by Elaine Nolan
A security alert popped up on her screens and she tapped into the building’s security cameras, selecting the ones at the front entrance, a sinking feeling hitting her stomach at seeing Jake and what looked like federal agents. She bound down the stairs to join the rest of them, seeing Tom barrelling his way to the front to confront the US agents, and as they were at the front door, they were trespassing on Irish sovereignty.
Donal let her pass as she made her way forward to join Adam, who stood a few steps behind Tom.
“And I said you need a warrant,” Tom replied to the Marshall standing nose-to-nose with the Irish cop.
“You are unlawfully detaining a US citizen,” the Marshall told him, his smug smile slipping as Tom grinned and shook his head.
“Mr Rainey entered this Embassy under his Irish passport,” he took great pleasure in informing them.
“He can’t have an Irish passport,” the Marshall argued back. “He can only have a British or US one.”
“You lot need to do your homework before you rock up and swagger about the place and try swinging your dicks. His place of birth is Northern Ireland, and under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, citizens can hold both UK and Irish nationalities, so Rainey is entitled to be here. I think you’ll find my legal dick is bigger than yours right now,” Tom taunted. Jake stepped in to help, but by the look on the Irishman’s face, he clearly made things worse, and he wondered if this was the cop he’d spoken to on the phone.
“Can we see the passport?” he asked.
“Why?” Tom demanded. “Are you questioning my authority to verify the passport as valid?”
“No, sir,” Jake answered, respectfully, in a counterpoint to the Marshall’s bulldozer approach. “The Senator has requested Mr Rainey attend a hearing into the incident at the military exercise, and I’ll need to give her something to explain why these gentlemen are returning empty-handed.” Tom glared at him, seeing what Harte liked in the man, and disliking him even more. He looked behind him, finding both Commandants backing him up, and Leigh stoic as ever, her expression unreadable.
“Passport,” he mumbled, and Leigh returned to Donal, who handed it to her. She glanced at Rainey, but he followed her back to the door, despite Donal’s caution. As soon as they came in view of the entrance, red sighting laser lights appeared on both her and Rainey, only a step behind her. One light swept across her name tag on her uniform as though confirming they had the right target.
“Get behind me,” she told Rainey, her glare stalling any argument. She stood still, holding the passport out for Adam and Tom, both men furious at the threat to one of their own. Jake was just as stunned, and as angry. The appearance of the laser sights also unsettled the Marshalls as they searched for the source of the threat. They were clearly not a party to this.
“Vest?” Tom asked her, but she shook her head. She’d no protection. He turned on the Marshalls. “You come to my Embassy, demand an Irish citizen without a warrant, threaten the life of another Irish citizen and you expect us to cooperate?” Tom demanded. Jake took a step up, hands up in surrender, then another until the laser lights disappeared from Leigh as he blocked them, and she backed up from the entrance, keeping Rainey behind her. She gave Jake a nod when he glanced at her, but he held his hand out for the passport.
“I’ll tell the Senator what’s just happened, and how, despite the danger, that the Irish showed continuing cooperation in the face of ongoing adversity,” he said.
“Does that bullshit work on her, because it doesn’t on me,” Tom retorted, and Jake smirked.
“I wouldn’t dare try it on her,” Jake admitted.
“Yeah, wouldn’t blame you. We’ve just seen her idea of punishment in action,” he said, handing the document to Jake, who raised his eyebrows in surprise, then lowered them, concerned. He glanced at her again, but couldn’t read her expression. He took the passport, flicked to the photographic page and took a picture on his phone, noting the date of issue as being seven years before. He flicked through the pages and found entry and exit stamps from around the world, ones that couldn’t be faked. Satisfied it was genuine, he handed it back to Tom.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jake answered.
“Good,” Tom said. “Now get out of this Embassy, you’re not welcome,” and he shut the door on them.
CHAPTER 48
With security increased in the Embassy, everyone got back to their relevant tasks, but it left Rainey with nothing to do. Donal and Tom were finished with him, and had their own private conference. He’d no doubts he’d be the topic of conversation for a while, and now the added threat to both his and Leigh’s lives, in a place they should’ve been safe.
He got directions to her office, and tapped on the door, waiting for an answer, and getting a gruff one. He peered in. While she didn’t seem pleased to see him, she didn’t dismiss him either, but indicated to the only other chair in the tiny office, and he sat. She handed him her tablet.
“What is it?” he asked, scrolling through the documents on the screen.
“It’s files on him, and part of his journals. It should give you an insight into the man he was. Now, don’t get me wrong, he could be a complete bastard when he wanted.”
“Isn’t that title reserved for me,” he joked.
“You were only illegitimate, and as hard as you’re trying to be a complete arsehole, you don’t even come close.”
“How did you find these?”
“I fell down the rabbit hole and trawled wherever I found a link to him no matter how tenuous. I fell into his world because I was too stubborn to let go of the puzzle he left.”
“You? Stubborn?”
“You’ll find I’m still only an apprentice compared to him. In there, you’ll also find the journals he left for me to decipher, which led to finding who killed him.”
