White Hot: A Patrick & Steeves Suspense (3 page)

S
hock flooded
over Emily as her father stepped into the suite from the adjoining room. All the air went out of her lungs and her chest tightened. She
had
seen his car in the lot. What the hell? She jumped up and took a step toward him.

Her father held his hand up to stop her, raised his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly to the left. His signal to wait. Fuck waiting.

“Dad? What are you doing here?” She barely trusted her voice, a quiver ran through her words.

“Ms. Patrick, we’ll explain every—” began Jill.

“What are you doing here?” She pressed, moving forward, the shock transforming to energized anger.

“Em, I’ll explain everything in detail later, but for now, we have things to discuss with everyone here.”

“With everyone here?” She looked over her shoulder at Dal. He cocked one brow. The Senator and Jill met her gaze straight on, poker faces firmly in place.

Senator Green stood, reached her side in two strides. He put his hand gently on her forearm and attempted to guide her back to her seat. “We know this is a surprise Emily, but we need to get on with this meeting. I only have a few more minutes before I’m due elsewhere.”

She shook his hand off her arm and stared into her father’s eyes. “Please Em,” he mouthed. Shaking her head violently, desperate to clear what was in front her eyes and make sense of things, she turned and paced behind the love seat where Dal was sitting, simmering with anger.

“So,” Jill said, catching Emily’s eye and pausing to be sure she had her attention, “as I started to explain earlier, Jack has been working this assignment for some time, under cover, trying to flush out the head of the cartel that is running guns over the border. And David - that is, your father - is Jack’s handler.”

Emily’s mouth dropped open and she struggled to close it. She breathed in. “What? I thought you were the curator at the Natural History Museum.”

“That’s part of my cover,” her father said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. She saw a tall, lean man in a beige linen suit that was always rumpled. She struggled to puzzle the pieces into place.

“Right,” her father continued, picking up on the nod from Senator Green. “Jack is alive, although he was badly beaten by two of his thugs - Miguel and Rico - you encountered them on the ranch last week. I went down there, got him cleaned up, and he’s gathering his forces to receive the shipment at the ranch.”

“You told me you were fishing,” Emily said, wondering how many other lies she’d been fed.

Her father tilted his head and continued. “Jack has always dealt with the middleman, Geraldo Garcia, but he suspects this will be the last shipment for a while. The warehouse at the ranch is filled to overflowing and he’s sure something major is going to happen soon. He feels this will give us the chance to flush out the guy at the top, who we know only as Mr. Big.”

“We need you,” Jill interrupted, “in place when the shipment arrives. We’re worried that Jack’s cover has been compromised and we need another team on the ground there in case things go sideways.”

“Me? And Emily?” Dal asked, putting his coffee cup on the table in front of him. “You want us to go in without backup?”

Senator Green cleared his throat. “We need you there for reconnaissance, Steeves. You won’t actually be in the middle of anything, we need more information about what is going on down there.”

“And you will have back up,” Jill rushed on. “Since you worked so well together, we want you to go down, get near the ranch, survey what is going on. When the time is right, we’ll come in by chopper and take the cartel down.”

Emily took her spot beside Dal and glanced over at him. His jaw was set, but she could also feel a slight tremor as his leg jittered.

“And this takes place in two days?” Emily asked.

“The shipment is moving through the border sometime today. We have satellite surveillance on the truck. The border has orders to let it go through without inspection or problem.” Jill looked up at David.

Emily’s father shrugged. “From there, Jack’s not sure. His intel is not precise. But he does know that the arms will be at the ranch in two days.”

“Two days from now?” Dal asked, confirming the timeline again.

“Yes,” Senator Green said, rising. “Forty-eight hours from now. Give or take a few. We suspect they’ll bring the truck in over the secondary road leading to the ranch during the night.”

“Where will it be in the meantime?” Emily looked at her father.

