On The Rocks (10 page)

God, she needed a do over for this
day...

“Thank you, Agent Connolly.”

“Scope, Hayford. You can’t see all sides of
a problem if you only focus on one.” His bushy brows lifted as if
to say “Understand?” Then he spun in his chair and addressed the
other people in the room. “Come on over. SOO Hayford’ll bring you
up to speed.”

Lennox peeled himself from the wall,
intentionally brushing Kizzie’s legs with his own as he went by. A
smirk on his lips, he pinned Rachel with a lecherous stare, gaze
deliberately roaming over her face, down to her hips, and back up
again.

Rachel rolled her eyes. Now she understood
why Kizzie kept that barrel pointed in his direction. The Tates of
the world were a dime a dozen in the various departments of
defense. The type who gorged on adrenaline and got drunk on
testosterone; would rather introduce a girl to his bed than his
parents. She’d met her fair share in the CIA alone, though most had
the good sense not to openly flaunt their skeeviness.

Tate dropped into a plush chair and pushed
the one beside him away with his boot. Glancing over his shoulder,
he gave the seat two firm pats.

Kizzie took a chair on the other side of
Bill— the one farthest from Lennox.

“SOO?” she asked. “Where’s Fletch?”

Where, indeed…

“Dou— SOO Fletcher is currently on
leave.”

“You can’t lie for shit,” Lennox said.
“How’d you pass the entrance exam, lady? Lying is mission critical
in the world of covert operations. Ain’t that right, Bill?”

“Hayford, floor’s yours,” Bill said
evenly.

Lying might be mission critical, but
ignoring Lennox appeared to be standard operating procedure. Rachel
got on board with that quickly.

With a swipe of her finger on the screen, a
mugshot showed on the tablet. Though only his face and a portion of
his chest were visible, the demarcations behind the man put him at
around six-three. Solid build, silky black hair rumpled in this
image. His handsome face looked a bit drowsy.

“This is Sanzio Galletti,” she announced. A
low groan sounded behind her. “I take it you remember him, Agent
Baldwin?”

“Never forget an asshole,” Kizzie muttered,
directing the comment toward Lennox.

Yep. Those two were going to kill each other
before the end of this presentation.

“I’m not sure what you did, agent, but
Sanzio spent almost six days in jail after you paid him a
visit.”

“I’ve got that effect on people,” Kizzie
muttered.

Rachel advanced the slide and kept talking.
“This is his older brother, Abrahan.”

Abrahan was also tall and just as solid, but
the similarities between the brothers ended there. He didn’t get
the good looks that Sanzio had in spades. Though only six years
older, Abrahan’s hair was thin and receding. His eyes held all the
warmth of a glacier, his thick nose had been broken a time or two
and improperly reset, and he was noticeably absent an—

“Is he missing an ear?” Kizzie asked.

Rachel nodded.

The brothers grew up in the slums of Belém,
a major port city for drug trafficking. A number of street gangs
cropped up selling dope to the hopeless. Abrahan ran with one of
these gangs—
Os Cães:
The Dogs
.

He started as a low-level lookout, and by
eighteen he was a relatively high-ranking member, working as an
informant. Sort of a ‘hood liaison, the linchpin in the network.
His job was to handle all communications to and from rival gangs,
gather Intel
about
rival gangs, drug shipments, weapons, and
law enforcement, and pass that on to members higher up in the food
chain. He had the typical “blood in, blood out” loyalty to The
Dogs, trumped only by his love and protectiveness for his little
brother.

Against Abrahan’s wishes, Sanzio joined The
Dogs as a runner at the age of twelve. He screwed up almost
immediately. The hows and whys of that were unclear, but Sanzio
ended up with a bounty on his head, and
all
infractions
against The Dogs resulted in death.

Abrahan couldn’t let that happen, so he
petitioned their leader and demanded to take his brother’s place.
Problem was, Abrahan was too valuable to the gang to kill, but
according to the bylaws blood had to be spilled. As punishment,
Abrahan had his ear cropped.

That turned Abrahan against
Os Cães
.
Slowly —
carefully
— the enterprising teen started selling
info about The Dogs to their rivals. He also knew which cops were
dirty, and which were downright filthy, creating another avenue for
selling and gathering Intel. He played all sides and won,
eventually moving he and his brother out of Belém three years later
without rousing the suspicions of anyone involved.

