Hard to Trust

by Wendy Byrne

  "Yep, there's a transmitter of some kind in there." Jake's friend Aaron poked at the tip of Tessa's shoulder then pointed to the X-ray. "I should be able to make a small incision and remove it without much of a problem. The device is just below the surface of the skin. It's about the size of a grain of rice."

  "What you're talking about doing sounds painful." And this wasn't a hospital. It was a guy's apartment, filled to the brim with gadgets, computers, and stuff Tessa had never seen before—which, considering her occupation, spoke volumes.

  In the field, medical services sometimes happened under less-than-ideal circumstances, but inside it was like a dust cave. This place had to be a germ's favorite hiding spot.

  Fighting back the urge to flee, she concentrated on enduring the poking at her shoulder. She should be more concerned about standing under the harsh light of the kitchen, with her shirt off and having an alleged doctor and Jake present. But she wasn't. Every corner of this apartment made her feel secure. From the multiple bolts on the door to the entrance that couldn't be found without having a map, it was the first time in days she had the sense she could relax. Showing less skin than in a bikini was no biggie. And at least she had on a sports bra.

  "I'm not going to lie, you will be sore for a couple of days. I wouldn't do any heavy lifting, push-ups, vigorous activity of any kind." Aaron glanced at Jake and smiled. She couldn't help but wonder if that look meant he suspected she and Jake were hooking up. Jake was a good-looking guy, but sex wasn't even on the radar at the moment. She needed to clear her name and hopefully avoid getting killed in the process first. Then she might be willing to consider a fling.

  "What about the bullet fragment?"

  He shook his head. "It's embedded deep into the bone. If I were you, I would get a second opinion about removing it. I suspect over time you might have more and more trouble with the surrounding muscle. It's what's causing you pain, not the tracking device. For right now, I can ensure you're not being tracked."

  "Are you going to take it out here? In the kitchen?"

  The guy laughed and looked around. "No. I have a sterile room in the back."

  She breathed a sigh of relief and trailed him down the hallway. When Jake didn't follow, she turned. "Aren't you coming?"

  "You know me and blood. It's not a good scene."

  She shuffled back and grabbed his hand. "If I've got to do this, you're gonna watch. Try not to faint."

  Aaron laughed. "Jake told you about his less-than-manly tendencies, huh? Well, that's good to know. But don't worry. I'll keep a chair handy in case."

  Inside, the room was set up like a hospital emergency room. He sat her down on the bed with its crisp white sheets, and then walked toward the counter. "I'm going to give you a topical to numb the area then a shot to numb it some more. I'll make a small incision and pluck out the device and destroy it. Sound good?"

  She cringed. "Not really. But do I have another choice?"

  "No," the two men said in unison.

  "Okay, have at it." She grasped Jake's hand and held on. "But be gentle with me. I'm not as tough as I look."

  * * *

  Jake wasn't sure if it was the rush of adrenaline or the sedative Aaron had given her afterward, but she lay down on the hospital bed and fell sound asleep. After numerous missions, he learned the body could only stay at a high state of alert for so long before biological process gave in to the sustenance of sleep. Neither one of them had slept much over the last couple of days, so her crashing, especially after finding a safe place where they couldn't be tracked, made a whole lot of sense. Give him a few moments and he might do the same thing.

  He walked with Aaron back to the kitchen. The technology housed inside were things Aaron had developed through a brain that saw the world in a different way. The guy was a genius. Weird, but definitely one smart dude.

  With a small pair of tweezers, Aaron placed the device under a microscope. "Take a look. This is definitely state-of-the-art technology, but it developed a little nick. I'm suspecting that might be why the signal was intermittent. This looks like CIA stuff, but who knows. You said they did the surgery in the field rather than in the States, which makes sense given the imperfect nature of the bullet retrieval. Any idea who did the surgery?"

  Jake shook his head as he thought of yet another question he could ask of Jennings. Somehow he suspected she didn't have a clue who operated on her after the attack. But that kind of information had to be included in her file somewhere.

