THE MISSION AT HAND
It was morning again and Pax stretched her lean frame beneath the covers. The room was filled with the scent of Donovan's cologne. Ah yes. I almost forgot that I slept with him last night. The bed was empty beside her. She touched the space that Donovan had occupied earlier and noted it was still warm. Hmmm…he's still here. Maybe he'll come back and wake me up nice and proper. Actually, she couldn't imagine how Donovan managed to let his anger slide enough to allow her to stay. He had and then made love to her so gently, without an ounce of savagery. Toward the front of the apartment, she heard a few thumping noises and realized that he was probably with his kid in the living room. She sat up and glanced around the room. Oddly, she felt at home here, but didn't have the faintest idea why. His apartment wasn't her home; it was his. When she noticed the door creaking open, she quickly drew the sheet up past her breasts. Not exactly modest, the covers had pooled to her waist. She didn't think the kid would appreciate that. It wasn't exactly the kid; it was Donovan. He was carrying in a tray with a steaming pot of coffee. What the hell is he doing? How can he be so sweet after what I've put him through? He laid the tray out on the bed opposite her and then he came around to her side. He sat on the edge near her and ran the back of his hand over her cheek before dropping it down. He leaned toward her and kissed her. She allowed the sheet to drop down and pool at her waist again.
What the hell was he doing to her? When he was like this, she had no self-control and wouldn't hesitate to attack him. She only hoped the kid was still in bed. Pax wanted more of him, but he drew away and dropped his mouth down to the hollow between her throat and shoulder. Goddamn. Here he goes again. Jesus…how the hell could I be so stupid as to walk away a month ago? Stupid Pax. You are, indeed, a dolt. She wanted to get her hand into his hair and then drag his ass back down to the bed. The fucking mission could wait another hour or two. Hell, fuck it. It could wait until forever. He drew away from her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. The smug bastard was so loving. She could see how he sucked in so many women. Well, that among other things. How could he be so angry with her, but so willing to treat her human the next morning? When he pulled back away from her, she glanced at the coffee pot before fixing her eyes on him.
"It's decaf," he said with a smile.
"I hope you're fucking kidding," she asked, gazing at him curiously.
He laughed a little and nodded. "I am. There's enough caffeine in it to keep a horse awake for a decade."
A faint smile touched her lips, but soon fell away. Something about him had changed. Something about their relationship was different. It was more different than before. "Frankie, why didn't you make me leave last night? I fucked up really big and I think I deserved to be tossed out on my ass, but you didn't. Why? Why didn't you?"
He sighed and shook his head a little. "I thought we covered this already. I can't say I'm not pissed or hurt or irritated, but you told me. Your reasons for not telling me were legitimate. You didn't want to betray a loyalty. I can't fault that altogether, because I'm the same way, but I was serious when I said that it's over. It is, Jonella. No games. I know you can swear off them. I know it's in you. You just have to want it and do it. I love you, and I'm in no hurry to throw you out again." He leaned toward her and kissed her again. "As far as us and this marriage thing, I won't mention it again unless you're ready to hear it. I can respect your wishes. I can't say I understand them, because I don't, but I will never force you to do something you don't want." He brought his hand up again and ran his thumb over her cheek. "You can't play hooky again today. First, you tell me what the deal is and then we take it to the team. Call Dicky and bring him in."
She nodded. "Okay, but first, we have to pick up a paper."
Later, Donovan stood with Pax as she spread out the morning edition over his kitchen table. He had no idea what she was doing until he looked over her shoulder. She was highlighting the first letter of every word on each page, but skipped over a few sections here and there. It took a while to accomplish this task because this edition was twice as thick as the normal morning paper. The Call didn't run weekend night editions. When she finished highlighting the paper, she sat down and began making notes as she turned each page. He had never seen anything like this before and it made little sense. Whenever he tried to say anything, she'd hold her hand up impatiently as if she were shooing him away. The only time he left her side was when he needed to take care of Stasia. During one of those times, Donovan entered the kitchen and saw that Pax was rewriting what she had deciphered from the paper. She had taken the Call, scrunched it up, and shoved it aside. Looking over her shoulder again, he saw that Pax had written a few lines in large block letters: MTG. AT LITERVILLE WAREHOUSE. FIND LOUIE AND ABRAM. THEY HAVE BLUEPRINTS. BRING BACK TO CALL. FLIGHT OUT TO ME IN TWO WEEKS. MUNITIONS. It made little sense to him. He had no idea what the Literville Warehouse was, and had never heard the names Louie and Abram. Pax looked up at him, indicating her notes. She slid them toward him as if he should know what they were and what they meant. Nevertheless, he picked up the paper and read through the note again and again.
