Operation Sheba (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

A vague sense of relief washed over Julia as she absentmindedly walked around the room’s nerve center filled with computer screens, faxes and phones, and breathed in the familiar stale office air. A smattering of dedicated men and women from the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service were bent over various electronic equipment and piles of paper, all giving up a weekend afternoon to work toward a common goal. Keep America safe.

It had been her goal too for all these years. CIA Headquarters was a place that had offered refuge to her, and up to now, had provided reinforcement in her psyche that her country
was
a safer place because of these quiet but extraordinary guards.

But now she wondered as she passed the cubicles partitioned off for bin Laden and Hezbollah, what harm was coming out of these walls? The shadow CIA was effectively crippling the United States’ intelligence community and no one but a couple of men, highly skilled yes, but ordinary men nonetheless, knew the specifics of what was happening.

Throwing her backpack on her desk, Julia ignored the weekend’s dump of intelligence information on it. She was already late for lunch with Michael, and she knew Con was probably wondering what the hell she was doing, but she needed to check her desk and get a personal item out of it before she started the whole charade to expose Susan. If she didn’t, she would not most likely get it back.

Julia bent down and shuffled through the contents of her bottom desk drawer. Under the miscellaneous files and tech manuals lay a picture. She stared at it for a second, a snapshot of her previous life.

April in Paris. She’d been so happy. Con had been happy then too, but there he was in the picture, angry with her for taking it, all dark and forbidding and looking like the Devil himself. But she’d won out over his anger, took the picture, and had kept the only picture she had of him all these years.

April in Paris. Long walks in the dead of night. Words of love and commitment filling her ears while her heart seemed to expand until it would burst.

April in Paris. Cherry blossoms falling from the trees in Luxembourg Gardens as she and Conrad hid underneath the canopy in the darkness and made up a fantasy life for themselves that didn’t involve the CIA. Back at her flat, he laughed at her as she lay on the bed with cherry blossoms still stuck in her hair. God, she loved making the Great Conrad Flynn laugh.

She had known at that moment that she was living a life many women dreamed about but never experienced. She was attractive, intelligent and successful, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted to be the woman with cherry blossoms stuck in her hair, making Conrad laugh for the rest of his life.

It hadn’t happened. Her future with him had been ripped away shortly after that by the unseen force manipulating the CIA. All her dreams, all her success, reduced to ashes.

Julia swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to draw Susan out and turn her over to Michael and Titus Allen as soon as possible. She couldn’t,
wouldn’t
, let Susan win. Shoving the picture in her jacket pocket, Julia closed the desk drawer and stood up.

When she, Conrad and Smitty exposed Susan, Julia knew she’d have a lot of explaining to do. She might even be asked to leave the CIA and she certainly would have to switch departments because of Michael. She wouldn’t be able to face him every day once all her secrets were out on the table. He truly would never trust her again and her status as top analyst would be forfeited. Julia’s heart sank at the thought. She stood for a long minute, looking at her desk, all the puzzles piled on it, and wondered for the first time what she would do after this was all over. She’d been so wrapped up in her happiness with Con and so determined to figure out how to bring Susan to justice, she hadn’t really considered what would be left of her career.

Susan has successfully managed to ruin my relationship with Michael and cripple my career
. She shoved her hands in her pockets, felt the listening devices still in them and remembered Smitty’s advice. Suddenly the thought of bugging Susan’s office was overwhelmingly appealing.

Susan’s Cadillac was in the below-ground parking garage and Julia knew that running into her right now could blow her only chance to play her cards successfully. But if this was her last time in the halls of the CIA, she figured she might as well make it worthwhile.

Behind the glass walls of Susan’s office, Julia could see evidence the CTC chief had been in her room and was planning to return. The lights were on. A bottle of Evian was sweating on the desktop. A stack of papers on the desk rustled lightly from the breeze generated by a small fan positioned on a filing cabinet in the corner of the room.

Julia stopped outside the closed door and forced herself not to look up at the security camera in the corner of the hallway. Susan was probably running down information somewhere else in the building. She could be back in minutes or it could be hours.

Julia’s heart hammered. A tickling urgency was tightening the muscles in her stomach. She didn’t have hours, that she was sure of. And she didn’t want to run into Susan if she could avoid her.

As she stared at the doorknob, Julia’s fingers toyed with a listening device in the pocket of her jacket. She knew the code to open Susan’s door. She had figured out the code to Michael’s too. It had been nothing more than a game to her before today, and she’d never seriously considered using the codes. They changed them every few months, and it didn’t take a member of the Geek Squad to figure it out. Shifting her feet, Julia let her gaze go up and down the hallway, acting as if she were simply waiting for Susan to return. Could she bug the CIA’s counterterrorism director’s office and get away with it?

Of course she
could
bug Susan’s office, the real question was,
should
she bug Susan’s office? No matter what the reason behind it, bugging any office in this agency was a serious breach of conduct, sure to earn her an immediate dismissal…

Taking a deep breath, Julia cut her eyes left and then right to check again if anyone was nearby. Seeing the coast was clear, she pressed her fingers to the coded key entry. The doorknob turned free and Julia felt cool air from the fan touch her face as she entered the office.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Two were bulky, their dull camouflage-green covers worn and nearly falling apart. They were labeled as the official personnel files of Ryan Smith and Conrad Flynn. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided she dared not open either for fear of losing herself in information. The other two folders were slim and had nice, new covers. One was labeled
Julia Torrison/Abigail Quinn
, the other
Operation: Sheba
.

