Mission Of Desire Part 17

Chapter Twenty-seven.

"I think I have something that may help prove Kohl and Taylor's guilt." Nicole made to stand, but her feet had become entangled with the strap of her shoulder bag. Frustrated, she wrestled it off, watching it land inches from the general's glossy black dress shoes. "In the safe deposit box, there was an envelope with my name on it. Inside was a sheet of paper with a bunch of jumbled letters. It made no sense to me at the time."

Kira's face was instantly alight with hope, her voice eager. "My G.o.d, Nicole, please tell me you still have this paper?"

"I'll go get it!"

Kira pulled out her phone. "Shevchenko, meet us in the debriefing room. Bring your laptop. Hurry!"

Nicole ran for the elevator, her heart pounding in her chest. She prayed housekeeping hadn't cleaned her room yet. The envelope had been inside her bra. She hadn't paid any attention to where it had fallen when she'd undressed this morning.

The elevators seemed to move in slow motion, but finally she was at her room ramming the keycard into the designated slot. When at last the little light above the handle glowed a bright lime green, she flung open the door and rushed inside. Her heart, which had been hammering wildly, slowed to a dull thud. All of her clothes had been picked up off the floor and were now folded neatly, stacked on the edge of the made bed in a nice square stack. Normally, she would have felt a moment's discomfort for having left her things for someone else to tidy, but she had one thing on her mind-finding that envelope.

Frantic, she tore through the clothes then peeked under the bed. Nothing. The wastebaskets were empty too. She cast an anxious glance back toward her clothing, which were now strewn around the room haphazardly. Maybe it had become stuck in the folds of one of her garments. Once more, this time slower and with more consideration, she carefully picked through her pants, her bra, her s.h.i.+rt, and her underwear. No luck.

Hands on her hips, she stood in the center of the hotel room scanning every inch of the recently vacuumed carpet but in her mind she knew exactly what had become of the envelope. She could see the crumpled paper clearly, wet with crud, stained and now most likely unreadable, sitting at the bottom of an industrial-sized garbage bag in the hotel's Dumpster.

Stuart said Colonel Taylor's appearance in court was sometime this afternoon. How long would it take to sift through all the morning's trash? She glanced to the digital clock on the nightstand. It was already a few minutes after ten. That left less than two hours to find the envelope. She did a double take. There, next to the pen and pad of paper with the Ritz-Carlton's fancy letterhead...a scrunched-up accordion of white paper. Could it be her father's envelope? It was. She closed her eyes and breathed a long sigh of relief. There was a strong temptation to shove the paper back into her bra for safekeeping, but instead she hugged it to her chest and raced back to the second floor, promising the universe she would reward the housekeeper with a few of the seven hundred bucks remaining in her bank account. When she got to the meeting room, breathless and winded, Stella was just powering her laptop. Everyone stopped and stared at her, identical looks of anxious expectation stamped across their faces.

"Found it!" she exclaimed excitedly, waving the envelope over her head. With a clumsy lack of finesse, she pulled the computer paper from the creased packet and handed it to Kira.

Kira spread the sheet of incoherent letters out on the table for everyone to view. The general was the only one who didn't get up. He did, however, finally lift his eyes from his BlackBerry for all of thirty seconds to determine if there was anything developing worthy of his consideration, but grew bored and returned to his e-mail.

"Looks like your father used a method called crypto source coding to encrypt his communication." Stuart studied the letters for a long moment. "It was quite a popular tool IGOs used out in the field during the eighties and nineties to communicate with one another. Simple but effective. They'd all agree on a series of numbers and use it to decode their messages. Change it up every week or so. But even if he used something more complex, Stella has every cryptography program ever created."

"Mono-alphabetic subst.i.tution," Stella concluded with the same scientific certainty a gemologist might identify a natural diamond amidst a pile of man-made clones. She grabbed the doc.u.ment from the table, sank her long, slinky body back into a chair, then slowly typed each letter into data entry fields that were similar to the squares on a crossword puzzle. When she was done, she turned to Nicole. "What's the key, little one?"

"Key?" Nicole repeated, having difficulty keeping up with their job-related vernacular.

"The numbers to decipher your father's encryption. What are they?"

