Secrets She Kept

by Debra Webb

  “You kept copies?”

  “I have copies of all my reports on my laptop. I can definitely go through them with you, and you can tag anything that relates to Major Denver.”

  They went through another cup of coffee each as they discussed Hunter’s spreadsheet, and he really felt that they were making some progress. If they could get to the bottom of this plot and link it to Denver’s findings before he went AWOL, the army would have no choice but to exonerate the major.

  Sue had been keeping an eye on the entrance to the restaurant, and she lifted her hand and waved at a compact, balding African American man charging toward them.

  When he reached their table, Sue stood up and pulled out the chair across from her. “Have a seat, Ned. This is Hunter Mancini. Hunter, Ned Tucker.”

  Hunter had risen from his chair and stuck out his hand to the other man.

  Ned looked him up and down before releasing his grip and taking his seat. “Military?”

  “Delta Force. You?”

  “Air Force.” Ned leveled a stubby finger at Sue. “Are you helping her out?”

  “I’m trying. Why?”

  “Because she needs it.” Ned turned to Sue and covered one of her hands with his. “Sue, what have you been up to? There is no way I believe you’ve been spying for the other side, but I’m hearing about evidence against you that’s giving me pause. Enlighten me.”

  “You enlighten me.” Sue wiggled her fingers at the waitress. “Do you want some coffee, Ned?”

  “I’m wired enough as it is.” He turned to the approaching waitress and asked her for a glass of water. “I can’t tell you much, Sue.”

  “Bogus emails again? Emailing classified documents?” She pinged her coffee cup. “None of that is true, Ned. It’s been planted, just like those emails about Major Rex Denver were fakes.”

  “It’s more than that, Sue.” Ned glanced over his shoulder and ducked his head. “The investigators have pictures—pictures of you meeting with known terrorists.”

  Sue dropped her spoon onto the saucer with a clatter that further jangled Hunter’s nerves. Those pictures could definitely be in existence, but who could’ve taken them?

  “That’s absurd. Any photos of me with terrorists would be meetings with informants.”

  Ned wiped his brow with a napkin and then crumpled it in his fist. “Okay, that makes sense, and any of those meetings would be documented as protocol dictates, right? Right, Sue?”

  “Of course. Protocol.”

  “Speaking of protocol.” Ned thanked the waitress for his water and downed half the glass in one gulp. “You never saw me here. We never had this conversation. I have my own sources within the Agency and someone gave me a heads-up, but if anyone found out I relayed this info to you, I’d be in almost as much trouble as you’re in now.”

  “I appreciate you’re going out on a limb for me, Ned. This is going to come to nothing, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll leave you out of it.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry.”

  Ned raised one eyebrow to his bald pate. “You’re always telling me that like you have some secret guardian angel. I hope you don’t mean your old man, because as revered as he is in the Agency, not even he could get you out of this mess if it’s true and you don’t have the documentation to support those meetings.”

  “Don’t worry.” She slid a plate with a half-eaten pastry on it toward Ned. “Have a Danish.”

  “That’s even worse.” He patted his rounded belly. “My wife still has me on that diet.”

  “Thanks for the intel. We can handle it.”

  Ned rose from the table and said his goodbyes. Then he snatched the Danish from the plate and waved it in the air. “Now you have two secrets to keep.”

  Hunter watched Sue as she kept the smile plastered to her face long enough for Ned to get sucked into the lobby.

  Then she turned toward him and smacked her palm against her forehead. “Who’s taking pictures of me at my meetings?”

  “The Falcon?”

  “And then sending them to the CIA? For what earthly reason?”

  “Sue...” Hunter took both of her hands. “The Falcon is gone...disappeared. Maybe his information was also compromised. Maybe someone else has those pictures and then fed them to the CIA to discredit you.”

  “Discredit?” She disentangled her hands from his and raked her fingers through her hair. “Those pictures can send me to federal prison. Of course, I didn’t document those meetings. They were secret. The Falcon always assured me that he had everything covered—even in the case of an emergency.”

  “Like this one?”

  “Exactly.” Sue grabbed her purse and smacked down the lid of his laptop. “Let’s get going.”

  He smoothed his hand over his computer. “If you insist. Where?”

  “We’re going to talk to the one person who just might know what happened to The Falcon.”

  * * *

  Hunter wheeled his rental car into the hospital parking lot, climbing up to the top floor of the structure. He cut the engine and folded his arms. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Sue had already popped open her door and cranked her head over her shoulder. “We need to get in there and talk to this woman. She knew the code. She knows The Falcon. And she knew where to find me. She probably knows where The Falcon is, too. She’s the only hope I have right now...or you can forget about helping Denver. If I’m locked up, you’re never going to discover the link.”

  “I will leave it to your covert ops hands to get us into that hospital room when the nurse wouldn’t even tell you if the woman regained consciousness.” He yanked the keys from the ignition and opened his own door. “What if she hasn’t?”

  Sue slid out of the car and ducked her head back inside. “We’ll have to come back.”

  Sue strode into the hospital like she owned the joint. Might as well come in with confidence.

