Rule 53

by Elaine Nolan

  The uniform surprised him, still finding it a turn on. It lent more weight to their role play, but she warned him once she wouldn’t sully the uniform with their games, nor did she, taking meticulous care when undressing, slowly and to full effect.

  Then it got interesting, and passionate, and painful.

  He awoke to the sound of the shower, and rolled onto his back, feeling heat there, as well as on his ass and thighs from the previous night, but smiled at remembering how it happened. He thought of joining her but the shower stopped, and moments later she stepped out, wrapped in a towel.

  “Morning,” he murmured, and she gave him one of her soft smiles he loved seeing.

  “Hi,” she answered, matching his tone, but slipped back into business mode as she dried herself and dressed again in her uniform. Nothing sexy about putting her clothes back on, but he couldn’t help it as he watched her, covering himself with the sheets to hide it. Her attention to the tiny details of her dressing fascinated him, but it had always been a part of who she was, that meticulous care, and only a part of it could be attributed to her army training. She buttoned up her jacket, buckled her belt, and adjusted the cross-strap until it was just so, smoothing back stray wisps into the knot of hair she secured at the back of her neck.

  “Not allowed hair down?” he asked, and she shook her head, before making sure the knot of her tie was equally precise. The army suited her, he thought, as much as he hated the reasons for her being there. He understood why too. It copied her time with Jürgen; that discipline, that formality and again, a sense of belonging.

  Her phone vibrated and she checked it, finding a text message, and she tapped a reply before slipping it into her trouser pocket. She straightened herself, and he saw her slipping back into this newfound military mode, not that much different from her dominatrix mode, just less severe.

  “See you soon?” he asked and she nodded, giving him the barest of smiles.

  “Yeah, see you soon,” she answered softly, the most conversation they’d had all night. She tucked her peaked cap under her arm and let herself out.

  CHAPTER 50

  Adam took no chances with her safety. She met the Sergeant and another soldier as she exited Jake’s apartment. She returned their salutes before they escorted her to the waiting SUV.

  “Good night?” Adam asked as she sat in beside him. She smiled. “Feck, if it makes you this mellow, I’ll recommend Donal schedules this for you more often.”

  “I doubt he’ll approve that request.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. He found her suspiciously quiet, but with that same powerful aura as after what she did to her brother.

  “So this thing, it’s like a drug?” he asked.

  “A little,” she admitted, “but it’s a natural release of hormones and chemicals in the body; endorphins, serotonin, dopamine. The crash afterwards can be brutal, if you’re not ready for it, or used to it.”

  “Well, I need your head in the game today, not in the clouds somewhere.”

  “Oh, I’m ready,” she answered, her tone clear, fierce and steady, more fiery than her chilled-out demeanour suggested, and he risked another side glance, catching a hint of a smile playing at the edges of her lips.

  They took seats in the public gallery, joining the other uniformed officers from other countries, all called to give statements and have their version of events recorded, even though preliminary statements and supporting evidence had already been submitted. The Senator seemed intent in drilling down to the smallest detail in every statement, hoping to find the people responsible hidden in the depths of the details.

  As the senior officer for their group, Adam and Leigh listened to the Swedish Lieutenant Colonel give his report of events. It seemed the Irish weren’t the only ones to come under attack, but in a similar story, their attackers also remained hidden. Swayne and her team asked probing questions, questioning his eyewitness account, attacking the written reports. Leigh glanced at Adam, seeing him frown, as perturbed as her by the Senator’s stance.

  The interrogation of the Swede finished and the panel of three investigators, two legal counsel and the Senator took a brief recess, but most of the officers called to give evidence remained as they were. Adam caught sight of Jake sitting in the side gallery and nudged her. To his surprise she blushed as she gave Jake a reserved smirk and he acknowledged her with a nod, but returned his attention to the investigative panel as they returned.

  “I next call Commandant Adam Blake, and Ms Leigh Harte,” the Senator announced.

  “Fan anseo (stay here),” he ordered her, and she answered with a nod. He marched to the desk in front of the panel and sat.

  “I also called Ms Harte,” Swayne told him.

  “My colleague is here in a military capacity, not a civilian one,” he answered.

  “Meaning?” Swayne demanded.

  “Whatever your personal issues are with her Senator, she is still an officer of the Irish Defence Forces. For this hearing, you should recognise and address her by her rank as you have me,” he answered in a tone that belied his pleasant expression. Jake hid a smirk at Swayne’s reaction, at this man’s audacity of correcting her in such a fashion, but he begrudgingly admired the man for his defence of a colleague, again bringing home just how much Leigh had found a place to belong. He risked a glance in her direction, but found her attention fixed on Adam. The Senator’s loud and exaggerated sigh drew his attention back.

  “I call…,” she made a show of shuffling through papers, as though trying to find the proper designation, “… Commandant… Leigh Harte.”

  Leigh stood, straightened her uniform jacket and marched to the desk as her colleague had, surprising both Swayne and Jake. Her movements were drill perfect, disabusing them of any notions her military assignment and rank was a paper exercise. She sat beside Adam and Swayne launched into her verbal assault on them, attacking both the submitted report and their version of the event.

