Chapter 20
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The day morphed into tedium and paperwork.
No one believed the devil lived in details more than those who worked in clandestine services. And there were many, many details floating just out of range, caught somewhere in the ether, details Michael wanted to put his hands on.
Fiona watched as he grew more and more frustrated as he sorted through the OMB reports earmarked for further investigation. She did not want to see him end the day by figuratively slashing someone's throat, which given his current attitude, could be just about anyone who got too close.
She needed something to do, but as someone whose only role was that of recently-freed asset, that meant she could watch, not do. So she watched Michael. She observed others working in the same area who avoided entering the area.
Jesse appeared about the time Raines and his wife were leaving. He collected Dani, made her sit in a wheelchair and left.
An hour later, Michael looked up and glanced at Fi. "We really need those DEA reports," he said. "I should have asked Pearce about that before Jesse took her."
She had been watching the time. Around the time she knew Jesse would need to return to his townhouse and get Dani settled in, she stood.
"Come on, Michael. We've got to go see a man about a place to live." She pulled the binder of data he'd been studying from his hands before putting it in the deepest desk drawer and pushing the locking mechanism. It was a small, easily bypassed security, but that wasn't her objective. Changing his focus was.
He glanced up at her but hadn't transitioned to the moment. "Fi? Huh?"
"Jesse has a place we can live. Let's go look at it."
Scowl, frown.
She turned and walked toward the door and was relieved to hear him following.
"Fi, we really need to stay. . ."
"To find a place to live," she said as the elevator door opened.
Once inside the elevator, she held her palm up. Michael filled it with her car keys. "The hotel is nice, but housekeeping has probably put ten listening devices in there while we've been gone. We need a new place."
That got his attention. His glance was laser focused. Now he was with her.
One of Jesse's many benefits of employment with SecuriCorp was living in the gated community which, at Jesse's level of employment, was considered a portion of remuneration. The complex served a two-fold purpose as living area for upper level employees and others, and as a sales environment for security systems to business and residential developers. New products and systems rotated frequently in and out of different sales environments, either in townhouse or apartment or meeting center.
Jesse was waiting at the entrance security house when Fiona pulled up, and cleared her vehicle for entrance.
He leaned down and pointed. "Park right next to my car. The townhouse is two over."
Fiona was familiar with the area. When Jesse returned to Miami post his self-imposed CIFA retirement, he'd asked for Fiona's help to select furnishings for his new townhouse. His signing bonus had more than covered the basics, and Jesse had seemed pleased with the results.
Entering the front door was no simple procedure. It required a key card, security code, a palm reader and a key. The sleek and modern environment wasn't as cozy as the house Anson had destroyed, but it was private, and difficult to access. Two large bonus features.
Jesse waited at the door while they took a quick tour. "If you're want it, we can get you both scanned in for security today. This one can have a three month lease if you're interested."
Fi found it very similar to Jesse's townhouse, but it was at a lower elevation, providing access to a garden as opposed to Jesse's spacious balcony. "I'm good with this," she said, looking to Michael who agreed.
"I had the furniture brought over, thinking you might be interested," Jesse offered. A table and chairs were in the dining area, a long couch sat in front of a fireplace Fi suspected would never be used, and a king sized bed occupied the master bedroom. "The designers are going to recycle these pieces, but none of it has been used for anything other than display."
"Yeah. This is really good," Michael said. "Thanks, Jess."
After gaining access and clearance to their new place, they had a quiet dinner at Carlito's, while Jesse returned to his townhouse to see to Pearce.
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At least she'd waited until after dinner to tell him they had to go shopping again. They were almost to her car when she made the announcement.
"You're kidding."
"Not kidding."
"Do we have to?"
She laughed then. "I think I just heard what you must have sounded like as a child. Yes, we have to. We need sheets for the bed, towels, basic kitchen supplies. We'll have to do food sometime tomorrow when we can get back in, but we should do this tonight."