  They reached the elevator and she scanned the directory for the correct floor.

  Hunter leaned over, touching his head to hers. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “When the operator transferred me this morning, the nurse answered with the department—and this is it.” She poked at the glass directory with her fingertip and then jabbed the elevator call button. “I just hope this elevator doesn’t dump us out in front of the nurses’ station.”

  “If it does?”

  “We don’t get off on that floor. We’ll ride it up to the next.”

  “Tell me you’ve done this before.” Hunter followed her into the elevator and then held the door for a woman with a tearful, sniffling baby.

  Sue nudged Hunter’s shoe with her toe. “Something like it.”

  Hunter ignored her in favor of wiggling his fingers at the baby, who gave him a watery smile and kicked his legs against his mommy’s hip.

  Sue pressed a hand against her belly. Hunter had wanted children with his ex, but she put him off and then dropped the bombshell that she didn’t want kids at all.

  When the elevator settled on the woman’s floor, she nodded to Hunter. “Thanks for entertaining him right out of his fussiness. You must be a dad.”

  “Nah, babies just think I’m funny.” He touched his finger to his nose and then the baby’s. “Must be my nose.”

  When the doors closed, Sue cleared her throat. “When the doors open on our floor, if you see the nurses’ station, press the button for the next floor up and we’ll circle back down via the stairwell.”

  Hunter saluted. “Got it, chief.”

  “Don’t get smart.” She elbowed him in the ribs just as the doors whisked open on a short corridor, not a nurse in sight. “We’re good.”

  Sue stepped from the elevator with Hunter close behind her and made a sharp right turn. Seconds later, she tugged on his sleeve and tipped her head toward a
door marked Maintenance.

  Hunter eased open the door and they both slipped inside the dark room, cluttered with cleaning supplies—and coveralls.

  “This is you.” She tugged a blue coverall from a hook and tossed it to him. “Slip into that and grab a mop.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. Do you think the hospital staff knows the entire custodial staff or keeps track of the turnover?”

  “What are you dressing up as for Halloween?”

  “I’m going to try to snag myself a lab coat.” She pinched his cheek. “This will work.”

  She cracked open the door and put her eye to the space, checking the hallway. She scooted out and checked on the offices and rooms on the corridor before heading upstairs. She had more luck on the research floor where there were no patients.

  She lifted a lab coat from a hook just inside a lounge area and stuck her arms into the sleeves. She jogged back downstairs and had even more luck on the way back to the custodians’ closet when she ducked into an examination room and swiped a stethoscope from a silver tray.

  As she continued down the corridor, she hung it around her neck and then dipped into the maintenance room.

  She almost bumped into Hunter, the blue of his coveralls matching his eyes, holding a mop in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

  “Hello, doc.” He held out the clipboard to her. “Look what I found.”

  “See, you’re catching on. I’ll put in a good word for you at the Agency when you get cashiered out of Delta Force.”

  He leaned on his mop. “You’re assuming you’re going to have a job.”

  Turning the doorknob, she bumped the door with her hip. She held her breath as two nurses walked by.

  She stepped into the hallway and whispered over her shoulder, “Give me a few minutes to find her room. I’ll wait in front of her door and you can follow me inside.”

  Sue tucked her hair behind one ear and peered down at the clipboard in her hand that contained a cleaning rotation schedule instead of someone’s vitals—but nobody had to know that.

  It took her two passes down the stretch of hall with patient rooms before she located the double room the mystery woman occupied with another patient.

  Hunter turned the corner, pushing the mop in front of him. Their eyes met for a split second before Sue crept into the room.

  An African American woman hooked up to monitors and devices snored slightly from the first bed.

  Sue jumped when the door creaked, and Hunter held his finger to his lips.

  Sue said, “Our patient is in the next bed on the other side of the screen.”

  “Lucky for us, she’s out of view of the door. If anyone comes in while we’re here, you called me in for a cleanup.”

  “Got it.” Sue tiptoed past the first bed and around the screen. She grabbed onto the footrest of the other bed where the woman from last night breathed through tubes.

  “She looks worse than the other woman.” Sue sidled up next to the bed. “Hello, it’s me. It’s Nightingale. Where’s The Falcon? What do you know?”

  The woman’s eyelids flew open, and Sue jumped backward, gasping and dropping her clipboard.

  “What happened?” Hunter materialized by her side, mop in hand.

  Sue touched the woman’s cool, papery arm. “She’s awake.”

  “She can’t talk, Sue.” Hunter pointed to the mask over the woman’s face.

  “She’s all I have right now, Hunter.” She squeezed the woman’s arm. “What can you tell me? You came to our hotel room, and you recited the code. Who are you? Where’s The Falcon?”

  The woman managed to roll her arm over and blink her eyes once.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Do you think you can write something?”

  “Sue, she can’t write. She can’t grip a pen.”

  The woman turned her arm again and blinked.

  “She can move her arm.” Sue stroked the woman’s flesh. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean. Maybe you can communicate to the nurses that you want to see me and when you’re able to talk I’ll come back.”