"Pax," he asked, "what is this?"
She rolled her eyes. "Goddamn. Here I thought you were smart or some shit. The boss, Bill Jones, has something going with the printers and they arrange the paper in such a way as to spell out their code. These are some type of plans for an underground munitions exchange between terrorists in the Middle East and those who help them in this country. Louie and Abram are the two lead men. They're fairly nondescript and work in the printing room. This is basically a notation Jones made to himself and to his men to remind them of the job ahead. Dicky and his crew have been watching Jones for months and they were having difficulty infiltrating the paper. Jones and his buddies know most of the agents and especially Dicky. The paper always follows the same pattern. When Graham and I were brought in, our articles began to sink into their code pages, so most of the time, they use the weekend editions now. When I first started, they went out in both day and evening editions. We broke their code and Jones really loves me because of that, but he likes my style. However, if he ever finds me out, I'll be unemployed…and dead."
"Is Jones from a Middle Eastern country or does he simply have ties to them," he asked as he stared down at the note.
Pax shrugged. "Not sure at this point. Bill Jones isn't his real name, of course, but if I had to guess, he's probably either a sympathizer or is in it for the money. From what Dicky dug up, he's been using the paper for quite some time for other dirty deeds that aren't quite categorized as terrorism. He's used the same code in much the same way. We have dozens of pages of notes and letters. He's been working primarily with Louie since the beginning. Abram only started showing up in the game a few months ago. I'm not sure about either of those guys, because I've never seen them. Any time anyone tries to go down where they work, Jones gets upset. Gee…now I know why." She looked up at him and smiled a little. "Now you see what I do on my weekends."
"Any ideas as to what the full names of those guys are," he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. "I wish. Can't produce fucking miracles, Frankie. We try to intercept what we can, but the printers normally see it before we get it. Surprise, surprise. We were afraid to associate ourselves with you because Jones probably knows who you are." She sighed. "Soooo, Dicky came up with the cover of me and Graham being…together. I thought the idea a little disgusting, but went along with it. The first time Graham saw you in my office, he nearly had a heart attack."
Donovan laughed a little and shook his head. When he looked up, Pax was gazing up at him curiously. "It really was all in my head, wasn't it?" She nodded without saying a word. "I nearly ruined it for you, didn't I? I nearly allowed my jealousy to put you right out there. Jesus." He approached her from behind, leaned down, and placed a kiss at her temple. "Looks like I'm matching you lately for stupid ass tricks, huh," he said, his voice falling in her ear. He moved her hair over her shoulder and pressed his lips against the side of her neck. "I think we need to call in the team and let them in on yours and Graham's findings. The quicker we get Jake and Alex in, the better."
She pulled back and away from him. "I can't believe you're going to do this, Frank. If I were you, I'd tell the fucking CIA to kiss my ass. I couldn't be as forgiving as you. Hell, I'm not as forgiving as you."
Donovan kneeled before her. "I'm not doing it for the CIA, Jonella. I'm doing it for you. If it didn't involve you, I wouldn't think twice about telling them where to shove their mission. Whenever you're in the mix, I'm right behind you."
"I appreciate that. I'm really sorry for running out on you." She sighed a little. "Whatever the deal, Frank, I'm out. Dicky's already got the paperwork in progress. I don't want this anymore, I can't stand this anymore." She gazed down into his eyes and knew he ached to ask what she wanted, but he held it in for all he was worth. Her hand went to his cheek. Good fucking God. Why is this so hard? I've never done anything like this in my life and I'm fucking scared. "I…I want to stay here…with you."
From the look in her eyes, she was serious, probably more serious than she had ever been around him. "If it matters to you, that's exactly what I want as well. It's all I ever wanted, even without asking you to marry me. As before, I'll do whatever I can to help you leave, I just don't want to send you off again. You can leave clean, with a blank slate, and be anyone you want. It's just that I want you to do it here."
"Could we knock off the mushy shit," she asked with a smile. "I thought you wanted to work today."
