Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 (14 page)
Read Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
When Skeet glanced up absentmindedly from his work, the last person he expected to see emerging from the elevator was Aroska Tarbic. At first the man’s identity hadn’t registered – he’d just happened to be looking in that particular direction at the exact moment he’d stepped out onto the squad floor. The faded black jacket was what he had recognized initially, and then he had realized who he was looking at. The changes in Tarbic’s hair had been enough to throw Skeet off, but now his eyes were glued to the man as he moved across the floor.
He unwrapped a fresh chunk of govino gum and popped it into his mouth, savoring the fruity juices as they swirled over his tongue. Zinni sat just to his left, absorbed in her computer, so he nudged her shoulder and nodded in the direction Tarbic was headed with a single guard escort. “Hey,” he said, shifting the govino around in his mouth.
Zinni glanced up quickly, startled and blinking as if she had been jolted awake from a dream. “
Sheyss
, Skeet,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. “What?”
“Check this out.” He gestured toward Aroska again. The sight of the man stirred an odd jumble of feelings within him. The last time he’d seen him, the team had been dangling by grappling cables in the Dakiti building’s main elevator shaft. All Skeet remembered was an image of Aroska and Ziva climbing out of the shaft in full tactical gear before he and Zinni had gone on to complete their part of the mission. The next thing he’d known, both of the lieutenants had been captured and the Grand Army had arrived with ground support. Helpless and frustrated, he’d been ordered to depart Sardonis and return to Noro, where he, Zinni and the Tantali prince Jayden Saiffe had been held under observation at a med center.
“Aroska?” Zinni said after studying the man for a moment. She stood halfway up and peered over the wall of the bullpen. “What the hell?”
Skeet hadn’t even heard Tarbic’s name mentioned for the past two months. One moment he had shot and arrested Ziva – after she’d risked her life to get him out of Dakiti – for a reason that remained a mystery. The next thing he knew, Emeri Arion had reversed the death sentence and Ziva had been free to go. When prompted later, Ziva had refused to discuss the events that had transpired. Skeet had left the matter alone, though curiosity was eating at him to this day. He couldn’t help but think Aroska had had a hand in the sentence reversal, though it made no sense when compared to what he had only
just
done to Ziva.
Empowered by a fresh bout of curiosity and anger, Skeet logged out of the computer and pushed his chair in so forcefully that it hit the desk and bounced back to nearly the exact position it had been in.
“Skeet, what are you doing?”
Zinni called after him again but he ignored her and began jogging across the massive room. He wound through the maze of cubicles and workstations, blind to everything except that which was directly in front of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear Zinni’s hurried footsteps running to catch up to him, but they were little more than an echo.
Skeet broke out into the aisle and turned right, having missed the interception by about six meters. Not breaking stride, he took one last set of jogging steps to close the distance between him and Aroska. “Hey Tarbic!” he called.
Aroska pivoted, looking around for the source of the voice. His eyes brightened when they fell on Skeet and he turned fully, offering a hand. The word “hello” hadn’t quite escaped his lips when Skeet’s fist collided with his jaw.
“No, Skeet!” came Zinni’s quiet but firm voice as she leaped at his arm and restrained him from lashing out again. The guard escort had done likewise with Tarbic, whose face was twisted in shock and disbelief as he rubbed his jaw.
“That’s for what you did to Ziva,” Skeet said, shrugging away from Zinni and thrusting a menacing finger at Aroska. His knuckles throbbed from delivering the blow.
The field ops lieutenant stole a glance in the direction he had been headed, toward the bank of offices on the far side of the squad floor. Three of the captains were approaching, including Diago Dasaro, their attention drawn by the commotion. He turned back toward Skeet, making a show of advancing in a defensive manner. When he spoke, his voice was firm but it lacked the anger Skeet had expected. “We need to talk,” he said.
Dasaro and company were now upon them and the large man glared down at Skeet, each of his eyes a black abyss. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
Aroska kept his eyes locked with Skeet’s for another few seconds before answering. “Absolutely nothing, sir,” he muttered, shifting his attention to the three captains.
