“My daughter made it. She’s a doll, if not a bit protective. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Polonia.”
“Please, call me Alex. And a pleasure to meet you.”
“This way.”
They headed toward the elevators, where the NFL tackle stood holding one open for the two.
“Thank you, Demetrius.”
“You have the whole building?” Alex asked as the elevator started.
“Yes. We have offices in twenty-three countries and training facilities here in the States, the Middle East, and the Philippines.”
The elevator opened. Alex preceded Campbell into the foyer as he said, “To the left, please.”
Alex had been in hundreds of office buildings, and this one was just as unexceptional. Lining the walls were dozens of photos showing groups of men and women. Most were in military-style uniforms, clustered together. No names or identifications.
“These are some of my teams,” Campbell said. “I like to have my people see these photos so they know they’re part of a big, supportive team. Very seldom do we have operations that require a single operative, but everyone’s training makes them think as one. Many have a military background, but some come from police departments around the world.”
He ushered her into an office that overlooked the street. Near the window, a tablecloth covered a table set with china and silverware. Campbell’s desk sat to one side, facing the door. Shelves filled with books, ancient artifacts, and sculptures lined the wall behind the desk. There was a surprising lack of the usual trophy photos of Campbell with one politician or another. A reproduction of a painting of Teddy Roosevelt hung on one wall, one of Abraham Lincoln on another. On the far wall opposite the desk was a world map studded with pins.
Campbell noticed Alex’s attention to the map. “Current operations and deployments. We update it every morning. I like to know exactly what’s happening and where.”
“Impressive. Reminds me of a war-room map from the movies.”
“Please have a seat. Something to drink?”
“Ice water would be just fine.”
Campbell filled a glass from a pitcher, handed it to her, and took a seat.
“Mr. Campbell, why am I here?”
He poured himself a glass. “Javier thinks you’re good—in fact, very good.”
“How would he know? Every time there was a problem in Venice, I just threw punches or shot at someone—not much self-restraint.”
“Croatian thugs, two in the canal. A pair of questionable DEA agents, who, if you haven’t heard, have been fired and are facing serious criminal charges in Italy. All that while dealing with a woman and her deranged terrorist son. I see great self-restraint.”
“I was just pissed. They were messing up my vacation.”
Campbell laughed. “I like people who are disciplined. People who think on their feet and, to be trite, out of the box when necessary. In my line of work, the bad guys are very bad, and the good guys are not always saints.”
Campbell rose, crossed the room, and looked out the window. “I’m looking for a woman, one with your skills, discipline, and experience. The position, after training, will be—”
Three explosions in the hallway just outside the office shattered the building’s silence. Campbell looked at Alex, ran back to his desk, yanked open the left-hand drawer, and put two automatic pistols on the desktop. He pushed one of them across the top toward her. She instinctively grabbed it and charged the weapon. From the open door came the sound of gunfire, near and far. It echoed through Campbell’s office. As she stood and went to Campbell’s side, a man in a black sweater and ski mask burst into the room and fired at them. Campbell spun to his left, his shoulder instantly bloody. She raised the pistol and fired at the man. He dropped after two slugs smashed into his chest. With her left arm, she caught Campbell before he fell to the carpet.
“We’ve got to get out of here, now!” she yelled, her ears still ringing from the weapon’s discharges. More gunfire filled the hallway. She slipped her shoulder under Campbell’s good right arm. They staggered to the door. She did a quick look both ways. The image of two men on the floor in the corridor etched itself into her mind. Another flash-bang discharged to the left. She and Campbell went right. They stumbled toward the elevators. She saw the exit sign over the door to the stairs.
“Can you make it up the stairs?” she yelled.
“Up? We need to get out.”
“I don’t know what’s down, but I hope there’s less going up. We can find a secure location and then wait for help. Down? Hell, there could be a dozen bad guys just waiting.” More gunfire echoed through the building.
Another explosion sent a shock wave down the hall, validating her decision. She put her shoulder into the door and pulled Campbell into the empty stairwell with her.
“How many floors to the roof?”
“Three,” Campbell said through clenched teeth.
“Then get your ass moving. Best guess, they’re less than a minute behind us. Go, go.”
Campbell led the way, staggering at each landing. “I need to stop, rest,” he said when they reached the last floor. Alex heard a door below burst open and bang against the concrete wall of the stairwell. The words yelled from below sounded like Arabic or something similar.
“No time for that! Move, Mr. Campbell. Now.” She shoved the man up the last flights of stairs. “ROOF” was stenciled on a door at the top of the last flight.
“Hold,” she ordered. “Quick look.” She pushed the door open a few inches, expecting a volley of bullets. When none came, she looked around—the roof was empty. She gathered up Campbell under her arm.
“Are you ready?” she said. “Either we make a stand here, or we’re dead.”
Heavy footsteps, as loud as drums, echoed upward on the stairwell’s steel treads. She pushed the door wide open, her weapon up. Campbell grunted as she pulled him after her.
