Dan & Tyler 2 - Wintergreen (5 page)

Tyler stepped to the side and took one look through the window at the porch, a quick, assessing glance, before murmuring "Cole" and opening the door. Dan moved over to the couch, with a vague idea of giving Cole two separate targets if the man tried anything. The way he'd been standing in Tyler's shadow, one bullet would've taken care of both of them.

Cole walked in and pushed the door closed behind him, his gaze sweeping the room, a comprehensive glance that was familiar to Dan because Tyler did it all the time. Without looking directly at Tyler, he said, "John," his voice deep and calm. Dan knew that Tyler had used many different names, but he'd always assumed that Tyler was his real one. He bit back a protest and a question that could both wait until later.
Cole's voice matched the rest of him. He was an inch or two taller than Tyler, who was over six feet, his eyes dark brown like his skin, his black hair military short and silvered at the temples. If Dan had to pick a word to describe him, it would have been 'elegant.' The man breathed class, from the long camelhair coat he wore to the thin leather gloves he was stripping off his hands. He looked like a diplomat, not the head of a secret government agency dealing in assassinations.

"Tyler. Tyler Edwards." There was amusement, not reproof, in Tyler's voice, and Cole responded to it with a courteous inclination of his head and the glimmer of a shared joke in his eyes.

 

"Of course. How are you, Tyler?" There wasn't even the slightest stress on the final word, as if Cole was used to calling people by names that weren't theirs.

 

"Very well, thank you. And you?"

Dan rolled his eyes. God, anyone would think this was a social call. The brittle, eggshell-fragile politeness was shattered a moment later, not with angry words, but a deep, rich chuckle from Cole, as a handshake became a hug between the two men, brief but friendly.

"It's been a while," Tyler said, taking a step back, smiling, his eyes bright. "Come on in and have a drink."

 

"A glass of water would be nice. Thank you." Cole glanced inquiringly at Dan, who took a deep breath and pasted on a polite smile of his own.

 

"How do you do, sir?"

 

He might have been brought up on a small farm, but he'd been taught his manners, so there was no need for the two of them to look at him as if he was a dancing pig.

 

"I'm very well, thank you, young man," Cole said after a pause. He turned to Tyler. "Perhaps you'd care to introduce me?"

"I think you know more about him than he does," Tyler said dryly, "but if you want to make it official, sure. Dan, this is my ex-boss, Cole Stevens, and Cole, this is my partner, Dan Seaton. I'll get you that water."

Partner. That was the first time that Tyler had described him that way. Of course, it didn't usually come up in conversation. Tyler didn't socialize with many people, and although Dan had met a few people his age in the town over the summer, he'd never done more than shoot some pool with them after work, idling away the time until Tyler came to pick him up. He'd made no secret of the fact that he was gay if he was asked about his love life, and -- mostly -- people had been okay about it. They didn't really care; he was a stranger. Tyler was a relative newcomer, too, and they just weren’t important in the scheme of things to the inhabitants of Carlyle.

Anne was the only one they really knew well enough to call a friend, which sometimes made Dan feel lonely and sometimes blessedly free after living in a place where people had known every detail of his life. Some of them had been able to winnow out facts from gossip and rumor in a way that would put the resources of Cole's organization to shame. Hiding the fact that he was gay for as long as he had growing up, well, that had been a minor miracle.

Dan got the feeling that Cole had a lot that he wanted to say about Tyler living with a twentyyear old man, but he contented himself with another nod and sat down on the couch, a glass of tap water in his hand that he did no more than raise to his lips from time to time. Tyler took the armchair, and Dan, feeling as if he was committing a faux pas equal to perching on the arm of a throne, sat next to Cole. His feet seemed too big, and his hands were sweating. Cole was freaking him out.

"So…" Tyler said. "You're a little early."

 

Cole nodded. "I found myself in the area. I hope that I'm not interrupting any plans you had?"

 

Tyler snorted. "Cut the crap, Cole. You thought you'd spooked me and I'd run, so you moved the meeting forward."

 

"It crossed my mind that I might find you missing." Cole shrugged. "But where would you go?"

 

As threats went, it packed a punch. Dan saw Tyler's lips tighten, but when he replied, his voice matched Cole's for calmness. "Anywhere I want to, Cole. I don't answer to you now, remember?"

