Authors: Allie K. Adams
At Any Cost (13 page)
Dan looked up at Donovan's eyes through the rearview mirror. But they weren't looking at him. They were focused on Dan's hand. Dan looked down. He hadn't realized he'd been brushing JT's hair away from her face. The other was positioned possessively on her shoulder.
Donovan lifted his gaze to Dan's. "What are you doing?"
"Get the lead out, Donovan. Let's get back to HQ before she wakes up. And stop looking at me like that. I'm keeping her close in case she wakes up."
All in all, it wasn't a lie.
JT blinked awake. Where was she? And why was she on the floor? The beige room was sparsely furnished, its single occupant, aside from JT, a single chair fastened to the floor smack-dab in the middle of the room. A large two-way mirror made up the wall opposite the chair.
She was back at HQ. JT recognized the interrogation room from her last visit. That visit resulted in her transfer back to
Gahanna
. HQ had apparently liked the way she took out the tango on her very first assignment, even though it was just another screw up in her ever-growing list of screw-ups.
She'd wanted to impress NASSD so bad. She couldn't afford a single mistake. So when, in the excitement of it all, she forgot to load her weapon, she'd panicked. The guy was so surprised to see JT running at him, screaming at the top of her lungs and flailing her arms like a madwoman, it gave her the element of surprise she'd needed to wrap the strap of her M16 around his neck and give it a good tug. She's lucky it didn't get her killed.
See, Weber? I didn't keep my voice calm and even, and I still got the jump on him.
Of course, that time she didn't wake up on the floor with an awesome headache. Her brain was still in a fog as to how she got here. She tried to retrace her steps. She and Dan were standing in front of Mr. Wong's Restaurant. A vehicle appeared.
Donovan. HQ. Doors locked.
Trap
. JT's vision blurred when she jumped to her feet. She staggered back as the room started to spin, the pounding in her head almost bringing her to her knees. She swallowed down the nausea threatening to spill out. "Okay," she told herself, her hand holding her head so her brain didn't explode out the front. Her butt found purchase against the mirrored wall. A dull, drank-too-much-last-night headache throbbed from the base of her neck.
"Good morning, Agent Turner," a digitized voice sounded throughout the room. It scared the hell out of JT and caused her to jerk her head around. The dull throb jumped up about a thousand points, making her nauseous yet again. "Have a seat."
JT pushed away from the mirrored wall. They were behind there, watching her. Despite the want to run at the mirror full charge and beat on it until it shattered, just to see the look on that traitor's face, she did as requested. Dan Weber was nothing more to her than one more person to add to her list of agents in NASSD who had screwed her over.
Damn. How did she let herself get into this? She thought taking the assignment to recover
She thought they were past this. Thought she could trust him. But then he'd put his hands around her throat.
And tried to kill her.
She hated him. Staring into the mirror, she snarled, "Let's get this over with, you prick."
"I'll be giving the orders." It didn't sound like Dan, but then again, her brains were pretty scrambled right now. It could have been the Queen of England and JT wouldn't have been able to tell. Not that she really knew what the Queen sounded like.
Yep. Her brains were definitely mush.
"When did you acquire the disc?"
JT paused. Why did he want to go over this again? And why was he hiding behind a mirror? Too chicken to face her? If that was the way he wanted it, then he didn't deserve any explanation. Not until he grew a spine and faced her.
"I'm waiting, Agent Turner. Details, please."
He wanted details? Fine. She'd give him every damn detail she could remember. Hell, she might even make up a few. They'd be here until Christmas, but that was his problem. She had nowhere to go and nothing but time. "Two weeks ago I was back at
Gahanna
. I'd just come back from a jog after cracking a code HQ gave me that morning. Seriously, you should really work on the complexity of your—"
"Agent Turner," the voice less-than-gently reminded her. "You mean to tell me you cracked it in one day?"
"Four hours, actually. Do you want to know how long it took me to break into your surveillance system? Or how long it took me to redirect the feed from the women's showers to the picture of Mother Teresa? Shame on you."
"That was you?"
"Duh. Dickhead."
"That tongue isn't helping you. You seem to have a habit of showing severe lack of judgment."
JT felt the heat hit her cheeks. He didn't seem to have any issues with her tongue when she had it down his throat. Still, he had a point. Damn it. If she wanted to salvage any sort of future with NASSD, she'd better stick to the facts and keep her attitude in check.
"What do you want to know?"
"Details, Agent Turner. Tell us about your initial contact to retrieve
She sighed and recited what she'd committed to memory, trying to figure out why she never did see it as a set up. "There's something on the bunk in my barracks. It's a picture of an old restaurant that's down the road a few miles. I figure it's another test being thrown at me and so I grab my gear for a hike."
"When I arrive, this guy was waiting for me."
"Who?"
Who? Dan knew who. And the eagerness in this guy's voice definitely didn't sound like Dan. Even though it was digitalized, she would recognize his voice. A deep apprehension started to grow. Who was behind that mirror, asking her confidential information? Maybe it was that Donovan guy. He clearly didn't trust her.
So where was Dan Weber? Back behind the magic mirror with Donovan? Or did HQ have him in another interrogation room? "It was Jason Peck."
"How do you know it was him?"
"Because I recognized his voice when I met him at the rendezvous."
"You recognized his voice after only speaking with him once?"