“McGregor said a name, Lantry?”
“He was one of dad’s bosses and Director of the UK agency.”
“Why was he working with a loyalist group? Especially if he supported my mum with Irish money? None of this makes sense.”
She crinkled her nose, a mannerism she did when a thought process took her down a path she didn’t like. But it was something he was learning to appreciate about her, she didn’t shy away from potential danger. She was the one likely to run towards it.
“I’m still looking into that part of his life,” she answered. “He worked in the Irish Counter Terrorism Unit back then, and the only reliable files I’ve been able to find are Irish Army and Garda records from that time.”
“But…?” he sounded confused.
“What was an Irish cop doing infiltrating a Loyalist movement?” she asked. He sat forward and nodded.
“Yeah. Didn’t he realise the danger he put himself in?”
“He had balls, big ones,” she answered.
“I may have been hasty in implying it was an insult to be like him.”
“If that’s your attempt at an apology, it sucks.”
“It’s not my strongest area,” he admitted. “I never thanked you for getting me out of there.” She waited and he found her patient stare unnerving. “Thank you,” he said. “Your follow-up interrogation was… unorthodox.”
“That wasn’t an interrogation,” she told him. “That was designed to scare the shit out of you, on multiple levels, and to teach you to be more respectful towards your younger sister. Do not underestimate me, do not attempt to use me or try to take advantage.”
He sat back and held his hands up.
“I’m a repentant man, and my little sister has bigger balls than dad had, which scares the shit out of me, if I’m honest.”
“One of us had to inherit them,” she shot back with a smirk. “What do you remember of the time he brought you here?”
“Not much. I was too angry with him to try getting to know him. I was grieving for my mother, hating him for that too. He tried talking to me on the flight over, to explain what had happened, how, why
it happened, but I remember screaming at him to shut up, that he had no right to talk to me. He was calm and patient, at first, but the more of a little shit I was towards him, the less patient he got. By the end of the flights I’d gotten a couple of claps from him.”
“You were lucky if it was only a couple.”
“I’m being kind.”
“And the family he left you with, what were they like?
“They were nice, more patient with me than he was. They helped me get into Harvard, helped me put my business plan together, how to invest in myself. They expected, as I did, that Lee would come back for me, but years passed without a word from him.”
“It would’ve been impossible, unless he was haunting you.”
“I know that now. At college I tried to find him, and that’s when I found out I had a sister, but even you were off the grid.”
“I had a bit of trouble adjusting to their deaths,” she admitted.
“I’d wouldn’t call a litany of cautions and warnings for underage drinking, drugs and sex as just a bit of trouble. My little sister, the hell raiser, and now an army officer.”
“I was never a hell raiser,” she countered, surprised, and he gave her a disbelieving look. “Your file on me may have a lot of facts, but little actual substance. I was the quiet, studious kid in school, the one who was picked on, who was bullied. Then my entire world came crashing down, and coincidentally, about the same age as when yours did. But I didn’t have a nice family to coddle me. I had a sick grandmother, who I watched as cancer destroyed her shortly afterwards. I found a way to cope, and upon mature reflection, it wasn’t the best coping method. That doesn’t make me a hell raiser, just a terrified and lonely kid. So don’t fucking think you know me based on what a file says.”
He held his hands up again. He was doing that a lot, he realised, not giving in out of weakness, or backing down from a fight, but he recognised her authority. Her more worldly experience toughened her up, and he began to appreciate where her stoicism and sarcasm came from. He returned his attention to the tablet and scrolled through the files, picking one at random, then recoiled at the pictures. She saw his reaction and peeked to find what disturbed him.
“Oh, that one. She was an asset he was using and sleeping with.”
“Doesn’t this disturb you, seeing him like this, in such… compromising positions? These aren’t something one wants to see about their parents.”
“I have a… thing,” she confessed, and he arched an eyebrow, reminding her of times facing Lee over something silly like a slipped school grade. “The technical term is emotional disassociation.”
“You shut down,” he answered.
“No. Far from it. In terms of this work, it helps. The army psychiatrist raised it as a concern.”
“In what way does it help?”
“It helps me justify what I do, helps me separate home and work.”
“Helps you shoot your brother without hesitation?”
She smirked at him.
“Did he have that too?”
She shrugged. “It’s possible,” she admitted. “He never brought any work home, not even his cop stuff. He used to work on classic cars, probably as a counterpoint to what he faced every day.”
“But you don’t seem to have problems expressing emotions, at least not expressing them to me. So what is it, you let fly when you reconnect?”
“Do you think, any time you’ve given me a reason to vent at you, it was uncontrolled, that I just raged at you? You have no idea of how much I held back.” Her voice lowered again to that dangerous tone, and he got a sense of that level of control she exerted on herself. That, he concluded, was what made her dangerous. Add in the ability to detach emotionally, to justify her actions, to calculate the likely outcomes and consequences, the gains and losses, and he now had a complete picture of her. Not just her, but of their father. He thought back on moments in his own life. Had he displayed those same traits? He didn’t disassociate, at least he didn’t think so, but emotionally manipulate others? Now that he was good at, when it came to the greater social causes. Was it the same thing, he wondered. She handed him a printout, pulling him back from his musing, and he scanned the page, looked up at her, startled.
