by Fiona Quinn
Though Striker was dressed in a suit and tie for this meeting, he’d be back in his camouflage tactical pants and his gray compression shirt this afternoon when he returned to the Iniquus campus.
Striker makes anything he wears look good, and his dress pants sure did good things for my libido, but his shoulders were too broad, his biceps too pronounced for him to look comfortable in the confining cut and fabric of a suit coat.
I wanted to reach for Striker’s hand, but such a move was frowned upon in a business setting.
When I twitched as if to reach for him, he seemed to remember that he and our guide were both well over six feet tall, and my legs were much shorter. Running to keep up with their aggressive gait made me look ridiculous as I chased after them.
Striker paused and changed his pace to match mine.
We passed by oil paintings of men from long ago, staring down at us as we made our way toward the elevator banks.
There was no buzz here. No conversation. It was as if everything that might pass between humans was so secretive, so dangerous that it couldn’t be allowed to seep into the air.
Up ahead, I watched a man with a lithe frame walking next to a woman with straight jet-black hair that fell just past her shoulders.
She wore a white pantsuit. Even with her red high heels, she barely came up to the man’s chest. They held their shoulders rigid and walked with stiff backs. I could imagine that there was something dangerous afoot, and they were both trying to hold their secrets tight until they were in some SCIF—sensitive compartmented information facility—where the mystery could be revealed.
The woman looked back over her shoulder and caught my eye. Her body gave a small convulsion like a doctor’s hammer had tapped her knee to watch her reflexes. Her eyes flicked up to the man, and she muttered something softly enough that the walls couldn’t bat the sounds and amplify them, booming out an echo for me to hear.
The man rolled his shoulders then nodded.
He seemed, through his posture, to tell her to move along. But there was something unusual about the exchange. I could swear the woman knew me and had warned the man not to turn around.
How odd was that?
As the two passed a guard, a command was issued.
The guard gave a quarter turn and faced us. He held up his hand to indicate we should stop.
Oliver lifted his badge showing his high rank.
“Wait, please,” the guard said as he raised his arms on either side of him, effectively forming a gate.
As the man reached out to press the elevator button, his head swiveled just enough my way that I recognized him.
“Black!” I called out. What in the actual heck?
“Madam,” the guard said.
“Black!” I didn’t care one iota that my voice pinged around the hall, pulling attention to me. “John Black. I need a word.” I projected my voice out. There was no way he didn’t hear me.
Everyone heard me.
Black reached for the elevator button again as if his pressing it hard enough would provide him with a quick escape.
Black was with the color code. He was one of the officers who did whatever they did all under the team’s name: John for the men and Johnna for the women and some attached color.
Grey, the man who developed my husband Angel, moving him from his job as an Army Ranger into CIA black ops, was part of that team. Grey was the one who thought it would be just fine for me to be gutted by Angel’s death.
Somehow, their team thought it was a good idea to tell Angel’s friends and family, his wife, that Angel had been blown into smithereens on some dusty road in Afghanistan. We’d be sad and move on.
Well, I didn’t move on. I found Angel, saved him, and was promised a damned divorce.
“Black!” I crouched under the guard’s arm.
The guard snatched at me as I ran toward Black.
I slapped his hand away, racing the last few steps to catch up with Black as the doors slid open, and he climbed on the elevator.
The guard yelled, “Stop. Gun.”
I reached my hand out to block the doors from closing. Hell no, Black wasn’t getting away from me.
In that same breath, Striker lifted me off my feet, pushing me up against the wall.
My bruised cheek pressed painfully into the cold surface.
Striker covered my body with his.
It was singularly the most astonishing and violent thing that Striker had ever done to me.
I stilled, dangling like a rag doll, in shock that he’d manhandled me that way.
The rumble of the elevator told me that my chance to put pressure on the color code group to release me from Angel was lost.
Striker pressed his full body against mine. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. That’s a colleague of hers, and she just wanted a word.”
Our guide was saying. “I’ll take responsibility.” From where my face was pressed into the wall, I could see Oliver hustling to the elevator bank and pressing the button. “Let me just get another elevator car.”
“I issued an order,” the security guard growled.
With his arm around my waist, Striker lowered my feet to the ground, continuing to wrap me in a blanket of Striker protection.
I seethed.
I had no idea what Black said to the guard, but it was enough that the guard pulled his weapon on me. It was enough that Striker felt the need to shield me with his own body and put himself in danger’s way.
How dare Black?
I had been on numerous cases with him. My puzzling skills had kept ops in play, saved Angel from his torture chamber. I deserved a moment and a whispered conversation.
A guard and a gun?
Are you freaking kidding me?
My whole body trembled with rage.
Striker kept a tight hold on me. Though where I would go or what he thought I would do is beyond me.
The guard didn’t seem convinced that I wasn’t a threat.
His pistol was held against his chest, barrel facing toward the ground, finger along the trigger guard, the ready position should he need to punch out, align me with his sights and take me down.
