by Debra Webb
She checked the time again, considering the more likely scenarios, each of them increasingly unpleasant as they flashed through her mind. He’d been tailed and led the tail away from her. He’d been recognized and arrested by federal authorities. He’d been killed by Halloran’s prize sniper. Her stomach pitched at the ghastly image, putting an end to her terrible thoughts.
If a sniper had struck Frank out here in the Mall, the police and emergency crews would be crawling all over the place by now. Even his arrest would’ve drawn a media presence.
So, if not killed by a sniper or picked up by police, Frank should be here. The obvious conclusion was he’d spotted someone tailing him. She should move to the alternative rendezvous point, closer to the parking garage. He was probably there, worrying and waiting for her to show up.
He wouldn’t leave her. After last night, she was sure he realized he couldn’t defeat Hellfire alone. Frank needed her. As much as she needed him, a small voice in her head pointed out with a vicious snarl. It startled her to have that voice reach out and lash at her. She thought she’d left that near-panic intensity locked away in the early days of their marriage.
When they were young, his career path as a military leader had seemed courageous and bold, almost glamorous. His confidence and conviction of purpose had inspired her. Then the reality of life as an officer’s wife had surprised her. He’d gone off on one task or another and the urge to cling had been a sharp contrast to her independent nature. Over time, they’d become a stand-out team in his professional life, as well as their family life.
It was the soothing of other wives suffering with similar anxiety that often left her breathless and weepy. For years she had managed the problem alone, only sharing her secret with a therapist. To support her husband, she had to present a strong example. The same fortitude had held true and served her well in her career as an analyst.
She resented being tossed back to that near-panicked place where she didn’t feel complete without Frank at her side. Her lungs constricted and she demanded more of herself. She couldn’t give in to these detrimental reactions or this frantic need to see him whole and hale.
When she’d identified his body, believing herself a widow, she’d been calm. Not happy, not relieved, but calm. She had been devastated that he was gone—that he hadn’t trusted her with whatever had been happening those last months of his life. But he had taken any decision or worry away from her. She had accepted that reality and tried to get on with her life. No more questions about whether or not he was okay, no more wondering if he would return, just a numb finality. Knowing he was alive and being unable to tell anyone presented the strangest paradox. Part of her wanted to celebrate, while an equally strong part of her wanted to shake him.
What would he do if she walked right on past their meeting point? Her knees trembled at the thought and she hurried toward the nearest open bench. As the owner of a security company, she employed the cream of the bodyguard crop. Frank had warned her of a threat. A logical woman would assign a protective detail. Surely with all the friends she had in this city, she could evade Halloran until her detail arrived.
Where would that leave Frank? Damn it. She couldn’t leave him to cope with Halloran’s schemes alone. If she left him hanging, Frankie would never forgive her. She’d never forgive herself. No matter that his decisions had hurt her so deeply, she couldn’t do the same to him.
She glanced around once more, confirming she was alone, before pulling out her phone. No word from Frank. Refusing to give in to the panic, she sent a text message to Victoria canceling their shopping date. Then she sent another to Frankie explaining away the trip to DC as a business lead. Both women responded quickly, giving her a moment’s peace. The next incoming message, filled with links to bridal websites, brought a smile to her face.
Sophia was drafting another message to Aidan, a not-so-veiled warning, when she looked up and recognized Frank’s rapid, ground-eating stride. He looked well and he hadn’t tried to shut her out after all.
Relief propelled her from the bench in a rush. She didn’t care if they made a scene as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed up on her toes for a kiss. Looking startled, he seemed to need a second to catch up. When he did, the kiss ignited as they rediscovered sweet, familiar contact. The heat of his wide hands seeped through the soft fabric of her knit dress, chasing away the earlier chill of anxiety.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said when they paused long enough to breathe. “And you’re late.”
“I can tell.”
The sexy grin on his face disappeared and he turned, keeping one hand locked around hers as they headed back to the parking garage. The rigid set of his shoulders and the lines bracketing his mouth were evidence enough that something unfortunate had happened while she was talking with her friend.
“How was your meeting?” he asked.
She glanced up at him. “There’s good news and bad news. What happened to you?”
“I had an impromptu meeting.” He seemed to scan and evaluate the people around them for any threat.
“Care to elaborate?” She was doing her best to keep up with his longer legs, but walking with Frank when he was in a rush always turned into a cardio workout.
“Not here.”
She’d never seen him in such a paranoid state. Though he’d always been observant and aware, this hypervigilant attitude was new and clearly a by-product of the situation. It seemed cruel, on this gorgeous spring day, to be plagued by such dark circumstances.
“What happened, Frank?” she asked when they reached the privacy of the rental car.
“I saw a man tailing me. I led him away from you and took care of it.”
Took care of it? She choked.
“Relax.” His voice was tight, stern. “When did you start believing I’m a cold-blooded—”
“Stop.” She couldn’t let him finish. “I do not believe that. Who tailed you?”
