by Vicki Hinze
“Best I’ve seen outside of you.” Sam tugged at his cap. “Has to be intentional, buddy. Olivia wanted us to know NINA created a breach. She had to be signaling Omega One that they’d breached his system, too.”
“Sure sounds like it.” Nick agreed, but that too raised more questions.
“I get the heads up part of this,” Joe chimed in. “Liv would let us know about the breaches here and especially to One. But the incident with Elle makes less sense now.” Joe slid a hip onto the edge of the computer desk. “Actually, none of this with her makes sense. Why would NINA kidnap her to get the ring and then give it back to her?”
Nick thought that over.
Sam thought out loud. “The CIA snagged Elle before NINA could get to her. So apparently it had the ring and apparently it wanted Elle to have it back.” Sam stroked his beard. “NINA never got her or the ring.”
“Doubtful it’s that cut and dry,” Nick said. “The CIA could have just returned the ring to Elle. Instead, it gets the ring to Olivia and she returns it to Elle, breaching our security with a NINA operative in tow?” Nick guffawed. “Not likely the CIA did that—especially here, revealing the location of our Lodge. One wouldn’t compromise us like that, and the CIA sure wouldn’t compromise us or One.”
“I agree, bro. But the chain had to be CIA to NINA to us. Maybe the CIA didn’t cue Liv, so she acted on her own.”
Working both sides, she might have. She had before. “Maybe. She warned Elle to beware,” Nick said. “And she signaled us that our location was known to NINA and our system was flawed.”
Sam disagreed. “So Olivia gives up One to NINA.” He guffawed. “No way, bud.”
“Way,” Nick said. “If NINA already had it and she wanted One to know it.”
Sam stilled. “I’d buy that.”
Joe hooked a thumb in his pants’ pocket. “Which brings us back to the ring. They both want it, so why give it back to Elle?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Nick said, pacing a short path across the lab. “They had it, but didn’t find anything in the ring, or they found something and have no idea what it is or what it means.”
Joe locked gazes with Nick. “Then Olivia had to signal NINA’s knowledge of our location and One’s. If there is something special about the ring—“
Nick nodded. “They think Elle might know what it is and what it means.”
“Whoa. That makes it certain they’ll be back for her.”
It did. The scenario unfolding in Nick’s mind infuriated him. “The return makes perfect sense if the CIA wants NINA to come after Elle again—and it could. One said she’d be with us indefinitely. Maybe that’s why.”
“So you’re saying it’s not the ring, it’s her?” Sam asked. “Man, I thought it had to be the ring or they’d have kept Elle out of the country.”
“We don’t know the answer to that yet. It could be both.” Nick frowned. “The key question isn’t about the ring, though.”
“What is it about?” Joe asked.
“Was Olivia here as a clandestine CIA operative, or as a senior NINA operative?” Nick rubbed at his neck. He didn’t like the questions coming up. All of them, no matter how he looked at this, put Elle in greater danger. “And,” Nick went on. “Was the man with Olivia CIA or a NINA operative?” Their grim expressions turned bitter; they too saw the escalation of risks to Elle. “That’s step one.”
“What’s step two?” Joe hooked his sunglasses on the front neckline of his t-shirt.
“Is there one?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“Dang right,” Sam added. “Anytime you ever say step one, you always have a step two.”
“Do I?” Nick asked.
“I said always.”
“Well, there is a step two.” Nick admitted. “We need to examine that ring.”
“I thought it wasn’t about the ring.” Sam removed his cap and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Never said that,” Nick told him. “I said, we don’t know yet. Could be Elle herself, the ring, both or none and more. We need more information than we currently have to make that determination.”
“I agree.” Joe nodded, hooking his thumb in his pants pocket. “NINA never does anything without a reason. The CIA doesn’t either.”
“Exactly,” Nick said. “Whichever had and returned it did so for a reason. And we need to find out what that reason is—and whose side the man with Olivia is on. That will tell us which hat—CIA or NINA—she was wearing when coming here, though I suspect the answer is both hats.” That worried Nick most of all. For Olivia, Elle, the team and One.