  "She'd been using those over-the-counter warming pads to help ease the discomfort. We speculated that it must have interfered with the signal transmission."

  "It's a possibility, depending on the type and considering the faulty transmitter."

  "We might have picked up another tracker, and I need you to check something out for me." Jake pulled the photos out of the envelope in his inside jacket pocket and handed them over.

  "I take it Tessa hasn't seen them?"

  "Yep." And yes, he felt like a giant heel for not showing her what he'd found.

  "Let's scan them first—then we'll talk about whether or not they might have been Photoshopped."

  Aaron ran them through a device and found an infinitesimal dot on the back of one of the photos. "Here's your culprit. The transmission signal on these has a relatively small radius, so you should be good." After removing the small device with gel and a pair of tweezers, he inserted it into something resembling a mini trash compactor.

  Jake blew out a breath and examined the photos under the harsh light of Aaron's lab. "They look real, but it doesn't jibe with what she's been telling me. Of course, she could be lying." For some reason he couldn't get himself to divulge to Aaron that there was some speculation she was a double agent. What he'd encountered so far about her left him vacillating. With each minute that passed, he had a different opinion. "I know she's holding back about something, but I'm not sure what."

  "You don't trust her?"

  While it was a straightforward question, he hemmed about the answer. "It's a little more complicated than that."

  Aaron sighed and examined the photo under a magnifying lens. "I'm not discounting the possibility, but if this is Photoshopped, it's very good. I can't be one hundred percent certain without a negative. Send it to The Alliance. In a couple of days they'll be able to tell you for sure one way or another. They have some equipment there that is amazing, even superior to my own high standards."

  "I was afraid you were going to say that." Jake couldn't help but reflect that he couldn't be certain about anything when it came to Tessa. One minute he saw that spark of vulnerability in her eye, the next her expression turned calculating, without a hint of emotion present. He wondered if she might have seen the same in him. But that was another story altogether. "So how do I figure it out?"

  "Call Jennings and get the code to stay at the safe house here in DC. Nobody is going to find you surrounded by twelve inches of concrete embedded in a parking structure." Aaron shook his head. "Man, you must be losing it. As far back as I can remember, you were the guy most likely to get laid whenever we hit the bars. Use your charm on her. I don't remember a woman yet who hasn't succumbed."

  That was the question. How far would he go? How far did he want to go? "You forget she's CIA. She'll see through my usual moves."

  "She's still a female. You've never had a problem with that before. I have a hard time believing she won't fall for every line you give her."

  Could he do that again and face the consequences of his actions? Getting some intel from Jennings might help him decide either way. Despite the hour, Jennings picked up on the second ring.

  "I need you to have a photo examined. I'm going to fax it to you for now, but Aaron is going to send the original by courier ASAP. I need you to check for validity. Do whatever testing you can." He got the words out as fast as possible before he could stop himself.

  "Will do. Anything I should know about, since you are calling me in the middle of the night?"


  "They're of Tessa. I need to know what the tech wizards think."

  "Where did you find them?"

  "In Alex Cromier's house." Jake sucked in a breath. "And one more thing. You need to verify with one hundred percent certainty that Alex Cromier is dead."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "I'm wiped." Jake willed away the adrenaline spike after his phone call. "The Alliance has a safe house outside of DC we can go to for the night." He was more than a little curious as to what she might say.

  He took the turnoff toward the direction of the safe house and wound his way through the dark and twisted streets. "They usually have a mix of clothing on hand. I'm sure we can find what you need."

  "Not worrying about being attacked in my sleep would be a welcome change. Well, that and maybe some pizza and beer." She glanced at him, a hint of reservation in her eyes. "So as long as you can promise me those things, I'll be one happy camper."

  Less than a half-hour later, he keyed the number he'd been given into a keypad and pulled into an underground parking structure. Drove down the ramp on the right as he'd been instructed, then put in another code. A large metal door slid open, and he pulled inside.

