At Any Cost (15 page)

What the hell were you involved in
, Tom silently asked Antoine Campbell. He climbed inside his car and steered away from the curb, feeling instinctively that he shouldn't spend too much time in front of Antoine Campbell's former house. He knew something bad was happening, and that he was probably being watched, but he couldn't figure out why or what they wanted. He only knew there was danger in paying that instinct too little attention.

Richard Mullinax finally broke down and asked to see Claudia because Omar Koss still had not contacted him and the stress was overwhelming. He figured Claudia would clear his mind for a little while, or rather fill his mind, displacing the images of destruction that continued to plague him. And he was correct. Claudia had taken control, as she always did. He simply did as she asked. With straightforward efficiency, Claudia removed her pants, then her jacket and blouse. His erection twitched at the sight of her pretty plum lingerie. It clashed pleasantly with her red hair. Claudia reached behind her and unclasped her lacy bra. Her milk-white breasts bounced forward. Large and full, the wild-rose nipples already puckered … Richard desperately wanted to take each of them in his mouth and suck. But, of course, she would tell him what she wanted from him.

As she removed her purple lace panties, Richard glimpsed her trimmed red muff before she turned to place the panties neatly on a chair with the rest of her clothes. Her command was total. It occurred to him that she knew exactly how much he was aching for her as she dallied with the correct folding technique for her underwear. His penis throbbed uncomfortably.

She walked gracefully to the edge of the bed, then sat down. “Come here,” she said and opened her long, shapely legs.

Richard crawled to her. He was shaking with lust, the desire to taste her so intense that he licked his lips. Her cool hand gently lifted his chin to force him to gaze into her eyes. “You're very handsome when you're so obviously horny. A man in such pronounced need …” Her sentence faded away as a slow, sexy smile spread over her lips.

She liked him in this state. His arousal was as sexy to her as her own release—a fact that Richard understood put him at a distinct disadvantage.

She had not allowed him to remove his clothes. She knew it was killing him that his penis was throbbing and aching in the confinement of his pants, a presence that made itself known no matter how he tried to concentrate completely on Claudia.

She understood male psychology so well it scared him sometimes. He had to allow for the possibility that she was on to him, that she knew what he had come here for and was using his weakness against him. He startled at the thought. Glancing up at her, he saw only her usual expression of satisfaction and expectation. There was nothing nefarious in her gaze. No, he could trust Claudia. She might be the only person he could trust. A good ally. A strong, well-liked woman, respected on the Hill by friends and enemies alike. He must be careful not to push her away with his mounting paranoia. She might be the only friend he had who could save him.

Gently, she pushed his face between her legs, and all thoughts of her possible betrayal vanished. Claudia began to move her hips against him, bucking wildly as he drove her closer to orgasm. He wanted to reach down and stroke himself but knew that Claudia would be furious. She told him when, and how, he could have release—it was part of the fun. Plus, he felt guilty for bringing himself to orgasm two nights ago when he'd last seen her. That was partially her fault, of course. Making him jerk into the air … it frustrated him just to remember it. In any case, he was determined to do better now.

Claudia reached down and shoved his face hard into her. With a wrenching cry, the climax bore down on her. Her moans blunted in his ears as her thighs squeezed around his face. As she squirmed against him, he relished the heat of her pussy and the furious tight clutch as the muscles contracted, her clitoris insistent, swollen, needing so much attention in that moment.

It was over too fast. She pushed him away but kept her feet on his shoulders. Exhausted, she lay on the bed, silently recovering. Richard took advantage of her lassitude and, with his fingertips, gently caressed the soft red hair and velvety lips. So pliant and slick, so ready for him. The anticipation of not knowing whether she would actually allow him to enter her, or if, indeed, he would be allowed to climax at all, was infuriating.

Claudia finally sighed deeply and propped herself up on her elbows. Looking down at him, she smiled sweetly. “That was wonderful,” she murmured. “Get undressed.”

Not believing his luck, Richard's whole body vibrated with lust. He moved quickly, aware that she might change her mind any minute. Once naked, she scooted to the pillows and then gestured for him to join her.

