Chapter Nine
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Pearce was smiling as she climbed the steps to Westen's loft. She realized the more often she was here, the easier it was to see the odd charms of the place. She would have preferred meeting in the secure comfort of the CIA offices, but her new teammates were adverse to the setting, particularly Barry, who treated her as if she had an infectious disease and faintly shuddered when he looked at her.
She had been uncomfortable when Raines explained Westen would be leading this particular unusual team, but there was no doubt it would take those who had already hunted Fullerton to devise ways to eliminate him.
Unfortunately, since they started working together, it had been the worst kind of work.
Michael had grown an incredibly short temper the instant he was reinstated.
Today she planned to speak to him privately. His attitude was affecting everyone negatively and that made for counterproductive activity.
At least she had something good to bring to the table today. Finally. Snooping on one's friends wasn't good manners or politically correct, but the post-WikiLeaks days of national security had produced some wonderful results. Following up wouldn't exactly be following protocol, but then, she was learning to see the charms of that, too.
Positive attitude firmly in place, she opened the loft door and stepped inside. Porter and Axe were already there, continuing to look through the piles of materials they'd accumulated during their brief but intense examination of all things Anson Fullerton. She had been surprised by the quantity and extent of information they assembled prior to the CIA's involvement.
The priority was the Consulate bombing, then the larger problem of Fullerton or so their team leader designated, and that's where they were stuck. At the Consulate. But, she thought cheerfully, maybe not after today.
Jesse looked up from his laptop screen and did not return her smile. "Morning."
Sam grunted something indecipherable that sounded vaguely like a greeting.
"Cheer up, guys, I have some good news."
"We could use some," Jesse said. "Dead end here." He closed the laptop and glanced at Sam who was continuing to work his angle on Anson's combat network radio system.
When the door opened and Michael entered, the three exchanged glances before quickly looking back to what lay on the counter. Jesse opened his laptop again.
"Oh, good, he's here," Sam said under his breath.
Michael set a small cardboard tray holding three coffee cups in the middle of the workbench between the folders and the files and the laptops, and then he hoisted a carton of six rather expensive bottles of beer and set it in front of Sam.
Pearce, Jesse and Sam glanced over at him at the same time, looked down at the beverages then back to Michael.
No one said a word until Michael broke the silence. "I'm sorry."
Pearce and Sam exchanged a glance. Forgiveness was not going to be that simple.
Jesse leaned back, crossed his arms across his chest and evaluated Michael's face. "Did Fi give you that?"
Michael could feel heat crawl up his neck. The bruise under his left eye throbbed. He nodded. "She did."
"She put you on your butt, too?" Jesse wondered.
Sam and Pearce both turned slowly to look at Jesse who was staring Mike down.
Michael acknowledged the meaning behind the question. "No, that honor is yours alone, Jess."
"So is it screwed on straight yet or . . . "
Michael continued to hold Jesse's gaze and answered. "I'm working on it." He turned back to Sam and Pearce. "I'm sorry, I know I've been . . . "
"Obnoxious and rude," Pearce filled in.
"A jerk," Sam said as he opened a bottle.
"I really am sorry, guys," Michael said quietly as he passed a cup of coffee to Jesse and the other to Pearce. He was ready to take a sip from the cup he'd brought for himself when Sam raised his bottle, and tipped it first toward Jesse and then Pearce, and then the lush, yellow orchid Fi had brought into the loft months earlier.
Sam had moved the exotic plant that continued to bloom in her absence to the counter and started calling it Fiona.
"To Fiona and Jesse who won't take crap from Mikey."
"To all my good friends," Michael added, as they all took a sip from their cups. "Can we move on? Please?"
Pearce smiled. "Nice to hear the word please, Westen." She reached into her purse to produce a file folder. "Look what we found."
"What's that?" Michael asked.
"Strings to pull, trails to follow," she said opening the file. "About a year ago the OMB sent a directive to all federal departments and agencies advising them to set up insider threat programs."
"Yeah," Sam said, remembering the fuss. "Hell of a thing. Spy on your buddies, send your co-workers to jail. Take paranoia to levels previously unseen in the Education and Ag Departments."
