“Trouble?” Brand. He’s right next to me.
That harness hitches a notch tighter, but I repeat my mental chant to hide my vulnerabilities until I glance up at him. He’s squinting at my desk. “Problems with your phone?”
The back of the cover’s still on my desk. So much for hiding. “No problem. Just froze.”
“Fun. Got anything good?”
“Yeah, we definitely have the Russians’ interest, at least. Searching for one more thing we can do for them to seal the deal.”
Before he says anything else, my phone vibrates in my pocket. His reply. We can both hear it. I don’t dare lower my gaze or move for it or breathe.
Brand’s eyes stray to my lap, then back. “That yours?”
“Guess so.”
“You going to get it?”
Lie. “I just texted Danny about our plans for tonight.”
He leans against my desk. “That new-boss-free-meal policy still in place? Kathi around?”
My palms break out in a sweat, as if to balance out the dry mouth. “Tonight’s not good. He’s working.” My brain jogs to correlate my lies. “I’m trying to figure out what to bring him.”
“Better not keep him waiting.”
I’m not falling for that. “I think we can figure it out in time.” I give my computer a meaningful look, reminding Brand I’m working on something, you know, important.
Right. Because Brand so has those priorities straight.
He peers over my shoulder. Awesome. “Got to be something we can do to be useful to them. Immigration problems? DUI?”
“So far these guys are smart enough to fly under the radar.” And legal troubles are the exact opposite. (Man, I wish I knew somebody with the Mounties or the Ottawa Police who could make Brand’s life hard.)
“Can we give them problems?”
Oh. Right. Creating trouble so we can swoop in and save the day, and recruit some spies along the way. “Not my favorite MO.”
“Oh, not how we do things here?” His voice oozes derision.
I’m not backing down a single step. “Excuse me? Are you going to run every case like this?”
“Are you?” He won’t budge either.
“Worked well enough for the last few years here.”
Brand snorts. “Canada. Right. Do you need to be reminded how it is in the real world?”
“Back. Off. Let me do my job, and you do yours.”
He straightens slowly, like that simple movement is a threat. “One slip, Talia. That’s all it takes.”
What brought this on? I watch him walk away, only allowing my eyes to follow him until his office door shuts behind him. I grab my phone to read Brand’s text. This again?
Not promising, but . . . I glance at his door again. Could be bravado, and he really is feeling threatened. His little show just now would make more sense if he’s doing it because he needs to feel powerful.
Which means my tactic is succeeding. I text back: Meet me at the Rideau Centre, in front of Jimmy the Greek.
And if I don’t?
I watch Brand’s door. What can I say to make him concerned enough to get him out of here? If you want to shut someone up, next time aim for the head.
Or the wallet?
I have to give Brand hope without appearing too easy, saying, “Yeah, sure, I can be bought like you.” Maybe . . . If the price is right. And you get here in ten minutes.
That’s hardly enough time for a straight drive, let alone a proper surveillance detection route, and Brand should definitely be extra cautious.
Thirty minutes, Brand texts back.
I dump my phone in my drawer before he can leave his office. After thirty-two seconds (Who’s counting? ME.), his door swings open. I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
And Brand looks straight at me. Frost flash-freezes my heart.
He can’t know. No way does he know. I school my features into an expression of I’m totally normal; what are you up to, weirdo? and hope that’s enough of a defense.
Brand gives me an all-business nod and goes to Robby’s whiteboard. Robby’s face lights up, like he’s thrilled to have the attention. The little fanboy.
As a cover, I skim Intellipedia’s entry on Ali Muhammad Wasti as if we’ve discovered something new in a case that’s growing colder by the minute, and as if the best source isn’t being totally neglected. Oblivious, Brand moves on to chat with the president of his fan club, Justin. Will Brand ask someone to go with him?
After a minute, Brand double-taps the top of Justin’s desk, a little good-job-soldier dismissal. My gaze snaps to the Past Known Residences section of the Intellipedia article until the door to the reception area closes behind Brand. And then the article’s words finally register.
Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
A cold-bellied snake slithers over my shoulders. That’s where Brand was stationed. The capital. It’s got to be a huge city, but . . . could this possibly be a coincidence?
I check the door to the reception area, the office, the spies I work with every day. I feel like everyone can see that I know, what I know. Exposed.
Hundreds of thousands of people might live in Dushanbe, but how many of them are the brother of a terrorist targeting the US, and how many of them are CIA case officers hunting for that exact kind of asset?
Somewhere on the way, something went wrong, something reversed, something broke in Brand’s brain. No coincidence that the first case he targeted when he got here was the only case with any relation to Wasti. The last piece of the puzzle. But is it the last piece of evidence I need before I can bring him in?
The CIA is not law enforcement, though they did finance my law degree (those real credentials we need for our firm to look real). You can convict with circumstantial evidence, if there’s enough. In fact, you’re lucky to have more than that, even in this day of CSI and DNA. But high crimes and treason have a bit higher standard of evidence, something with a better paper trail than cash deposits and late reports —
Reports. I need to see if Brand’s filed about Samir, and now’s my chance.
