Operation Proof of Life (2 page)

He seemed as protective of his family as he was his country. She’d seen it in his eyes, in the way he kept his arm around his sister. Brigit’s heart pinched with envy. Never had Peter sought to protect his two younger half-sisters. Instead he had used her and Tory as weapons against their parents, against their government.
If only I hadn’t killed Mum that night
…

Blinking away the tears that suddenly sprang to her eyes, Brigit clamped her jaw tight. If she was going to help Ella, she had to keep that part of the past in the past.

She also had to avoid any further confrontations with Michael Stone.

Ten minutes with Senator Pennington had given her a solid profile workup for SIS. Another fifteen with Ruth had filled in the few remaining holes. That job was done and there was no reason to seek the answers she wanted about the kidnapping from Thad or the FBI agents hovering around him. While the officials started at ground zero and systematically worked their way out, Brigit preferred to start on the fringes and work her way in. Parents and family members would give a glossier view of the little girl than folks who knew her but were outside the bond of love.

Her first target to talk to was at the back of the house, out of the limelight and hopefully much easier to squeeze for accurate information. Swinging through the unlit kitchen, she found the back door.

Outside, a stalwart Secret Service agent stood guard over the impressive grounds. A large patio, a pool—covered now because of the season—and an orchard surrounded the backside of the Pennington estate.

The agent, a man the size and breadth of a black bear, looked her up and down under the faint light from the windows above. He’d left the outside light off, Brigit guessed, so as not to make himself an easy target in case the kidnapper or anyone else was planning another attack on the Pennington family. She didn’t blame him for being careful or edgy.

Giving him the impression she was officially working the case, she flashed her DHS security badge. He nodded and resumed his predatory stance, sweeping the grounds with a critical, observant attentiveness. A walkie-talkie buzzed softly on his belt with normal activity.

“How many Secret Service personnel does the senator and his wife use?” she asked.

The man’s baritone voice answered in a reserved manner. “Five on a daily basis. An extra detail for speaking arrangements or fundraisers.”

“Have you worked for them long?”

The agent slewed his eyes to her, then back to the landscape. “Since Senator Pennington’s nomination.”

“Did you know Ella?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Would she willingly go off with someone she didn’t know?”

Again the eye slide. “The child is precocious but intelligent. She’s been schooled for years on personal-safety issues.”

“So either she left the parking lot against her will or she knew the person who kidnapped her?”

“She might have been drugged.”

True enough. Ella probably trusted the kidnapper right up to the point he slipped her a piece of drugged candy and dumped her in his trunk.

Just like I trusted Peter.

Timing and opportunity were crucial to any kidnapper. The Pennington’s employed a housekeeper, a part-time nanny and various services for their lawn, landscaping and pool maintenance. No doubt the FBI would be interviewing everyone associated with the couple. Ella probably trusted all of them to some extent, but who had the motive and the expertise to kidnap her at a social function? And why?

There were hundreds of motives because of the Pennington’s political careers and the FBI would focus on those. To Brigit, though, political motivation seemed too cliché.
This feels personal
,
just like my
favor
for President Jeffries.

Her BlackBerry rang and she dug it out of her pocket. Caller ID showed it was Truman.

“Still up?” he asked, much too chipper for that time of night. “I figured you’d crashed in front of the TV already.”

“Not yet. I’m working on a case.”
Working on a case
was her code words for
can’t talk now
.

“I see. Well, our Arab friends are getting together later tonight for a gift exchange. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Where?”

The address he listed was unfamiliar to her, but as always, Truman was the perfect assistant. “I’ll send you directions. Want company?”

Without warning, light from the kitchen windows showered her and the Secret Service agent. Someone was in the kitchen. Glancing through the closest window, she caught sight of a familiar blond head, massive build and sour scowl heading toward the back door. “No. I’ll just do a drive-by. If I need your help, I’ll call.”

She disconnected and shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Must run,” she told the Secret Service agent. “Thanks a bunch for your help.”

As she hurried off the back porch and into the shadows of the yard, she prayed a gun-happy FBI agent didn’t shoot her and a pissed-off Michael Stone didn’t catch her.

