Authors: Elizabeth Bevarly
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #General, #Suspense
Overnight Male (5 page)
“Hey, I work for an information-gathering arm of the U.S. government,” he told her with clearly affected self-importance. “It’s my job to make brilliant deductions.”
She waved off his concern quite literally. “Don’t worry about it. I’m highly adaptable. I can match my hours of operation to yours with no problem.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “Something about the way you said that indicates you’d rather not.”
This time Lila shrugged off his concern literally. “I prefer to work at night—big surprise—but when the assignment calls for daytime activity, I don’t have a problem with it.”
“You’re just not as happy working during the day.”
“Happiness isn’t a word that appears in my job description,” she told him.
“But you’d still be happier if this was one of those nighttime infiltration things, wouldn’t you?”
There was no reason to deny it, so Lila relented. “Yeah. I’d be happier if it were. But—”
“Why?” he interrupted before she could finish.
She hesitated before replying, just long enough to let him know she resented his interruption. Finally, though, she said, “Because I work better at night.”
“I beg to differ,” he contradicted.
Lila gaped at him. She wasn’t used to people contradicting her, especially as immediately and absolutely as Joel just had.
He obviously understood the reason for her silence, because he told her, “I’ve studied the particulars of every assignment you’ve carried out for OPUS, Lila, and statistically speaking, you’re always
very
effective regardless of what you’re doing or when you’re doing it.”
A thrill of something warm and fluid purled through her when he addressed her by her first name. She told herself she should be offended at the familiarity and his lack of protocol. Then again, she’d only a short time ago been giving herself permission to drop protocol until they arrived in Cincinnati, and she herself had been thinking of him not as Virtuoso, but as Joel. Besides, she kind of liked the way her name sounded when it was spoken in that deep, velvety baritone.
Then the essence of what he’d told her finally gelled. “You’ve read over
every
one of my assignments?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t kept track, but considering the years she’d put in with OPUS, the total number must be staggering. And God knew how many pages were devoted to each.
“Once I knew we’d be working together, I needed to familiarize myself with you,” he said. Immediately he corrected himself, “I mean…with your methods. How else was I going to do that if not by reading about your standard M.O. when you work?”
“You could have learned about my standard M.O. by looking at a handful of my most high-profile assignments. Then you could have looked at my personnel file for anything else you wanted to know.”
He schooled his features into what Lila supposed was meant to be a bland expression. But it was in no way convincing. Her sarcasm of a moment ago had been warranted—he really wasn’t equipped to be working out in the field. What the hell was OPUS thinking, letting him tag along?
“Your personnel file,” he said, “is off-limits to everyone except a few people who are a hell of a lot higher up the ladder than me.”
Lila couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that escaped her at that. “Right. And God knows they never leak any information about me to anyone else in the organization. I mean that whole rumor about me having tried to murder the Big Guy must have started with the lunchroom ladies in the OPUS cafeteria.” She sighed and lifted a hand to rub her forehead in an effort to relieve a fast-approaching headache. “Look, um, Virtuoso, don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”
“I’m not doing—”
“Virtuoso,” she said again.
“Joel,” he corrected her. “Please call me Joel. I know it’s not protocol, but we’re not in Cincinnati yet, and
I
feel like an idiot whenever someone uses my code name. It just seems like such a Hollywood affectation.”
“Is that why you don’t call me by my code name?” she asked, trying to change the subject. And also wanting to know why he called her Lila when, professionally speaking, he shouldn’t.
He grinned. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
Although she noticed he didn’t answer her question, she let it go. “Then don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” she repeated.
“I’m not.”
She met his gaze levelly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t read over my personnel file, too. It makes perfect sense that they would give it to you. Even if they didn’t give me yours.”
She told herself she did
not
sound petulant when she uttered that last comment. The reason she hadn’t been given any more information about Joel than the essentials of name, rank and serial number—at least, technically speaking—was that she already knew the most important thing about him: That he’d never been out in the field. And also because—dammit—he was the one who would be in charge of the operation, feeding her whatever information she needed as she needed to know it. Clearly, anything personal about him was nothing she needed to know. At least, the higher-ups at OPUS didn’t think so. Nor did Joel, evidently, because he certainly wasn’t talking.
And why that bothered her so much, Lila would just as soon not ask herself.
She continued, “I’m sure you know every intimate detail of my background and personal life. At least, the parts that OPUS knows.” Which, granted, was pretty much everything, she had to concede. But there was no reason Joel couldn’t think she had one or two secrets she was keeping to herself.