Dasaro eyed the group warily then dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand. “Duvo, Vax, if you’re still standing here in three seconds I’ll have your badges. Tarbic, come with me.”
Jaw aching, Aroska watched as Skeet and Zinni reluctantly retreated under Dasaro’s threatening gaze.
Some welcoming gift,
he thought, hoping Skeet’s behavior hadn’t made matters any more complicated than they already were. At least the outburst had been enough to convince the captain that Aroska wasn’t on anybody’s side. He feared, however, that getting close enough to Skeet to pass on Ziva’s message would now be nigh on impossible.
“Welcome, Lieutenant,” Dasaro said, initiating a handshake. “I appreciate the effort you made to get here in a timely manner. Meet captains Nejdra Venn and Kyron Hoxie.”
The man and woman with him each nodded silent greetings and maintained hardened countenances. The four of them continued on to the offices, where Dasaro motioned for Aroska to pull up a chair and Nejdra handed him a data pad. He read over some of the file headings, testing the mobility of his jaw and tasting a little blood from where his teeth had cut the inside of his mouth. “This is everything you have on Payvan?” he asked.
“Everything pertaining to the current investigation,” Dasaro answered. “To tell you the truth, there isn’t much else that’s not classified beyond even the scope of spec ops. Rumor has it you’re aware of Lieutenant Payvan’s status as one of our deep cover assassins.”
Aroska nodded. He recalled his attempts at accessing Ziva’s files after Soren’s death and he had no doubt that most of her information was restricted, but he still wasn’t convinced the captain was sharing everything. Being kept in the dark was nothing new – he already felt as though he had walked into HSP without a clue what was really going on. “Is there anything specific you’d like me to get started on, sir?”
Dasaro slipped an access key across his desk. “You’ve been granted temporary special operations clearance until we can bring Payvan down, so you are free to go about your investigating independently. Start with a thorough go-over of that material and make sure you’re familiar with our methods, and then we can discuss specifics if you still have questions. Report directly to me with anything you find. And Tarbic, if you can do this, we’ll see about making your special ops position something more than temporary.”
“Yes sir,” Aroska said, fighting away the smile he felt creeping onto his face. An odd tingle of temptation numbed his mind for a split second until Ziva’s words echoed gently through his memory:
“What would you think of a permanent position in special ops?”
There were times when he wished he’d accepted her offer, but the thought of continuing without Jole Imetsi and Tate Luver after going through the trouble of saving them seemed absurd. Perhaps turning her down had been irrational thinking – it certainly seemed like it now, considering the mess he’d worked himself into during his time away from the agency. Still, he hadn’t been convinced of the sincerity of Ziva’s proposition. He’d encroached enough in her space as it was, and despite everything she’d done for him, he still hadn’t felt entirely comfortable being around her. Both were reasons he had politely allowed her to fade into the background after he’d departed her house that day.
With a nod of Dasaro’s head, Aroska was dismissed from the office. He was glad to be on such a long leash, but at the same time he felt it would be easier to maintain Dasaro’s trust if he had a definite course of action to follow. What exactly was he expected to do, wander aimlessly for the next few hours and then report to Dasaro that he’d found nothing?
Lie
and make up some false information? He fingered the communicator Ziva had sent with him and wished she would hurry and contact him with further instructions.
First things first – he needed to get matters cleared up with Skeet while he was still off Dasaro’s radar. Looking in the general direction the two agents had gone, Aroska caught sight of Zinni standing in one of the bullpens on the far side of the squad floor. She was leaning down over her workstation but her head was up and she was looking directly at him. She turned away when she realized she had been spotted. Skeet was nowhere in sight.
The thought of coming across as such a cold-blooded traitor tied a sickening knot in Aroska’s stomach as he made his way toward the intelligence officer. Though he’d only spent a few days working with Ziva’s squad, he’d come to trust them and rely on them to the point that he thought he could call them friends. The idea of deceiving them after they had so readily accepted him as one of their own two months earlier drove him insane. He needed to find Skeet and make amends, and not just for the current situation.
