If You're Going Through Hell Keep Going

by Tinnean

  “Not in the least. I’m very pleased with you, Mark. So is Humphrey, when it comes down to it. He’s thrilled you’re finally using some of your banked vacation time. All work and no play, you know.”

  “Uh… yes, sir.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m making you my second-in-command, with an eye to having you step into my shoes when I retire.”

  “Sir?” It was a good thing I was sitting down, because otherwise I’d have fallen down.

  “Not that I’m planning on retiring for some years.”

  “The WBIS wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “Thank you. Of course I intend to get out on the golf course more frequently.”

  I grunted.

  “See Humphrey in the morning. There’s some paperwork attached to this.”

  Wasn’t there always? “You realize there are going to be some unhappy directors when this gets out.”

  “I know who you’re talking about, and have they ever been anything but unhappy when it comes to you?” He must have meant that as a rhetorical question, because he continued before I had a chance to come up with a response. “However, I have every confidence in you.” He looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you join me for dinner? We can discuss this in more detail.”

  “Certainly, sir.” You didn’t say “no” to The Boss. “Will Ms. DiBlasi be joining us?”

  “Not this time.” Implying there would be other times? He gave a tight smile. “She’s taking a course in Ornamental Horticulture.”

  “Yes, sir.” If he didn’t want me to know she’d be downloading the files of the day’s work from every secretary’s computer, I wasn’t going to let him know I was aware of it. I thought of my own secretary. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

  “You’re not going to insist I sack more directors... or deputy directors... are you?”

  For a second I considered Gershom, but there was time to get rid of him. “No, sir. It’s about the WBIS’s lack of a maternity policy.”

  “Odd you should mention that. Nola brought up the subject a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Did she?” Was it a coincidence, or was she aware that it had become a necessity? I had a sudden image of them discussing WBIS policies in bed, and I wanted to wash my brain with bleach.

  “Yes. She also suggested day care.”

  Here? I boggled at the thought of the WBIS being overrun with rug rats.

  “Well, there will be plenty of time to come up with a solid plan.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that. We were going to lose two of our best secretaries before the year was out. And possibly Granger as well, if he decided he wanted to take paternity leave… or simply walked, if it came down to it.

  Unaware of where my thoughts had gone, The Boss crossed to his coat closet and retrieved his overcoat. “Have you ever been to Raphael’s? I understand the veal piccata is excellent.”

  “I’ve been there, sir. And yes, the veal is delicious.” Quinn had ordered it for me for my birthday last year. “Sir?” All of a sudden, he didn’t look pleased.

  “How long do you intend to continue calling me ‘sir’?”

  I bit back a startled laugh, recalling when Portia had said something similar after I’d called her “ma’am” one time too many.

  “Sorry, s-Trevor.”

  He gave a satisfied nod. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

  “But just so you know, it may take me a while to get used to that.” I gathered up my own coat and followed him out of his office.

  “As long as you don’t call me Wally.”

  This time I did laugh. “I won’t.”

  “Nola, Mark and I are going to dinner.”

  Ms. DiBlasi looked up from her monitor, frowning at him. “Your driver has left for the day, and I’m not available—”

  “That won’t be a problem. I’m sure Mark won’t mind driving me home.”

  She turned the frown on me, as if challenging me to refuse The Boss.

  “Not a problem, Trevor.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t comment.

  The Boss touched her hand, and her expression softened. “Don’t work too late,” he murmured. “You don’t want to miss your class.”

  I cleared my throat. “I’ll wait out in the corridor.”

  Chapter 16

  The Boss and I had just finished checking our coats at Raphael’s when his cell phone rang. He had one of those ringtones that sounded like a European telephone, and I wondered if that signified the caller was from the other side of the Atlantic.

  He glanced at the screen, frowned, and said, “I have to take this. Excuse me a moment.” He stepped aside. “What is it, Lynx?”

  Lynx? Robert Lynx, who was known throughout the Division as Tactics? To my knowledge, the last time he’d spoken to The Boss had been last year, when I’d been volunteered to deal with someone in Calais.