 

"I would like it if you still did," Cole said. "Your talents are needed as much now as they ever were."

 

"You're being very careful," Tyler said, "but Dan knows what I did."

 

For the first time, Cole's equanimity was lost. He stiffened, the water in the glass he held coming close to spilling out. "You signed non-disclosure agreements. The work you did is top secret--"

 

"He knows my job," Tyler clarified. "You know I wouldn't tell him more than that."

 

The snap of anger in Cole's voice wasn't going away anytime soon. "That was more than you should have told him. I'm surprised at you, John."

"I'm sitting right here," Dan said tartly. He didn't like the way Cole was using what he assumed was Tyler's real name as a slap on the wrist. Time to do some damage control, since Tyler had fucked up big time. "Tyler's telling you the truth; all I know is that he was in the army and saw some action and it got too much for him. Nothing to be ashamed of. I had an uncle came back from Vietnam the same way."

"Frederick Seaton," Cole said quietly, turning his gaze onto Dan. "He took his own life when you were twelve. I'm sorry."
Dan stood, feeling sick, his heart beating uncomfortably fast, a bug under a microscope. He hated knowing that Cole had carefully, coolly gathered up every detail of his life this way, just in case it was useful as a weapon or a goad. It was too close to what Dan knew Tyler had done with his targets before he'd killed them. Creepy as hell. "Yeah, I bet you are. You know what, I'm just gonna, um, let you two catch up. I'll be--" He waved his hand vaguely at the bedroom.

"I couldn't possibly make you feel unwelcome in your own home," Cole said smoothly. He raised his eyebrows at Tyler. "Perhaps we could take a walk? Not too far, of course. It was a long drive, and I'd like to stretch my legs."

"Sure," Tyler said after a long moment of staring at Cole in silence, his face empty of expression. "A walk. Why not?"

 

Tyler touched Dan's arm as he walked past, a question in his eyes:
are you okay?

 

Dan just shook his head, a bleak chill spreading over him as Tyler and Cole left. This really wasn't going to end well.
Chapter Three
"So," Cole said as he walked slowly along a shoveled path to a bench Tyler liked to sit on in the summer, his polished shoes gathering a crust of snow. "Mr. Seaton."

Tyler tensed at the mention of Dan's name, as if Cole talking about him could put Dan in danger, which was ridiculous. Dan was one of the citizens Cole devoted his life to keeping safe, after all. "What about him?"

"He's an unexpected addition to your life."

 

Tyler had to admit that it was the perfect word to describe Dan, from Cole's point of view at least. "Yeah, it felt that way to me, too, but it's working out."

 

"A little young for you, perhaps?" Cole asked, clearing his throat.

Tyler smothered a grin. Cole could be diplomatic and tactful when the job required it, negotiating with smooth finesse, but when it came to something personal, like one of his former agents falling for a kid just out of his teens, that finesse began to look a little ragged.

Tyler didn't really want to watch Cole squirm, though. Cole was his boss, and Tyler trusted him. Not with his life; Cole would have signed that away if he thought that the nation needed it. If the man had a favorite saying, it was probably Jefferson's assertion that the tree of liberty needed the blood of patriots and tyrants to nourish it. Cole kept the tree well watered. The other stuff, though, like protecting his people from assholes in government and sometimes themselves, because agents had been known to crack spectacularly at times -- that, at least, Cole did well.

"He's twenty-one in the summer," Tyler said, and cursed the unexpected defensiveness he heard in his voice. He didn't have to explain his relationship with Dan to anyone, least of all his exboss.

"A little young for you," Cole repeated. "From what I recall of your previous, ah, partners, they were all your age and type, and they didn't last long enough for you to remember their names. Mr. Seaton is young in thought, body, and experience--"

"Old enough," Tyler said. "And not as innocent as you think, or as sheltered. When we met, he was starving and he'd been trading sex for rides."