“Everybody tracking so far?” Rachel
asked.

“Gang informant, lost an ear, out of Belém,”
Kizzie offered.

Good.

Rachel’s nerves calmed, and she finally felt
like she’d regained control over the mission.

“This was taken two days ago.” A new photo
came up on the screen. Though several people were in the frame,
three were the focus. “That’s Abrahan to the right, and Sanzio
beside him.”

The two men were in motion, coming across a
huge cobblestone driveway. A thin woman trailed behind them, dark
hair pulled over one shoulder and a colorful scarf tied fashionably
around her head. Huge sunglasses covered her eyes, so no other
details were discernible.

“Where was this taken?” Kizzie asked.

“Amalfi, Italy. Coordinates put them at a
place called
La Casa Sulle Rocce
. Prior to this, we hadn’t
had a sighting of Abrahan in almost two years. Sanzio, about the
same— before you got to him, Agent Baldwin. We assumed they were
both in Brazil and focused all of our energy there.

“This photo is the biggest break we’ve had
in this case. It, and all the Intel we’ve obtained of late, is
because of what you did in Belém.”

Lennox whipped his head toward Bill, the
move so quick Rachel startled. “You sent her back.”

Question or statement? Always hard to tell
with this bunch. Either way, it was low and lethal. Bill ignored
him, motioning to Rachel with a nod.

“That’s cold.” Head shaking, Lennox crossed
his arms over his chest. “Even for you, Bill, that’s cold.”

The air in the room seemed to drop a couple
hundred degrees. Lennox had his hard gaze on Kizzie, like he was
willing her to look at him, but the woman didn’t give him the
satisfaction.

Whatever that was about, no one was
talking.

“Umm…” Rachel cleared her throat. “Sanzio
tossed the phone in Belém. But he’s still getting multimedia
messages from that unidentified sender.”

“Question,” Lennox cut in, bucking his chin
toward the wall. “Who’s the woman?”

Of course that would be his only
concern.

“We’re awaiting confirmation, but—”

“Sabine Mansoor,” Bill stated. “Abrahan’s
wife. Owns a jewelry store selling rather expensive gems to the
tourist set that visits the coastline.”

Rachel frowned. How was it that she didn’t
have this Intel? She was lead on this, at least by Langley’s
standards if not by Bill’s. Just yesterday evening she’d spoken to
an analyst about the woman’s identity and met a brick wall.

“Mansoor has been a person of interest for a
few years, but hard to track. Father’s Liberian with links to
terrorism, mother is an American expat and sympathizer living in
Rome. Though she’s never been in trouble, to find her teamed up
with Galletti leads me to believe she and the jewelry store are a
likely front for his operations. Mansoor—” Bill angled his head.
“Everything all right, Hayford?”

“Langley sent you Intel without consulting
me?”

The move further undermined her authority
here, which was shaky to begin with. It was also completely out of
character for the CIA and their love of the chain of command. An
odd sensation flitted through her belly, the one she got whenever
she felt a confrontation coming on, but she breathed through it,
meeting Bill’s eyes as she awaited an answer.

“Respectfully, Hayford, I have contacts with
clearances that trump yours, and have for decades. It’s imperative
given my agents have to make decisions that can’t always wait for
the bureaucratic red tape to get picked at on your end. That said,
let me repeat, we are on the same side. How the job gets done
doesn’t matter so long as the job gets done.”

Heat scalded her checks at being scolded yet
again. Bill was absolutely right. The CIA consisted of individuals
working various jobs that contributed to the whole. So long as the
cogs turned and everyone did their part, the machine ran
smoothly.

Until it didn’t.

Which brought them to her next point.

“Right. So, Abrahan, Sanzio, and Sabine.
Information dealers, with a jewelry store as a possible front to
launder money…?” She pondered that a moment, flicked her wrist
toward the photo. “The most important person in this equation is
the one individual not shown here. Their source.”

Rachel advanced the slide, and a single word
in thick bold letters replaced the three people in the rectangle.
Then she turned toward her team. Lennox stared at the screen with
little interest, just as he’d done throughout the meeting. Ditto
for Kizzie. Apparently, neither recognized the name, or the immense
threat they were dealing with.

