“Pretty much.”
She smiled back, relieved that they had come to an easy truce after all this time. “I’ll call you.”
He nodded, then walked to his car, leaving her to hers. The moment she got in, slammed the door shut, she checked her cell phone, saw she had missed a call from Griffin and three from Carillo. She ignored Griffin’s call and phoned Carillo instead. “You’ll never guess who just searched my apartment and office. Pearson,” she said, before he could even get a word in edgewise. “They were after the numbers.”
“Tex was at my place earlier, so I figured it was a matter of time. Had you answered your phone, I would’ve mentioned it, right along with his request that I let Griffin tell you about his involvement.”
“Let’s just say I drew a logical conclusion.”
“Hard not to. I assume he’s back in D.C., since he wasn’t here with Tex last night. Have you talked to him yet?”
“No. But I can’t wait to hear his explanation for all this.”
“So what now?”
“Regroup. I’ll call you when I come up with a plan.”
“Stay safe.”
“Likewise.”
She left, navigated through commuter traffic, and eventually pulled onto the freeway, trying to decide what her next step should be. It was then she looked into her rearview mirror, noticing a dark-colored vehicle that twice changed lanes when she did.
Her phone vibrated in the cup holder, and she glanced down, saw it was Griffin.
Maybe she didn’t know his full involvement in all this. Plenty of time to find out later. Right now she had more important things to focus on. Like whether the black sedan trailing two cars behind was actually following her, or whether she was merely being paranoid.
10
Sydney took the long way home, after several evasive maneuvers. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t being followed, but she wouldn’t put it past Pearson to assign a couple of agents to keep track of her whereabouts. What’d he think she was going to do? Materialize some nonexistent copies of this list and post them on the Internet?
She should have listened to her mother and become a kindergarten teacher. Right now, the thought of facing a room full of five-year-olds, their eyes filled with admiration while she taught them their ABCs, was eminently appealing. And by the time she pulled in her driveway, she’d almost convinced herself it was time to give up this job, go back to school, and get that teaching credential.
But then her phone rang. Griffin. Again.
After a deep, calming breath, she realized she was not ready to discuss this with him. She shut the thing off, tossed it into the center console, and stared out the window, feeling the weight of the world crushing down on her.
How had she been so blind? How could she not have known that he’d been involved that whole time?
A knock at her window startled her, and she looked over, saw her neighbor, Tina, with her black Labrador, Storm. The dog jumped up on the car door, whining, as though sensing the struggle she was going through at that moment.
“You okay?” Tina asked.
Sydney nodded, but didn’t move.
Neither did Tina, apparently not convinced. And when Storm pawed at the window, Sydney smiled, opened the door, and patted her lap. “Good boy.”
He pushed his nose into her, and she scratched him behind his ears.
Tina stood there, bundled against the cold, watching. They’d undoubtedly just come back from their evening outing at the dog park.
“How was the walk today, Storm?” Sydney asked, hoping Tina wouldn’t feel it necessary to delve into her personal life.
Like any true dog owner, Tina was happy to discuss her pet’s activities. “For him? He can chase a tennis ball forever. For me? Nothing like spending an hour in near-freezing temperature to get that blood pumping. I can’t wait to get into a hot shower.”
Sydney attempted a smile. “Same here.” She got out, locked the car, and the two of them walked to the elevator together.
For a moment she was almost able to pretend that nothing was wrong. That feeling lasted until they reached their floor and Tina said, “Those guys from your work? They sure were around a long time. They even came back a couple hours ago.”
Sydney gave a sigh. “Glad they’re gone. I’m looking forward to a little downtime.”
Downtime was not what was waiting for her when she walked into her door and discovered the mess the agents had made during their search.
She stood there a moment, at first disbelieving what she saw, then, as it sank in, felt the blood rushing to her head in anger.
“Goddamned sons of . . .”
Cereal had been dumped into the sink. Every cupboard was open, every drawer. In her bedroom, her dresser had been completely emptied, the drawers out, turned upside-down. The closet was ravaged, the shelves emptied. Same in the spare bedroom, where the boxes she’d carefully dug through to find her computer were dumped on the floor.
Even the bathroom had been searched in similar fashion.
The entire place looked like narcotics officers had gone through it looking for drugs and evidence of dealing.
They’d treated her like a common criminal.
She grabbed her phone and called Scotty. “You goddamned bastards! How could you do this?”
“Syd. We discussed this. I thought—”
“No. What we discussed was that the list was in my office drawer. Not this. This is way over the top. You can tell Pearson that he can kiss my—”
“Syd! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Wrong? Either Pearson sent a couple overzealous agents, or they were looking for evidence that doesn’t exist. What part of ‘it’s in my desk drawer’ did they not believe?”
He didn’t answer.
She looked around, walking from room to room, feeling like a tornado had swept through. “I don’t believe this. Pearson said he was on my side. You heard him. And this? What the hell?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The goddamned mess in my apartment. That’s what.”
