Code of Honor

Chapter Eleven

Sky pulled the blinds on the single window facing the parking lot in her motel room and booted up her computer. She connected the hotspot, changed the encryption, and went online. The first thing she did was check her work e-mail. A dozen e-mails from her ATF counterpart over the last forty-eight hours, increasing in frequency during the last day. The message was pretty much the same in all of them, starting out with “Haven’t heard from you, check in when you can” and progressing to “Where the hell are you? Need to confirm okay.” She deleted those, scanned the many irrelevant bureaucratic updates, and deleted those too. Nothing else seemed urgent, and she closed the mail program.

Next she opened one of the protected files to requisition the funds Loren would need for the gun buy. Running an undercover operation could take years and cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to supply the cash the undercover operatives needed to build cases against the organizations they infiltrated. Operatives orchestrated drug buys, made weapons purchases, and bankrolled porn, all in the name of securing their cover stories.

Then the real work began—in order to safeguard an undercover operative’s identity, handlers had to keep the number of those-in-the-know to the smallest number possible, which meant doing a lot of the case-building themselves. Every bit of evidence needed to be recorded, analyzed, and cataloged. Photographs, tapes, transcripts—everything had to be dated, referenced, and, in most cases, reviewed with the state’s attorneys to ensure they were building the kind of case that would lead to federal convictions. As the lead agent, Sky oversaw all of the evidence collection, cataloging, and requisitions.

Sky had been burned before, trying to make charges stick against gang members. Idaho’s anti-gang law looked good on paper—allowing for enhanced sentences for gang-related offenses—but proving the gang affiliation could be difficult. She’d seen convictions under similar state laws overturned, and that wasn’t going to happen this time. Not after all the time, money, and resources they’d poured into Operation Bitterroot. Or the years of her life Loren McElroy had sacrificed. The case Sky wanted, what every federal agent wanted, to make against criminal gangs—including paramilitary organizations like FALA—was a RICO case. She needed evidence that showed a pattern of gang member behavior that included several offenses covered by the RICO Act—drug dealing, weapons trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, murder—the staples of gang life. McElroy had done a good job of compiling evidence so far, but this gun buy would be the lock.

Not that she was under any illusions about ending gang activity, no matter how many leaders they caught in their net. Racketeering charges carried the stiffest sentences and were likely to cripple the infrastructure of an organization from the top down, but the gangs and mob organizations were like hydras, many-headed. No one had yet been able to wipe out one of these groups. A new leader always seemed to spring up before the old one had reached his cell, but at least they could slow them down.

Sky ran half a dozen undercover operatives at a time, and she made sure each of them was as secure as she could make them. No one could predict what might happen out in the field, and an operative had to be ready to react swiftly and inventively when their cover was challenged. But she never sent any of them out there alone. She was always available and might end up hand-holding some of the newer ones, talking to them a dozen times a day in the beginning. Loren was an exception. Part of Loren’s deal was she wouldn’t meet anyone face-to-face—not even her handler. Sky had objected at first, but Loren’s assets were so unique she’d been forced to accept the terms. The agency wanted Loren. Period.

Loren followed the rules—barely. Her reports were thorough, but she often neglected to relay her plans until after the fact. She generally made her requisite contacts with Sky, phoning in at more or less the expected intervals, but she never called for advice or backup. Loren was a lone ranger, and that behavior pattern was often a red flag, an indication an operative was going native—being seduced by the lifestyle and losing touch with their mission. It was too soon to tell if Loren had succumbed to the allure of the outlaw life, but one thing was certain—she needed backup now, whether she liked it or not.

Sky’s phone rang and she checked the readout. After a second’s debate, she answered. “Hello, Dan.”

“Jesus H., Dunbar. Where the fuck are you?”

“I’m on vacation. Skiing in the Bitterroots.”

The silence was as heavy as a fist.

“How’s SoCal?” Sky asked, picturing Dan’s broad face turning as red as his carrot-top.

Dan cleared his throat. “Lonely. I need you back here. We might have visitors from the East Coast.”

Sky doodled on the back of a fast-food receipt. Dan Bussy was a good guy, an experienced ATF agent who’d made some high-profile drug busts along the Mexico-California pipeline in the last few years. But he was nervous—always envisioning disaster scenarios. Worse, he was a stickler for regs. Sky tended to color outside the lines. A lot. Theirs was a bumpy marriage, but the powers that be had declared they would run this one together.

“Don’t think I can do that. I’m booked in here for a while.” Sky circled the initials LMM she’d penciled in bold. Loren Markham McElroy. “What’s the word from back east?”

“Not sure just yet, but our territory might be overlapping someone else’s. Like Homeland.”

Sky’s pulse jumped for a fraction of a second before she clamped down on the adrenaline surge and regulated her heartbeat. Not much caught her off guard, but the prospect of a bigger operation got her blood racing. “I’ll leave you to set up a meet from your end.”

“Fine—but answer your damn e-mail.”

“Yes, dear.” Sky scratched out Loren’s initials, annoyed that McElroy had surfaced in her unconscious. She usually had much better control. An image of the dark-haired agent leaning back on the counter, seemingly relaxed but her rangy body seething with energy, shot a bolt of excitement through her middle. Another foreign and unwelcome sensation. Sky crumpled the paper and tossed it in the wastepaper basket. “Keep me informed.”

“Yeah. Like you do me,” Dan grumped.

“Sorry.”