"Innocent and stupid," Cole clarified. "And he's stuck around long enough to know all about you. Interesting. You don't find that in the least suspicious? Or are you as good in bed as you are with a rifle?" He smiled. "Please don't answer that; I'd rather not have to think of you as quite that deluded."
"You're a cold-hearted bastard at times, you know that?" Tyler kicked at a jagged lump of ice on the path and watched it splinter. "He's a survivor. He dealt with his father turning his back on him, and he got through a month alone on the road. And he stayed cool as a cucumber when I found him picking berries on my land and came close to shooting him."

"But you didn't," Cole pointed out as they reached the bench, skimmed white with snow and too wet to use.

Tyler gripped the back of the bench and felt the wood creak under his gloved hand. "You don't know how close I came. Listen, Cole, I was good at what I did, yes, but not now. My hands shake. I wake up sweating, screaming." He swallowed, the words difficult to say. He hated admitting a weakness, especially to Cole, hated seeing pity or sympathy in someone's eyes. Dan never looked at Tyler like that, which was one reason Tyler had kept him close. One. "I can't do it anymore. I'd get killed, and, more importantly as far as you're concerned, I wouldn't complete the mission." His voice cracked, shaming him, and he steadied it, growling out, "I'm a fucking liability; why can't you see that?"

"I know you are," Cole said with a killing kindness. "There's no question of you going back into the field, and I'm frankly astonished that you even -- well. You're not yourself."

 

"That's right," Tyler muttered. "Make allowances for me."

"Enough," Cole slammed his hand down on top of Tyler's, the force of the blow less of a shock than the action itself. Cole didn't touch people often. "Enough self pity. Enough hiding here in this nowhere place with your stray puppy. I need you. Your country needs you."

Only Cole could say something as corny as that without a flicker of self-consciousness.

 

"I've got nothing left my country wants," Tyler said, and tugged his hand free. "Killing was what I was good at, and I can't -- don't want to -- do that now."

"You had a brain as well as a trigger finger," Cole said. "You used to use it, and it showed in your results. You were painstaking, thorough, coupled with the capacity for intuitive, imaginative thought; do you know how rare that combination of qualities is? And you were completely trustworthy, though that seems to have changed." He stared back at the cabin and clicked his tongue impatiently. "I find it difficult to believe that you told that young man what you were. Foolhardy and reckless in the extreme."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Tyler said, defending himself with flippancy and knowing just how much it would irritate Cole.

"Endangering a man you have feelings for seemed like a good idea?" Cole said. "Really? Next time, send him flowers."
Guilt swamped Tyler. He'd thought vaguely from time to time that maybe it hadn't been the smartest of moves to share his secrets with Dan, but the reward of Dan's trust and acceptance had seemed worth it. "He's not in danger if he keeps his mouth shut, and he will."

"When he's offered money to betray you? Possibly, although your relationship is hardly all that -never mind. Drugged? Under torture? I doubt it."

"Why would anyone bother?" Tyler said, made irritated and uneasy by Cole's scenarios. Dan and torture just didn't belong together. "It's been a few years, Cole; any secrets I knew are stone-cold now. I'm not a risk or a threat, and all I want is to be left alone. Christ, is that so hard to understand?" He took off his gloves, impatient, not grateful, at the way they muffled the feel of the cold air on his skin, and stuffed them into the pockets of his coat. "So you want me to help you with something that isn't a hit? Why me?"

"Because there's a leak in the department, and you're the only one I know can't be involved." Cole's lips were a straight, unforgiving line. "You left before it began, and I know that you've made no contact with anyone because I've made it my business to know."

"A leak?" Tyler grimaced. That was bad news. A target found out in advance that he or she was on the hit list, and the mission got that much harder and often fatal for the sniper involved. "Are you sure?"

"Sam DeLuca, Emily Rhodes, and Damian Street are sure," Cole said. "Three hits, three agents down, and three targets still breathing, all in the space of six months. Would you like to tell me that it was carelessness on their part? Do you want to talk about bad luck in a high-risk job?"

"Shit, no, of course not." Tyler closed his eyes until he could bear to look at Cole's face again, twisted with anger and grief as it was. The loss of the agents wouldn't have struck home as deeply as the knowledge that there was a traitor in the department. The first was regrettable, but expected from time to time; the second unforgivable, since it meant that Cole had screwed up and let his people down. "They were good," he said quietly. "One of them, hell, maybe even two, might have gotten sloppy, but not all three."