********************

Ree's nervousness made it hard for her to truly appreciate the meal Sloane's housekeeper had prepared for them. The evening seemed to be going well enough, but the effort of staying on guard against any slips while trying to appear calm was definitely tiring.

"So, I understand you spent the day wandering through the countryside?" Sloane was saying.

"Yes," Ree said, glancing over at Jack. The look in his eyes told her he was remembering their interlude as well.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sloane continued, carefully watching the interchange between them.

"Mmm. I was able to do some sketching while we were out."

"Oh? I'd be interested in seeing what you drew."

"Of course," Ree smiled. "I think Jack still has the sketchpad."

Jack slid one hand inside his suit jacket and removed the small pad, then passed it to Arvin.

Sloane examined the sketches carefully. "These are very nicely done," he said admiringly.

"Thank you."

"So, Ree, tell me about your job with the CIA," Sloane prompted.

Ree looked politely confused. "Actually, I mostly work with the state and local police. It's only rarely that the CIA calls on me."

"I don't mean your work as a sketch artist. I was referring to your position as a mission specialist."

Ree's mouth dropped. "My. I'm sorry. What do you mean?"

Sloane wore the cold calculating look of a predator closing in for the kill. "An associate of mine here in Paris recognized you. He says he worked with you a number of years ago in the Berlin office. You must be quite a senior agent if you've been there what, almost 20 years now?" He sat back and waited for the reactions to his bombshell.

Ree looked shocked. Jack, furious and betrayed.

"Yes," Jack responded with tightly controlled anger. "Please do tell me about this other profession of yours."

Ree shot a glance at him, surprised by his strong reaction to Sloane's words, then turned back to face Arvin. "I'm not sure where you got your information from," she said steadily, "but I haven't been an agent for the CIA in 12 years. On occasion they call me in to consult, but I quit the agency a long time ago. I haven't gone back and I have no intention of ever doing so."

"Fascinating," Sloane said. "So you're saying that after." He paused for her to finish his sentence.

"Eight years," Ree responded.

"Eight years." He steepled his fingers under his chin. "So, after eight years with the CIA you simply quit? From what I heard you were very good at designing and running missions."

"I was." Once again Ree sensed the undercurrents in the room, but couldn't decipher the look Sloane shot at Jack. "I was very good at my job. Maybe too good. I won't say they were pleased with my decision, but I'd made up my mind. Told them they could make me stay, but they couldn't make me work." She shrugged. "Eventually they saw it my way."

"Please. Tell us about it." Sloane gestured to Jack and himself. "You have our full attention."

This was not something Ree particularly wanted to get into. Even twelve years later it still hurt. "It's a long story," she hedged.

"Many of your stories seem to be," Jack said icily. "Long and with a number of vital parts left out, apparently."

Ree stared at him. What exactly was he implying? Now she was starting to get pissed off. "You want to know?" she demanded. "Fine. On the last mission I designed, two men died. One of them was my fiancé."

Sloane looked a bit smug. "Unfortunate what mistakes in designing a mission can lead to."

Ree turned on him. "I didn't make a mistake! I did everything exactly right. The only way to successfully achieve our objectives required putting two of our operatives in jeopardy. Matt was one of them. I knew that the odds of his surviving were negligible. He didn't. I was ordered not to tell him." She took a deep breath, trying to maintain her shaky control. "And I didn't. I sent him into that situation blind. And I watched him die."

She stood up abruptly. "That's what I couldn't live with. Not that I'd made a mistake. That I didn't. And because I was a good agent and did my job correctly, the man I loved died. I could have warned him, but I followed orders." She looked from one man to the other. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I've had enough fun for one evening." She tossed her napkin onto the chair and strode out of the room.

The two men watched her leave, but remained silent.

After a minute, Sloane turned to Jack. "I'm sorry, old friend, but I thought you ought to know."

"Know what?" Jack bit out. "That she's ex-CIA? That she feels responsible for the death of her fiancé?"

"That she works for a government agency whose goals are diametrically opposed to ours. That it's possible she may have attached herself to you to see what information she could get out of you about SD-6. After the fiasco with Laura -"

"Arvin, you are out of line," Jack growled.

"Am I?" Arvin demanded harshly. "Am I really? Jack, you're a brilliant man. The one serious mistake you've made in your life was letting yourself fall in love with a woman whose only interest was in getting enough information out of you to be able to kill your colleagues. I'd hate to see history repeat itself."

"Ree is not Laura!"

"No," Arvin allowed. "But given what's been going on we can't overlook the possibility that she may be with you for the same reason."

"I know what I'm doing, Arvin. And I would appreciate it if -"

"Come on, Jack," Arvin interrupted. "You brought the woman with you to Paris. While you were here on business. You've never done anything like that in all the time I've known you. And I saw enough of the tape from last night to know you weren't playing Scrabble together. Is she really that good in bed?"

Jack's face was flushed with embarrassment and fury. "My private life is exactly that - private."

"Unless it interferes with SD-6 business," Sloane spoke sharply. "Look at yourself, Jack. This isn't like you. If the situation were reversed, you know you'd be saying the same thing to me. Now what the hell is going on here?"