But Bill did.

His eyes rounded, the blue balls alert in
the bright white sea surrounding them. “Are you sure?”

Ah, so those superior contacts at the CIA
hadn’t divulged this bit of Intel…

That gave her a little thrill. Felt good to
be a step ahead for the first time today. She yanked off the
sunglasses and tossed them on the table.

“Absolutely certain. The crypto team pulled
this from the coded pictures sent to Sanzio’s cell phone.”

“Someone want to clue me in on what the
fuck’s a Metis?” Lennox said.

“It’s Greek. Means ‘combining wisdom and
cunning’,” Rachel responded.

“And that’s exactly what we’re dealing
with,” Bill jumped in. “But this Metis isn’t a what, it’s a
who.”

“Vegetable, animal, mineral…” Lennox
shrugged, “I don’t really care. Get to the point.”

“Metis is rumored to be the most dangerous
mole ever to infiltrate the CIA.” The room fell silent a brief
moment. She could actually do this. Get them in and out of the
lion’s den before the kitty even realized they were there. The
nervous energy seeped from her blood, replaced by an eagerness to
get things moving.

Hands on the table, Rachel leaned into her
arms and stared Lennox down. “And you and Agent Baldwin are going
to help us catch him.”

Chuckling sounded beside her and Rachel
twisted her head.

“No, Agent Hayford,” Kizzie said, “I’m
not.”

“I’M SORRY?”

KIZZIE rolled back her chair and spun away
from the round table. Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere here could
have at it. This knight didn’t need no stinkin’ grail quest. “I’m
out.”

Rachel scrunched up her nose like English
wasn’t her fifth language let alone her first. But Kizzie was
speaking the Queen’s own. If Rachel wasn’t fluent, that was her
problem.

“I don’t… understand…”

“Out,” she repeated firmly. The safety of
her Beretta engaged, she slid the handgun into the holster at her
back. “As in, ‘thank you for considering me for the position, but I
respectfully decline’. Or, for those short on time, ‘deuces’.”

At the couch, she threaded her arms through
the straps of her rucksack and slammed Xander’s cap back in place.
To Rachel, “Good luck with all this.” To Lennox, she said nothing.
And to Bill, “Call me when—”

“Sit down, Baldwin,” Bill said softly.

Not happening. If she sat she’d get talked
into going, and she wasn’t up for being convinced. Turning the
mission down was hard enough, but the last few days taught her that
sometimes she had to put herself before the job or she'd live to
regret it.

Still, she respected her handler too much to
just walk off like a rude teenager.

“Look, I know I never pass on an op, Bill,
but I’m passing on this one. Find someone else to plant a tracer in
Abrahan, or whatever it is you need done. They do it right, they
can tag the woman, too. And then you’ll have access to the entire
Galletti clan.”

“We don’t need
him
tagged, per se. We
need his phone. Maybe his computer.”

“Great! Have him arrested and extradited.
The phone gets confiscated, we save taxpayers some money, and we
keep Kizzie from having to spend another second in Tate's presence.
That’s what I call the trifecta of win-win situations.”

The grimace on Rachel’s face didn’t look
promising. “Unfortunately, the US and Italy don’t have the best
record of respecting or enforcing our extradition treaties.”

Kizzie’s head fell back on her neck and she
groaned at the ceiling. Some days, it really felt like America was
the kid nobody wanted to play with ‘cause he ate his boogers. Eyes
still watching God, she set her hands on her hips and exhaled on a
whoosh. “There’s gotta be another way to get to Galletti that
doesn’t involve me.”

“This is so much bigger than him,” Rachel
said. “Six years ago, we had three agents working deep cover within
a dissident group based in Singapore. They were prepared to bring
down an intermediary that would get us one step closer to the
moneyman. Instead of a sure victory, two of the agents were KIA,
the other is still missing. That’s because Metis leaked their
info.

“Similar stories have happened around the
globe. We always come in too late and always find a link back to
Metis, thin as it may be. The man’s perfected covering his trail.
He’s like… a chameleon. Blending in at the Agency so well no one’s
noticed he’s there.”