“Right now, that’s anyone’s guess. They’ll hole up somewhere south of the border, I expect.” He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it on a chair. Even with the air conditioner on, the room was becoming uncomfortably humid. She’d thought it was just her.

“So we go back to the ranch, watch what is taking place, communicate with you, and you send in the troops to take down the bad guy.”

The corner of her father’s lips upturned and he blinked. “Sounds about right.”

“Dal?” She placed her hand on his thigh and turned to him.

“I’m game,” he said. “Beats mandatory leave.”

“Good.” The Senator leaned forward and shook her hand, then Dal’s, sneaking a discreet look at his watch when his sleeve rode up. “I’ll be in touch,” he said to Jill. He picked up his briefcase, shook David’s hand heartily - Emily saw her father fight back a wince - and was gone, leaving the door to swing close behind him.

“We’re done here for now,” Jill said, standing and smoothing her skirt down over her thighs with her palms. “I think you and your father have a few things to discuss. If you don’t mind, I need a few minutes of Mr. Steeves’s time. You can regroup with him at about sixteen hundred hours.”

Em’s gaze slid to Dal. He met her eyes, shrugged. It wasn’t yet 7:30 a.m., what did Jill plan to do with Dal all day?

Before she knew it, Jill ushered her and her father out the door. It closed behind them with a final click. She stood rooted in the hallway, staring at the man once so familiar and now so strange, her mouth hanging like a fish gasping for air.

E
mily tore
a corner off her slice of toast and pushed it around her plate with her fork, soaking up the last of the egg yolk. Always her favorite part. Today, she did so out of habit, barely tasting the food. Across the table her father spread jam on his bagel with precise movements, careful to obtain complete coverage, even to the very edges, especially particular around the hole in the middle. Something her mother had always taken great joy in teasing him about.

“Did Mom know?” she asked, putting her fork down and folding her hands in her lap. They were in the hotel restaurant, a quieter - and less visible - choice than the busy breakfast buffet near the elevator. A lone waiter swiped at his smart phone beside the coffee pots, occasionally glancing in their direction.

Her father put his knife and bagel on a plate and met her eyes. “She suspected. We joked about it sometimes, my double-life as a secret agent. She always said I reminded her of Maxwell Smart or Inspector Clouseau.” He grinned. “I’m afraid your mother didn’t have much faith in me as a serious spy figure, more as a bumbling bozo.”

Despite herself, Emily chuckled, the laughter the first small crack in the unbearable tension between them since he’d stepped into the meeting upstairs. “I’m sure that wasn’t true, Dad. You were always her hero and she made no bones about it.”

Blinking rapidly, her father pressed his index fingers to the corner of his eyes. “I wish I’d been able to tell her. I guess it was her way of letting me know it was all right to keep that secret from her.”

“Start at the beginning,” she said, leaning back in her chair and motioning the waiter for more coffee. “Help me understand this.”

“The beginning … let me give you the executive summary,” he grinned and lifted his cup for the waiter to top it off.

“The early years, my life was only about the military. As it is, when you’re in the military.” Em nodded and he continued. “I found I couldn’t go back to a civilian life. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Much like you, I was ‘noticed’ let’s say, and recruited by the CIA.”

“But now you’re NSA?”

“Yes, they took over our mission, and recruited Jack and I a few years ago.” He leaned in, lowered his voice. “They have a long reach.” He settled back in his chair and in a normal voice said, “Shall I continue?”

Emily nodded.

“As it turned out, my job at the museum was a good cover.”

“Because of the travel?”

“That, yes. Also I worked alone a lot. So nobody was really aware of what I was doing, most of the time.”

“So your new assignment was to handle Jack?”

“It didn’t start out that way. At first we were partners, went on missions together - that’s how we became such close friends.” He raised a brow, attempted a sly smile. “I see you’re already close with Steeves.”

Emily flicked her hand through the air. “This isn’t about me. When did you become his handler and stop going into the field?”

He leaned back in his chair and held her gaze, the wrinkles at the edge of his eyes deepening. “You can’t guess?”

