Twice, he’d started to kid her about being too rule conscious. Man, she followed regs before they had regs to follow or anything to report. Twice, he bit his tongue.
The cab ride into the city was no different. She stared out the passenger window at city traffic, yellow cabs and gas-guzzling SUVs that no city dweller needed except for status.
She avoided conversation the entire time. Refused his offer of help with her suitcase with a vigorous headshake. When his hand brushed her arm, she jumped like he’d zapped her with a stun gun. And, worst of all, she was hiding her beautiful, smoky-gray eyes behind those glasses.
Hiding from him.
Apologizing hadn’t rewound time to their easy friendship. Maybe friendship was impossible, especially with a sexy woman. A woman in mourning. He knew all too well the pain and hollowness of losing someone you loved. But talking to her about it wasn’t his deal.
Dammit, he was no good at relationships.
The cab crossed the East River into Manhattan’s maze of streets and headed across town. As they turned left on Broadway, traffic snarled around a parked truck unloading at a Starbucks. A traffic sign on the corner warned No Horns.
Horns blared from all sides.
The noise and confusion sent Simon back a year and a half in time.
Gabe Harris had been part of an operation that Simon headed to nail an extremist leader. Alerted to a deception, Simon sent Harris and his unit ahead. Harris fought with one of the terrorists. In the struggle, the terrorist stabbed him in the heart. Harris died within seconds.
Simon should’ve been there instead of en route.
Having to tell Janna that her husband died a hero made Simon feel as hollow as a tolling church bell. Hero that time merely meant the man she loved was dead. The gold ring on the third finger of her left hand more than a year later meant she still loved the man.
Short term was all Simon had to offer. One bad marriage was enough for him. She’d left. People always left. Each loss ripped away pieces of him. And gouged an aching void that never healed. His ex-wife wasn’t the first to leave, but he promised himself she would be the last to have the chance. Brief no-strings liaisons suited him better. Work and building his mountain cabin in western Maryland were all he needed.
But he missed chatting and kidding around with Janna. He missed their long conversations and her laughter.
The cab passed Washington Square. Greenwich Village. They’d be at the DARK offices in a few more blocks.
More cars crowded the street. The cabbie edged into the left lane, squeezing out another taxi by a half inch of fender. The other driver yelled and waved a fist, but theirs merely shrugged as he turned onto the cross street. Just another day in New York traffic.
He’d nearly forgotten that Janna spent her childhood with her diplomat parents in various Eastern European countries. She spoke several languages — not just Russian and the more-obscure Cleatian. Multitalented.
But working together meant communicating with more than long silences. The silent treatment could hinder the op. He had to figure out a way to thaw the cold war — and soon.
***
Janna peered upward at the tower that housed the New York branch of DARK. Its offices occupied the sixteenth through thirty-fifth floors of a steel-and-glass office building two blocks from the FBI in Lower Manhattan.
“They have the same drill as in D.C.,” she said as they approached the private side entrance.
She slipped her leather ID bifold from her purse and opened it. On one side, the gold DARK insignia glinted at her. From the other side, she extracted a plastic card.
Beside her, Simon chuckled, a sensual sound that rippled through her senses. A sound she’d missed.
“Of course they have the same drill. But I bet you researched the security process, didn’t you, Marian?”
She couldn’t help smiling at him calling her The Music Man librarian’s name. Simon teased without cruelty or humiliation. His kidding never hurt. “I checked. I admit it. Why not?” She missed their easy camaraderie, but it wasn’t safe to open herself up too much.
With tension between them thick enough to soundproof a room, his teasing fell flat. He didn’t try again, but merely waited for her to complete the security sequence. Silently but not patiently. Annoyance radiated from him.
Being with Simon jangled her nerves more than this assignment. Her stomach buzzed as though she’d swallowed one of her bug detectors.
She slid her coded plastic card into the designated slot, then placed her right palm on the glowing green screen above it. When the door clicked open, she entered the building. Once inside, she retrieved her card from the machine’s other end. The guard handed her a visitor’s badge to clip on her collar.