Zinni was watching him again as he neared. She glanced around, and when she saw that his presence didn’t seem to be drawing any attention, she approached. Without a word, she took him by the arm and led him off the squad floor into the wide bridge-like corridor that connected the spec ops wing and the field ops wing. Her grip was firm; despite her size, she possessed a measure of strength that didn’t fail to impress Aroska. They stopped in a secluded area and she gazed up at him, hands on her hips and eyebrows knit.
“I don’t know what you think you’re trying to accomplish here,” she said.
“Zinni, please
trust me
. This isn’t what it looks like.”
“I certainly hope not.” Her sparkling cerulean eyes had turned to ice as she glared at him. “And I’m sorry but I don’t think I
can
trust you right now.”
Aroska bent down closer to eye level. “You’re going to have to!” he snapped, instantly reminding himself to remain calm. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Look, there’s a lot you don’t know and a lot I can’t tell you, but I promise you’ll hear all of it in due time. Right now I really need to talk to Skeet.”
He felt her tense muscles relax a bit and her face softened. She sighed and shook her head, sucking on her bottom lip. “You make it sound like a matter of life and death.”
“It could turn into one if we don’t all get on the same page right
now
.” Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but Aroska could picture things heading downhill fast if they remained at odds.
“Do you really think you can just walk back in here and expect us all to cooperate after what you did?”
“Would it help at all if I said I was sorry?”
Zinni pushed his hands away from her shoulders and turned in a slow circle, muttering under her breath. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Aroska and anyone who happened to be walking by. He could tell she was curious as to what he was hiding, but considering what a little fireball Zinni was, he doubted she would tolerate his presence in the building for another minute if he didn’t start talking.
“Fine,” she finally muttered. “I’ll take you to Skeet, but I can’t guarantee he’s going to want to listen to you.”
The two of them turned back down the hallway. “He’ll listen,” Aroska said. “Once he hears what I have to say, he’ll be all ears.”
Dasaro watched Tarbic exit the office, his mind focused more on Payvan than anything else. The man was a good agent – his flawless service record proved that much. It was apparent that he’d had his share of problems during the last several weeks, but it didn’t bother Dasaro enough to make him question Aroska’s ability to produce results. Still, there was something about all of this that made him feel uneasy, almost as if the lieutenant were hiding something. There had been an odd scent in his house, something he’d been unable to pinpoint due to the govino smoke and stench of alcohol. He knew it was probably nothing, but he also knew he’d sleep better that night if he took the time to look into it.
“Diago?” Nejdra said, cutting into the silence. She stepped around in front of him, hands clasped behind her back. “Are we all set?”
“His personal comms have been checked?”
It was Kyron Hoxie who answered. “We’ve looked over both his mobile communicator and his home comm system. There was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, there was hardly anything at all. Other than several attempted transmissions from the older brother and a couple of routine collection calls, he’s had virtually no communication with anyone for at least three weeks.”
“Interesting,” Dasaro said, shifting the whole of his attention to the other two captains after he lost sight of Aroska in the crowd of agents and workstations. “Do we have any probes available for zone two of sector six?”
“Residential?” Nejdra asked, sliding into the chair at her own desk and quickly manipulating her computer. The infrared image on the holographic screen blurred briefly then spun, finally settling on a section of the city approximately ten by ten blocks. “Got it,” she said.
“Let’s see Tarbic’s house.”
Hoxie raised an eyebrow. “Any specific reason?”
Dasaro shook his head, eyes glued to the terminal as Nejdra entered the correct coordinates. “Just curious,” he replied.
The image settled on one of the houses near the center of the neighborhood. The walls of the building were indicated by a thin orange line. Heat signatures from cars and passersby moved to and fro outside, standing out against the dark gray background.
The house was empty.
“The probe is almost out of range,” Nejdra said. “I’m about to lose the feed.”
“That’s all I needed,” Dasaro said. He was satisfied for the moment, though he hadn’t achieved nearly the peace of mind he’d been hoping for. “Thank you.”
