Beneath the Surface

by Meredith Fletcher

  However, the fact that the room had only one bed was glaring.

  “Are you going to get them to bring up a bed?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “If I’m the prisoner, I get the bed.”

  “Fine.” He started inspecting the room.

  “Just so you’re clear on this, you’re not sleeping in the bed,” Shannon said in case he didn’t understand.

  “Don’t want to sleep in the bed.” He started unscrewing the phone’s base.

  Shannon didn’t know if she’d been insulted or not. “Then where are you going to sleep?”

  “The couch.”

  She glanced at the couch and saw that it was covered over with bags and boxes. Curious, she walked over to them. “The couch doesn’t look all that comfortable.”

  “I’ll sleep like a baby.”

  “What are you doing with the phone?”

  “I’m going to call room service as soon as I find the number.” He picked up a pad and pen from the desk. He wrote quickly.

  “Are you hungry?”

  When he showed her the pad, it read, Room’s bugged.

  The announcement took a moment to sink in to Shannon’s understanding. She picked up a tablet from the nightstand and wrote quickly while she said, “I could eat. What are you hungry for?”

  She wrote: Who would bug the room?

  I don’t know.

  “Looks like room service is shut down. We should be able to get pizza.”

  “Pizza sounds good.”

  Your friend? she wrote.

  No.

  “I’ll call and get a pizza,” he said.

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll take a bath.” Shannon wrote again.

  Didn’t your friend check the room?

  How?

  When she reserved it.

  I don’t know. I’ll ask.

  “While you’re taking a bath, I’m going to pick up a paper.”

  “All right.”

  Shannon wrote: Audio or video?

  Only audio. If video, I wouldn’t write.

  Doh. Shannon felt stupid.

  “There are clothes in those boxes.” He pointed at the couch. “You should find something in there to wear. I’ll call in the pizza, then be back in a few minutes. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes.” Shannon crossed her arms as a chill thrilled through her. Her life seemed as though it was completely out of control. She wanted out of that room, but she knew that she probably wouldn’t be any safer on the streets. At the very least, she wanted a pair of shoes she could wear.

  True to his word, he called for pizza.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Anything,” Shannon said. She was surprised to discover how hungry she was.

  When he finished, he hung up the phone. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “All right.”

  As she watched him go, Shannon couldn’t help wondering if he was going to come back. The thing that was most confusing was that she didn’t know for sure how she’d feel if he didn’t.

  Down in the lobby, Rafe reconned. Walking the perimeter to look for familiar—or threatening—faces was a reflex at this point.

  When he didn’t find anything that set his inner alarms off, he retreated to one of the pay phone areas and called Allison.

  “I thought you’d be tucked in by now,” Allison said.

  “The room’s bugged,” Rafe announced flatly.

  Allison was quiet for a moment. “That’s Washington. A lot of rooms get bugged. Maybe it was left over from someone who was in the room before you.”

  “Want to check on that?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Rafe watched the lobby traffic and wondered if Shannon Connor would be in the hotel room when he got back. He thought about her out there on the streets alone and didn’t like the idea of it.

  “I checked back through the last six months of reservations,” Allison said when she returned. “They were all real people with real histories.”

  “There’s always the chance the room was bugged because of someone they were meeting,” Rafe said. “This doesn’t have to be about her.”

  “You and I both know we’re not going to play it that way.”

  “No. What about this phone connection?”

  “I traced it while I was looking into the room. It’s clean.”

  That was something, then.

  “If that room is bugged,” Allison went on, “that means someone has pierced my firewalls. I’m not even going to begin to tell you how impossible that is.”

  “Not impossible,” Rafe said. “You’re outside the NSA channels.”

  “My personal systems have as much security on them as anything the NSA has. I designed a lot of what the NSA is working with.”

  “Just means that the caliber of whoever we’re up against is impressive.”

  “In the stratosphere of impressive,” Allison agreed.

  Rafe smiled at that. Allison never doubted her computer abilities. Neither did he.

  “The fact that they bugged the room tells us something else,” Allison said. “Either whoever is behind it doesn’t have all the information they want—”

  “Or their position isn’t strong enough to simply come by and take us,” Rafe said. He’d been thinking along the same lines.

  “Right.”

  “The question is—what are we going to do about it?”

  “For the moment stay there. It’ll help if they think you’re stationary.”

  “I can’t begin to tell you how dissatisfied I am with that answer.”

  “I’ve hacked into the hotel security system. I’ll be watching. All night. I’ll also have a team standing by. If someone makes a move on the two of you, I’ll know soon enough to warn you.”

  Rafe paced even though the effort made his knee hurt. “I don’t like playing the stalking horse. You know that.”

  “I know that. That’s why if you decide to take her and get out of there, I’ll understand.”

  Rafe breathed into the silence she left for him.

  “But the truth of the matter is that if the two of you go into motion before I’m ready, I don’t know how much I can help. Tonight has proven that this is larger than I thought it was.”

