Chapter Twenty-Five

Fishing

Tara looked beautiful in the dress. Peter and Lauren were sitting nearby, watching Nora and Tara walk in side by side. They had Avet convince Ghovat that he had sold the dress to an agent who wanted her model to wear it, for the hefty sum of fifty-thousand dollars.

Nora was off anklet again, wearing a dress almost as beautiful as Tara's. "How long will we have to keep this up?" Tara asked. She was remarkably calm, much more so than she had been at the party. Nora seemed to be a comforting presence to her.

"Just long enough to get noticed," Nora assured her with a calm smile. "You are doing great, Tara."

The model smiled weakly. "I'll be feeling better once this is over."

Nora decided to change the subject, before Tara's composure started to take a hit. "That dress looks great on you, by the way. I wish I was as tall as you are." It was somewhat true; Tara practically towered over Nora. They took a seat at the bar.

Tara laughed. "I only wish I could wear it on the runway." Her voice was wistful.

"Maybe some day you will. Let's get a drink." Tara nodded, and Nora signaled the bartender for two drinks.

While they waited, a waiter with a tray came up behind Tara. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said to Nora, "this just arrived for you." It was a cellphone. It started ringing. This is it, Nora thought as she grabbed it.

"Hello?" she said calmly.

"I recognize you from the party," a man with an Israeli accent said from the other end. Nora recognized the voice from Avet's conversation. It was Ghovat. She started scanning the restaurant. He had eyes on her, but where was he?

"Who is this?" she asked, feigning ignorance. Tara eyed her nervously. Nora stood, pacing around, trying to get a better look at the faces around them.

"I saw you steal Dmitri's phone," he dodged.

"Yeah," she admitted. "Easiest way to eliminate the competition, wouldn't you agree?"

"So you know what you have?"

Nora glanced back at Tara. Her brown eyes were wide with concern. "I know exactly what I've got."

"You paid fifty-thousand dollars for the dress," Ghovat said. "I'll pay you five million."

Nora sighed. "See, my client loves the dress so much, I would hate to take it from her for so little." She lowered her voice. "Make it ten, and we'll talk."

There was silence for a moment. "Do you know who you're talking to?" His tone was grave, threatening. You'll have to try a little harder to scare me, honey, she thought. If Nora had a dollar for every death threat she'd ever received, she probably wouldn't have had to forge any bonds.

"This is Steve, right?"

"I tried being nice," Ghovat growled. "I tried giving you a choice." Before Nora could respond, the line went dead. With a sigh, Nora snapped the phone closed and returned to Tara.

They chatted idly, staying long enough that it didn't look like they had come to have that conversation, or like Ghovat had scared them. Nora waited a few minutes after Peter and Lauren left to pay the bill. The women met the agents a few blocks away from the restaurant.

Nora recapped what Ghovat had said, and the phone was taken as evidence. Tara was taken back into protective custody by the plain clothes agents Peter had assigned to protect her, and the rest of them returned to the Bureau.

They wasted no time checking the phone for any evidence that could help them. Everyone was still in their nice clothes from dinner. Peter noticed Nora rubbing at her anklet uncomfortably with the her other foot. If he had to guess, she did not like wearing the dress that showed it off for so long. But she would just have to deal with that a little longer. All the present company knew it was there anyway.

"Nothing on the phone," Peter explained, pacing. "It's a burner. You can pick up one of these at any corner deli. Prints?"

Lauren shook her head. "It's clean."

Jones walked in, face grim. "Agent Burke," he said. It was obvious he had bad news.

"What's up?" Peter asked, not sure if he was prepared for bad news, but knew he needed to hear it anyway.

"We had two plain clothes taking Tara home," he said. "Somebody got to them about half an hour ago."

Peter's blood ran cold. "Got to them how?"

"Blasted the car to hell," he said, swallowing hard. "Fortunately our guys were wearing vests."

Nora sat up in her seat, discomfort forgotten. Her eyes were wide with concern. "What about Tara?" she demanded.

