Page 27 of Into the Gray Zone

And then it dawned on me before he even said it: “We didn’t make it to the bedroom.”

I rubbed my face, at a loss for words. Finally I said, “So you think she hasn’t said anything because she’s afraid you’ll spill the beans about sleeping with her?”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’d like to think it’s because she realizes I’m just a wonderful human being who couldn’t have anything to do with the attack, and therefore sees no reason to include us beyond getting specific details, but you might have a point.”

Before I could say anything, the door opened. I expected to see Jennifer, but it was Nadia. In her hands was a small Wi-Fi surveillance camera.

Just like the ones we had emplaced and were testing last night.

Chapter17

Nadia entered the room and set the camera on the table, saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask who you guys work for.”

Uh-oh.

I tried my best to look perplexed, saying, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

She said, “We found this on the old grate to the drainage cut. The hotel says it’s not theirs. It’s an IP camera, and we’re tracking who it was talking to tonight, right now. If it’s the terrorists, we’ll have a location to check out.”

Mental note: Shut down the other cameras.

I said, “Okay?”

“If it was talking to someone in this hotel, that’s another wrinkle we’ll have to explore. We’ll know soon, unless you want to spare me the trouble.”

I absolutely wanted her to stop looking, but I wasn’t too worried, because I knew how we operated. Veep’s connection to those cameras would have been layered and spoofed by about fourteen different addresses, to the point that they’d find out someone from the Republic of the Congo was the initiating terminal.

I said, “You do what you think you need to. We’d like to stop them as much as you. We don’t really like terrorists.”

She circled around the table, saying nothing. Hoping the pregnant silence would get us to talk. Unfortunately for her, I’d been in her shoes with real bad guys on the other end, and I was trained not to take the bait. Never, ever answer a question that wasn’t asked.

She stopped walking and said, “It was a little bit of a miracle that you and Jennifer managed to stop that assault. A couple of ditchdiggers from an ‘archeological company’ thwart a well-trained group of assassins right at the point of entrance. Don’t you think?”

At that point, I decided to turn it back on her, since we were all doing doublespeak. She hadn’t given her superiors her suspicions, or we’d be in a much more secure location, and I was sick of the bullshit.

I said, “Yeah, that’s true. We were extremely lucky. But not the least because a lowly waitress from Goa managed to find a pistol in her panties she’d forgotten about. I’ll give you that. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought Knuckles here had taught you to shoot it when you were together. Maybe dry firing in the kitchen instead of the bedroom.”

I saw her face grow red, like I’d literally slapped her. She spluttered for a moment, then picked up the camera on the table and hurled it at my head. I dodged it, hearing it splinter against the wall. She looked at me with pure venom, and I could see the restrained rage. She wanted to attack me, literally, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of my comment about Knuckles or whether she didn’t like the turn of events in general. I did, however, like the emotion.

And the restraint.

If she was willing to go mano a mano with me, she was confident in her abilities, and I had no doubt I’d be in for a fight. But if she washolding back because of her mission, she had the focus of someone I’d want on my team.

Knuckles leapt up, glaring at me, saying, “Whoa, whoa, let’s all calm down here. We all want to solve this problem, but we don’t know what you want. We’re nothing but registered guests of the hotel. There’s no reason to get in a fight here.”

She went from him to me, locking eyes and saying, “Okay, Mr.Nobody, if you were to say who did this, with your complete lack of experience in such matters, who would you say did it?”

I looked at Knuckles, he nodded, and I told her everything we’d just discussed about the types of weapons, the method of assault, and the timing. I ended with, “But what do we know? We don’t deal with this on a daily basis.”

I saw a small grin wanting to leak out, and she said, “I know that, but it’s good to get a separate opinion. And I see you’re thinking the same thing I am.”

I glanced at Knuckles, because what I’d told her was an either/or thing, just like we’d talked about, and said, “What? I just said we don’t know.”

“You said you didn’t think this was a random, LeT rage attack.”

“I said we thought itwas,most probably,” and then hastily followed up with, “Although I’ll also say I don’t know what LeT is.”

She smirked and said, “No, you said youbelievedit might be them, but you also said there were indications it wasn’t, and this was targeted.”

---