“System back to safe again?” Joe asked.
Sam nodded. “The new backdoor is shut tight and locked.”
“Did you poke around for other vulnerabilities?”
“I did.”
“Find anything?”
“Nothing.” Sam looked Nick right in the eye. “You didn’t miss anything, Nick. They punched through a wall and created a new backdoor. Pure and simple.”
“Yeah, well, do something to reinforce the walls to keep it from happening again—the more painful for them the better.”
“Got it. Stiff consequences.”
“Crippling consequences.” Nick frowned. “I’m going to go get Lizzie and Elle out of the dungeon.”
“Time to look at more pictures,” Joe said, then stood up. “They’ll love that.”
Not surprisingly, Joe was on target. They needed to identify the man with Olivia. “Elle will want to eat first,” Nick predicted. “The woman eats when she gets scared, and she was terrified by Lizzie going missing.”
“I imagine her stint in the bunker hasn’t done much to calm her down.”
Nick glanced at Joe. “Not touching that.”
“Me, either,” Sam said. “It’s a sucker bet.”
“Hope the freezer’s got plenty in it.” Joe said.
“It’s full.” Nick headed toward the hallway door.
“I hope she shares.” Sam grunted. “I’m starving.”
Recruiting everyone but Sam for kitchen duty, Elle directed them through making a salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread. While the others were busy on that, she rummaged through the freezer and found frozen blueberries, so she threw together a cobbler for dessert.
Her insides still rattled. When in the bunker, Lizzie relayed every word the man and woman had said to her. He had been stone silent and looked mad, which worried Elle. The woman had been casual and chatty. Lizzie hadn’t feared her at all, and that worried Elle more than anything.
Lizzie needed fear to protect her, and Elle had done her best to instill it. That directly opposed the nurturer and comforter in her, but this woman, whoever she was, wasn’t safe, and Lizzie wasn’t safe interacting with her.
They gathered at the table and ate their meal. Nick watched Elle closely the entire time, pretending that he wasn’t paying undue attention. The breach worried him. But then it would. He’d designed the security system and it had failed. Likely, he was beating himself up inside because, well, that was Nick. Which meant she had to lighten up the tension. Her being worried and showing it would just make him feel more guilty, and nothing good could come of that. Nick hadn’t had much to smile about in life, and now she understood why. But he had almost smiled earlier today. She’d liked it, and she didn’t want him reverting to all gloom and doom.
Elle swallowed a bite of hot bread. “I was thinking maybe we could go fishing later. I saw some rods down in the basement.” A rack filled with them hung on the wall.
Lizzie brightened up. “I never been fishing.” She looked at Sam. “Will you show me how?”
“I can do that, half-pint,” he said. “But we need to find out about the man before we go. Work first, then fun.”
She nodded.
Elle laughed. “Sam, you’ve got cobbler in your beard.”
His eyes twinkled. “Saving a bite for later.”
Lizzie rolled her eyes at
him. “That’s gross.”
He dabbed at his beard with a napkin.
From the corner of her eye, Elle watched Nick. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look as if the weight of the world sat on his shoulders anymore, either. He did still seem a little… apart and distant. Of course, he hadn’t had many family meals.
That thought made her sad. He hadn’t had any really, not from the time his mom left. He’d grown up in a boarding school. Alone in a room full of people. And now, even with his closest friends, at least a part of him still felt alone in a room full of people.
“Elle?” he asked. “You okay?” He placed his napkin on the table.
“I’m fine.” Bittersweet, she smiled, then deliberately brightened. “Especially since Lizzie didn’t try to snitch that bite of cobbler Sam was saving for later.”
“Eeew!” Lizzie pulled a face. “That’s worse than gross.”
Elle laughed in earnest. And Nick’s eyes flickered amusement.
