by K. T. Lee
“Morning, Q.” Joey gave her an easy smile. “Still not quite used to seeing you in the office so much.”
Quinn gave him a little punch in the shoulder. “You better not get used to it. As of last week, I am medically cleared to return to the field.” She puffed up a little bit at that.
Joey lifted an eyebrow. “We arm-wrestling for the next assignment? Or are you pulling rank, and I need to warn any lawbreakers that Quinn is on the case?”
Emotion tickled Quinn’s throat and she pushed it back. She had a job to do. “Not exactly. You got a second?”
“For you, two seconds.” Joey took a swig of his water.
Quinn led Joey to a conference room and closed the door. “First, before I give you the details, how are you doing? I mean, well, you know what I mean. With Rory. And everything.”
“I’m doing okay.” Joey rubbed his chin. “You?”
Quinn tilted her hand back and forth. “It’s still tough when I think about it. When I don’t, each day it’s a little better. Grief is funny that way. I’m okay, then all of a sudden I’m not.”
Joey eyed her critically. “I know you’re thoughtful and I appreciate you bringing it up, but that’s not why you asked me to join you in an empty conference room.” His eyes softened. “And standing offer, if I’m wrong and that’s why you brought me in here, I’m a listening ear.”
Quinn studied Joey. If she was wrong about his capabilities, this would blow up. But she wasn’t usually wrong about people. Their initial meeting had taken place when she’d been investigating him. She soon found out they were both trying to take Dmitri down independently because her best friend, Rory, had, unbeknownst to her, been quietly dating Joey. While the relationship hadn’t become serious, it was still personal to Joey. “I want your help. But our boss is going to want to know, so I need to ask you a question. Can you take Dmitri down without your personal feelings getting in the way?”
“Hell, yes. Is that your only question?”
“You seeing anyone?” Quinn crossed her arms.
Joey narrowed his eyes. “That’s not the CIA’s business.”
“It’s been six months, J.”
Joey let out a breath. Quinn would dig until she found the truth, and Joey knew it. “I’ll level with you if that’s what it takes to get this assignment. Rory and I dated for about two months before she got assigned to IRT. We kept it under the radar because I didn’t know if we were going to be forever yet, but I thought it was worth finding out what we had. I liked her. I cared about her. Then, she was killed. I never had the chance to find out what we were supposed to be. That’s it. I haven’t gone out with anyone else. It just hasn’t felt right.” He fidgeted a little. “And it’s a pain in the butt to fill out the paperwork, anyway. I’m going to be okay. It’s just hard for people like us to find the right person.”
Quinn could hardly judge him for wanting to change the subject. She too was more comfortable focusing on the job instead of talking about her feelings. And there was nothing wrong with not being in a relationship. “So, you’re good. And you’re not going to do anything that makes me look like I have bad judgment?”
Joey nodded, firmly, once.
“And outside the operation, J, if you need someone to talk to about it, I’m here. I’m not great at holding your hand, but I’ll at least take you somewhere where you can safely punch the crap out of something. Cam helped me get through the worst of my grief. And survivor’s guilt.”
“Quinn, you are one of a kind.” Joey shook his head. “Honestly, I feel the same as you. I’m okay. I just think I need to make things right. If I’d only realized…”
Quinn held up a hand. “Stop right there. I know how that ends. It’s not your fault. If Dan gets a single whiff of your ‘if only I’d stopped it,’ he’ll kick you off the op. So, for the record, I didn’t hear that.” Quinn leaned forward. “Rory was my best friend. She would be proud of you. And she would want you to be happy.”
“Thanks, Q. Really.” Joey stiffened. “Now, please tell me we can stop talking about this so I can go kick Dmitri’s ass.”
Quinn chuckled. “I’ll do my best to get out of your way.”
“We working with the civilian?”
Quinn nodded. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Her sister, Ree, is an FBI consultant – it’s how we got the tip. Her sister assures us she’s stubborn, smart, and doesn’t have a high tolerance for incompetence. You two should get along famously.”
Joey snorted. “I’m not that bad.”
“I’ve seen you secretly double-check every security setup our team has ever done without anyone asking you to. And you volunteer to put out literal fires on your days off.”
“Okay, maybe there is a little truth to that.” He pulled out his phone. “Did you send me her info?”
“As soon as our boss gives me the green light, I’ll send you a packet full of information. Ree and the FBI team put it together. This is personal for them too. If you need anything, even someone to get groceries because you’re worried they’re staking out the grocery store, call me. You’ll get whatever you need.”
Joey eyed her incredulously. “I’m not having you fly out to deliver groceries.”
Quinn shrugged. “If that’s what it takes to keep Ree’s sister safe, I’ll do it.”
A few hours later, it was as good as settled. Joey would check out the situation on the ground, figure out if they needed to modify their plan, then let Stefanie know he was there. With a few hours to spare before the day was over, Joey pulled up Indiana Polytechnic’s website to read recent news articles. He easily found one about Ree and studied her picture. He hadn’t spotted her on the last operation, which was reassuring. She was a little too searchable for his liking. He shut the laptop. He just hoped Dmitri didn’t realize what they doing before they had a chance to take him down.