"No, we could-"
She depressed the keypad and unlocked the doors with a beep. They were standing on either side of her car, but she wouldn't stand and argue. She just climbed into the drivers' seat, shut the door and started the engine. He joined her then.
"Fi, I'm just . . . "
"Anxious? Worried? Frustrated? Angry? Michael, I'd go do this by myself, the same way you supplied all the things we had in the house Anson killed, but I know you won't let me. I'm trying to be a good spouse here."
He leaned across the seat to give her a kiss. "You were doing just fine there until you twisted the knife at the end."
"Did it work?" Fi could feign innocence better than most. She just removed expression and somehow made her eyes seem bigger and rounder . . . and darker.
"We're going back to where we were this morning?"
"You do bedding and towels and I'll do kitchenware or . . . "
"You're better at bedding and towels, and I'll do kitchen. Deal?"
"Deal. With two of us it'll go faster." And it did.
But by the time they entered the hotel for their last evening there, Fi could see Michael's GO button was still fully engaged. He was going through the motions but his mind was still on Anson and the investigation. Which was fine, but she was beginning to weary of the man's intrusion in their lives.
As they entered the room, Fi dug into her bag and then Michael's and tossed him shorts and a t-shirt before grabbing her own.
She opened her shoulder bag to show Michael the contents, then set one on each bed side table and turned them on. "Gift from Jesse." There was nothing quite like an audio scrambler to put a smile on her spy's face. He shook his head and pressed a small kiss to her lips before changing his clothing.
Two floors down, the hotel fitness center was nearly empty. The hour and a half they spent there provided results Fi expected. Michael had slowed down, and she felt tension ebb away. They returned to the room to take advantage of the large walk in shower together, a lovely, lovely activity, before retiring to the bed.
But sleep was elusive.
Their bodies were tired, but those newly produced exercise-induced endorphins from either the gym or the shower had clarified murky thought processes. At the moment, neither could stop thought linking to thought linking to thought.
She turned on her side, her face soft against his chest, her head under his chin. He wrapped an arm around her, and softly caressed her shoulder and arm as she used her fingers to climb up the stairs of his ribs and down again. He could feel her lashes brush against the sensitized skin on his chest; she could feel his lips on the top of her head.
And although they had yet to speak of it, they both sensed something was out of severely sync with Raines.
Fi kissed Michael's chest and remembered what she wanted to ask him earlier when they were shopping. "What did that old guy at the store say to you this morning?"
"He wanted to know if I was a cop, and when I told him no, he wanted to know why I was carrying. My shirt was up in the back, so my .45 wasn't fully covered, so I fixed it and told him I was FBI. He called me a liar, said he knew CIA when he saw it because he was a retired CIA auditor. Then he told me, if I was lucky, I'd get to keep you."
"You won't lose me."
They both understood that wasn't what Michael's unsolicited source of marital advice was talking about.
Fi raised her head, rested her palms on his chest then put her chin on her hands to look into his face. "I think Raines' wife . . . "
"I know."
"When he didn't have information he promised you days ago, I wondered about that then."
"Something else is going on. I don't know."
"Part of you wishes you were a solo operator now."
Her remark slammed into his chest, and he found himself inhaling sharply. "Apparently I can't hide anything from you. Yes," he said, placing kiss on her forehead, "part of me does."
Fiona wiggle-inched up Michael's body until her lips were a breath away from his. "You're going to have to adjust."
"I've been working on that, Mrs. Westen."
Fi closed her eyes. Calling her Mrs. Westen told her everything the heart of her hearts needed to hear at that moment.
She felt his smile against her lips, then wallowed in one more deliciously greedy kiss before he maneuvered her onto her back. While leaning on one arm above her, he created a slow torture of caresses, brushing over super sensitized skin, creating a disquieting frisson of need. He nuzzled her neck. "Mmm," he husked, kissing the soft, sweet spot under her ear before his lips moved and he began tasting every inch of her face, her neck, her breasts, her ribs, the sweet crevice of her naval.
