Oath Of Honor

Chapter Eight

Evyn hadn’t slept much in the last few days, and she needed a coffee refill to keep her focused during the routine after-review of the wedding detail and the rest of the uneventful morning briefing. Trying not to look distracted, she sloshed milk into her Starbucks venti cup, added the always-good coffee the valets kept fresh in their command center, and settled back at the conference table with the other members of the day shift. She wasn’t herself and couldn’t figure out what was off. Usually a brisk shower, a fast fantasy, and a hard orgasm cleared her head for the day, but this morning, she’d opened her eyes and immediately replayed the evening with Wes—and the details that came to mind had nothing to do with the job. She kept stumbling over the way Wes concentrated on her when they talked, as if they had all night, the way Wes smiled at something Evyn said, her eyes glowing. And her mouth—God, she had a killer mouth—full lips, broad smile, a tiny lift on the right side that gave her a hot, sexy, rakish look. Evyn’s stomach tightened into a hard knot and a quick pulse beat between her thighs. She sucked in a breath. Whoa. Bad timing—where was that rush two hours ago when she could have taken care of it? She slugged her coffee, burned her tongue, and choked.

When she looked over, Gary was staring at her with laughter in his eyes. She tossed him a get bent look, and he smothered a grin. He always claimed he could read her mind, but she assured him he was wrong, remarking if he could, he’d be walking around with a perpetual boner and he should be so lucky.

Agents rose and started to leave the room, the midnight shift heading home and the rest to their posts. Evyn grabbed her black trench coat and coffee.

“Evyn,” Tom Turner said. “Hang on a minute, will you.”

“Sure.” Evyn dropped her coat onto a chair and tossed the empty paper cup into a nearby wastebasket. Gary hesitated, glanced at Tom, and followed the rest out, muttering, “Catch you later,” as he left.

When the room was empty, Tom closed the door and gestured for her to sit.

Her antennae went up. She couldn’t think of anything she’d done that could be problematic. She wasn’t the most senior member of PPD, but over the last year she’d sort of become Tom’s unofficial sounding board. She’d sat in the right front seat of the follow-up car a time or two, and had taken the lead when POTUS traveled. That level of responsibility told her she was doing okay, or at least she thought she had been. She waited for Tom to start, banishing a mild case of nerves, a wholly atypical reaction for her.

“Are you set to bring Masters up to speed?” Tom sat across from her and leaned back in his chair.

“She’s still clearing security but should be done sometime today. I’ll meet with her later and set up a schedule.” Evyn’s pulse jittered at the mention of Wes’s name, also unusual. She rarely showed a bump in her blood pressure or her pulse, even during simulated actions. She’d been preparing for this job since she was a kid, and she’d taught herself not to react when something hurt, or scared her, or excited her. She kept her cool. She wanted to be ice in an emergency. She usually was. But just a reference to Wes Masters had her composure melting around the edges. That couldn’t be good. She needed to clamp a lid on that.

“I had a call from Averill Jensen before the briefing this morning,” Tom said.

Evyn tensed at the mention of the president’s security adviser. The USSS answered only to the Director of Homeland Security—on paper—but Jensen had sweeping authority in security matters. “About We—Captain Masters?”

“Indirectly.”

Evyn couldn’t believe there was an issue with Wes Masters. She’d only just met Wes, but she’d spent time with her, more personal time than she’d spent with anyone in years, except the agents who’d just left this room. And they hadn’t just talked about business. They’d talked about life. Wes was solid. She was dedicated and focused, all the way through. Evyn clamped her molars together and kept her mouth shut. She needed to listen, and to do her job. Right now, the best thing she could do for Wes Masters was find out what the hell was going on.

“They went outside to bring her in,” Tom said, “and on the face of it, that’s not that unusual. What’s unusual is that with O’Shaughnessy’s sudden death, they didn’t move someone up from inside as interim director while they put the nominees through the selection process.”

“I know.” Just a few hours with Wes had blunted some of Evyn’s anger that Peter had been passed over, but she still didn’t think it was right. Wes wasn’t at fault for that, at least not as far as she knew. “Did somebody pull strings to get her appointed? Pressure someone? Is that it?”

“No.” Tom’s smooth brow wrinkled, which for him was akin to shouting. He was the epitome of control. He just didn’t get rattled, especially if he was angry or frustrated. Something serious was going on if Tom was unsettled. “Masters was brought in because she’s a qualified outsider. There seems to be some concern that we have a leak inside.”

“A leak?” Evyn took a second to let that sink in. “You mean someone in the House is passing information?”

“Communications analysts have been pulling snippets from surveillance tapes—routine Internet sweeps—that suggest potentially hostile groups might know plans we haven’t made public.”

“Jesus,” Evyn said. “And they think it’s in the medical unit?”

“They don’t know—could be anywhere—the medical unit, the West Wing, our group—”

“Us? Oh, come on, that’s just not possible. At the very least, someone is talking who shouldn’t be because they’re damn idiots—which excludes all of us. Worst-case scenario, someone is working with domestic or foreign hostiles. And that sure as hell isn’t one of us.”

Tom stared at her. “You believe it and I believe it, but that doesn’t mean everyone else does. Let’s not forget Robert Hanssen. He went undetected for decades.”

