Page 21 of Hidden

Peter chuckled. “He’s just resistant to the idea of protection. Go home, get some sleep. Is he in his office?”

Ellerman nodded and Peter waved him away. With a quick knock, he opened the private office door and stuck his head in.

“Good morning, director. How was your night?”

“Your crack team of agents insisted on rearranging furniture in my house and setting up snipers on my neighbors’ roof. I don’t appreciate all the disruptions.” Director Upwood snapped his newspaper shut and scowled at Peter.

Peter stood in the center of the area rug with his arms behind his back, patiently listening to him complain.

“I assure you, Director, it’s all with your safety in mind,” Peter said when Upwood finished.

An unintelligible grumble was all the director gave him, so Peter shifted the conversation.

“Let’s go over your schedule for today so I can brief the team.”

“My secretary can give you a copy. I’m sure you’ll tell me if we need to make changes.” Upwood turned and stared at his computer screen, clicking the mouse and pecking at keys. Peter was being dismissed.

Without another word, he slipped out and asked the secretary for a copy of the director’s schedule. She happily provided it to him. Nothing out of the ordinary and only one trip out of the building. Sounded like a pretty simple day.

Peter had taken over a rarely used conference room as his team’s base of operations. He met with all but one of his men to go over the schedule and make a transport plan for Upwood before taking up a post outside the director’s door.

As he stood watching people drift in and out of the office, his mind wandered back to Carrie’s words about Corbit Upwood not being a good man. Peter knew she wasn’t wrong about that, but he wasn’t at all convinced that he was up to something illegal, other than sexually harassing someone—he was definitely guilty of that. But Carrie had made it sound like some sort of organized criminal activity. Then again, when you worked for the CIA for as long as Upwood had, you had a lot of connections in the criminal underworld and it took a person of great integrity to not get caught up in all of it.

A part of him wished he had let Carrie talk enough to find out what she was basing her claims on. Could something illegal be why someone wanted to blow him to bits? He shook his head. It wasn’t his job to question his protectee’s activities. Unless he witnessed something illegal, it was only his job to keep him alive. The only reason he needed to care if Corbit Upwood was involved in something nefarious was if it was putting his men in harm’s way.

As far as he could tell, that wasn’t the case. And Carrie Davenport was barking up the wrong tree. You didn’t become director of the CIA by doing “illegal shit”. There would be some morally and ethically ambiguous shit, though, which a journalist would be just as interested in.

After so many years, Peter was immune to the moral ambiguity of Washington politics. He didn’t like it; he just didn’t concern himself with it unless it affected him or the people he was protecting.

Still, he’d read more of Carrie’s work last night before going to sleep, and her pieces were well researched and backed by irrefutable facts. If she was poking into Corbit Upwood, she had a reason. That didn’t mean she was on the right track, and she hadn’t printed anything about the CIA Director, so he had no reason to believe her investigation would lead anywhere.

A voice squawked in his ear, breaking him out of his thoughts. “I’ve got someone not on the schedule asking to see Upwood. The receptionist says Upwood wants to see him, but he’s not cleared.”

Peter straightened, setting all thoughts of Carrie Davenport aside. “What’s his name?”

“Dino Carranza. Seems like an asshole.”

“Hold them until I get back to you.”

Peter knocked on Upwood’s door.

“Director, I’ve got a Dino Carranza in the lobby asking to see you. What can you tell me about him?”

Upwood never looked up from his computer. “I already told my secretary to have the receptionist send him up.”

“The problem is, he wasn’t on your schedule and he’s not on the pre-cleared list.”

Now the director looked irritated. “So search him and send him up. I have business to discuss with him.”

“Is he intelligence or law enforcement?”

“That’s not your concern.”

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to remain patient. “Anyone who has access to you is my concern, sir.”

“Just send the man up.”

“I need you to tell me a little more about him first.”

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