“What is this?”
“Your mother’s autopsy report. I found a scanned copy of it from what’s now the PSNI records. While the gunshot from dad was fatal, she was dying. Report said she had a ruptured spleen and other internal bleeding. She was haemorrhaging, she couldn’t be saved,” she told him.
“You knew this before you did your… non-interrogation, interrogation?” he asked and she nodded.
“I knew before I pulled you from McGregor’s house.”
“And being my grandfather, what the fuck?”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I wondered when you’d get your head around that. Now you know how it felt finding out about you.”
“You’re a spiteful little bitch, aren’t you?” Her growing smile unnerved him more.
“Only when the occasion warrants it.”
“How?”
“I still only have bits and pieces I’m trying to pull together, but what I said was true, and you heard him, he didn’t deny it.”
He slumped in the seat, thoughts racing through his head. “It explains why he took such an active interest in me after I arrived.”
“I told you, dad was never sloppy. The family he left you with were part of your extended family. He didn’t abandon you. He left you in the safest place he could find, and McGregor most likely suggested it. What I said to him about threatening dad to get him to leave was the creative guesswork bit.”
“Am I why you came here?” he asked, doubting everything. She shook her head.
“I didn’t know you existed, remember? I didn’t know McGregor existed. I came here to find Karl, but it’s all connected, even as far back as Lantry. GCHQ always suspected he wasn’t the criminal mastermind he tried to make himself out to be.”
“G… C…?
“The UK’s Central Intelligence.”
“You work for the UK as well?”
“It’s complicated,” she answered. “Now, go away, have a read, come back with any questions you have, but otherwise, I have more digging to do.”
“Super-spy stuff?”
“Just regular spy stuff,” she assured him.
CHAPTER 49
Complicated was an understatement, but she didn’t feel like sharing right now. She tried checking in with Walters, but received a very curt answer from the Director’s Private Secretary, saying the Director was unavailable. Convenient, Leigh thought, and tried leaving a message, but that too was rebuffed. The Secretary told her to put it in an email. If Leigh’s hackles weren’t raised before this, this latest round of defensive and evasive posturing thoroughly pissed her off, and cemented her gut instincts that Huntington discovered it had a lot to hide. It was probably in paper format, and no one on hand to save any of it from being destroyed if it proved too inflammatory.
Adam disrupted any further investigation, and she only realised the time when he arrived on schedule. With Swayne’s Hearing starting in the morning, they were scheduled for the morning session, and he wanted to go over both their accounts. He didn’t need to worry; she was word perfect, her recollection of it crystal clear, along with being able to give direct quotes of what was said and by whom. She smirked when he remarked on it.
“Learning to listen and follow instructions to the letter was part of my early training. Information retention was crucial,” she told him.
“You’re not talking about the army either, are you?”
She shook her head. “I have a favour to ask,” she said, which raised his suspicions.
“Depends on what hair-brained scheme you’re up to now,” he answered.
“I… want to see Jake, and it’ll probably be the last time we’ll get to be together.”
“You know it’s not safe, given what happened today.”
“That’s why I need the favour.”
“You want an escort there and back,” he stated and she nodded.
“Pick me up in the morning,” she answered, but he shook his head. “There’s an underground car park at his place, I can get in and out without being seen.”
“Just once Harte, I want an easy going, uneventful evening.”
“And you’ll have it this evening, after you drop me off.”
“You need to be in your dress uniform for tomorrow,” he told her.
“I’m aware of that.”
“Meaning you’re going to him wearing it.”
“I’m aware of that too.”
“That means you will be conspicuous wearing a dress uniform.”
“Not if you’re wearing yours, and they don’t know which one of us it is.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re devious?”
“Haven’t heard it for about a week, it’s long overdue.”
He sighed and shook his head, resigning himself to it.
“We’ll have to let the others know,” he added, surprised as she frowned and shook her head.
“This is just between you and me.”
“It’s a bad idea Harte.”
“Not the first I’ve had this week.”
Her text surprised Jake. Indications from that Irish cop said all contact was severed. Given what had happened at the Embassy and given Swayne’s hearing started in the morning, he was sure it would be a very long time before they were in contact again, but here she was. Her question was simple. Was he home or had he plans for the night? No plans he texted back. Her response took him even more by surprise; she used their code word, the one they used to initiate play, but it was a question, meaning she was giving him the choice to back out. When she did that in the past she was in full-on Domme mode, meaning it would get rough for the night.
Without hesitation and aroused by it, he texted back their arranged reply for his agreement. Her reply said to take countermeasures, which was new to him, and he presumed that, given they’d been photographed in his place, he was to make sure it didn’t happen this time. He put safe guards in place, closed the curtains, and then readied himself for her arrival.