Damn, it was going to be hard to stay mad at him for long. “When I was born.” She knew it was true the instant the words left her mouth.

“Yes.” He nodded. “The third trimester was difficult for your mother. We almost lost you.”

“I didn’t know that.” She blinked and leaned forward.

“I was away,” he continued. “The guilt of not being there for her, for you… When we left the hospital, I promised her I’d figure out a way to be home.”

“And that’s how you came to be Jack’s handler.” Weird that she’d never heard the story of how she almost wasn’t born, she wanted to know more and resolved to ask him about it later.

“Not that simple, no. First I quit. A couple of months later, they offered me the other job.” He pursed his lips. “It wasn’t easy at first. I mean, Jack was glad to have me back, but he didn’t take well to me being his boss.”

“I’m sensing a but,” she prompted.

“But we got through it,” he said, putting his coffee cup down to close the matter.

Something that had been niggling at her since he first stepped into the room upstairs - a thought she hadn’t been able to pin down, like trying to catch smoke - came to the forefront and she blurted it out. “Are you the reason I got the job at the NSA?”

He tilted his head. “You know I put in a good word for you with Jack.”

“Yes, but …” She glanced out the window. “Knowing what I went through in Afghanistan did you think putting me back in the line of fire would be helpful for me? Some kind of tough love healing?”

“Good grief, Em. No.” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “We meant for you to have a desk job at the Embassy. Not be chasing the cartel for the NSA.”

“We?”

“Me and your Uncle Jack.”

Uncle Jack. The words hung in the air between them. She couldn’t believe that her normally intelligent father could still be so taken in by Jack. “Dad, he clearly no longer has US concerns front and center.”

“I know it probably looks that way, Em, but—”

“No, Dad.” She pried her hand away from his. “He’s working both sides.”

“Trust me, he’s not.” Her father’s mouth set in a grim line. “He’s deep undercover. He’s been working this mission for a long time.”

Emily shook her head, and traced a stain on the maroon linen tablecloth, searching for inspiration.

“I know you want to believe that Jack loves me like a daughter—”

“He does. He’s been a big part of your life for many, many years. A huge part.”

“Then why was he so willing to kill me down there?” She regretted the sharp edge to her voice but how the hell else was she going to get through to him?

“Like I said, deep undercover. He couldn’t risk the mission and helping you would have put you both in danger.”

She leaned back, placed both palms on the table. “Dad. Come on. I was alone with him at one point, there was no reason for him to keep up the ruse. Why the hell didn’t he tell me then? I mean, I was counting on him to come and save me … he could have given me something. Some assurance.”

Her father shook his head. “I know it probably seems that way, but trust me, he couldn’t.”

“There was no one there to hear us.” Frustration ripped through her, she may as well bang her head against the wall.

“I’m certain, a hundred percent certain, that he had a very good reason for how he let things play out down there.”

Emily blurted out a laugh. “Including everything that happened on the boat? Come on! You’re the most intelligent person I know and you can’t at least consider what I’m telling you here? Jack is more invested in himself, or in the other side, than he is in his ‘mission’, as you call it.”

Throwing her napkin on her plate, she pushed her chair back, almost knocking it over, and stalked out of the room into the main lobby. She ducked into a washroom, pulled out her phone and dialed Dal. The call went directly to voice mail. She leaned against the counter, took several deep breaths, and tried to ignore the thoughts ping-ponging through her brain. After some time, she splashed cool water on her face, applied a touch of lipstick and stepped back into the lobby where she came face to face with her father patiently waiting for her.

He jangled his keys and shrugged. “I think you need a ride at least?”

E
mily pulled
off the service road into the employee parking lot at the back of the NSA West Coast Regional Headquarters. At her father’s suggestion, which was probably more of an order - was he her boss now? - she’d come to the office where, she remembered, she did actually have a desk. She’d picked up her mother’s old car, which her father kept in pristine condition and refused to sell, and now here she was.