He studied her in silence for a moment longer, as if he were going to continue the charade. Finally, though, he admitted, “Okay, I know everything OPUS knows about you. But you don’t strike me as the sort of woman who would worry about other people discovering all the skeletons in her closet.”
She chuckled at that, too, though with genuine good humor this time. “Ah, no,” she admitted freely. “The skeletons in my closet got tired of the crowded conditions and made their break a long time ago. There’s not much left in there to discover.” Quickly, before he had a chance to comment on that, she added, “Still, you get to know everything about me, and I know almost nothing about you. So much for our
partner
ship.”
She emphasized the first half of the word deliberately, hoping to goad him. Goading people had always helped Lila keep them at a distance, which, she told herself, was the only reason she was trying to goad Joel. To drive the wedge between them a little deeper. It wasn’t because she was hoping it would present a challenge that made him offer up some snippets about himself, too.
He eyed her in silence for a moment, long enough to let her know he understood exactly what she was doing. Then he asked, “What do you want to know about me?”
She arched her eyebrows in genuine surprise. If OPUS hadn’t given her information about Joel, then she wasn’t supposed to have it. Anything he might tell her about himself that she wasn’t already privy to would be in violation of the organization’s rules. Not a huge violation, especially if he only told her things like how he’d come in third in the fifth-grade spelling bee or how his favorite food was Mallomars. It was still a violation. And it surprised Lila that he would overstep the rules by even that much. Maybe archivists played by their own rules, but their rules weren’t generally in violation of OPUS’s. Joel especially seemed like the type of guy who would abide by regulation.
In spite of that, she said, “Where did you grow up?”
“Falls Church, Virginia,” he told her readily.
“You’ve lived your whole life in the D.C. area?”
He nodded. “My father was a Virginia senator until he retired a few years ago.”
Lila’s mouth dropped open at that, but she said nothing.
“He still does a little advising for the current administration,” Joel continued matter-of-factly, “but mostly he and my mother enjoy their respective retirements, usually on another continent.”
“Respective retirements?” Lila echoed. “What did your mother do for a living?”
“She edited the
Washington Sentinel.
Her family owns it. Among other things. They’re big in the publishing world.” Before Lila had time to digest that, Joel was adding, “My grandparents lived in D.C., too. My grandfather worked for Eisenhower, and then Kennedy. The house I live in now belonged to him and my grandmother. She left it to me when she died, since my sister and her husband already had a place in Tysons Corner and she knew I wanted to stay close to home after I graduated from Georgetown.”
Lila’s head was spinning by now, thanks to the rarefied atmosphere she’d just entered. Senators, presidents and newspaper families were the sorts of creatures she never had much chance to meet, but to Joel, they were a part of everyday life. Falls Church, Georgetown and Tysons Corner were all very refined, very affluent areas. Certainly Lila was no stranger to the lifestyles of the rich and powerful. But she’d been a part of them only as an outsider looking in. And only when she was working on assignment. Never in her life had she been a part of that environment for social reasons. To Joel, there was no other life.
“You come from money, then,” she said, stating the obvious.
“I do,” he admitted. Again without hesitation, but also without apology or vanity. It had been Lila’s experience that rich people usually copped to their wealth in either one way or the other. To Joel, however, it seemed to be a part of his makeup, the same way his lungs were.
“Must be nice,” she couldn’t quite keep herself from saying.
“It was,” he told her. But once more, he spoke without any kind of inflection. “Still is.”
“And you have a sister. Anyone else?”
He shook his head.
“She’s older?”
He nodded.
Well, goodness, this conversation was offering Lila all kinds of insights into Joel’s background and character. If this kept up, she might even find out what his favorite color was, and that would
really
violate regulation.
She grinned. “If you could be any vegetable in the world, what would you be and why?”
That, finally, got a reaction out of him that
wasn’t
matter-of-fact. Not a big reaction. Mostly just the squinching up of his eyes so that he was looking at her as if the sun had gone into total eclipse and thrown the planet into complete darkness, but hey, it was something.
Even so, his voice remained unchanged from its usual straightforward delivery when he replied, “One of those bags of salad that’s already washed and ready to serve.”
Lila’s smile broadened. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“But that’s not actually a vegetable, is it?”
“Of course it is,” he insisted. “And it’s a damned interesting one, too.”
“Okay, so why would you be that?”
He gazed at her blankly. “Are you kidding? Salad already washed and ready to serve? That’s like a party just waiting to happen.”
After that, the remainder of the ride to their jet passed in a surprisingly swift and tension-free manner, with Lila learning all kinds of things about Joel. Like, for instance, if he could be any fruit in the world, it would be a coconut, because they never took themselves too seriously. Any animal, he would be a jellyfish, because, hey, no pressure there. Any musical instrument? An electric guitar, because it was so soulful. Supermarket product? A TV dinner, because they were bad for you but, oh, so good. Mode of transportation? A bullet train. Because, well, for obvious reasons.
