Chapter Six
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For the first time in many years, as she waited in front of the elevator to return to her office, the ache of losing Janssen Tunberg poured over her, stealing her ability to think of anything but him. Grief hidden renewed itself.
She knew her brief yet intrusive witness of the intensely private and intimate moment between people as desperate to see each other as Fiona and Michael had been was something they never intended to be observed, even accidentally.
How she wished that had never happened. For them and her.
What interrupting their embrace had done to her was to create a sudden flood of memory that threatened to breach the stone walls she'd built around her truest self, walls that allowed her to function in the every day world with the armor of abeyance.
As she returned to her office, she stood outside her door, paused, and then took a calming breath before opening it. She found Fiona at the window, her hand pressed to the glass, looking down at the street below, panic in her voice. "No, Michael. No!"
By the time Pearce flew to the window, all she saw was Westen standing alone, looking up to where Fiona stood watching.
"That was Anson. I swear, it was him," Fiona said.
Pearce dialed her phone immediately. "Michael? Come back in the building. Fiona said Anson is here? Was here? Fine. I'll be right down."
"Can I . . ." Fiona began.
"No, you can't. I'm sorry, so sorry," Pearce said and quickly added, "Will you stay here, please?"
"Yes," Fiona agreed as she crossed her arms across her middle and turned back to the scene below.
Pearce left her office dialing her phone. "Raines, we have a problem."
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That's not who she is to me.
Had he been focusing outwardly instead of inwardly, he might have picked up sooner on the walker who was crossing four lanes of pavement behind him. It wasn't until a tic in Michael's interoceptive sense and peripheral awareness alerted him that he was under attack. He turned sharply, saw the gun then wrested the .45 from his attacker's hand while shoving him away and turning the gun on him.
"We meet again, Michael," Anson said.
"You didn't get the message?" Michael's tone was vicious as he shoved the gun hard up and under Anson's ribcage and propelled him backward with aggressive, advancing steps. "I am done talking to you."
"That's unfortunate," Anson said, "because I'm not done with you. Or your girlfriend. Or your family, or your friends in Miami, or even your friends inside that building. This is going to end badly for you. All of you. I thought you should know."
A black Mercedes with windows tinted as dark as a pair of sunglasses pulled up. The windows rolled down as the muzzle end of a large caliber handgun pointed at Michael. Anson opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat with a parting message. "We'll see you soon."
He watched as the car sped away and when it was out of sight, he turned and looked up. Sensing what he would find on the fourth floor level, he found Fiona with her hand against the glass, looking down.
This is never going to end, Michael!
He hoped she could hear what his heart was telling her.
It has to end, Fi. It has to.
When his phone rang, it was Pearce, telling him to return to the building. At least now he had a weapon. Fifteen minutes earlier, after he'd left Raines, he had stopped at her office to make the request to arm himself, but instead he had found Fiona, and thoughts of anything but her dissipated like mist in sunlight.
That didn't change his instinct to arm himself.
Whenever the CIA had requested his presence in D.C., he'd complied as he'd told Pearce he would, had shown up where he was told, when he was told. He'd always been accompanied by at least two agents after his flight, who escorted him in and out of the hotel and the building. He had been hoping by now he'd earned at least a temporary security pass and the ability to carry a weapon. He checked the clip on the .45 he'd taken from Anson and removed it just as an electronic hum preceded Pearce opening the door.
"Souvenir?" she asked, nodding to the handgun.
"Anson's. I could keep it or . . .?"
She held out her hand for the gun and clip. "Let's go see Raines. He's not happy."
"That makes two . . . or three . . . or four of us," Michael said as he followed Pearce back to the elevators they'd left twenty minutes earlier.
"Anson was here?" Raines demanded as they entered the conference room.
With grim brackets set on either side of his mouth, Raines learned the DIA psychiatrist who had blackmailed Westen and Glenanne had been brazen enough to show up outside one of the CIA's nondescript and intensely secure buildings, a building that possessed a street but no street address.
"What did he say?"
"He said he wasn't done, and things are going to end badly for me, Fi, our family and friends here and in Miami. He wasn't specific about what 'badly' meant. Oh, and he included you and Pearce on his list of our friends."
