The request was Nadine/Admiral Ellen Hill, for the prompt: "I'm tired of being your secret."
"Admiral, Nadine Tolliver from the State Department is here to see you."
"Thank you. Send her in." Ellen finds herself straightening her uniform, smoothing down her hair. The next moment, the door opens and Nadine saunters in.
"Admiral Hill," she says. "Secretary Marsh sends his apologies for missing this meeting."
"The operation in Libya, right?"
"It went sideways." Nadine walks right up to the desk and then around it, completely bypassing the visitors' chairs in favor of standing on Ellen's side of the desk. She leans back on the edge of the desk, the way she always does when she thinks no one else will come by to see. "He's with Director Munsey now."
"I hope it works out."
"Indeed. Admiral, let me ask you something."
"Sure."
"How much do you know about C-600 jets?"
Ellen pauses. "You mean like the one the Secretary uses."
"Mhmm."
"Not much," she says carefully. She never can tell what Nadine is angling for, or where she plans to go. What she's thinking. Nadine crosses her legs until her skirt rides halfway up her thigh—she wants Ellen to stare.
Ellen keeps her eyes fixed firmly on Nadine's face and reminds herself not to.
"Well," Nadine goes on, "I've been doing a little homework about this jet. Plane parts. NTSB reports. That kind of thing."
"And?"
"And I learned that there was a crash in Dubai some years ago—same plane. It was a broken jackscrew in the tail and that's all. Isn't that peculiar?"
Ellen hates these little games. It irritates her that Nadine enjoys them so much. "What's your point?"
Nadine's smile widens. "Nothing. I just thought it was interesting."
/
Nadine takes Secretary Marsh's next meeting with Ellen, too. And it ends with Nadine pressing her against the wall, kissing her the way she does when she's angry and needs to burn it off. This is how Ellen knows that Vincent Marsh decided to go home to his wife tonight instead of staying late at the office.
"You have got to stop sleeping with him," Ellen tells her, when she's through.
"Maybe I've got to stop sleeping with you."
Ellen shoves her away. She despises Nadine when she's like this—nasty, mean. Hurt. "You're just Washington's little whore, really," Ellen says flippantly. "Letting anyone and everyone between your legs so long as they pay you when they're through."
"Yup, and you owe me," Nadine quips. She wipes her hands on a tissue. "I'm coming to collect."
Ellen shakes her head. "You're a manipulative bitch, you know that?"
"I thought you were too feminist to call women bitches."
"I'm too feminist to call you a cunt. Even though you are one," she says. "But I'm not too feminist to call you a bitch."
Nadine smirks. "Ouch."
"Get out of my office."
"What's wrong, baby?" she simpers. She trails her hands up the sides of Ellen's uniform until she jerks away.
"I'm done with this," Ellen says tersely. "I'm tired of being your secret."
"Baby, Washington runs on secrets. This is how the game is played."
"I'm done playing with you."
Nadine's voice sharpens. "We're done when I say we're done."
"I'd watch your tone. You forget yourself."
"You forget who you're dealing with," Nadine shoots back. "I came here for a reason."
"Because your lover forgot about you?"
"Because I mean to collect on what you owe me," Nadine says meanly. "Didn't I say?"
Ellen already feels the dread unfurling in the pit of her stomach. Everyone in DC owes Nadine Tolliver favors, but it's never good when she comes to collect. "What do you want?"
"Help me kill Vincent Marsh."
Ellen goes still, but Nadine waits her out. "What did you just say?" Ellen says, dangerously quiet.
"Help. Me. Kill. Vincent Marsh."
"You're insane," Ellen breathes.
"It isn't because of my affair with him," Nadine says casually, "if that's what you're thinking."
"I don't know what to think."
"I don't like the moves he's making. He's having me fabricate his schedules so that he can take off-the-books meetings with men he can't control. He's playing a dangerous game that he doesn't know how to win, and I fear the consequences of his ineptitude."
"Nadine…"
"I'm going to send his plane into the Atlantic Ocean, and you're going to help me."
"The jackscrew," she remembers suddenly. "That's why you said..."
"Now you're catching on."
"This is treason," she hisses. "Even just for discussing it we could be—"
"The operative word being we. You and I are in it together now, Admiral. I don't think I have to point out all the ways I could ruin you should you choose to leave me hanging." Nadine smoothes her skirt down. "But we'll talk more about it later. Dinner tomorrow, perhaps?" She's already walking toward the door, and Ellen's mind is racing.
"Nadine," she calls again, to her back.
Ellen Hill is the highest ranking woman in the United States military and a chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs. There are very few people she's afraid of, and yet...
Nadine turns, one eyebrow cocked. A tiny little smile plays at her lips and glints in her eyes. It's dangerous. It's frightening.
Ellen makes a decision. "I hope you know what you're doing," she says finally.