Dan sighed. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Me too.” Sky disconnected, retrieved the tiny ball of paper from the trash, and flushed it down the toilet. Homeland Security. That could only mean the militia was into more than gun buying. And she was right here at ground zero. Now more than ever, she needed to be sure McElroy was solid.

She went back to her computer, filled out a requisition for a hundred thousand dollars for the gun buy, and sent it off to the regional office. The coffers were full this time of year, and she didn’t anticipate any difficulties. She shut down the wireless, closed her laptop, and grabbed her coat. She planned to have something to eat at the diner, and then it was time to meet the boys and girls at the Ugly Rooster.

*

Cam left the federal holding facility and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Treasury Building and her office. No point in going home to an empty apartment. She checked her phone as she walked. No message from Blair. She could call Stark and ask as to Blair’s whereabouts. Stark would keep it between them, but she pocketed her phone, hunched her shoulders against the wind, and kept walking. Blair had the right to her privacy—as much as that was possible for someone who was the constant object of press attention and observation by a security detail. When Blair was ready to call, she would.

Why she’d left wasn’t much of a mystery. Blair had heard she was the subject of the strategy meeting that afternoon, and she likely knew of Cam’s opposition to her joining the campaign junket too. There were no real secrets in Washington, not even in the White House. She didn’t blame Blair for being angry—especially since she couldn’t honestly tell Blair she was sorry for trying to sway Eisley and Lucinda from including her in the early schedule. She hadn’t called the meeting, but she’d been happy for the chance to try, one more time, to keep Blair out of the hot zone.

Cam badged her way past the guard at the door and made her way down the silent and mostly deserted halls to her impersonally furnished government office. She had to set personal issues aside for the time being. Stark would see that Blair was safe tonight. The best way she could ensure Blair’s safety, and that of the president, was to discover who had orchestrated Jennifer Pattee’s plan to attack the president.

Jennifer Pattee was her best lead and her biggest challenge. The lieutenant was disciplined, confident, and prepared to be interrogated. Some of her resistance to questioning might have been a result of her military training, but Cam suspected her self-possession went far deeper than that. She’d met Jennifer’s kind of terrorist before—fanatical but not unbalanced. Absolutely dedicated to their cause, unshakable in their belief that what they were doing was right and, in many cases, righteous. Jennifer had the air of someone who had trained her whole life for exactly what she was doing now—waging war on the American government.

When Cam got to the office she rarely used, she hung up her coat and suit jacket, rolled up her sleeves, and booted up her computer. She was searching for a ghost, the ghost of Jennifer Pattee’s past, because whoever Jennifer claimed to be today was not who she had been when someone had trained her for terrorism.

*

Blair pushed aside her unfinished glass of wine, the third she had failed to finish that evening. The band was good—young, experimental, filled with wild energy and passion. She and Diane had moved on from Francine’s after they’d been besieged by one too many offers of company. This club was just as crowded and seething with sexual tension, but she and Diane had scored a table close to the stage and sat close enough to send off couple vibes, keeping the hunters at bay.

The lead vocalist, an androgynous twentysomething in skinny black jeans, knee-high boots with heavy metal buckles, and a white shirt open between her breasts, moved with the barely suppressed rage of a tiger in a cage. Shock waves of sexual power radiated from her as she railed against a world that refused to see her. As she sang, her gaze returned to Blair again and again, the connection sizzling through the air between them.

Diane leaned close. “That girl is on fire.”

“She’s good,” Blair said.

“She’s hot.”

Blair laughed softly. “Yeah, that too.”

Diane glanced over her shoulder. “Where are your spookies?”

“They’re here somewhere.” Blair didn’t bother looking for them anymore or care what they might observe of her life. If she did, she’d be accepting the prison that she had fought to break out of her entire life. The best she could do was accept their presence and then ignore it.

“You’re not going to make me come up with some kind of distraction while you run off, are you?” Diane asked.

Blair watched the singer, recalling all the times she’d disappeared in a crowd while Diane covered for her. She’d made a career out of eluding her keepers and declaring her independence by bedding strangers—when she actually got as far as a bed. Sometimes she didn’t even wait that long. She hadn’t cared about the risk. All she’d cared about was the freedom.

“I thought I’d take care of that myself,” Blair said.

“Really? What do you have planned?”

Blair looked away from the young animal on the stage, severing the tenuous strand of heat between them. She already knew the reality would leave her cold. “I actually thought we might head home. Is Valerie home tonight, or can you tolerate a houseguest?”

“Sweetie, I’m always happy to have you as a guest. Valerie won’t mind, although I’m not expecting her.”

“Good, let’s go, then.”

“What about…” Diane tilted her head toward the stage.

Blair laughed. “You’re kidding, right? What would I do with that?”

“Oh, I can think of so many things.”

“Thinking and doing are two different things.” Blair slid her arm around Diane’s waist as they walked toward the door, their coats over their arms. “And in case you missed the bulletin, I’m married now.”

“I was there, remember?”

“Of course I do. Did you think it was all just for the media?”

Diane stopped, her expression completely serious. “Of course I didn’t. I know exactly how much it meant to you. And I was kidding about fire girl.”

“I know.”

“You’re not sorry, are you?”

“About marrying Cam?” Blair shrugged into her duster. Her anger warred with the ache of separation she always experienced when they were apart. “Not for a second. But I can still be pissed.”

“Oh, absolutely. Let’s stop for ice cream on the way home.”

“All right. Just hold on a second.” Blair took her phone from her pocket and texted Cam. With Diane. Be careful tomorrow. I love you.