Flashpoint

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Paoletti nodded. “I’ll get whatever documents we need.”

  “Then one of us can pretend to be her husband and be with her at all times,” Deck said.

  “It can’t be Decker,” Nash said to Paoletti, to Tess. “Too many of our contacts in Kazabek think he’s got a K-stani wife back here in the States.”

  That was true. In the past, Deck had worked hard to establish an identity, a cover, on his frequent trips to K-stan. He’d created Melisande, his fictional wife, and it had helped him gain acceptance and trust. To show up now with a different “wife” would be the equivalent of tattooing the words “I am an agent of the U.S. Government” on his forehead. Even now, three years after his last visit.

  “And it can’t be Dave Malkoff,” Nash continued. “No one in their right mind would believe Tess would marry him. Our cover would be blown before we even got out of the airport.”

  Tess cleared her throat and crossed her legs. “I don’t know Dave, so I’m not sure whether you’re insulting me or—”

  “Him,” Nash said quickly. “I’m insulting him.”

  “Dave is lacking in certain social skills,” Decker told her.

  “He’s a freak,” Nash said bluntly, going for truth over tact. “And he looks and acts like a total geek.”

  “So what?” she argued. “People fall in love and get married for all different reasons. Maybe he’s great in bed. In my experience, just because a guy isn’t GQ handsome doesn’t automatically mean he’s not great in bed. And vice versa.”

  O-kay. Decker didn’t dare look at Nash. And vice versa. He didn’t want to begin to speculate about the subtext of that message.

  Tess broke the silence. “Well, I sure know how to stop a conversation cold, don’t I? My comment was inappropriate, and I’m sorry, but it really annoys me when people are judged on their appearance.”

  “Dave Malkoff is a freak because he’s a freak,” Nash told her in that completely calm voice he used when he was hiding an emotional reaction. “He’s book smart, but if someone didn’t remind him to go home, he’d starve to death in his office. The fact that he looks like a geek is secondary to—”

  “It can’t be Dave,” Paoletti interrupted the discussion. “Or Murphy. So we might as well get that idea off the table. They’re already en route to Kazabek. They’re out of the loop. They both spent significant time in K-stan before the borders were closed—I have no way of knowing what kind of cover they already have in place. I apologize for not having that information.” He looked at Nash, and he didn’t look entirely happy. “It’ll have to be you.”

  Decker was watching Tess. She kept her face carefully blank.

  Nash was noticeably silent again, too.

  “Is that going to work?” Decker asked them both.

  “If Tess is going, in order for her to be safe, it’ll have to work,” Nash said. He even managed to smile. “Won’t it?”

  “I can make anything work,” Tess agreed. “Particularly for the short term.”

  “Good,” Paoletti, standing up. “Figure out a cover story. Chief, with me in my office. Now.”

  Tess sat at the receptionist’s desk in the outer office of Troubleshooters Incorporated, flipping through the packet of information on Kazbekistan that Tom Paoletti had emailed to her, waiting for Jimmy Nash to come out of the bathroom.

  She’d already read it twice. And she’d done extra extensive research on the country, downloading info from the State Department and other Web sites for savvy travelers onto her laptop. She’d studied it all on the flight to San Diego.

  She couldn’t believe how quickly this had happened. She’d called Tom Paoletti on the rumor that he was looking for people. He’d actually answered his own phone, they’d had a conversation, and she’d faxed over her resume. He’d called her ten minutes later to tell her he had a job he wanted her to consider and that there was a plane ticket waiting for her at Dulles so they could meet face-to-face.

  At the time, he hadn’t mentioned Lawrence Decker or Diego “My name’s Jimmy” Nash.

  And here came Nash now, his carefully polite smile—more suitable for strangers than people who had been naked together—perfectly in place.

  This entire assignment had the potential to be one giant, embarrassing ball of pain. For both of them.