Chapter Three

Arlington
, an hour later

The bed jiggled and Conrad Flynn slit one eye open to watch the half-naked woman and love of his life slip out from under the sheets. In the pale moonlit room, he watched her long brown hair slide across the pale skin of her shoulders as she crept, silent as death, across the carpeting to the spot where the jeans he’d peeled off her earlier lay in a heap.

Lying on his stomach, he kept his face partially buried in the pillow and feigned sleep as she tiptoed past his side of the bed on her way out of the room. Wherever Julia was going, he didn’t want to stop her. Nor did he want her to know he knew she was sneaking out again.

Several times in the past week, his wife had risen in the early hours of the morning and left their apartment. For what purpose he didn’t know, but his gut tightened every time he thought about the possibilities. As an FBI agent, she worked many assignments. Was this an undercover job she couldn’t share details about? Was her life in danger?

Even though she was experienced and more than capable of handling anything the FBI threw at her, he still worried about her every time she put on her navy blue jacket and went to work.

Her training was impeccable. Under his tutelage, he’d taken her through the CIA’s Farm and then through his own brand of spy craft. As a rookie Feebie, she’d spent hundreds of hours at the gun range and in hand-to-hand combat. Add to that her calculating mind and quick reflexes and she was a priceless weapon no matter whom she worked for.

But beyond all her training and experience in and out of the field, Julia’s gut instincts were spot on every time. Like she had a sixth sense about danger, she knew when to take one more risk or pull out of the game. If only she still called Langley home. What he wouldn’t do to have her under him in his group of super agents as well as in his bed.

Conrad had been promoted—if you called leaving the field of operations behind for a desk job at CIA headquarters a promotion—when he’d faked his death to flush out a mole in the organization with his best friends, Smitty and Ace. Julia had been there too, working beside him but not fully trusting his actions or his words until the end. Riding the high of his success, however, he’d whisked her away to an island and proposed marriage. She’d accepted.

What once he feared would be a living hell, marriage had actually been more like heaven.
Because I married Julia
.
She made my dreams come true
.

He knew her like he knew the internal components of his gun, and just like the Beretta fit in his hand, Julia fit in his heart.

But for the past week, it felt like he’d married a stranger. She was hiding something. Something big. Her focus was off and she’d been riding a rollercoaster of moods. One minute she was laughing at Conrad’s teasing, the next she was slamming doors because he’d left the toilet seat up and changed the station settings on the kitchen radio.

A soft rustle whispered from the kitchen. Julia was putting on her FBI windbreaker. If she followed her normal pattern, she’d be back in the apartment by dawn, humming in the kitchen as she boiled eggs and toasted bagels for breakfast. Her face would light up when he joined her at the sink, as if she truly loved him. As if he were the Prince Charming of her Happily Ever After, even if she wanted to kill him for leaving the toilet seat up again. Conrad knew it was too good to be true. Nobody in his world ever got the happily ever after, but somehow he’d scored the lottery in that department.

He’d almost stopped her and demanded an explanation for her secretive behavior the last time she snuck out in the wee hours of the morning, but an old paranoia had gripped him hard. If she
was
hiding something, Conrad wasn’t sure he wanted to know…or should know. Her job was hers alone. He had no say over what she was working on, and he had to have faith that she could handle whatever it was. Still, he couldn’t control the flip of his heart or the unease in his stomach. If she was keeping the details of her assignment a close hold, it meant the assignment was dangerous.

He sensed more than heard her close the front door as she slipped into the Arlington night. In one fluid motion, he threw back the sheet, grabbed his own jeans and tugged them on. Tonight he would tail her and find out exactly where she was going, who she was meeting, just for peace of mind. Sweeping both his personal cell phone and his work cell from the nightstand, he hoped for the best and steeled his gut for the worst. Never in his life had he loved a woman like he loved Julia.

Jogging to the front door, Conrad picked up his running shoes. Outside, the sidewalk was cool and gritty under his bare feet. Before he could throw his shoes into the passenger seat of his Jeep, one of his phones rang. “What now?” he muttered. One good thing about pretending to be dead had been that no one demanded his attention.