The sun was brilliant, and she squinted, her eyes trying to adjust. All she saw was a half-dozen shapes materializing in the intense glare. “Crap.”
“Lower the weapon, Ms. Polonia,” one of the shapes said. “No one here will hurt you.”
Stunned, she looked at Campbell, who gently moved her arm from under his and stood straight. He took the pistol from her and offered it to one of the men on the roof. Her eyesight now fully adjusted, she saw Mr. NFL and four other men in combat fatigues. The sixth man was the one she’d encountered in Campbell’s office. The center of his black sweater looked wet where she had shot him. A few seconds later, three men pushed past her from the stairwell.
She turned to Campbell. “You bastard. What the fuck was this all about?” She slugged him in the mouth.
CHAPTER 6
“And then you punched him?” Javier asked, a huge grin on his face.
“I was pissed,” Alex said. “I do not like job interviews where I have to kill someone.”
“They were blanks.”
“Did you know about all this?”
“No, but I have heard rumors about Chris’s unorthodox interview methods. He once conducted one during a skydive.”
“If I find out that you knew this was going to happen, well, I might just punch you as well. It pisses me off.”
“You said that,” Javier countered.
“This time I really mean it.”
“Did he offer you a job?”
“I stormed down the stairs before he could ask,” Alex said.
“He called. Said your reactions to the extreme situation were better than ninety percent of the applicants he’s . . . interviewed. He also said you were the first to punch him. His jaw? Good for you.”
“Good for me? My hand still hurts. I wonder what they do to the failures. Disappear them into the Potomac?”
Javier stirred the glass of bourbon with his finger. He motioned to the bartender and pointed to Alex’s empty glass. The bartender nodded.
“It’s a tough world,” Javier said. “Chris just want
ed to see how you would react. His people need more than physical skills. They need the ability to respond to extreme conditions. Their reactions may save the client’s life and their own.”
“I get it, but it still pisses me off. Thanks,” she said as her drink was replaced. “And Campbell still owes me lunch.”
She glanced into the mirror behind the bar and stiffened; Christopher Campbell was walking toward them. He was alone and wore a different suit than the one that was trashed by the blood pack under his shoulder. She shot a look at Javier. “Did you know he was going to be here?”
Javier looked in the mirror, then spun on his stool. “No.”
“You’re lucky—that punch would have been right now.” She refused to leave the stool when Campbell stopped behind her. “Have you come to apologize?” She glared at him.
“No. I never apologize. What I did was necessary. My people are the best—they understand that. That’s why I pay them what I do and give them the respect due them. All I ask is that my people perform their jobs and are loyal in return, nothing more. Are you interested in working for me, Ms. Polonia? I don’t need to know now. No stipulations, no time limits. You have potential.”
“Potential?”
“Yes, potential. Our training facilities are the best. Afterward, you’ll be able to handle most anything that a SEAL or an Army Ranger could. The Cleveland Police Academy will feel like Boy Scout camp when you’re through. Ask Javier—a lot of my people are from the CIA and the FBI. Many are ex-military, some from government operations elsewhere. Ms. Polonia, please call me soon. I like you. Javier, good to see you, and thanks.” Campbell shook Javier’s hand, then strolled out of the bar.
“Wow, what the hell have you gotten me into?” Alex said as she watched Campbell disappear.
“Nothing that you wouldn’t be good at. I’m famished, and the restaurant has a chilled bottle of the same chardonnay we had in Venice. It’s a ten-minute cab ride, and I have much to atone for.”
“You most certainly do, sir, and I intend to make you pay.”
The next morning, Alex slipped the bedsheet around her shoulders and walked to the window. The sun was breaking above the capital’s skyline, creating a glow as rosy as the one she’d felt a few weeks earlier on a Venice rooftop. It felt good to be in the arms of a strong man. She turned to the sleeping Javier. After the night they’d had, she was surprised she had the energy to even get out of bed. Her head still rang from the chaos of Campbell’s creative interview, no matter how hard she tried to push it out. She would like nothing better than to go home with the CIA agent from Waco, Texas, and eat his mother’s cooking. She hadn’t felt this way about a man since, maybe, ever. The mental baggage from the last year—Ralph, the kangaroo court, all the rest—felt much lighter. She’d be satisfied to pitch it out with the trash.
“Don’t move,” Javier said. “Just stand there for a few moments and let me revel in my dream.”
“If you call me an angel, I’ll—”
“Hardly. After last night, most of the angels I know fled the scene of the crime.”
She turned to the man and dropped the sheet, padded across the room, and climbed back into his arms. Somewhere an angel had to have blushed.
After Javier returned to his room, she showered, dressed, and walked to the Starbucks two blocks away. She ate a yogurt-and-fruit concoction and left a message with Chris Campbell’s office. He texted ten minutes later and they set up a time to meet. He promised no funny business.
Before Campbell, though, she had another appointment, a more important one. The walk was due south and barely more than a mile. A gray overcast had drifted in. She stood in front of the black granite wall of the Vietnam memorial, thinking about her father and all that he’d been through since the war. Alex was born four years after he had returned from Vietnam.