For cripes’ sake.
“Come.” Oliver was obviously distressed by the turn of events. He was scooping the air, trying to herd us forward as the new elevator car bounced into place, and the doors yawned wide. “Come.”
With Striker’s arm around my shoulders, we took the few steps forward and climbed onto the car.
“That…” he started, then stalled with an exhale, punching the button. “Yeah, that was unexpected. Mrs. Sobado, I apologize there as obviously some miscommunication.”
I glowered.
“This meeting… I feel that things have gotten off on bad footing. This is…” Oliver rested his index finger on his chin and repeatedly swiped at his cheek with his thumb, a sign that he was thinking quickly and trying to be strategic with his words. “There is a dangerous situation unfolding. It’s very time-sensitive. I’m told that you are… We think that you can… I hope that didn’t upset your equilibrium. This meeting has consequences.”
I didn’t reply. It had been a long day already, and here it was just eleven. I still had the FBI and a trip to the doctor. My cheek where it hit the wall was throbbing. I shrugged my shoulders to get Striker off me as we reached our floor.
I wasn’t mad at him.
He did the right thing. I wouldn’t have stopped. Through his actions, Striker might have saved me from being shot.
Who knew?
Still, I tapped my foot aggressively while the doors opened, my arms folded tightly under my breasts.
“Your cheek,” Oliver said. “I, uhm…shall I get you an icepack?”
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m going to lay this out for you with as much information as I can.” Casper was the way he introduced himself, nothing more—not even a title. That was true for all three men in the room, a name and a blank face that said, “don’t ask fo
r any other identifiers.”
Casper was short and balding. His figure was that of a man past his prime who ate a lunch of vending machine snacks at his desk. His skin drooped on either side of his chin, and I thought a little sunlight with its boost of vitamin D would probably serve him well. “Much of this case will remain redacted information. This makes your job difficult, I’m aware.”
“What job is that?” I asked. I sat kitty-corner with Striker at a conference table too long for the five people in the room. There was a bank of windows off to my right with a view of the expansive, park-like setting outside. The walls, covered in neutral paint, were peppered with various awards and citations, a few pictures from decades past.
I wondered if Oliver was coming back. He’d left us at the door with an odd little bow.
There was no coffee station set up, just a pitcher of water in the center of the table with some glasses upside down on a cork tray. They were too far away for me to reach without standing and bending over the table.
The three suits sitting with us were named Cho, DiSarro, and the head guy, Casper.
Casper’s eye had caught on my cheek and then slid away. He didn’t ask.
Probably wise.
To say we were starting this meeting off on the wrong foot would be putting it mildly.
If Striker didn’t have the car keys in his pocket, I might just have headed on out the door and explained to Command that I wasn’t feeling well after this morning’s fight.
I might just do that anyway. I didn’t need Striker’s car. There were car services readily available in D.C. I used them all the time because they were usually cheaper than parking prices.
Casper cleared his throat. “Our leadership has concluded over time that we here at the CIA might have an institutionalized view of things, especially as they become higher-risk cases and are assessed by our senior staff.” He faced Striker, looking him in the eye and seemingly cutting me out of their dialogue.
Striker noticed it too, and I could tell he was highly amused by the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. Though, his face would be read as stoic by those who didn’t know him well.
“As you might be aware, the CIA started a program called Red Cell many years ago, developing ideas about where a big threat might emerge that we hadn’t considered.”
“Creative minds—” Cho started.
“Exactly,” Casper cut him off. “Not to say that there isn’t creativity at work here at the CIA just that—"
“The culture becomes homogenized as people are given promotions,” I said and was ignored.
My dad was one of the creative minds that the CIA had hired. When I thought he was working on cars in the closed bay of his garage, he was often processing through various data points with field officers, helping them come up with creative solutions.
When I was thirteen, Dad and Spyder were talking through a case over their ubiquitous games of chess, I mentioned something I thought was quite evident, and Spyder raced out of the garage. When he came back, he spoke with my parents, offering to mentor me. And that was how I started training in earnest for what I had thought would be my future career in the intelligence field. Iniquus was happily where I landed. I wouldn’t do well here at the CIA.
I wanted to butt heads with everyone. Okay, maybe not Oliver. So far, Oliver was okay.
“That’s the concern. And it’s why we invited Iniquus in.” Casper gave Striker a nod. “Again, there is little I can say about the case. This might prove helpful as you won’t be crawling through the weeds. Or it might prove too daunting.” He sent me a sad smile as if anticipating my failure. “If you walk out of here today,” he now turned to look specifically at me, “and you haven’t offered us any new ideas, we remain in the same position as we were when you walked through the door. So don’t worry if you’re not able to come up with anything that our officers are able to use.”
Yeah, we weren’t going to become besties. That was clear. “But there’s a box to be checked on some form? Run this by an outside creative?” I asked with a tip of my head.