With this many people in the bullpen, there’s no way I can hide what I’m doing. Unless I hide in plain sight. I need to make this seem legit.
Having a key is half the battle. I switch to my SIM card to text Danny: Call me now. I fix my eyes on “Dushanbe” on Ali Muhammad’s Intellipedia page until my phone rings. “Hello?”
“You okay?” Danny says.
“Yeah.”
“What’s up?”
The call’s a cover, so I can’t explain anything else. I glance around at Justin and Robby, etc. “Sure, I guess.”
“Um . . . what?”
“Yeah, I still have your key.”
Danny’s quiet half a second. “Do I want to know what you’re doing?”
Probably not, but I can’t answer yet. I get my key and head for Brand’s office. “Where do you think you left it?”
Danny’s obviously figured out I’m not calling to chat with him, and he sits in silence. (Okay, he could be standing. Lying down for a nap. Whatever.)
I say a silent prayer the key works, that I filed off all the excess. It jams against the lock instead of sliding in. My stomach twists; the key doesn’t. The disappointment sinks into my gut.
“Dang,” I tell Danny. I can maintain my bluff. I have to. “Looks like it’s the wrong key. Sorry about that.”
He sighs. “Are we not going to talk about this?”
Doubt he means my breaking and entering escapades. “Yeah,” I say. “Later.”
“We’re running out of laters.”
“I know. I’ll work on it.”
I’m running through my options for a neutral way to exfiltrate myself from this phone call when César appears at my elbow. He points at the phone. “Can you let him know we’ve about got the cathedral scenarios locked down?”
I mouth, “Sure,” and inform Danny of our progress.
“Uh, yeah. Love you.”
/> Definitely not saying that while on the phone with “Brand.” “Yeah,” I say. “See you.”
“I’m going to pretend that’s code for I love you too.”
Awesome. I don’t even have to make up the code. I end the call and rush to switch the SIM card back to the one I used with Brand. Still have time before he’s supposed to meet me. Elliott. Josh Lee. Whoever.
Obviously, nobody will be there to greet him. Not sure what Brand’s reaction will be. Text back? Assume the danger has passed?
He’s no me, no princess of paranoia, but he isn’t stupid, either. He isn’t safe as long as someone knows what he’s really doing. He needs to eliminate that threat.
And I need extra insurance. Time to backup that USB drive.
But not here, not now, not with all his little fanboys surrounding me. How long would that take to get back to Brand? Seconds.
I occupy myself with researching Ali Muhammad Wasti in Dushanbe while looking like I’m still working on the intel from the Russians’ bug. Seems that Ali Muhammad was nearly invisible in Tajikistan. The falling feeling in my middle seems to indicate he had some help. I’m no closer to figuring out that angle by the time Brand returns at five, sullen and silent.
Focusing on my monitor, I avoid his eyes and pray nobody mentions the key incident. I fish the offending casting from my pocket and reexamine it. The cast itself is good. So what do I have a key to?
I turn the key to view it from the tip — and I recognize this. I recognize the pattern of grooves there. Because I’ve seen it before. Because I have one just like it.
Because it’s the same as my deadbolt key.
The disappointment of two hours ago isn’t even a distant memory now. It’s a different life. And this key might be a ticket to a whole new one.
Robby’s op is well planned (yay for my support role yet again), so I think I’m safe to stock up on supplies and slip out. In fact, I’m safest making an exit now, giving me time to plan away from Brand’s cronies. Because I’m totally back on the breaking and entering track.
Just as I reach my car, I finally take out my phone to see the text message — messages from Danny at lunchtime (i.e., before I had him call me). English much?
I scroll up to see what he means. Right, the I am in meeting from this afternoon. But that isn’t his last message. Dinner much?
And then Talk much?
I have to get to Samir ASAP, but yeah, I definitely need to talk with Danny. I check the time. After six. He might still be at work, and it’ll only take a minute to check. I drive over to his office complex. I’m almost to his corner when I spot his silver Mazda headed the opposite direction. So much for the element of surprise. I’m on the phone in half a second.
“Hey,” he answers.
“Pull over.” Oncoming traffic clears enough for me to flip a U-turn.
“Pull — why?”
I don’t respond until I see him on the shoulder. I park behind him and wait for another break in traffic before I get out. The passing cars aren’t a lot safer than the drop-off on the other side of the shoulder. I choose the lesser danger to go knock on Danny’s passenger window.
He jumps, but recovers quickly to unlock the door. I take a seat. There’s something between us a lot bigger than the center console.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he says, putting away his phone.
“I was in the neighborhood. Welcome to your first car meeting.” I subconsciously check my window. CSIS headquarters are right here, though I can only see the trees in the fading sunlight. They were supposed to be my backup. Now who’s left?
“Listen —” Danny starts.
“I’m sorry.” The words tumble out before I lose my nerve.
Danny watches me in contemplative silence, waiting for me to go on. Yeah, I got nothing. “I’m just sorry,” I finish.
“Me too.” He offers his hand on the center console. I stop twisting my ring around my finger and grab on, though I try not to squeeze like he’s my last lifeline.
That contact isn’t enough to dissipate the tension between us. “I was being selfish,” I try.