  That was an understatement. But Rafe was too tactful to point that out.

  “This might be the only chance I get to shut the door on this,” Allison went on. “And you’ve seen some of the people that have been targeted. Politicians. Military personnel. This is a national threat that no one knows about yet.”

  “Have you told the president?” Rafe asked.

  Allison had a personal tie to President of the United States Gabe Monihan. Her father Adam had been an Arizona state senator and a mover and shaker in Washington before accepting a position as an Arizona Supreme Court Justice. Her brother David was the U.S. Attorney General.

  Allison hesitated. “Yes. But that’s off the record. He trusted me to get this investigation done quietly.”

  “Understood.” Rafe felt better knowing the president was in the loop. His whole adult life had been spent observing a chain of command. Even when he stepped outside the lines, as he had tonight, it was better to know that what he was doing was to benefit his country.

  “And by telling you that, I’m trusting you.”

  “You knew you could do that when you placed the first phone call a couple weeks ago.”

  “I know. I’m getting paranoid. I hate when I can’t trust my own systems.” Fatigue resonated in her voice.

  “When’s the last time you slept?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “You might want to think about it.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement. And if you’re insinuating that I might go to sleep while I’m keeping watch over you tonight, I’m not alone.”

  Some of the tension uncoiled inside Rafe. That had been a concern, but he’d been reluctant to voice it.

  “
Provided we make it through tonight,” Rafe said, “what do you have for a game plan in the morning?”

  “I’m hoping to have more information on the China connection. I’ve got data miners and sniffer packets thrown all through the Internet around those servers. I promise you, whoever’s behind this isn’t going to stay invisible for long. Computers are my kung fu.”

  Rafe knew that. Every op she’d assisted had come down to the wire in one place or another and had depended on her cyber expertise. He’d never met another person who was as detail-oriented, driven or cool under pressure as Allison Gracelyn.

  She’d trusted him—even after North Korea—to help out in an op that was eyes only for the president. How could he do any less?

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll do it your way. I’ll be the cheese. You just make sure I have a fair chance at any rats that might come calling tonight.”

  Chapter 10

  I don’t know who you are, Shannon thought as she went through the packages the mysterious woman had arranged to be delivered to the hotel room, but you’ve got good taste.

  The packages contained quality clothing. And shoes. Nothing like the sling-backs she’d lost at the bar while facing Drago but good shoes nonetheless. Even if Shannon couldn’t be friends with the woman, they could definitely shop together.

  As she unpacked the clothing and hung it in the closet, she listened to the news channel on television. She’d turned it to ABS first and had been mortified to learn that she was the object of a large manhunt throughout Washington, D.C.

  Her phone had started blowing up, too. As she’d watched the screen, pictures of her producer, her boss and then his boss had shown up.

  Everyone was trying to get in touch with her.

  It felt good being that popular—but creepy at the same time.

  She also felt as if she was in the middle of the story she’d been chasing for five months. Ever since the students had been kidnapped from Athena Academy and ended up in Kestonia, and the other business had taken place down in Puerto Isla, then the diamond mine rebellion outside of Cape Town, she’d felt as though there was another story—a bigger story—lying right there beneath the surface.

  She just hadn’t been able to get down to it.

  Seeing the young woman who’d delivered the SUV had reminded Shannon of Athena Academy. The women turned out there just walked through life with a different kind of confidence. That was especially true of the ones who ended up going into military, espionage or law enforcement. As the instructors had taught at the academy, those fields took a remarkable kind of woman.

  They didn’t put one woman above the other, though. Artists, musicians and even the one stand-up comedienne Athena had turned out had all received the adoration of the staff upon their graduation and subsequent successes.

  Shannon was the only one who hadn’t—and still didn’t—receive those accolades. In her own way, she was every bit as successful as Tory Patton Forsythe. She’d even received one more journalism award than Tory had.

  But Tory was one of the golden girls.

  Don’t go there, she told herself. You’ll only be unhappy.

  Even fifteen years later, her expulsion from Athena still left its mark. That embarrassment was one of the reasons she’d pushed herself out of her parents’ home and away from the constant infighting that went on there to find her own life.

  Despite those successes, it was hard not to think of the academy. In fact, when she’d first heard the woman on the phone, Shannon had thought the voice sounded familiar.

  However, that was foolishness. Other than Tory, Shannon didn’t see anyone from the academy.

  But Stefan Blackman hooked up with that FBI agent, Katie Rush, after the kidnappings, didn’t he? Shannon knew they must have just missed each other on that investigation. Katie Rush, as Shannon had found out from Gary’s background material, had been an Athena graduate.

  Then there was Sasha Bracciali. Shannon had met that Athena grad while in Kestonia covering the return of the kidnapping victims.

  Coincidence?

  You’re a reporter, Shannon chided herself. There’s no such thing as coincidence.

  Then she remembered Jessica Whittaker. Also an Athena grad. She’d been down in Puerto Isla when all the confusion down there had taken place.