Her laughter no longer irritated him. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. It’d always irritated him, which is why she’d laughed so often. He probably thought she did it to needle him but she hadn’t. She’d done it to anesthetize him to it. Anything done often enough comes to seem normal. Laughter should be normal. Amused wasn’t far from normal, and when he’d let them out of the bunker and she’d thrown herself into his arms, he hadn’t just stood there and tolerated her hug. For the first time, he’d closed his arms around her. He hadn’t hugged her back, but he’d more than endured her holding him. That was progress.
Feeling as if she’d conquered Everest, Elle put down her fork. “If we’re going to get to fun and fishing, we’d best get busy and get our work done.”
Elle and Lizzie again sat before the computer screen in the gathering room and looked at photos. Nick stood behind Elle, sounds of Joe and Sam working in the kitchen breaking the silence.
“Why are you showing us photos of thirty-year-old blondes, Nick?” She looked back over her shoulder at him. “The woman looks like Tim’s Mandy, only older.”
Each of the thirty-seven photos he’d shown her had been of Olivia. She had passed their inspection, scrutiny, and intense observation. That was incredible really. When you factored in that both Elle and Lizzie had expected to see Olivia, it was decidedly remarkable that they hadn’t recognized her even once. “It’s standard procedure,” he said. “To clear your mind of preconceived expectations.” He reached over, brushing her question aside, then clicked the mouse. The photo advanced, and this one was of the organist at Tim and Mandy’s wedding.
Lizzie folded her leg and propped it under her free one, nearly bouncing on her chair. “I know her!”
Nick paused. “You do?”
Lizzie’s head bobbed. “I was at the wedding. I saw her.”
“Oh, I see.” Joe and Sam wrapped up in the kitchen and joined them.
“Whose wedding was it?” Elle asked.
“Tim and Mandy’s.” Nick advanced the photo. This one looked like Olivia. She wasn’t impersonating anyone. It was rare to see a photo of her as herself, but Tim had provided him with one via email. Nick’s gaze clashed with Sam’s, but both men remained silent.
“That’s her.” Elle looked back at them. “That’s the woman at the wreck.”
“Lizzie?” Sam prodded. “What do you think?”
“It’s her, Sam.” Lizzie went knees on the chair and looked up at Sam. “It’s the lady who knocked on the door and gave me Elle’s ring at the creek.”
“You’re sure.”
She nodded. “I’m definitely sure.”
“Okay then.” Nick cleared the screen. “Now let’s look for the man.” He intended to make this part of the process much shorter. Little required confirmation. When Lizzie had described the man, all three of them—and Tim, who was tied up on another case today but joined them by phone—drew the same, immediate conclusion. Still, they had to offer reasonable alternatives to the man they suspected. Just to verify his identity beyond a reasonable doubt.
Six photos appeared on the screen. All were male, dark eyed, and wearing thick black-framed glasses. All looked straight ahead but none wore the same expression. They looked enough alike to be related, if not brothers. One, Nick felt certain, was the man who’d been at the Lodge with Lizzie.
Elle hadn’t seen him at the Lodge, but she had gotten a partial look at the man at the wreck. “Do you see him, Elle?”
Disappointment shafted through her voice. “Honestly, I can’t tell. The man was out like a light and slumped over the steering wheel. I didn’t get a clear look at his whole face.”
“No problem.” Nick looked at Lizzie then nodded at Sam.
Sam nodded back, silently acknowledging his cue. “Well, half-pint, do you see him?”
“Wait,” she said. “I see him, but I want to be real sure I don’t make a mistake.” She continued to study the photos, one by one, slowly soaking in every detail.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She looked at Sam. “He’s this one.” She pointed to a man on the screen, top row, third slot. “Even his glasses are the same. One side has a silver screw in it. The other side has a gold one. See?”
That surprised Nick. “You remember the screws in his glasses?” Most people ignored them. Oh, they’d remember someone wore glasses, but often couldn’t tell you a thing about the shape or color.”
“Not the lenses,” she said, “other than they were thick. His vision must be really bad. But I remember the frames and the screws. The lady bumped into him and knocked them off his nose. The sun hit the frames and made them sparkle. That’s when I saw one screw was silver and the other one was gold.”
