Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(21)
“But having two teams in the field never works,” Dan added. “Not only is there inevitable dick-measuring and stovepiping when it comes to Intel, but there’s also competition to be the ones to actually get the job done. So we convinced ’em to let us take over.”
Chelsea watched Penni give Dan the side-eye. “You’re telling me you were able to simply convince”—Penni made the quote marks with her fingers—“the CIA to back off in their search for one of their own rogue agents?” She snorted. “Spectacular tale. Have you thought about adapting it for the stage?”
A Potterhead and spunky. Penni DePaul just climbed a notch higher on Chelsea’s imaginary list of potential best gal pals.
“Well, we may have had some help,” Dan admitted with a lopsided grin. “Someone above our pay grade mighta been the one to actually call ’em off.”
“Uh-huh.” Penni nodded. “I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when they got that order.”
“Considering that in their eagerness to bring in Wint…the sorry SOB, they’ve been about as covert as a car wreck, barging in like Keystone Cops and blowing whatever chance Zoelner and I had at snatching him,” Dan said. Chelsea winced at the truth in his words. Her colleagues had screwed things up pretty spectacularly over the last few months. “I figure they shoulda been happy to be kept in the loop,” he finished.
“Which, as you’ve already guessed,” Chelsea said, “is where I come in. I’m the loop.” And she was determined to do the CIA proud. I mean, somebody has to, right?
Their conversation came to a halt when the waiter arrived to take their drink orders. “Let’s make this thing look legit, shall we?” she mumbled. Then, louder, “You like Malbec, Penni? They have a great one here from Argentina.” She pointed at the menu.
“I, uh, I’m still trying to get used to the altitude,” Penni said. “I’ll stick with sparkling water.”
“Same here,” Dan piped up from beside her.
“I guess that leaves you and me.” Chelsea turned to Z, one brow raised. “Care to have a glass?”
Before he could answer, Penni leaned over to Dan and whispered, “Just because I’m not having any wine doesn’t mean you can’t have any.”
Chelsea felt Z immediately tense beside her. Together, they glanced across the table at Dan. She winced at the look of regret and humiliation that skittered across his face.
“It sorta does,” Dan said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Since I’m an alcoholic.”
The way he said the last word, so full of shame, it may as well have been “pedophile” or “murderer” or “tiny-baby-kitten-torturer.” Chelsea’s heart split down the middle in sympathy.
“Oh,” Penni said, her dark eyes going wide, blinking. “Oh, well…”
The silence that followed those three words was so crushing Chelsea thought she could hear her bones creaking under the pressure of it.
“Hey, we all have our shit, right?” She kicked Dan’s ankle under the table. Her expression the facial equivalent of Hold your head up, Dan Man. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.
“Yeah.” Dan nodded, one corner of his mouth hitching down. “It’s just some people’s shit stinks worse than others’.”
Chapter Five
George Wodehouse sat at the bar in the posh hotel, nursing a pisco sour—a famous Peruvian cocktail—and wishing he could hear what the quartet at the table was saying. Unfortunately, he didn’t dare move closer for fear he’d draw unwanted attention to himself. And even if he did dare, he wasn’t certain it would do him any good. The acoustics inside the restaurant were terrible. He’d very likely need to be sitting on their laps to make out what they were discussing.
Bollocks!
He was conjuring up more creative curses when his mobile came to life inside the front pocket of his trousers. He thumbed on the device without looking at the screen. Spider had already phoned to demand an update on his progress, so there was only one person who would be ringing now.
“What have you learned about the woman?” George demanded of Benton? the computer whiz kid Spider had hired straight out of Oxford University.
George hoped the tall brunette who had joined Daniel Currington and Dagan Zoelner in the square earlier and who was now sitting and eating dinner with the two men and the woman, Chelsea Duvall, would yield more satisfactory answers than the others had. And hopefully let him know he was on the right track in ghosting those who were tracking down Winterfield. In the years he’d been under Spider’s purview, George had learned numerous things. One was that it was easier to hunt the hunters than the prey because the hunters were so much easier to spot. Another was that jumping from the shadows to kill the prey once he or she was located was the work of an instant.
“Quite a lot actually,” came Benton’s reply.
“Truly?” George asked, surprised. He took another leisurely draw on his drink, listening to Benton relay what he’d discovered about the newcomer. After a bit, George interrupted, “What does that mean? She was Secret Service. Was she sacked?”
“No. According to her file she turned in her resignation two weeks ago and officially turned in her badge less than seventy-two hours ago.”