Dangerous Ground 2: Old Poison (6 page)

* * * *

They left the house at the same time, Will opening the side door of the SUV for Riley to jump in. He was stopping by his house in Woodland Hills to drop the dog off and then heading down to San Diego. San Diego and David Bradley. Taylor was determined to be practical about that; he believed Will when Will said he hadn't volunteered for the assignment with Bradley.

Granted, Will hadn't refused the assignment either. But Will never refused assignments.

Either way, this was good-bye, probably for what was going to be a long and stressful week. It was a five-hour drive to San Diego, and Will would be working late most nights, so it was unlikely they'd spend any real time together before next weekend.

Taylor was determined not to be an asshole about it. He'd already been there and done that on Saturday.

“Bye,” he said briskly as Will leaned in to kiss him. “Talk to you later.”

Will's mouth was firm, his kiss a statement that everything was good and normal between them. Taylor turned away, going to his Acura and unlocking the door, sliding behind the wheel.

He spotted a folded sheet of white paper beneath the wiper blades, and he leaned over, tugging it free.

Japanese kanji. Precise black characters on a field of white.

He stared at it for a long time.

Vaguely, he was aware of Will getting back out of his vehicle, the scrape of boots on cement.

“What's up?”

Taylor looked up blankly. How the hell did Will know there was a problem? He did, though.

Without speaking he handed the folded sheet to Will.

Will scanned it. “What do you make of it?”

Taylor shook his head.

“Do you know what it says?”

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Josh Lanyon

Another shake. His oral Japanese wasn't great; his written, even worse. He knew the necessary minimum to find his way around the city and work efficiently within the confines of the American embassy; that was about it.

“Advertising flyer from the Red Dragon?” Will suggested.

“We took your car.”

Will considered this and shrugged.

Well, he had a point. The alternative was too bizarre to consider. Taylor got out of the Acura, circled it, checking his vehicle to see if someone had backed into him or scratched his paint job on Friday while he'd been out shopping, and maybe he hadn't noticed.

Everything looked fine.

Riley poked his nose out the window of Will's Land Cruiser, snuffling at him.

“Hey, Riley,” Taylor murmured absently. He returned to Will, who was watching him curiously. He retrieved the note from Will's hand—Will letting go reluctantly.

“Everything okay?” Will asked.

“Of course.” Taylor opened the Acura door, climbed in, shoved the note into his glove compartment. In his rearview he watched Will walk back, get inside the navy blue Land Cruiser.

Taylor pressed the automatic opener, and the security gate slid slowly open across the driveway.

Will nodded to him in his rearview before putting his vehicle into gear. Taylor nodded back.

It was weird, though. If that note hadn't been there on Friday afternoon—and Taylor was pretty sure it hadn't—someone had climbed over the gate and bypassed Will's Land Cruiser to tuck this note on Taylor's windshield.

Why?

* * * *

Denise Varga was small, dark, and bellicose. She had probably had to fight—and fight hard—be taken seriously in the mostly all-male world of international security, and it had left a sizable chip on the shoulder of her Anne Klein onyx suit. She made a point of never making the simple, courteous gestures of one coworker to another in case anyone mistook her for a woman.

She charged out of doors first, letting them slam in her male coworkers' faces, she never made or Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

35

bought anyone coffee when she got her own, she interrupted and talked over and contradicted. It was hard working with her. It felt like penance.

Taylor would have preferred to work on his own, but that idea was shot down instantly by Assistant Field Officer Director Greg Cooper, who welcomed Taylor back to active duty and informed him he'd be working with Special Agent Varga until further notice.

“Further notice?” Taylor had repeated woodenly.

“We'll see how it goes,” Cooper said, shuffling papers.

Taylor was smart enough to nod and keep silent. If Cooper did suspect that Will and Taylor's relationship had changed, and that that change might ultimately conflict with their loyalties to the DS, any objection would hammer the last nail into the coffin of their partnership.

He listened unemotionally to their briefing, let Varga do all the bitching about the fact they were being landed with a low-profile babysitting job. Varga was taking it personally, as she did pretty much everything. She didn't actually accuse Cooper of sexism, but she wasn't far from it.

Taylor actually closed his eyes at one point, anticipating the explosion.

When he opened them again, Cooper was watching him, and he had the impression the AD

was trying to keep a straight face. Cooper wasn't too bad a guy, even if he did play it—every play you could think of—strictly by the book. He heard Varga out unemotionally, was not swayed an iota, and sent them on their merry way.

In the car—Varga's car, which Varga insisted on driving—she announced, “I know you don't want to work with me, MacAllister. For the record, I don't want to work with you either.”

“Who do you want to work with?” Taylor asked out of curiosity. That seemed to take Varga by surprise.

She said shortly, “I'd prefer to work alone.”

Taylor nodded politely and settled in for what was sure to be a long, long week.

They had been assigned to protect Madame Sabine Kasambala, the very young and very beautiful wife of a cabinet minister of the African island nation of Comoros. Comoros had about as screwed up a political situation as could be imagined, and it seemed to have revolutions about every fifteen minutes as far as Taylor could make out. Death threats were routine, even de rigueur, and Madame was far less interested in arrangements for her safety than possible diplomatic discounts the DS might be able to arrange for her with Beverly Hills boutiques.

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Josh Lanyon

Varga's stony professionalism scored zero points with their charge, and it was left to Taylor to try and charm Madame into cooperating. He was not particularly good at working the charm; that was generally Will's forte. In fact, Taylor had the uncomfortable feeling that one reason he didn't like Varga was she reminded him a little too much of himself.

He did his best, though, and by eleven o'clock they were trotting Madame in and out of the famous shops along Rodeo Drive, a three-block obstacle course of palm trees, lampposts, flower urns, expensive cars, and self-absorbed people.