She knew little about his part in the war. He never talked about it. When she was about seven or eight, she’d awaken to a yell or a scream. She would peek out of her room, down the hall toward her parents’ bedroom. Her father would be standing near the door, her mother holding him tight. Later, when she was a teenager, the popular talk about veterans was about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by the war’s lingering effects. But her dad never talked about it. As a cop, she saw it in the faces of some of her fellow officers after a particularly bad situation. The blank stare, the denials of help, the required sessions with the department shrinks—it was all there. Her father seemed to weather it, and in time the night screams went away. When she’d asked her mother about what happened, she said, “In time, all his wounds will heal.”
Alex was not so sure. Some of the cops she knew took disability. They couldn’t face the street again.
She touched the cold black wall again, allowing her fingers to trace an incised name she did not know. She thought about the loss. What did they leave behind? What had they missed? What child never knew their father?
Now, nearly fifty years later, her father often talked about the war, but in generalities. Nevertheless, there always was a shadow over the conversation. He spoke about the friends he made, even those he lost, whose names were on this wall. He mentioned Vietnam and Okinawa, places he’d been to, places he swore he would never go back to. She was a detective; she listened for the things not said. Often, the unanswered question was more important than the ramblings of the perpetrator or the victim. She’d sensed there was always something her father left out of his story.
Campbell was waiting for her at the National Air and Space Museum. He was sitting in front of the original Wright brothers’ aircraft.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Campbell said.
“Good afternoon,” Alex responded, wondering if this were the correct answer from the fly to the spider. “Your text was vague.”
“Sorry, easier to tell than write, and besides I leave for Marseille tonight. I have a client meeting tomorrow. So, Ms. Polonia, do you want to work for me?”
“How much downtime is there? I don’t sit around well. I need something to do.”
“My people normally work thirty days on, thirty days off. This schedule changes depending on the situation and the client. The time is intense. The downtime, as you call it, is balanced with the job. It includes access to the best medical care anywhere in the world. If it’s not there, I’ll fly you to it. There are no vacations or paid days off. You get paid a monthly rate, work or no work. The amount is adjusted depending on the location. It can change if the assignment is in an active war zone.”
“Change?”
“Your pay is doubled for the duration of the job if there is a hot war going on around you. You are entitled to turn down one assignment per year. Your reasons are your own—I will not ask why.”
“Assignments?”
“They are as broad and varied as the clients. We provide personal bodyguards, active on-site and off-site security, sometimes surveillance, and even babysitting, as the staff calls it.”
“Babysitting?”
“Some of our clients’ kids and families need to be guarded. Sometimes the children are less responsible than their parents. So, babysitting.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“I have my greatest number of turndowns over babysitting. I understand. Managing a sixteen-year-old spoiled brat of a young woman who is in love can be thankless, challenging work.”
“You mentioned training.”
“Yes, once you are on board, three things will happen. One, a complete physical and medical workup. If you fail, you’re out. Two, an in-depth psychological analysis and assessment. If you fail, you’re out. And three, physical training. I give some leeway here.”
“Where will this training be?”
“Until you pass the first two steps and are certified for employment, the locations for the training facilities are secret. Texas, though—I can tell you that. The medical tests and evaluations will be in Dallas. From there, you will relocate to our field center for initial training. Afterw
ard we may send you to another facility, maybe one that’s out of the country. Where depends on the proficiencies you showed or gained in Texas, as well as your assignment. So, are you ready to join us?”
She looked back at the fragile aircraft of canvas and wood and smiled. “Mr. Campbell, there comes a time when we all have to learn to fly.”
“Excellent. Now you can call me boss.”
CHAPTER 7
That evening, Alex met Javier for dinner in the hotel’s dining room. She was excited and hopeful. As they say, the world is my oyster.
Javier sipped his wine and took her hand. “Me first. I have to go back to Milan tomorrow morning. NATO stuff. They want me there. I have no idea when I’ll see you again or even talk to you. But my heart is being stretched like two bulls are trying to pull it apart.”
Alex rolled his hand over and touched his fingers. “I love your corny cowboy metaphors. The same thought has been tugging at me. We’re good for each other. Strange world—Cleveland, Venice, Washington, all tumbled into one. And Agent Castillo, I’ll miss you. A lot.” Her smile indicated more, but it was left unsaid.
Javier smiled back. “When are you leaving?”
“How presumptuous. You think I took the job?”
“Educated guess. You look content. It’s nice to see.”
“Chris has given me a week to sort Cleveland out. I’ll also have the time to talk with my family. It will shock them. Especially my father—he’s very protective.”
“Fathers can be like that. Then what?”
“I have a one-way ticket to Dallas. One suitcase, no more. I was told to wear comfortable shoes. They’ll pick me up at the airport. Then, as they say in the movies, ‘your ass is mine.’”
“It’s such a nice ass, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“You can be so romantic when you want to be.”
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