“Calm down—”
“Calm down? Did you know about this? That they were going to toss my apartment like I’m some goddamned drug dealer?”
“Of course not.”
“Well. Glad we got that cleared up.” She disconnected, threw the phone on the counter, then stood there, feeling the urge to drop a match to everything and let it all burn. This was Griffin’s fault.
Everything was his fault.
Well screw him. And everyone who worked with him.
It took her several minutes before she could even think about what to do. She had two choices, she figured. Pack a suitcase and stay in a hotel, or start cleaning.
She was too mad to get behind the wheel, so she chose the latter, and began in the kitchen, scooping the dry cereal into the garbage, along with the empty boxes. Every dish they touched, she put in the dishwasher or stacked in the sink, feeling as though all of it was contaminated. By the time she had the kitchen nearly cleaned, the dishwasher running, there was a knock at the door.
She stalked over, looked out the peephole, saw it was Scotty, and opened it. “I can’t believe you even have the nerve to come over here.”
“Nerve? No one tossed your apartment, Syd. They simply went through your computer, making sure there was nothing on it. I swear.”
“Really?” She held the door wide, motioned him to enter. “See for yourself. Oh, and FYI? The kitchen didn’t look this good when I got here. I only just now finished cleaning it.”
He walked in, glanced over, then continued on into the living room, where there wasn’t much to mess up, other than couch cushions and pillows, and where the furniture clearly had been moved, as though someone had been looking beneath it.
“The bedrooms and bathroom,” sh
e said, then stood there, waiting, while he looked.
He returned a moment later. “Sydney. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Yeah? Well that makes me feel a hell of a lot better. Not.”
He took out his phone, made a call. “It’s Ryan,” he said. “What the hell did you do at Sydney’s place . . . ? That right? It’s completely tossed. As in every room . . .”
And as she listened, she realized he was telling the truth. He had not been aware they were going to toss the place. In fact, the look on his face when he ended the call confirmed it. What he said next, however, completely unnerved her.
“They swear the only thing they did was a cursory search after they looked at your computers.”
“Then who did this?”
“That’s just it. They don’t know.”
11
ATLAS (Alliance for Threat Level Assessment and Security)
U.S. Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
It was well after six P.M. by the time Griffin left for his office—once Marc finally relieved him at Lisette’s apartment where they were keeping Piper. They’d soon be making plans to place her in witness protection, but until then, Lisette and Marc were her babysitters.
McNiel wasn’t in, and Griffin hoped he’d left for the day, knowing that anything his boss would have to say to him was not going to be good. He checked his voice mail, hoping that Sydney had finally returned one of his calls. There were no messages from her. After one more try on her cell phone, he telephoned Tex, needing to hear at least one friendly voice that evening.
Tex was still in California, waiting on evidence in the South San Francisco killing that might lead to who had gone after the hard drive. “Hate to break it to you, Griff. It’s possible she’s not picking up because Carillo may have already called her. At least that’s the only reason I can think of. Let’s just say he wasn’t real happy when I left him.”
“You told him what was going on?”
“He guessed. He did, however, promise not to say anything directly about Mexico, at least not until you had a chance to talk with her yourself. But we are talking about Carillo, here. He beats to his own drummer, so hard to say if he did or didn’t tell her anything.”
“Looks like he has, otherwise why wouldn’t she call me back?” He stared out the window, thinking things had been much easier when he’d only known Sydney from afar. Unfortunately he hadn’t counted on the circumstances that had thrown them together on that Rome operation, or the growing attraction the longer they’d worked together. After that, it had been all too easy to ignore what had taken place in Mexico. Ignore? No, definitely not ignore. Avoid. “Makes me wish I’d come up with a better cover story.”
“Spies are supposed to be good at lying. Sort of a requisite. Except when it comes to the girl you’re sleeping with.”
“I’m taking things slow.”
“What part?” Tex asked. “Telling her the truth or sleeping with her?”
Griffin leaned back in his chair, resisting the urge to hang up on Tex. It was none of his business whether Griffin and Sydney had actually slept together, but he couldn’t ignore the dig. “And what? You didn’t sleep with Genevieve after your night out in Paris?” he said, referring to the CIA agent Tex was now dating, one whom he’d met on their last mission. “You’ve known her less time than I’ve known Sydney.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because we pretty much know all there is to know about each other. At least the important stuff. Like where we met the first time, even if we didn’t know what each other did for a living. I wouldn’t want to be you if Sydney’s figured all this out before you tell her.”
“Well it’s looking like she knows,” he said, picking up a pen from the desktop, then drawing concentric circles on his blotter.
“She’s smart, Griff. And right now you’re digging yourself into a really deep hole that’s gonna bury you.”
“Thank you for your philosophical analysis.” He jammed the pen tip into the blotter paper, causing a tear. “If I admit I’m an ass, do I get to skip the lecture when you get back to D.C.?”