  I was tempted to edge closer, to find out what I could hear, but The Boss dropped his voice and walked farther away.

  Okay, if he felt I needed to know, he’d tell me. Meanwhile, I’d better shut off my own phone and see about getting us a table. I walked toward the host stand.

  Giovanni, the maître d' of Raphael’s, smiled when he saw me. “Signore, I am so pleased to see you here not on a Friday evening. But your friend is not with you?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. Your usual table....”

  The Boss joined us, slipping his phone into an inner jacket pocket. “Good evening,” he said to Giovanni. “We’d like something secluded.” He rested his palm on my shoulder. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  Giovanni’s smile thinned. Did he think I was screwing around on Quinn? However, he was the quintessential maître d’, and he didn’t say a word about his suspicions. “Signore, I regret your usual table is unavailable.” He snapped his fingers, summoning a waiter. “Cesare, show i signori to a table near the...”

  I waited for him to give us a cramped table off the kitchen, but as I’d said, he was a professional. We wound up at the table Theo and Matheson had had on New Year’s Eve.

  Our waiter wasn’t able to hold it together as well. His mouth was in a tight line as he rattled off the evening’s specials and then took our order for drinks.

  “Club soda,” I told him.

  “Do you wish lemon or lime with that?”

  “Lime.”

  He jotted it down and turned to The Boss. “Signore?”

  “I’ll have a whiskey sour,” The Boss said.

  Cesare nodded. “I will get your drinks and give you a few minutes to make your decisions.” He retreated to the bar, and I figured I’d better talk to him before he spit in our drinks.

  “Excuse me a moment, sir—Trevor.”

  “Of course.” Did he think I had to hit the can?

  Not important. I followed after our waiter and caught up with him just as he finished giving the bartender our drinks order. “Cesare.”

  “Signore.” He made it sound like a snake’s hiss.

  I didn’t ask what the fuck he thought was going on... it was obvious. “I work for this man.”

  “If you say so, signore.”

  Stubborn son of a bitch. I ran a hand through my hair. “Look. You’ve seen the man I come here with.”

  “Sì.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything to betray him. He... uh... he’s a good man, and he means a lot to me.”

  Cesare stared into my eyes. God alone knew what he was looking for, but he seemed to think he’d found it. “I beg your pardon,” he said, his Italian accent gone. “He always struck me as a nice man, and I’d have hated to see him hurt.”

  “He won’t be hurt by me.”

  “You… you love him!” He gave me a beaming smile.

  I could feel heat rise in my cheeks. How I did or didn’t feel about Quinn was nobody’s business but ours. “I have to get back to my table.” Before The Boss thought I’d fallen into the john.

  C
esare threw his arms around me. “Sì, signore!” Suddenly Italian again, he kissed me on both cheeks.

  Jesus.

  Fortunately, the bartender drew his attention just then. “Heads up, caro.” He put the whiskey sour on a tray beside the glass of club soda.

  “Sì, sì. Signore, return to your dinner companion. I will bring the drinks shortly.”

  “Okay.”

  The Boss looked up from his phone. “Everything all right?”

  I pulled out my chair and made myself comfortable. “I was about to ask you the same thing.” He’d been texting.

  Cesare chose that moment to come bustling up. “Your drinks, signori.” He placed them before us, pulled out a pad, and waited for us to make our selections.

  The Boss ordered the appetizer first. “The cold antipasto platter looks good. And then I’d like the minestrone soup.”

  “And for your entrée?”

  “I’ve heard good things about the veal piccata. I believe I’ll have that.”

  “Bravo, bravo.” Cesare shot me a glance, and I just shrugged. “What kind of pasta would you like with that?”

  “Fettuccini with marinara sauce.”

  “Excellent choices, signore. Would you care for wine with your meal?”

  “Mark?” I shook my head. “None, thank you.”

  Cesare turned to me. “And for you, signore?”