  But particularly for her.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” she said point-blank. It seemed a far better route to take than avoidance. Ignoring the anvil that was hurtling down from the sky could only work for a limited time. And she didn’t want him to think she’d followed him here.

  Especially since she’d already given away the fact that she’d gone looking for him, at least electronically, by asking about Mexico. Boy, for a Mensa member, she could be a total imbecile. She felt the need to explain that further. “I had no idea you and Decker were leaving the Agency. I was worried when you dropped off the map, so I checked around and found out . . . It wasn’t because I wanted anything else from you.”

  “I know,” Nash said. She couldn’t tell if he was lying. “I also know you’ve wanted to go into the field for a long time, so . . .”

  “Here I am,” she said.

  “Yeah. Here you are.” He sat down across the wide expanse of the desk from her. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry that you’re forced to work with me now. You’re sorry you didn’t foresee that possibility. I’m into honesty, Nash, remember?”

  “Yeah.” He met her gaze only fleetingly. “I, uh, do remember.” He laughed softly. “God, this is awkward.”

  “Why?” she asked, and this time he really looked at her, with wariness and disbelief in his eyes, neither of which he tried to hide from her. “I’m serious,” she added. “Why should this have to be awkward?”

  Apparently she’d rendered him speechless.

  “I don’t know about you, but I had some really great sex that night,” she told him. “It was incredible. You’re very good in bed. I’m sorry if I implied otherwise when we were talking about Dave Malkoff—you just really pissed me off. And yeah, okay, it’s true, the first time was a little quick, but you more than made up for it later—”

  “Tess, stop. Look, you have every right to be angry—”

  “But I’m not,” she said. “I’m really not. I’m just . . . Yes, okay, I am, but not about what you think. I didn’t even realize it until Decker said you were here, until I saw you again.” She closed her eyes, wishing there was an easy way to explain. “I didn’t expect you to call me because we had sex that night, Jimmy. I expected you to call me because, well, I thought we were friends.”

  Tess opened her eyes and he was staring at the floor, jaw muscles jumping. When he glanced at her, his eyes were filled with chagrin. If it was an act, it was brilliant.

  “Are we really going to be able to do this?” he asked.

  “I am,” Tess said. “I’ve wanted this for too long to walk away from it now. And unless you’re going to let Decker go by himself into a city that’s been labeled ‘the terrorist capital of the world’—”

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “Well, there you have it,” she said. “It looks like we’re going to do this.”

  They were both silent then. Nash was looking at her now, really looking at her. He’d looked at her that same way, that night—as if he liked what he saw. And as if that surprised him.

  They both spoke at the same time, both cut themselves off.

  “I’m sorry,” Nash said. “Go ahead.”

  “No, you go,” she said.

  “I was just going to ask if there was any way we could be friends again.”

  Yeah, right. “Well, that depends on your definition of friends,” Tess countered evenly instead of bursting into disbelieving and near hysterical laughter. “Because I was just going to say that there’s absolutely no way I’m ever going to sleep with you ever again. Not in this lifetime.”

  He
nodded. “Of course. I . . . I understand.”

  Did he really? Tess doubted it. But there was no way she was going to explain that she couldn’t keep sex separate from her emotions—the way he did—without revealing that she’d fallen a little bit in love with him that night. She might’ve been able to keep her heart out of it if it really had been a casual encounter—just relatively superficial small talk, some laughter, and an orgasm or two—the way she’d expected. But Nash had talked to her. He’d said things she’d never expected to hear him say.

  They’d connected.

  Correction—she’d thought they’d connected. He’d merely played her. Although why he’d done that, she wasn’t sure. She’d made the first move—he had to know she was more than willing.

  But maybe Jimmy Nash had gotten to the point where sexual conquests weren’t enough. Maybe he didn’t get off unless he knew he was going to break someone’s heart.

  Although hers had only been cracked.

  “So,” she said now. “Tell me what I need to know about you to pass myself off as your wife. Have we been married for long? What’s my name?”