Of course, she thought when he uttered that last. What guy wouldn’t be a bullet train for obvious reasons? Still, it did make her wonder. About a lot of things. Things that had nothing to do with transportation. Well, not conventional transportation, anyway. A guy who was a bullet train could doubtless transport a woman to a lot of places. Hence the wondering about a lot of things. Until the wondering became visualizing and started threatening to make Lila lose track of what her and Joel’s actual goal was, which was…
Well, hell. She’d known a little while ago. Before Joel became so charming and approachable and bullet-trainy and made her start wondering about and visualizing things she had no business wondering about and visualizing when she should instead be focused on…
An assignment, she finally recalled. An assignment to capture a man who was a threat to national—even international—security. A man who had eluded OPUS—who had eluded
her—
for years. A man whose presence roaming free in the world was a smack in the face to Lila’s skill and determination as an agent. A man she was tired of chasing.
It was time to catch Adrian Padgett, she told herself, re-focusing her attention on the man it really needed to be on. Past time. She
would
catch him this time. And she would see him tossed into the most fail-safe prison in the country, if she had to slam the door shut and lock it behind him herself. Then maybe she could get on with other more pleasant pursuits. Like, oh…she didn’t know. Her
life,
maybe.
For some reason, her gaze fell on Joel as that last thought formed in her head. Even though she told herself he was
not
going to be one of her pursuits, never mind have anything to do with her life. He wasn’t her type, he wasn’t her goal, he wasn’t her match. Hell, he wasn’t even her partner, not really. Providing Oliver survived his upcoming wedding to Avery Nesbitt, he and Lila would return to being a team. She hoped.
Joel Faraday would just be a blip on the time line of Lila’s life. One man of many, and by no means the most important. That man was hiding somewhere in Cincinnati. And she was
this close
to bringing him down. For good.
L
OUNGING WITH A SNIFTER
of an exceedingly good Armagnac in the living area of his exceedingly luxurious suite at the Four Seasons Cincinnati, Adrian Padgett was exceedingly bored. But then, that was hardly anything new, was it? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been intrigued/fascinated/captivated/even remotely preoccupied by anything intriguing/fascinating/captivating/even remotely worthy of preoccupation. Life could be so boring when one was corrupt. Where was the challenge in anything? Where was the mischief? Where was the sneaky underhandedness? When a man was amoral to begin with, there were no lines to cross, no rules to break, no crosses to double. If one had no allegiances to begin with, one couldn’t exactly betray them, could one?
Truly, dammit, where was the fun? Taking the entire planet hostage wasn’t turning out to be nearly as diverting as Adrian had thought it would be.
Of course, he thought as he contemplated his companions, it would have helped if he’d been able to amass some proper henchmen instead of the ragtag group of college students he’d collected over the past few months. The three young men draped over the furniture in his suite weren’t exactly Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan when it came to villainy. More like Boris and Natasha. Only, without the elegant wardrobe and charming accents.
Oh, sure, they
said
they wanted to take over the world with Adrian. And if they’d put forth half the effort to take over this world as they had taking over the worlds in their godforsaken video games, Adrian would be master of time, space and dimension by now. But that was just it. Unless something was a graphic on a game screen, they didn’t view it as a challenge. And it wasn’t as if Adrian hadn’t given them plenty of incentive. He’d promised them that once they had the world in their possession, the boys could have Daytona Beach, all incarnations of MTV, the Playboy mansion, Nintendo
and
Jessica Alba to divvy up however they wanted.
He blew out an exasperated breath. Where were tomorrow’s despots supposed to come from, if not from today’s universities? Where were the future Slobodan Milosevics and Saddam Husseins? It was criminal how college campuses weren’t producing tyrants anymore. Well, except for the Young Republicans. But even they were more interested these days in making sound business investments than they were in global domination. At this rate, by the time today’s youth grew to maturity, the world wasn’t going to be worth taking over. Which was all the more reason why Adrian had to do it
now.
Unfortunately, the timetable wasn’t up to him, since it wasn’t he who knew the secret code that would finally put the world in his grasp. No, that was up to Moe, Larry and Curly over there. The ones currently focused on the big-screen television, playing a game that seemed to involve a hedgehog who was dressed in large red sneakers and big white gloves, having evidently eschewed any other clothing.
Typical cartoon character, Adrian thought. All accessories. No pants.
“I wanna be Sonic now,” Chuck Miller said suddenly, tossing down the game controls he’d held in both hands and seizing—without asking permission—the controls from his companion to the left.
