS&T, you would’ve told me that part?
About Brand? Yeah, no. But Danny texts before I reply: If I were Elliott?
I flinch, the jab is so unexpected — and if I’m honest, close to home. I don’t respond fast enough, because Danny texts yet again: You told him, didn’t you.
I don’t even get the benefit of a question mark? Rather than prolong the miscommunication (if that’s what it is), I hit the icon to call him.
“You did tell him, didn’t you?” he answers.
“Some of it. Only what I had to.”
“Of course — that’s why he’s the one out there getting shot for you.”
His mother had better not be in hearing range. “Did you want to trade places? I think he’d jump on that.”
“At least I’d be doing something.”
I rest my forehead on the steering wheel. “Sitting around recuperating from a gunshot wound wouldn’t help me. At least this way you can keep your mom at bay, right?”
“Starting to think I’d rather have the gunshot wound.”
“Very funny. Be grateful you haven’t had to endure the scrapbook —”
“Oh, no, I’ve been subjected to the scrapbook.”
Not the one she had at the dress shop. “Her scrapbook of Kendra?”
“Trying to avoid it, believe me.”
“Who’s being stingy with the truth now?” I strive to drain the sarcasm from my voice.
“Don’t — I didn’t —” Danny pauses. “Okay, I didn’t tell you something. One thing. I figured telling you would just hurt you.”
Bingo. I give his engineer brain half a second to put that together.
He sighs. “Fine. Point taken.”
“I love you too,” I chirp.
“Yeah, you’re just lucky I love you.”
I totally am. “Danny . . . I didn’t tell you about Elliott because I never wanted him to kiss me. It was a cover — I mean, you and I had already started talking, and that prospect alone was better than . . .” The truth: “He reminded me of how Brand was at first, okay? But I didn’t tell Elliott who Brand is, or what happened in DC. Just about what’s going on now.”
This time, the radio silence has a totally different timbre. I hope it means Danny’s engineer brain is working that piece into the puzzle, realizing the implications, understanding that Elliott might be the one I need, but Danny’s the one I trust.
“Thank you,” he finally says.
“I love you too,” I chirp again.
He laughs. “You planning on coming by tonight?”
“Nice segue. Wish I could.” I really do. And I tell him that. He seems to appreciate it, but the sentiment kinda kills the conversation when it’s obviously code for I have to go out and do more stupidly dangerous things tonight, and you’re definitely not invited (because you’re not Elliott) (who’s also not invited because I got him shot).
After a few minutes, I have to let Danny go run interference with his mom, and I start the car. Almost subconsciously, I end up at the one place I know I shouldn’t look for help: Elliott’s. I don’t dare knock — because seriously, how much help is a guy recovering from a gunshot wound? Instead, I park down the street, staring at his windows as the sun’s last rays abandon the sky. His living room light switches on, and it occurs to me: I’ve never been in his home.
We’ve been so close, been through so much together. Yet in so many ways, we hardly know each other.
The blinds are open, revealing the perfectly decorated living room. Shanna’s already put up an artsy black and white portrait of their newborn. Now who knows what’ll happen for his family? I keep thinking that’s my fault, though I know it’s not.
But him being shot? 100% my fault.
I get my phone and type in his number. He answers on the third ring. And that’s when I realize I don’t have anything to say to him beyond, “How are you?”
He grunts. “Have to say I’ve been better.”
“I’ll bet.” And we fall into silence.
I’ve spent a lot of time not talking with Elliott — twelve hours of surveillance together, and you run out of things to talk about pretty quick — but this silence is different. It isn’t a lull or a pause or a break.
We’ve run out of things to say to each other. Maybe forever.
“Busy night ahead of you?” Elliott asks.
“Yeah.” That’s not him offering to help. He’d better be on a leave of absence until he’s fully recovered, but Elliott will jump back into work as soon as the doctors clear him. And he’ll shop around until he finds an MD to do exactly that.
I watch his window, and Elliott strolls through living room. At least he’s up and around, healing faster. Not fast enough that I could (or would) ask anything of him. I wish we could run through options and scenarios, and I could ask for help. But I can’t. I just can’t.
“Feeling okay?” I ask. “Taking care of yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
It’s too quiet on the line, leaving the thoughts to echo through my mind: I have nothing to say to him.
Then it finally hits me, why I really wanted to call.
To say goodbye.
The air turns cold. He stands with his back to the window, to me. Because it’s over. We don’t work together anymore, and it probably won’t be long before he’s shipped off to his next station. Even if we both stay in Ottawa, we’ll hardly see one another. We’re not partners, not coworkers. Just old friends.
And yet I can’t look away. I sit there, watching another minute. Then Shanna, very tall and very blonde, walks in. She comes over to him, eyeing his injury, her head tilted like she’s asking a question. He turns, and even in this light, I can see the reassuring smile he flashes her.
She’s back. They’re back.
The release in my chest might mean I’m losing the guilt game. Apparently I did Elliott a favor. All I had to do was get him shot.
“Stay safe out there,” Elliott says.
“You too.” I start the car. I don’t have anywhere else to be, but this isn’t where I belong anymore. I can’t quite let myself hang up as I pull past his house.