Via video monitor, she watched Simon go through the same process. His attire was only marginally less disreputable today. At least the T-shirt beneath his leather jacket had no logo, subversive or otherwise. A few inches taller than her gawky five-foot-eight frame, his was a compact build.
His glower at the handprint detector told her that his resentment of red tape, not her, was the cause of his mood — part of it anyway.
Growing up on the streets and then at Pimlico Race Course had honed the mutinous aspect of his personality. He rebelled against authority even when he was part of the authority. He’d probably prefer to sneak in and let them find him with his feet on the polished desk of the assistant director in charge.
Relax, rebel without a clue. She suppressed an affectionate grin. Affection? No, I can’t afford even that. The warmth of pleasure dissipated, leaving behind only cold fear. She was still attracted to him, but she wouldn’t go there with anyone again — especially not with Simon.
Simon swung into the reception area with his typical economy of movement, and they submitted their briefcases for a search by the guard on duty. He barely glanced at her new bug detector: a miniature unit in ballpoint-pen form she’d designed herself. Her other toys were tucked away in her rolling overnight bag. She scrupulously followed agency regs, but this outing was a field trial for the mini-detector. So far, it passed.
The dour guard gave a disapproving sniff at Simon’s scuffed-leather courier bag, more like a saddlebag than a professional briefcase. But it, too, passed inspection. The guard then called upstairs to announce their arrival. They left their suitcases with him and entered the elevator.
Janna stood stiffly beside Simon as the car rose with a barely perceptible hum. She stared at the steel door as he stared at his feet. His clean scent drifted to her on the conditioned air — soap and pure Simon, no designer cologne or aftershave — a door to familiar feelings and memories. She should slam the door. She had to work with the man. That was all.
She cleared her throat. “I hope we get to see Vanessa Wade. Didn’t she transfer here?”
He shifted his feet, but didn’t look at her. “She’s out of the country with her husband. Hong Kong. I asked.”
“Oh, too bad.” She’d looked forward to seeing her friend. The kind DARK officer had gone out of her way to comfort her when Gabe died.
Vanessa’s wedding had been the end of Janna’s closeness with Simon. She had a champagne-hazed memory of catching the bouquet and slobbering all over him on the dance floor. No wonder he ran like one of his precious horses. She nearly groaned aloud. She was searching for a new topic of conversation when the elevator whispered to a stop and the doors slid open. They stepped out of the express elevator onto the twentieth floor.
A balding officer with a bulldog face greeted them and introduced himself as Tony Mascolo. Simon’s New York contact, this man had arranged for them to view the surveillance videos.
“Harris.” Mascolo chewed on the name. Janna’s stomach clenched at what was coming. When would the attention go away? “You related to Gabriel Harris?”
She squared her shoulders. “He was my husband.”
The officer nodded solemnly. “My sympathies, then. A br
ave man and a credit to the country.”
“I’m very proud of what he did that day.” Front pages and TV stations had broadcast Gabe’s heroism. Internal DARK memos reinforced the news. Facing reminders constantly, she’d developed a stock reply. Easier that way.
“I’ll want to interview Leo Wharton after we see the videos,” Simon said. She breathed easier that he directed the conversation back to business.
“We got Wharton stashed in a safe house instead of the Metropolitan Correctional Center,” Mascolo said as they wove through a maze of cubicles. “Figured it was easier to keep his arrest under wraps that way. Only us and his attorney know his location. I’ll have him brought in. Tomorrow morning okay?”
With a glance at Janna for confirmation, Simon agreed. The fact that he considered her opinion pleased her more than it should. Normal for operatives working together as partners, but she’d learned the hard way not to take consideration for granted.
Mascolo showed them into an office with a large-screen television, folding chairs and a kitchenette. He clicked keys on a laptop. “These are the two that show Roszca. I’ll start the recent one, from last month. Make yourselves comfortable. Soda is in the mini-fridge over there.” He took a seat in the back and opened a folder he’d brought with him.
