Outside the Law

by Michelle Karl

  The door handle turned. A man in a black suit entered the room, carrying a clipboard in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

  “Good afternoon, Miss... Browder, is it?”

  Yasmine said nothing. He hadn’t introduced himself, so why should she?

  He paused as if waiting for a response, but when he didn’t receive one, he set the water down on the edge of the table and then checked his clipboard.

  “The FBI special agent who brought you here mentioned that you’d recently been injured in an altercation and might be in need of pain medication.”

  Yasmine sat up straighter at his words. Noel had told someone? It must have been on his way out of the room. She hadn’t realized that he’d been paying such close attention to her medication cycle, but it made sense. Since the moment she’d thrown herself across the hood of his car and dived into the front seat, he’d had a knack for being in tune with her needs.

  The man pressed the metal clip on his board and pulled off a small resealable baggie. A tiny white pill sat inside. He placed the baggie on the table and slid it toward her. “It’s from our staff medical team. Nothing special, so don’t get too excited.”

  Yasmine didn’t move, but it seemed like he planned to stand there until she said something. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” The man continued to stand unmoving, staring at her.

  Yasmine’s agitation increased. “Are you going to stay until I take it?”

  “Either you take it or it leaves with me. Are you injured or not?”

  She was. Of course she wanted to feel better, but something about this didn’t sit well with her. Why hadn’t Noel asked for the painkiller in her presence when the woman first came to take him elsewhere? She couldn’t remember having mentioned her injuries or telegraphing them to anyone since they arrived, so it made sense for the request to have come from Noel. But the way this man watched her was almost...predatory. Like he’d force the pill down her throat if she didn’t take it.

  “What did you say your name was?” she asked, trying to buy time to think.

  He smirked. “I didn’t. I also have work to do. Please take the pill.”

  She thought about refusing. She thought about how loud she could scream if this person turned out to be unfriendly, but drawing attention to herself could put Noel at risk. They were too close to figuring out who inside the Department of Defense could have been responsible for Daniel’s death, and—Alarm shot through Yasmine’s insides. What if this man was that person?

  What if the lady was wrong and the Pentagon wasn’t as safe as they’d thought? What if the person who’d killed Daniel knew they were here and had found them?

  She looked the man in front of her square in the eyes. No, this wasn’t him. He looked bored, like he was simply following orders to give her the medication and make sure she took it. He might have perfected his menacing stare, but she sensed no inherent threat from this man.

  And maybe he’d only brought her a painkiller after all. If so, no harm done, and she could attribute his brusque demeanor to the handcuffs locked around her wrists. On the other hand, if there was someone else waiting for her to take the pill, that someone else would want proof she’d done so.

  With her cuffed hands, she leaned toward the table and picked up the bottle and the plastic baggie.

  She opened the baggie and slipped the pill out. It didn’t look suspicious at all. In fact, under normal circumstances, she’d assume it to be acetaminophen.

  These were far from normal circumstances.

  She slid the pill onto her tongue and then uncapped the water, listening for the crack of plastic as she twisted the top. When it came, she felt mild relief that no one had tampered with the water. But if she took a drink, the water would dissolve some of the pill, even if she didn’t swallow.

  Think, Yasmine, think. In the army, she’d learned many tactics for avoiding manipulation and resisting coercion. Stealth techniques were a standard part of the curriculum, for which she’d never been more grateful during these past few days.

  She needed to draw on that again.

  She lifted the bottle to her lips and turned her face away from the watching man. With her right cheek facing the back of the armchair, she positioned the mouth of the bottle at the far corner of her lips to create an illusion of taking a drink. She tilted the bottle back, pretending to tip the water into her mouth. Instead, a small amount hit the back of the armchair as she flipped the pill underneath her tongue and swallowed air.

  She lowered the bottle and turned around to see a look of satisfaction on the waiting man’s face. He took in the contents of the bottle—saw it was no longer full—and nodded.

  “Thanks,” she said, to continue the facade.

  “You’re welcome. Hang tight. This will all be taken care of soon.” He turned and left, his words hanging with an ominous finality.

  Yasmine leaned back in the armchair, feeling the wet spot press against her back and soak part of her shirt. Good thing she’d been sitting here instead of in one of those metal chairs—inconspicuously pouring water down a sleeve or shirt was far more difficult and prone to error. She dislodged the pill from under her tongue and spit it into her hands, then twisted slightly to shove it between the chair cushion and its base.

  She’d been left alone, but for how long? If the little white pill really had been a normal painkiller, she expected that the next person she’d see would be Noel. But if not?

  Better safe than sorry.

  Yasmine inhaled, taking deep breaths in and out. One at a time. Slow and steady, calming her pulse. With each breath, she deepened her focus inward on the beat of her heart, and pretended to die.

  FIFTEEN

  Yasmine’s pulse slowed with each breath. She’d always been good at pretending to be asleep, even as a child—she’d found no end of delight in playing practical jokes on Daniel when they were younger, “waking up” when he least expected it and turning his own pranks back on him. One time he’d come home with a tiny frog he’d found at the park after a rainstorm and placed it on her pillow while she slept, intending to frighten her. He’d had no way of knowing that she’d actually woken up the moment he entered her room and was ready for him. She’d waited until he put the poor frog down, his face right in front of hers as he concentrated on keeping the frog in place until she woke, and then popped open her eyes with a loud “Ribbit!”

