Radclyffe - Word of Honor

“Do you want me to stay up here?”

Emory glanced across the room at Diane, and then quickly away. “That’s entirely up to you.”

Dana stood up quickly, blocking Emory’s path to the door. “I’m not interested in Diane Bleeker.”

“I think that’s really good,” Emory said, avoiding Dana’s eyes. “Because I think Valerie would shoot you.”

“I was just caught off guard there for a second when she…when I saw—”

“Don’t. For God’s sake, do you think I need to know why the sight of a beautiful woman arouses you?”

“It doesn’t,” Dana snapped. “Well, it does. Sometimes. Jesus.” She lowered her voice. “It certainly did an hour ago. Downstairs with you.”

“We had a deal, remember?” Emory sidled around her.

“That was a no-touch deal. Not a no-talk-about-it deal.”

Emory looked into Dana’s eyes. “I’m expanding the parameters of our agreement.”

“Why?”

“Because. I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time.”

Dana smiled. “That’s okay, I do.”

“Just concentrate on writing your article without jeopardizing Blair or Cam, okay?”

“I’m not going to jeopardize them.” Dana gripped her hand. “You said you were going to trust me. Did you forget about that too?”

Emory looked down at their joined hands and brushed her thumb over the top of Dana’s fingers. “I remember.”

A soon as Emory pulled her hand away, Dana wanted it back again. The tiny bit of contact made her almost dizzy. “Emory.”

A knock on the door prevented Emory from answering as everyone turned in that direction. Blair crossed the room and asked who was there.

“It’s Valerie.”

A look that Dana interpreted as worry, followed by resignation, crossed Blair’s face just before she opened the door.

Valerie stepped inside, her eyes going first to Diane, then settling on Blair. “I’m very sorry to disturb you. I need to speak with the deputy director.”

“She’s resting,” Blair said. “Can’t it wait?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.”

“Valerie,” Blair said so quietly Dana almost didn’t hear her. “She needs a few hours—”

Cam appeared from around the corner of the partition separating the kitchen from the bedroom beyond. “I’m awake.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” Blair said, rounding on her sharply.

“I’m still a little too wound up to sleep anyhow.” She slipped her arm around Blair’s shoulder and squeezed briefly. Then she turned to Valerie, her entire body instantly on alert. “Do you need me downstairs?”

Valerie scanned the room. “Here is fine, if we could talk alone for a few minutes.”

“Let’s go in the other room.” Cam led Valerie down the hall and they disappeared.

Silence fell and no one moved. Blair looked like she wanted to follow Cam, but didn’t. Dana definitely wasn’t leaving unless someone ordered her to. Then Emory sat back down on the sofa.

“Well,” Diane said with a sigh, “I guess I might as well get dressed.”

Blair braced both arms on the granite countertop and lowered her head. After a pause, she looked up, her face composed. “I’ll make coffee.”

Chapter Seventeen

“What have you got?” Cam didn’t want to give in to the pain in her chest and right side. Compromising, she sat on the side of the bed because standing upright hurt enough to be distracting, and she needed to focus on what Valerie was about to tell her. Although Valerie’s ivory blouse and black slacks were barely wrinkled, Cam doubted she’d been to bed at all in thirty-six hours. “Sit down. You look beat.”

“Are you hurt badly?” Valerie asked, shaking her head when Cam indicated a nearby chair.

Cam relayed the details of the event. “Early and the van driver are dead. Renee and I are still walking around, but the two local agents with us both ended up in surgery.”

“Matheson? Or friendly fire?”

Cam smiled bitterly. “What’s your guess?”

Valerie folded her arms under her breasts and leaned back against the wall. “Considering the time frame—less than twelve hours from the time you made arrangements to interview him and your arrival there? I’d put my money on the Company.”

“If you’re right, that means our communications are completely transparent. Probably someone in DC is monitoring our reports and requests.”

“Unless of course you’ve got a Company mole inside your team.”

Cam regarded Valerie steadily. “We don’t.”

“You trust me?”

“I do. And so do the others.” Cam suspected from the strain in Valerie’s eyes that she’d been driving herself hard searching for some clue as to who might have been behind the most recent attack.

“What do you suggest we do about locking down our security?” Valerie asked.

“We don’t go outside our team for anything. We fly private. We drive rental cars. We use our own people or Tanner’s people if we need backup.”

Valerie rubbed her arms as if she were cold. “I think…”

“What?”

“You might consider sending disinformation to Washington.”

“You’re suggesting that I mislead the White House chief of staff and the president’s security adviser?”

“That’s what I would do, but I’m not sure that my advice is good for your career.” Valerie smiled thinly. “I’m not exactly trained to work inside the system.”

Cam laughed. “My career path has been a bit uncertain since the moment I saw Blair Powell. And since September, it’s the last thing I’m worried about. Right now, I agree with you—we don’t know who we can trust, so the best course is to trust no one except each other.” She rotated her shoulder and tried to rub some of the stiffness out of her left arm. “You came down here with news, I take it.”

“The FBI has been watching a suspected cell in the Buffalo area for the last six months. Reports show an increase in activity since September,” Valerie said.

“What kind of activity?”

“New faces turning up, more phone calls, and a rash of Internet communications in the last few weeks.”

“How’d we get this?”

“You wanted us pulling intelligence from all sectors on suspected domestic activity, and when reports from this area went hot, Felicia started monitoring everything coming out of the local field office up there. When several cell members made calls to the same number, the FBI started monitoring that number on the theory it belonged to the ringleader. Last night whoever is using the target phone called someone in Virginia.”

“Virginia. After the prison van was hit.”

“That’s right. Possibly unrelated.”

Cam knew there had to be more. “Did we get a fix on who was called?”

Valerie shook her head, obviously frustrated. “No. Cell phones. We got as far as the local tower, but no trace after that.”

“But we know where the tower’s located?”

“Felicia’s got that. It’s not much of a lead, but we know Matheson has connections in that area.”

“It’s more than we’ve had. Let’s see if we can narrow down the location.” Cam stood. “Pull addresses and property records on Matheson’s family, his academy graduates, any and all known associates, the detainees from the raid on his compound, and known patriot members. Look for anything within a hundred-mile radius of that tower.”

When Cam started toward the hall, Valerie stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You should get some sleep.”

“I’m good for a couple more hours.”

“Maybe, but you look like hell.” Valerie laughed quietly when Cam frowned. “And Blair’s been up all night. Waiting to hear about your status was rough on her. Chances are we won’t come up with anything, and if we do, it’s going to take more than a couple of hours. Felicia knows what to do until you get there, but I’ll go over your directives with her.”