Neither of his playmates took offense, however, since they were all old pals. In fact, Adrian knew the trio’s friendship went all the way back to their freshman year in college, three whole years ago. Donny Grawemeyer, who was seated on Chuck’s left, only swatted Chuck’s hat and sent it flying, and Hobie Jurgens, on the right, only laughed and called him Buttwad.
It warmed the cockles of Adrian’s heart to see the boys getting along so well. And such charming, articulate creatures they were, too.
The three young men went to great pains to make clear their nonconformity from the campus cattle who did their academic grazing en masse, but each was dressed in some kind of iconic costume of his generation that indicated a desperation on his part to belong
some
where. Chuck was the typical suburban faux gangsta in his ropey gold chains and oversize pants and T-shirts—today’s color scheme was blue on brown. Donny was the self-proclaimed metalhead, his wavy red hair streaming past his shoulders over a black System of a Down T-shirt—whoever the hell they were—and blue jeans. And Hobie, with his cropped blond locks and baggy Jams and red Billabong T-shirt—whatever the hell that was—was the surfer dude. This despite the fact that the only surf one might find on the Ohio River occurred when a passing coal barge increased its speed to more than one knot.
Adrian supposed that, to the three students, he was something of an icon, too—albeit from their parents’ generation. To them, he was The Suit. A suit who went by the name of Nick Darian, since there was no way on God’s green earth he would ever give any of them his real name.
Now that his work day had ended, however—though his work day these days didn’t much involve any work—he had shed his espresso-colored jacket and tie and unfastened the buttons of his mustard-colored dress shirt at his throat and cuffs, rolling the latter back to his elbows. Adrian clung to his Fortune 500 wardrobe selections, even though his job these days consisted of little more than watching his back and trying to figure out where to strike next with his band of half-assed men. And also making sure that his half-assed men didn’t stray from the path of world domination any further than obtaining the next level in Fire Emblem. Whatever the hell that was.
Adrian identified with none of the boys. He admired none of them. He respected none of them. He liked none of them. He did, in fact, resent all of them, since they were all essential to a plan he couldn’t execute without them. Because they knew things about computers and code and other such things that Adrian simply could not grasp himself. Unfortunately, the little bastards couldn’t focus their brains on anything besides gaming for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch.
When they did focus, though…Good God, they were magic. There was potential for them as a group that Adrian had barely tapped, and if they would just think about something besides half-naked hedgehogs, it would be they, not he, who ruled the planet.
“Dude, you’re always Sonic,” Donny said now, his carrot-colored hair falling forward as he reached for the controls Chuck had taken from him. “Gimme back the controls.”
But Chuck only nudged with his foot the controls he’d abandoned, scooting them closer to Donny. “You can be Tails,” he said. “Live a little.”
“Tails sucks, man,” Donny said. “He don’t do jack.” But instead of reaching for the controls that Chuck held firm, he leaned over his friend and snatched the controls Hobie held.
“Hey!” Hobie objected eloquently.
“I’m Knuckles now,” Donny announced. He tossed the controls formerly known as Chuck’s to Hobie. “You be Tails.”
“Tails sucks, man,” Hobie said. “He don’t do Jack.”
Adrian closed his eyes in a silent plea for patience. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a good, solid two-by-four at the moment. How could people who claimed the IQs of NASA engineers have the maturity of eggplants?
“Boys, don’t make me separate you,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You know how much you hate being put in time-out.”
They, of course, ignored him. Worse than ignored him, actually. They didn’t even hear him. And if there was one thing Adrian hated more than anything in the world, it was going unnoticed.
He opened his mouth to say something that would, he hoped, wrest their attention from the colorful graphics zipping by on the TV screen for even a moment, when the door to the hotel suite beeped at the use of a key card, then opened to reveal the final member of the group. She, too, barely acknowledged Adrian as she strode by him, tossing a halfhearted “Hey, Nick” over her shoulder at him as she approached the boys instead.
Ah, Iris, he thought as he watched her take a seat on the sofa, thrusting one long leg over the arm to swing her foot anxiously above the floor. She was always doing something anxiously. The antithesis to the boys, who could sit idly for hours in front of their games, Iris Daugherty could never be still for more than a few minutes at a time. She was an icon of her generation, too, though she took greater pains to establish her own identity of Goth Girl. She was dressed today as she always was, completely in black, from the cropped T-shirt to the baggy, zipper-ridden cargo pants to the studded belt and high-top sneakers. Her ears were pierced probably a dozen times, as was her eyebrow, her nose and her navel. Scores of black rubber bracelets encircled one wrist, and a black studded wristwatch was wrapped around the other. She carried with her, as she always did, an enormous black bag, chunky with its contents, slung diagonally over her shoulder and torso. As he always did, Adrian wondered what she could possibly have it filled with, as it was indeed always completely stuffed. She dyed her straight, chin-length hair and eyebrows black to match her clothes, even painted her bitten-down nails black. Heavy black liner encircled pale blue eyes, and black lipstick stained her mouth.
