On The Rocks (11 page)

“We’re sure the subject is male?” Bill
asked.

“Fairly certain, yes, based on our
profiling. And perhaps not just one, but a member of a shadow
organization inside the CIA. Obviously that’s ‘ears only’ info,
entrusted to this crew since you were previously vetted by Agent
Fletcher before his absence.”

Rachel turned back to Kizzie. “I could go on
and on with the body counts, the blown missions, the near misses at
putting to an end either terroristic acts, or drug trafficking that
funded terrorism, or exposing links in corrupt governments tied to
terrorism. This attack on Galletti is our first crack at actually
getting
ahead
of Metis, who has, in the past, also gone by
names like Odin and Thoth, among other aliases.”

“God-complex much?” Kizzie said.

“Speaks to a need for power, possibly
someone who envisions himself smarter than anyone else. Sharp mind.
But maybe presents as mild and weak in a physical sense.
Narcissistic tendencies, meticulous—” Rachel shook herself out of
that spider web, muttered, “the usual.”

“And from that you assumed it’s a male?”

“What are you getting at, Agent
Connolly?”

Bill sighed. “A person or persons inside the
Agency siphons off information for years and is yet to be caught.
Maybe it’s because the scope is so narrow we’ve eliminating half
the potential candidates based solely on gender? Anyone skilled
enough at misdirection can make the clues point to a male mole.
After all, they
do
work for the CIA.”

Rachel paused a long moment, and then
nodded. “You’re right. I’ll widen the scope. But one thing is
certain: This is someone so high up in rank they’ve got SCI-level
clearance.”

Lennox let out a low whistle.

Sensitive Compartmentalized Information was
the topmost clearance level in the CIA. All SCI-level agents had
access to information deemed Top Secret, but not all Top Secret
personnel had SCI clearance. The distinction was bestowed upon the
most trusted members of the intelligence community. Which made it
exceedingly dangerous if one of those members were compromised in
some way, like, say, deciding to flip on the home team for a
dollar.

But the station was also rare.

Kizzie jumped at the glimmer of hope to get
out of this predicament. “Perfect. Shake the SCI tree until Metis
drops out. There can’t be
that
many folks with that kind of
access.”

Bill hissed a breath through his teeth.
“More than you’d think.”

Yep. Sounded like the go-to formula for the
government.

Want to keep a secret? Tell a million
people...

Via Twitter…

Act surprised by the retweets.

Kizzie muttered a curse. All roads seemed to
point to her being next at bat on this thing and she was really
tired of swinging. And Agent Hayford looked at her with those weird
violet-blue eyes like she was the only hope the CIA had of catching
this guy. Or girl. Or whatever.

“Agent Baldwin, we’d need you to—”

“I can’t do this,” She backpedalled a few
steps, head shaking. “Not with him.”

Rachel frowned. “Agent Tate wasn’t my
call.”

Kizzie knew that. Didn’t change her
position.

“Is he a necessity, Connolly?” Rachel
asked.

“Yes.” Bill pegged Kizzie with a hard stare.
“I won’t send her in without a partner.”

“Then don’t send me in,” Kizzie said. “Send
someone else. Send Gale.”

“Gale’s out of play.”

Kizzie cocked her head. That was the second
time he’d said that about the other agent. “She’s been out of play
a lot lately.”

The old man’s brows leveled. “We can’t all
go traipsing off on vacation whenever we see fit, Baldwin. It’s you
and Tate.”

“Goodie! I win by default,” Lennox
enthused.

“And he’s point on this, too,” Bill
added.

Wow. So that’s why Lennox was back? Bill was
pissed she’d taken some “me time” and this was her punishment?
Working under Tate again? Because that went oh, so well the first
go ‘round.

Kizzie checked her watch. Big hand… little
hand… Look’a there. Half past fuck-this-shit o’clock…

“I’m definitely out now.” She spun on her
heel and stalked toward the door that would take her to the
hallway. In a couple of days Bill would call with another mission
for her and they’d put this behind them. Sure, that op might be to
the eastern edge of Siberia, but, hey, she’d get to see the last
wild Siberian tiger before global warming killed it off.

