Chapter 19

IN THE MORNING, they made love again, slowly, taking their time and savoring every touch, every stroke, every sensation. Afterward, Matt gathered Nadia into his arms and held her, memorizing the feel of her skin against his, her hand on his chest, the thump of her heart against his side. Whatever happened today would change everything, and not for the better. Thinking about her setting herself up as a target for the rebels made his chest hurt.

After a quick breakfast in the inn’s dining room, he phoned Cole Stratton, and within twenty minutes they were seated in the back of an official SUV headed for DARK headquarters. He recognized the two officers who’d collected them, but hadn’t worked with either. The woman drove and the man locked them in. Both stone-faced and taciturn.

Nadia’s hand strangled his, but she said nothing, only jiggled her foot and worried her lower lip. Nervous fidgeting and not her normal animation, but her chin was up and firm. He forced himself to remain expressionless and still.

All too soon, the nondescript granite-faced building loomed ahead. Ironically, or appropriately, depending on the viewpoint, the Domestic Antiterrorism Risk Corps was situated equidistant between Homeland Security and the International Spy Museum. Once inside the basement garage, the officers escorted them to Security, where they and Matt’s pack were searched, then to an upper floor. Their escorts handed them off to Matt’s teammates, Simon Byrne and Cole Stratton. Not Gabriel Harris. He sent a silent thank you upward. He made quick introductions, but nobody shook hands.

“The prodigal son returns.” Byrne grinned, delivering a not-so-light punch to Matt’s biceps.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” He might lose his job — if he was lucky, not worse — but maybe Nadia would be questioned and her nutty idea dismissed. He introduced her to his colleagues.

Stratton nodded to her. “Ms. Parker, Officer Byrne will be debriefing you. Officer Leoni will come with me.”

She turned to Matt, and he said, “Standard procedure. It’ll be okay. No rubber hoses.”

She didn’t smile, but the stiffness in her posture eased.

“This way,” Byrne said, gesturing to the right, where a long hallway led to interview rooms and offices.

Her skin seemed drawn tight over her cheekbones, but her green eyes were clear and determined as she gave Matt one last look before accompanying her interrogator or interviewer, which, he couldn’t say.

Every blood vessel pounding and fists clenched, he sent Byrne a warning look.

As the inveterate rule breaker walked away with Nadia, he sent back a cocky grin. Matt read the finger tap beside his left eye as “message received.”

Stratton hitched his chin toward the other direction and started walking. Marching would be the better term. The man carried himself like he was still in the Marines.

Matt took his time following.

“Saint Gabriel will be running the meeting,” Stratton said when Matt caught up to him. Don’t expect him to go easy on you. When he heard you’d gone AWOL, his mood was black enough to block the sun.”

The sarcastic nickname meant Stratton didn’t approve of Harris’s hard-line approach. A good sign Matt might not be staked to an anthill and flayed alive. “You mean he wasn’t shedding tears thinking I’d gone tits up when the bomb blew?”

“If he was, he kept it to himself.” He headed to the elevator. “We’ll be in our usual office.”

“Cole,” Matt said, “I know what I did, and I’d do it again. I can take whatever Harris lobs at me. My thanks to you and Simon for keeping him away from Nadia.”

“Neither of us figured she deserved another go-around of Harris-style interrogation. Took some fast talking, Simon’s specialty. That, and General Nolan stepped in. Somebody happened to send him the report that Nadia Parker gave us the break we needed.”

“Somebody, huh? Thanks, man.” Stratton and Byrne were teammates Matt could count on to have his back. In a field op, so was Harris, but not, like now, when something stuck in his craw. Stratton usually got along with Harris, but Byrne had a beef against him. He didn’t talk about it, maybe some other op that went sour.

Stratton nodded but said nothing more, not even a comment about the lack of an eye patch. Matt had dispensed with the scar-concealing makeup along with the patch. They entered the open office several of them shared. Matt’s desk was cleared of everything except the computer monitor and keyboard. Only one man occupied the office.

Gabriel Harris stood at his desk. As usual, he wore a hand-tailored suit that cost more than Matt’s entire wardrobe. The sun streaming in the side window shone on his blond hair and pretty-boy profile. He didn’t offer a hand. His eyes slashed like sabers up Matt’s length and down. Matt could almost see smoke streaming from his ears. “Take a seat, Leoni.”

“I’ll stand.” The control officer had a couple inches on Matt. No point in giving him more advantage.

Behind him, Stratton hitched a hip on his own desk. Good. He’d stayed in the room. A witness.

“Start talking. Everything, every fucking minuscule detail starting from when the crew entered Princess Sarika’s office for the filming.” Harris pushed a button on a digital recorder.

Even better. Matt worked his tight jaw and began. He paced as he talked. With two exceptions, he covered the past two days — step by step through the filming prep, the bombing and their escape, their subterfuges, their locations, the men searching for them outside the hotel and the one who’d attacked them. He and Nadia had worked out a narrative that would shield Janna. “Last night we were having dinner when Nadia spotted a couple standing at the bar. It triggered her memory of seeing Alina Greco and a man in a bar near the embassy. From her description, I suspected it might be Cardona. I located his picture in an old Modena news feed. She recognized him, said she remembered because he reminded her of a wolf. Then I called Byrne. You know the rest.” Just in case, he’d found the news feed and saved the link on the burner phone.