"Oh my G.o.d, are you serious?" Nicole looked to Kira, panic coming over her. "I have no idea!"

"Yes, you do," Kira insisted calmly, picking up the computer paper. "Your father wrote your name on the envelope this was in. He intended for you to find it. No one else. So think, Nicole. What numbers would have been significant between the two of you?"

Nicole squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel everyone watching her, waiting for her to hurry up and figure it out. No pressure here, folks. The show will be over soon when my brain explodes. Get ready, because it's going to blow. You may want to back up. Three, two, one... She put her hands over her ears and leaned forward, supporting her head with her elbows on her knees.

"Concentrate!" she silently implored, squeezing her temples harder. What numbers were important to her dad? Their old phone number? Their address? But then she heard Stuart's voice coming from faraway as a visual of an old photograph of her and her father taken on her seventh birthday in front of their newly planted willow tree slowly appeared before her eyes: "Coincidence can be fate working in mysterious ways."

"It might be 423," she mumbled hesitantly, lifting her head up. And then, recalling her recent encounters with the three digits-her flight number to Kenya, the safe deposit box, and the motel key-she said the number again, but more firmly and with confidence. "Yes, try 423. It has to be!"

"April twenty-third, your birthday," Kira breathed softly. "That makes perfect sense."

For one brief moment, it was as if it was just the two of them all alone in the room. Kira's blue eyes were bright with suppressed emotion, but there seemed to be a deeper significance to the visual interchange. It felt like an invisible current of energy was pa.s.sing back and forth between them, and if Nicole allowed it, the force could easily overtake her entire being and she'd happily shatter into a million fragments of pure white light.

"Okay, 423. I'll try every fourth letter, second and third," Stella said, breaking the spell. "Not sure if the algorithm will be based on letters across, down, or vertical, and in the order of 423, but I'll take a shot."

As the morning aged, the sun had grown stronger and the small room even stuffier. When Stuart Lee wasn't tinkering with the thermostat's controls, he was pacing back and forth, occasionally hunching over Stella's shoulder, pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses up and squinting at the laptop screen. After about five minutes, which felt more like sixty to Nicole, Stella pushed the computer away from her and shook her loose, dark hair side to side. "No, that cannot be. It cannot."

"What?" everyone demanded simultaneously.

"You're not going to believe this." She turned the laptop around so that they could see the word that kept repeating itself across the screen: "Home."

"That's impossible." Kira frowned, a divot forming between her eyebrows. "That house has been searched more times than Scotland's Loch Ness, by us as well as Danielle Taylor."

"I know where he hid it." Nicole reached for her shoulder bag where it still lay strewn at the general's polished feet. After unzipping the inside pouch, she pulled the tiny Chinese fortune from it and placed it on the table. "This was in the safe deposit box, on top of the envelope."

Kira picked it up and read it out loud. "Your best friend is often in the mirror." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't get it. Chinese fortune cookie wisdom?"

"In my mother's house, at the end of the stairway, there's an old gold mirror. It's as ugly as sin-been there for as long as I can remember. It's heavy too. We tried to take it down once to paint the hallway. We ended up painting around it. I think we inherited it from my grandparents."

The general spoke but his eyes remained glued to his BlackBerry. "There's an extra mirror. The backing's a dummy. If you remove it, you'll find nothing. But between the two pieces of gla.s.s, if there's anything worth hiding, that's where it'll be."

Stuart checked his watch. "We need to move quickly. The judicial task force will want to look at whatever we find before court at three. Bethesda, right?" He asked Nicole. "That's where your mother's house is?"

Nicole nodded. "Yes!"

"We can send a few military cops over." He was thinking out loud now, his actions pensive. "Or call the locals."

"h.e.l.l no!" the general barked, for the first time that morning becoming fully engaged in the proceedings. He shoved his phone into his trousers, jerked erect, and marched around the table, slamming the flat soles of his dress shoes against the carpet like they were boots and he'd just been given orders to attack. "At this point, I don't trust anyone. I'll go there myself."

"We don't have time," Stuart complained, running meaty fingers through his black curls. "With traffic, it'll take over an hour."