  "It's like the Batcave," she quipped.

  He shut off the car. "But there are none of those cool rubber suits and no Batmobile, much to my disappointment. I wanted the whole Batcave experience but The Alliance resisted." He grabbed their bags and together they headed toward the entrance. He held his palm against the access panel for entry.

  The door opened to reveal a large room with a kitchen on one wall, including a breakfast bar. On the other side of the room were a couch, TV, and desktop computer. All safe houses were pretty much constructed the same way. They were embedded into a parking structure and basically a dark cave of an apartment. With all the comforts of home and then some, but still a place that brought out claustrophobia if he was there too long.

  In the back on the left hand side was a bathroom. On the right a bedroom. Could get tricky. Although he knew the couch was a pullout.

  She opened the freezer. "Frozen pizza. Extra large, deep dish, pepperoni. You and The Alliance have redeemed yourselves." She turned on the oven and searched for a pan, finding it quickly and inserting it into the oven a few moments later when the preheat buzzer sounded. "Beer?"

  "Sounds good."

  After she popped open the beers, she sat next to him at the counter. "This place is nice, but if there's a power outage, we'll probably die from lack of oxygen."

  "No worries. Back-up generator."

  "Good to know." She gulped the beer. "It's nice to not have to worry about getting shot at for a while. How long did you say we could stay here? A year? Maybe two?" When she smiled, it reached her eyes. For the first time in a long while, she seemed to relax.

  "What do you think they're after? After your Romancing the Stone moment, those guys mentioned something about wanting you alive. But now it seems like things changed and that option must be off the table. And if that was Alex that chased after us, why would he be shooting?"

  She chewed her lip and shrugged. "Maybe he didn't know it was me."

  "Let's start at the beginning. Considering somebody put a tracker in your arm, we need to find out who did your surgery in Afghanistan."

  "An Afghan doctor took care of me. But the CIA doctor checked out the guy's work when I got back and didn't say anything about a tracker."

  "It could have been an oversight if he wasn't looking for it. That thing was pretty small." He wanted to make things make sense, but so far was coming up empty. The evidence against her was mounting by the second. Or maybe that was how it was orchestrated. "How did you get to the hospital?"

  "I woke up in the ER. Shepherds found me and brought me there, but they were long gone by the time I came around."

  "Not soldiers?"

  "Nope. The shepherds were passing through and found me and Nick. They took us to Kabul for medical attention." She chewed her lip, letting him know there was more to the story. What was it she was itching to say?

  "When was Eli shot? Did you see who shot him?" He wanted—no, he needed an explanation for what happened to the guy. He was hoping she'd be forthcoming about how the process evolved. Somehow he needed to ferret out the truth.

  "He was already dead when I got out of the tent." She shook her head. "It seemed like their main objective was to get Alex."

  "Why him? There were four of you there, but your wound was not a kill shot."

  She gulped and narrowed her gaze. "Why don't you go ahead and spit it out? You think I'm guilty somehow." Anger flared in her eyes, not deceit.

  "Somebody's trying to kill you, and I'm trying to make sense of everything. The pieces of the puzzle don't fit right now, and I need to know why."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm not implying anything. If we can't be honest, it's not going to help." What a jerky thing to say, especially since he was attempting to manipulate her.

  "Are you being honest with me?" Her defensiveness was reflected in the scrutinizing look in her eyes.

  "This isn't about me." He was pushing hard in order to get at the truth.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Last I checked, I was hired to make sure you were safe, not ensure my own safety, so yeah, I would say it's about you, not me." He sounded like a dick, but couldn't shake what he'd seen in that photo, nor dismiss the skepticism he'd noted in Jennings's voice. He respected the man's instincts.