  “I’ll have the house salad and eggplant parmigiana.” I remembered Quinn insisting I needed more roughage in my diet.

  “No veal, Mark?”

  “Not tonight, sir.”

  “And your pasta?” Cesare asked.

  “I’ll go with the fettuccini also.” None of that boxed stuff, it was made fresh daily by the chef. “With meat sauce.”

  Cesare scribbled it down, flipped his pad shut, and hurried off.

  “They seem to know you here.” The Boss reached for his whiskey sour.

  “I come here once in a while.” This was getting into dangerous territory, and I’d better change the subject. “Tell me something… Trevor.” Jesus, how long was it going to take before I didn’t almost swallow my tongue getting his name past my lips? I squeezed the lime wedge into my club soda.

  “To you, Mark, and may we have long years of working together.”

  “Thank you, Trevor.”

  He took a sip of his drink, and then put his glass down. “Ask.”

  “What did Lynx want?”

  He blotted his lips. “Apparently the Scarlet Chamber is reforming.”

  “What, again?” Hadn’t I killed the Archbishop hard enough? Didn’t finding the Abbot, his successor, at the base of the Grossglockner in Austria give them a hint they weren’t in a healthy line of work? “Shit.” I didn’t ask if he was joking… The Boss didn’t joke. “Who’s running it this time?”

  “A woman by the name of Kiska.”

  “How the fuck did….” I lowered my voice. “Excuse me, sir. She was supposed to be Pierre de Becque’s material. He was training her.”

  “It appears she was a plant. De Becque is a friend of yours, if I recall correctly.”

  “Yeah.” And how had he discovered that? I’d always thought Pete and I had kept our friendship on the down low.

  “It’s safe to assume he knew nothing about this?”

  I tensed up. “Are you suggesting Pete had something to do with this?”

  “Apparently Tactics thinks so. De Becque has gone underground, along with a number of Division operatives.”

  I didn’t have to ask which ones. I knew who was loyal to Pete: Reuben, his munitions-expert lover; Babineaux, Division’s resident computer guru, and Giuliani, a high-level operative who was his lover; Femme, who ran Interrogation, the intel extraction sector, and Homme who would back her to the death…

  “What does Lynx want?” I asked again.

  “It’s insurrection, Mark. He has to put it down fast, and hard.”

  “The way Richard should have put Lynx down when he and his pet psych op staged their own insurrection?”

  The Boss stared at me thoughtfully, and then said, “Precisely.” He cupped his glass between both palms and rotated it gently. “You don’t care for Lynx and Anacapri.”

  “He can’t clean up his own messes, and she….” I curled my lip at the thought of her and what she was capable of. “To top it off, this isn’t the first time he’s wanted the WBIS’s help.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Cesare brought us a basket of warm breadsticks and a plate of herbs. He set them both on the table and deftly poured olive oil over the herbs. “The antipasto will arrive subito.”

  “Thanks,” I said. As soon as he left to attend to other patrons, I turned back to The Boss, keeping my expression flat. “Isn’t Kiska the one Tactics should be concerned about?”

  “Perhaps, but apparently the thought of a rebellion within the ranks concerns him more. As Director of Interior Affairs, I can’t send you…”

  He could try if he wanted, but this was one operation I would flat out refuse to accept. As The Boss was aware, Pete was a friend, and I’d be damned before I helped someone like Robert Lynx bring him down.

  “What do you know of Stanley’s department?”

  I took a breadstick and tore off an end. “It’s not my department.” I met his gaze, and then I dipped the breadstick into the olive oil.

  He raised an eyebrow, and I expected him to snap at me. He didn’t. “I’m quite familiar with the heads of the departments in my organization.” He didn’t even sound irritated. He helped himself to a breadstick, but instead of taking a bite, he just tapped it against his bread plate.

  “You saw what I did when Davies interfered with Interior Affairs.” I matched his raised eyebrow with one of my own. “Do you honestly expect Stanley to react with any less hostility?”

  “No, but I do need to know who you think will form up the best team.”