  Mostly Adam fielded the questions, his answers short and to the point. The Senator then questioned what she called the preposterous account of a child carrying a grenade.

  “Senator, we handed over that child to you, as I recall. Surely you and your team talked to the boy,” Adam answered.

  “What if I told you he said your colleague gave it to him?” she put to him, but he recognised it for the distracting ploy it was.

  “Then I would tell you that your statement contradicts the evidence,” he answered. “We also supplied your team with video footage from our bodycams, which demonstrated the sequence of events, including my colleague putting herself in danger to save one of your citizens.”

  “And then set off that grenade in the city,” Swayne accused.

  “What else was she supposed to do with it?” he demanded, beginning to lose his patience with her. “She made an on-the-spot decision, a calculated risk that kept everyone else safe, and discharged the device in the only available way. Senator, I don’t understand the logic behind the line of questioning, but it’s starting to sound like we need legal representation.”

  “That might be a wise move,” Swayne said, “seeing as you are harbouring the suspected culprit behind this incident, and coincidently, the brother of your colleague who remains suspiciously quiet.”

  “Not suspicious at all Senator, though we’re the same rank, I hold seniority.”

  “And she’s also here to spy,” the Senator accused, earning outraged gasps from the audience, some of whom were the Intelligence Officers from their respective embassies, and wondering if they were about to face the same accusation. Leigh broke her silence.

  “Senator, you overestimate my skills, my appointment here, and my intentions,” she answered.

  “Am I? Are you denying you’re here on an intelligence mission by the Huntington Branch?”

  “Not an intelligence mission, no, but to locate a missing person.”

  “Ah yes, we now get to your association with a known terrorist in breach of his pardo
n conditions. He broke his word, so why should we trust yours?”

  “Unless you have hard evidence to back up your allegations Senator, I’d say you’re fishing. We however, can stand over our statements.”

  “Yes, yes, with video footage that you, with your computer skills, could easily manipulate.”

  “Again Senator, I’m flattered you rate my modest skills so highly, but I’m only a systems programmer and data analyst, not a film editor. I’m sure your own experts have scrutinised our submitted footage for any hint of tampering. If they’d found anything wrong, we’d be having a different conversation and with legal representation.” She delivered her answer as relaxed and untroubled as she could manage, belying the heavy knot in her stomach. She observed the Senator, catching the minute angry signs that the Senator’s sham attack had failed, and this little Irish upstart had exposed the ploy to the audience. It exposed the Senator’s bias against her. Swayne scowled at her, daring her to keep talking, to slip up, but Leigh remained quiet, and kept her focus on Swayne.

  The Senator backed down, made another show of reviewing the files she held, giving Leigh a brief respite and a chance to take a breath. She risked a glance at Adam, and he gave her a reassuring wink. The rest of the inquiry went easier until Swayne and the rest of the panel exhausted their list of questions and they were brusquely dismissed, Swayne ignoring them as they stood and left the room. Only then did Leigh feel safe to loosen her tie and lean forward to take a deep breath.

  “You did good,” Adam told her. “I’m beginning to agree with Tom about not playing poker against you.”

  “I don’t plan on learning how to play, so you’re safe,” she told him, straightening up and pulled her phone from her pocket. “This fucking thing has been vibrating all morning,” but the caller ID surprised her, as did the number of missed calls. Although it wasn’t in her contacts list, she still recognised it as a UK mobile number.

  “Harte?” Walters asked as she answered.

  “Director?” she replied, seeing Adam’s eyebrows arch in surprise.

  “It seems I owe you an apology,” Walters admitted.

  “Oh?”

  “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “All of it,” Walters told her, but Leigh found no comfort in her admission, just a sinking sensation, and wondered how bad it was for the Director to make such a confession. “They have ordered me to withdraw from this and stop any support to you. I’ve to let the Irish have you back, but I suspect your loyalties always lay there.” Leigh didn’t answer.

  “Is this why you withheld information that could’ve helped?” she asked instead.

  “Not withheld exactly.”

  “Don’t play semantics with me, Director,” she snapped, surprising Adam further with her tone, but surprising Walters more.

  “Fine,” she conceded. “But as you’ve guessed by now, the information is…”

  “Incendiary?” Leigh suggested.

  “To say the least. It hinted at…”

  “Illicit activities carried out, or run, by Huntington,” Leigh finished, knowing she was revealing her own hand, but it was a gamble to gain more information.

  “So it was you who broke into the secured files. I figured you were the only one it could be, and would know what to look for and where. But if it helps, I covered for you when they tried to investigate it, to trace it back.”

  “Am I supposed to be grateful, Director?”

  “No, but it means you won’t be arrested for spying when you return, especially as you broke in from an Irish network.” That news brought home to Leigh just how close she’d come to getting caught, that they’d unravelled her misleading trail of IP addresses.

  “The same network that suffered an attempted hack?”

