SECRETS AND SPIES

By

Shara Lanel

© copyright by Shara Lanel, August 2007

Cover Art by Kat Richards, August 2007

ISBN 978-1-60494-065-8

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

CHAPTER ONE

"What do you mean you're going to Mexico?" Andrew Wilbury didn't quite look at his girlfriend as he spoke. He found the view beyond Mott's plate glass window far more intriguing. Casey Summers, the supposed girlfriend, scowled, noting the pale ass cheeks of the girl on the sidewalk. Her tattooed skin peeked out from under a leopard print skirt. Casey wondered why the girl didn't give the rest of Broadway the benefit of the view instead of torturing the customers inside Mott's, a hot new diner and her current place of employment. Not that there were many customers at the moment, which was why Jacques had finally allowed Casey to take her break.

Andrew finally pulled himself back to the conversation. "What about my sister's wedding? You're my date."

"I won a raffle, a free trip," Casey said. "I've never even been out of the country." She didn't mention that the ticket was open ended, but the thought of going to that black-tie wedding with Andrew's stepmother…ugh! The anorexic woman was sure to treat Casey as if she'd entered the reception with toilet paper strung from her butt. And the temptation to knock over Mrs. James Alexander Simpson III's cake with a flick of her finger would be entirely too much to bear.

"But why now?" Weren't males supposed to grow out of the whining stage by age eighteen? "Did Jacques give you vacation?"

Casey glanced over at her superstitious boss as he threw salt over his shoulder. He always did this when cleaning table thirteen. Casey had suggested that he change the table numbers to letters for better karma, but he'd waved his hand in front of her face, tsking, as if she had no idea how the real world worked. A cross pendant clanked against the Star of David on his chest, as he swayed his hips to the hip-hop music coming from the open office door behind the counter. Jacques was quite a character, but a character Casey'd had her fill of during the last six months of double shifts and a ten-hour food service safety conference. The conference was where she'd spent her thrilling weekend, a weekend she'd willingly forget if not for the serendipitous raffle.

"Actually," Casey said, noticing that Andrew was still peering out the window with rapt attention. "He fired me."

Oh, that got him to look away from Too-Short-Skirt and the muscle-bound man intent on washing her tongue. "You got fired? How are you going to pay your rent?"

"Nadine's not worried, so why should you be?" Nadine was her roommate, and she agreed it was about time that Casey spent some time away from Manhattan. Away from Andrew. Casey was finally realizing just how right her friend was. She'd willingly ignored Andrew's faults for too long since he was one of the few guys who didn't press her for sex, a fact that had made Nadine immediately suspicious. It was time to cut loose and have an adventure.

Problem was, a certain sort of adventure followed her everywhere, the sort she could do without, like the limo that'd just hopped the curve and was barreling toward the tongue-wrestling couple on the sidewalk. They obviously thought they were auditioning for a porn film, since the sound of shattering Plexiglas-the bus stop shelter-and skidding metal-the limo's lame front fender-did nothing to end their make-out session. Andrew, sitting in the chrome and plastic chair across from Casey, lurched from frozen shock to skittering crab in two-seconds, leaving his girlfriend to face the out-of-control car on her own. Definite hero material there. Not! Oh well. Saved her the guilt of breaking up with him before that damned debutante wedding.

Casey stood and lifted her arms as the power flowed from the Earth through her as if she were merely a conduit. She flung the wave forward where it smashed into the bus shelter as the hulking wreck screeched along the sidewalk. The shelter crushed as flat as a crepe against the force, as did the first twelve inches of the black limousine. Sparks flew everywhere, as did dirt and glass and three-day-old trash.

Casey snapped her hands down as soon as the limo's forward momentum ceased. Some guy in shredded jeans and a dozen gold rings jumped out of the back of the dead vehicle, screaming obscenities at the driver while keeping a cell phone glued to his ear. A medallion on a chain flapped against his chest. Should she recognize him? Casey wondered. He had to be famous, right?

Too-Short-Skirt bent over so that Casey had a pristine view of her ass once again as she fanned beefcake guy, who'd fainted on the sidewalk. Casey turned to find Andrew cowering behind Jacques, clutching his biceps and whispering furiously. As she faced them, her boss crossed himself, then grabbed his pendant and held it out in front of him as far as it would reach.

Here we go. Casey slumped back into her chair. She wouldn't need to break up with Andrew after all. He was about to run screaming from her strangeness.

Even though she knew he wasn't right for her, it still hurt when that one word floated in her direction. "Freak." How many times had she heard that in the past? You'd think someone would be more original. Andrew backed toward the restaurant door, whispering 'freak' a few more times before he reached it.

Casey cleared her throat. "Does this mean we're breaking up?"

Andrew nodded, wide-eyed, then dashed out to the sunny sidewalk. Well, good. Screw the wedding anyway and hadn't he just been a little too friendly with Jasques' arms? Maybe that explained why he'd never pressed her for sex.

Casey turned to Jacques to await his conviction. Jacques avoided ladders, closed the restaurant on Friday the 13th, and read his horoscope daily. Would he stand tall in the face of her weirdness? No. He crossed himself again and seemed to be chanting. Hail Mary's, Casey realized.

"So I'm still fired, right? Do you want me to finish my shift?"

He shook his head.

"Well, I'll just finish my cappuccino."

Jacques nodded and scurried toward the backroom.