Hashtag Bonus!

Until then, she needed a cold beer, cable
TV, and a call from Xander. She could
really
use her Dom
reaching out with that whole permission granted bit, ‘cause the
access denied thing had her horny levels at max-operating
capacity.

“You’re just going to let her walk?” Rachel
mumbled from somewhere behind her.

Bill had no choice. Every CRU member had the
right to turn a mission down. Just because Kizzie had never done it
before didn’t mean she waived that right forever.

As she reached the solid metal slab that
would take her into the hall, Rachel tacked on, “He’s selling the
NOC list,” with a nonchalance that belied its weight.

Kizzie’s brief dramatic exit came to a swift
halt.

Footsteps sounded behind her, slow and
steady, and judging by the shortened clip they belonged to the
other woman in the room.

“Our Intel suggests Metis is working with
Abrahan to sell the Non Official Cover list.” Rachel’s tone was
urgent now, her words rapid-fire. “And you can be sure Galletti, a
man who’s spent his entire life buying and selling sensitive data
throughout the criminal underworld, will
not
sit on it long.
Once it’s in his hands there will be no stopping it. All operations
—past, present, and future— are at risk, because every agent we
have working around the world will be exposed. A breach like that
would turn the entire intelligence community into…
so much
confetti
,
and all the bad guys we’re trying to stop will
reign with impunity. Agents will die. Families will be torn
apart…”

Yeah, okay, she got it. Rivers of blood,
swarms of locusts, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sheesh, talk
about piling it on!

“Agent Connolly?” Rachel said, “Would your
name be on that list?”

“It would.”

“And I’m guessing Agent Tate is as
well?”

No response. Kizzie angled her head in time
to see Bill nodding. Not sure why she needed that confirmation…

Rachel snagged her gaze. “Your name is on
that list, too, Agent Baldwin. Yours and every member of the team
under Bill’s command. As well as the names of every member of every
team like yours. Good people, serving their country. People we’ve
deliberately sent into harm’s way with the only assurance being
that their anonymity will remain intact. Their names are on that
list and they will be sitting ducks, just waiting to get
clipped.”

Kizzie inhaled a breath and let it out
silently. Pounding started at the base of her skull. But Rachel
kept hitting her over the head with all the reasons why she had to
go.

“Consider if the Gallettis learn of your
involvement with Sanzio? They’ll come for you.”

“All the more reason for me not to go to
them. Zio can peg me.”

Rachel shook her head. “The drug you gave
him will have left a gap in his memory.”

“You sure about that? ‘Cause it was also
s’posed to work a full eleven minutes faster than it did, and even
then the bastard was strong enough to lunge and choke me.”

Rachel’s eyes widened and her head jerked
back on her neck. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Really
?

Kizzie kept from rolling her eyes. “But it
did.”

“I’m so sorry. An error like that—”

“Could’ve gotten me killed? I know.” Kizzie
smiled brightly. “So I should dive back into the fire and hope you
guys get the mix right this time, huh? And with a partner who’d
tuck tail if it meant saving his own ass at my expense?

“Go ahead, Agent Hayford. Sell me again on
why I’m the only option.”

Rachel met her gaze full on. “Because you’re
already familiar with the target, and you’re the best damn agent
we’ve got.”

Underachieve, kids… Under. Achieve.

Kizzie grit her teeth. Being manipulated
into taking a mission she’d have ordinarily gone on with no problem
just downright sucked and she didn’t like it. No one in this room
would understand her resistance, except for the one man she was
desperately trying to stay away from.

Lennox scorched her with his gaze. The
shit-eating grin was gone, and without the fixture she’d come to
rely upon, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But he looked…
hurt.

“Will you go?” Rachel asked.

Without responding, Kizzie punched open the
heavy door. Shut it behind her.

In the darkened hallway, she waited a brief
moment for her eyes to adjust and then spotted the tiny illuminated
green dot at the far end of the corridor where the exit was
located. A few strides into her one-woman prison break, a voice
cleaved through the silence.

“I need a reason.”