  “Is that why you did it? Retaliation?”

  “Are you saying they’re connected? That you were the ones trying to hack our systems?”

  “Not Huntington, but GCHQ, yes,” Walters confessed, but noted Leigh’s use of ‘our,’ aligning herself on her Irish side. “Considering what we found in those files, the powers that be wanted to know how much you knew, or had worked out.”

  “And what have I stumbled on, Director?”

  “I’m not sure, Harte. It’s a litany of projects and operations going back decades, even generations.”

  “To the Conglomerate?” Leigh asked and heard Walters inhale sharply.

  “I’ve only just found out about them, how the hell did you find out?”

  “Because we’ve already met.”

  “What? How?”

  “It’s that generational thing.”

  “Your father,” Walters guessed.

  “That’s one thread, and they offered me a job, kind of.”

  There was a considered pause from Walters.

  “Okay, I’ll get to the job offer in a moment, but what other thread?”

  “Rainey’s stuck in the middle of it.”

  “And that’s a definite connection to you?”

  “He’s my brother,” she confirmed.

  “You verified it?”

  “The DNA was conclusive. I’m surprised GCHQ didn’t even find that much when they tried to break into our systems,” she answered for Adam’s benefit. “So were the physical attacks on my team and the other nations a GCHQ brainwave as well?”

  “What attacks?” Walters demanded, oblivious to what Leigh was talking about.

  “A conversation for another time, Director, but you’re not phoning for just an apology.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m supposed to order you to stop your investigation.”

  “But?”

  “I didn’t get to this position by rolling over when I was told.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “To find out who’s behind this, who’s involved.”

  “That’s a tall order when I don’t have access to files and records.”

  “I’ll get you what I can.”

  “You’re putting yourself directly in the line of fire.”

  “I’m already there Harte, and I sent you on this fool’s errand, it’s my responsibility. I’ll gather and save what intel I can and get it to you as soon as possible.” She disconnected, leaving Leigh with a perplexed expression.

  “How bad?” Adam asked.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I think the rabbit hole just got a lot deeper.”

  “That’s not good,” he commented.

  “No, it’s not.”

  The doors opened behind them and the hall emptied as the morning’s proceedings came to a close. Leigh slipped her phone back into her pocket, fixed her tie and settled her cap in place while Adam texted their driver to pick them up, watching as Swayne exited from the side entrance, with Jake and the investigation panel following behind her. The Senator paused long enough to glare at the Irish pair, but they both ignored her, also ignoring Jake, and jumped into their car as it pulled up to the curb in front of them.

  CHAPTER 51

  After the grilling by the Senator, Jake couldn’t blame Leigh for her frosty reception. He caught Swayne glancing at him and adopted Leigh’s stance and demeanour, but damn it, seeing her again stirred him, especially while he was still in the afterglow of the previous night’s activities.

  He watched on as the Irish Embassy’s SUV pulled up and Adam held the door open for her to enter first. Prompted by the arrival of the Senator’s car, Jake snapped back to his own duties, glanced about the area and opened the car door for Swayne, jogging around to the other side to get into the car. If he thought Leigh’s demeanour was frosty, the atmosphere inside the car was downright arctic.

  “Is she playing you?” Swayne broke the silence.

  “In what way?” he hedged, receiving another glare.

  “She’s military trained now? I thought it was just a cover over here. When did that happen?”

  “When I left her and came back to the States. It’s the reason I left. She claimed she didn’t have
a choice and I didn’t believe her. In saying that, whoever ‘they’ were, they seized her bank accounts, scared her clients away, but I think she wanted to stay in this world.”

  “Are you sure she was only trained then? Her movements tell a different story, like she’s been military all her life.”

  “You met her before her training, you know how much she’s changed, but if it helps, her earlier life while she was studying in Germany helped with this military mind-set.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s this thing with Jürgen,” he said, not wanting to betray Leigh’s confidences.

  “That pervert,” she snapped, shuddering at what she saw at the German Bondage club.

  “That pervert kept her alive, brought her back from the brink of self-destruction using discipline, as well as all the other kinky shit. But it was the discipline that brought her back, and it’s what the army provides her with, a sense of belonging somewhere.” He blushed under Swayne intense scrutiny and he glanced out the window instead.

  “You’ve still in love with her, aren’t you?” she asked in a tone softer than he’d heard in a while, her mothering side slipping out.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Be careful, Jake. I don’t want to see you self-destruct over this, over her.”

  “I won’t,” he assured her.

  “Or have your career destroyed,” she warned.

  “On that,” he began, but stalled. Swayne waited him out. “I seem to have been demoted from investigator to an office manager.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being an office manager, I held that position once.”

  “That’s not what I’m getting at, and you know it.”

  “I never thought you’d be the kind of man who’d feel sorry for himself. I left you out of any investigations that could compromise you, or have allegations of misconduct or collusion levied against you. I’m trying to protect you, Jake, and seeing as your loyalties seem to be stretched at the moment, it looks like I made the right decision.”