Hard Target (3 page)

“No sir.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m making coffee then returning to the questioning.”

“There’s been a change in plans.” Roberts kept his features absolutely smooth.

“Sir?” She’d expected a reprimand over her casual dress, not a new directive.

“Washington reassigned Suarez.” His gaze turned penetrating, like that of the American eagle in the portrait hanging behind his desk. “We need you to step up and fill her role on the case.”

“What do you mean by
fill
, exactly?”

“I mean be Jakes’ handler.”

Oh hell no. No way. “Can’t you find someone else?”

“What are your feelings toward Dr. Jakes?” Tall and thin, Roberts had always reminded her of an arrow. Straight, unyielding and able to target objects with a very fine point.

Alex wet her lips and found the FBI logo at the end of the hall exceedingly interesting. Was that a scratch in the blue paint? Someone really ought to fix that.

“Agent Valentine?”

“Yes?” She met the AD’s arch stare.

“Before I promote you to Special Agent in Charge, I’d like to know you can successfully put your oath to the Bureau before any…emotional entanglements.”

Alex dropped her arms to her sides. “Is that because I’m a woman?”

“No.” Roberts pinned her with his bird-of-prey stare. “It’s because you’re in love with a criminal.”

“I am
not
in love with Simon Jakes.” Her cheeks heated with the emotional force of her denial.

Though she knew her tone bordered on insubordination she refused to apologize. She couldn’t be in love with Simon. Not after everything he’d put her through. The impossibility and insanity of the notion nearly made her laugh, while the horror of the idea almost brought her to tears.

“Then you won’t find it difficult to make it explicitly clear to him what’s at stake, personally and politically. For you both.”

She responded to the only point that mattered. “I don’t love him.”

“A word of advice, Agent Valentine?”

“Yes sir?”

“Remember where your loyalties lie.” The AD’s already thin lips threatened to disappear altogether. “Don’t let the past cloud your future.”

“Yes sir.” With her emotions and thoughts backed up like five o’clock traffic on the Hutchinson River Parkway, she didn’t dare make any other reply.

Roberts nodded. “I’ve given Agent Dare your orders. I’ll let him fill you in.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Assistant Director pivoted on one well-shod heel and walked toward the bank of elevators. Though she knew her boss wanted her to succeed—had championed her throughout the ordeal with Jakes six years ago—she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet through her career if she failed him again. Alone in an ocean of white walls and stark linoleum, she resolved to take the operation one step at a time. For now she focused on the task at hand—making coffee and Simon’s tea. Compartmentalization had always been one of her strong suits.

Except with Simon.

“Shut up,” she muttered as she poured steaming water into his cup.

Placing the insulated paper cups on an orange plastic tray, she grabbed four sugar packets and a handful of creamers. An examination of the fridge said they had one-percent milk. She poured some in another paper cup and added it to the tray. Balancing the beverages in one hand and carrying the thick file with the other, she traversed the long corridor without spilling anything.

“Three coffees, one tea.” Alex plunked the respective cups in front of their owners.

Simon had been in the men’s room when she’d left. He frowned at his cup with its steeping teabag and she heard him thinking he hadn’t asked her for the refreshment. Yet…she’d remembered what he liked.

“Don’t go all sentimental.” She cursed herself for anticipating his needs. “You bitched about the taste of coffee in my mouth the entire time we dated.”

His eyes widened in surprise, and so did Ryan’s. She cringed, kicking herself for a professional lapse that could only be attributed to a combination of sleep deprivation and high emotion.

No doubt noticing and reveling in her discomfiture, Simon smirked. The quirk in the peaked line of his upper lip blindsided her with memories of their first kiss. With time-lapse clarity, she relived the spring rainstorm and the red awning they’d ducked under. Then the sounds of raindrops fat and round as quarters bouncing against the pavement. Secreted in her own world in the middle of Manhattan, she’d looked up at him, soaking wet and laughing, water dripping in her eyes. His gaze had searched hers, questioning, and she’d sobered. The moment seemed suspended in time as he awaited her verdict, too much the gentleman to just take what he wanted without invitation. Standing on her tiptoes, she’d met him halfway as he’d lowered his mouth to hers.

His throat cleared, interrupting her reverie. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d remembered the sugar.”

She couldn’t have suppressed her blush at being caught staring at his mouth if she’d known how to try. Digging in her pocket, she withdrew four packets and dropped them to the table. Fingering the white squares, he counted them out individually. He appeared surprised when he came up with the right number. Yes. She’d remembered. So what? With a sniff and a toss of her head, she placed her back against the door and fixated on a map of Manhattan on the opposite wall.

Ryan snapped on the projector and she flicked the light switch. The room darkened. A photo of an early commissioned painting by Pablo Picasso appeared. The scene depicted a couple making love, the large man on top, enveloped in his mistress’s Rubenesque limbs.

“So, we have a deal for you.” Ryan faced Simon squarely. “You’re a known felon. We could very easily use what evidence we have to send you to prison for a very long time.”

Simon didn’t move a muscle. Ryan leaned in, palms flat on the table. “If you refuse the offer we’re about to make, we’ll find another way to accomplish our goals.”

“And what goals are those?” Simon took a casual sip of his tea, the motion of his arm bunching his shoulder muscles.

“We want you to work for John Downing. We think he wants you to steal this painting.”

Simon choked on his tea. Placing the cup on the table, he formed a fist and coughed repeatedly behind it. Likely as not, both the billionaire’s name and the job had been tough information to swallow at the same time.

“What?” Voice hoarse from coughing, he cleared his throat.

Alex rounded the table and stood alongside Ryan to stare down at Simon.

