Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (17 page)

“But--”

“Accessing car rental records, calculating rate of speed and possible directions, they could predict your probable destination.” He dismissed the idea. “That would explain the two men in San Francisco.”

“I have an official bolt hole there.”

He pressed his lips together and I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere with that line of thought. My usually flexible boss was being completely inflexible and I had to wonder why.

“What kind of intelligence made you think Staci Grant would be next, not me?” I’d been so concerned about using a cover with ties to Georgetown, I hadn’t asked many questions. I had just taken my mission parameters and run with them, busy making sure I wouldn’t come near Bella. “Communications intelligence through email or signals intelligence through coded communications?”

Carson shook his head and withheld the answer.

“Commint or sigint?” I pressed, fisting my hands with frustration, feeling the pressure mount. I forced my fingers to relax.

Finally, reluctantly, he said, “There was a significant increase in chatter but I can’t discuss the sources.” Which meant it exceeded my security clearance.

I followed my hunch. “Why’d you choose me to impersonate her?”

Carson seemed surprised by the question and he answered slowly, “Your general build, language skills, your location, your...commitment to the team.”

“What else do we have in common?”

“Nothing.” He frowned.

“Tell me what happened to her.”

“Staci?” The way he said her name seemed familiar, personal rather than objective. Carson shrugged, but I saw the evasion in his eyes. “She’d been doing work with a humanitarian organization responsible for removing land mines in Afghanistan when she was captured and imprisoned. There was an uprising at the prison and she was killed.”

“You’re sure?”

Sorrow spirited his eyes before they turned blank. “Oh yes.”

“Someone is taking care of her house.”

“Staci’s?” For the first time I’d managed to surprise him. His eyebrows lifted into the furrows in his forehead. “How do you know?”

“I went there to see what I could find out about her.” I got up and walked around the conference table. I trailed my finger along the gleaming polished wood. “Agents went into the house after her security alarm was disengaged.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea why someone is watching her house?”

“I don’t know.” Carson brushed lint from his pants, contemplating my revelations. “Did you find anything?”

I thought about the secret computer room, the files I’d taken, 5491 in specific. I knew I should share the information with Carson but he was acting too oddly to trust him. Something wasn’t right. “Someone is keeping up her house.”

“To what purpose?”

“I haven’t a clue.” Someone else was also impersonating Staci Grant. But I wanted to hold that information in reserve.

He stared out the window. I glanced out to see what was so fascinating. Even through two panes of bulletproof glass, five inches of sound deadening space, and a thin skin of copper, all to eliminate spying or electronic eavesdropping, I could see it was going to be one of those crisp, clear fall days. A day where the wind would ruffle leaves and sing in the sky but nothing out there should take precedence over our discussion.

“Am I done being Staci?” The request came out more plaintively than I anticipated. There were certain things I liked about her, the car, the clothes.

“Yes.” He nodded.

I removed the Staci badge from around my neck, dangling it from my fingers. “Do you have my badge?”

Carson slid it out of his breast pocket and pushed it across the polished wood.

I dreaded this next confession, because the consequences of losing the badge were extreme. I was going to have restricted access to the office until they could determine if security had been breached.

“They took all of my official weapons. GPS, firearm, Staci’s badge,” I confessed.

Now he frowned. “I don’t like that your weapon is missing.”

“Me either.” Personally, I’d been more concerned about the badge. “Focus here, Carson. Something stinks. They took Staci’s badge when I was abducted but I found it in my apartment.”

“Well, of course you did. I put it there.”

“You did?” Were my concerns about Carson off base? “You searched my apartment?”

“After we realized your abduction was different, I had a clean up team go over the abduction area. We returned Staci’s car to her house and I personally put the badge back in yours.”

“And searched my apartment,” I said again, wanting confirmation.

“Yes. I made sure you didn’t have any files there, anything incriminating...in case someone else figured out where you lived.”

He knew better. He’d taught me everything I know. “Of course not. Was anyone here unduly interested in my absence?”