She headed to the fridge. “Simon?”
“Anything’s fine.” He was already studying the footage beginning to roll in vivid color.
“Technical quality’s good,” She handed him a cola. “One of the new cameras.” Light sensors allowed the camera to switch from color to black and white as the light dimmed. She’d hooked up more than a few of those babies.
She popped open her diet orange and sat beside him.
“This sequence shows the local talent,” Mascolo said, looking up from his work. “Our guy installed a camera and a mic on the bookshelf. Here’s Wharton on the fancy gilt sofa. You probably know his mug anyway. Roszca’s at the door.”
Wharton’s bodyguard went to the door. After a moment, long enough to frisk the visitors, Wharton greeted his guest. Roszca strode across the ankle-deep carpet. The two men shook hands, and Roszca took the armchair beside his host.
Before the trip Janna had studied Roszca’s news footage as well as his file. The flamboyant arms broker frequented film premieres and charity galas. Insisting on the legitimacy of his businesses, he’d given newsmaker interviews on European television.
In suits that cost as much as the camera recording them, both men looked slick, well fed and respectable enough for Wall Street. Except for the bulked-up, armed bodyguards at their sides.
“Here come your guys,” Mascolo said. “NYPD knows them. Petro Kravka and Dmitri Tarlev are knee breakers for the Russian mob. Enforcers. Local bosses farm them out as bodyguards to visiting muck-a-mucks.”
The men, who’d been out of camera range, sidled closer behind Roszca. Kravka was a bear of a man with long, greasy hair. He stood at attention behind the arms broker. Tarlev, shorter but no less muscular, with red hair, lumbered across the room to stand at the settee’s end. After desultory pleasantries, a discussion ensued about arms sales.
“That’s the entire segment with Roszca,” Mascolo said a few moments later as he changed tapes. “Here’s the one from twenty months ago. This is a dinner in an Eastern European café on Second Avenue. Private room. You’ll see Roszca’s goons and some other arms buyers.”
Janna watched the recorded gathering, but her awareness focused on the man beside her. Curiosity, she told herself. This serious, intense side of Simon was new to her. Until his visit that fatal day, she’d seen only his fun-loving side. Not his intuitive mind focused on his work. His mocking brown eyes were solemn, and his sensual mouth, so often in a wry smirk, thinned to a taut line.
His shoulders stiffened at something on the screen.
Janna slid her gaze back to the video and froze as if a claw had clamped down on her nape.
The tall, dark-haired man shaking hands with Roszca looked all too familiar. A man who usually had sandy-blond hair.
The man she’d buried only a few months after this scene took place.
Chapter 3
SIMON’S PULSE TOOK off like a thoroughbred out of the starting gate. His mind raced on its heels with more questions than he could handle. He was watching Wharton and Roszca and the same bodyguards from the first recording when who should waltz in but the all-American golden boy — and with dyed hair. Or a wig.
What the hell was Gabe Harris doing in the same room with these scumbag arms brokers? Simon had figured maybe leaks to other agencies or an ally, maybe a little moonlighting, but illegal arms dealing? Mr. Perfect? No way. This tape was why the AD didn’t give him details about what Janna might have done. He wanted Janna’s reaction for sure, but he wanted Simon’s shock to be genuine. It sure as hell was genuine.
Was the agency’s favorite hero a traitor as bad as Wharton? No. Worse. Had he dragged his wife into his dirty business? The notion churned bile in his belly.
Janna’s sharp intake of breath told him the moment she too saw her deceased husband. She gripped his arm. “Simon, no,” she mouthed, her expression pleading. Her gaze flicked to the rear of the room, to the New York officer.
Simon knew what she was asking. She wanted him to keep the secret. But did she want him to protect the memory of the dead husband she loved? The reputation of a dead hero?
Or did she want him to cover up treason?