Her hands shook as she slipped the listening device from her pocket and secured it under Susan’s desk. After activating it, she returned her attention to the file with her name on it and used a fingernail to carefully lift the cover. The first page was her bio and a black and white headshot of her. She flipped to the next page. Scanning the text, she realized it was a greatly edited version of her career in the CIA. No mention of the official covert operations she’d worked in Europe or her partnership with Conrad. In two brief pages, her time as an employee at the American Embassy in Paris and her return to Langley was summarized in cold, bureaucratic language.

Behind the last page was a collection of memos stuffed in the file folder’s back pocket. Julia scanned the first one dated October 2006, a month after Flynn’s death and her return to CIA Headquarters. It was from Susan Richardson to Benito Raines.

Initiate random surveillance checks on Abigail Quinn immediately. Currently appears emotionally unstable. May reach out to family or close friends. I am concerned about breaches of security…

Benito’s reply was dated three weeks later.

Chief/CTC: No security breaches witnessed. Subject sticks to routine between work and apartment. Has not contacted anyone outside of headquarters with exception of brother, Eric. Discussion centered around his two children…

The next memo came again from Richmond, five months later.

Quinn has begun relationship with DO. National security issues at risk. Per DDCI’s request, investigate discreetly and advise me of improper conduct by either party.

The papers trembled in Julia’s shaking hand and a chill ran over her body. Damn. Jurgen Damgaard, the Deputy Director of the CIA, and Ben Raines knew about her relationship with Michael. Worse, Susan had them suspecting her of pumping him for classified information.

Plan A,
Julia told herself
.

She flipped to the next memo, this one again from Raines.

Chief/CTC: DO continues to be discreet with operational matters when Torrison visits. There is occasional pillow talk, but nothing damaging to the Agency or national security. Audio is available for your review.

Pillow talk? Audio is available? Was Raines listening to her and Michael in bed? Nice. While it was doubtful Raines could have bugged Michael’s house, he did have access to directional microphones and had had Jurgen Damgaard’s okay to use them. Wait ’til Michael found out about that.

Julia pulled the memos out, rolled them and stuck them in the back of her waistband. As long as she was burning bridges by illegally bugging her boss’s office, she might as well steal a few pieces of classified material as well.

She carefully pushed the folder over and looked at the cover of the next one.
Operation: Sheba
. Julia felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Was this more of Plan A?

Again using a well-manicured fingernail, she opened the folder and began to read.

The chill of trepidation froze her blood.

Ace’s Mortuary

“Still nothing?”

Smitty shook his head and cracked his knuckles. “Nothing. All I get is static. Either she hasn’t installed any of the listening devices yet or she installed them incorrectly.”

Conrad started pacing again, but this time it was across cold, hard linoleum. The basement of Ace’s Mortuary was not exactly the Taj Mahal, but it worked better than the back of a van for cover and it was closer to CIA headquarters and Stone’s house than Julia’s apartment building. The only thing he couldn’t stand was the smell.

“Julia knows how to plant a bug.” Conrad wished he had a cigarette to burn and block the smell of antiseptic and embalming fluid. Wished he hadn’t let the woman he loved take off on her own. Wished that just
one
of the freakin’ bugs would start transmitting so he didn’t have to say out loud and confirm what they all were thinking. Julia wasn’t following through with her part of the plan.

She’d said she was going to Stone’s place and then she’d gone to Langley. Conrad didn’t know what she was doing and when he called her cell phone all he got was her voice mail. Her phone was off. She hadn’t performed an undercover operation for years and while part of him believed she could handle anything that went down, another was totally freaking out that she was in danger.

And he was the person who’d put her there after spending the last seventeen months trying to keep her safe.

“Y’know what I don’t get, Connie?” Ace said, spinning himself around on one the ancient medical stools he had managed to steal somewhere along the line. “Doesn’t Big Mike think it’s weird his girlfriend sleeps in your underwear?” He stopped to shoot an inquisitive look at Flynn.

Conrad let his head fall back on his shoulders and wished he’d never shared that bit of trivia with his newest partner. He gave careful consideration to yelling,
I don’t give a damn what Big Mike thinks
, but realized, as he looked over at the twenty-eight-year-old mortician, that he wasn’t joking or teasing with Conrad. As always, he was totally sincere.

Conrad swallowed the yell and shrugged. Now that he thought about it, it was kind of weird. But what struck him as even weirder was that his underwear had actually fit Julia. Sure it had seemed a little loose around the waist, but…
She must have shrunk them
.

He walked over to look out the ground-level window, wishing again he’d followed her. Wishing he’d hid himself in the car with her. Wishing she hadn’t changed the game plan without telling him why.

The receiver popped behind Smitty and all three men jumped, turning to look at it. In the dead silence of the mortuary’s basement, they heard the sound of a small motor and then the quiet shuffling of papers. Smitty hit the Record button on the nearby tape deck and turned to Conrad with a lifted eyebrow.

That’s my girl
, Conrad thought with relief. She’d bugged an office at Langley. Susan’s office, no doubt. He felt a stab of pride and then the fear for her returned
. Now get the hell out of there, Jules, before I stroke out.

There was no absentmindedness this time as Julia sped by the cubicles of her coworkers, exited the CTC department and hurried through the rest of the building.

Taking the stairs down to the parking garage two at a time, she hit the heavy door, throwing it open.

A minute later, as she wheeled the Audi out of the main level, Julia didn’t see Susan Richmond’s level gaze following her from the basement door.