He pressed the flats of his hands on the table, his fingers splayed wide. “There’s a directive that I’m following through with. It’s not meant to be an afront. It’s just—” He waved his hand toward me. “You’re what? Early twenties? You haven’t even got a college degree? You’ve been on the job with Iniquus for—"
“She’s been contracted with Iniquus for three years,” Striker said. He didn’t add anything that would bolster me. But his eyes danced with merriment. He leaned back like he was going to enjoy the show.
I hoped I could live up to Striker’s expectations.
“With no formal training in anything that I can discern.” He raised his brows then let them drop, inviting us to draw our own conclusions to that thought. “Iniquus, though, has a golden reputation. Our partnership with them over time has been beneficial to the CIA. This isn’t a mission that we’re handing off this time. Striker is a task force commander.” He nodded his respect toward Striker. “And we’ve never been disappointed. Since he came up through the Navy to the SEALs and later to Iniquus, I have to assume he’s escorting you. Monitoring you as a supervisor? Mentor?”
“No, sir, Lynx isn’t under my command.” Striker pulled Casper’s eyes off me. “She heads her own department at Iniquus.”
“Oh?” He focused harder on me with masked incredulity and confusion. “What department is that?”
“My title is Iniquus puzzler.”
“Puzzler…” He stopped and laughed. “Sounds like you’re Batman’s arch-nemesis.” Casper focused back on Striker when he didn’t get a rise out of me. “I see. I guess Iniquus command got the memo about institutionalization of viewpoints and diversity.” He chuckled. “What could be more different than the hardened and experienced special operators turned private security professionals than hiring,” he turned toward me, again, “someone like…you.”
I focused on the muscles around my eyes, contracting them hard, so my eyeballs didn’t roll. I was here representing Iniquus, and I’d already created issues downstairs. Whether Casper was trying to be offensive to see my reactions as a test or if he was being perfectly sincere with his disdain made no difference.
Striker had suggested they had removed the other folks slated to come to this meeting so that I didn’t embarrass the leaders on this mission. Having sat through that, I had another take. These three, well, maybe not the three—this guy, Casper, probably thought this meeting was a waste of time, and he wanted everyone to focus on their work piles.
“Okay,” I said in my girl-next-door, fluffy-bunny voice, “well, now that we have that cleared up. How about I listen to what you’re willing to share. I’ll give you enough feedback to feel that you can ethically check that box for having tried an ‘outside the CIA loop’ brain, and we can all move on with our day.”
Striker rolled his lips in, a momentary break in his stoicism that I thought was him trying to hold back a snort of laughter.
I so wanted to live up to Striker’s belief in me.
“I mentioned the Red Cell,” Casper said, opening his laptop and focusing down as he tapped the keys. “The Red Cell is a working group of highly successful authors. Thrillers, science fiction, post-apocalyptic writers have the breadth and depth of knowledge to construct their plots. They have the kinds of creative minds that made them curious enough to seek answers, develop relationships with folks with a wide cadre of expertise, and more importantly, they see the not-so-obvious holes that a criminal could burrow into and exploit.”
“Ways that a terrorist could work a loophole into a noose to hang us all,” Cho said.
Casper tapped the enter button to start a PowerPoint into action, the lights in the conference room automatically dimmed. “The Red Cell suggested we contact a New York City artist to participate in this effort.”
“A specific artist with a specific medium?” I asked.
“Right. That’s right.” He shifted around and sent a
side-eye to Cho.
Just then, a tap sounded at the door. Oliver stuck his head in, looked around until he locked eyes on me, and then held up an ice pack.
That was nice of him.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Oliver nodded and backed out again, slicking the door closed behind him.
Clearing his throat, Casper tapped the computer, and the graphic on the screen changed to show an art gallery.
In the gallery, people milled about looking at what seem to be modern versions of death masks.
Before photography was around, when a loved one died, if the family were wealthy enough, they’d often commission an artist to come and make a cast of their loved one’s face out of wax or plaster. Just in that form, they could be kept as a memento of the dead person or could be handed to a different artist when the likeness was commissioned as sculpture or perhaps an oil painting.
This display in the gallery looked like a combination of death mask and oil.
Interesting.
Each installment included a box beneath the mask.
“This installation opened last year. The artist collected human debris from around New York City. It might be a hair from the public bathroom, fingernails, cigarette butts from the sidewalk, chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a park bench.”
Strange hobby.
DiSarro pushed away from the table, pressing into the arms of his chair until the seat back squeaked, then coming upright again. “I took these pictures when I went up to New York City to see the exhibit and chat with the artist. To be honest, from an intelligence point of view, I was pretty uncomfortable with this. I wasn’t sure if her collection was ethical. And in this circumstance,” he pointed to the screen, “I’d say it deserves a good conversation amongst ethicists because while some of the collection was made of objects that were knowingly discarded as litter—the gum and cigarettes—the hair, I guess, is my main issue.”