* * *
After Donovan took Stasia to his ex-sister in-law's apartment, he and Pax made their way to the nest. They'd each contacted their own teams. The cat was out of the bag now, so there was no need to pussyfoot around and pretend the 'reporters' were writing articles. Pax hoped that Dicky and Graham had brought a paper with him. If they didn't, someone would have to run an errand. When they entered the nest, everyone at the conference table turned in the direction of Donovan and Pax. Here we go again, Cody thought. They're together. Pax was relieved to see a thick paper sitting before Graham. It was the same edition she had purchased earlier and she had also brought along her transcribed notes. She didn't need to sit down and go through the timely process again. Thank God. She didn't have the heart for it. All the chairs were occupied, so Pax leaned close to the coffee maker, and Donovan was opposite her. He watched her with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for her to begin. Today, this was her show.
She rolled her eyes, sighing inwardly. Goddamn, she hated public fucking speaking. For Pete's sake, Dicky was the damn lead op. She was a lowly senior peon. "I suppose by now, you all know that neither my partner and I are truly reporters interested in observing your special ops group." The looks around the table reflected a general 'no shit' attitude. She sighed. "The paper is currently run by a fellow named Bill Jones. Jones is involved with several covert operations of his own. Right now, we think he's swapping secrets with Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He's using the paper for this. Before Graham and I came along, he sent messages through the paper by using a simple system. He took each letter of every word on a page to transmit his deals. Sometimes, the commands were only a few lines long after having a thousand words or something. Anyway, he uses the employees in printing to get the papers circulated. He has two men there and probably has a dozen more outside transmitting their own code. Since Graham's articles and mine came along, we've broken the chain a bit, so Jones only sends code out in the weekend editions. Neither of us have articles then. He gets most of his work done through those means. Basically, if he isn't stopped, something horrible is going to happen, if not here, then somewhere else. Dicky suggested that we come to you posing as reporters until we could pull you in. Jones probably knows Donovan, and we figured that if we came to you, he would assume he was free to do whatever he wanted. Now the game is getting tricky. It won't take long for Jones to start suspecting us, if he isn't already onto us now." Especially since you've wrapped yourself around Donovan's body. "If we lose now, a lot of work will be shat down the tubes, and Dicky's crew has been working on this longer than I have."
"What's the game plan," Alex asked.
She wanted to defer to Dicky on that, but the fucker didn't want to speak. Stupid fuck. He's probably pissed off because I'm quitting. "There are two openings at the paper. One is for an executive secretary and the other is in the mailroom. The mailroom is conveniently located near printing. I'm sure with a profiler and a computer genius, you can come up with the perfect credentials that will suit Jones to a tee. So, I suppose this is where Jonella Paxton shuts the fuck up and gives the floor to Donovan."
"We don't know the full names of the men in printing," Donovan began, "we need to access all personnel files at the paper. We're looking for two specific names: Louie and Abram. It's not much to go by, but it's all we have on these men." He nodded toward Cody. "You know what to do, Agent Forrester." He settled his eyes on Monica next. "Set up the perfect personnel files for Jake and Alex. The two of you will have to choose who goes where. In the next two weeks, the both of you have to be inside that paper, learning its inside workings. If Jones is sending out code, something big is going down." Once again, he focused his attention on Cody. "Oh, Cody, before I forget…find out some information about a Literville Warehouse. It's a location mentioned in today's paper."
The team lingered only a few moments longer. Dicky and Graham lagged behind. By this time, Pax had boosted herself onto the conference table and was looking at her transcription to ensure she hadn't left something out. Donovan stood off to the side with his eyes fixed on Graham. He didn't know what the big deal was, but he noticed that the young agent was staring at him every once in a while with a bizarre little smile on his face. Odd. Did he still think Pax was supposed to keep the façade of his lover? Dicky and Graham gave a few last details to Pax and then excused themselves. As soon as Cody had the information and Monica the personnel files, there wasn't much else they could do. Pax was only hanging around to find out what the Literville Warehouse was. It was befuddling her as much as he.
Pax started to jump off the table until Donovan approached, stopping her. "Your partner, Graham, he knows the game is over, doesn't he?"
Curiously, she gazed at him. "I think he knew it was over the minute he saw you in my office. Why do you ask?"
His brow furrowed. "I don't know," he said and drew the side of his bottom lip into his mouth for a very brief moment. "He was acting a little strange, that's all."
She nodded. "Yeah, he would. Since that first day, he's been digging around for information regarding our relationship. He has come out and asked, actually. He's a nosy little fuck. It's no big deal." She saw the concerned look on Donovan's face. "Hold up. What is it? You think Graham is doing something naughty?"
"Not sure," he said, "but I think it would be worth investigating, just to be safe. It won't be difficult for me to access his file."
"Do what you need to do, but I think Graham's okay. He's a little witless prick fucker, but he's not half bad."