  The woman blinked her eyes twice and rolled her arm over again.

  “She keeps moving her right arm.”

  “Maybe it’s the only thing she can move right now.”

  The woman blinked without moving her arm this time and Sue glanced down. “Wait, Hunter.”

  “What?”

  “She has something on her arm.” Sue turned the woman’s arm, so that her palm was displayed, and squinted at the tattoo on the inside of the woman’s elbow.

  She skimmed her thumb across the dark blue falcon imprinted on the woman’s skin, then raised her gaze to meet the woman’s glittering eyes above her mask.

  “She’s The Falcon.”

  Chapter 11

  Before Hunter could respond to this news, the machines keeping The Falcon alive began to beep and whir.

  “We’d better get out of here.”

  He grabbed Sue’s hand and tugged, but she seemed rooted to the floor, her mouth working as she mumbled.

  “A woman. I can’t believe you’re a woman.” Sue grabbed a handful of white sheet. “Why? Why would you do that to another woman?”

  He had no idea what Sue was rambling about, but they had to get out of here. He yanked on her lab coat. “Let’s go.”

  Swinging around, he claimed his mop and pushed it in front of him out the door, almost colliding with three nurses in the corridor on their way to the distressed patient.

  He cranked his head over his shoulder and let out a breath as he saw Sue following him. Without waiting for her, he careened around the corner and dumped his disguise in the maintenance room.

  He made his way to the elevator, where he found Sue, head tilted back, watching the lights above the car as it descended, the lab coat still over her clothes.

  They stepped into the elevator with several other people and continued to pretend they didn’t know each other—not that it would’ve mattered to these strangers.

  When they hit the parking structure, Hunter slowed down to let Sue catch up with him. Her white face and huge, glassy eyes caused his heart to bump in his chest.

  He took her hand on the way to the car. “Are you sure she’s The Falcon?”

  “Positive.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Didn’t you see her tattoo?”

  “Maybe she just got that to mark herself as someone in The Falcon’s unit.”

  Sue turned on him and thrust out her arm, wrist turned outward. “Do you see one of those on me? That was not required—other things were required, but not that.”

  When they reached the car, Hunter opened the door for her but blocked her entrance into the car. “What’s wrong, Sue? Why are you so shocked The Falcon is a woman? You yourself know women in the CIA can be as good as any man.”

  Her lashes fluttered. “I—I just never pictured The Falcon as a woman. I’m shocked...and I’m shocked that she showed up at my hotel room beaten and bloodied. How did that even happen? She’s always worked behind the scenes—giving orders, issuing ultimatums.”

  Hunter stepped aside and Sue dropped to the car seat, covering her face with her hands.

  He closed the door and shook his head on his way to the driver’s side. It must be disconcerting to discover someone you assumed was one gender was another. He didn’t get the big deal, but maybe it was a female thing—and he’d never voice that to Sue.

  He slid behind the wheel and smoothed a lock of hair back from Sue’s forehead. “At least The Falcon is still alive.”

  “As far as we know.” She peeled her hands from her face. “She looked bad, and what happened at the end? That didn’t sound good.”

  “How’d you get out of the room with all those nurses rushing in? Sorry I left you, but I figured it would look eve
n weirder for a doctor and a maintenance guy to be in a patient’s room while those bells and whistles were going off.”

  “That’s okay. I would’ve expected you to get out while you could.” She powered down the window and took a deep breath. “When I heard them coming, I waited until they were in the room, and then I stepped behind the screen. They never saw me.”

  “Thank God for that. I wouldn’t want to see you accused of tampering with a patient on top of everything else you’re going through.”

  Sue clasped her hands in her lap. “I think my very survival depends on finding a link between the terrorists The Falcon and I have been tracking and the ones Denver was onto. If I can uncover a terrorist plot here in the states, the CIA will have to believe I was working deep undercover—whether or not The Falcon survives.”

  “Maybe she’ll out herself now and the whole operation before she takes a turn for the worse.”

  “Before she takes a turn for the worse?” Sue flung out her hands. “What were all those beeps and hisses from her machines? That sounded like a turn for the worse to me.”

  “The nurses were in there in a split second.”

  “If The Falcon dies...” Sue ended on a sob and covered her eyes with one hand.

  “I know she’s been someone important in your life, a mentor. Even if you hadn’t met her, I’m sure it was hard to see her like that.” Hunter rubbed his knuckles on the denim covering her thigh. “Now maybe you can understand what I’m going through with Denver in the crosshairs.”

  Sue’s voice hardened along with her jaw. “The Falcon can rot in hell for all I care. She’d just better not take me down with her—again.”

  Hunter snatched his hand back and jerked his head to the side. “Whoa. Do you blame her for getting compromised? For comprising your position?”

  “I blame her for a lot of things, Hunter.” Sue dragged her thumb across her jaw. “And to think, all this time The Falcon was a female—a coldhearted, cold-blooded one.”

  Hunter braced his hands against the steering wheel and hunched his shoulders. “Why does it matter to you so much that The Falcon is a woman? Professional jealousy?”