  “My cover was that I was unattached, so you can keep Tess,” he said. “It’s easier that way. Although you’ll be Tess Nash, of course, to drive home the fact that we’re together.”

  “But Nash isn’t your real name,” she started to say, and as he glanced at her, she saw surprise and even wariness in his eyes. No doubt he was wondering if, as a comspesh, she’d had access to his Agency file. His real Agency file, not the one that proclaimed Access denied. She had, after all, tracked him to Mexico. That hadn’t been easy to do. “Never mind. Off topic. It’s inconsequential. I’m sorry, go on.”

  She realized that he was more put off by her being here than he was letting on. And he was less rested and relaxed than she’d thought at first, too. He kept rubbing his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

  “It’s been three years since I’ve been in Kazabek,” he said. “But I think it’s better to say we met just a few weeks ago.”

  “Weeks?” And after knowing each other such a short time, they were already married?

  “Yeah.” Nash didn’t seem to think that was far-fetched. “They know me in Kazabek as James Nash. I’m the director of a not-for-profit organization called People First,” he told her.

  “James,” Tess said, “not Jimmy?”

  My name’s Jimmy.

  He met her eyes only briefly, and she knew he remembered telling her that, too. They had both been naked at the time.

  “No.” He cleared his throat, went on. “The story is that I was hired by PF right out of college. Which, by the way, was right down Mem Drive from you. I went to Harvard.”

  During the interview, she’d told Tom Paoletti that she’d attended MIT. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “No,” she said swiftly. “I just . . . I had no idea.” His file hadn’t mentioned Harvard, but of course, it wasn’t that sort of file. “When were you there? Maybe we could say we met in Cambridge, you know, and were friends for years before—”

  “I was there right after I participated in that manned spaceflight to Mars,” Nash told her.

  Tess stared at him. He was just such a good liar, it was hard to know what was truth and what was cover story. What was real and what was make-believe.

  “Where did you really go to school?” she asked.

  “Harvard,” he said. But then he added, almost gently, “Really is relative. The only really you need to be concerned with is the one that drives our cover story. Which is I went to Harvard, graduated fifteen years ago, worked for People First ever since.”

  “You worked for the Agency for fifteen years,” Tess said aloud, and he paused. He was clearly wondering how she knew that, and she then realized that this wasn’t public knowledge.

  “You told me,” she reassured him. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to lie.

  But like most liars, he was extra suspicious. “When?”

  “How should I know?” she said with an eye roll that expressed just the right amount of exasperation. “You came into support and sat on my desk only 854 times in the past three years. It was one of those times.”

  If she’d been specific—May 14, 2002, at 3:30 in the afternoon—he would’ve known she was making it all up.

  Instead he nodded. “Here’s the deal, okay? We met three weeks ago, in D.C.”

  “Not while we were at school?” Tess asked. “It seems perfect—”

  “It’s not. There’d be too many years of ancient history to keep straight. We met three weeks ago, while I was in town for a conference,” Nash told her. “People First is based out of Boston, but I travel a lot. Particularly to D.C. Where you live . . . doing what?”

  “Working for a dot com?” It was what she probably would have done if she hadn’t been recruited by the Agency. “How about . . . After MIT, I worked for a dot com that peaked big, but then died,” Tess suggested. This was kind of fun. Or at least it would have been if she’d been playing this game with anyone but Nash. “It gasped its last breath a year ago. I’m so, so sick of computers, I decided to go back to school, right there in D.C. To law school.”

  “Are you really sick of computers?” he asked.

  Tess gave him a look. “Harvard?”

  Nash nodded, smiled. “You’re good at lying.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I think.” Of course, coming from the Liar King, that was probably the highest praise.

  They were both silent then. So exactly how did they meet, Tess the law student and James the head of a not-for-profit organization, three very short weeks ago?

  That particular detail—three weeks and then, bang, a wedding—still seemed weak to Tess.

