Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

She made her way into the bedroom, taking in the unmade bed, the dirty clothes heaped in the corner. Kittering's SAS beret was still hanging from the bedpost, her masochistic reminder that she would never be the woman he had wished her to be. Shoes half under the bed, closet door half open, bathroom door half closed…

No, she thought. Couldn't be that, could it? Nothing so elementary, nothing so bloody fundamental. Didn't they think to take Polaroids before searching the place?

It was so obvious, in fact, that Chace had to wonder if she hadn't left the door half open herself.

She went to the nightstand and searched for the penlight she kept there, digging past matchbooks, condoms, an old and uncapped lipstick, a bottle of aspirin, a notepad, and several cheap pens before finding it. She flicked it on, saw the beam was still strong, flicked it off. On her belly, she shined the penlight beneath the fraction of a gap at the bureau's base and saw in the dust there flakes of white.

With a deep breath, she blew beneath the bureau at an angle, then sat up in time to watch the thin wisps of flour, like vapor, curl from the far side.

Turning the penlight off a final time, Chace sat back, resting against the footboard of her bed, tongue poking slightly over her lower lip as she thought. The white powder on the floor was the clincher, and she didn't need to open the bottom drawer for further proof. There were six drawers in her bureau, two side by side at the top, accessories and what little jewelry remained in her life. First down, lingerie, stockings, socks, the like. Second, shirts, seasonal. Third, sweaters, scarves. Bottom, nothing worthwhile. Bottom was a tease, holding only her old rugby shirt and the sweater her father had worn the Christmas before he'd died. She never went into that drawer except to move it enough to coat its rails with a dusting of flour.

Someone had been in her bureau.

Someone had been in the bloody flat.

It occurred to her that, had it been someone with murder in mind, she'd have been in a lot of trouble, the way she'd come home. It had been sloppy of her, London eyes, not field eyes, an entry she'd never had made during a job. But concerned with a sore foot and a desire to get out of the rain, she'd forged ahead, and been fortunate.

It has to be Box, she thought, and she almost said aloud something unkind about Mr. David Kinney and his also-rans, then thought better of it. If it had been Box, they'd tried to go carefully, and they may have planted listening devices during their visit. Maybe cameras as well, but if there were cameras, it was too late for sneaky; whoever was watching would know she was on to them.

She used the footboard to get to her feet, strode into the front, heedless of the pain, and began pulling on her shoes once more.

Only one way to find out. • It took her most of three hours to confirm-or more precisely, reconfirm-and to move suspicion to fact. But when she returned to her flat, dumping the CDs and books she'd bought during her foray, Chace was certain she was being watched, and that it was Box doing the peeking.

More, it wasn't routine surveillance. It was a targeted operation, at least four teams, at least sixteen people, on foot and motorcycle and automobile, and they had done everything they could to avoid detection. This worried her. She knew she'd been checked recently, and that had been a completely different game. One team, on foot, total of four people, working in shifts. Nothing on this scale.

She couldn't see a reason for it. There was no reason for it. She'd looked at it from every direction she could conceive and still saw no logic to it.

But there is a logic, Chace told herself as she watched herself brushing her teeth in her bathroom mirror. There's always a logic, you just don't know it yet.

She undressed, climbed into her bed. Maybe it was a training exercise? Not impossible, Kinney using a Minder to hone his people's technique. Stranger things had happened. If that was the case, it would have to have been cleared by Crocker; at the least, D-Ops would have been informed.

Wrapping the covers around her shoulders, burrowing deeper into her pillows, Chace told herself that had to be it. Training exercise, Kinney trying to one-up Crocker: Hey, mate, my men followed your gal, rifled her flat, she never noticed. Not so special as all that, hmm, your Special Section?

She'd ask him in the morning, she decided, and relaxed, sleepy, feeling the bed too big to occupy alone. She'd ask in the morning, and Crocker would tell her, she had no doubt.

That was the rule. All the world could turn on them, but D-Ops would always defend the Minders. At the cost of prospects, career, friends, liberty, life, Crocker would protect them. He would sacrifice everything for them, because that was what he expected in return, that was the agreement. He would order them over the hills and far away, then demand the impossible of them upon their arrival. And Chace, and Poole, and perhaps one day Lankford, too, would give it to him without hesitation, without questioning the reasons or the merits or the causes; they would do as ordered, as they were expected. They would go, and they would even die, if he demanded it.

And in return, Crocker sheltered them, guarded them, fought for them, lied for them. All of Whitehall could turn on the Special Section, but Crocker would remain, lone against the tide, to give cover to his Minders.

Crocker would protect her.

She fell asleep.

London-Vauxhall Cross, Office of D-Ops 16 September 0803 GMT Kate was behind her desk and had thankfully made coffee when Crocker blew in that morning, and he acknowledged her cheerful hello with a grunt, then moved straight through the outer to the inner. She rose immediately to follow him, and he didn't look back, dropping his document bag on the desk before shrugging out of his raincoat and hooking it to its place on the stand. He ran a hand through his wet hair, watching as Kate set the stack of folders she'd carried in a neat pile on his desk, scowling. His mood was already declining, due in small part to the nightmare of his commute, but mostly in annoyance at what the day ahead undoubtedly held.

"Morning distribution." Kate pulled one of the keys from the tether at her waist, set about unlocking and then unloading Crocker's document bag. "Three items of interest."

"I'd like coffee," Crocker said.

"Philip Heller, on his famil as the KL Number Two, is down with malaria," Kate continued, as if she hadn't heard. "The Number One, Elizabeth Conrad, is binning him back to London, requesting a new Two with all speed. Notes that diminished Station capacity will hurt current operations in the Philippines. VCNS at MOD has submitted a request for operational surveillance of the Chinese naval exercises set to commence on the twenty-third in the South China Sea, and C and the Deputy Chief have both authorized action. D-Int wants ten minutes this forenoon to discuss."

"Coffee," Crocker said again.

"I heard you the first time." Kate closed the document bag, replaced the key on her hip, and then carried the bag to the cabinet safe beside the door, laying it flat on its top. "David Kinney has a message in to speak with you this morning, in person. Earliest convenience."

"I want some-"

"I'm getting it," she said, and stepped through the door to the inner office.

Crocker swiped at the rainwater in his hair a last time, then dried his hand against his vest, moving to his chair and picking up his pen. The stack wasn't nearly as intimidating as it was annoying, mostly memos and other FYIs requiring his initials. He'd already gone through half of them by the time Kate returned with his coffee.

"Shall I ring Mr. Kinney back?" she asked.

"Did he say what he wanted?"