  Daniel had shrieked and tumbled backward as she sat up, scooping the little frog into her hands while laughing at her brother’s shocked expression.

  “You should have seen your face!” she’d said, laughing so hard she gasped for breath.

  “You were supposed to be asleep,” he’d grumbled, his cheeks growing scarlet. Yasmine had continued to laugh for a solid five minutes before climbing out of bed to run outside and let the little frog go free.

  She drew on that childhood experience, complemented with her survival training from the Amaran military, to send herself into a near trancelike state that mimicked sleep. She allowed her head to loll forward at an uncomfortable angle, the same way it might hang if she’d suddenly fallen unconscious in the chair.

  Footsteps sounded outside the door. Her body tensed in anticipation, but she coaxed it back into relaxation as the door handle turned. This was it, the moment of truth. Had Noel sent the painkillers or was she truly not safe even deep inside the Pentagon?

  Someone entered the room in silence. No, two people. There were too many taps against the floor for one person.

  “That’s her,” said a quiet voice. “I watched her take it.”

  The response from the second person was muffled. He or she was likely standing with his or her back to Yasmine.

  “You need me to check?” asked the first person.

  Yasmine struggled to maintain composure as footsteps came toward her. Rough fingers pressed again
st the side of her neck.

  “Pulse is slow,” said the first voice. Definitely the man who’d brought her the pill. She took another deep breath and exhaled. “I can barely feel it. Can’t be much longer.”

  “Good,” said the muffled voice. The fingers left her neck and she heard the first man cross the floor, back toward the door. “It’s about time for...to end.”

  Yasmine almost stiffened. The muffled speaker had lowered his voice further—it was definitely a man who spoke—and she could hardly make out his next words.

  “See...Crais...” he said. “He’s here, so...take care of...” Yasmine strained to hear more, but they’d opened the door and stepped out before they’d finished speaking.

  Crais. Noel’s FBI mentor was in the building? He’d come to the Pentagon, too?

  As soon as the door clicked back into place, Yasmine opened her eyes and sat up, her neck aching from hanging at an awkward angle for so long. She rubbed the sore muscles as she crossed the room to the door, a gesture made all the more uncomfortable by the handcuffs that still connected her wrists together. She’d have to do something about that, but how? She had no key, no sharp implement...and then her eyes landed on the clipboard left behind on the table. The pill guy must have left it in the room after his visit. She rushed back to the table, holding her breath.

  There it was: a paperclip, slid onto the edge of several papers, metallic and shining like a beacon of hope. With deft fingers, Yasmine snatched up the clip, unbent it and used the straightened length to unlock the cuffs from her wrists. She slid the metal constraints off and tucked them in her back pocket. Then, freed and driven by a need to find Noel before Crais did, she pressed her ear against the door. Hearing no one, she gripped the door handle and turned it. She waited for the telltale click of the door unlocking and sent a quick prayer of thanks to the Almighty that the men who’d come to check on her hadn’t bothered to lock the door. After all, why lock the door on a dead woman?

  She glanced both directions down the hallway and saw no one, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t be left alone for long. She also remembered how many cameras she’d seen on their way to this room—it was only a matter of time before someone glanced at the correct camera display and saw a strange woman wandering the halls of the Pentagon without an ID badge.

  She needed to find Noel before the wrong someone else did. But how? Yasmine scooted to the end of the hallway and peeked around the corner. Her heart sank. Cubicles. The people working there seemed occupied with their work, but she couldn’t guarantee that no one would look up and wonder what she was doing there.

  Her mind raced. She had two critical tasks: to find Noel and to figure out where Crais was before he found them first, just in case. A million different ways to solve each problem independently raced through her mind, but nothing that would ensure she succeeded at both without getting herself arrested a second time. And whoever had tried to kill her just now would certainly find out and try again. She had no doubt they wouldn’t fail given a second chance behind government walls. Only one possibility came to mind that might work, but it was crazy. There was no way it could succeed.

  “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed.” A turn of phrase from her mother’s favorite Bible verse popped into her head. Her mother had that verse written out and posted in at least three places in their house when growing up, but the frequency of seeing it had meant that Yasmine’s eyes soon glossed over the words, easily forgotten and unnoticed in the familiarity.

  She’d never really thought about what it meant until now. Her options were running short, and time was of the essence. Did that mean this one crazy idea was the right one? If she didn’t try, someone was bound to come along the hallway behind her at any moment and discover that Yasmine Browder hadn’t died in that room like they’d planned.

  Fear thou not. She shook her head and bounced on her heels several times. This was it. Everything could end right here, right now, but she had to try.

  Yasmine plastered a goofy smile on her face and forced a bubbly laugh, turning the corner out of the hallway and walking toward the closest cubicle. She scanned the space quickly as she approached, looking for something with the employee’s name on it. There it was, a sign facing out with the woman’s name and credentials. Janie Sherwood, Public Relations. Perfect.

