Memories of last night ran though his head. Max had spent almost an hour on the phone with Wilkes once they’d gotten to Annapolis, recounting each detail.
Renee was still in bed. Max wanted to let her sleep in. She was understandably upset. After Wilkes’s call, Renee and Max had stayed up talking in bed. The conversation veered from the murder they had just witnessed to a deep discussion around trust and relationships. After not being told the real reason they had gone to Wolf Trap, she was worried that Max was reverting back to keeping secrets like he had as a DIA operative.
Renee argued that things had changed.
“Like what?”
“Us,” she had said.
If he was going to be with her, he needed to tell her everything. Max knew she was right. She was always right. It just wasn’t easy for him.
Max slipped on his flip-flops and hopped over to the pier. He walked through the nearly empty cobblestone streets of Annapolis until he reached a local bagel shop, ordering a half dozen everything bagels and a tub of cream cheese. Then he walked back to his boat and sat back down at the aft deck table. A canvas tarp provided shade from the rising sun and protection from seagulls engaged in target practice.
Max smeared gobs of cream cheese onto his steaming bagel. In the distance he could hear the echoes of Naval Academy midshipmen jogging to a military cadence. Plebe Summer, the boot camp that indoctrinated Academy freshmen into the school, was in full swing.
He ate his breakfast in peace, gazing out over Annapolis Harbor and towards the distant Chesapeake Bay. A cabin cruiser motored by, its modest waves rippling slowly towards the shore. On each sailboat in the harbor, metal clips swayed on their lines, clanging against the masts in a gentle rhythm. The seafarer’s song, the marina’s orchestra.
Caleb Wilkes approached Max’s boat, the wooden boards creaking beneath his feet.
“Mind if I join you?” Wilkes said.
“Be my guest.”
Wilkes gripped the metal rail and stepped over to the sailboat, balancing a cardboard drink holder filled with clear plastic cups. Iced coffees swirling with white milk, dark coffee and caramel browns, beads of condensation on the outside of the cups.
“I come bearing gifts.” Wilkes placed the drinks on the table.
Max smiled. “Why, thank you.” He heard Renee stirring below.
“You mind?” Wilkes pointed at the bag of bagels.
“Be my guest.”
Renee came up the ladder wearing a long tee shirt that stopped midthigh. Her hair was disheveled. But even when she was just rising, she was beautiful to Max. Red lips and alluring eyes. Seeing Wilkes, she glanced at Max, failing to hide her disapproval. Women were excellent visual communicators.
“He’s here early.”
Wilkes said, “Good morning, Miss LaFrancois. I apologize for my intrusion. Would you care for a drink? I brought iced lattes.”
Max gave a sheepish grin. “He brought us iced lattes.”
She took one of the drinks and sat down on the bench next to Max, crossing her legs. She plunged a straw into the center of her drink and snatched a bagel from the bag.
She began, “Mr. Wilkes… ”
“Please, call me Caleb.”
“Caleb, then. I was under the impression, until last night, that is, that Max would only be working for you as an advisor.”
“That’s right.”
“So, you can imagine my surprise when I found him standing over a dead body in the middle of a neighborhood park in Virginia.”
“Renee…,” Max said, embarrassed.
Wilkes rose from his seat, examining the transparent plastic weather wall that was wrapped into a roll and tied up along the rim of the hard-shell cover overhead. He then looked around at the streets surrounding the harbor.
Max knew what he was thinking. Saturday-morning tourists had begun to walk the brick sidewalks of Old Town Annapolis. Colorful shops, restaurants, and quaint little homes lined the streets. Here in the harbor, the trio was visible from hundreds of windows that overlooked the marina. Anyone with a directional microphone would be able to listen in.
“It unwraps.”
“Do you mind?”
Max got up. “Not at all. Let me help.”
The men untied the plastic wall and rolled it down so that the three of them were enclosed in a ten-by-ten-foot transparent shell. Max doubted its effectiveness against a professional surveillance team with high-tech equipment, but he was also skeptical that anyone would eavesdrop on them here, unless Wilkes had suddenly become careless and been compromised. The men sat down again.
Renee sipped through her straw, then said, “If Max is going to be working for you and putting his life in danger, I want to know about it. I won’t have any more surprises like last night.” She turned to Max. “If you want me in your life, you need to be honest with me about these things. You both know that I’ve worked in the intelligence field before. My IT security contracts require me to hold a current TS/SCI. I’m trustworthy, and I’ve got the clearances, so stop keeping me out of the loop. Especially if I’m going to end up doing the work anyway.” Her chest heaved, and her face was flushed as she eyed both of the men.
Based on Renee’s tone and body language, Max didn’t think that now was a good time to point out that her work in the CSE, and as a cyber operations contractor in the US, was very different from operational work in the field.
Max looked at Wilkes. “She’s right. I should have told her before we went to the concert. And Renee and I have worked well together in the past. Caleb, I would like you to consider us a team from now on.” Max hoped he wasn’t overplaying his hand… with either of them. How badly did Wilkes want him as a CIA asset? Badly enough to take on the risk of having another set of eyes and ears on Max’s work, trustworthy or not? And how willing was Renee to go along with Max’s desire to play part-time spy?
Wilkes looked back and forth between them, working something out behind his unreadable mask. His decision took about three seconds. “Very well.”
Max could feel Renee straighten up in her seat a bit. A welcome victory.
Wilkes said, “First things first. I’ve spoken to my contact at the FBI. He’ll be by this morning to ask you both some questions about what you saw last night. Your statement will be kept confidential. Officially, neither of you were at the crime scene. We want to keep both of your names out of the papers.”
“Understood.”
“The deceased was a man named Joseph Dahlman. He worked as a lobbyist at a boutique shop on K Street that does a lot of work on behalf of Middle Eastern and Central Asian interests.”
“What makes a lobbying firm boutique?” Renee asked.
Max whispered, “I think it’s a fancy way of saying small.” He turned to Wilkes. “What’s up with Dahlman?”
Wilkes said, “I’ve recently begun working on a new project with our counterintelligence division. An investigation that involves one of the Mexican drug cartels.”
“Why would you be working on something involving the cartels? Isn’t that the DEA’s responsibility?” Renee asked.
Max said, “The CIA oftentimes gets involved in counternarcotics operations around the world. Criminal enterprises as big as the Mexican cartels influence national security. They control people, cash, and weapons. The Mexican cartels have their own private armies, often poached from Mexican special forces, some who were trained in the US.”
“Why would someone in Mexican special forces go over to the cartels?”