She pivoted hard, irritating the twinges and
aches and scrapes from her dust up with Lennox.

“He
left me
, Bill,” she hissed. “On a
live op my training partner blew my cover, served me up to the
target, and left me to die.”

And the betrayal carved a fissure right
through to the marrow.

After The Point, Lennox was the first person
to breach the walls Kizzie had put in place to protect herself from
the pain of living. He’d taught her how to be an agent —how to
really
be an agent— in a world outside of the safety of a
CIA-run training facility.

He’d taught her how to focus: “
Sometimes,
the difference between life and death is how quickly you connect
the dots. Remember, it’s only mission accomplished if you get out
alive. You can always go back to finish your objective. Hard to do
that if you’re not breathing…”

How to fight:
“Fighting fair is for
school kids and boxers. You’re neither. Assume every fight is to
the death, and make sure you don’t lose.”

How to fuck…

Taught her how to laugh again.

That hurt most of all.

“Are you really surprised I don’t want to
work with him?”

The light in the hallway came on, and then
Bill
click-step-click-step
ped closer. His heavy hand landed
on her shoulder, and he leveled a somber gaze on her. “Remember
what you told me when you left The Point?”

A slow breath whistled through her teeth. Of
course she remembered the promise she’d made. Which triggered
why
she’d had to make the damn promise in the first place.
All at once Kizzie’s nostril’s flared and her eyes narrowed and her
mouth got ready to tell Bill where to go and how fast to get
there.

Instead, she unhinged her clenched jaw and
shrugged his hand off of her. “You can’t keep doing that. You don’t
get to drag up The Point every time you need me to go on some
suicide mission. For the last time, Bill, I know what I owe you. I
know
, okay? I have tried to forget it and I can’t. That
stain will be on my soul until I die, and no matter how many
scrubbings the cleaning team over in the Pentagon gives it, when I
get that tattered bit of nothing back, that stain will still be
there, fresh as the day it was made. Do me a favor and
stop
throwing it in my face.”

Bill blinked. His bushy white brow pulled
together. “Is that why you think I remind you? To hurt you? To make
you relive that awful time in your life?” He shook his head subtly,
as though he’d been wounded.

“When I saw you in that room, Kizzie, you
were so… small. You looked so fragile.”

Kizzie looked away. She didn’t want to
remember. She made a point not to remember.

He knuckled her chin back so her eyes stayed
on him. “You were also the bravest thing on two feet. There you
were, your entire world had just fallen apart —
again—
and
you were the epitome of calm. I almost didn’t recruit you. In fact,
I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. I gave you my pitch and
asked if you wanted in. Remember what you told me?”

“I said,” a lump rose in her throat and her
voice cracked, “I said I’d go if I could do some good. Make my
parents proud.”

“This is it.” Bill nodded. “This is the good
you’re meant to do. Protecting your country and preventing
disasters when you can. That’s what makes a hero, Baldwin. Doing
things you don’t want to but you know need doing. Often at the
expense of your own comfort… Your own sanity… Your own freedom.
Sure, I know what you did at The Point, but I also know and respect
why you did it.”

His palm cupped her shoulder again. Smoothed
down her upper back, and before Kizzie knew what was happening, the
other one had her wrapped from the opposite side. Bill pulled her
close and patted her gently, and the display of emotion was so odd
she didn’t know how to respond.

She awkwardly hugged the old guy back.

“Your parents would be damned proud of the
agent you are, Kendra. Of the woman you are.”

Kizzie stiffened. The last time Bill had
said her name was the day he’d just spoken of. In that stark white
room, much like the one she’d just left, she’d been staring at the
wall, Jo’s voice playing over and over in her head: “
It doesn’t
hurt anymore, Kizzie.”

Bill had been trying to get her attention:
“
Kendra… Kendra, I need you to answer me…”

“But,” Bill said, mercifully interrupting
that memory, “no one could be more proud of you than me.”

He pulled away, and for the first time in
her life she saw something like genuine admiration in Bill’s
eyes.

Aww, shucks.

Kizzie motioned toward the room. “Leopards
and spots, though, Bill. I’d be an idiot to go.”