“Oh, Virginia,” the gloating agent said. He shook his head like she was a small child that just didn’t understand the reality of the situation. “Do you really think I’d be here if he didn’t already know?”
Chapter 26
Garcia felt the phone buzz in the pocket of her running shorts and replaced the tiny bud back in her ear. She’d only planned to do five miles, but being followed gave her the extra adrenaline to run the entire ten-K loop through the park. Besides, her ex had often reminded her that running would keep what he called her “ghetto booty” from getting any larger than it already was. She preferred to think of herself as having breeder’s hips, but deadbeat son of a bitch or not, her ex happened to be right — at least on that aspect of her booty.
“Hello,” she said, slowing her pace some so she could hear over her own breathing.
“Garcia?” Winfield Palmer said.
“Yes, sir.” Ronnie slowed to a walk, confident there was an unmarked car a block or so away that she was driving crazy with her changes in pace. She owed Palmer her job — and more. As national security advisor to President Clark, he’d seen her for what she was, and plucked her from the obscurity of being a CIA uniformed officer and thrown her in to work with people like Quinn and Thibodaux. It was dangerous work, but, as Jacques often pointed out: What was the fun of livin’ if someone wasn’t tryin’ to kill you?
“Can you talk?” Palmer asked. Not one to check in and chat with subordinates, he didn’t really care if she was busy. He wanted to know if the line was secure.
“We’re okay,” Ronnie said. “I do have a tail, but the phone is good and I’m out on a run.”
“Outstanding,” he said, deadpan as if his news was anything but good. “An ID team just arrested Virginia Ross.”
Ronnie stopped altogether, leaning forward with her hands on both knees as if she was catching her breath. “The director?”
“Afraid so,” Palmer said.
“When?”
“Five minutes ago.”
Garcia put a hand on her head, walking in a slow circle while she gathered her thoughts. She wondered how he’d found out about it so fast, but then remembered she was talking to Win Palmer, the man who had contacts inside virtually every agency in the government.
“What did they charge her with?”
“Spying,” Palmer said. “Listen, I’m doing some research of my own, but I’m under a pretty fine microscope here. Is there any way you can use some of your contacts to dig into this? Find out where they’re holding her.”
“Why Ross?” Ronnie mused out loud. She didn’t voice it, but she wondered why Palmer was suddenly so interested in the director of the CIA.
“I had to talk the President out of replacing her a couple of times after her daughter died. But she’s a good woman. I’m thinking the new administration asked around and heard she was the same old stuffed-shirt bureaucrat. That’s why they kept her on. Look at what the taxpayers are getting for their buck. He’s kept Andrew Filson in place as Secretary of Defense because he’s a warmonger, but replaced the Sec State with Tom Watchel, one of the most self-serving dilettantes I’ve ever met in Washington. Last time he was on Meet the Press he kept calling North Korea North Dakota. Every other cabinet member and high-level position is being replaced with empire-building yes-men who care more about their careers than running the government.”
“From my lowly viewpoint,” Ronnie said, “that’s not much of a change in the status quo.”
“Touché,” Palmer scoffed. “I’m still trying to figure out their endgame. There are too many checks and balances in place to allow them to do anything drastic right away. Congress, the courts… and even the military would nip any overt action in the bud. But, they’re moving slowly to keep public opinion on their side. They’ve had nearly six months to lay the groundwork for whatever it is they plan to do.”
“What about the commission?” Garcia asked, referring to the bipartisan Rand Commission, chaired by Chief Justice William Rand of the Supreme Court.
“Don’t even get me started on that,” Palmer said. “Not on the phone at least. Can you get rid of your tail long enough to do some checking on Ross?”
“Of course,” Garcia said, jogging again. “Any word on Miyagi?”
“Just find Ross for me,” he said, avoiding the question. Anyone who knew Palmer well knew he had a soft spot for the Japanese woman.
“Will do, sir.”
“Ronnie,” Palmer said before she could end the call. He always called her Garcia and the personal touch caught her off guard. There was a catch in his voice she’d not heard before. “You watch yourself.”
“I’ll do some checking and get back with you,” Garcia said. She’d be careful, but if the IDTF had killed a woman as tough as Emiko Miyagi and carted the director of the CIA off to jail, there wasn’t a whole lot for her to depend on but dumb luck.
Chapter 27
Ronnie bumped her front door shut with a hip and twisted the dead-bolt lock. She reset her alarm on the panel just inside, next to a framed photograph of her Russian father and smiling Cuban mother. She kicked off her shoes and peeled away her sweaty shirt and sports bra, grateful for air-conditioning and the chance to have a shower. Her confrontation with Agent Walter had made her feel dirty and being followed all day by people who surely worked for him made it even worse.
She set the fanny pack with her gun and phone on top of her bedroom dresser and stepped out of her running shorts. Naked, she caught a glimpse of herself in the closet mirror and laughed out loud at the bruises that mapped her body. Her defensive tactics instructor at Langley was no Emiko Miyagi, but he was a skilled practitioner of Krav Maga and jujitsu. The daily sessions allowed her to work off some aggression, but turned her forearms, ribs, and thighs into mottled purple punching bags — with bruises dark enough to show through even on her dark complexion. She’d inherited her father’s long sprinter’s thighs along with his broad shoulders and keen eye for his surroundings. From her mother she’d gotten a bawdy sense of humor, the full-figured curves that required a sports bra a small man could use as a two-room tent, and her tendency toward the ghetto booty. Garcia had always thought she had the sort of body that teetered between female boxer and hooker, depending on what she wore. Jericho seemed to appreciate it — and she was comfortable with that.
Garcia leaned in closer to the mirror on her dresser and pulled her hair back. The tiny lines around her eyes showed in horrifying detail that she was on a collision course with her thirtieth birthday. Her chosen career had a way of smiling on attractive and intelligent women in the early days — and then sneaking up when they weren’t looking to turn them into old and spent intelligent women well before their time. She let her hair fall and sighed. There was nothing she could do about it now.
Unwilling to be far from her pistol under the circumstances, she carried it into the bathroom and put in on the counter, within reach from the shower. Over the past year and a half she’d killed half a dozen people, been blown off the side of a mountain in Afghanistan, stabbed in the back by a psychotic little kid, and shot at more times than she could count. Keeping a gun next to her shower curtain was a far cry from needless paranoia.
Ronnie liked her showers hot enough to pink her skin. She stood for a long time with her hands on the wall, letting the water scald her back and chase the stiffness of defensive tactics class out of her joints. The pinpricks of pain were her way of relaxing and doing penance at the same time.