  She blew out a breath as if the energy seeped out at the same time. "I have no clue what's going onif Alex is alive, or it's all a figment of my imagination. All I have is a note." She pulled out her phone. "Backgammon back in play. Loose ends taken care of…soon. Weaknesses…" She recited the message like she'd read it at least a hundred times.

  "Tell me again how that whole thing happened. Where was it when you found it? Did somebody want you to find it?"

  Her training showed through in the way she revealed bits and pieces of the truth but still held back nuggets of information. He needed to break through her defenses to get to the truth. So then he could betray her.

  "I had my last appointment before going back to work on Wednesday. And I went into the counterintelligence unit because that's where all the good things are stashed. I grabbed their shredded stuff before the cleaning crew came in."

  "And you normally do that kind of thing for fun?"

  She nodded slowly. "Yep, I guess you could say that."

  "But when you read the message to Nick, he blew you off, right?"

  "Pretty much. When did you get called in on this?" She asked.

  "On Friday. I found out in the morning and took a plane out that day."

  "I called Nick late Friday about an hour before the guys broke into my house. The timing makes me think the note I found and what happened afterward are not connected."

  "You don't think it would have been important to mention this to me earlier?"

  "It didn't make sense until we went to Alex's house and I heard what sounded like his voice, but different. I knew him for so long I should know his voice. That phrase he says is so odd. I would bet most men don't say, 'Babe, you're it for me,' after sex." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Or maybe I'm going crazy."

  He decided to use a new tactic. Somehow he felt Afghanistan was only part of the story. "Tell me about your assignment in Istanbul again."

  "We had intel that somebody was going to attack a warship in the gulf. I went to the market a couple of times, took some pictures, talked to some informants, but I barely got a chance to get much done before I was yanked to Afghanistan."

  "Do you have any notes from there? Did you turn in what you found?"

  "I didn't turn in anything because I haven't had the time to get it organized. I saved everything in cyberspace. You want me to pull it up?"

  "You bet." Istanbul was looking more and more like a trigger of some kind. If she were trying to hide something, would she be so forthcoming? He felt like a d
amn ping-pong ball about now.

  Seconds later, she showed him what she had. "Here are some pictures I took in the market."

  "Why do you have some of them flagged?"

  "Sometimes it's because the people look familiar to me. Sometimes it's because of the number of times I've seen them in the area, which piques my interest. Sometimes it's a feeling I get." She sighed. "I didn't want to make it obvious I was taking pictures, so they aren't the best photos. I was hoping the tech people could make them clearer, but I didn't get a chance to send them off."

  "Wait a minute. That woman talking to the guy by the kiosk. She's wearing purple shoes, isn't she?" Jake's senses went on alert.

  She examined the picture as well. "It's hard to tell exactly, why?"

  "It may be nothing, but Cleo was wearing purple shoes when I met her. It seemed odd, and I commented on it. She said something about it being her signature." He shook his head as thoughts tumbled freely inside.

  "Who's Cleo?"

  Jake shrugged as if the thought of everything that happened during his last encounter with Cleo was nothing. "She's an operative that works out of Istanbul. It's probably a long shot that it's her. And it doesn't prove anything even if it is." The burst of animosity that wedged between them had dissipated. Jake suspected it had more to do with her sharing information. It proved they'd developed at least a moderate level of trust along the way.

  "I wish I knew if it really was Alex or a figment of my overactive imagination." She shuddered.

  After the last few days, he couldn't blame her for being overly cautious. It had been a hellacious couple of days.

  "Maybe we need to confront this head-on."

  This rollercoaster ride of a case was making him crazy. He wanted to know once and for all where she stood. Jennings had stoked the fire of uncertainty. Was she friend or foe? He was leaning toward the friend category but still was hesitant to jump in with confidence.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Charge ahead and call their bluff. When they had you in that warehouse, they were trying to get information out of you, but you were still too drugged to tell them." He chose his words wisely but needed to know what she knew. He might be a lightweight when it came to sifting through trust issues but knew enough to know she was holding out on him. It might be something big, but it also might be something small.