Chapter 26

"Those details weren't in the report you gave me!" he protested.

"That's because the report I gave you was Nigel's ballistic report. My autopsy report is still on my desk."

"And why didn't you give me that report?" he frowned at her.

"You didn't ask for it," she told him with a self-satisfied smile.

Shaking a finger at her and flashing a smile in return, he replied, "I can see that I'm going to have to watch you, very closely!"

"And I'll be watching you, too," Jordan said with a smile. "You still didn't tell me what the CIA's interest in this man is, and don't give me any of that 'need to know' crap. We're either working together on this, or we're not!"

"Now Jordan, you know I can't reveal classified information."

"If that's how you want to play it, Mister Rabb," she said, wiping her mouth on her napkin and sliding back from the table a bit to indicate she was done.

"Now Jordan, don't be like that. You have to understand, there's classified information in your job as well," he said, reaching out to take her hand, but was not able to when she pulled it out of his reach.

"Yes, I do, and I also learned how to keep confidential information, but if you don't trust me…"

"I'm sure that you're a person to be trusted, but in my line of work…"

She jumped into the middle of that statement with, "Don't give me that! You said you'd only been with the CIA a short time. You're Navy trained, and that means you know the value of teamwork. In fact you chucked your career to go and save your partner…was that because she was your partner, or was it because she was a helpless female that needed a big strong man to save her?"

"My partner was…. still is, a Marine!"

Jordan leaned forward with her elbows on the table and her hands supporting her chin as she whispered, "So it was teamwork!"

"Yes, you have me there," he leaned forward and whispered back. "But you have to assure me that what ever I tell you doesn't go any farther than this. That means your friend Detective Hoyt can't be let into the loop."

"Alright," Jordan agreed, knowing there were several ways of getting any information Woody needed to him without telling him herself.

Lowering his voice so no one at the tables nearby could hear him, Harm said, "Carl Travis was in the witness protection program."

"So that wasn't his real name!" Jordan exclaimed.

"Shh!…No, he was given a new identity, why?" Harm asked.

"Well, Travis certainly didn't sound Vietnamese," she told him, thinking that Clara Rose might have gotten his real name…what am I thinking…she got the name from an Ouija board? 'But then again the woman had found the third bullet when Jenkins hadn't, and she did say his name was unrecognizable to her…well, okay, that wasn't the word she used, but Jordan would be damned if she would even think about that silly word …Good Lord! Now I'm even starting to ramble like her!'

Jordan was brought back to the present when Harm waved his hand in front of her face to get her attention. "Where in the world did you get off to?" he asked, a bit miffed that here he was sharing 'Company secrets' and he couldn't hold her attention.

"Oh, sorry, I was just thinking…ummm…how hard it must be to do that. Leave all your family and friends and never see them again, change your life completely overnight. It would be rough, I don't know that I could do it."

"I know about changing your life like that…"

"Oh, you had to leave all your friends, your family, change your name…"

"Well, I guess it wasn't that big of a change for me…"

"So you don't really know what he went through?"

"Um, I guess not," he reluctantly admitted.

"It's okay," she said reaching out and taking his hand. "I'm sorry, I got caught up in that, I get a bit over zealous at times, or so I've been told," she said smiling at Harm. "Let me make it up to you. Are you free tomorrow night? I'll make dinner for us at my place."

All the while thinking, 'And have a much better chance of finding out what he knows if I'm distracting him, maybe my red dress…'

"Dinner sounds delightful," he said, knowing when he was being played, but this seemed the best way to continue plying her for information.

Harm was paying the bill when it suddenly hit Jordan that since Aunt Merry's fiancé was the head of the Navy lawyers, he might have been the 'boss' Harm was talking about. As they walked together back to her office, she asked, "So you were a Navy lawyer, does that mean you were in the Judge Advocate General's offices?"

"Yeah, I was a Commander."

"Wow! And you weren't the boss?" she said, pretending not to know the answer.

To be continued….