Harris folded his arms and regarded him with blatant mistrust. “You may have proof that Cardona’s in town, and we’ve heard rumblings of a new plot on the princess. But what we’ve got doesn’t help us set up a trap. You know more than you’re telling me. You’re up shit creek here, so spill or face consequences.”

“You’re blowing smoke, Gabe. I’ve laid it all out. I got nothing more. What about the surveillance on Alina? What’s that turned up?”

Harris stuck out his chin but said nothing.

Stratton cleared his throat. “No reason you can’t know. We got nada so far. Saturday morning so she’s not at work, at home alone. Our equipment can’t get a read on her phone conversations, and it takes time to get the phone records.”

Harris shot his cuffs and sat, glanced at the recorder, still running. “Enough. Go through it again, Leoni. This time, leave nothing out.”

Matt remained standing. “You want the room numbers of the hotels, what we ate? You got it.” He started over, went through the same info again, chapter and verse — included room numbers and meals. If Harris wanted to know if he and Nadia had slept together, he wouldn’t get it from him. No fucking way was he talking about his relationship with her, period. “That’s it. I can do this all day, but you probably have better things to do.”

“How did the guys — you said they might be from Modena — find your hotel?”

Matt expelled a long breath. He’d prepared for this, knowing the CO wouldn’t be satisfied until he caught him on something. “You know Nadia’s father was shanked.”

The other man lifted one shoulder. “Of course. So?”

Asshat. “She was worried about him. I knew that, and I warned her not to call the prison. When we spotted the creeps outside the hotel in the morning, she told me that while I was asleep, she’d called the prison from her phone, not one of the burners. The prison directed her to the hospital, where she reached her father. Those guys somehow were able to track her phone. She was damned upset about it.”

“You hear her conversation with her dad, the fucking traitor?”

It was Matt’s turn to shrug. He rolled over a chair from the next desk and sat, propping one ankle on the other knee. He draped an arm over the chair back. “Nah. I don’t hear shit in my sleep.”

Harris asked him more questions, but Matt added nothing new to what he’d already described.

After two hours, Harris shut off the recorder and stood. “Nadia Parker hired the bombers. She needs money for her father’s appeal. She’s as dirty as he is, in bed with the rebels, probably the New Dawn terrorists too. If Byrne got anything from the traitor’s daughter, I’d hear by now. He’s had enough time.” He rounded his desk, headed for the door.

“Wait, Gabe,” Stratton said.

Matt’s heart hit the panic button. This might be an empty threat, a ploy to get him to divulge more, but he couldn’t take the chance.

He shot to his feet. Harris had the door ajar before Matt reached him. “No, stop this. You’re wrong about her.” Jesus H. Christ, he’d hoped to avoid this. He grabbed the other man. Held on. “I have proof of her innocence. She’s done nothing wrong.” Except trust me.

“Proof?” Harris eyed Matt’s hand on his forearm as if it had sullied his suit coat. “This better be good. Verifiable.”

Matt lifted his hand and stepped back. “It’s on my secure DARK phone. Cole, it’s in my pack. Battery too. Outside pocket.”

The pack sat beside Stratton, who’d carried it into the office. He found the devices and brought them over. “A tech detected it turned on early Friday morning somewhere in Georgetown. We had no luck tracing its location. I’m assuming now it was you at the Prospect Hotel.”

Matt didn’t respond. He inserted the battery and turned it on. “This is Nadia’s conversation with her father.”

“You lied to me.”

The statement, delivered with venom, didn’t merit a reply. Matt opened the app and started the voice recording.

“Dad?”

“Aw, Nadie, honey. Thank God, I was so worried when I heard. Then I saw on TV… the bomb…” His voice broke.

Matt stared at the carpet as he listened to the anguish in Nadia’s voice and the regret and weakness in her dad’s. If Harris or Stratton didn’t tell her about the recording, Matt would even if it meant she never spoke to him again. And he’d deserve her hatred because he’d done exactly the thing she’d feared.

The voices went on, finishing up the important part.

“…let me get this out. The hurt and accusation in your eyes when you learned what I’d done and again when I was arrested cut me deeper than any knife these thugs could wield. I refused them three times. This time they didn’t ask. They just jumped me.”

“And now, now have you told the authorities why you were attacked, what they wanted?”

“I have, but I don’t know what good it will do.”

The door swung open, hitting Harris in the back.

Matt pushed Stop.

In the opening stood Nadia. Fury painted her cheeks red. “You’re despicable, you lying son of a bitch.” She practically spat the words at him. “You used me, made me think—” She turned to Simon Byrne. “Get me away from that, that….” She held up both hands, curled into fists.

Face pale, Byrne led her away, talking softly to her.

Black pain ballooned in Matt’s chest, so total he had to force out words. “Is that fucking enough for you, Harris?”