“Are you armed?” I blurted out.
“What?”
“Are you armed right now?”
“Of course.”
“With just your service weapon? Or do you have your backup piece on you, too?”
“Just my service weapon. Seriously, Ryan. You’re starting to scare me.”
I paused, deliberating whether it was safe to talk about this in my office. I had no idea whether Mark had planted any sort of listening device in there to keep tabs on me, and while I was likely just being paranoid, I figured there was a reason for the adage “discretion is the better part of valor.” I flipped on the radio that sat atop a corner filing cabinet and drew Allison to the other side of the room. “Humor me for just a second first, okay?”
“Okay.” She dragged out the word, obviously wary.
“Pop the retention strap for me?”
“What?”
“The retention strap on your weapon. Pop it for me.” She rolled her eyes but did as I asked. “Okay. Now just keep your hand there.”
“On the butt of my weapon?”
“If you don’t mind.” I wanted at least one of us to be prepared in case Mark stormed in. I’d rather it be me, but I doubted she’d give up her gun even if I asked nicely.
“Fine. Now will you tell me what the hell this is all about?”
“So, funny story…Uh…You know the assassination attempt on the president of Iran?”
Allison’s face darkened, and the muscles in her jaw jumped. “Yes.” The word was clipped, the tone bitter.
“Right.” I palmed the back of my neck with my right hand, wincing at the ache the motion produced in my shoulder. “Well, here’s the thing. It wasn’t an assassination attempt on the president of Iran as much as it was an assassination attempt on me.” I glanced at the door and strained to hear any movement from the hall, but all I could pick up were the strains of the music wafting throughout the room and the roar of my heart thundering in my ears.
Allison stared at me for a long time, not saying anything. I tried to read her expression, but her face was completely neutral and gave me no clue. “Who would want to kill you? And why?”
“You believe me?” Somehow I’d expected a little more resistance to the idea.
She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows at me, as if silently inquiring whether I’d really just asked her that. “Of course. Although I do have some additional follow-up questions. Starting with the ones I just asked.”
The band of pressure around my chest loosened, and I was thrilled at how much easier it was to breathe. “Remember the paperwork for that counterfeit case you found mixed up with my advance paperwork?”
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s connected to that.”
“How?”
My insides crawled as though I were stuffed with an army of ants, and I placed one hand across my midsection to dispel the unpleasant sensation. “The guy has ties to several men who are suspected of funding terrorism with the sale of counterfeit currency.”
Allison’s eyes widened, and the ants marched up and swarmed my heart as I was suddenly awash with the renewed realization that my situation was perilous enough without Mark’s involvement.
“And?”
“What?” I scrambled to recall where we were in the conversation, but I was hitting a wall.
“I assume there’s something else. What is it?”
I hesitated and looked toward my door again. The words I wanted to speak crowded into my mouth, all sharp points and angles, but as much as they pained me, I was reluctant to spit them out. Please, dear God, don’t let him have planted a bug in here. Just to be safe, I pressed my lips right against her ear and murmured, “I think Mark’s somehow involved.”
“Mark who?” she asked, loud enough to make me cringe and glance at the door.
“Shhh. Jennings.” When she merely blinked at me, I clarified softly. “My boss.”
Allison’s face crumpled, and it was her turn to stare at my door. She looked torn between believing me and denying that anyone we worked with could be party to something so dark. I knew the feeling.
“Can you tell me why you think that?” she asked finally.
I explained the situation in detail, using a dry-erase marker on one of the frosted-glass windows, the one that backed up to the office behind mine, which should be locked at this time of night.
“And you know for sure this is”—she glanced at the door again—“his phone?”
I nodded and tried to ignore the nausea pressing against the walls of my stomach. My tongue was too big and unwieldy in my mouth. “Yeah. I just called it. And he answered.”
Allison sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes darted back over to my closed office door. The muscles in her hand tensed as she tightened her grip on the butt of her gun. “He’s here in NYFO, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
She refocused on me, and the terror bleeding into her eyes only made me more aware of my own. “Does he know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Does he know you’re onto him?”
I shook my head and gritted my teeth against the pounding behind my temples. “I doubt it. If he did, I don’t think you and I would be talking right now.”
Allison looked horrified. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke.”
“You think he’d kill you.”
“It looks like he’s already tried once, and that was before I suspected him of anything. Do you really think he’d let me live now that I actually do?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“This is bad.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What are we going to do?”
I let out a shaky breath, capped and discarded my marker, and lifted my hands. “I honestly don’t know.”
“He needs to be off the street and out of contact with these guys. Like now. As long as he’s free, you’re in danger.”
