Girl of Lies (31 page)

“S
OMETHING'S DIFFERENT about you.”

Adelina froze. She was in the process of putting away groceries, and had unconsciously been humming Tina Turner’s new hit,
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
For two days, she’d been trying to shut out her news. Not think about it. The implications were terrifying.

She stood up straight. Richard was leaning on the doorframe. His face was openly curious and distrustful.

“What do you mean?” she asked. She set the can of peas down on the counter next to her hand.

He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been very cheerful lately. It’s nice to see.”

Bastard.
She was cheerful because for the first time in her life she had some vague idea of what it felt like to be loved. To be valued. Cherished. But now—here—she had to deal with
him.
Her rapist. Her captor. Her husband. She felt a cold chill in her gut, as she always did when he looked at her like this. With lust in his eyes. Richard was rarely gentle, never loving, always contemptuous. Until March, she’d never imagined that making love could be something enjoyable. Something amazing.

He’ll kill me if he finds out. Or he’ll kill my daughter.

That’s crazy,
he had responded
. Just leave him.

You don’t know him. He murdered my father.

You don’t know that for sure.

I do.

Adelina swallowed. She felt a pit of fear in her stomach, as she often did with Richard. Because she had missed her period. And—it wasn’t possible that Richard Thompson was the father. She was trapped. She couldn’t leave him because he’d take Julia. Or hurt her. But she couldn’t go on like this. Because she was dying inside.

“Seriously,” Richard said. “What’s going on with you?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “My class. I’m just really enjoying it. I’ve made friends.”
I’m in love and dying because I can’t leave you.
She closed her eyes, trying to force back tears. She had too much pride to let him see her cry.

“Tell me about your friends,” he said, his voice cool.

Change the subject.
“You tell me about yours. You’ve been out with Leslie Collins a lot. Is he really an accountant?”

“No,” he said, his voice contemptuous. “He’s really a fucking spy.”

Asshole.
“He just doesn’t seem your type,” she replied, ignoring his caustic response. Ever since the night he’d huddled with Prince Roshan and Leslie Collins, she’d realized something was wrong there. Richard Thompson wasn’t the type to ignore genuine British royalty in favor of a jumped up nobody from Saudi Arabia whose only claim to
royalty
was the recent discovery of oil. She knew him well enough to know that if he paid more attention to Roshan than to George-Phillip, something was suspicious.

Unfortunately, she’d had little luck figuring out what it was. Richard was, as always, secretive.

“Leslie isn’t the point. The point is your newfound cheerfulness. I want to know what the fuck is going on.”

His eyes had narrowed, and she felt the temperature in the room plummet from the ice in his eyes.

Be careful, Adelina.
Piss him off, but not too much.
She whispered a quick prayer to Mary. Then she shrugged a little. “I turned twenty last month. I guess I realized it’s time to make the best of our situation.”

Swallowing back vomit, she continued with the words she’d rehearsed. “I guess I’ve been a bit spoiled. I should be more grateful.”

“You
should
be more grateful,” he said. “I take care of you, don’t I? Do you ever have to worry about food? About anything at all?”

Just my freedom, you fucking bastard.
“No,” she said. “I just never planned to have children.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” His tone had a hard edge to it. For a second, she wished the nanny were here, instead of at the park with Julia. He was never violent when other people were there.

She swallowed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not fucking upset.”

She knew the next words would set him off. They
always
did. “Richard, calm down…”

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down. If you hadn’t gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have had to deal with an international fucking incident. The agency
made
me marry you.”

“Well, my mother made me marry
you.”

She knew the next words were going to hurt her. Or rather,
he
was going to hurt her in response to what she was about to say. But right now, she needed him to. Because otherwise, she was going to have no way to explain the pregnancy. So she said the words, quiet, her tone vicious, calculated. “Do you
really
think I’d ever marry my rapist voluntarily?”