According to her father, the NSA would either retrieve the vehicle she’d left behind at the ranch or replace it. After being shunted to three different clerks in two different departments, she returned to her desk with a stack of forms and started the onerous process of filling out the paperwork to get her Toyota back. She didn’t much care whether they bought her something new or got the old one back. As long as it got her around town, that would be good enough. In the meantime, she was happy enough driving her mom’s cherry red ‘67 Mustang convertible.

Lost in her task, it was only the shadow falling over her desk - and the man clearing his throat - that got her attention. He was slight, very pale, and the word ‘bespectacled’ jumped unbidden into Emily’s mind. She suppressed a smile. “Yes?” she asked.

“Ms. Patrick, the Associate Deputy Director Page sent me. I’m to take you to security to obtain the clearances you’ll need.”

She shook her head. “I went through all of that last week,” she said.

“No,” he insisted. “These are additional clearances for your new assignment.” He lowered his voice and glanced around at the word ‘assignment’. Emily became aware that her office, such as it was, was still in the middle of the Embassy desk jockeys. “Ms. Page’s orders. Please come with me, Ms. Patrick.”

She followed him down a long hall and into an elevator. He pressed a key for a lower floor and, when the doors slid closed, said, “We’ll also be moving you to another floor. When you return to your desk, box up your things, and it will be moved for you later.”

“I don’t have any things,” she said, chuckling. “I only used the desk one day.”

He peered through his glasses at her earnestly, not cracking a smile. “Yes, right. Well, anything you do have in that desk, please put it in a box and I’ll see that you get it.”

When they reached the lowest floor and the doors slid open, he inserted and turned a key in the elevator panel. The doors slid closed again and they continued to descend until the car shuddered to a stop. Emerging into a brightly lit sub-sub-basement, he scurried down the hall. She hurried along behind him. If he pulled out a pocket watch to check the time, she’d know for sure she’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

He swung open a door into a large cavernous room. Cameras, computers and other electronics lined shelves stacked floor to ceiling on every wall. Page’s assistant led her to a large man sitting at a desk in the corner, laden with folders, a large ashtray overflowing with ash and butts perched precariously on top of one of the piles.

“This the one you called me about?” He barely glanced up at her, his mouth moving around the cigarette jammed in the corner of his lips.

“Yes. I’ll leave her with you then,” said the assistant. He nodded to Emily and said, “When you’re done, please come directly to Ms. Page’s office. You know where it is?”

Emily shook her head.

“Sixth floor. The receptionist will be expecting you.” With that he turned and hurried back the way they had come. Or did he scamper? Emily wasn’t quite sure.

* * *

N
inety minutes later
, Emily stepped into the plush reception area of the sixth floor. The matronly receptionist glanced up at her. “Have a seat, Ms. Patrick. Ms. Page will be with you in a few minutes.”

Grabbing a Time magazine from a table near the windows, Emily chose a chair in the corner that afforded her a clear view of the hall that lead to the executive offices. She was curious how the receptionist knew immediately who she was until she remembered the man in the basement lifting the receiver as she’d gone out the door.

“Would you like something cold to drink, Ms. Patrick? I’d be happy to bring you a juice. Or perhaps water?”

“Water, thank you.” The electronics dungeon in the basement had been bone dry, necessary for the equipment no doubt, but a shock after the humidity of the day outside. It reminded her of the desert. Both deserts now, she realized with a start. No longer only the Afghani desert but also the one she’d driven through with Dal. She wondered what hoops he was jumping through while she was here.

“Ms. Patrick, the Assistant Deputy Director is ready for you,” came a crisp voice from a tall thin woman, who swiveled on her expensive blue pumps immediately and returned the way she had come. Emily jumped to her feet and followed. The receptionist emerged from a door in the hall, passed off the bottle of water she was carrying for Emily like a baton to the executive secretary, and stepped back out of their way. Emily suppressed a grin - this day kept getting more surreal.