Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  When he put the bowl back on the table, Summer lifted an eyebrow. She’d stopped eating half an hour ago. “We good?”

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin and sighed. “Real good. Thanks.”

  She sat back, crossed her arms, looked at him. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way...”

  “Yeah.” Jack placed the napkin delicately next to the plate, taking his time. Gathering his thoughts. As well he should, because he was going to have to explain why she shouldn’t go with a major story. And while he was at it, explain why he’d been in hiding for six months. And what the deal was with Hector Blake.

  A lot of explaining.

  Jack flexed his jaw.

  “What happened to your beard?” It came out without any thought.

  He sighed. “Really? I’m not dead after all, and that’s what you want to know? What’s with my beard?”

  Stupid, stupid question. But Summer doubled down. “And the dreadlocks. What happened to those?”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I wear a wig and a false beard when I go out. They’re in that gym bag, as a matter of fact.” He jerked his head to the living room and Summer noticed the gym bag for the first time. Stupid. Usually she was more observant than that. Another sign that having Jack pop up had unsettled her a lot.

  “There are security cameras everywhere. And though my face has been removed from official records, I had to be careful. So the wig falls over my face and distorts the faceprint. The beard is fake, too. It would be easier to just grow a beard, but a fake beard doesn’t follow the natural contours of the face and makes facial recog even harder.”

  “Someone...removed your image from facial recognition databases?” Summer tried to think how that would be even possible. Whoever did it had to be extremely high up in the security community. Like the director of the CIA or NSA something.

  He nodded.

  “Sounds like...you’ve done this before. Evaded discovery.”

  Silence. “Not quite like this, but yes, I’ve done it before.”

  “For?”

  More silence.

  “That’s classified.” He sighed. “It’s crazy. I’m no longer operational. As a matter of fact, I’m dead. But I took an oath and I took it seriously when I did.”

  She digested that, thinking it over. “Okay. Let me tell you what I think. Word had it that you were making money and chasing girls as an investment banker in Singapore. But I’m guessing that’s not what you were doing. If whoever you work for has the power to wipe your photos from official databases, I’m guessing you’re in some intelligence service. But you were never really sharp at analytical courses at Harvard, so I’d say not in the analysis department. You’d be an operator, not an analyst. Not to mention the fact that you cut right through my building’s security and my apartment’s security, which is top of the line whatever you might say. So—not special ops because they don’t operate with official covers. My guess would be CIA. How’m I doing?”

  Jack’s face gave nothing away. But he wasn’t saying no.

  Summer looked at him, really looked at him. Seeing him as he was now and remembering him when he was a boy and then a young man. She’d been so in love with him she’d made him an object of study. She’d had a PhD in Jackology, though she’d made sure no one knew anything about her obsession.

  But she’d known him pretty well back in the day and some things did not change in people.

  “Like I said, you’re not particularly analytical. You were smart but it was a gift that you never polished. I’m guessing you got into Harvard as a legacy and because you were a gifted athlete, not because of your grades. Your grades sucked. So I’m ruling out the Directorate of Intelligence. You liked your gadgets but you weren’t a nerd so I’d rule out the Directorate of Science and Technology and I definitely do not see you in the Directorate of Support, fussing about with logistics and supplies. That leaves the National Clandestine Service. And if you’re pretending to be an investment banker that would leave you plenty of time to go on missions.”

  The silence stretched for a full minute.

  Jack stirred. Blew out a breath. “I got decent grades,” he said mildly.

  Bingo. She smiled.

  “Any good grades you got were strictly because you charmed the teachers. I never saw you open a book all that summer I came back to the US. And not once while we were—”

  She stopped. Fought a blush. She was about to say he’d never cracked a book while they were dating but they’d “dated” for about a week. Enough to stoke her infatuation and introduce her to world-altering sex before he disappeared.

  So dating wasn’t strictly the right term.

  And this walk down memory lane had had the unfortunate effect of reminding her that they’d essentially spent that one week in bed, having sex so incredible it should have been classified as a controlled substance.

  “You’re blushing,” Jack said.

  “Am not,” she answered sharply. And then, because she’d sounded like a child, she said, “So—how close did I get?”

  “Nailed it. Except I’m not CIA anymore.”

  “No. Because you’re dead. So let’s hear this story and I need to know why it has to remain secret because there’s been more than enough secrecy around the Washington Massacre. I’ll hold off if there’s a really good reason, but not for long and you’d better be pretty convincing.”

  Jack drew in a deep breath and for a moment she was startled at how wide it made his chest. Focus, Summer! She told herself. This was important and she couldn’t be distracted by a gorgeous male chest. She wasn’t eighteen anymore.

  Jack leaned forward, shifting away the plates with one strong forearm. “Why were you at Hector Blake’s funeral?”

  He wanted to ask questions first? Okay. “Well, he was sort of a relative. For a little while, anyway. Remember? But mainly because the whole thing stinks to high heaven.”

  His face gave away nothing, but his fingers curled up in a gimme gesture.