He lay down beside her. She rolled onto her belly. “Give me a backrub,” she murmured drowsily.

His chances for actually being granted any satisfaction just diminished greatly. He found himself taking her deltoid muscle in hand, gently rubbing it with long, fluid strokes, alert for any tightness or signs of stress.

She sighed, content, and her eyes fluttered closed.

It became clear that she would not allow him to climax today. The fog of desire began to clear and his anxiety returned. Omar Koss, who had vanished utterly for a while, returned to consciousness with force. It felt like a cold knife twisting in his gut. He had a horrible premonition that Omar was betraying him and the investigation into the mole would soon reveal him.

As casually as he could, he asked, “Claudia? What do you think of the Russian assassinations?” He gently worked up to her neck, rubbing the sore and tender muscles into a state of flaccid relaxation.

Claudia sighed. “I don't know. It's awful. The assets who were killed had been giving the CIA information about the electronic communications of the Russian government, so I think it must have been an electronic penetration. Why? Do you know something?”

“No,” he answered lightly. “I checked out of curiosity and saw a slightly higher than average uptick in Russian attempts to penetrate the US embassy, but nothing that would explain where they got the info.”

Omar Koss was
that good.
Nothing could have made it plainer that Omar Koss meant business than seeing the memo in the President's Daily Brief today that two Russian assets had been killed.

“You said it's an electronic penetration?” he asked.

“The director of CIA isn't briefing me daily, but the scuttlebutt is that the two Russians were giving CIA operatives information about very highly classified programs inside the Russian government. Those included electronic communications. The Russians would have known they were communicating with CIA officers. They were exposed, then killed.”

The map of the keys would have certainly allowed those kinds of communications to be visible, Mullinax knew. It would eventually come back to him. In fact, he was probably already being investigated. That was why he hadn't been to any of the meetings about the breech. The director of the NSA had attended, but he hadn't invited Richard. Did they already suspect him? Or was that just business as usual? He had no way to know; he had never participated in a meeting in which a spy was being flushed out. He felt the noose tightening around his neck.

“Ouch!” Claudia cried.

Richard realized he'd been unconsciously squeezing her flesh. “Sorry,” he replied and used a softer touch. “I wonder who it is,” he said lamely.

“I don't get it,” she said drowsily. “I never understood the mindset of Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanson. I just don't understand why anyone would betray their own country.”

“Me either,” Mullinax replied. Now that he could sense the walls closing in, the promise of money seemed so slight … a cheap, plastic reason for exchanging his honor. He wondered again if Claudia knew, if that was why she brought up Ames and Hanson: to see if she could suss out a motive from him.

She rolled over and cupped his chin, a beatific smile playing over her luscious lips. “Mmm, you're wonderful.”

No, he decided, Claudia wouldn't betray him. Claudia enjoyed teasing him and sexually tormenting him, but she was a trustworthy person. And she didn't know about his involvement with Koss or the dead Russians. He lay down beside her and held onto her like a life raft. He hoped that somehow her goodness would protect him, as if purity and wholesomeness were transferable.

She soon wiggled out of his arms and began to pull on her clothes.

“Claudia, can we have dinner sometime?”

She emitted a little bubble of laugher. “Here?”

“Somewhere nice. A real dinner.”

“Please don't tell me you've become sentimental about me.”

“I adore you.”

“Well, I adore you too. But that doesn't mean we should start dating.” She threw him a maternal look. “Anyway, you're still a young buck. Get out there and date girls your own age.”

He masked his disappointment and stood up to find his underwear. She watched him button his pants and pull on his shirt. He liked that adoring expression on her face, the awe she felt when she leered at his body. He wanted her to look at him as a man, not just a body, and gaze upon him with that same expression. As if she were looking at his heart or his soul.

Crazy. He was losing it. The stress was getting to him; that was all. He didn't need love. He just needed a little strength until Omar Koss got back in touch.

“You okay?” Claudia asked. A perplexed expression moved across her face like a shadow.

“I'm fine. Just tired.”