He watches the sky turn orange. “Yeah, you were. But I don’t think you’re pathologically incapable of thinking of anyone except yourself,” he says softly. “I . . . it was below the belt.”
“You think?” The relief loosening my ribs is enough to make me forgive him.
“I know you’re trying to protect me — I just hate that you think the only way to do that is to push me away.”
Did I say relief? Yeah, I meant guilt. And instead of loosening my ribs, how about crushing them? I focus on our interlaced fingers, and we slip back into silence for a minute.
“Once upon a time,” he starts at last, “there was a beautiful girl.”
I clear my throat. If he means me —
He checks my reaction. “A hot girl?”
I give him a slow, semi-teasing, choose-your-next-words-carefully blink.
“Woman — I mean woman.”
I squeeze his hand. “Good boy.”
Now Danny clears his throat.
“Good . . . man.”
He fends off a smile as long as he can. “Anyway, there was a beautiful woman. And there was this guy —”
“Hot? Brilliant? Ridiculously patient?”
“Oh, you’ve met him?”
I reward him with an I’m-humoring-you expression and gesture for him to go on.
“Nah, he was just a guy — and she was the puzzle nobody else could solve. Nobody knew anything about her, not even where she was from. Whenever he tried to talk to her, he could see it in her eyes: shields up, all the time.”
After dating a year, of course we’ve rehashed the story of how we met and got together. But I’ve never heard it like this.
“Until he made this stupid joke and she smiled. Those heat shields finally came down, and he was a goner.”
“Poor guy,” I murmur.
“I know, right?” Danny turns to the windshield again. Getting darker. “I don’t have to know everything. I know I can’t. I’m not asking you to share secrets, I just want to feel like . . . I know you. Not the sanitized, censored, redacted version of you — the real you, all of you.” His gaze falls to our hands. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
The silence settles again. I have to give him something. And all I have is a story. A story like his, one I’ve never told quite like this. “Once upon a time,” I start, my voice soft and shaky. I try again. “Once upon a time, there was a girl — woman.” I tilt my head toward Danny to whisper, “She was a spy.”
He lifts our hands to press his finger to his lips, promising to keep my secret all over again except his eyes are joking. Our fingers still intertwined, he maneuvers both our elbows onto the console so he can rest his chin in his palm. Ready to listen.
“So her job — her whole life — revolved around manipulating people. Not trusting them. It was too hard to talk to normal people when her whole life was built from layer after layer of secrets. So she tried to not be seen. Kept everyone at arm’s length. Kept anyone from knowing her, even the people she considered friends.”
He’s fighting a squint like he’s not sure where this is going but he’s willing to find out.
Which is awesome, because the next part is my favorite. “And then one day this hot, brilliant, ridiculously patient guy was totally checking her out —”
“You will never let me live that down, will you?”
“Nope.” I grin. “And you like it.”
“You liked it.”
“I liked you.” It’d be so easy to let it pass, flirt more, pretend like things are hunky-dory, but there’s more to my side of this story. “Once this guy stopped looking at her legs and started looking at her, it was like . . . someone could see her. He could see her. Not the self she put out there, the front. She couldn’t tell him all the truth all the time, but he knew her, through and through. And he was the only one who did.”
Danny m
oves an inch to kiss my finger. “Is that your story’s happy ending?”
“Eh, well, they both had all this baggage, and there was this meddling roommate —”
He laughs, though that fades faster than the light, and he ends with a sigh.
“You were right,” I say. “I did have those shields. And I guess I must be crazy to ever put them up again. Maybe just crazy, period.”
He gives this little eyebrow-shrug, like he’s telling me you’re not wrong.
“Those shields were to protect me. Once you got past them, I only needed to protect myself from losing you.”
“Point of order: I’m not the one with a high-risk job.”
“My job isn’t normally that high-risk.”
Danny’s already seen the ugly side of my job firsthand. But he doesn’t understand how dark this is. I take a deep breath. “Brand has taken everyone away from me, one way or another: my friends in DC, making it harder for me to trust people here, Elliott. . . . I will not let him take you. I won’t.”
Danny lowers our hands to lean across the center console. “That won’t happen. You can trust me. Maybe not with all the Top Secret-y stuff, but the regular stuff.”
“I don’t know where the Top Secret-y stuff ends and the regular stuff begins sometimes. Not when it comes to Brand.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to deck him?”
“Ask me on Monday.” I glance up at the twilight advancing across the sky. I need to go.
I can’t. I settle back into my seat. “Speaking of secrets, are you at least going to tell me what to pack for our honeymoon?”
“Clothes would be good.”
“Antigua clothes or Antarctica clothes?”
Danny mock-frowns at me. “In between.”
“You’re useless.”
He lets go of my hand. Before I can panic that I’ve offended him, he reaches across the car to open the glove box. He pulls out a standard white envelope, and fishes out a small piece of paper, business card sized, then gives me the envelope. I pop up an eyebrow at the card; Danny flips it between his fingers to show me the front. Just a name and phone number: Will’s.
“So what’s this?” I hold up the envelope. “Your résumé? You ready to join up?”
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 50