9
When Stefanie returned to the OEG building after her trip to Chicago, she was hoping to make it to her office without having to answer any questions. She wasn’t that lucky. She managed to sputter out an explanation and thank several caring coworkers for their concern each time she was stopped in the hallway. The words felt uncomfortable in her mouth. Even Peggy at the front desk had stopped her to ask about her grandfather’s health scare. She managed to fabricate several lovely memories with a grandfather she barely knew. Only fifteen minutes had passed since she’d walked in the door, and she already felt overwhelmed and exhausted. She was so screwed. Minutes after she sat down to rub her temples at her desk, Nash tapped on her door. She looked up. “Please tell me this is a work question.”
“Ah, a fun weekend with your family?” Nash grinned. Stefanie must have given him a pitiful look because he cringed. “Ooh. That bad, huh? Well, I’ll steer clear of it then, unless you want to swap stories. There have been some family reunions that – oh – too soon? Okay, work, then. I have more ideas for our little research lab under the sea. Want to hear them?”
Stefanie breathed a sigh of relief. “Nash, you’re my favorite lab employee I’ve talked to this morning.”
Nash raised an eyebrow. “And the only one here except for you.”
“Well, on the bright side, you are guaranteed to have the best idea an employee has brought me today.” She leaned back in her chair and cracked her knuckles. Science, she could do. “Don’t tell me what anyone else thinks yet. I want to form my own opinion.”
“You got it, boss.” Nash took out his phone and pulled up a model of the standard-sized, watertight container they often left on the bottom of the ocean. To keep costs down, each custom research platform had to fit within the same size container. He swiped the screen to a cutaway drawing of the internal components. Squeezed in between the sizable transmitter and salinity meter was a rough sketch of a small area with a number of spots for equipment to snap in. Nash swiped a few times to show his design from different angles. “I made a bracket that allows us to snap in/snap out a number of different components of differe
nt sizes without going through the normal hassle of assembly and disassembly. Each one will have a special component attached to it that snaps into a standard sized connector. Think about how all your charging cable ends fit into the USB charger on your wall. I just had to find the right spare parts and electronics, which I did, in a drawer in the back of the lab. That means I can use what I have in the lab to create the extra research platforms we talked about, as long as I have your support. It addresses management concerns about part availability while letting us do what we want, starting now.”
“Nice work.” Stefanie smiled. “That’ll make my management presentation a lot easier. What’s the catch?” Nothing came for free.
Nash looked back towards the lab. “The only catch is that to implement this, I need to make some new custom parts and rework the pile of components we rent out to our customers. And we don’t have much time before we’ve reserved the ROVs to send more platforms out in a few weeks.”
“Ooh, do we get to take them all apart and put them back together? That sounds harder. But definitely more fun.” Stefanie let her eyes dart to her calendar. A date was highlighted in red. She mentally did the math. They might make the date, but it’d be close.
Nash’s eyes sparkled. “I am so glad you’re my new boss. We’d have to rework them but not completely disassemble them. It’s not a trivial amount of work, and we have just a small window of time to do it in.”
Stefanie pulled up her budget spreadsheet to buy time to think. Nash had just given her a perfect opening to get the CIA in the office. While a part of her was wary about moving this quickly, there might not be another opportunity. She looked back at the eager young engineer. “Alright. There’s no way Cole would say no to that. I’ll just let management know we’ve already gotten started when I give my presentation. But I’m helping you with this – I’m not going to dump that much work on your lap.”
“Awesome. That’s appreciated, boss.” Nash smiled.
Stefanie looked at her computer, then back at Nash. “On a related note, I received an email from a high-potential grad student interested in an internship with us. I don’t have the budget to pay him, but we might be able to get him to work for us for a few weeks for free. I guess he got some kind of scholarship or grant for it. Wish I’d had that when I was in college.” Watching Nash process the information felt like a knife twisting in her stomach. How many times had she given presentations that talked about how important it was to build trust on a team? Lectured her reports on the importance of honesty? Parker and Ree were definitely going to be in charge of post-holiday kitchen cleanup this year…maybe forever.
“Nice.” Nash nodded, looking off into space.
Stefanie gave him a knowing look. “You’re reassembling the platform in your head, aren’t you?”
Nash shrugged. “Sorry. Bad habit. A new person is coming, which changes how much we can do. Might be helpful, might not be.”
Stefanie leaned forward conspiratorially. “If he isn’t helpful, I’ll give him something else to keep him busy and tell him it’s very important. Then, I’ll help you myself. Rework the assembly instructions, and I’ll see how quickly I can bring him in. If he doesn’t get in your way too much, he might be just the help we need to get the modified platforms out the door on time.”
Nash gave her a little salute. “Sounds great, boss. Stef.”