  Shannon picked up her notepad, flipped the page and started making notes for herself. Now, in the middle of her own problems, she started connecting the dots on those other instances.

  Something was definitely going on. She had to wonder how big it was.

  But she’d gotten the biggest piece of the puzzle while down in Cape Town, South Africa. While down there, Shannon had crossed paths with Lucy Cannon, the mercenary who’d been involved in the fallout of the diamond mine uproar.

  While in Cape Town, Shannon had also gotten a tip from her unknown source that Allison Gracelyn was an agent for the National Security Agency and was responsible for the unrest involving the diamond mine.

  Even though Shannon had wanted that particular story to be true, she hadn’t been able to find any proof of the claim and Lucy had denied it. Shortly after the uprising at the diamond mine, the voice that had given Shannon so many hot leads over the years had gone silent.

  For almost two months Shannon had wondered what had caused the silence. She’d also had to wonder if that disappearance had anything to do with her inability to tie the troubles at the diamond mine to Allison Gracelyn.

  During the last two months Shannon had increased her investigation into Allison. The two women hadn’t spoken since that night in the academy when Allison had denied her involvement in the prank on Josie.

  Before she knew it, Shannon was trapped once more in the memory of her frustrating inability to save herself. If Allison had spoken up that night, simply owned up to her culpability and the fact that she’d put Shannon up to it, Shannon knew her whole life would have been different.

  Different maybe, Shannon told herself, but that doesn’t mean anything would have been better. Who was it that had said living well was the best revenge? She couldn’t remember.

  That was what she was doing, though. She had a good life.

  Except for the whole getting-killed-by-Drago thing.

  That hadn’t gone the way she thought it might.

  Shannon pushed the thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on putting away the clothing. She also thought about the man and wondered if he was actually coming back.

  She felt an unaccustomed twinge at that thought that he was gone for good. Although they’d been together intensely for the last few hours, she gotten to feel as though she knew him. She’d also realized there was a lot about him that she didn’t know.

  Like where he’d gotten those scars.

  One of the boxes revealed an unexpected surprise that almost made Shannon groan in delight. And wouldn’t that have sounded great to whoever was listening in on the bugging devices?

  The makeup kit in the box was exactly like the one she’d purchased for home use four months ago. That realization was uncomfortable. It meant someone had either broken into her house and found out what makeup she used or they’d gone through her charge cards with a fine-toothed comb.

  Either one of those options left her feeling violated.

  I’m going to find out who you are, Shannon promised, and you’re going to feel just as violated after I get through with you.

  She grabbed fresh panties, raided one of the male T-shirts from the His boxes, picked up the iPod that was included in her things and the terry-cloth robe and headed for the bathroom.

  Rafe entered the hotel room and looked for Shannon. When he didn’t see her immediately, he figured she must have bolted as soon as the chance had presented itself. There were two other exits in addition to the main entrance.

  Then he noticed the clothes hanging in the closet. It didn’t make sense that she would take time to hang up the clothes and then run.

  Where is she?

  The bathr
oom door was closed, but he heard the sound of running water. He stood outside the door and called her name.

  There was no response.

  He called again, louder this time.

  Still no response, and the water kept gurgling.

  Slightly alarmed, he slipped the pistol from his hip and slid the safety off. He tried the door and discovered it was locked.

  He called her name one more time, then rapped on the door.

  When there was still no answer, he took the fake driver’s license from his wallet and loided the lock. Images of Shannon Connor with her throat cut flooded his mind. They hurt in ways he didn’t expect.

  He’d spent days thinking about her while shadowing her in New York. He knew how her hair fell across her face when she was caught up in an interesting interview and how her lip curled slightly when she knew she was being lied to and treated like a ditzy blonde. A congressman and a movie producer had both learned the error of their ways in the last couple weeks.

  Rafe couldn’t have put a name to what the woman had that had caught him so completely. She was interesting, but he’d met several interesting women. Allison Gracelyn was one of the most interesting women he’d ever met, and he hadn’t thought about her as much as he had Shannon Connor.

  He thought maybe part of the appeal was the possibility that she was in danger. Saving people mattered, and when he helped save people, Rafe knew he mattered. That felt good. He liked feeling good.

  He hadn’t felt good like that since before North Korea. In fact, until Allison had made that phone call, he’d thought he wasn’t ever going to feel that way again.

  That was before Allison had told him that Shannon Connor wasn’t one of the good guys. Now the possibility to save an innocent was gone.

  The door was open, but he paused even though he wanted to know if she was alive or dead.

  “Shannon,” he called in a loud voice.

  Only silence answered him.

  Fearfully, not knowing how he was going to handle it if the woman had ended up dead on his watch after all, Rafe pushed the door open.

  Then fear melted and turned to anger.

  Shannon lay soaking in the large bathtub. The air was thick with heat and soap that smelled faintly of lemon and lilac. Foam covered only part of her beautiful body. The generous curve of her breasts and the flaring of her hips was visible. Her wet hair was combed back and left her delicate features uncovered.