Jones turned to look at her evenly. "They grabbed her," he said softly. "Got away clean." Peter tossed his files down in frustration. Nora looked about on the edge of tears.

The phone started ringing in the evidence bag. They turned to stare at it as if it had caught of fire. Nora glanced back at Peter. He nodded, and she ripped the bag open. She opened it quickly and held it to her ear, listening.

She took a sharp intake of breath. Quickly, she sat the phone down and put it on speaker. "So what now?" she asked, voice low. Despite how tense she looked, her tone was even. She wasn't going to let him hear how upset she was, not giving him a single thing he could use against her.

Peter's agents wasted no time pulling out a laptop, trying to use the call to find Ghovat.

"You want the girl, I want the dress."

"Trade?" Nora suggested. Good, Peter thought, keep him talking. "Where and when?"

"I'm not interested in meeting with you," he said. Nora's narrowed her eyes in confusion.

"Then who?"

"Agent. Peter. Burke." They shared a look.

"Why him?" Nora asked.

"Because it's really the FBI who holds the dress," he said simply. "Is he there now?"

Nora hesitated, looking between the Peter and the phone. She sighed silently and sat back down in her chair. "It's for you," she said softly.

Peter's turn. "This is Burke."

"I'm sure you heard everything earlier."

"You want me to make the exchange," Peter confirmed. He needed to keep Ghovat talking. The trace wasn't done yet.

"That's right," Ghovat said. "I won't waste my time telling you to come alone. Just make sure you bring the real dress." Real generous of you, Peter thought bitterly.

Peter couldn't help himself. "If it's not, are you gonna make me eat it?"

"That's funny," Ghovat laughed. "Keep this phone on you. You'll meet me at the Central Park Bench tomorrow afternoon at four PM. Plenty of time for you to get your men into position." Ghovat hung up.

They didn't get the location. They all looked defeated, all suddenly very tired. Nora was chewing on her lip, hands folded in front of her face. Her eyes looked misty.

Peter sighed. "It's late," he admitted. "We need to be well-rested if we're going to make a plan. Let's reconvene first thing in the morning."

No one argued.

Nora was very quiet on the way out of the building. Peter walked with her. Despite being out in public, she seemed to have forgotten about her discomfort in having her anklet visible. They were well away from the FBI before she spoke.

"You have to let me go to the exchange tomorrow," she plead. "It's my fault Tara is in trouble. I'm the one who paraded her around town in that dress." So that's what it was about. She felt guilty. So she has no problems stealing priceless art worth millions of dollars, but blames herself for something that had been my idea to begin with? Sometimes he really wished he could tell what was going on in her head.

"The best thing you can do is help me figure out what Ghovat's game plan is," Peter said gently. "He knows we're going to have the place staked out."

Nora nodded thoughtfully. "He knows you're running your playbook." The FBI had standard procedures for a reason. But when your target knew them, there was a problem. That was part of the reason it had taken him so long to find Nora; she knew what they were going to do, and planned her next move around that. Peter had to learn to become unpredictable to get close to her.

"Right," he agreed, "so we're going to toss the old one, come up with a new plan."

She shook her head. "No," she insisted, a small smile forming. "No, you don't. That's the point. He expects you to have a plan. He's counting on it. It makes his job easier."

"So I do nothing?" Peter asked, baffled. The logical gymnastics she must have to do to reach these conclusions… The spark her eyes took when she thought she was onto something had replaced the worry and guilt.

"Roll with it." As if it was really that simple

"Like you would." She grinned.

"He expects you to have a plan. Don't have one."

Peter sighed. "That's the worst idea ever." That just wasn't how the FBI worked. It might be the solution in Nora's world, but in Peter's, just rolling with it sounded like a great way to get someone killed.

She shrugged. "Prepare all you can, just know it's all going to change." Maybe she did have a point there. There was only so much they could prepare for, only so many contingencies they could have in place. If Ghovat was prepared for them… none of it would matter.

"What would you do?" he asked softly.

She thought for a moment, meeting his gaze evenly. "I would go home and have dinner with my wife." Peter smiled, patting her on the shoulder, and they parted ways. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.