Flashpoint (20 page)

Periods of incarceration. February 1982 through January 1986, Bedford Juvenile Center. August 1988 through January 1989, Sing-Sing Correctional Facility, Ossining, New York.

Felonies committed. Grand larceny. Assault with a deadly weapon. Conspiracy to commit murder—a trumped-up charge added to his record when he’d refused to turn state’s evidence on Victor Dimassiano, the man who’d been the closest thing he’d ever had to a father.

Assignments he’d taken while at the Agency.

Deletions he’d performed for his country.

That particular list alone would make her back off for good. After fifteen years, it was several pages long.

No, if she knew more about him than other people did, it was only because he’d made the mistake of telling her about himself on that crazy night he’d gone to her apartment.

“What do you want me to say, Tess?” Jimmy asked her now. He got closer to her, too close, and lowered his voice. “That I loved her and she broke my heart?”

She was looking up at him, those big eyes wide, ready to believe that bullshit, ready to make him out to be some kind of romantic hero. Ready to . . . How had she put it when talking about Khalid? Ready to worship at the altar of Nash.

God help them both.

He was having a hard enough time keeping his hands off of her, and when she looked at him like that . . .

“I fucked her,” Jimmy said flatly. “And the only heart that was broken was Will’s.”

Once again, he was holding her elbow much too tightly. He let her go, disgusted with himself for too many reasons to list.

She didn’t say anything as she followed him over to the wagon. And then she couldn’t say anything because Khalid was sitting there. She just looked at Jimmy as he helped her onto the wagon, as she made herself as comfortable as possible on the hard wooden seat next to the K-stani boy.

Jimmy couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze more than briefly. “Sorry,” he said. He wondered if she knew that his apology was for more than his rude words. He was sorry for so much—all the way back to his inconvenient birth.

“I’m sorry, too, James,” she said, and freaking meant it.

He stood there, like an idiot, watching as the wagon cleared the gate, because she was looking back at him.

“Be careful,” she called. “No dings today, okay?”

It was lunchtime before the reporter came close enough to talk to her.

Tess sat in the minuscule amount of shade thrown by Khalid’s wagon and cut open the corner of the military-issue meal-in-a-pouch that Jimmy Nash had put in her bag back at Rivka’s.

Spaghetti and meatballs
was written in no-frills default computer print on the outside of the plastic, but whatever was inside had the consistency of pudding. Or baby food.

“It helps if you put it inside your shirt for a few minutes,” Will Schroeder said as he approached. He was smiling at the look of horror and disbelief she was sure she was wearing. “That way it’ll heat up—at least to body temperature.”

“I’ve already opened it,” she said. “No way am I putting it in my shirt now.”

Will Schroeder had a nice, friendly smile in a pleasant enough face, although his sunglasses kept her from seeing his eyes. With the fair skin of a redhead, he also wore a hat to help protect himself against the sun. Tess could see traces of sunblock along his hairline and beneath his ear. Even using an SPF 30, he probably had to reapply it frequently to keep from doing a total lobster.

As the official spokeswoman for the Freckle League, she could relate.

“It’s actually kind of nice that this stuff is slightly cool,” she said, shading her eyes to look up at him. “Although I think it’ll help if I stop thinking of it as spaghetti and meatballs. If I gave it a French name, maybe I could pretend it’s gourmet soup, served chilled, from a four-star restaurant.”

He laughed and motioned to the remaining patch of shade. “May I?”

“Of course. It’s Will, right?”

He nodded as he sat down. Held out a hand. “Schroeder. From Boston.”

They shook. Between their two right hands, they were wearing five different Band-Aids. It made Tess think of Jimmy Nash and his dings. Of course, there wasn’t much that didn’t make her think of Nash. She’d done little else all morning long, in between praying that she’d get her period and praying for a freak snowstorm.

“Tess Nash,” she said. “From . . .” She laughed. “I don’t know where I’m from anymore.” Certainly not Iowa, where she’d been born. Or even San Francisco where she’d moved with her mother after her parents’ divorce. “I lived in D.C. for the past few years, but Jimmy, my husband—we were just married—is from Boston, too. He’s with People First.”