Pearce laughed at Sam's synopsis. "The plan included stuff like foreign travel debriefings and psychiatric assessments to identify employees who might be viewed as untrustworthy or potential information leakers, no matter which federal agency they worked for."
"Rat out your cubicle buddy. Why not?" Sam said.
"It's still a hot issue because insider threat is code language for spies, and the entire program actually looks like something intended for use by intelligence agencies. Each department made assessments before the program began, but politics being politics, those initial documents had to be destroyed. We requested looking at everything prior to destruction, scanned them in and code word searched. Depending on the search parameters you use, you can find several interesting things that can be found no where else. Guess whose name showed up and . . . "
Michael took the paper from Pearce's hand and quickly flipped through it.
"I thought you were working on improving your manners, Mikey," Sam said.
"I am. No, look . . .this stuff was some of the stuff Anson got . . . me," Michael took a deep breath, "to erase with Oswald's Void-BOT software. This must have been printed before we . . . I . . . did that."
Pearce glanced down at the paper. "More like it was in a separate system not connected to the OMB. Stealing that software from the FBI, I did think that was pretty gutsy."
"Yeah, we nearly got dead," Jesse remembered.
"And we didn't really steal it," Michael clarified. "We borrowed without permission. We gave it right back, though, plus they got an arrest out of it, none the wiser for the side trip."
Michael continued to look at the references to Anson before he looked up and smiled at his team. "I've got something to add to this, too. Box 378B."
"What's that?" Sam asked.
"That's the box in the secure mail facility in the British Consulate where I was supposed to place the pouch I swapped out for Larry, the job engineered by Anson, before Fi detonated the T4 outside the window where Larry was at. If we find who has or had that box, we might be able to identify who inside the Consulate might be working with Anson. Or Larry, if he's still here."
"Go back to the Brits . . ." Pearce said, thinking about this new ramification. "The reason the FBI is retaining custody of Glenanne is because of the Brits . . . if her action prevented something, it's . . ."
"The way we get Fi out of prison," Jesse said as he watched Michael's face.
"Yes," Michael agreed softly.
"Why'd you remember that box number now?" Jesse asked.
"I don't know."
There was no way he was going to let them know it was the first thing on his mind after a decent night's sleep.
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"Convenient, this room," he said. "Private, too. No recording of my visit."
Anson's slivery snake voice had always irritated Fiona. This was not an exception. She stood the moment he came through the door to her new visiting area. "How in the hell did you get in here?"
"I'm your attorney, Fiona. Every prisoner has an attorney, some more effective than others."
When Anson entered the room, Fiona began slowly moving away, putting distance between herself and him while she assessed her situation.
She knew he was searched before he arrived, so he should have no weapons. What kind of martial arts he knew, she couldn't be certain, but the starting place for hand to hand conflict was to be upright, balanced, alert and prepared.
"What do you want?" she asked calmly.
"Oh, Fiona, I want the same things I've always wanted, things you made go away. Now I want all of them back. You're in here permanently, but I'm not, and you won't be able to do anything about it. I need my money back, and you're going to help me by managing Michael for me."
She could see Anson was attempting to close the distance between them which left her comfortable with her initial evaluation. His body language told her he intended to attack, and that he was angry.
It was the injustice of his manipulation of Michael and Madeline's lives that provided the backdrop for her mental preparation. She was still and calm inside. She knew she would survive this, and he would not. Anson had spent countless hours studying Michael and his family, devising ways to force his cooperation, but he didn't know her. He only thought he did.
"I wouldn't count anyone helping you," she said.
"You are more stubborn than Michael, so we're doing this differently. Little Charlie is going to disappear if you don't convince Michael to undo the damage he's done."
"Do you really think I'd allow you to hurt a child?"
"That is your thing, isn't it? Fiona? Children, little sisters especially."
Fiona smiled. "You know me so well."
She saw the light in his eyes change as he moved toward to her, and she knew the only way this could begin or end would be to close the distance. She allowed him to edge the gap between them an inch at a time, and clenched her fists.