Claudia set her shoes on the bed and stepped over to him. “Are you concerned the mole is in the NSA?”

He forced a casual smile to his lips. “I'm concerned about the espionage in general. My guess is that the mole would be in the CIA. There's never been a spy at NSA.”

Claudia slid on her shoes, towering at almost six feet. “That we know about,” she said.

Fallon left the office at six o'clock and arrived at Blair House twenty minutes later. Her father was not available, but her mother was in residence. She sent her personal secretary to inform Fallon that she would not be down for dinner.

Fallon was actually thankful for that. Kendra informed her that Evan hadn't been outside all day because it was too cold. Fallon buried her rage and dressed him in his coat, wrangled mittens on his hands, and wrapped an airplane themed scarf around his neck.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

He nodded his head solemnly.

Fallon snatched a cap off the dresser and led Evan into the hallway.

Tom, who had been standing at the door, looked at them with a little bit of alarm.

She felt guilty for going out. Tom had told her that the Secret Service was a little shorthanded right now with both her family and the current president to protect. New agents had been temped over from Pennsylvania and New York, and more were arriving through the next week, culminating in a massive force on inauguration day. Going out tonight was going to stretch them even further. Not to mention she still had media following her everywhere, accusing her of murder.

Tom had been with her since six o'clock this morning; she wondered if he was working overtime for her.

“You know, we can use his Secret Service detail if you'd like,” Fallon offered. “You can leave.”

Tom smiled at that. “I'm not leaving until you're in the house for the night.”

“Okay then. We're going to the Kincaid Café.”

Fallon and Evan climbed into a limo and the cars rushed through the District toward a small, nondescript café that was reliably quiet—a good place to take Evan, who was easily overwhelmed in loud places. Fallon looked at his sweet, open face, as curious as a little otter. She loved him passionately and protectively, and maybe it was just the stress of the week, but tears came to her eyes. She gently took Evan's hand and held it. He looked at their hands, then at her.

“You're crying,” he announced.

Tom swiveled around in the front seat, searching her out in the dark.

“I'm okay,” she whispered and wiped at her cheeks.

In the darkness of the SUV, she could see Tom's concern and it touched her very much, even through her embarrassment.

At the café, Fallon asked for a quiet corner, not near the kitchen, and they were seated at a table that looked onto a treelined residential neighborhood. After she gave her order—a steak salad for herself and chicken fingers for Evan—she looked up at Tom by the door. He looked exactly like what he was—an invincible Secret Service agent whose penetrating green eyes never strayed from her.

Something had changed between them; some tension had been relieved. Though questions remained, and they never discussed the future, she felt his affection for her, his protectiveness.

“Delta added a new route today, from Atlanta to Tulsa.”

Fallon shifted into big sister role. She turned to Evan and smiled. “Did they? Why did they do that?”

“People in Georgia became curious about Oklahoma. The marketplace responded to demand and so they did that.”

Fallon smiled. “What are you curious about?”

“We lived in Montana,” he answered.

Fallon nodded. “Yep. You lived in Montana. Then you moved to Washington D.C.”

The food was served, and Evan tucked in. He was unusually chatty this evening, though he didn't really talk in any logical order. Fallon made a note to call his pediatrician in Montana to get a referral for a better specialist in D.C.

She idly wondered if she could sneak away with Evan to the family ranch in Montana for a few days before the inauguration. But in the next instant she flashed to the stack of work she'd brought from Johnson Sloan Pruitt, still in the limo, and she knew she couldn't leave. Her position in the company was already tenuous. And the DOJ might think her leaving the state was a provocative act. Last thing she wanted to do was instigate them.

For better of worse, this was her life right now. She just had to suck it up and live it.

After they dropped Evan back at the Blair House, the limos headed on to Georgetown to Fallon's loft. Tom walked with her into the building. In the elevator she leaned against the peach marble wall and closed her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She became aware of his warm breath, then the slowly resolving pressure of his lips against hers. Oh
yes
. How she just wanted to sink into the experience. She made a low, gratified sound in her throat and lifted her hand to his cheek. At the brush of his tongue against hers, her nerves began to fire. Funny how even in her state of fatigue, he could do to her what spring did to cherry trees. Warmth bloomed low in her belly.