  “Hey, Janie. Have any FBI agents come through here recently? I need to meet up with Crais and Black, but got detained by internal affairs. No one has bothered to let me know which room either of them headed off to.”

  None of what she’d said was not true. Yasmine understood and respected what Noel had said earlier—lying to these people was neither appropriate nor fair. They were only trying to do their jobs to keep the country safe, but at the same time, she and Noel didn’t know whom they could or couldn’t trust. Never had this been more apparent than moments ago in that stark little room.

  Muscles in Janie’s face twitched and then relaxed at the mention of Crais’s name. “Special Agent John Crais? I’ve met him only a few times, but he thinks he’s something else, doesn’t he?”

  Yasmine grinned and shrugged. “Who can even understand what goes through that man’s head? I’m late for the meeting now. It’s going to be awkward when I walk in the room, that’s for certain.”

  Janie hesitated, looking Yasmine up and down. “You okay? You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

  “You know what it’s like. One day you wake up for an eight-hour shift and the next thing you know, two days have gone by and you’ve eaten nothing but a stale muffin and you’re almost wishing you’d been shipped out, because at least then you’d have had a chance to get some sleep on the red-eye flight you’d inevitably be on because of how much cheaper it is.”

  Janie laughed but shook her head. “Sorry, but I’m not sure where external agency meetings are being held today. Probably in the usual rooms.”

  “Got it.” Yasmine waved her thanks, masking her disappointment that she hadn’t gotten all the information she wanted—but if Janie had seen Crais a few times, that meant he’d passed this way on his visits. She had to be close. Otherwise he and Janie would never have crossed paths multiple times, right? Yasmine massaged her wrists and offered up a grateful smile. “Thanks, appreciate it.”

  She’d gone only five steps before she heard Janie’s voice behind her. “Hey, excuse me?”

  Yasmine kept walking, pretending she couldn’t hear.

  “Excuse me? Ma’am? Agent?” Janie’s voice grew louder. “You’ve lost your badge!”

  Yasmine swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, quickened her steps and disappeared around the corner, Janie’s shouts quieting behind her. As soon as she was back out of sight of the cubicles, Yasmine raced down the hall, moving away from the room where she’d been detained. She heard no footsteps following her, but she kept up the pace just in case Janie alerted someone to the direction Yasmine had traveled. Yasmine would have to move fast if she wanted to avoid detection.

  She glanced in each room as she passed, listening carefully for familiar voices, movement or any indication that Crais or Noel might be behind one of the doors. Very few of the rooms had drawn shades over the windows, which made her think—if Crais was in one of these rooms, and if he in fact had double-crossed them and was part of a big conspiracy at the Department of Defense, wouldn’t he be the one sitting behind a drawn shade?

  She allowed herself a little smile at the thought. She’d find Crais, and soon. But that wasn’t her only problem. Where was Noel? And what would happen if he went back to the room where he’d left her, only to find that she’d disappeared?

  * * *

  Noel followed the woman leading the way for what seemed like ages. They walked down one hallway and up another, then made a left turn and a right turn and another right turn. After at least fifteen minutes of walking, Noel realized that all the doors they were passing looked
familiar.

  “Excuse me?” He tapped his guide on the shoulder.

  “Hmm?” She looked back at him with disinterest.

  “Why are you taking me in circles?”

  Her eyebrows rose, giving away the truth. “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. Are you trying to confuse me? Because I have an excellent sense of direction.”

  Her expression darkened, and she turned back around, continuing to walk. Noel grunted in frustration. What else could he do but follow? The woman had obviously been instructed to kill time and thought she could do it by confusing him in the network of hallways. She clearly hadn’t counted on escorting a man fresh out of Quantico, whose skills of observation had been put to the test day in and day out for the past twenty weeks.

  Finally she stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others, except the shade was drawn.

  “Here,” she said, her pleasant expression long gone. “General Stark will be with you shortly.”

  So she’d been trying to stall on orders from the vice chairman himself? He’d have been more annoyed if he wasn’t so impressed that General Stark had actually agreed to speak with him. “Trying to make sure I don’t get up to any trouble on my own?”

  She frowned. “Something like that.” The woman twisted the handle, pushed the door open and stepped aside. “Wait here for the general, please.”

  Noel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and stepped inside. The room was dark, the back half cloaked in shadow. Where was the light switch? He felt along the wall as the woman closed the door behind him, leaving him in the dark. He felt like he was in the dark metaphorically speaking, too. Talking to one of the higher-ups of the Department of Defense should bring some relief, but he couldn’t imagine they’d react kindly when he accused one of their own. Not at first, anyway. He’d have to be diplomatic about the conversation and find a way for the FBI alert to be removed from Yasmine. At least Yasmine was safe inside the Pentagon, though he still didn’t like the idea of leaving her on her own. She’d need her next dose of painkillers soon, and she probably hadn’t thought to bring any inside from the vehicle when they’d arrived. He considered running back down the hall to catch the woman and ask her to take some painkillers to Yasmine, but movement at the back of the room froze his hand on the door handle.