When lunged, she stepped to the side, as slippery as a cat, and with every bit of force she could use, smashed her fist into his face, dislodging his glasses. She heard them skitter across the floor.
It stopped him, but he recovered quickly and lunged. She spun away to come back with another hard jabbing fist in the center of his chest as he tried to right himself, then sent a sharp elbow to his ribs and, twisting back, she rammed the heel of her hand up under his chin, as her stronger, dominant hand delivered a wicked chop to his carotid artery at the juncture of his larynx. He gasped, stumbled and dropped.
She straightened up and looked down, satisfied, then used two fingers to feel for a pulse. That was good; he was still alive. She wouldn't mind killing him, but this was not the place for it, as tempting as it had been. That would be a complication she wouldn't need. Taking a deep breath she inhaled then slowly exhaled. She needed to be physically calm before she called the guard to report her attorney's sudden, unexpected collapse.
Fiona knew she had dealt with the immediate threat, had prevented him from mounting a second offensive and neutralized him. Standard procedure for dealing with an enemy. She had to smile. If Anson had studied the natural world, he would have known the most dangerous beast in the jungle was not the lion, but his mate.
Reaching down, she relocated his glasses closer to his body and pounded on the door, calling for a guard.
"He clutched his throat and collapsed," Fiona said to the guard who entered, immediately assessing the crisis. A second guard appeared after the first guard called for help, and a third appeared to escort Fiona back to her cell.
"What happened there?" the guard wondered as he took her back to her cell.
"He clutched his throat right before he collapsed," she said truthfully.
She was saying her prayers Michael would be here sooner instead of later.
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It was Pearce, not Michael who arrived next.
After Fiona rushed to explain that Anson presented himself as her attorney and then related what happened next, including Anson's threat against Nate's son, Pearce left quickly and Fiona was taken back to her cell.
She detested being in the dark, but she had no choice but to wait. The next time the guard appeared to escort her to the attorney/client room, she asked him if he knew what happened to her lawyer, but he'd just come on the shift and didn't know.
Pearce reappeared, full of information.
Anson had left the building by ambulance, however before it arrived at the medical center, he'd managed to free himself from blood pressure and heart monitors, chest and leg restraints, and escaped on foot when the ambulance had been slowed by traffic. The EMTs were at a loss as to why he had done that.
Anson's threat against Nate's child was being taken very seriously, and with the exception of Michael, all the Westen family members were being relocated to a secure facility until the situation could be reassessed.
"Until we know who is working with him, we're not going to do anything but keep them safe," Pearce explained.
"Madeline won't like that," Fi said.
"No," Pearce sighed, "she certainly doesn't. Michael was talking with them, and that helped. I saw the tapes from Anson's entrance in the facility. I'm still having a hard time believing he thought he could get away with attacking you in here."
"He's not sane," Fiona said. "I don't have to be a psychiatrist to recognize crazy when I see it."
Pearce set a digital recorder on the table. "I need to do this."
"Sure."
When they were finished, Pearce commented on the bruising on Fiona's knuckles.
"I learned a variation of krav maga a long time ago; it's better to be bruised than dead. And," Fi said with a smile, "it was worth it."
Pearce looked down and grinned. "And it seemed to have improved Michael's attitude, too."
Fiona laughed. "Good. That means he finally slept."
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The next time Fiona saw Michael he bore every bit of evidence of a man who had not slept in the previous 24 hours if not longer.
As he entered the attorney/client room to take Fiona in his arms, he held on, hugging her to him, like a man who needed to absorb her into himself. Fiona kissed his lips, his cheek, his neck and leaned back to put her hands on either side of his face to get a better look at him.
His eyes were dark; he was not at peace. She lay her head on his chest and moved closer to him, wrapping her arms up under his jacket, caressing his back. When he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her as if she would disappear, she responded in kind, and found her back against the wall as they slid to the floor.
"I need you, Fi," he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek, her neck. "But not here."
She ached for the truth of that. "But not here."
They sat like that, next to each other, holding each other until finally a guard knocked on the door.
Wearily, they rose, and she put her lips on his, gently, softly. "Go and sleep. I love you, Michael."
"Forever, Fi."