“Hey, T?” His voice is quiet. Hesitant. Like we haven’t been through the wringer and crawled back together.
“Yeah?”
“People will call the cops on you if you drive around here without your lights on.”
Of course he’s there. Of course he saw me. Of course he has my back, as much as he can. I can’t ask any more than that.
I’m on my own.
It’s time. Samir’s in position. I’m sure he’s expecting Brand, and when I roll up to the sidewalk where he’s waiting in the dark, his black eyebrows gather. But he gets in.
I don’t bother with a greeting as I drive away. “We’ve got work to do. A lot of it.”
“What has happened?”
I huff out a syllable of a sarcastic laugh. What hasn’t happened? I’m freaking Danny out, Elliott’s out of the game, and oh yeah, my boss is selling out our country.
Worse still, there’s a terrorist loose on American soil and for all I know, Brand knows exactly where the guy is. He might actually be helping Wasti.
I’m in over my head, and I can feel the water closing over me. Brand’s setting me up. He’s targeting Americans. And I have no proof.
Samir leans forward to examine my face. “You need my help?”
We were supposed to be helping him. Now I’m the one who needs help. The river’s mud and water and ice mix of spring break-up flashes through my mind again, with all my options equally treacherous.
This is big, big trouble, and I have no one left to turn to for help: not Mack, not Will, not Elliott. Especially not Danny.
I look to Samir. He’s studying me, waiting for my next response, and I can’t help it — a slow smile.
Spring brea
k-up on the Ottawa River is tricky, but the city makes it easier to get ice out of the smaller Rideau River when temperatures rise. All it takes is 10,000 sticks of dynamite.
I know exactly who’ll help wield that kind of firepower (you know, metaphorically). Because he’s sitting right next to me.
For a woman about to get married, I spend way too much time in hotel rooms with strange men. I bolt the door behind Samir and gesture for him to sit at the desk.
“What are we doing?”
I pat the back of the chair. Samir complies, his face watchful. “Have I done something?”
“No.” And that’s our first problem. With Brand cutting him off, Samir has pretty much done nothing. That’s about to change. “I need you to call your cousin.”
“Now?”
I make my nod as firm as possible. “You told me you wanted to stop him, to keep him from hurting people. Be honest: has Vince done a thing to make that happen?”
His eyes slide away. He knows the answer, and he’s afraid to admit it.
“Tonight that’s going to change.”
“How?”
I come to stand over him. “You’re going to call Hassam-ud-Din and find out what we need to know to stop him. Now,” I add before he can ask again.
Samir’s focus stays on the threadbare carpet. He grips the phone in two hands like he’s praying. (Not sure that’s how it works in Islam.) With each passing second, the air in the room grows heavier. At last, he shakes his head and pushes the phone across the desk. “He will know.”
“He won’t.” I place the phone back in his possession. “And here’s why.” I drop to my knees in front of him and fasten my gaze to his. “You. Are. Samir. Right?”
“Who else would I be?” I’ve never seen this sarcasm from the man — I thought that was a cultural thing.
“You’re his cousin. That’s all I’m asking you to be. Be yourself. Don’t pretend. Don’t lie. Just be you.”
Samir contemplates the phone, though before I ready my second salvo of shoring up, he’s already dialing. I hide my face so he can’t see my flash of panic. I was kind of depending on having one more minute to coach him on what to say, what to dig for, what to do next, but I’ll have to roll with this.
“Hassam-ud-Din?”
I might be the local Urdu specialist, but it takes every scrap of my concentration to keep up with Samir’s side of the conversation. He’s on his feet, pacing, before he gets past the pleasantries. (Wasti’s wife is fine, if you’re wondering.)
I grab the hotel notepad and write a cue for Samir. You’re worried about him. He stops long enough to read it. I follow up with another stage direction. You saw the news about Ali Muhammad.
The flicker of a flinch around his mouth tells me Samir did see the news. Because Ali Muhammad was his cousin, too. But neither of us have the luxury of sensitivity. Samir moves on to my cues before the pain passes from his face. “I saw the news about Ali Muhammad,” he says. “Is everything all right with you?”
Samir’s eyes move back and forth like he’s reading the faded watercolor in front of him. I wave to get his attention, point at my ear to remind him to reflect the conversation back to me, but he turns away. “I want to help,” he says (I think). “But it is not so easy to cross the border.”
Um, not so much. Why is he lying?
“Are you safe? Not in trouble, are you?”
Good thing Samir isn’t looking at me, because if his cousin isn’t in trouble now, he’s about to be. His cover depends on being the part. Never smart to remind yourself you’re not.
Samir’s pacing halts abruptly, and his spine straightens. He’s frozen there for an interminable moment. “I will be there,” he says at last. He ends the call, his back still to me.
And I have no idea if we got what we needed. “Well?”
He keeps his back to me, staring at his phone. My blood runs chill. When Samir said he’d be there, he didn’t mean it, did he?
“The UN.”
I startle out of the worry. “What?”
“The UN. They are targeting the UN. Monday.”