It was late and his cheeks were a little rough under her palm; she had never seen him unshaven before. She found it quite sexy. He pulled away as the elevator stopped. Fallon followed Tom to her door.

“Can you come in?”

“Not supposed to, sweetheart. But if you want me to, I can probably get away with a few minutes.”

Fallon smiled, stepped inside, and held the door open for him. She dropped her purse on her bar and kicked off her heels. Tom towered over her. Strong, sexy, beautiful. She leaned gratefully into his broad chest. Tom hugged her, holding her tight in the warm safety of his arms and kissing the crown of her head. “You're so tired.”

“Put me to bed?”

Tom exhaled softly into her hair. “God, woman, what are you doing to me? Making me risk my job …”

She pulled back and looked into his face. He was smiling, teasing her.

“Come on, Avalon, let's get you to bed.”

He took her hand and led her up the stairs to the bedroom. She stood at the edge of the huge bed, swaying on her feet. Gently he kissed her lips again, and she allowed him to coax her mouth open, finding her tongue, drawing her into the kiss. His blunt fingertips began to unbutton her blouse, then gently pushed it from her shoulders. Fallon reached behind her back and unclasped her black satin brassiere, tossing it into a nearby chair. She stood very still, her breath frozen in her chest as she watched Tom's reaction. His warm hands gingerly held her breasts, his thumb brushing over her hardened nipples and sending currents of desire to her core. His fingertips played across her skin as if he thought she was made of fragile spun sugar. Down her sides his hands glided to her skirt. She stood still, letting him unclasp the buttons and tick down the zipper and finally tug it over her hips.

“Panties?” he asked.

Fallon shook her head. She'd begun sleeping nude again because she liked to remember Tom's kisses and touches on her bare skin. As he slid the scant garment down her bare legs, she studied his face and was surprised by the expression of awe etched on his features. He was gazing at her as if he'd never seen her naked before—as if he'd never seen any naked woman before. Awed and reverent.

“You are so beautiful.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I'm not.”

He held both her hands and looked down into her eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”

In the next instant, he swooped her up in his arms, making her yalp in surprise. He carried her as if she weighed nothing more than lace and tulle to the bed and placed her gently onto the white puff. He pulled the covers up to her shoulders, then turned off her lamp.

In the dim light from the hallway, Tom looked like a big, hulking, sexy Prince Charming. Arousal lit his face with that peculiar intensity, but he stubbornly refused to do more than admire her. That silly stubbornness. She suspected a broad swathe of it in his personality: a deep, broad bullheadedness. It seemed impossible that anyone would refuse him anything, but apparently he'd become practiced at getting his way … or denying himself, judging from the fact that he wasn't balls deep inside her right now. She wanted to laugh. Her body was exhausted, yet if he'd reached between her legs he'd have found her slippery and willing. He had a daunting effect on her. And she suspected that he knew it. She had never been good at masking her emotions and had no control whatsoever over the physiological magic of his gale force sexuality; pretending indifference to him was as impossible as growing wings. She was impressed by his restraint because a glance down at his crotch revealed a massive bulge that kicked up her heart rate.

He eased down beside her on the edge of the bed, his face suddenly grave. He began to pet her hair back from her forehead. The sweet, almost fatherly affection made her feel like a cat being stroked in the sunshine. She thought she heard him murmur something, but before she could reply, she was asleep.

As Tom left Fallon's loft, he felt he entered a switching station. Like Fallon, the past few days had been tiring, but he still had work ahead of him; he couldn't allow himself to be sidetracked by the sensual images of Fallon flashing in his mind, sending wild central nervous system flashes through his body. He'd wanted to lunge after her like a wild animal, but she seemed so out of it, so tired, that the lust had given way to those protective instincts. He had seen the open invitation in her eyes and politely declined so that she could rest. Sitting on her bedside, stroking her hair while she drifted off, he felt something even more ferocious than the furious intensity and possessiveness that seized him when they were making love: piercing, savoring gentleness. Affection shot through with elation.