Whenever Adrian saw her, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d looked like before the transformation. Especially since she was an aging Goth Girl who couldn’t hang on to this persona much longer without looking ridiculous. At twenty-six, she was older than the boys by half a dozen years, having started college a bit later than the others and taking her time to complete her degree. Adrian didn’t know a lot about her, but from what he’d heard and observed of her, he’d formed an impression of a rich kid who was even more bored by life than he was. He’d been around wealth often enough as an adult that he was reasonably adept at recognizing those who were born to it. Perhaps because his own background was so completely opposite to theirs.
Although Iris was certainly as comfortable around computers as the boys were, Adrian had come to the conclusion that the main reason she hung out with them was that she was a geek groupie. He’d overheard enough conversations between the young men when she wasn’t around to know that she’d slept with all three of them at some point—and more than once with all of them at the same time, something that intrigued Adrian rather a lot.
Ah, well then, he thought as the realization formed. He stood corrected. There was something—or rather, someone—he found intriguing after all. In fact, he found Iris rather fascinating. Rather captivating. And more than worthy of his preoccupation.
“Hello, Iris,” he greeted her as she slumped back on the sofa and watched the boys play.
She had the courtesy to turn around then and reply, “What’s up, Nick?” But she promptly returned her attention to the game and gamers, indicating she hadn’t expected a reply to the question. And when she realized what the boys were still arguing over, she uttered a loud sound of obvious disgust. “You’re playing Sonic
again?
” she said disdainfully. “What are you, a bunch of fifth graders? I thought we were going to break out the new Resident Evil this afternoon.”
“We
men,
” Chuck said manfully, emphasizing his gender, “are playing Sonic. You do what you want, Iris.”
What Iris did was roll her eyes dramatically and leap up from the sofa to make her way to the minibar, from which she withdrew, without asking permission, a soft drink. Not that Adrian minded. Much. It wasn’t as if he’d be drinking it himself. The beverage was, to his way of thinking, about as appealing as a big glass of bile. Not to mention that any expenses racked up during his stay here in the suite were more than covered by the money the group had appropriated over the past few months. Mostly by raiding other people’s computers and appropriating their financial information—and then their finances themselves. And Iris was no slouch herself when it came to hacking and designing viruses. Plus, there was the small matter of, when it came time to check out of the suite, Adrian would be gone before the bill was tucked under the door, leaving behind absolutely no traceable evidence of himself or the others.
He was currently on week three at the Four Seasons. One more, and he’d be moving to the Omni, just up the road. Although he alone stayed at the suite around the clock, he’d given the others key cards and indicated they were welcome whenever they wanted to drop by. That, of course, wasn’t true—Adrian didn’t welcome them at all, ever—but he needed them to think he was one of them, or at the very least striving to be one of them. They were valuable tools, the way he saw it. And he wanted to have them close by for whenever he might need them.
Like tonight.
He watched Iris as she screwed the top off the soda and enjoyed a healthy swallow before lowering it again. And for some reason he found the sight of her black-stained mouth covering the rim of the bottle to be more than a little arousing. He hadn’t really thought about giving Iris a go himself, since the last time he’d mixed business with pleasure, he’d regretted it. What he’d thought was simply an alluring sex kitten named Tiffannee, someone who didn’t have the brains of a sponge mop, had turned out to be one of the most dangerous—and cunning—women in the world. And she’d come
this close
to returning Adrian to the not-so-loving bosom of OPUS, who would have then locked him up and thrown away the key.
He would not make the same mistake twice. His information pipeline at OPUS might not be running quite as freely and quickly as it once had, but he’d been able to learn enough about each of the boys to be reasonably certain they were precisely who they claimed to be. Iris remained a big question mark, but since she wasn’t really a player in their game, Adrian wasn’t too concerned about her background anyway.
What mattered was that bits and pieces of information had begun to flow from his source again, and a background check of each of his, ah, colleagues was at the top of his list of needs. It shouldn’t be long before he knew more about them than they knew themselves. In the meantime, they’d more than proved their worth by breaking every law he’d asked them to, without question or compunction. There was almost no chance any of them were working for anyone other than him. Would that they just worked a little better. Then Adrian would be a very happy man.