"I admit it may not have been the most prudent thing to do." Jack met Arvin's gaze squarely. "And I agree that this whole. thing. is not like me. Nonetheless, I know what I'm doing and I can assure you that she is not a risk."

"Jack." Arvin leaned in intently. "She's CIA."

"Twelve years ago!" Jack said angrily. "She says she left the CIA twelve years ago. Surely that can be checked out easily enough."

Sloane nodded. "And normally you would be the person I'd ask to do the checking. Under the circumstances, I think you'll understand if I give the job to someone else."

"Of course," Jack said curtly.

"We should be able to get a response by mid-day tomorrow at the latest. Until then I recommend you be very discreet in whatever you say to her. And for your sake, my friend, I hope you're right."

Jack gave a jerk of his head that might be construed as agreement and left the room.

Sloane pursed his lips in thought for a moment, then rose and crossed to the phone on the side table. He waited for the other party to pick up then spoke abruptly into the phone. "Bates. Get me everything you can find on a Rhiannon Ash. Particularly her history with the CIA. This is a top priority assignment."

********************

Ree was staring out the window into the night with her back to the door when Jack entered the darkened room.

"Nice of you to let me learn about your profession from Sloane."

She went dead still for a moment then turned around slowly. She had been crying and tears still ran down her cheeks. "It was twelve years ago!" she spat at him. "Twelve goddamned years ago! What the hell is your problem, anyway? What?! Gee, I forgot to tell you that I worked as a waitress at Friendly's when I was 16. You want to make an issue of that, too?"

"It's an entirely different matter and you know it," Jack said ominously.

"Oh, really? And why would that be?" Her eyes dared him to say something, knowing he couldn't with all of the surveillance. "You have a problem with ex-spooks?"

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen. He fiddled with it for a second. "We have two minutes."

"Good. What the hell is this all about?"

"Why didn't you tell me about your status with the CIA?"

"My status with the CIA?" she repeated. "My status with the CIA is non- existent. I've maintained a high security clearance so they can bring me in on classified cases as a sketch artist. In a few extremely rare cases they've asked me in as a consultant. I am no longer an agent with them and I will never again be an agent for them."

"This is still information I should have known."

"Then why the hell didn't you check me out? God knows, you have to have the resources. You could have asked either of the agents there. Hell, you could have asked me! Any of us would have told you. If you were that concerned, why didn't you do your homework? I asked about you!"

Jack was momentarily speechless.

Ree pushed past him and began throwing her things into her bag.

"What are you doing?" he managed.

"Leaving. There's no way in hell I'm spending the night in this room with you. There has to be another bedroom - or at least a couch - somewhere." She stopped and looked at him for a moment. "This is not what I expected from you. In my dreams -"

"I am not the goddamned man you've been dreaming about!"

"Clearly not. He could be a real ass, too, but at least he has a good excuse!"

"And what would that be?"

She paused on her way out the door. "He was betrayed by his wife."

The door slammed behind her, leaving him stunned and speechless yet again.

********************

She ran into Sloane partway down the hall.

"Ree? Where are you going?" he asked with some concern.

The angry tears were still flowing down her cheeks and they glistened in the moonlight shining through the window. She brushed them away and replied with as much dignity as she could manage, "I was going to ask your housekeeper if there was another room I could stay in. I can't stay with him - not when he's acting like this." She stared out the window without blinking, willing the foolish tears to stop. "I don't understand why a job I did twelve years ago would bother him."

She decided to be daring and drop the ball into Sloane's court. "You knew it would bother him when you told him, didn't you? I could tell by the way you watched him. Why? Why does it bother him?"

Sloane pursed his lips and took a moment to decide how to answer. "Well," he said finally, "I can't say much for confidentiality reasons, but I can tell you that someone Jack trusted implicitly turned out to have been an operative using him to get information. They suspected an international money-laundering operation was being organized through the consortium of banks Credit Dauphine is affiliated with. Jack was, of course, cleared of any involvement, but I'm afraid it's soured his opinion of anyone involved with the CIA."

Ree looked at him measuringly, wondering how much of what he had said was true - and which parts of it. "I didn't know," she said quietly. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it," Sloane replied. "And if you'd like, I'll ask Eva to make up another room for you. I was just concerned that you might be trying to leave. I would have hated for something to happen to you if you'd tried to make your way back to the city alone at night."

Although his face showed a gentle concern, Ree had the feeling that there was a warning note behind his words. "No, nothing like that." She turned back to the window with a sigh. "Where would I go? Jack has our plane tickets."

She barely managed to hide a shudder as he stepped in closer and patted her on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. I've known Jack for a long time. I'm sure this will blow over. I'll have Eva prepare another room. She'll come get you when it's ready. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable in the library down the hall."

"Thank you," Ree managed.

"Not a problem."

Ree waited until his footsteps had disappeared around the corner before she turned around. She didn't know what kind of game Sloane was playing, but she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. With another sigh she made her way to the library to wait for the housekeeper.