The night was, indeed, very sweet.
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When the hotel room phone rang at 0600 Michael answered. "Yes, I'll be there."
He looked back to Fi, who was as alert as he was. "Raines said to come to his hotel room. He didn't say to come alone."
The presented themselves at the door 7 minutes later. His wife answered the door, and as they entered they saw a small pile of luggage.
"You're on your own here," he said. "At least for a while. I've been recalled to Langley by my director."
"How long will you be gone?" Michael wondered.
"I have no idea. My . . . friend at the FBI also has been called by his director. Apparently they are concerned about our inability to cooperate on issues of national security, Anson Fullerton, among other things. You're running your unit, and go easy on Pearce; she's on medical leave and shouldn't be doing anything. I'll call for updates when I'm able." He stepped forward, his hand outstretched. "Good luck, Westen." He nodded to Fiona. "Mrs. Westen."
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The flight was commercial not military, and Raines was thankful for that small convenience.
He was also very thankful he was able to upgrade his seating arrangement for his wife's comfort; unfortunately, the new seats put them right across the aisle from his former partner. Briefly, they acknowledged one another.
Raines noticed in the window seat next to him was a slender, exotic-looking woman holding a small girl on her lap. It took both Raines and his wife only a few seconds to realize the woman and child were his wife and daughter. When the little girl climbed into his lap, demanding his attention, earning her father's open arms, doubt was eliminated.
Then it made sense to Raines.
The woman and child were his anchors, the reasons he had been able to live the dichotomy his career had become, the reason he could continue the continual discord necessary to protect them all by taking it upon himself. If he had not had the woman and child, Raines suspected none of them would be here now.
He knew he must have been successfully hiding them from Anson. But if Anson had become aware of their existence, then it could be devastating. Perhaps his situation had changed; perhaps Anson knew. Perhaps this trip was more about personal over mission, than a disagreement between cooperative agencies.
Raines glanced at the little girl; she was a beautiful child. Raines could not imagine life without his sons and his wife . . . without his wife. He closed his eyes and reached for her hand. He glanced across the aisle again, he saw his former partner watching him. With his child's head nestled under his neck, he held her gently. On his left, his wife rested against his shoulder.
He didn't have a free hand or Raines would have extended his. Instead, he smiled.
"Looking forward to the trip?" Raines asked.
"I am."
There would be time, Raines hoped, to thank him for all he had done, knowing it would never be adequate in comparison to the gift he had given him.
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If you focus on the money and arms, you might find a way out of this.
If you focus on the money and arms.
Despite everything intelligence agencies knew about terrorists and how they operated, there was no adequate way to profile a terrorist, and the work had been going on since the 1990s. Pearce explained the basics to Michael from the lounging position she occupied on Jesse's couch. Her hope was between what they'd gleaned from the OMB materials and what they could now find that had been restored on the network, they could profile Anson and locate him that way.
"I know that's important," Michael said, "but I think we're going the wrong direction on that. We're missing a lot of information Raines was working on when he was called back to D.C. The ID of the guy Jesse shot who nearly killed you. Recordings of what Larry and Vaughn have been discussing since they're next to each other and have a common enemy."
"Common enemy?" Pearce asked.
"Michael," Fiona filled in. She was sitting on the opposite end of the couch, her legs tucked under her, her hands cupped around a coffee mug Jesse had just delivered, listening to Michael protecting Raines.
Sam sat at the table and sipped at the coffee, but it wasn't his morning beverage of choice. "Yeah, and we need those first reports on what was used to blow up your house. I'll check in on that. Shame, too, since you guys never got to have a house warming party."
Jesse and Michael exchanged a glance. Apparently they were working in tandem without the other's knowledge.
"We need that DEA report," Jesse said.
Michael agreed. "Yesterday."