Undercover Nightingale. Wendy Rosnau

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СКАЧАТЬ the hell they were doing. But it was rare to find two agencies willing to share information, let alone work together. The only two who came to mind at the moment were Onyxx and EURO-Quest.

      Ash tossed the paper on the couch in his Washington apartment and headed for the shower. When he climbed out, he saw that his boss had left a message on his cell phone. Dripping wet, he tucked the towel around his hips, reached for his phone on the sink, and hit voice mail.

      “Did you see the morning paper? Burgess Stillman from the SDECE is on his way to Washington. Before he gets here, we need to talk. My office. As soon as you get this.”

      Ash headed into his bedroom, dropping the towel in the doorway. He dressed quickly, then left the bedroom wearing jeans, a black V-neck sweater, and his lucky cowboy boots.

      On the way to the kitchen, he glanced out the window. It was snowing this morning—big, wet winter flakes that made the November day as gray as his socks. He liked hot weather—desert hot—and he’d never gotten used to the inconvenience of winter, or the dampness that accompanied it.

      He made his morning pot of tea, poured a cup to take with him, and grimaced over the fact that there was no time to quell the hunger in his belly.

      Thinking about how good a fried egg sandwich would taste, Ash went out the door with his tea, pulling on his brown leather jacket, his shaggy, sandy blonde hair still wet, his jaw unshaven.

      The snow wouldn’t stay, that was the good news. But it would make the morning commute to headquarters slow. The traffic was already backed up as he pulled his green Jeep out of the underground parking lot, the cars resembling an ant march to a picnic.

      He joined the march. As much as he detested crowds and smog, he drove through morning rush hour like a cultured city boy instead of a man used to the hot wind in his face on a dirt road in Mexico.

      Ash entered the front doors at Onyxx headquarters forty minutes later. He stepped inside the elevator just as the doors were about to close, and came face-to-face with Burgess Stillman.

      He’d never met the SDECE commander, but he’d seen pictures, and heard the rumors about the forty-year-old Frenchman. Six-six, two-sixty, with a silver crewcut, Stillman looked like the kind of guy who ate roadkill for breakfast and asked for seconds.

      “Ashland Kelly.” Stillman looked him up, then down. “You’re thinner than your profile stats, mon ami. Merrick must be working your ass off these days.”

      “Excuse me.”

      “I don’t accept excuses, Kelly. You’ll learn that before this is over. I have two dead agents, no bodies to console the families, a superior climbing up my ass, and no way to amputate the hemorrhoid. Not yet.”

      Ash opened his mouth to defend the mission that had cost the SDECE two agents, then closed it. It had been a straightforward assignment. Get in, get out, and leave nothing standing once Petrov’s data had been hijacked, and they’d rescued the female Quest agent, Casmir Balasi.

      “You got blood on your hands, mon ami. But that’s your specialty, isn’t it? What is it they call you?” Stillman paused. “Oui, I remember. They call you the Ashtray. An appropriate name for a man who likes to play with matches, no?”

      Stillman retrieved two pictures from his coat pocket and stuck them in Ash’s face. “That’s Felton Chanler with his wife, three kids and their dog. This one, Jazmin Grant, was the best damn agent I’ve had in years. Twenty-eight is too damn young to die.”

      That was for damn sure, Ash thought staring at the beautiful blonde. “I’m sorry about your agents.”

      Stillman slid the pictures back in his pocket. “I don’t want your condolences, Kelly. I want your hide. But since I won’t get away with skinning you alive, I’ll settle for my second choice.”

      “And that would be?”

      “You’ll know soon enough.”

      Stillman hit the button on the elevator and it took off. Within minutes they were walking down the corridor side-by-side, headed for Merrick’s office.

      The SDECE commander knocked, then swung the door open as if he owned the agency and every man in it. He stepped inside the room just as Merrick hung up the phone.

      Adolf Merrick arched his gray eyebrows over his chilly blue eyes. “You’re early. I didn’t expect you until this afternoon.”

      “I met your firecracker, Merrick. He wouldn’t be hard to pick out in a line-up. He fits your MO.”

      “My MO?”

      “Oui. Your recruits are a bunch of marauders. Criminals, every last one of them.”

      “My agents don’t have a particular MO, except one, Stillman. They know how to survive. That’s what it takes to be successful in this business. Maybe if your agents were made out of similar stuff, they’d still be alive.”

      “That’s a helluva thing for you to say to me.”

      “Sit down, Ash. Stillman, if you’d like to take a seat down the hall in the waiting room, I’ll have a cup of coffee brought to you.”

      Stillman pulled out the chair in front of Merrick’s desk and sat. “I’ve never taken a number in my life, Merrick, and I don’t plan to start now. Your errand boy can wait outside, or stay since he’s the reason I’m here.”

      Ash waited to be dismissed.

      Merrick said, “Kelly, take a seat.”

      Ash made himself comfortable on the couch along the wall. He’d keep his mouth shut. Speak if he was engaged. If not, he’d just take up a little space and oxygen, and enjoy the showdown between Stillman and Merrick. It was going to be entertaining. The temperature in the room was as chilly as the weather outside.

      “I’ve talked with my supervisors about this situation,” Merrick began, “and we’re sympathetic. No agency likes investing time and money and coming up short. And when agents don’t come home, it makes it worse. But that’s the business we’re in. Sometimes we win big, and sometimes the losses are hard to swallow.”

      “Save your pat speech. An apology won’t fix this, and it’s not why I’m here. I want compensation. My number one agent is dead.”

      “Onyxx is under no obligation to compensate the SDECE. We sympathize,” Merrick said again, “but we never make restitutions or apologies. I don’t know of any agency that does. We all know the score when we send our men and women into the field.”

      “You command a gang of fugitives. A well-kept secret that I’m sure the NSA would like to keep hidden in the closet. What do you think the media would do with that kind of information? What do you think the public would say if they knew their tax dollars sanctioned a bunch of criminals?”

      Ash said nothing, but he was thinking that for Stillman to know so much about Onyxx, he’d gone digging. All the data on Onyxx and its agents were kept confidential—sealed under lock and key within the Green Room upstairs. No one could access the file without an authorization number. Hell, they couldn’t even get through the door without proper ID.

      “You mentioned compensation. What is the SDECE proposing?” СКАЧАТЬ