Now, in his new position as Director of Operations, he was constantly getting calls from field operators, section managers and other CIA directors at all times of the day and night. He no longer had the option of laying low under the radar. If anything, he was the center of everyone’s target these days and he hated it. Michael Stone, the deputy director and his boss, had painted a neon green bull’s-eye on Conrad’s forehead just because Julia had picked him over Stone after the battle to oust the mole. Stone had been in love with her, but in the end, lost her to the better man. Conrad grinned at the thought as he fumbled with his work phone. He stared at it a second, hitting the connect button twice, before realizing his personal cell was still buzzing maniacally in his jeans pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the LCD screen and frowned at the ID.
Big Mike
.

With that nickname, clearly Ace, his coroner-turned-spy friend, had been playing personal assistant again with Con’s phone.

The phone buzzed in his hand like a giant wasp. What could Stone want at this time of night?

Julia.

Con’s heart thudded hard. Jamming the phone into the crook of his neck, he started the Jeep, his eyes scanning the road for the taillights of a certain white Audi. “Yeah?”

Stone’s voice was clear and commanding, like always. “Meet me at my place in half an hour.”

Conrad concentrated on wheeling the Jeep in the direction he’d seen her disappear. “Why?”

“I have an assignment for you.”

“It’s after midnight if you haven’t noticed. Go to bed. You might have to act like you know what you’re doing tomorrow.”

“My house, Flynn, or you won’t have a job tomorrow.”

The boss card again. He shifted and pushed the gas pedal into the floor, imagining the man’s face under his foot. “Does this have anything to do with Julia?”

“Julia?” Stone’s voice dropped a notch. “Is she okay?”

“Forget I mentioned her.” He snapped the phone shut and dropped it on top of his running shoes. His eyes caught the red flash of brake lights and his gut tightened in response. While he’d done his best to ignore the jealousy Stone triggered in him, it was always there in the background, haunting him like his tattered past as a renegade spy.

His gut didn’t release until two miles south of Arlington when the Audi left the interstate and pulled into a Perkins restaurant. A giant American flag waved its shadow over Julia’s petite figure as she exited her car and walked inside.

There were no FBI initials on the back of her pink Roxy jacket.

Conrad huffed out a sigh. No undercover work, just a pie run. She’d recently had a jones for the strawberry pie the restaurant served twenty-four hours a day. He’d seen her eat a piece for breakfast the previous morning and another after their lovemaking last night.

As Conrad steered the Jeep back to the interstate, his heart thudded afresh, but with a different intensity to it. An intensity that hinted at fear. Strawberry pie wasn’t pickles and ice cream, but then Julia was no ordinary woman.

~ * ~

Pongo, Michael’s Rottweiler, barked as Flynn entered via the back door. From the den, Michael heard Flynn try to sweet talk the dog. Pongo’s reply—a throaty growl—made Michael feel a touch of smug relief.

Flynn got along with almost everybody. He did not, however, get along with Michael, inside or outside CIA headquarters. Skimming the surface, it was because of their vastly different work philosophies. Plunging deeper, they stomped on each other’s backsides because of Julia. Every time Michael looked at Flynn, he saw her, but damned if he’d let Flynn know.

“Call off the dog,” Flynn yelled from the mudroom.

Michael gave a short whistle and Pongo came trotting into the den, Flynn following a few footsteps behind him.

“Sit,” Michael said, motioning to a chair across from the desk.

“Me or the dog?”

Locking his jaw, he gave Flynn his usual
stop fucking around
look.

As he passed the west wall, Flynn eyed the patch job. “You should hire a professional, or at least let me and Ace help you.”

“You’re not touching my wall.”

Knowing he’d hit a sore spot, Flynn smiled as he dropped into the chair.

His gaze fell on Michael’s shiny new leather briefcase—a congratulations-on-your-promotion gift from Julia, Smitty and Ace—and quickly glanced away. Michael knew Julia had forged Conrad’s signature on the accompanying card. Tit for tat on hitting sore spots.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Flynn asked.

Michael tapped his thumb against the coffee cup in his hand. “Not this week.”