"Who said anything about driving?" The general seemed almost merry. "Kira, your brother's meeting with the Coast Guard this morning, showing them his latest bird, isn't that so?"

Kira looked suspicious. "Yes, he's bidding for the new contract."

"Give 'em a call and tell 'em I need a lift. p.r.o.nto."

"I'll come too," Stella said, closing her laptop. "I know the kid's house better than anyone else." With a sly wink aimed at Nicole, she explained, "I'm the one who bugged it."

Kira and the general moved back to the table to work out the details of the helicopter ride. They had Kira's brother Mike on speakerphone. Stuart was shouting into his cell phone too and the room became a noisy cacophony of voices talking over one another.

"Hey, kiddo. Sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to knock you out." Stella pulled Nicole into a corner furnished with a fake ficus tree. Her big black eyes were sheepish. "Just so you know, I didn't give you anything illegal. Just half a dose of over-the-counter sleeping medication. Fifteen milligrams of diphenhydramine. Kira thinks it's my own proprietary sleeping potion and I let her think that. Makes me more valuable to her. But I only thought it would help you relax."

"No worries, Stella. I really did need the sleep. I was running on dead batteries. Here," she said, digging through her bag and handing her house keys to Stella. "This way you don't have to kick my mother's door down. Do you want me to hold your laptop until you come back?"

"Oh no, little one. I never go anywhere without my baby." She patted the hard black plastic fondly, then grew serious. "Do you remember yesterday when you asked me about what I wrote down on your ticket before you left Kenya?"

"Remember the tin man. You said it was a clue to help me find the heart in the tree."

As if to ensure no one else was listening to their conversation, Stella cast a quick glance around the room. They were standing so close to one another, Nicole could make out a thin vein through her thick, black bangs. Its slightly bulging length ran from her hairline down to her temple.

"Yeah, kid, and maybe now that you found your secret heart, you can help someone else find hers." Her dark, heavy-lidded eyes strayed significantly from Nicole's brown ones over to where Kira was talking to the general and settled there. "Sadly, it's been lost far too long. I probably shouldn't tell you this-no, I know I shouldn't." She looked conflicted. "I'm breaking Kira's trust, but I want her to be happy. I thought you might find it interesting to know that when we first put you under surveillance, I would find her spending an unwarranted amount of time watching you, listening to your conversations, tracking your movements. I'd often tease her, say that she had a crush on you. Of course, she denied this. But when I saw how she took care of you when you became ill, I never teased her again. And then, when I found her chained to the table yesterday morning, I was certain. Kira Anthony has never let her guard down. Ever."

Nicole felt herself turn red. "I sort of imagined she had a girl in every port, so to speak."

"C'mon, Stella, we're moving out!" the general growled eagerly as he rocketed past them. "We've got a helicopter to catch."

Seeing the sudden commotion, Stuart quickly finished the conversation he was having and closed his phone. "Wait a second, you two! We've got a few details to coordinate!"

But the general was already through the door and Stella was running after him. Stuart was about to give chase but stopped short when his eyes met Nicole's. Kira remained by the door, holding it open for him.

"When we have a chance to have a normal conversation, Kira and I have something very important to ask you." His eyes darted nervously from Nicole to Kira, then back to her again. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. He rubbed at the moisture with the back of his hand. "I wish we had time right now," he took in a gigantic breath of air, "but I think you understand the time constraints we're under. Maybe over dinner tonight?"

Nicole nodded agreeably, then Stuart took off as fast as his excess flesh would allow, hollering down the hallway, "Wait up!"

Chapter Twenty-eight.

"So, would you accept Stuart's job offer of a job?" Kira moved from the doorway over to the window. She stood quietly, staring out into the bright morning suns.h.i.+ne without comment. Beyond her, the second-floor window framed a pale blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds. Whatever else might happen, at least Mike's helicopter would not be delayed by foul weather. Nicole's eyes returned to Kira. She noticed how tired and thin she suddenly looked. The tendons of her neck stood out prominently and the graceful curve of her face appeared even more fragile. Why had she not noticed this before?