  “You’re planning on sending them to help the Division?”

  “You don’t approve?”

  “No, I don’t. That’s not our job.”

  He smiled. The son of a bitch smiled.

  Cesare appeared and placed the platter of antipasto at the center of the table, along with another whiskey sour for The Boss and a club soda for me, even though our drinks had barely been touched. Then he left us.

  “I happen to agree with you, Mark. Pulling the Division’s chestnuts out of the fire isn’t our responsibility. It’s not in our best interests, either.”

  “But you still plan to talk to Stanley about it?”

  “I have no choice.”

  There was always a choice. I used a fork to stab a circle of dry sausage.

  “As I told you once, Lynx saved my life when we were prisoners of war in Vietnam.”

  “He does like to play that card, doesn’t he?” I put the sausage in my mouth and chewed.

  The Boss peered thoughtfully at the platter and finally selected a chunk of parmigiana reggiano cheese. “Tell me, Mark. How would you deal with this situation?”

  “I don’t think you want to know, sir.” I’d tell Lynx to go fuck himself, but I couldn’t say that to The Boss.

  “I asked you, didn’t I?”

  I bought myself some time by raising my glass to my lips. Lynx had been his friend at one time. I decided if The Boss was serious about me becoming his second-in-command, then I had no choice but to lay my cards on the table.

  I put the glass down without taking a sip and met his gaze. “I think Lynx has dropped the ball. Frankly, sir, I’d be more concerned with getting rid of Kiska and shutting down the Scarlet Chamber once and for all.”

  “Getting rid of her?” he echoed.

  I gave him a flat stare. “Whose idea was it to recruit her? She’s been in training with the Division for the past couple of years. Red flags didn’t go up before now?” If she was able to pull the wool over the eyes of an experienced operative like Pierre de Becque... Yeah, she’d have to go.

  “And Lynx’s rebel
operatives?”

  I shrugged. “First things first.” As soon as I got home, I’d send a message to Pete’s cell phone. There was a six hour time difference between DC and Paris, but if things were as up in the air as it sounded, Pete was sure to be awake. Even if he had a computer available, it would be too dangerous to try to e-mail him.

  Although with Babineaux on his side….

  The Boss took out his cell phone and tapped away at the keys. Then he hit send and returned it to his pocket. “I’ve just texted Stanley. We’ll meet in his office tomorrow at nine. It may be time for Robert Lynx to retire. You’re familiar with the Division’s layout, yes?”

  “To a degree.” I’d included in my report late last spring that I’d been to Division headquarters in order to get some help locating Prinzip so I could obtain a little payback for what was done to our operatives—Quinn wasn’t mentioned at all. I was pretty sure I could get more intel from Pete, or maybe even from Reuben. He didn’t like me, but he’d take down the Division before he let them hurt his lover in any way.

  “We’ll discuss the best method for dealing with Lynx at that time.” The Boss finished the cheese and picked up a slice of prosciutto. “Now, if we’ve concluded this discussion?” I nodded. “Very well. Suppose you tell me about this sudden interest of yours in a maternity policy for the WBIS. You don’t need it for yourself, do you?”

  I almost choked on a stuffed olive. “Not likely, sir!” The last time I’d slept with a woman was five years ago. And no matter what, I always used condoms.

  Five years. God, time had a way of flying….

  Chapter 17

  I’d just finished a job in Europe, and since I had some spare time, I tracked the Archbishop to Belarus and surprised him with a bullet to the brain. God, I loved my job.

  Now, I was in my hotel room, getting ready to head for the Minsk National Airport.

  My cell phone rang, but it wasn’t “Bad to the Bone,” so I knew it wasn’t The Boss with another job for me while I was here in Eastern Europe.

  I checked the screen, and then flipped it open, grinning.

  “Bonjour, Pete.” I’d met Pierre de Becque, senior operative for the Division, in Paris two years earlier, and oddly enough, we’d become friends, spending time together if it turned out we were both in the same city at the same time.