Olivia’s bump had been intentional. Something she didn’t want him to see… like the return of the ring. Maybe. “When did that happen?”
“When the lady told him to take a walk. He didn’t like that, and he flipped his arm like this—“ she lifted her arm in a whatever motion “—and she bumped into him and knocked his glasses off his face. They landed right by my foot. I picked them up and gave them back to him.”
“What did he say?” Sam asked.
“Thank you.” Lizzie shrugged. “That’s it.” She shot Elle an apologetic look. “I told you he didn’t say anything, but he did say thank you. I forgot that until just now.”
“No problem.”
Nick looked back at Elle. “Do you see anything in him that doesn’t fit with what you saw at the scene?”
Elle studied the photo again. “No,” she finally said. “Nothing jumps out at me. It could be him, but I can’t be sure.”
Nick glanced at Sam, and they shared a loaded look Elle clearly didn’t miss. “Who is he?” she asked.
Joe tapped Lizzie on the shoulder. “Hey, let’s go downstairs and rig up the fishing rods. You can practice casting into a cup so when we go to the stream, you’ll be ready.”
“You guys want me out again,” she told Joe.
“Yep.”
“Okay.” She slid off the chair. “Casting. What’s that?”
“It’s how you get your line in the water.”
“Got it.”
Chatting, the two disappeared downstairs.
Elle pinned Nick with an unrelenting gaze. “Who is that man?” She lifted a warning finger. “And don’t even try telling me you don’t know. I can see that you do in your face—and so does Sam.”
“We know him,” Nick told her. “He’s a well-documented NINA operative. They both are. She’s known as Phoenix.”
“And him?”
“He doesn’t have a code name. At least, not that we know of.”
“You’ve got this. I’m going to report in.” Joe excused himself.
Elle brushed her hair back from her face. “So you don’t know much about the man who was here?”
“Actually, we know quite a bit about him.” Nick sat down on the chair Lizzie had vacated. “His name is Paul Johnson. He worked for a man known as Gregory Chessman. Chessman was a hon
cho in the village for a while. A philanthropist, or so people thought.”
“NINA?” Elle guessed.
“Oh yeah. A mid-level honcho.” Nick studied her face. “We busted him. He’s in Leavenworth now. Actually,” he amended, “we busted Paul Johnson, too. He was in prison for about a year, but he was released.” Nick could have added that Johnson nearly had been busted a second time by the Shadow Watchers but he’d skipped the country and hadn’t surfaced again until now.
“Why did they let him out? I don’t get it.”
Neither did Nick, though he knew Jackal, Chessman’s replacement, had bought Johnson out of prison. The Shadow Watchers knew it, Omega One knew it, but neither of them could prove it without divulging information that couldn’t be divulged without stiff consequences. Evidence walked. Which meant, in the highest circles, the honchos on their side determined Paul Johnson was more valuable to them on the outside than in jail. They knew he’d return to the fold and no doubt wanted to expose as many NINA operatives as possible by letting him. “Who knows why the powers that be do the things they do?”
“Well, it’s clear they messed up this time. “ She lifted a frustrated hand. “He’s right back with NINA.”
Which had been the plan. Get Johnson back into the NINA fold and see who he exposes and what happens. He could tip them on as yet unknown operatives or on NINA’s next target. “Appears so.”
“But you’re not sure,” Elle whispered.
“In my line of work, you can rarely be sure anything is what it appears to be.”
Elle twitched, clearly afraid, obviously terrified, and confused. “Nick, what are we going to do? NINA knows where we are.”
“Yes, it does.”
“I don’t understand any of this. It seems illogical. Why would they kidnap me to take my ring and then ship me to you and send my ring back to me?”
Sam returned, stood nearby. “That’s the million dollar question right now, isn’t it?”
“It’s bizarre.” Flustered at not being able to figure it out, she grunted. “Extremely bizarre.”
Nick addressed them both. “It only seems bizarre because we haven’t yet figured it out. What I know is NINA never does anything without a purpose. Historically, it doesn’t take unnecessary risks and it never leaves witnesses.”