“We’re not the FBI,” Evyn said dismissively. You believe it and I believe it… “Wait a minute. You’re not saying that Wes—Dr. Masters is looking at us?” Was that what prompted the dinner invitation and the prolonged after-dinner conversation? She remembered every word that had passed between them, and she couldn’t remember Wes bringing up anything probative. All the same, the invitation had come out of nowhere. Her heart plummeted. “Hell.”

“I doubt that—not her job description. All the same, we can’t really be sure what we haven’t been told.” He grimaced, clearly not happy. “Given the threat level, Masters has to be aware of the situation.”

“Well, we better be sure she’s ready to carry the ball,” Evyn said.

“That’s your job. In the meantime, we need to button down everything on our end. I want you to watch communications carefully. Make sure our analysts are looking for anything, no matter how small, that gets picked up from sources under surveillance.”

She nodded sharply. “You got it.”

“She’s due for a polygraph. Pick her up and take her over. Sit in on it.”

“I’m not certified—”

“I know—Preston will run it. You can play backup.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And for now, all of this is just between us.”

“Yes, sir,” Evyn said softly. She didn’t want to believe that anyone inside the White House could be compromising the president by inadvertently mishandling information. But to do it willfully? To her, there was no greater sin. Wes couldn’t think her capable of that, could she?

*

Wes left Lucinda’s office and walked out into the waiting area. Evyn Daniels stood with a stone-faced man in a dark suit who regarded her with unsmiling eyes. Wes looked at Evyn. “Good morning, Agent Daniels.”

“Captain,” Evyn said politely, nothing but professional friendliness in her eyes. “This is Agent Preston.”

Wes quickly squelched a wave of disappointment at the formal tone. Business as usual. Last night was a thing of the past, and after what Lucinda had just told her, business as usual was all there could be for her with anyone on the job. She wasn’t here to make friends. She nodded to Preston. “You’ll be doing the testing?”

“That’s right,” Preston said. “If you come this way, we’ll tell you about it once we get settled.”

Wes followed them down the hall and into a small room with several windows that looked out over another expanse of lawn studded with rose bushes. The room was crowded with a conference table, eight chairs, and a row of bookshelves underneath the window. A file cabinet stood in one corner and a polygraph machine rested in the center of the table. She sat down across from it. Evyn and Preston sat facing the machine.

“The way this works,” Preston said, “is that the test is given in two parts—part one will cover some basic informational questions. Then we’ll move on to part two with more focused questions. Have you ever had a polygraph?”

“No.”

“Is there anything you want us to know now before we start the test?”

“I assume you’re referring to anything which I feel would disqualify me for this position?”

Preston answered before Evyn. “We find it’s best not to try to outthink or rationalize whether or not there is a right or wrong answer.”

Evyn added, “Just answer each question to the best of your ability. If there’s something in the past you think may hamper or confuse your answers, you should tell us. That will actually help us interpret the test to your benefit.”

“There isn’t.” Wes hadn’t expected to see Evyn until later, and this wasn’t the way she had hoped their next encounter would come about, but Evyn was here to do her job and so was she. In a way, she was relieved. There could be no ambiguity about what was happening between them. Nothing. Only business.

“All right,” Preston said. “We’re going to go through some basic questions first.”

Wes knew the basics of the polygraph. She understood that some questions were designed to elicit a yes-or-no answer, and those responses formed the baseline comparators for other answers. She also knew it was best not to try to figure out which questions were the critical comparators. “I’m ready.”

Preston made some notes while Evyn connected the galvanic skin recorder to Wes’s right arm. Wes was aware of sweating slightly. Unusual for her. Even under the tensest conditions, she rarely perspired. She wasn’t concerned about the test, but she couldn’t shake the lingering connection she felt to Evyn Daniels, and the disorienting effect of her presence.

“All right, Dr. Masters,” Preston said, making a mark on a scrolling roll of paper. “We’re going to begin. Is your name Captain Wesley Masters?”

“Yes.”

Preston alternated asking her routine questions—her term of service, her duty stations, her field experience—interspersed with pointed questions.

“Have you ever been arrested?”

“No.”

“Have you ever used illegal drugs, recreationally or in conjunction with an assignment?”

“No.”

“Have you ever met with foreign nationals hostile to the U.S.?”

“No.”

“Have you ever met with known terrorists?”

“No.”

“The Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the American Christian Army?”

“No. No. No.”

She answered no so many times she began to feel as if she was revealing she had no life outside her job. But then, she didn’t.

Finally, Preston turned off the machine and Evyn sat back. She gave Wes the slightest smile, and for some reason, Wes’s uneasiness disappeared.

“We’ll let you know the results as soon as they’ve been analyzed,” Preston said.

Wes rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. “Good, thank you. I wonder if you could tell me how to get to the medical offices from here.”

“I’ll take you,” Evyn said.

“And someplace to eat?”

Evyn glanced at her watch. “It’s almost sixteen hundred. I’ll show you a good place to get a late lunch.”

“I don’t have much time,” Wes said, not wanting a repeat of the intimacy of the night before. She needed a buffer between them if the disappointment she’d experienced earlier was any indication of how strongly Evyn affected her.

“I’m sure your team can wait another forty-five minutes. POTUS isn’t scheduled to leave the House today. Whatever activity there is in the clinic is already being handled by your staff. Lunch first. Then I’ll take you over to meet your staff.”

“Thank you,” Wes said, realizing when she had been given an order in the form of a suggestion. She’d have to get used to that, since Evyn was in charge. And since part of Lucinda Washburn’s unspoken message had been to assess those on the list, she’d best get on with her job. “Lunch it is.”