David was fast becoming sure he wasn’t a threat. No one prepared to do combat would cry over a hurt nose. He released a breath. “You are Peterson, right?”
“Of course I am. I’ve been in-country trying to stop this clusterfuck since Molly got here.” David didn’t entirely believe him. He remembered the BP on the pen.
“Who are you and what were you trying to do by sending a civilian into a shitstorm like this?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? I need a hospital. You broke my nose.” He started staggering to the entrance of the alley.
“Not so fast, dude. If you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I will leave you here for someone else to find.”
“I’m not telling you anything ‘dude.’ I don’t know who the fuck you are, and whoever you are, I doubt you have a sufficient level of clearance. All I’ve managed to get from your boss is that you’re on probation. So forgive me if that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”
So Baston hadn’t fired him for not getting out of Greece, but he obviously wasn’t throwing all his faith behind him either.
David had no time for shit. The longer they were in this alleyway the more likely they were to draw attention to themselves. He sighed and as he stepped toward him, he looked away to the street. In his peripheral vision, he saw Peterson look in the same direction. David grabbed his left arm and twisted it up around his back, pressing his face into the wall behind the Dumpster.
“Tell me what I need to know to keep her safe. If I find out you lied to me, you will never be safe. Not here, not when you get back to your cushy apartment in DC. You see this?” He shoved his phone against the wall so Peterson could see it. “There are five people in here, one on speed dial, who can make you disappear forever. You get me? Anywhere in the world. Except for North Korea, I guess. So, you know, you might be safe there. Tell me what you know.” He pressed on the back of his head just enough to make him growl in pain.
“Okay, okay. Shit man, don’t be a pyscho.” David released pressure on him and easily dodged an unpracticed swing from Peterson’s fist. It was almost laughable. This desk dude was having a bad day already, and was probably wondering how to explain how he had broken his nose on a surveillance job.
“Really?” David said, raising an eyebrow.
Peterson’s shoulders slumped. “I had to…you know.”
Yup, David did know. Peterson had to at least try to put up a fight. Quite ballsy for a desk jockey.
“Just tell me what the hell is going on and we can walk away, no harm, no foul.” David crossed his arms.
“Maybe for you,” Peterson said, touching his fingers to his swollen nose. “I’m going to get you back for that.”
“The only way you’ll even have an opportunity to do that is if you tell me what. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.” He leveled his gaze at him, trying to impart strongly that his patience was already tissue thin. He took a step toward him, and he raised his hand.
“Okay. Okay. I heard from someone connected to the Russians that there was a big op going down here at the G20. The word was that the US was going to lift the Russian finance minister to get their hands on the Russian banking codes—not for money, but to see which Americans are on their payroll. I’m on the Russia desk, and let me tell you, it’s a fucking nightmare keeping diplomatic channels open. No way was I going to stand by and let someone fuck up years of my work with some half-assed mission to get their hands on the Kremlin’s banking codes. So I decided to run my own op. Make sure our friendlies in the Russian government were warned.”
“Are you a traitor?” David took a step toward him, trying to quell a need to wrap his fingers around the man’s throat and squeeze.
“No. It was an unsanctioned mission, no one—and I mean no one, Defense, State, Select Intelligence committee—no one knew anything about it. It was a rogue op, almost guaranteed to thrust us into a war with Russia.
He held his hand up at David’s advance. “No. Look. No one at State was picking up any chatter, so they wouldn’t believe me, but I knew something was happening, and it wasn’t going to on my watch. My only way in to warn him was through Molly and her friend Doubrov. I don’t have all the fancy contacts that the DOD has. Besides, if it came directly from my office, I’d get fired. Doubrov just had to trust Molly. And all the evidence pointed to him doing so. That’s all I know…”
“And no doubt, when they found out you were the one who warned them, your stock would rise in their eyes, right? Maybe they’d request to deal with you specifically, which would raise your stock at State too, right?”
“Why shouldn’t I take some credit for stopping an unsanctioned op? I mean…” He trailed off looking thoughtful. Then he shrugged as if he’d thought what the hell? “Okay, I believe that the Russians think that Doubrov passed something to Molly, not the other way around. I saw the raw footage. I mean, I told her not to slip him the note, but she did, and if you didn’t know it was Molly passing something to him, it could have looked like it was the other way around.”
David’s blood ran cold. “She didn’t pass him the note, we still have both of them.” That was the worst news ever. If they thought she’d received some intel from Doubrov, they wouldn’t stop until they had their hands on her. “You bastard. All you had to do was call her and tell her to get out. Why didn’t you?”
“It was my op. They’d have traced it back to me, and my source—” he looked at his polished shoes.
David put two and two together. “Don’t tell me, your source is an unsanctioned girlfriend? Someone you care about?”
“Fuck off. Look, I know it sounds cold, but the op was righteous. If Doubrov hadn’t been killed, we would be celebrating a victory right now. If I’d called her afterward and told her to skip town, they would have traced the call in seconds, I would have lost my job, my in at the Russian consulate in DC, and my girlfriend…she’d have lost her job if anyone found out she’d been indiscreet while she was drunk. It wasn’t her fault. And she doesn’t really know what I do. I just never expected the situation to get so out of hand so quickly.”
David grabbed his lapels just one last time and shook him. “You do not involve civilians for this exact reason. You better hope she stays safe, because I will be coming back for you if she doesn’t. Understood?”
“Understood.”
He released him. “Get the fuck out of here.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
David picked up some more supplies before going back to the hotel. He circled the building once, looking to see if there was any unusual activity. But the receptionist, clearly visible through the lobby window was still playing a point-and-shoot game on his PC. It all felt normal.
He took the elevator up to the room and used his passkey. The door light flashed green, but the door wouldn’t open. Suddenly panicked, he dropped his bags and shouldered the door open, hearing a loud crack as he did.
Molly stood just inside the balcony with her mouth open. “I think you just killed the chair.” She looked pointedly at the wooden chair that now was in two pieces.
His eyes rested on her in her sundress, braless. He was becoming an expert in her breasts and how they looked in a bra and without. He liked the latter better.
“I’m not sure it’s safe to stay another night, anyway,” he said putting his bags down. “But first, we’ll eat.” He put paper-wrapped kebabs on the dresser, where he’d had her the previous night. “No, scrap that. First this.” He brought her into his arms and held her for a second, pulling back slightly only to kiss her lips. Her constantly welcoming lips. She opened her mouth to him without hesitation, and she felt like home. Jesus. Get your mind in the game.