Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

“With all due respect, sir, the biometrics scan on the suspect entering illegally from Canada—”

“Is notoriously unreliable, and only came up with a sixty-six percent chance of a match—hardly what I could call a definite hit. Also, your corroborating evidence is a simple e-mail message from three months ago, from one of this deceased terrorist’s aliases?” Gilliam said.

“Along with a list of materials for constructing a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb, including plutonium—”

Gilliam held up his finger and Tracy fell silent. “And on that basis, and your—what would I call it? intuition, I suppose—you felt justified to alert our other departments, diverting them from other, more critical operations? Ms.

Wentworth, I’ve just spent the past hour recalling your so-called report from those departments. I told them it was a preliminary study only, and not meant to be disseminated at this time. I also told the other departments that in your exuberance, you had mistakenly sent the report before it was in final form. This is not the competency level I have come to expect from you, which is why it led me to believe this had to do with a more personal disagreement. Now that you’ve made the reason for this insubordination plain, I have a hard time believing that we’re even having this conversation in the first place.”

“If I overstepped my bounds, then I apologize.” Tracy bit off each word, staring at the wall behind him, not wanting to give this detestable man the satisfaction of seeing her anger. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“You’d better believe there is. I’ve shunted the kook file to your desktop alone. I want you to evaluate and forward every single threat that we’ve received before you go home tonight. Is that clear?”

“As crystal, sir.” Tracy turned on her heel and left the office, only exhaling once she was outside with the door closed behind her. She shook her head and trudged back to her desk where, as promised, her in-box was overflow-ing with what agents referred to internally as “the kook file.” Every immediately nonverifiable threat made against the U.S., the President, the government or any other landmark or public place was kept in the kook file until it could be assessed. Every threat was investigated, and either appended and filed or forwarded to the appropriate department for follow-up. Once the chuckles stopped from reading the fiftieth misspelled diatribe against the government, it turned into the monotonous, grueling work that it really was.

With a sigh, Tracy opened the first one and got to work, knowing she would have to call Paul and let him know she would be late—again.

Nate opened his eyes to the blaring alarm clock, its insistent buzz reverberating through his hungover brain. Reaching out a long arm, he smacked around the nightstand until he hit the snooze button, knocking over an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle in the process. The sudden silence, broken only by the rattle and hum of his window air conditioner, was almost as loud.

Raising himself up on his elbows, Nate rubbed the sleep out of his face, then looked twice as he noticed the sleeping woman lying next to him. He tried to remember where he had met her or, for that matter, what her name was, but came up blank on both accounts. His recollection of the previous night was a blur of whiskey and beer, beer and whiskey. And apparently he had brought home more than just a raging blackout yesterday evening. Holy shit, just how much did I have?

Slipping out of bed with an ease born of years of practice, Nate was unsurprised to find himself naked.

Besides his pounding head, his teeth felt furry. He padded to the bathroom, closed the door and leaned over the sink until the dizziness passed. Splashing cold water on his face, he squeezed the last of the toothpaste out of a rolled-up tube into his mouth, but couldn’t find his toothbrush, and settled for running a wet finger across his teeth.

Spitting, he rinsed with mouthwash next, the sting opening his eyes wide.

A knock at the front door made his tired eyes open even wider. Who the hell can that be? he wondered. He crept out of the bathroom, crossed the bedroom and walked through the living room into the kitchen. Snagging his jeans from the floor and his shirt from where it had ended up on the table, he cracked open the apartment door.

“Jesus, Nate, you look like warmed-up shit.”

“Good morning to you, too, Beth.”

“At least you know what time it is,” she said sarcastically.

His ex-wife stood with her arms crossed, her foot tapping and her black eyes flashing. Her dark Cherokee features glowered at him, but to Nate she looked just as beautiful as the day they had met. “I kept getting your voice mail, so I thought I’d stop by. Are you going to let me in?”

Nate glanced over his shoulder at the disheveled apartment. “You see how bad I look? Well, the apartment looks worse.”

“Why am I not surprised? You drink yourself out of a job yet? That’s supposed to come from my side of the family, you know.”

“They’re still keepin’ me on for now. Speaking of, I should be gettin’ on back there, so what can I do for you?”

She held up a printed form. “The alimony is screwed up again. I need another hundred.”

“Sure, sure, just a minute.” Closing the door, he rooted around on the table until he found his checkbook.

“Baby? Who’s there?”

His head snapped up, and the checkbook flew from his suddenly fumbling fingers. He trotted back to the bedroom, where the sleepy-eyed blonde’s head was poking out of the sheets. “Someone at the door?”

“Yeah, just a deliveryman. He’ll be gone in a moment.

Stay here for a bit, okay? You can grab a shower if you want.”

“Hmm.” She disappeared under the sheets, just as Beth banged on the door again.

“How do I get myself into this shit?” Nate muttered as he ran back to the table, his bare feet skidding on the dusty linoleum. He scribbled out a check for $150, leaving him twenty-seven until his next payday. Jesus, I hope I didn’t drink the rest away last night. Going to the door, he opened it again.

“Is someone in there with you?” Beth asked.

“Just me and the TV.” He handed her the check.

Beth’s eyes narrowed, and for a second Nate thought he was busted, as she had a pretty good bullshit detector. She took the slip of paper, and her face softened. “You eaten anything solid in the past few days?”

“Yeah, I do all right. I’m still seeing Bobby this weekend, right?”

“If you’re not called in, yes.” Beth’s eyes clouded even more. “He sure misses you.”

“Yeah, I miss him, too. Tell him we’re going fishing Saturday, so make sure he has his gear.”

“All right.” She stepped in close and kissed his stubbled cheek. “Try not to get yourself killed between now and then, all right?” she asked.

The corner of his mouth crooked up at their private joke, which had started when they were newlyweds, and had grown progressively less humorous over the years.

“You doin’ all right?”

“I get by. Take care of yourself now.” She strode down the apartment hallway, her hips swaying as she went. Nate shook his head as he watched the best thing that had ever happened to him walk away again.

As he closed the door, he heard the shower going, and trotted back to the bedroom, looking for clues. He picked up the woman’s purse and expertly rifled through it until he found her identification, replacing it as the water shut off. Nate started to clean up the bedroom, but realized he didn’t know where he’d begin, and settled for lighting a cheroot and waiting for her to come back in. A few minutes later, she came out, dressed and drying her hair with a towel.