Four, maybe five feet of carpeted flooring separated them, but Nicole knew it could easily be a million miles. She thought about what Stella had said before running off with the general. Help Kira find her heart, she'd encouraged. How was Nicole supposed to accomplish such a colossal feat? The woman was a complete mystery. For Nicole to even attempt to solve the enigma of Kira Anthony, she'd need time, eons of it. A magic potion wouldn't hurt either. She smiled inwardly, shoving her hands into her pockets as she cast a besotted gaze upon the woman she'd fallen for. If only she had that time, maybe she could break through those walls, navigate through the invisible barbed wire and dance around the land mines to get to her heart, but time was something she simply didn't have. Once the helicopter returned with whatever information her father had stashed away behind the mirror, Kira's work here would be done and she'd be gone from Nicole's life for good. Unless...

"C'mon, Kira, give me some credit for not being a completely gullible dolt. As much as I'd love to believe that Stuart finds me worthy of such a spectacular consideration, I can't help but think you're having an incredible laugh at my expense. The little I know about al-Qaeda, I learned from Wikipedia."

"We need someone who can read Arabic," Kira replied in her typical nonchalant manner. She stepped away from the window toward the couch and, after a quick peek at her watch, decided to make use of its comfort, but not before removing her jacket and tossing it across the back of a cus.h.i.+on. Nicole stayed where she was by the door, leaning her weight against the wall, but her eyes followed hungrily.

"All right, I'll bite." She knew she probably sounded like an idiot, giving the outlandishly improbable proposition merit. "What would I need to do? Enroll in some sort of specialized training program after I finished school?"

"You'd fly to Paris with us next week and begin on-the-job training immediately." She unclipped her hair, then combed her hands through the silky strands. Nicole couldn't help but admire the taut definition of her arm muscles. The woman had no body fat.

"I should warn you, Stuart will try to make this position sound much more cloak and dagger than it really is. Although we travel extensively, our work can still be rather mundane. Long hours in front of a computer and lots and lots of rules and regulations. The tasks you'll initially be a.s.signed will be mostly administrative. If you've had any dealings with the government, then you know there's a ton of paperwork a.s.sociated with every simple operation."

"So I'll be your secretary?"

"That's an interesting premise." An amorous glow brightened her eyes. "The idea of you bring me coffee in the morning calls to mind all sorts of entertaining scenarios," Kira said in a low voice overflowing with s.e.xual innuendo.

Nicole tried to quell her growing excitement. The prospect of spending every day at Kira's side suddenly seemed very viable.

She had to remind herself it was never going to happen.

Fantastic things like this happened to other people, not her. Yes, life had taken an odd turn about fourteen days back, but it was just a matter of time before the universe corrected itself and her world returned to its dull but stable rhythm. Still, she indulged that part of her mind's penchant to believe fairy tales could actually come true. A position on their team not only sounded like a dream come true, but it would give her the time she so desperately needed to win Kira's heart. When she spoke, she couldn't quite keep the helix of hopeful elation from bursting to life inside her and inflecting the tone of her words.

"But what would I do about school? I have one more semester and my thesis to finish."

"Stuart would mostly likely see to it that the work you performed in the field subst.i.tuted for the dissertation you're required to write in order to graduate. They have various ways of making things work to their benefit, so you needn't be concerned. Once the agency decides they want you, they'll do pretty much anything to ensure your recruitment goes smoothly. And they do want you, Nicole."

"But you don't, do you?" Nicole had sensed Kira's reluctance but had hesitated to give voice to it. "Want me, I mean. Judge Carper said as much."

"Oh, I do want you," Kira admitted huskily. "I don't think I can deny that any longer. But not on my team," she added firmly, crossing her arms. "The first argument I've ever had with Stuart. He and I got into it pretty bad this morning."

Nicole's spirit had been soaring but now it plummeted like a flaming ball of hot metal submerged into cold liquid. She'd antic.i.p.ated rejection, but to hear it come from Kira's perfect lips so matter-of-factly hurt like h.e.l.l.

"Does he know about us?"

"Us?" Kira questioned, slipping her shoes from her feet and stretching her long legs out in front of the couch.

"You know," Nicole flushed, her voice almost inaudible. "About what happened between us the other night."