I stopped right at the edge of pointing out I was likely in danger anyway. We both were. Had it gotten hot in here? I’d just noticed I was sweating again and was suddenly aware of the way my shirt was sticking to my skin. “I know. But I can’t think of anyone with the pull to get a warrant drawn up this fast.”
“What about the SAIC?”
“You mean my SAIC?”
Allison shrugged. “Why not? You don’t think he knows about this, do you?”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t want to have to explain why the idea was so funny. Instead, I shook my head. “No. But I don’t know that dragging him into this would be the best idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, if anyone else besides the SAIC gets wind of this, I can’t be sure Mark won’t find out somehow.” For another, I couldn’t be sure my dad wouldn’t just kill him, which was the main reason I was reluctant to involve him at this stage.
“The gossip in this agency really is out of control.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay, so anyone from NYFO is out. You’re on the JTTF. Don’t you have any connections in another office or another agency you can tap?”
Her words were like a flare being ignited in a darkened room, making my next course of action suddenly, blindingly clear. And now that my path was illuminated, I wanted nothing more than to follow it. Immediately. No, scratch that. Yesterday. I still wasn’t sure exactly why Allison was here, but whatever it was, it could wait. But I couldn’t guarantee the outcome for either of us if someone didn’t deal with Mark soon.
“There is one person who might be able to help us. We’ll go see in a minute.”
I checked on my computer search. Being a government agency, we saved everything. On a normal day, I lamented that fact, as I’d found the practice more than tedious. Today, however, I was unbelievably grateful.
I took a moment to skim the files my search results had set aside for me, simultaneously el
ated and sickened that I’d unearthed more or less what I’d thought I would. According to these records, Mark had been assigned as the detail leader for almost every single visit the president of Iran had made to the United States in the past five years. There were a handful of exceptions, of course, notably the most recent visit. Mark had not been the DL on the day of “the incident.” But, according to what I was seeing, he was supposed to have been and had been switched out at the last minute. I’d have said it was a coincidence if I’d believed in those, but I didn’t. I hit the Print key and moved on to my next search.
“What are you doing?” Allison came to stand beside me and peered over my shoulder at the monitor. Her proximity allowed me to feel the heat of her skin, and I trembled, fumbling the mouse.
“Just tying up a few loose ends,” I replied, cringing at the waver in my voice. “Give me another second. I’m just about finished. Then we can go.”
A few more taps of my keyboard, and I was looking at the entrance logs for the building. Every employee had an access code necessary to gain entrance to the office, one of the many ways we kept our facility secure. The code needed to be typed into an electronic keypad that controlled the locks to every exterior office door. And each entry was logged into a system of records that kept track of everyone’s coming and goings. Again, I hadn’t seen the need for such a procedure before, but now I was thanking my lucky stars the federal government was so anal-retentive.
I didn’t have time to go through every single day for the past few years, and I wasn’t well versed enough in this particular system to do an advanced search for one particular access code, even if I’d known which one I was looking for. I also didn’t know how to conduct a search so the system displayed only a specific name. But as the names were the only identifiers displayed when each employee logged in, it was simple to scroll through a few random dates, manually scouring for Mark’s.
When I wasn’t so pressed for time, I’d have to review all the records and see if I could pull the logs specific to him and consolidate them on one page. But for now, just seeing that Mark had a fairly consistent pattern of showing up at the office around four a.m. approximately two to three times a week as far back as three years ago was enough for me.
I hit the Print key again. The picture was starting to come into sharper focus now. But I didn’t need complete clarity. The way I saw it, I had just enough rope to make Mark believe I knew everything and leave it to him to hang himself. Now all I needed was an executioner.
I turned to face Allison, startled that she was still so close. Her breath ghosted across my lips and made my head foggy. My throat was tight, and I cleared it before I spoke. “You ready to go?” My voice was barely a whisper.
Allison pulled the corner of her lower lip in between her teeth and nodded slowly. A lock of hair tumbled down her forehead and into her eyes as her gaze flickered to where the tip of my tongue had darted out to moisten my lips.
Against my better judgment, I reached out to tuck that stray tress behind her ear and then caressed her cheek, all but falling into her eyes for the moment she held my gaze before she closed them and nuzzled into my touch. I used my other hand to cup her face tenderly and ran one thumb over her bottom lip. Christ. Even though facing imminent death, the woman was like my own personal black hole. I couldn’t get within five feet of her without her pull ensnaring me.
Allison and I stood there together like that for a while, seemingly content to coexist in the silence of my office. I took advantage of the opportunity to study her while her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t help the smile that blossomed across my own lips as it occurred to me, not for the first time, how heartbreakingly beautiful she was.
She let slip a soft sigh, and her hands came up to rest lightly on my hips, causing my own breathing to hitch and my mind to wrench violently off its current innocent track, only to crash-land on another that was most definitely not. The desire to kiss her breathless suddenly consumed me, followed closely by the yearning to strip her completely naked, place her on top of my desk, and take my time slowly exploring every inch of her hot skin with my tongue until she came undone and screamed my name.