  Across the table, Nash rubbed his forehead.

  “Headache?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He smiled ruefully. “Hangover.”

  Ah. “It might help if you drink some water.” She fished in her bag for the extra bottle she’d bought at the airport, slid it across the desk to him. “Here.”

  She’d surprised him. “Wow,” he said. “I’m—” He shook his head. “Thanks.”

  “How about if I was doing work-study as a legal assistant for a firm—you know, pro bono law for not-for-profit groups,” Tess said as he opened the bottle and drank. “Maybe one of our clients was People First. And that’s how we met.”

  “No,” he said, wiping his mouth with his hand. “I mean, yes, that’s excellent, but let’s not have your firm connected with People First. It would be too easy for someone to check and see that there’s no record of . . . We could do it if we had more time to set it up, but we’re on a plane to Kazabek in just a few hours. Let’s say instead that you hadn’t heard of PF until you met me. What if . . . you had a meeting with a pro bono client who was attending that same conference. Your meeting was in the hotel bar.”

  “But he didn’t show,” Tess said.

  “Yeah. I walked in, saw you sitting there alone, and it was love at first sight. And here we are, three weeks later. Married.”

  Tess looked at Jimmy Nash, with his perfect hair, his bedroom eyes, his broad shoulders, and his washboard abs—oh, she couldn’t see them now, but she knew they were there beneath his shirt. “Is anyone really going to believe that? We meet and we’re married in just a few weeks?”

  “Yeah, and it’ll help explain why we don’t know each other all that well. That’s important, unless you want to spend hours on the flight memorizing brands of toothpaste and deodorant, favorite foods, favorite movies, whether you like anchovies on your pizza—”

  “Definitely not—to both of those things. The memorizing and the anchovies.”

  “I figured as much,” he said. “The anchovies, I mean.”

  “I suppose you like them.”

  “Absolutely. Live large, I always say.”

  “Anchovies are small. And awful,” Tess pointed out. “And people don’t really get ma
rried after knowing each other for only a few weeks.”

  “Sometimes they do. We’re going to Kazabek, Tess, not L.A. There’s not a lot of premarital sex happening there. People get married before they get busy—and likewise, people who want to get busy get married first. You know, women have been sentenced to death for adultery there—even women who were raped.”

  Tess nodded. “I do know. I’ve read the packet of information on Kazbekistan that Tom Paoletti gave me.”

  “Then you also know that their women’s rights movement has recently regressed about two hundred years,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Whenever you’re outside, you need to be covered.” Nash had on that same concerned face she’d first seen in the car, two months ago, on the way to rescue Decker at the Gentlemen’s Den. He was using the same commanding officer voice. These were orders he was giving, not suggestions. “Down to your ankles and wrists and up to your neck.”

  “So much for my budding career as a topless waitress.”

  Nash was not amused. “I’m serious.”

  “That’s very apparent.”

  “Even if it’s a hundred degrees in the shade.”

  “I’m clear on that,” Tess told him. She resisted the urge to salute.

  “You’ll have to carry a scarf whenever you go out, too,” he said. “In case you’re stopped and asked to cover your head.”

  “Yes, I read that. In the packet.”

  “Some people don’t read the packet.”

  “I did.”

  “There are parts of the country where women have to wear a burka and veil,” Nash told her.

  “Some parts of the capital city, too. And some women in Kazabek actually choose to wear burkas all the time. Or at least so I understand, after having read the packet,” Tess said.

  “Think of this as a test,” he told her.

  “You mean, a pop quiz on the reading material, or more of a ‘How long will it take before Nash drives me nuts’ kind of test?”

  “This is your first time out there.” As if he had to remind her. “I’m going to be on top of you every minute. You don’t like it when information is repeated? Too bad. I’m going to make damn sure that you know everything you need to know to keep from getting hurt or, yeah, even killed. People can die in the field, Tess.”