  She sighed. “First of all, the reports state that he drowned in the Potomac but everyone is real vague on exactly where in the Potomac. And it is unclear whether he was in a vehicle or just sort of fell in. Like you’d trip and fall into a pond. It’s really hard to do that. Either he committed suicide, diving in from a bridge, or it was homicide and he was thrown in, or it was an accident and he drove off the road into the river. The coroner’s report is unavailable, which is the first time that’s happened to me. The authorities didn’t exactly invoke the Patriot Act, but they might as well have. I applied for a copy of the report and got a sharp email from the coroner’s office. The office, not the coroner herself. She’s on indefinite leave. Starting yesterday. And no one has been appointed to replace her. And the DC morgue itself has been closed for ‘scheduled repairs’ though no such schedule has ever been published. I can’t figure out what happened to Hector but something did and it wasn’t what the reports say.”

  Jack held her eyes. “Hector Blake drowned in the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon four days ago. I know because I was there.”

  He dropped that bombshell and watched her reaction. She kept her face without expression, but her hands itched for the iPad, because this was the story of a lifetime. What were you doing there in Portland? What was Hector Blake doing there? How did it happen? The questions bubbled up inside her.

  When she felt a story start to happen, it was like a fisherman feeling a big tug, knowing he had a whopper at the other end of the line. That was exactly what she was feeling right now. A huge tug from a momentous story.

  “You’re going to have to explain that to me,” she said steadily.

  Jack nodded sharply, as if happy at her cool reaction. “Well, the short version is that Hector kidnapped Isabel, who had moved to Portland. I was there and, together with three oth
er men, we followed him. Isabel says he told her the plan was to fake her suicide in a motel, because she’d called him to tell him she knew something. Knew he’d been involved in the Massacre. That scared him enough to come out to Portland and kidnap her. She fought back and the driver of the van drove off a bridge and one of the members of my team, a former Navy SEAL, dove in and rescued Isabel. Hector was dead.”

  “Is the long version available?” Her mind was furiously trying to shape a picture from these small pieces of the puzzle but it wasn’t working. Too many pieces were missing. Kidnapping Isabel? She was a lovely woman who was a gifted food blogger, nothing political about her. “Why on earth would Hector Blake try to kidnap Isabel? And why were you in Portland? None of this makes any sense.”

  Jack rubbed a hand over the stubble on his head. “Hard to know where to begin.”

  “At the beginning, where else?” she said and rolled her eyes.

  He huffed out a breath. “Okay. I was running an informant in the Chinese PLA, who worked in their Fourth Directorate. He was found dead after passing some intel on to me.”

  “Fourth Directorate,” Summer murmured. “Cyberwarfare.”

  “That’s right.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “How’d you know that?”

  Summer took a deep calming breath, letting the first hot words that bubbled to the surface go. “Please. I majored in political science and I run an online blog dedicated to politics. Domestic and foreign. Of course I know what the Fourth Directorate of the PLA is.”

  Jack held big hands up, palms out. “Whoa, whoa. Sorry. I’m used to dealing with civilians who don’t have a clue.”

  “Well, I’m a civilian, and I do have a clue.”

  “I guess you do.” An expression flashed across Jack’s face, intense and fleeting and Summer had no problems at all deciphering it. It was pure sex, just a flash of it, like an oven that popped open then closed again immediately.

  Heat shot through her. She tingled down to her fingers and toes and it lit her up, exactly like walking in front of a blast furnace.

  Or stepping into hell.

  Because getting hot and sweaty with Jack would definitely put her in hell. That moment fifteen years ago when she realized that bedding her had been life-changing for her, but just fun for Jack? And there was a lot of fun out there in the big wide world and he was moving on? That moment had nearly crushed her. She’d been convinced he was the man for her, that all her years of girlish yearning hadn’t been in vain, that he’d been secretly waiting for her, just as she’d been secretly waiting for him. What had rocked her world had been a great roll in the hay for him and she watched miserably as he took her dorm roommate out a week later. She’d cried herself to sleep for months.

  So. Been there, done that. Not going there, ever again. Focus.

  She had, potentially, the story of a lifetime sitting at her dining table, looking like an ex con, scruffy and rough, with explosive knowledge in his shorn head. There was no bigger story than the Washington Massacre and Jack had unknown information. She could ride this story for weeks. It could bring Area 8 to an entirely different level, make it more a newsmagazine than a political blog.

  This was important, so she needed to pay attention.

  But oh, God. The man himself was such a distraction. Summer was used to bringing total focus to bear when it came to her job. Being thrown off-course by a source of information was new to her. But how could she focus when this big man sitting across from her was so fascinating?

  He shared features with the Jack she’d known. His eyes were still that amazing ocean blue, the nose still straight, mouth beautifully defined. But everything else about Jack the golden boy was gone. Those blue eyes were bloodshot, the flesh beneath bruised-looking. Though he was much heavier than when he was young—and it seemed to be all muscle—his cheeks were gaunt hollows, as if he’d recently lost a lot of weight. That thick mass of sun streaked hair—often gathered in a careless ponytail—was light-colored stubble. Even his hands were completely different. No longer elegant, long fingered, beautiful—almost works of art. Now they were still long-fingered but not beautiful. Not works of art. They were something a physical man used a lot—huge, callused, tough, scarred.