He smiled a little. "Finally, you've found someone else to peg a witless fuck who isn't me," he said.
She took a handful of his shirt and brought him up close. She kissed him gently, her teeth nipping his bottom lip before she pulled away. "You're only a witless fuck to me when we're in bed."
He chuckled against her lips, kissing her back just as gently. "Is that right?"
"Mmm hmm."
"Ahem."
Donovan turned and faced Cody. "If we can have five minutes, I've got you hooked up," Cody said.
"Good." Donovan presented his hand to Pax and they walked over to the expanse of computers. "Jesus. I didn't realize the paper would have so many people. Have you narrowed it down any?"
"Uh, give me a second," Cody said as he began tapping keys. "Wait a minute. Louie Stemple and Abram Sekher. They're the only two matches. They have to be our guys." He tapped a few more keys. "And as for the Literville Warehouse…well…okay, that's bizarre."
"What is it," Donovan said, leaning over Cody.
"Literville is the name of a 'blink your eye and miss it' town in southeastern Missouri, population five hundred sixty," he said.
"How easily could the town be accessed?"
He tapped yet more keys. "Well, there is an airport in Kansas City, but it appears that you'll either have to find a crop duster or a rental car to get you to Literville. It's a drive and a half, I'll warn you now."
Donovan waved him off. "Make reservations at the end of next week for Agent Paxton and I. I'll handle the red tape. When you have that cleared, find the CIA files of one David Graham."
"Would you like me to name my firstborn Frank," Cody grumbled under his breath.
Pax lingered with Cody long enough to get the scoop on Graham. As she expected, there was nothing on him that she didn't already know. She went up to Donovan's office. "Nothing on Graham," she said.
"Good. I think we still need to watch him, though," he said offhandedly.
"Damn it, Frankie, you're so damn suspicious all the time," she said.
He looked up at her. "It's how I've stayed alive through all this." He shut off his computer and approached her. He took her hand in his. "I'm sending everyone home. It looks like we're good until next week." He tugged on her hand. "Come on."
* * *
It was a little cool, but the day was sunny. After Donovan sent the rest of the team home until Monday, he picked up his daughter at Renata's. Instead of going home, he drove them out to the park. Pax sat her ass flat on a park bench with her elbows on her knees and watched Donovan playing with his daughter. She didn't know how he could maintain such different personalities. Away from his child, he was all business. With her, he was a goofy dad. At one point, Stasia took off running with Donovan on her heels. She was squealing happily with her little two-year-old lungs and Donovan was playfully growling at her as if he were a grizzly bear. Stasia was coming up a little too fast to the park bench and if she didn't slow down, she was going to bonk her head. Donovan was calling for her to stop, but her forward momentum was carrying her onward. Before she ran headfirst into the metal bench, Pax reacted and grabbed her up.
"Whoa, there, Blondie. You were about to get a knot on your head," Pax said.
The sudden movement startled her and she began to cry. Donovan caught up at that point. "Is she okay," he asked.
So very hurt and shattered, the little girl took her comfort anywhere she could get it, even from the tall spoon lady. She wrapped her little arms around Pax's throat and squalled as if she had lost a limb. "She's okay. She nearly ran into the bench, but I caught her," Pax said. "She's more scared than anything."
He gently caressed the back of Stasia's head. "Baby? Want to come to Daddy?"
She fixed her violet eyes on his face. There were big tears in them and her bottom lip was trembling. "Want Dayee," she huffed.
Pax handed her over to Donovan and she wrapped her arms around his neck, squalling even louder. He walked with her over to the bench and sat down, Pax following his lead. After a moment or two, she settled down and quickly forgot her scare of the day. She crawled down on Donovan's lap and glanced at Pax.
"Staddie head knot," she asked.
Pax smiled at her a little. "Yeah, Stasia almost got a knot."
"Bad bence," she cried, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Bad, bad bence." She tilted her head and gazed at Pax. "Staddie see you?"
Donovan noted Pax's confused look. "She's asking if you'll hold her in your lap," he said. With his eyes, he transmitted, if it's too painful, you don't have to do it.
She nodded as if telling him that she could handle it. "Sure, Blondie," she said as she turned toward Donovan and held out her arms. When she felt the weight of the child settling against her, she wasn't sure she could do it. However, the painful images began to slide back and away.
Stasia climbed onto her lap and zoned in on the silver ring. "Ooooh," she said, fascinated. "Pity. Dat?"
Her eyes met Donovan's. Without looking away, she said, "It's my engagement ring."
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To be continued…