Kara Lennox - Under Deepest Cover

Bryan couldn’t say exactly what it was that made him follow Lucy to the kitchen. But he felt suddenly uneasy at the idea of Lucy alone and unprotected in a public place. A busboy who had been vacuuming nearby during the lull in business had abruptly abandoned his chore when Lucy passed and had headed too casually in her direction. Bryan followed. He tried to talk himself out of his paranoia. There was no way Vargov or anyone else could know where Lucy was staying. Even his fellow agents had no way of knowing.

Still, he went after her.

When he reached the kitchen, it was oddly deserted. Then he heard a scuffle coming from the pantry hallway, and he didn’t think, he just went into action.

The gun he kept in an ankle holster somehow made it to his hand as he peered around the corner into the hallway just in time to see two men dressed as busboys heading for the delivery door with Lucy trussed up between them.

“Freeze!” Bryan yelled. They dropped Lucy with a bone-crunching thud. One of them reached into his apron. Bryan wasn’t going to give him a chance to show him what was in the pocket. He aimed and shot. The busboy swiveled in time to avoid a fatal shot; he took a bullet in the shoulder and was gone, the other man ahead of him.

Bryan gave chase as far as the alley, but they’d disappeared by the time he cleared the door. He longed to chase them, run them down, demand to know who’d sent them-and how they’d known where to find Lucy. But his concern right now had to be for Lucy. He didn’t know whether she was injured or how seriously. She’d been clearly conscious, and he’d seen no visible blood, but other injuries were possible. He returned to her at once. “Don’t try to move, Lindsay,” he said, amazed he could keep her cover even in the midst of this mess. “You might be injured.” He gently pulled off the tape that had been slapped over her mouth.

She struggled to breathe, and Bryan feared the worst. Spinal injury? Broken ribs, punctured lung? But then she managed to gasp in a bit of air.

“I’m…okay.”

“You don’t look okay.” He gave her a smile and brushed the hair back from her face. “Don’t try to move, okay?”

Stash appeared in the hallway looking frantic. “What the hell just happened? I found Kim and two of the sous chefs locked in the freezer!”

“Attempted robbery gone bad, I think,” Bryan said innocently.

“I…wouldn’t cooperate,” Lucy said. “They wanted to kidnap me. My father has money.” She pushed up on her elbows despite Bryan’s attempt to get her to lie still. “I’m okay, just got the wind knocked out of me.”

Bryan was amazed she’d come up with a cover story so quickly.

“Did I hear a shot?” Stash asked. Chef Chin, the other chefs and a couple of waiters had gathered to stare, mouths open in amazement.

“That was just the door slamming,” Bryan fibbed. He had reholstered his gun before anyone saw it.

“We should call the police,” one of the chefs said.

Bryan supposed there was no way around it. It would look odd if he didn’t want to bring in the cops. They’d all gotten a good look at the “busboys,” who apparently were new hires just the day before. That in itself wasn’t unusual; restaurant staff came and went quickly.

Bryan could have easily picked the handcuff lock and freed Lucy’s hands, but that might have invited speculation, too. So he waited for the cops to arrive, and one of them had a handcuff key. An evidence technician collected the duct tape, hoping to find prints.

Blessedly, none of the restaurant patrons ever knew anything was wrong. Only a few tables were occupied, it being way too early for the dinner crowd. The cops conducted their interviews in Bryan’s office even as the kitchen was being restored to normal.

The man Bryan had shot managed to leave no blood behind him, and Bryan wondered if he’d been wearing a bulletproof vest.

It was all over in a couple of hours. Lucy was banged up, but that was all.

“What do we do now?” Lucy asked forlornly the moment she and Bryan were alone.

“That wasn’t a random act of violence, was it?”

“No way. Pack a bag. We’re getting out of here.”

“And going where?”

“I don’t know. We can’t use any of the agency safe houses. I’ll figure something out, though.”

Lucy did as she was asked without question, disappearing into her bedroom to pack up her few belongings. When she reappeared, pale but looking determined, Bryan thought his heart would break for her. He’d almost lost her. If Vargov had gotten his hands on her, Bryan was a hundred percent sure he’d have killed her.

He probably knew she’d stolen data. He had no way of knowing she’d already analyzed the data and implicated him, though he must suspect it.

“We’re taking Stash’s car,” he said. “I told Stash you were upset and I was taking you away for a couple of days, and that my car was in the shop.” Stash, always the loyal friend, hadn’t even questioned Bryan’s story. He’d give Bryan the shirt off his back if Bryan asked.

Minutes later they were on the road in Stash’s Peugeot. Rush hour was in full flower, and the stop-and-go traffic was making Bryan crazy. It was impossible to tell whether anyone was following under these circumstances.

“How did they find me?” Lucy asked.

“You haven’t called anyone, have you? E-mailed?”

“No, I promise, I haven’t contacted anyone. I would tell you if I had. What about that picture from the restaurant?” she asked.

“I monitored all the tabloids, any paper that might publish bad celebrity photos. Nothing.”

“What about Web sites? There are a number of fan sites where amateur photos are welcome. I’m ashamed to admit I used to cruise them all the time.”

“Hell, I never even thought of that. But what are the chances that some terrorist would be cruising celebrity fan sites?”

“You’d be surprised. Millions of people search for Britney on the Web every day.

Just picture it. Some underling has the tedious job of surveilling my town house in Arlington, waiting for me to come home. He’s bored, he’s cruising the Web on his cell phone looking for dirty pictures, and there I am.”

Bryan agreed that was how it could have happened. “If I ever see that little punk with the camera, I’m going to rip out his esophagus.”

“That seems to be a favorite fantasy of yours.”

“Oh, that’s nowhere near my favorite.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I know I’ve said it before, Lucy, but you absolutely amaze me. You held it together really well, protecting my cover even when you’d barely escaped with your life.”

“You’ve kept your superhero identity a secret from your family for a long time.

Who am I to ruin it?”

“It’s gotten a lot harder, keeping it a secret,” he said. “But every time I think about telling them, I imagine my mother’s reaction. Or Gram’s. They would completely freak out, and I’d have to quit. I’m not ready to quit.”

“When you find work you love, I imagine it’s hard to give it up.”

“You imagine?”

“I haven’t found mine yet. Clearly it’s not auditing pension funds or managing a rock group’s money.”

“You’d be good at restaurant management,” he said impulsively.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve never even been a waitress.”

He didn’t argue with her. But he was starting to entertain this fantasy of Lucy working at Une Nuit. She’d be there for him whenever he returned from a mission.

Someone he could talk to about his work-at least in general terms. Someone who understood that his work was important and who wouldn’t begrudge him the traveling.