* * * *

In or out of uniform, Lieutenant Commander David Bradley was a big, handsome bear of a man. He did look exceptionally handsome in his naval uniform. He had a silky dark beard, warm brown eyes, and a sexy growl of a voice.

“Good to see you, Will,” he said when Will was shown into his office at Naval Base San Diego just before lunch on Monday morning.

They shook hands, and Bradley's grip lingered just a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary. His smile was white in his tanned face, his gaze friendly if rueful.

“It's great to see you, David,” Will said. He meant it. He was grateful that Bradley wasn't being difficult about the awkward way things had ended between them. It wouldn't have been unreasonable if he'd held maybe a bit of a grudge.

Will had broken their budding relationship off at the stem after Taylor had been shot. As much as he liked Bradley—and Will liked him very much—he had been guilt stricken at the knowledge that one reason Taylor had been shot had almost certainly been because he was distracted and upset over Will's relationship with the other man.

The idea of ever doing anything to upset Taylor again had been unthinkable in those first few days when his life had been hanging by a thread. Then later Will had been preoccupied with hunting down the men (boys, as it turned out) who had shot his partner—and keeping up the spirits of that same partner while he was stuck in the hospital.

So he'd called Bradley and apologetically told him he just wasn't at a place in his life where he could focus on a relationship, blaming the pressures of work and a sidelined partner. Bradley had been understanding, accepting Will's decision with maturity and dignity. It had been excruciating, because Will really had thought he and Bradley might have something together.

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But by then Taylor was recovering, and Will's attention and focus were on getting his partner back.

He had wanted Taylor back with a ferocity that surprised even Will. To this day the depth and power of his feelings for Taylor took him aback.

But seeing Bradley again, he couldn't help thinking what an easy natural match they would have been. He and Bradley were a lot alike.

“How've you been?” Bradley asked as they took chairs on either side of his well-organized desk.

“Very good,” Will said. “You?”

He was disconcerted at the way Bradley was smiling at him. There seemed to be such a wealth of liking and understanding there.

“Good. Great. Busy time for us right now.” There was a twinkle in Bradley's eyes as he added, “I never did get around to camping on Catalina.”

Will's face felt warm. He and Bradley had planned a camping trip at Black Jack campground on Santa Catalina Island. Unlike Taylor, Bradley loved camping as much as Will, and they'd had nearly as good a time planning their trip to the pines and eucalyptus trees of Mt.

Orizaba as they would have had making that trip.

If they
had
made that trip, Will was pretty sure their relationship would have reached a turning point, moved into deeper waters. But it was not to be. And Will had no real regrets.

Bradley continued to smile at him in the old open way. “Why don't we grab some lunch and talk the case over?” he suggested.

Bradley drove them to an off-base steak house for lunch. They ordered prime rib sandwiches and got down to brass tacks.

Naval Station San Diego provided shore support and berthing facilities to the operating forces of the US Pacific Fleet. Over fifty ships called NAVSTA home, with more than fifty tenant commands at the NAVSTA. The base population exceeded thirty-five thousand military personnel and in excess of seven thousand civilians. Needless to say, security was an issue for a naval station that had grown to be one of the largest surface-force support installations in the world.

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Josh Lanyon

Will pounded ketchup out of the bottle onto his fries and said, “Okay, so to cut through the bullshit, we think we're looking at illegal Mexican nationals using forged documents to gain access to the Thirty-second Street Naval Station?”

Bradley agreed. “Originally we thought illegal aliens were using fraudulent passports to get other documents like drivers' licenses, ID cards, car registrations, and the like in order to unlawfully gain employment in San Diego's concrete construction industry.”

“But the passports aren't fraudulent.”

“According to your people.”

Will grinned. David's return smile was reluctant.

“The passports aren't fraudulent,” Will said. “However, we've got a line on the guy some of these nationals were going to for these additional documents. Jose Valz runs a side business helping Hispanic immigrants obtain legal documents so they can work in the concrete construction industry—where he's also employed.”

Bradley's eyes lit with interest. “You're after Valz?”

Will nodded. “We want Valz. He's made false statements regarding his status on I-9 forms.

He claimed to be a United States citizen. He claimed he was a lawful permanent resident. And he provided documentation that concealed his true immigration status as an alien in temporary protected status.”

Bradley held up his empty beer bottle in question.

Will shook his head. “Valz's false statements not only allowed him to fraudulently obtain employment but also allowed him to obtain a US Navy badge that grants him access to all the naval bases in the region.”

“We're going after Valz,” Bradley said grimly.

Somebody had to. But it was going to be a long and probably dull week. Will wondered how Taylor was faring his first day back on active duty. Then he had to bite back an inward grin at the idea of Taylor partnered with Varga. Talk about two peas in a pod.

As though reading his mind, Bradley said suddenly, “Your partner never made it back, I take it?”

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Will was startled at the stab of emotion that went through him at the idea of Taylor not making it back. He wasn't sure he was ever going to get over the memory of seeing Taylor shot and dying on that stockroom floor. Will couldn't understand it. He had been in the marines; he'd seen men die. He'd lost friends. It had been ugly, painful, but none of it shook him to the marrow the way seeing Taylor shot had. He wasn't given much to praying, but he'd prayed then. It wasn't very often your prayers were answered; he knew to count his blessings.

“He's back on active duty now,” he said calmly. “We're just working different cases at the moment.”

The old unease about what was happening with Taylor when Will wasn't there to watch his back returned. Not that Taylor wasn't very good at taking care of himself—with one notable exception. Will's separation anxiety made no sense.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Bradley asked casually.