“Yeah,” Will said. His smile didn’t fade, not a bit. “I had the pleasure of meeting
Jimmy
in Bali a few years back.”

Pleasure? “Yes, he told me,” Tess said, just as pleasantly.

“I met Larry there, too.”

It took her a moment to realize that by Larry he meant Decker. Jimmy and Larry. Larry and Jimmy. Just a coupla American guys.

Right.

“Let’s cut the crap,” Will said, still smiling. “Shall we? I know you’re not a relief worker—none of you are.”

Tess calmly ate her lunch. “Soupe glacée de tomate au boeuf,” she said. “It actually does taste better if you think of it that way.”

“Don’t worry,” Will said. “Your secret’s safe—for now.”

Did he actually think she was worried about right now? She glanced up, certain of what she’d find—that no one was within earshot. He’d have made sure of that—he had secrets to hide, too.

Tess tried to catch Khalid’s eye from across the yard. If he came toward her, this conversation would have to be postponed. But Khalid was deep in discussion with several other young K-stani men, no doubt still talking about this morning’s explosion and the ensuing column of smoke that still rose from a street just blocks away.

Rumors of a suicide bomber spread faster than the fire that had been caused, in fact, by a relatively small-sized gas leak.

It was dangerous enough here in this earthquake-battered city without bringing suicide bombers into the equation.

Vague threats from low-level reporters didn’t even rate a mention.

“I want answers to some questions,” Will said, and his threats got a little less vague. “Or I’ll start pointing fingers and naming names—and you’ll all be on the next flight out of here so fast . . .”

“You will, too,” Tess pointed out. There was probably a way to eat gracefully from this type of plastic pouch packaging. Practice would no doubt help.

He shrugged. “I already finished the job I came for—last night I filed a story about the quake.”

Shit.

Will was grinning, because he was sure he’d won.

Which he had. Unless she spun this situation on its side. Tess calmly finished her MRE. Working from the support office at the Agency, she’d handled media manipulation plenty of times in the past. Leaking information to the press was part of psychological operations. Psyops was an invaluable tool to a team in the field.

Because these days the bad guys got their news from CNN, too.

But although Tess had been the “unnamed source” in too many news reports to count, she’d always contacted those reporters and leaked the story under her precise conditions. She’d always been completely in control.

The trick here was to somehow trump Will Schroeder’s threats and end up on top. Tess knew what she had to do, but first she’d try to rattle him. “Jimmy told me what happened in Bali. You know, with your wife.”

He was good—his surprise was limited to a two-second freeze that he covered with laughter. “Ex-wife,” he corrected her—but it was just a tad too casually. And if that weren’t a clue, his body language all but screamed how very little he cared. Which of course, meant that he did care. Very much.

But Tess just nodded. “That’s probably for the best, considering—”

“That Jackie was a lying whore?”

Tess was fascinated and couldn’t keep from asking more, despite the fact that she had a limited amount of time to deal with Will’s threat. Their lunch break was almost over. “She’s an investigative reporter, too, isn’t she?”

Will’s bio on the newspaper’s Web site mentioned that he’d spent a number of years teamed with photojournalist Jacqueline Bennett, who’d recently won a whole slew of awards for her pictures from inside an Indonesian terrorist training camp, taken in the aftermath of the bombing in Bali—pictures printed not in the
Boston Globe
, but rather in
Time
magazine.

Those photos had enabled the local government, who was working with both the U.S. and Australia, to send in a task force of SEALs and SAS to shut down the camp. The Agency had used the photos, too, to apprehend more than a half dozen high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders who’d left the country before the camp’s takedown.

“Yeah, if by investigative you mean she fucked the right people to get photo ops.” Will laughed. “I saw her on Jay Leno, talking about how dangerous it was getting those photos. How risky. Yeah, the biggest risk she took was that the condom might break. And now she’s the media’s darling. Queen of the fucking decade.”

Which was he more pissed about—the fact that his wife had been unfaithful, or that she’d scooped a huge story and kept his name off the byline?

“Marriages don’t last long in either of our two businesses,” Tess said diplomatically.