“One of Hellfire’s young guns.”
“Was he sent to kill you?” Fear tightened around her chest.
“No.” Frank sighed, seeming to calm down as he drove toward the Beltway. “He was nothing but a messenger. He mentioned the ‘top brass’ had filled my account with a comeback incentive. He also gave up a name I hadn’t heard before—Engle. I think Hellfire might let each leader hire his own help. The kid made it sound as though he was working directly for this Engle person, though he understood it was a bigger operation.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her phone and started a basic search. “What else did he tell you?”
“He couldn’t call off the pending hit on you or Frankie, though he implied everything would be fine if I started cooperating again.”
“He didn’t ask about the missing drugs?”
Frank shook his head. “That bugged me, too.” He changed lanes, then reached into his jacket pocket. He set a cell phone and wallet in the cup holders between the seats. “I took those off the kid. Told him to turn himself in before I made it look like he flipped on Hellfire. That cut right through his bravado, even as he told me Engle wouldn’t believe it.”
She checked the ID in the wallet and did a cursory search of the cell phone. “We need to pull what we can from this immediately. Before he can wipe any data remotely.”
“You can do that from here?”
She nodded, thinking Aidan would make short work of her request. “My assistant can pass it on to our internal security team.”
“No.” He checked his mirrors and changed lanes again. “I don’t want to give Halloran any reason to move on Frankie or the company.”
“Frank, we need them.” When would he accept that? “The company we dreamed of is founded on discretion.” Her mind leaped into overdrive as she scrolled through the young man’s text message history. “If these contact numbers track to real accounts, th
is is a gold mine,” she murmured, sending screenshots to her phone. “We have to verify right away.”
“What about the friend you just met with or the Colby Agency? Can’t either of them handle this?”
“I promise Frankie and Leo Solutions won’t be tied to any of it. She’s actually oblivious of any trouble. I just got a text with links to a site full of bouquet ideas.”
“Wedding bouquets?”
“Yes. She’s so excited—”
He silenced her with a stony look. “You’ve been texting her from a phone we know Halloran can track?”
She pressed her lips together, breathing slowly through her nose, reminding herself he had many valid reasons to be paranoid. “My GPS is deactivated,” she said carefully. “You and I both know they’re tracking me through other means. I’d no more put our daughter in danger than you would.” She paused when her voice started to shake with renewed anger. “Why don’t you take a minute, Frank, and decide once and for all? Either you trust me to help you wipe out Hellfire or you don’t.”
While she waited for his response, she used her phone to take pictures of the contents of the wallet. In addition to the driver’s license and two credit cards, there was an employee badge from a company whose name she didn’t recognize. These she sent to her friend Eddie here in DC.
“Do what you have to do,” Frank muttered after what felt more like an hour than a minute. “I trust you.”
“Thank you.”
Sophia sent all the new information to her assistant, asking her to walk the information directly to Aidan. When the information was confirmed to have been received by her assistant, she turned off the young man’s cell phone and tossed it and the wallet into her purse.
“Engle doesn’t ring any bells for you?” Sophia asked as Frank started another loop around the city. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, adjusting his ball cap. “Tell me what you learned this morning.” He turned a bit and one eyebrow lifted over his sunglasses. “Better yet, tell me who you met with.”
“An old friend,” she replied. As tightly wound as Frank was, the truth would only prove problematic.
“Come on, Sophia. I have a right to know. Was it an old CIA pal?”
Her temper flashed. She wanted to deny his right to everything, but he’d just promised to trust her and she couldn’t give him reason not to now. “As far as anyone else is concerned, I met with a lawyer.”
“Eddie Chandler?” His grip on the steering wheel tightened and his nostrils flared.
She leaned across the console. “You can’t still be jealous. It’s been over thirty years.” There had been only one man in her past who had eroded Frank’s confidence—her college boyfriend and first fiancé. She’d called off the engagement, met Frank within a year of her graduation and never looked back, yet something about that old relationship had always put Frank on edge and filled him with senseless worry.
She drilled her finger into his arm. “I married you.” They had far bigger problems than his lingering jealousy.
“I knew it.” Frank’s eyebrows snapped together over his sunglasses. “Did he start in with that old crap about how you’d be better off without me?”
“That was always a joke. He got married ages ago, remember?”
Frank only grunted.
“And he can’t warn me away from you, because I’m still a widow per public opinion.”
“Knowing how my career imploded, he must have given you some variation of ‘I told you so.’”
“Aside from a sincere expression of sympathy for my loss, your name didn’t come up.” She rubbed the base of her left ring finger, suddenly missing her wedding rings. “I walked in with one purpose—intel on Darren Lowry.”
“Right.” Frank muttered a nearly inaudible oath. “What did you tell him?”