"I've got this thing with voices. Once I hear it, I don't usually forget it." Her instant recall on voices gave her quite the advantage during training ops when the instructors doubled as tangos.
Of course, a fog had settled in her brain, causing her thoughts to scramble. Maybe she had heard this voice before. Hell, she didn't even know what day it was.
There was a pause, giving JT the chance to try and sort through her thoughts. Was it only yesterday morning she had retrieved the disc from that group downtown? What day was it anyway? Tuesday. It was Tuesday. Her mind started to clear. It was the day after. An appropriate name for the day they stripped her of her NASSD merits.
"Tell us what you know about Dan Weber."
The order broke JT's thoughts. If he wanted to know about Dan, that meant he wasn't anywhere behind that mirror. If Dan wasn't back there with them, that meant they didn't trust him, either.
JT's heart skipped at the mention of his name, and she didn't like it. He tried to kill her, damn it. She shouldn't give a rip about the man.
Yet, she did. And now she felt the urgent need to cover for him. Not that he did anything wrong. Nor did he deserve it. Regardless, she kept her answers short and elusive. "What can I say? He's Dan.
The
Dan Weber, Superspy Extraordinaire."
"Let me put this is terms you won't try and dance around. Do you trust him?"
"Yes," she didn't hesitate to answer, though she couldn't begin to explain why. Up until this guy mentioned Dan's name, she believed he had something to do with why she now sat in front of a gigantic mirror, answering arbitrary questions about an assignment she wished never happened.
"With your life?"
"Absolutely. With my life."
"Even knowing his history?"
JT's resolve wavered, yet she forced a smile. "History?"
"Agent Weber blew off an op for a chance to go after Peck. He endangered the lives of every agent assigned under him. That didn't slow him down any. We have concerns over his loyalty."
JT felt the color wash from her face. Along with any warmth. She felt cool, even cold. Dan Weber,
the
Dan Weber, blew an op? That little tidbit wasn't in his file and they certainly didn't share that part of his career with the recruits back at
Gahanna
. She felt the pedestal she'd placed Dan on start to crumble.
"Was that why he left NASSD?"
"We sent him on an extended vacation. He was too close to the situation. He chose to make the vacation permanent."
A vacation like they sent Uncle Charlie on? JT knew about NASSD's vacations. They were one-way tickets out. Once an agent went on vacation, they never returned. Yet Dan had.
"Why did he come back?"
"We needed him."
Her temper hit the roof. "So it's okay when
you
need
him
, but when
he
needs
you
, you just throw him out? It's your loyalty that should be in question, not his."
"Agent Turner," the voice stated evenly, obviously not moved by her little speech. "You are walking a very thin line. It isn't in your best interest to push me."
Jesus. What was she doing? She knew better. Disrespecting a superior officer, especially HQ, meant the nastiest, shittiest assignments for the next ten years. If she got any assignments at all.
"You've got a real problem with authority."
"Yes," she said, not bothering to deny it. "I do."
"Your father never showed such blatant disrespect."
"You've never met my mother."
Another long pause.
Turner, you aren't winning any points with this guy.
She chewed on the inside of her lip.
"Let's talk about
"Did Agent Weber mention to you he switched the discs?"
JT perked up at the news. "You mean I didn't give
"You will answer my questions and stop asking your own or you will be placed in solitary until you've had enough time to reconsider your position."
Jeez.
As much as she wanted to know more about
They put her in solitary once back in
Gahanna
. After seven hours of total, silent darkness—no food, no water—she understood the luxury of freedom. She'd hated the silence ever since.
It had to be over a hundred degrees in that tiny wooden coffin. She'd never been claustrophobic, but being stuck in a six by six box would push anyone's limit. All for calling her commanding officer a penis with a little hat.
"Why did you go after
"Peck told me I'd be saving the world. He told me I didn't have any other choice," she answered miserably and looked at her reflection in the mirror. The woman staring back looked like hell. Her hair had partially fallen out of her bun. Her eyes were sunken in, her skin gray and ashy. She looked as bad as she felt. And, at that moment, her shoulder decided to start throbbing.
"Obviously that was an error in judgment."
She glared into the mirror. "Peck told me a disc had been stolen from NASSD's labs and it was my mission to retrieve it, bring it back to HQ. He said to go deep under, to not talk to anyone else in NASSD."
"Why?"
"He said there was a leak in NASSD. A mole. This mission was supposed to be top secret."
"Why didn't you inform your commanding officer before you left
Gahanna
? Why sneak out? It doesn't make you look too good."
"My commanding officer hated me. Besides, I was under a gag order, remember?"
"And you agreed to that?" The owner of the voice didn't sound happy. JT nodded. "When did you partner up with Dan Weber? And why?"
"I wouldn't really consider it a partnership," she explained. JT didn't want to answer any more questions. She wanted to know what they did with Dan. Her heart lightened. Dan didn't lure her into a trap after all. That didn't explain why he held her in a chokehold until she passed out. And what about this fake disc? Those questions she planned to have him answer the next time she saw him.
If
she ever saw him again. The thought made her shudder.
Now that she went back through her mission, it did sound insane. And now here she was. Defending the actions she thought would get her the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oh, Turner. You really screwed the pooch on this one.
"What would you consider your relationship with Dan Weber to be?"