“But . . . they were outside DC. Ali Muhammad —”
Samir turns around. “No, it was a ruse. Two birds with one rock. Ali Muhammad was always a problem. Hassam-ud-Din has been in New York the whole time.”
Tension mounts behind the floodgates of my mind. This is big. Very big. A terrorist on American soil. Targeting the UN. Soon. And sacrificing his brother to help with a set up? The situation gets darker every second. I have to get organized, to plan, to act. “Did you get his exact location? At least enough to find him?”
“I think so.”
As soon as I can get a secure line, I’m calling the highest-ranking person I know at Langley, no matter who Brand might have on his side. But if they arrest Wasti, we lose our chance to stop someone who’s selling out our country. Someone who might do it again.
Time to start setting that dynamite.
“This is all that you need?” Samir breaks into my thoughts. He keeps his tone level, though there’s no mistaking the hope in his eyes. Hope that we’ll be able to stop Wasti, hope that he’s done his part, hope that he’s finished.
No such luck. “There’s another problem here. Hassam-ud-Din isn’t the only threat.”
“He is the only one I know —”
“Vince.”
The silence in the room freezes solid, a palpable presence of its own. Finally Samir swallows hard. “I cannot.”
“You have to.”
“No.” He cuts off the argument, wheeling away. “You can do this. You can talk to him.”
I’m on my feet, circling around to face him. “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what he’ll do if I confront him without evidence?”
“Are you not a witness?”
“All I have is my testimony against his.” Not enough to take a big risk. I doubt Brand’s interested in polling a jury of his peers. If I’m the only one who can bring him to trial, it doesn’t bode well for me.
“Well, he must have this money, yes?”
I give an exaggerated shrug. “I tried going after his financial records. He found out, and he’ll do it again. Either a report will come back to him, or someone will call to check up, or he’ll hunt it down.”
Hunt me down. If I don’t truss Brand up and serve him on a silver platter, if I don’t have absolutely everything we need to put him in custody when I contact Langley, he will find out and he will make sure I don’t get the chance to finish.
My life depends on bringing Brand in before anyone knows I’m targeting him.
Because I’m not the first who’s tried. I turn to him. “I’ve done all I can think of. When I had another friend help . . . Vince shot him.”
“How can I . . . ? A man like me?” Samir wipes his forehead. “You believe I can stop him.”
“You’re the only one who can.”
He ponders the floral bedspread. “What must I do?”
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. Playing along.”
“Playing along with what? I have not seen him in days.”
The beginning of the relationship is crucial — even without a bomb scheduled for the UN. And Brand isn’t meeting with Samir, just pocketing the money.
It’d be one thing if it were only embezzlement. Internal investigation, criminal charges, sure. But feeding us false info to cover and not even pretending to collect the intelligence we need so desperately? That goes way beyond skimming your agent’s cash. That’s treason.
I need the details. I need an audit of Brand’s finances and reports. I need a complete account from Samir telling when they met, what they said, what he got. Probably his bank records and a thorough search of everything he owns to prove he wasn’t getting the money.
Or we confront Brand and hope he says something to incriminate himself, show our cards to make him show his.
I don’t want to do this alone, but the last time I brought someone with me, he got sh
ot. Yeah, I think I’m gonna err on the side of caution. Because no matter how I play it, big, big risk.
I paint on a self-assured smile for Samir. He’s my dynamite, after all. Now I have to wire in the blasting cap.
I hold out my hand for Samir’s phone. He furrows his brow, but gives it to me. I type in the phone number and return it to him without hitting Send. “Tell Vince what just happened.”
“Did you not say he was betraying your country? Why would I want to do that?”
“I need evidence.” Okay, shooting Elliott is pretty dang obvious, but I have to collect the hard evidence of exactly how Brand’s double-crossed our country if, as Mack so helpfully pointed out, he isn’t selling information or colluding with foreign intelligence. “I have to see what he does when we tell him something he needs to pass up the chain.”
And if he doesn’t — sometimes it’s the things you don’t say that hurt the most, right?
“We have to do this carefully,” I say. “Normally you wouldn’t have this phone number.”
Samir glances at his phone, his mouth set in that same uncertain line. If he really knew what we were tackling, he’d run like I offered him a ticket to Guantánamo.
We’re not taking on some random, unsuspecting target. We’re working against a trained CIA operative who knows he’s violating that trust. He has to be five times as cautious as the typical officer.
Fortunately, that would make him about half as paranoid as me. I have to bet on the weakness that brought Brand here in the first place: his overconfidence.
“Vince will be suspicious.” I stand to square off against Samir. “Why are you calling?” I challenge him, prepping him for the coming confrontation. “How’d you get this number?”
His eyes frantically search the room. “Telephone directory?”
I shake my head, dropping the façade. “Cell number. Blame me; tell him I gave it to you for an emergency. The night we all met the first time — but don’t volunteer that. Only if he asks.”
Now his eyebrows mimic that grim line. “Tara gave it to me,” he says, testing out the words in his own voice. “In case there was an emergency.”
I’d never, ever give an agent a contact like that. If Brand knew me better, he’d see through that first line like he was wearing our real-life X-ray glasses (not as cool as they sound).
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 47