“Max Gibbons is going to offer you a deal you won’t refuse.” Arm outstretched, Alex pointed to the screen. “This painting is on loan to the Museum of Modern Art for another few weeks. We think Downing has asked him to have you steal it.”

Simon ran a palm down his face and breathed hard through his nostrils.

“Well shit,” Günter muttered from his position in the corner. Until now he’d been so quiet Alex had almost forgotten his presence.

“And you actually want me to do it?” Simon asked, then laughed, bitter. “Of course you do. What’s the matter? Your Director need another showpiece for his corner office? Or is this really about getting me close enough to Downing to take the man out? I heard he’s donating a lot of money to causes you don’t care for.”

Alex refused to dignify his questions with a direct response. Instead, she said, “You’re authorized to use any means necessary to accomplish this mission.”

Forget pins dropping, you could’ve heard a flea jump in the wake of Simon’s surprise.

“Shit.” He shook his head and placed the tea carefully on the table. “You really do want me to do your dirty work for you.”

Let him guess what he wanted, she wasn’t answering.

“Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity.” Simon mused on the FBI motto and tipped his chair back onto two legs. “Are you delusional, Alexandra, or do you just not care about that oath any longer?”

“That’s rich coming from you.” She rose to his bait despite her best intentions. “They teach you about those concepts in rehabilitation classes at Fort Dix?”

Simon’s front chair legs hit the floor with force at her mention of his prison stay, but she went on talking as if he didn’t have murder in his eyes.

“We’re asking you to do what comes naturally to you—steal—but for a cause rather than your own selfish interests, and you dare question my commitment to my country and my job?”

“I wouldn’t call finding a way to take care of his sister selfish,” Günter interjected.

He had a sister? Alex shook her head, denial rending comprehension into two distinct pieces. One that said Simon would’ve told her this information. The other insisting she would’ve discovered it during their investigation. Ryan furrowed his brow.

“Jesus Christ, Gun,” Simon whispered. “You knew? About Lily?”

Günter placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I know a lot of things,” he said. “But I think it’s about time you told me some of them yourself.”

Simon closed his eyes for the first time in thirty-six hours and experienced a wave of vertigo-inducing exhaustion. He and Günter, together, had been working their asses off to save their security business. Now it appeared as if he might’ve blown everything. Why the man still spoke to him, much less insisted being by his side, Simon had no clue.

“Let’s start with Max Gibbons,” Günter said.

“Max Gibbons…” Simon waded into the heavy silence. “Max Gibbons brokers deals. Finds the right person for the right job for a fee or a cut of the business.”

“So, he’s a criminal go-between?” Alex’s acerbic tone said she knew the answer to her own question.

Though an anger he couldn’t entirely hide curled his hands into fists, Simon managed to pin his ex with a stolid stare. “Yes, Alexandra. He’s a criminal go-between.”

Once the statement left his mouth, he realized it was the first time he’d allowed himself to think of Gibbons in those terms—as a criminal—and, by association, himself. The truth stung, but he faced it.

“And what do you do for him?” Agent Dare asked.

“I hack financial accounts. Make funds transfers.” Simon directed the rest of his answer at a brown stain on the ceiling tile over his head. “Basically, I get money out of the country in ways untraceable by the feds.”

“Is that where you got the cash to dig us out of our financial black hole?” Günter’s question held a quiet weight.

Jaw muscles bunching, fingers digging into his thigh, the man appeared ready to smash something. Last year, when a case for Günter’s old associates at MI-5 kicked up a maelstrom of negative media attention, business had all but dried up. The security firm would’ve gone under if Simon hadn’t purchased half the business, claiming an equal partnership.

“No,” Simon answered with every ounce of seriousness he possessed. “That was my personal savings.”

“Just so long as you didn’t do me a favor with dirty money…”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Heat rushed to Simon’s cheeks. “I don’t take money from Gibbons.”

“What
do
you receive in exchange for your services?” Ryan swiped at the mousepad on his laptop, reawakening the image of the painting on the far wall. “If not money?”

Silent for a long while, Simon examined the ragged edge of one cuticle as he weighed his options. Therein must’ve laid the rub for the FBI. While he’d committed the crimes, they’d never find a paper trail absolutely pinning him to the deeds. Without an exchange of money or other assets, how could they? He glanced to Gun. He could cooperate, or he could withhold the information. Without a signed confession he might even be able to walk free tonight. Feeling Günter’s stare, Simon decided to finish his explanation. His friend, at least, deserved to know the truth.

“When I was twenty-five, my parents died in a boating accident. My sister Liliana was with them. She suffered brain damage.” Raking both hands through his hair, Simon tugged at the strands. “While I was employed with the CIA, for a short while I managed to keep her in a private extended-care facility.”

“What does this have to do with Gibbons?” Ryan asked.

“Shut it, you.” Günter glared at the agent. “Simon, go ahead.”

The projector fan whirred, but otherwise silence enveloped the room as the group awaited the rest of Simon’s story.

“When the CIA fired me, it was because the FBI framed me as a rogue operative. A hacker selling government documents on the black market.”

As he spoke, Simon relived those weeks in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a holding place for federal prisoners awaiting or undergoing trial. He’d endured the confinement with the help of the prison library and a daily dose of antianxiety meds, hopeful something would come to light to exonerate him. Until Alex’s testimony against him. She’d spouted lies and accusations so watertight even he began to believe them. The entire situation seemed surreal. Yet he’d spent a year in Federal prison and still had the nightmares to prove it. He swallowed past a lump of fear the memories provoked and forced himself to continue.

“While I was in prison…” He took a sip of the now-cold tea to disguise his nerves. “Max Gibbons visited me. Asked if I’d work for him. Thinking he offered money, I said no. Then…then he told me he’d support Lily’s care. For the rest of her life.”