  Before, women looked at Jack and thought of trysting in a sun dappled field. Now, if anything, he evoked thoughts of being taken brutally, against a wall.

  Summer mentally shook herself. Sex with Jack was something she no longer thought about and sex with this new, tough Jack? Impossible.

  She leaned forward and looked him straight in the eyes. “So tell me how you’re still alive and roaming the streets pretending to be homeless. Tell me why you never announced that you’d lived through the Massacre and pretended to be dead. Tell me everything. And if it is truly important that I not write about it, I won’t. I will hold off. But remember this. Every single day I have people telling me that I would harm national security if I write about something, but usually it’s them covering their asses. So if all of this is you covering your ass, then you’re shit out of luck with me.”

  Jack’s jaws clenched. “Not covering my ass, believe me. And I want all of this to come to light just as much as you do, but at the right time. The people involved are ruthless. So far, a number of very good people have died after the Massacre and I don’t want any more on my conscience.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “So convince me. You said you had an informant who died on you. From the Fourth Directorate.”

  He nodded sharply. “That’s right. There’s a separate power structure in the Fourth Directorate, headed by General Chen Li. From what my CI told me, that power structure has put in place a plan for a soft takeover of the US. Military forces are only tangentially involved in the planning. This cabal inside the Fourth Directorate developed a plan to destroy us, or if not destroy us, weaken us to the point where we’d be easy to pick off. According to my informant, the plan involved minimal violence, not a full scale invasion, certainly not applying major military power. Conquest by stealth. So my mole was sending me intel over an encrypted line and we were beginning to get a feel for the plan. It was supposed to unfold in several stages or phases and stage one was coming up. Then my informant’s body was found in the Huangpu River. Right after sending a message that the first attack would be in Washington DC.”

  Summer had trouble breathing. Washington. “The Massacre,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” Jack lowered his head without taking his eyes from hers. “The file was corrupted but there was enough intel to indicate an attack on Washington was imminent. My boss and I thought—the White House. The Pentagon. Congress. We passed on word to appropriate channels and security was beefed up in those three places and the airports. I was coming back to Washington anyway. My boss and I were keeping our eyes and ears open.”

  “You came back because your father was announcing that he was running for president. Your undercover career was over.”

  “Yeah.” Jack’s face tightened. “It was. I couldn’t even tell Dad that he was messing me up because my family didn’t know I was CIA. But it was Dad’s dream and he would have made—” Jack’s voice grew thick and he looked to the side.

  “He would have made a great president,” Summer finished softly.

  Jack nodded and swallowed heavily. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I think Blake was behind the Massacre,” he said finally.

  “But—but he barely escaped the Massacre with his life. And he was there supporting your father! And I had it on good authority that your father was going to choose Hector Blake as his vice president.”

  Summer had found it hard to believe Alex Delvaux would have chosen Hector Blake as his Veep but that’s what her sources told her. Didn’t make much sense to her, given that Hector was universally disliked, at least among Washington insiders, people who knew him personally. Outside the circle of people w
ho knew him personally, however, he had the reputation of being a thinker, an innovative politician. Respected, even. And of course, Hector and Alex had known each other all their lives.

  Jack shot forward, a ferocious look on his face. With difficulty, Summer managed not to jerk back but she could feel her heart slam inside her chest, an animal reaction to a powerful, angry male. “That man was responsible for the extermination of my entire family, for the deaths of over seven hundred people and for the chaos that followed. I know this but I don’t have enough evidence to bring to court.”

  She swallowed. “I understand what you’re feeling, I really do. I loved your family, too.” And for way too long, I loved you as well. She didn’t say that, though. “But to feel that Hector was involved in the Massacre, you have to have something to go on. Do you have any proof?”

  “Nothing that would stand up in court.” Jack’s mouth twisted. “More like circumstantial evidence. I’ve been trying to gather evidence for a while. That’s why I’m here in DC, to get hard evidence against Blake and whoever is backing him. But now he’s dead and the leads are gone.”

  As she’d said, Jack didn’t have sharp analytical skills. He was bright and intuitive, but she needed more order in this story. “Go back to the beginning,” she said. “Tell me in order what happened, starting from the night of the Massacre.”

  “In the days right after the Massacre there was pure chaos. No one has written a comprehensive account. But you were there. Tell me how it went down. And tell me how you think our guys might be involved.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “I never said I suspected American involvement. Just Hector Blake’s.”

  “Jack.” Summer was used to being underestimated. And certainly in their short time together as a couple, she hadn’t given Jack a reason to admire her smarts. She’d spent their entire week together having explosive orgasms and being tongue-tied around him. “You had, by your account, prior warning of the Massacre. If you weren’t afraid that there was home-grown involvement you wouldn’t have disappeared. And since you did, you think that someone in the CIA was involved.”