Richard’s eyes bugged, and he reached out and grabbed her by the throat. Silent, his face controlled, the only sign of his anger those bulging eyes and his hand gripping her.

For just a second, she started to panic. Had she miscalculated? He was always so controlled. She couldn’t
breathe
. But then relief swept over when he let go of her throat and muttered in a guttural voice, “You fucking whore.”

Then he started to tear at her clothes.

Adelina didn’t cry. She didn’t weep. A tear slid down her face, a desperate, lonely tear, but she wiped it away before he could see it, and inside she closed her heart, she disassociated, she left her body behind and turned her mind and her heart to a prayer to God to deliver her and protect her daughter. Richard Thompson might have her body, but he could never have her soul.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary,
Bear Wyden thought as he got out of the cab on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was frazzled. To say the least.

After his unsatisfactory meeting with Senator Chuck Rainsley that morning, he’d regrouped his team at Diplomatic Security with new instructions. Priority number one was to dig into Richard Thompson’s past, but he couldn’t tell anyone that.

However, as a matter of
routine investigation
, he’d detailed investigators to pull every detail they possibly could, not only of Richard Thompson’s private life, but that of every member of his family. Credit reports, FBI files, even college applications. A search of the National Crime Information System database turned up a hit in San Francisco in February 1990, but the file wasn’t actually in the system. Worse, the file, which was on paper with the San Francisco Police Department, was a secured file. He’d had to personally call the chief of police to request a copy, which he’d been told should be faxed to him some time that night.

It was probably some drug addict with the same name. But Bear knew that in February 1990, the Thompsons were in San Francisco on compassionate leave when Richard Thompson’s mother was dying.

He felt like he was just getting his teeth sunk into the investigation when Secretary Perry called. It was a short call.

“Meet me at the White House at 3 pm.”

It was 2:45, and Bear was being patted down by the Secret Service agents at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. He didn’t know why he was here. Other than the Secretary of State he didn’t know who he was meeting. But he knew the fucking White House was so far above his pay grade that he’d gladly go back to Whogivesafuckistan if it meant he didn’t have to deal with this bullshit. Bear was a security agent. A cop. Not a politician. He wanted to retire from the Foreign Service and go look at pretty girls on the beach in Florida—not get retired early because of some stupid-ass political shootout.

But then he thought about that sixteen-year-old girl, Andrea Thompson, taking out two hardened terrorist fuckheads with her bare hands while her father dicked around behind his desk at the Pentagon. That girl deserved some justice, whatever form it was going to take.

Forty minutes later, Bear was still sitting in a waiting room in the West Wing, sending instructions to his investigators via text message and email.

That’s when he saw the email from one of his senior investigators.

Mitch Filner was a former CIA operative and had been placed with the US Embassy in Singapore in the late 90s. After a rape charge in Singapore, he was dropped by the agency, but had done some freelance work in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade.

Mitch Filner had turned up dead of multiple stab wounds in a dumpster in Northern Virginia. Normally a local crime wouldn’t come to anyone’s attention, except that a real estate agent had walked into a condo in Bethesda that morning, expecting it to be empty. Instead, the carpet was flooded with blood stains.

The blood was a match for Filner. And the condo had a naked eye view of the Thompson’s condo in Bethesda.

What the hell did it mean? Why was a former CIA operative watching the Thompson daughters? At the scene of a shooting from the night before. Something stank to high heaven.

At 3:25, the Secretary of State finally walked into the waiting room. Bear jumped to his feet.

James Perry looked put together and well rested, which was more than Bear could say after digging through Richard Thompson’s file all night.

“Bear. Come this way. We don’t have time for a briefing.”

Bear followed as Perry headed down the hall. A secret service agent walked along with them and opened a door just ahead. For a panicky moment Bear thought they were walking into the Oval Office. But instead, he recognized the figure behind the desk the moment they walked in. Former Senator Ben Olin, now the National Security Advisor to the President.