“No. That’s why I told you to come home the long way. Hoping for some sort of lead, but there wasn’t anything.” Carson drummed his fingers on the table. “Any tails after you left San Francisco?”

“The pursuit seemed to stop after Sacramento.” We’d been off the grid. No credit cards. No rentals. Nothing to trace electronically.

“Do you have the evidence?” he asked abruptly. He added, “If we had the actual drug, we could get started on the analysis.”

My purse, with the cup wrapped inside, rested at my hip like a holster for a weapon. I fingered the zipper. A twinge of guilt pricked at me. I’d withheld the scientist files from the warehouse. I wanted more analysis before I handed them over. I didn’t put Barb in the report because I didn’t want her on anyone’s radar. I found myself strangely reluctant to hand over the liquid I had left. “My contact has already potentially identified the classification. Have you ever heard of gene therapy?”

“For treating cancer?”

“And other various conditions.” I censored my words cautiously. “She believes the drug will alter brain function but she wasn’t sure how.”

“This isn’t good.”

Isn’t good? It was a freaking disaster. Carson wasn’t reacting the way he should. This potential threat to agents was huge, yet he wasn’t throwing out hypotheticals or even speculating. Clearly, he was thinking about something but he wasn’t sharing whatever he’d linked together.

I hesitated, feeling very unsure, my internal sensors going crazy. But in the end, I followed my training. Besides I’d be able to get the results from Barb. I flipped open the purse and extracted the syringe and other cup of the drug. “Here’s the rest.”

“Excellent job.” Carson studied the evidence as I slid it across the table.

Carson peered at the liquid without touching the cup. “Why’d you abort?”

“It didn’t feel right.”

His perfectly shaped brow crooked. “You’re resorting to fairy tales now?”

Impatiently, I said, “Something was off about the whole operation. My abduction was far different than the others, starting with the cross country relocation.”

He tilted his head to the side, as if considering the information.

“Do you think they’ll try again?”

“I’m...not sure.” He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed me another ring, this one with an aquamarine stone. “But your abduction didn’t conform to their m.o. I’d suggest you wear this.”

“Same details?” Twist and press to activate the satellite audio transmission.

“Yes.”

I slipped the ring on quickly, the heavy weight of the platinum band strange on my finger.

“I’d appreciate your expense report on my desk as soon as possible.”

That was it? My mission was over? I hadn’t discovered who was kidnapping the agents. What if another one was abducted? “What about capturing the people responsible?”

“Your piece is done.” Carson’s tone was final.

“Let me keep working. There must be some link.” I pushed, pretty sure I knew where my request was going, but I had to confirm my suspicions. I was going to keep working on it. With or without his permission.

“There’s no link,” he said sharply. “The information you obtained will be disseminated and collated with the information from the other abductions.”

All the abductees had the 5491 designation but I wasn’t supposed to know that.

I wasn’t going to let this go. There was nothing in the general computer database about 5491. I didn’t know if it was a classification, some sort of code, maybe a hire date or a training class code, but every name in the mission file referenced it.

What the hell....

“Do you know anything about 5491?”

Panic flickered in his eyes before being ruthlessly subdued. “Never heard of it.”

He was lying.

Before he was contemplative and almost analytical about our conversation, but now there was tension. I wouldn’t get any more out of him through direct questioning. And pushing him further might raise his suspicions. One other issue weighed heavily on my mind. “Do you know anything about my parents and a tie company?”

He carefully smoothed a hand down his tie. “I believe not.”

He was lying. Again.

I could lie too. “I remember something about my parents having a fight...about a tie company.”

“I’m sure it was nothing.” He stood unhurriedly. “By the way, because you aborted your mission, you’re required to have an extra psych evaluation.”

It was standard operating procedure.

“I made an appointment for today at two o’clock.”

I usually made my own appointments. The change in the routine bothered me. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” He waved a hand dismissively. “But this is the first time you’ve ever backed away from mission parameters. I just want to make sure you’re on top of your game.”

Sports analogies.