"How in the hell . . . " Raines wondered. "We've taken . . ." Instead of finishing either thought he reached for a folder on the table, glanced inside then closed it. "We need to provide protection for you and Miss Glenanne."
Michael watched the expression on Raines' face change, and was surprised when annoyance morphed into sardonic amusement and slowly slid across his features. Raines shook his head. "Send someone over to the hotel to collect the things in his room, and . . . no, on second thought, forget that. Make yourself comfortable, Westen. I've got some calls to make. I'll be back."
When he left the room, Michael turned to Pearce. "What'd I miss?"
Pearce sighed. "It's a . . . pissing match," she said with disgust. "Sorry."
"With the FBI?" Michael guessed.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Good question. But the better question is, how did Anson know you were here?"
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Results from polygraph tests were not infallible.
There were many aspects to understanding deception and bias, and that included the examiner's biases. If an examiner expected to see falsity, he or she would. On the other hand, if falsity was detected, it was more important to understand the reason for the dishonesty instead of the dishonesty itself.
It was a basic truth of human existence: deception walked side by side with the instinct for self-preservation. In the human body, that could be measured.
The forensic psychophysiologist the FBI insisted administer the tests to Westen and Glenanne included that basic explanation in his introduction to the reports he filed. One copy went to Raines; an identical copy was delivered to his FBI counterpart.
Raines had issued no objection to the FBI request for either the polygraphs or the choice to use their certified examiner.
That's because he knew the examiner they selected was at the top of his field, perhaps the most well respected of any examiner among the various D.C. agencies. He regularly conducted specialized seminars for advanced training and certification. His experience, expertise and extensive knowledge meant he lived in rarified air where inter-agency rivalry ceased out of respect for his skills.
His report noted testing for Miss Glenanne had taken far longer than for Westen.
As an operative, Westen had been polygraphed many times for his security ratings. Given the serious nature of the Consulate bombing and that two innocent men had died, the Bureau chose the full scope polygraph combination of tests, standard for anyone seeking the highest levels of security clearance, to be administered to them both.
They were the most extensive available.
Miss Glenanne caught on quickly, once she learned her answers could not be narrative and that she was required to sit still as she was examined. The examiner explained to her that the machine measured physiological activity instead of honesty, which seemed to interest her. It took an hour and a half of questions, many of which were repetitious, before her test began in earnest.
The examiner also noted it took Westen, twenty minutes to be receptive to the questions, following a low level personal confrontation with Raines prior to the examination.
It took Raines an hour to read, then re-read the test results. He had to smile, because the results indicated Glenanne and Westen both would have been eligible for high level security clearances. They were truthful.
That should take care of the FBI's ongoing thrust to charge both of them with the bombings and the deaths of the guards. He'd sent copies of the briefings and reports from the interviews with Westen and Glenanne weeks ago. That's what had prompted the FBI's request for the polygraphs.
Now Raines found himself in the unique position, exactly the same position, Westen had been in prior to Fiona Glenanne's surrender. How could they prove Anson Fullerton was responsible for the lethal bombs used in the Consulate? And what would they need to do to prove that?
Unlike Westen, he possessed a simple option on how to keep Glenanne safe.
He would be also looking at the problem with a clearer view than Westen could because he hadn't been manipulated as a behavioral psychology subject, and he wasn't in love with the woman he was trying to protect.
Raines had several ideas on how go about removing Anson's threat, but that meant he'd need to ask for help from people he didn't want to ask for help, like Westen. And his friends. It was time to start throwing balls in the air and see how well they could all juggle. He opened his phone and called Pearce.
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Fiona was feeling remarkably well rested and refreshed after spending another night in Dani Pearce's comfortable guest room. Outside, the weather reminded her of Ireland. Fierce wind, icy and chilling, stirred pellets of snow, stinging exposed skin. It felt good. She was grateful for Pearce's generosity and hospitality and was wearing a warm sweater she had loaned her this morning along with the jeans she'd purchased for her two days earlier.
She'd been waiting in Raines' conference room, slowly walking back and forth in front of the board Pearce constructed when she realized another board could be used to illustrate what Michael, Sam, Jesse and Barry had learned about the components Anson was using to rebuild the network Michael thought he'd taken down last year. Vaughn had told him the company Anson was putting back on line had many elements, everything from transportation companies to real estate, bank accounts and blind trusts.