“I let him assume my inquiry had something to do with Leo Solutions business. He remembered the complaint in Iraq. Naturally, we couldn’t go through the official records, but Eddie knew of more than one complaint.”
“Doesn’t sound like much progress.”
Sophia didn’t correct her grumpy husband right away. Primarily what she’d wanted, what Eddie had provided, was a clean computer to do more research in the hopes of finding something they could use against Lowry. “I found his civilian résumé, and since I still have access to the archives within the CIA, I took some time and made notes of professional intersections between Lowry and Halloran. I was looking for the catalyst.”
“Sophie.” Frank groaned. “Might as well send up a flare.”
She understood and forgave his dismay. He’d been in the thick of Hellfire longer, his life had been wrecked, and he’d been the whipping boy for Halloran’s crimes. And he had no idea what she could do with a computer these days.
“We needed the information. The more we know, the more options we have.” She barreled on when he started to disagree. “You warned me not to go at Halloran directly. I didn’t. Unless this is far bigger than either of us can imagine, no one will even be aware of my search.” To his credit, Frank gestured for her to go on.
“You have his current address and you know Lowry works at the Pentagon as a defense contractor. I learned his current project is developing new, longer-lasting batteries for special forces units.”
“How the hell did you and Eddie discover that?”
Sophia eyed Frank and decided to ignore his jealousy and to treat him as she would a moody, frustrated client. “Lowry and Halloran crossed paths plenty in their early careers. I couldn’t identify a particular catalyst, though it’s possible Halloran buried a few harassment complaints to get Lowry to go along with his plans.”
“I doubt any threats were needed,” Frank said. “Lowry is the sort who always keeps an eye open for the chance to make an easy buck. Half the time he sounded more like a shady stockbroker than an army officer.”
That was precisely the information she needed from Frank to help them pry open Hellfire. “Is he the moneyman?” She couldn’t imagine Halloran would be that foolish. “Why put a greedy personality type in charge of the money?”
Frank snorted. “Skills and deniability? Greed doesn’t often come with self-control.”
“From what you’ve said, the crew has been greedy and successful in it for a long time.” How could they use that?
“You didn’t run across anyone named Engle in your research?”
“No.” She decided not to pull out the papers she’d printed for further analysis. That would give Frank only more cause for concern. “Then again, I wasn’t looking for it.”
“You can’t go back to Eddie’s office,” Frank said quickly. “We need to keep moving.”
She understood the risks of staying in one place long enough for Halloran to catch them, but there had to be a way to take a swipe at Lowry before they left. “Lowry is in town. We could stay close for a day or two, pick apart his life and find something to wave like a red flag in front of the press. Or we could tip off a reporter with a completely bogus story and hope it starts a chain reaction.”
“You tell me what you want,” Frank said, sounding surprisingly relaxed.
They definitely couldn’t keep driving around the Beltway. “I want a hotel with decent internet access and a few hours to see if I can find the right buttons to push. I’m thinking we can combine what we know and pin an information leak on the guy who tailed you today.”
“Then we’ll do that,” said Frank. “There are plenty of options near Reagan National Airport and we can scoot out of town right away.”
The sooner the better, she thought. Eddie had suggested a reporter for Sophia to contact if they wanted the media to start prodding Halloran’s operation. It was time to get aggressive. Frank had been going at this quietly and under the radar for a while, but
he had backup now, whether he wanted it or not. What she had in mind would keep Halloran’s mind off Frankie.
Thinking of her daughter reminded her about the bridal links. She clicked on them, did a fast cruise through the pictures and sent Frankie a reply.
“Did you think of something else?” Frank asked.
“Not yet. I was responding to Frankie’s links.”
Her husband paled visibly.
“Do you need to pull over? I can drive if you can’t handle the idea of your baby getting married,” she offered.
“I trust you.” Frank seemed to have trouble swallowing. “I just—” He shook his head and clutched the wheel as a car cut him off.
Sophia stiffened, braced for another attack. None came, though she couldn’t quite relax. Part of the problem was the tautness in every line of Frank’s posture. “What is it?” She glanced around, twisting in her seat as she tried to identify the threat.
“Nothing.” He wasn’t convincing. “It’s the idea of Halloran getting a hold of Frankie. I believe you,” he said quickly. “I do.” He scrubbed at his jaw. “I just can’t shake that image.”
“Aidan won’t let anything happen to her. I believe he’d be enough even if she wasn’t surrounded by bodyguards.”
“Yeah.” Frank followed the signs for the airport.
“I think our daughter has skills we could use here, but I won’t involve her in this unless we agree. I promise we’re only trading wedding ideas by text message. It’s what we do now.” It still gave her a happy maternal thrill, but she was dealing with a dad who felt left out. Changing the subject, she asked, “What else did you learn from the guy who tailed you?”
Frank sighed. “He said Halloran hadn’t intended to leave me in prison to serve out the treason charge.”