Focused on her work instead of international espionage, Stefanie’s good humor began to return. She quickly got into the groove. Being a lab manager was an interesting balance of hands-on work, people management, and heaven help her, budgets. It wasn’t the math of the budget that made her head spin, it was the vocabulary and rules. Depreciation, accounts payable, accounts receivable, ugh. Give her good, old-fashioned calculus any day. She sent a note to Cole, letting him know the good news about the new student and his grant, along with the reason for bringing him in. Her heart beat a little faster than normal when she hit send. There was no taking it back now. Whether or not Nash’s idea would help them learn something new remained to be seen. But the opportunity it presented to bring in the CIA officer was irresistible. She had a few more moments of reprieve from budget tasks when she texted her sister that the CIA could send their operative, along with a description of what she’d communicated to Cole and Nash. Her phone dinged and she jumped. Ree said that help would arrive within the week and she’d send more information to the other phone. The secure phone. Provided by the FBI. Her stomach did one last little flip, then she got back to work.
10
Joey Pacelli placed the last of his neatly folded gear into a travel bag. Finally, he’d get to do something about Dmitri besides just sitting in the office running searches in obscure corners of the internet. Not that the searches had been fruitless. Between him and Alexis, they’d found enough information to get one step closer to the man hell-bent on hurting other people to make himself more powerful. Joey hefted his bag over his shoulder and looked out at his land from the back window – the rolling hills and groves of trees would never get old for him. He’d spent the weekend turning downed trees into firewood, mowing, and cleaning up landscaping. He was on call for the fire department, but it’d been a relatively quiet weekend.
Time spent doing physical work had given him ample opportunity to speculate about what might be happening at the OEG, but he needed to be there in person to form any conclusions. The last thing Joey wanted to do was to put an innocent person in danger, but Quinn assured him Stefanie Ryland was aware of the risk. Joey shook his head. Maybe in theory, but no one truly understood what Dmitri was capable of if they didn’t have all the facts. And Stefanie Ryland most assuredly did not have all the facts.
Joey skimmed the email from Quinn one last time. Posing as a scientist of some sort was probably a prerequisite, but Ryland would have to help him fake it. He’d double majored in Russian and finance through the Army ROTC program; however, the description of the work happening at the Oceanic Exploration Group was something else entirely. Joey double-checked to make sure he had everything he needed, placed his bag in his truck, and drove to the airport.
Half a day and one flight later, Joey landed in Oakland, California. He drove to the correct suburb of the sprawling metropolitan area and entered the code that unlocked the door to his new temporary home. He did a walk-through, and when he was satisfied everything looked secure, he unloaded his bag. He organized his belongings and checked the time. Stefanie was aware someone would be coming. That was close enough to permission. Joey secured his weapon, set the security system, and drove his rental car to a small karate studio nearby. Despite the unusual nature of his job, he found some measure of comfort in the familiar environment. While he knew no one, the tradition and routine at the studio were similar no matter where he trained. The front entry was buzzing with activity as the next class was about to begin. A quick check of the schedule while he waited confirmed that the next class was primarily adults with their black belts. Once it was his turn in line, he stepped up to the front desk. A friendly woman in a black uniform with a black belt greeted him. “Good evening, sir. How can I help you?”
“Hi, ma’am. I’m new to the area and was hoping to do a trial class. I’m a third-degree black belt, but I left my uniform at home.” Joey gestured to the schedule on the wall. “Is there a good time this week that I could jump in to see if it’s a good fit?”
“You’re just in time.” The woman reached out a hand and he shook it. “I’m Master Kim. If you don’t mind borrowing a uniform, I’ll let you observe and join in if you’re comfortable.”
Joey smiled. “That’d be great. I’m Joey. Thanks for letting me try out your class, ma’am.”
Soon, Joey had changed into the standard new student uniform, all white, with a white belt. By the time he was done changing, the class was just getting started. When Master Kim directed him to his place, he found himself standing next to a woman with brown hair pulled up into a messy bun and bright hazel eyes. He’d managed to end u
p standing right next to Stefanie Ryland. She turned to nod a greeting and stared at him just a little too long. It would have been nice if he’d sent a picture along so he didn’t make her nervous, but he wasn’t in the habit of throwing around his identity with people he hadn’t yet vetted. He’d have to work with her on hiding her suspicions once he told her who he was.
Soon, he was easily following the form they were teaching, and Stefanie’s curiosity morphed into an open appraisal. They paired off into sparring partners, and she chose him. He fought a smile. No wonder Quinn liked her – she faced her curiosity head-on. She reached out a hand to shake his. “I’m Stefanie. Are you new here?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her what he hoped was an easy smile. “My name is Joey. I just moved to the area and Master Kim said I could join the class.” Before she could ask any more questions, they were instructed to bow to one another and begin.
Joey decided before they got started to take it easy on Stefanie. She’d had a long weekend of traveling, been hit with a lot of information she didn’t expect, and probably wasn’t entirely prepared to go up against someone with his experience. Just as he was getting ready to deliver a gentle tap to her stomach, he was startled out of his plan by a kick to the protective headgear the facility had provided. He flinched at the impact, then chuckled. Stefanie’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, you thought I was going to take it easy on the new guy?”