Carson only used those when he was upset. It was his tell. He’d pushed me so hard to eradicate them that I’d always picked up on his only one.

I also realized he was trying to distract me from asking more questions. He pulled a dossier out of his jacket pocket, dragging my attention back.

“I’ve got the information you asked for on John Wishbone.” Lucas’s guy. I’d almost forgotten. A touch of guilt ran through me, but I ignored it. Lucas was not my responsibility.

“Anything interesting?”

“Well...he disappeared. No information about where or how. No evidence of foul play. It just looks like the boy took off.”

In the company of Staci Grant. Who was dead. Carson had left a lot of information out of that run down.

“Now to the information about your new friend.”

“Lucas?” In my report, I’d been completely honest about my initial contact and subsequent dealings with Lucas. However, I had left out my conflicting emotions regarding him. Something in my voice must have given me away.

“Have you formed an attachment to this man?”

“That would be ridiculous.” It would be.

“And inadvisable.”

Carson had taught me all I needed to know about espionage and developing assets while staying detached. He had indoctrinated me on the subject repeatedly when I had wanted to see my sister all those years ago.

“Here is what you need on him.”

A moment’s foreboding made me hesitate before I took the dossier from him. “He’s told me quite a bit himself.”

“Did he tell you he worked for the FBI?”

Of course he did.

“Did he also tell you he’d been the subject of an OPR review?”

Office of Professional Responsibility. The Bureau’s own version of internal affairs. That’s why Lucas hadn’t wanted to discuss leaving the FBI.

“What for?”

“You need to address your loyalties here, Jamie.”

I skimmed through the file quickly. “What does that mean?” I wanted him to spell it out for me, even though I’d already guessed.

“It means, he has a tainted record.” Carson paused, his hand on the doorknob. “We just had a scandal with Agent Johnson dying by the hand of a double agent. Assistant Director Armbruster himself is handling that one. We can’t afford another.”

His words sounded like a threat. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted my suspicions to go away. But Carson was making it impossible.

“I’d hate for years of your work, your reputation, to be jeopardized by associating with someone with questionable ties.”

I quelled the tremor in my hand, refusing to show any weakness, and repeated the question. “What does that mean?”

Carson opened the door slowly. “It means, you don’t want to deal with an investigation of your own.”

NINETEEN

I’d had time to process the threat from Carson on the way home, and I wasn’t happy.

I wanted to slam the steel door to my apartment, so I closed it with a gentle click. I wanted to rip something, someone, apart with my bare hands.

“What’s wrong?” Lucas lounged against the generic white wall, the seemingly casual pose at odds with his coiled, tense body. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, the lean muscles corded and bulged from the short sleeves of the tight black t-shirt.

I pressed forward crowding into his personal space. The heat from his body surrounded me like a force field. He’d put my existence, my
sister
in jeopardy--by withholding the reason he left the FBI.

“Why did you leave the FBI, Lucas?” I asked evenly.

He blinked. “What?”

I broke away from him and stalked into my living room, knowing he would follow. “Answer the question.”

“It’s not something I’m real fond of discussing.”

I wanted to chop his body into little pieces with my hands. I wanted to jam his balls so far up his ass that he couldn’t walk for a week. I wanted to...hurt him the way Carson’s words had struck at me.

“Gee. Wonder why.” My teeth may have been more clenched than I’d thought, for understanding dawned in his eyes. “Maybe because you were fired.”

Lucas’s face blanched. “Oh hell. I quit.”

“Under suspicion.” I wanted to prowl around the room. I longed to pick up one of my favorite books and hurl it at his head. So I forced myself to sit calmly on the tan sofa.

I took a deep breath. These feelings were inappropriate and counter-productive.

“The OPR investigation was a witch hunt.”

Did he have any idea what associating with him for the past four days would get me if anyone at the NSA, besides Carson, found out? Automatic suspension. A check into my background, all the dealings I’d had for an indeterminate time prior to suspension. If I didn’t have my job, my clearance, I couldn’t protect my sister.