Feeling steamrollered by Reeder, she’d faced Kevin privately and said, “You don’t have to do this. It’s incredibly dangerous, and you don’t do this kind of thing for a living like I do, and—”
“You may be forgetting,” he said, “that despite the trappings, I’m the man in this relationship.”
“Oh, Kevin, come on—”
“Then call it an equal partnership. And I’m going to hold up my end.”
And that had been it.
Now, back at DeMarcus’s pad — with Kevin along but out of drag, and Wade too, no longer in bartender getup — she and Reeder faced each other off to one side.
“You okay?” Reeder asked.
Her sigh seemed to start at her toenails. “As okay as possible when I’ve just been party to a kidnapping. That’s a federal offense, you know. And I’m on the wrong side of this one.”
Reeder’s expression was blandly blank. “Factor this in: Morris threatened to have you, and everyone else I love, killed. And his people have Anne Nichols. Or are you not in the mood at the moment to save the ol’ US of A?”
“Is that what we’re doing, Joe?”
“Make it the world then. Nukes on the fly aren’t that selective.”
She shook her head — not a “no” gesture, more trying to clear it. “I know we’re trying to stop something terrible from happening... but we’re so far out of my law-enforcement comfort zone, I don’t know if I know what’s right and wrong.”
“This isn’t exactly law enforcement, Patti.”
“No kidding!”
“I mean, we’re more working the espionage and counterespionage side of things, where the line between what’s right and wrong is, well, murky. But it’s still a line we have to walk. Or anyway, dance along.”
She held his eyes. “Joe, I just watched my boyfriend act as a diversion while Reggie Wade roofied a government employee so we could snatch the SOB. Does that sound like any FBI agent you know?”
Reeder managed a weak smile. “I’m just glad to see you loosening up a little.”
That made her laugh, but just a single “ha.”
“Kevin did very well,” Reeder said. “He’s a natural for this kind of work.”
“Am I supposed to say ‘thank you’ for that?” She raised an eyebrow. “He did handle himself well, and I think he’s a little proud of himself, actually.”
“He should be.”
Right now Kevin was tucked away in the bedroom where their guest, Lawrence Morris — currently blindfolded and duct-taped into a kitchen chair — wouldn’t see him.
“Kevin wanted to lend a hand,” Rogers said, no-nonsense, “and now he has. But first chance, I’m getting him the hell out of here.”
“Oh yeah,” Reeder agreed.
“So what’s our next move? A bank robbery, maybe... or would that be a step down?”
Reeder gave her a rare half-smile. “They have Nichols, and now we have one of theirs. Let’s go talk to our friend from the GAO and let him give an accounting of himself.”
“If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.”
Thirteen
Jerry Bohannon, tie loosened, jacket folded up on the passenger seat, was fighting to stay awake. Every law enforcement officer in the world hated surveillance duty, and while this wasn’t technically that, it sure as hell felt like a stakeout.
Bohannon was parked in a Bureau Ford outside his fellow agent Trevor Ivanek’s place in Dumfries, Virginia. For a change, he didn’t have to worry so much about being spotted. All he was doing was waiting for Trevor to come home. There was even a convenience store nearby, so he didn’t have to monitor his liquid intake, and was sipping a coffee with cream and sugar right now. Of course, his boss, Patti Rogers, claimed a rogue element in government was up to no good, but frankly Bohannon found that a little hard to buy.
In fact, in this instance, he hoped Trevor would spot him, and also hoped he didn’t miss the guy if Trevor parked somewhere out of sight, the apartment building having no parking garage.
He got out the burner phone to text Evie that he didn’t know when he’d be home. She wouldn’t recognize the number, but she’d see his text: *A wn ts # Cs, J*, his personal shorthand for “answer when this number calls, Jerry.” The use of that shorthand would confirm it was him at the new number.
Evie was Evelyn Sullivan, the lovely brunette he’d met at a Georgetown bar a little over a year ago. Evie seemed the opposite of Carol, his ex-wife; this forty-something gal had a bawdy sense of humor and a go-with-the-flow attitude that included putting up with his weird work hours — all she ever asked was that she be kept in the loop. Not doing that had been a big factor in the breakup of his marriage.
As he waited, Bohannon sent his eyes up and down the street, which had been dead when he got here and still was. The apartment buildings had cars parked out front, and traffic was light. A couple was strolling at the other end of the block, and a dog across the street was barking at them. That was it for excitement.
Wishing Evie would call, he got out his tablet and went through the information he’d gathered on Secretary of the Interior Amanda Yellich. Her personal life was clean, her professional life exemplary, and the one thing he’d turned up was something of a happy accident.
Earlier in the day, he had visited Yellich’s condominium. The building’s doorman had told him the condo was empty, the Secretary’s things in storage in the basement waiting for some distant family member to claim them.
His FBI badge and a twenty had bought Bohannon ten minutes in the storage room with furniture, clothing, and boxes and boxes of books, the latter including a handwritten journal he almost missed. This he’d stuffed in his back waistband.
Bored in the Ford, he got out the journal and picked up where he’d left off. He took no pleasure out of paging through the dead woman’s private thoughts, which were frankly not terribly interesting much less revealing, and just cryptic enough to be irritating. One entry had caught his attention: JR hopeless case, still in love with his ex. Could JR be Joe Reeder, and was Reeder’s connection to the woman what sparked Rogers to send them digging into Yellich’s death?
Good God, was this shadow government Rogers imagined some offshoot of Reeder’s love life? Bohannon grunted a laugh.
Just then he came to an entry that made him sit up a little: My turn to sit out Camp David trip. Maybe I can kick back at home for a change.
So Amanda Yellich had been the designated survivor, left behind when the President and Vice President gathered with the cabinet at a single location. Now with Yellich dead, someone else would stay behind. Probably meant nothing, but the back of his neck was tingling — this was worth telling Miggie Altuve about.
He was about to send Mig a text when the phone vibrated — Evie was texting: *K* — okay. Quickly he switched screens and typed *AY not CD* and sent it to Miggie. He’d explain more fully as soon as he had a chance to call Evie and say that he’d be late, that in fact this case might tie him up for days.
That was when someone approached his window quickly, probably Ivanek.