Neither was flying to New York to interrogate a deputy U.S. marshal, but he didn’t like the feeling that there was a subtext to this operation that he wasn’t privy to.
He window-shopped on M Street, pretending he was an ordinary dad waiting for his kids to get home from soccer practice, sipping his coffee as he checked out restaurants and upscale shops—a black leather jacket on a mannequin in a store window display made him think of Juliet standing in the rain in New York.
When he returned to O’Farrell’s street, she was on her front stoop, digging her keys out of an enormous, scuffed, soft black leather satchel, her long, straight dark auburn hair hanging over her face. Ethan said hello, startling the hell out of her. She jumped back and all but screamed.
She was very smart, but tightly wound. He put up his palms in front of him and smiled. “Whoa, easy. It’s just me.”
“Oh. Major Brooker.” She seemed slightly annoyed, snatching her keys out of her bag, slinging the bag over one small shoulder as she singled out one key. She had on a trim gray suit, but her silky white blouse was scrunched over to one side, and her brooch—a white lily—had turned upside down and was about to fall off.
“You’re going to stick yourself,” Ethan said.
“What?”
“With your brooch. The pin’s come undone or something.”
She glanced down, quickly pulling the brooch off her jacket. He thought she did stick herself, but she’d never tell him. Mia O’Farrell, Ph.D., was all about control. She fastened her green eyes on him, her brow furrowed as she studied him. “You shouldn’t be here. What do you want?”
“Let’s go inside—”
“No way, Major Brooker. Absolutely no way.” She was calm but very firm.
“Okay. Let’s take a walk—”
She shook her head. “No. Right here, right now. What do you want?”
“You know, since I’m doing you a favor and risking my life and the lives of my friends in the process, you think you’d be nicer.”
She didn’t budge. “You’re not doing me a favor. You’re answering the call of duty.”
Ethan almost burst out laughing, but saw she was deadly serious and kept his amusement to himself. What did she know about duty? She was a special assistant to the president on matters of national security. All of her experience was academic. Poe had plucked her out of a Washington think tank. She wasn’t any older than Ethan was, probably younger.
How in hell had Ham gotten himself mixed up with her?
Ethan grimaced. Never mind Ham. How had he gotten himself mixed up with Mia O’Farrell? One day he was chasing an assassin, falling into rivers, talking the marshals out of arresting him. The next day—well, a week later—he was shuttled off to listen to Dr. O’Farrell suggest a fresh new way to get himself killed.
“How did you know I could ID Ham Carhill?” he asked her.
She paled, then glanced around as if someone might be listening in the bushes. “Please. Not here.”
“Now you see why I wanted to go inside—”
“Your family and the Carhills are neighbors in Texas.” She spoke briskly, keeping her voice low and obviously thinking that answered his question.
“We’re hardly in spitting distance of each other. There are a lot of miles between us. The Carhills are ultraprivate.” Ethan paused, watching her for a reaction, but there was none. “Someone tipped you off. Who?”
“Irrelevant. You have your orders—”
“It’s a voluntary mission.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” She didn’t go on, but he could see she wanted to—she wanted to remind him that President Poe was his commander in chief, and although this whole crazy operation had ended up within the chain of command, she had Poe’s ear, the president’s trust. That she, in other words, was calling the shots. “Don’t you leave for Colombia again tonight?”
She hadn’t wanted him to leave Bogotá. She’d passed him the information on the American ex-con with a vendetta against a blond, female marshal. It was all she had. No name, no location. O’Farrell agreed that the marshal in question was probably Juliet Longstreet, but saw no reason to alert her—no reason for Ethan to be the one to question her about the ex-con. Ethan disagreed and flew to New York without O’Farrell’s blessing.
“When I was in Colombia last week,” he said, “I heard talk about psycho mercenaries operating there, guys who tout themselves as being on the side of so-called truth and justice but prefer to be unencumbered by the rules themselves. They don’t answer to a chain of command.”
She sighed. “Yes. I know the type.”
“I ran across a nasty little vigilante network in Afghanistan a few years ago. They’d set up their own interrogation room and prison on the outskirts of Kabul, claimed they were working for the Pentagon—it was all bullshit. They were a rogue outfit, running the war on terror the way they thought it should be run.”