Without looking at him, Flynn pointed a finger at the obvious culprit for most folks’ insomnia. “You might try laying off the jet fuel.”

“Can’t. Too much going on.”

Michael released the coffee cup and removed a file from his briefcase. He slid it to Flynn’s side of the desk. “You familiar with Dr. Brigit Kent?”

Flynn narrowed his eyes as he noticed the green stripe down the side of the folder. The information was coded for someone with much higher clearance than Flynn. Higher clearance than even Michael, which Flynn surmised without missing a beat. “How’d you get that?”

“I asked for it.”

Flynn didn’t hold his surprise in check, shaking his head and snorting. “Never heard of her.”

“She’s got her nose in the Pennington kidnapping. I want to know why.”

“Your brother-in-law’s been kidnapped?”

“Not my brother-in-law, you idiot. My niece. Tonight—last night.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t you watch the news or read the memos in your inbox?”

“Your niece? Christ.” His dislike of Michael was instantly supplanted with what appeared to be empathy. “I’m sorry, man. FBI got any leads?”

“No.” Michael told him the whole story. When he described the phone call, about Ella’s terrified voice crying for her mom, Flynn went completely still. The usual smart-assed look in his eyes flattened.

“I found Dr. Kent hanging out with Ruthie like she’s a member of our family or a close friend,” Michael said. “Her interest…bothers me.”

“You think she’s got an ulterior motive?”

“She’s on the DHS payroll as a consultant, supposedly on domestic terrorism.”

Flynn frowned. “Since when do we need another expert on that?”

“There’s no formal training in domestic terrorism on her resume. She’s a psychotherapist, works mostly with kids, but she has experience as a code breaker too.”

Flipping the file open, Flynn studied the colored eight-by-ten photo of the woman’s head and face. After a few seconds of breezing through the fact sheet and background info, he closed the folder. “Can I offer her a job?”

Michael gave Flynn his trademarked look again.

“What? She’s thirty-three, beautiful, educated and skilled. A regular Swiss Army Knife. Perfect for my army.”

Flynn’s Army was a covert group of the best spies the CIA had. In the world of espionage, they equated to Navy SEALs or the Marines Delta Force. And just like their counterparts in the military, they often performed black ops. “No.”

Flynn made a noise in his throat that Michael took for rebellious consent. He sat back in his chair. “She’s been selling herself and her skills to foreign intelligence agencies off and on since nine-eleven but she’s never worked with the FBI on any kidnappings and she barely knows Ruth, even if she’s pretending otherwise.”

“So where do I fit in?”

“Contact sources you have here in the States and see what they know. Outside of that, follow her and find out what you can.”

“What do you want to know about her that isn’t in this file?”

“Where she goes and who she meets. Who her connections are in DHS, the FBI, anyone here in Washington.”

“You want to run an investigation within the borders of the U.S., a total breach of your precious by-the-book mentality. How’s that going to resolve the kidnapping?”

“Let me worry about that.”

“Not good enough. You’re putting both our careers on the line if I investigate her and get caught. I want a reason.”

Michael dropped his gaze to the file and toyed with his coffee cup. In that split second, he gave himself away.

Flynn pounced. “You got a personal interest in the doctor?”

“I simply want a guarantee she’s one hundred percent on our team.”

“What makes you think she isn’t?”

Michael couldn’t control the kidnappers, but he still needed to control something about the kidnapping. “Nothing I can put my finger on, but the encounter I had with her tonight makes me think she’s working a personal angle. I want to know what it is.” He squeezed the coffee cup.

His director of operations nodded, seeming to understand his
nobody messes with my family
reaction. “But she passed her background check with flying colors and has a security clearance higher than mine.”

“You and I both know security clearance doesn’t mean jack shit and background checks miss stuff not marked with a bull’s-eye.” Michael sipped his cold coffee without tasting it. “When I asked for her file, my source told me Brigit’s seen a therapist off and on since she was a kid, but there’s nothing in her folder about it. I want to know why. I want to know what secrets she’s keeping.”

If anyone knew about secret lives, it was Flynn. “If I get caught, I’m blaming it all on you. You are the boss after all.”