The acrid taste of nausea backed up in his throat. He couldn’t swallow any more cola. A stiff shot of something stronger would go down easier. He glanced at Mascolo. The man was reading his file, hadn’t even looked up at them or at the screen. He’d probably seen all the tapes a dozen times. Either the New York officer didn’t recognize the agency’s hero, or Mascolo had orders to keep mum and observe what Janna did.
Simon swallowed the bitter taste and his better judgment. She couldn’t be involved. He couldn’t believe it. But he had to follow her lead to prove it to DARK. Gut knotted with nerves, he nodded and gave Janna’s trembling hand a pat. He felt the iciness of her skin before she pulled away.
Her eyelids fluttered in recognition of his agreement to her plea. Shock had blanched her complexion to chalk. Simon longed to reassure her, but nothing he could say or do would erase the horrible reality before them. Hell, his mug was probably just as pale.
Both forced their gazes back to the television.
A drink in his hand — bourbon straight up, from the looks of it — Harris conversed cordially with Roszca after Wharton strolled away.
The gist of their chat was to arrange an appointment to negotiate for automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades for a Middle Eastern militia group. Roszca agreed to meet the next afternoon.
When the dinner ended, the screen went black. Mascolo strode to the laptop and clicked off the recordings.
Ramsey had for damn sure already seen it. He’d set them both up, but Simon needed time to analyze the footage. “I’d like a copy of those to take back to D.C.”
“Sure.” Mascolo removed a flash drive from the TV. “The AD approved their release to you.”
From the man’s zeal, Simon got the impression that New York wanted this complicated part of the operation out of their hair. Rolling up Wharton was clean and simple: possession of illegal weapons and treason for arming enemies of the country.
But nothing involving Roszca was clean. Or simple.
Especially this time.
Janna snatched the drive from Mascolo’s hand before Simon could move. She tucked it in her slim leather case. “You have all the people’s names?” she asked.
Mascolo didn’t seem to notice her nervousness, but he didn’t know her like Simon did. Her jerky movements and trapped look reminded him of a frightened filly — a filly he couldn’t draw into his arms to protect.
“Some.” He shrugged. “I’ll give you what I got. You can take it from there.”
Ta
ke it from there, yeah, Simon thought, his pulse bounding again. What he’d do with the volatile information was up for grabs. The bile in his belly congealed into a hard knot.
***
By tacit agreement, neither spoke as the elevator descended to the reception area.
Janna didn’t dare use her new bug detector in here, but every square foot of the building was surely wired for sound and video surveillance — likely for motion and heat sensors also.
Her nerves screamed. What were the names in the envelope that Mascolo handed over? Simon had tucked it in his bag without a glance. If only she had the necessary technical marvel — X-ray vision — to read the list through the scarred leather of his bag.
The New York DARK investigation must not have identified Gabe as a fellow officer. That much was certain. Otherwise Ramsey wouldn’t have included her in this op. But who did New York think he was?
If they knew the man buying arms from Roszca was the agency’s poster boy, they’d choke on their ID badges. Everyone sang her hero husband’s praises to her, forcing her to guard her secret shame. She’d accepted his medals, smiled at the accolades and dabbed at tears. He’d win no prizes as a husband, but she believed his dedication to the agency and his country had been beyond reproach. That was one reason she kept her scars private.
Or maybe he’d been undercover for Ramsey without anyone’s knowledge. Did the AD send her here on purpose, for some obscure security reason she couldn’t fathom?
Nothing made sense.
Did she want Gabe to be innocent? Did she want him to be guilty? Questions tumbled in her heart like stones in a streambed. Of course she wanted him to be innocent. But at the reason, emotion clogged her throat. If Gabe was guilty of selling arms or treason or God knew what else, that made her even more of a fool than she was already. She had to know what he’d done.
A scandal involving DARK’s hero would rock the agency to the core. The resulting investigation would surely open up her shame to scrutiny. She’d face exposure if she had to — the pity spotlight, the scandal, her parents’ shock. They thought the sun rose and set on Gabe.
Dark Rules (The DARK Files Book 3) Page 2