"I didn't out you to Stuart, if that's what you're asking. I simply explained to him that my," she paused to consider her words, "feelings for you might not be entirely professional and it would be best for all parties involved if he were to place you somewhere else within the agency. Forcing us to work closely together on a daily basis might prove to be detrimental to the harmony of the team. But he's a stubborn New Yorker." Kira laid her head back and sighed wearily. "Obviously determined to have things his way."

Nicole fought the impulse to ask just what kind of feelings Kira had for her. "Would working with me really be so bad?" She walked into the room then cautiously took a seat at the other end of the couch. "You make it sound like a punishment."

"Are you serious?" Kira stared at Nicole, eyes wide with incredulity. "I almost sent an innocent girl to jail. Danielle had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of her father's criminal exploits. I was jealous. So jealous it skewed my perception, something that's never happened in my career. I had that poor girl tried and convicted before she'd even been charged." A possessive gleam emanated from the depths of her clear blue eyes. "G.o.d, I can't think straight," she shook her head, "I can't concentrate when you're around. Even right now, with the threat of someone walking in unexpectedly, I want to push you down into the couch and ravish you with my hands and mouth."

Nicole's heart quickened its beat. At last, something encouraging.

"That sounds like a good thing."

Kira lowered her head and sighed again. "Nicole, I've devoted every minute of every day since my parents were killed pursuing the cowards responsible for their murders."

Running, she's always running.

Those were the words that popped into Nicole's mind. She remembered Kira had admitted as much that night of the storm, before they'd made love.

Kira lifted her head, and Nicole saw so much suffering in her features. This woman had been prepared to forfeit living a full life to avenge the murder of her parents. Why? Did she somehow feel guilty for being alive when her parents were dead? Was this what kept her from letting anyone in? She longed to reach out, take Kira in her arms and comfort her, hold her, love her but feared the results might be cataclysmic. Time, she reminded herself. Time and patience.

"I've worked very hard to avoid emotional entanglements, and for the most part, I've been successful keeping distractions to a minimum. This," she touched her chest with a manicured finger, "is all new to me and I'm not really sure how we proceed here. Just for the record, I've never before mixed business with pleasure."

Nicole had no clue how to respond. Should she be flattered or was she being told to take a hike and not let the door hit her in the behind on the way out?

"You never know, Kira." Nicole swallowed hard, gathering her waning courage. "Now that we're not adversaries wary of one another's motives, we might actually work well together." She turned slightly, sliding her hand tentatively across the cus.h.i.+on, the effect imbuing her overture with a guileless sincerity. "Let me help you," she whispered.

Kira lowered her eyes. "Why would you want to do that, Nicole?"

"Because I love you," she yearned to say, but the words echoed inside her head unspoken. It would be a long, long time before she could give voice to such sentiments-weeks, months, maybe even years. To do so too soon would be like trying to throw a saddle on a wild horse the day after capture. Her hand remained where it was, outstretched, waiting for reciprocation. Kira looked into Nicole's eyes, then down at her hand.

A cell phone rang, startling them both. Nicole withdrew her hand.

"It's Stella," Kira informed her excitedly after grabbing her phone from her jacket's pocket. As Kira listened, Nicole watched a smile light up her face and thought how amazing it would be to see her do that more often.

"You were right!" She held the phone to the side of her mouth so that she could share every word of Stella's conversation. "They found five data-filled CDs taped between the two mirrors in your mother's stairway!" She held up a finger to indicate Stella was talking. "Stella said they're just getting back onto the helicopter, so she won't be able to talk, but they loaded the CDs onto her laptop." She returned to listening mode, her trance-like gaze staring off into s.p.a.ce, but she reached across and grabbed Nicole's hand where it lay in her lap. Their fingers meshed, entwined, squeezed. The significance of the gesture was not lost upon Nicole. They fit perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle.

"Apparently, the evidence is better than we could have hoped for," Kira said breathlessly, closing her phone. "Your father actually captured Kohl on film in the act. There are pictures of her meeting with several suspected terrorists, as well as bank statements from three overseas accounts with a detailed list of deposits and wire transfers."

"That's awesome!" Nicole faltered mid-syllable, uncertain her exultation was appropriate considering what they were discussing.