When Raines arrived, she told him another board was needed and why.
"I agree." He pulled out a chair from the conference table and indicated she should take it. His expression was dark.
After she sat and crossed her legs and then her arms, he took the chair next to it. The gesture was self-protective, and he hoped she eventually she might come to view him as a friend, not a threat, but that wouldn't be today.
"You are aware that the way we gained custody of you from the FBI was in claiming you as our asset in an unresolved investigation of an internal security breach which endangers our national interests. We could verify our relationship with you because of several recent occasions where you worked with Westen on ops coordinated by Pearce."
"Yes. I understood that."
"However, despite the positive results from your polygraph, and the preliminary forensic results from the consulate bombing, based on the agreement we made, we are not prepared to release you. I wish we could."
Fiona remained silent, waiting for him to finish.
Raines pushed on. "You targeted a small explosive on the upper level of the Consulate, and although the investigation shows you could not have placed the explosives on the lower level that killed the building's guards, we're left with the fact that you, our asset, a former I.R.A. operative, who, despite your LPR card, planted a bomb on a British Consulate window. Until we have more to show them the Brits insist we return you to the holding facility in Miami."
"I have an LPR? When did that happen?" Fiona wondered.
"Not quite a year ago, when Michael was working with Max. You signed it along with some of other documents before you were allowed to . . . what was that? Ride motorcycles? Not my idea of fun. The point is, we couldn't allow you admittance to a secure Army base, but a Legal Permanent Resident was permitted."
She smiled faintly, remembering the first vacation she and Michael had taken together, but the news Raines brought returned her outlook to gray.
She'd known this was a possibility, just as she'd known when she surrendered, she could spend the rest of her life incarcerated. But she had reached the zenith of her ability to watch Michael compromise himself to do Anson's bidding while simultaneously trying to work against him. She could not go back to watching him wound himself like that, trying to protect her.
Fiona would always take pleasure knowing she had broken Anson's hold on Michael. The resulting pain of being separated from him was a burden she had no choice but to embrace.
"If you were willing to surrender to the FBI for a crime you did not commit to protect Michael, I hope you'll believe I will help him do whatever it takes to put an end to this nightmare you have been living."
"I want to believe that," Fiona said. "Will I be allowed to see Michael or . . ."
"We've resolved the issue of collaboration, so yes, he'll be able to visit you. But he will be busy doing other things."
The door opened and Michael stepped in.
"Right on time, Westen, " Raines said, rising, before looked back at Fiona. "I will do my best, Miss Glenanne."
He glanced at Michael. "You've got about a half an hour."
Michael was looking around the room at the same time he closed the distance between them to wrap his arm around her and steer them both to the small alcove where a bench sat, partially blocked by a large potted plant, opposite the counter where the coffee pot, microwave and small fridge sat.
As they took seats on the bench, he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, to her cheek and finally her lips.
"The room has audio and video feeds in the recessed lights," he said quietly. "This is about as private as it's going to get." He turned so that his back and shoulders sheltered her from the camera's view. Fiona wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to his solid presence while he smoothed his hands down her back.
"You know what's going to happen then," she said against his neck.
"Yes, and I'm sorry, Fi," he whispered.
Fiona put her fingers over his lips and studied his troubled gaze. "Don't be. Please."
"They're taking you back today, Fi. I don't know when I'll be able to. . ."
She put her hands on either side of his face and said words that had nothing to do with what she was trying to communicate to him. "And just when I was liking the colder weather."
Intensely aware of the listening and watching devices in the room, they stayed there, in the same position, with Michael using his body to shield as much of the camera's view of Fiona as possible, while she struggled to maintain all things positive. He gently pulled her left hand between his to hold her ring finger while searching her eyes. It didn't need to be a question; it needed to be a statement. "Forever, Fi."
It was almost enough at a time when it was too much.
She had also been looking at the location of the audio and video feeds and stood to walk them backward until they were nearly standing in the dim corner. "I need a proper kiss, Michael," she whispered against his lips, and he complied with heated agreement. She rested her cheek against his chest, comforted by the sound of his heart. "And you will do that properly one day, won't you?"
He laughed softly. "I will. I promise."
Her hands had just dropped to hold his when the door opened and Raines and Pearce came in.
"Time to go," Raines said.