Thoughts of Bethany drifted in. The pain was like a knife between his ribs. He hadn't been able to protect her that morning. He'd saved people, dragging them out of rubble, choking in the filthy air … but none of them had been Bethany. Even now, the loss was so acute that hot liquid dripped from his eyes.

In the years after her death, he had learned to love the agony. It had taken a while. At first he avoided it because it overwhelmed him and separated him from the rest of humanity—even his own humanity. Then he had come to rely on it because it was what he had instead of his wife. The raw pain was all he had left of that life and he protected it fiercely.

And it protected him. At least it had until Fallon. He felt shame at his own weakness and lack of professionalism—and the realization that his weakness was putting Fallon in danger. Until now, what separated him from the lowlifes he defended against was his professionalism and code of conduct. He was violating that big time with Fallon.

Maudlin bastard
. He angrily wiped tears away. Get your head in the game, Bishop. This is why you don't fuck your protectee, why you don't get involved with people. No matter how sexy. Or lovely.

At his condo, Tom changed from his G-man suit into black cargo pants and a black shirt. He ran his hands through his hair so it spiked out in a million directions. He hadn't shaved since that morning, and a scruffy scrape darkened his jaw. He grabbed his weapon and a leather jacket, then walked out to his Jeep. He drove to an address in southern Maryland.

Deep in an industrial corridor, it was a nondescript warehouse on the Anacostia River, surrounded on either side by abandoned freight yards. Despite the general abandoned look of the area, he knew he was in the right place because the shale parking lot was packed with cars.

Outside the corrugated metal doors, two huge Viking-looking guys stood sentry. Tom confidently walked up to them.

“Invitation?” Ogre One said.

“Yeah,” Tom replied. “I didn't print it out.”

“Can't let you in.”

Tom smiled thinly. “Fine. Tell them you turned away Phaze.”

The ogre blinked. “Oh. You're Phaze?”

Tom didn't answer, just delivered a flat, challenging expression. Phaze had been Antoine Campbell's hacking name; it had once been legendary. But it wasn't very well known anymore. According to Tom's research, Antoine had changed it to something else after his arrest.

The ogre nodded knowingly. “Okay, go in.”

Tom walked inside. A large dim room glowing with blue monitors opened before him. At the front of the room, someone was giving a presentation.

Tom had spent hours looking for anything he could find about Midnight Research, the hacking group the DOJ alleged Antoine Campbell had founded. He finally found a domain owned by the group, and on the domain was not a website but a menu tree of encrypted folders. Tom had asked Brett Hitchcock to decrypt them, and he had with no questions asked. Hitchcock had been taken aback by the sophistication of the encryption though. He'd managed to crack it but only after many tries.

In a folder labeled “Meetings,” a text document listed a time, date and address. Nothing else. Tom wasn't sure what to expect. Even with his relative ignorance about hacking and hacking groups like Anonymous, he was surprised there were so many people in attendance. Maybe fifty people huddled around their laptops and tablets. Tom was glad he'd thought to bring one.

He took a seat at a long table where four other people were watching the presentation. They were so engrossed with what was being said that they didn't even glance up.

Tom opened his laptop, trying to understand what he was hearing from the front of the room. It seemed impossibly complex, abstract, and cerebral—a mathematical forest of numbers and symbols that he could not penetrate.

After the talk, Tom joined the group in applause. The lights came up and a girl next to him, who could not be older than seventeen or so, looked at him curiously. She wore her black hair in buns on either side of her head tied with small, fluffy red pompoms. She was dressed in a plaid schoolgirl skirt, biker boots, and a shirt that looked like it was made out of a sheer silver fabric that looked metallic. Yet he was the weird one.

Tom stood up, slowly making his rounds through the throngs. Several people surrounded the man who had given the presentation, and through the shifting crowd, Tom made out that he was gregariously entertaining them all, and he seemed well-liked. To his surprise the man looked up, directly at Tom. Excusing himself, he advanced through the fan club to Tom.