Olin stood up. Also in the room, unfortunately, was acting-Secretary of Defense Richard Thompson, along with his military aide-de-camp, an Army Colonel. To his left, Max Levin, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, flanked by another man with a ruddy, freckled face. In moments, that unfamiliarity was addressed. The freckled guy was Leslie Collins, the Director of Operations at CIA.

Bear stared openly at Thompson and Collins. Thompson was CIA and had been for thirty years or more. There was no doubt about it. There was no way they didn’t know each other.

Did Thompson know
Mitch Filner?
How fucking tied up was he with the people who had kidnapped his daughter?

The National Security Advisor leaned forward and said, “Secretary Perry, I’ve just received the most interesting briefing from the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA. I understand your department is conducting the investigation into Andrea Thompson’s kidnapping. Why?”

Perry answered off the cuff and without reference to any notes. “The kidnapping involved foreign nationals who may have been engaged in espionage. One of them we are certain was hired in the past by the Defense Department and CIA for intelligence related activities.”

Bear coughed. “Two, sir.”

Perry turned towards him.

“Two?”

“I just got the news, sir. A former CIA employee turned up dead this morning. His blood was found all over an apartment which overlooked the Thompson condo in Bethesda.”

Richard Thompson visibly started. “What?” Then he turned, purposefully, toward Collins.

Bear thought
that
was fucking interesting.

The National Security Advisor asked, “What do you have to say about that, Max?”

Max Levin was unruffled. Prior to his tenure at CIA, he’d been a Marine Corps General, then head of the National Security Agency. He’d seen his share of crises. “First I’ve heard of it. What’s this guy’s name?”

Bear answered, “Mitch Filner.”

Leslie Collins shook his head and scoffed. “We fired Filner ten years ago. He raped some girl in Singapore.”

Olin, the National Security advisor, closed his eyes and muttered, “Dear God.” He appeared to count to twenty. Bear watched as he did it. Finally, Olin said, “All right. For now, State keeps the investigation. The rest of you, turn over whatever they need. We don’t need any political liabilities. Is this going to be a liability?”

As he asked the question, he looked at each of the men in the room. His meaning was clear. It was an order. Make this problem go away, before it became a problem for the President.

Leslie Collins sat in the back of the Lincoln Town Car. He looked at his watch. He was going to be late for dinner.
Again.

He shook his head. Then he picked up his secured phone.

“Yeah, Danny?

It’s Collins. I need a status.”

Danny McMillan wasn’t just an employee. He was a trusted friend, who had served his time in some nasty places—some of them, side by side with Collins.

“Yeah. Here’s what I have. First thing—Carrie and Andrea Thompson called Senator Rainsley’s office. They have an appointment tomorrow evening.”

“Shit,” Collins said. “All right, what else? What are their plans tonight?”

“As I understand it, some of them are going out, but Andrea Thompson is planning to stay in. Our guy on the security team thinks she’s burnt out.”

“All right. What about the mother?”

“No sign yet. No cell phone signal, no credit cards.”

“And the oldest sister?”

“She’s on a charter flight to San Francisco right now with her husband and a reporter.”

Collins was silent for a moment. “A reporter? Does he have a name?”

“Uh… Anthony Walker. He’s an entertainment reporter with the
Post
, apparently.”

Collins closed his eyes and set the phone down on the seat beside him. He counted to ten, and then counted to ten again for good measure. Then he picked up his phone. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What, sir?”

“Anthony Walker isn’t a fucking entertainment reporter, he won a fucking Pulitzer for his international affairs coverage. Walker did a whole feature on Wakhan three years ago when the UN dug up the bodies.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to be silent at the other end of the line. Finally he came back and said, “What do we do?”

“Take it down. I want everyone who can possibly blow the lid on this thing to be completely discredited. Or dead. How long will it take to execute?”

“Most of it, twenty-four hours or less. GP might take a bit longer, and he’s the wildcard.”