Good Lord. I swallowed hard as the mental images of that scenario played out inside my head. The woman didn’t even have to try to turn me on. My fingers tingled and burned with the need to touch her, which was startling in its intensity.
Focus, O’Connor, the voice in my head snapped. You’re dealing with a life-and-death situation here. Keep your eye on the damn ball.
I indulged myself one more moment and set my thumbs to roam over the silken skin of her cheeks before I gently let her go. I cleared my throat again. “So…you ready to get out of here?”
Allison’s eyes fluttered open slowly, and she appeared dazed for a second before her expression cleared. The speed with which she snapped back to being all business was as impressive as it was hot. She took a step back, and her hand drifted to the butt of her gun again.
“You think he’s still here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Any way to find out?”
“Aside from walking down the hall to his office or calling his extension? No. Not one that wouldn’t require involving other agents.”
“Which we don’t want.”
“No.”
“You armed?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Shit. Where’s your gun?”
“They took it from me when I was shot. I can’t get it back until I’m cleared for full duty.”
“Do you know where it is? Is it here in the office? Can we get it?”
“I don’t know. My—the SAIC said he had it locked up, but I don’t know if it was here or at home. His home. Not mine. Obviously.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and my cheeks blazed under the intensity of her stare. I held my breath as I waited to see whether she’d press me on why I’d just stuttered like a fool. She didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Where’s your vest?”
My breath rushed out of me, and I didn’t know whether to be grateful she was taking this seriously or horrified that she also considered Mark might actually shoot me in the office. “My raid vest is in the trunk of my car. And the vest I bought to wear on protection is probably with my gun. Or maybe the FBI has it as evidence. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it since I was shot.”
She huffed and shook her head as she shrugged out of her suit jacket. Her hands went to the buttons of her dress shirt and started unfastening them.
“What’re you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Now seems like a bad time to get naked. Not that I don’t always want you naked, but I shouldn’t always get what I want.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that? I’m giving you my vest.”
I placed my hands over hers. “I’m not taking it.”
“Well, I’m not letting you out this door unprotected.”
I tried to smile at her. “I’m not unprotected. I have you.”
Allison rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I did know. And while I could appreciate the sentiment—while it warmed me in a way I couldn’t have imagined—the idea of holding her while she bled out because she’d given me her vest and forgone protection was far scarier than my own death. “Yeah. I do. But it’s not going to happen.” When she opened her mouth to interrupt, I pressed on. “We don’t have time to argue about this. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I could see the temptation to keep pushing sparking behind her eyes. But in the end she merely nodded once, shrugged back into her suit jacket, and turned toward the door. I took a deep breath and reached out to open it, but she stopped me with a quiet, “Wait.”
I glanced at her, surprised. “What’s up?”
She eased her weapon out of her holster and adjusted her grip so both hands were wrapped tightly around the butt, muzzle pointed at the flo
or, finger high along the slide and out of the trigger guard. “Which way is Mark’s office?”
“To the left.”
She nodded. “Okay. Then we go out the door and head right. We’ll make our way to the elevators the long way. I’d rather take them because we know they have video surveillance. I doubt he’d try to take you out knowing he’s on camera. Since I’ve got the gun, I’ll cover your six until we’re away from his office. Then I’ll take point. Standard evacuation protocols and signals. Make sure you take quick peeks around the corners before you advance.”
I was so keyed up about the next few minutes, it barely even occurred to me to point out that I was an agent, too, and I knew damn well how to evacuate from a building. Only the lump in my throat and the pressure building in my chest kept me from replying. My insides clenched as I tried not to imagine all the ways this could go horribly wrong.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and took another deep breath before slowly easing the door open a crack. I took a moment to listen for footsteps, movement, anything that would indicate someone’s approach, but I heard nothing. I caught Allison’s eye, and we both nodded. Then I flung the door back and took off down the hall with her right behind me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time we reached the parking garage, I was wound up tighter than the inside of a baseball. I tried to slow my ragged breathing as I slammed my car door and hastily scrambled to insert the key into the ignition. It took me a couple of tries, and every cell in my body was on high alert as I fumbled, but eventually I made it work. I let out a long, shaky breath as the engine caught and had to force myself not to speed out of there like I was trying to win the Indy 500.
“So that was…something,” Allison said as I eased the car onto the street. Her work phone buzzed, and her expression was annoyed as she pulled it out to check it.
“Mmm.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. You?”
I heard her huff, and when I glanced at her, I saw that she’d tilted her head back and was glaring at the ceiling. “You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?”
Worthy of Trust and Confidence Page 18