“Don’t ask me, ask Sydney.”
Griffin tossed the pen aside. “Have to go. Duty calls.”
He disconnected, then glanced up at the clock. Nearly six-thirty. He wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered to come in. He might as well go home, he thought, then heard the elevator open on the floor. A moment later, McNiel stopped at his door. “My office. Now.”
Definitely a bad sign.
“Where’s the report on Quindlen?” was all McNiel said as Griffin walked in.
He was referring to a drug and gunrunning case down in Pocito, Arizona near the border, allegedly run by an ex-CIA agent, Garrett Quindlen. They’d recently learned that Quindlen was connected to a man known only as Brooks, who was the reported mastermind behind the ring. The high-priority case had moved down on the list once this current case was brought to their attention. “For the most part, done. I wasn’t able to follow up on the last lead, since this came up.”
“Once Tex finishes up in California, have him follow it up. If there’s any connection between Brooks and Quindlen, I want it. And the update on South San Francisco?”
“The girl is with Marc and Lisette. They’re following protocol and she won’t be left alone. As for Tex, he met with Carillo,” Griffin said. “He did not have a copy. He said he gave it to Sydney.”
“Tex discussed this with Carillo?”
“Actually, the other way around. Apparently Carillo was the one who made the copy and gave it to Sydney. After the murder in South San Francisco, and the connection to the copy machine, it didn’t take much for him to deduce that our presence was related.”
“How much does he know?”
“Enough,” Griffin said, “to make a very educated guess about our involvement in Mexico.”
“And what has he told Fitzpatrick?”
He thought about what Tex said. “As far as I know, just about the murder in South San Francisco. He’s allowing us to tighten our own noose.”
“Your noose,” McNiel corrected. “One that wouldn’t be there if you’d dealt with this correctly in the beginning. You failed your mission, ignored the kill order, and Fitzpatrick has the list. You’ve endangered countless lives as a result.”
“What was I supposed to do? Kill an FBI agent?”
“Had it been Orozco in that boat, you would have killed him.”
“I didn’t know him, and he was a criminal.”
“You didn’t know her, either. Not then.”
“But I followed her for long enough to get a feeling. She’s on our side. If I ask her for the list, she’ll give it to me.”
“She was supposed to have turned it over back in October, when we sent a team to San Francisco. How high does that body count have to reach before you put aside your personal feelings and realize that she’s demonstrated on more than one occasion that she has her own agenda?”
“If I can—”
“The last thing we need is a rogue FBI agent putting this country in danger because she can’t follow orders.”
“At least let me talk to her.”
“Too late. The search has been done.”
Griffin stared in disbelief.
“After what happened in South San Francisco, my hand was forced. I contacted Pearson to do the search. Can you imagine what would have happened if Fitzpatrick had run those numbers?”
Griffin didn’t want to imagine. He didn’t want to think at all. “Where is she?”
“She left Pearson’s office. Probably home by now.”
Griffin was out the door before McNiel even finished talking. The moment he was in the parking lot, and able to make a cell phone connection, he tried calling again. It rang several times, then went to voice mail. “Syd
. Call me. Please. It’s important.”
He tried again once he was on the road, but this time, it went straight to voice mail, telling him that she had probably seen his call, and was choosing to ignore him. He drove straight to her apartment, the speed laws be damned. And once he was there, he called her house phone, telling her he was in the parking lot, asking her to at least meet him outside.
He waited, even though she didn’t answer. A few minutes later, she came down, and Griffin saw her walk out the lobby doors, then over to his car.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Because we need to talk.”
“Apparently we needed to talk a long time ago. I heard you were in California. You were there to investigate the numbers I made copies of. You knew about them, and you never told me.”
He took a deep breath, not even sure what to say, and could almost hear Tex’s voice in his head, telling him to start at the beginning. “It was classified or I would have. The case in Mexico. Your father’s friend. Robert Orozco.”
He could see her tensing, and realized that Carillo had not told her everything. “What about him?” she asked.
“When you were down there . . . When he gave you the list of numbers—”
“You’re admitting that ATLAS was involved with my father’s case?”
“Then and now. I was there in Mexico when you were. Tex and I were both there.”
He wasn’t sure, but it seemed she stopped breathing momentarily. It was several seconds before she responded, the longest several seconds of his life. “What do you mean you were there?”
“In the helicopter. After you left Orozco’s house.”
Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him in silence, tried to speak, then turned away. He stepped toward her, and she held up her hand, warning him off.
He didn’t dare move closer.
“I need to think about this,” she said.
Finally she looked at him. He saw the confusion, the hurt, the betrayal on her face. All directed at him. And then, as if it hit her at once, she turned the full force of her gaze on him. “Oh my God . . . You shot at me . . . You were up in that helicopter, firing at my boat. I could have been killed.”
The Kill Order Page 7