Will laughed again. “Yeah, like you and
Jimmy
are really married.”

“We are.”

He didn’t believe her—not a good sign. “My condolences.”

Enough was enough. “How long have you been with the
Globe
?” Tess asked. “Seven years? And then three before that with the
Middlesex News
?”

He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses, his eyes very blue. “Am I supposed to be impressed that you know—”

She didn’t let him finish. “More about you than you know about us? Yes.”

“That’s going to change right now. Who exactly do you work for?”

Tess shook her head. “You don’t get to ask questions. You get to sit there silently and listen.”

He laughed. “I’ve got to hand it to you, babe, you’ve got balls, but—”

“We’re here because al-Qaeda has eight different training camps in Kazbekistan—and those are just the ones we know about. We’re here because, for the first time in years, the borders are open to the West, and we won’t create an international incident if we’re caught going someplace unauthorized. We’re here because there’s been lots of Internet chatter similar to right before 9/11, and we will not—
will not
—allow a terrorist attack of that magnitude to happen on U.S. soil—or anywhere else—ever again. We’re here because Ma’awiya Talal Sayid died in Kazabek, in the Cantara hospital, from injuries sustained in the quake. Do you need me to spell
Ma’awiya
for you?”

Will shook his head. “No.
Shit,
this is . . . What proof do you have that—”

“The White House is going to hold a press conference announcing Sayid’s death tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. U.S. eastern time,” Tess said. “You will not release any information about Sayid to the
Boston Globe
—or any other news organization—before 11:30 a.m. U.S. eastern time.”

He sputtered. “You’re kidding, right? You just hand me the biggest story of the year—”

Tess spoke over him. “You will not identify me or anyone I work with at any time.”

“—and you think I’m not going to use it?”

“Sayid’s death is not the biggest story of the year,” she interrupted herself to tell him. “Not even close.”

That shut him up pretty quick.

“You will not even so much as speculate on the presence of U.S.-sanctioned counterterrorist teams currently in K-stan,” she continued. “You will stop staking out our house, you’ll stop following us. In fact, you won’t draw any attention to us in any way. If you have information for me, you’ll contact me discreetly. Otherwise, you’ll wait for me to contact you.”

“Lots of rules,” Will said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

He shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“This agreement is nonnegotiable,” she told him.

Will was silent for several long moments, just watching her.

“So you give me this information about Sayid’s death,” he finally said, “information that I’m not supposed to use, and I get . . . ?”

“You get proof that I’m a solid source of accurate information,” Tess told him.

“Suppose I refuse? Suppose I tell you to take your rules and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine, and go call CNN—”

“Then my associates and I will be out of the country and you’ll be minus a source,” she told him. “A very valuable source.”

He thought about that. Good boy, Will. Think hard. Realize exactly what all this means.

“You’re here because you’re looking for Sayid’s laptop,” he finally theorized.

Tess clenched her teeth to keep from smiling. She had him. Locked in. Thank God.

“Yes, we are,” she told him. “And you will not include that information in any of your news reports. Not until after we find it. At which point, you’ll get an in-depth exclusive—but it will be on
my
timetable, is that understood?”

“Yeah.” He was silent again, no doubt realizing that that exclusive would get him a whole lot of attention. Maybe even more than Jackie got from her pictures.

Will leaned closer. “Can you at least tell me if there’s any weight to the rumors that Sayid was in Kazabek to meet with Padsha Bashir?”

“Tess!”

She looked up to see Nash crossing the yard. He was breathing hard and dripping with sweat, as if he’d run hard for several miles.

She was on her feet and heading toward him before she even knew it. “Jimmy! What happened? Are you all right? Is Decker . . . ?”

Something had to have happened to Decker to make Jimmy this upset. He pulled her, hard, into his arms, and she held him tightly, bracing herself for the bad news.

Which didn’t come. “Deck’s okay—and you are, too—thank God. Thank
God
.” He pulled away. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Christ, I stink. . . .”

“I don’t care,” she told him. The entire front of her shirt was now damp, but that didn’t matter. “Are you all right?” she asked him again. “What happened?”