Casey sipped the lukewarm drink and sighed. This had happened so many times in the past that she was downright nonchalant about it, but it felt worse this time for some reason. Not because of Andrew or her job. There'd been a dozen Andrews and a dozen jobs. She just couldn't face the prospect of her life continuing on this path. Something had to change…for the better for once.

Forty-five minutes later, Jacques told the police a less-than-credible story about Casey's mysterious powers stopping the accident. After which, Casey calmly recounted Jacques various superstitious habits. She wasn't out to hurt her ex-boss, but she refused to reveal her powers to a government agency ever again, and the police found her version of events much easier to believe. Free to go, Casey returned her uniform to Jacques and walked to her subway stop in a daze. Life whirred around her, but she didn't belong to it. She was as alien as ET. In fact, ET would probably feel more at home in NY than she did.

Before the melancholy could settle in completely, she spied the travel agency across the street, the one from the raffle. She marched determinedly to the crosswalk and flowed with the gaggle of pedestrians to the other side. It was time to change her destiny, take control of her life and her power. When she entered the agency a bell tinkled, a woman smiled, and a poster for Mexico caught and held her attention.

* * * *

Parker Nelson flexed his arms and stared at the bullets as they rolled across the ink blotter on his desk. His gun rested next to the ringing phone. He ignored the phone. He knew who it was and he refused to listen once more to his boss's spiel. The man continued to insist that Parker take a vacation. The mere thought gave him hives. What would he do with two empty weeks?

He would think. He would remember.

Not gonna happen.

Of course that's what Assistant Director Peter Brandon thought he needed. Time to remember, time to truly grieve. Hell, it'd been two years. He was done grieving. What he needed was to solve this case.

He shoved the bullets, one after another, into the clip. He planned to evade Brandon by spending a couple hours at the shooting range. His secretary, Mrs. Mocowski, would page him if anything came in on Missy Ryan's case. The San Antonio cops had found her backpack that morning. They'd handed it off to forensics and now Parker waited, without any hope really, to hear if they discovered something.

He had the sick feeling in his stomach that Missy was out of the country by now, snatched by enemy agents. At age ten, she was the most incredible code cracker Parker had met in his life, and she was gone. His fault. The safehouse had been compromised. He should've known, should've seen it coming-somehow-and he couldn't turn his mind to a new case until they had her back.

Brandon had already threatened to turn the case over to the European team, calling Parker obsessed and burned out. Worse. Parker had been ordered to get his annual physical. He'd put it off as long as possible, until his boss had reminded him that he could be disciplined for noncompliance. Parker had known something was wrong, though he did fifty sit-ups and push-ups each morning, followed by a run in Virginia's ninety-degree heat. But lately he'd experienced dizzy spells that would quickly pass, and sometimes his blood throbbed in his temples as if he were going to burst a vessel.

High blood pressure. Extremely high, according to the doc.

Since Brandon and the doc were golfing buddies, it was no doubt the doc who'd narced on him. Parker had refused the pill prescription. He realized now he should have taken the slip of paper, stuffed it in his pocket, and forgotten about it. Then no one would be the wiser as to whether he took the damn pills or not.

Shaking his head, Parker shoved the clip into the gun with a snap and stood. A knock at the door was closely followed by the turning handle. Brandon was never one to wait for an invitation.

Damn. No escape.

"Going somewhere, Parker?" His boss rolled up his shirtsleeves. His silver-black hair had been slicked back with gel this morning, but several strands had escaped during the day and now stood out at odd angles on his head.

"Shooting range."

"Something wrong with your phone?"

"Did you call?"

Brandon nodded.

"Must be then."

The man shook his head and gestured for Parker to sit, which he did with a sigh. Brandon took the opposite chair and relaxed back, crossing his gangly legs at his ankles. Never a man to tiptoe around his point, he dove right in. "I have a new assignment for you."

"Not a vacation?"

"No, you've made it very clear you will not accept that, and I really would hate to put an unnecessary black mark on your record by suspending you." He paused to make sure that point sunk home. Parker nodded, so he resumed. "The new assignment will involve a trip."

"Uh huh." Parker sensed Brandon hid a bomb in these simple statements.

"Mexico. You leave tomorrow."

"And what am I to do in Mexico?" This sounded suspiciously like an assigned vacation.

"You're to protect Acacia Summers."

He didn't know the name. "Who is she? What am I protecting her from?"

"She's a café worker from New York-likes to be called Casey-who won a trip to a resort in Mazatlán."

"That can't be all she is if this agency is being sent to protect her."

"The rest is need-to-know."

"And I don't need to know? How am I going to protect her if I don't know what I'm protecting her from?"

Brandon nodded his understanding. "From what I'm told, this assignment should be very simple. Nothing to worry about. They're just afraid she'll be more vulnerable out of the country away from her usual routine."

Parker waited a beat. "That's all you can tell me? Are you sure this isn't just some bogus assignment meant to force me to take a vacation?"

Brandon was a terrible straight man. His lips quirked up and his eyes crinkled. "She's important to national security. I expect you to be completely vigilant."

Parker scowled. "What about Missy?"

His boss sobered. "Chin's got it covered. We'll find her."

"But what about Missy?"

"Parker, you know she's most likely gone. Once we have intel on her, The Company will send in a retrieval team." He held up his hand as Parker started to speak. "You're too wrapped up in this. You treat each and every case as if it's Deanna's case."

Parker squeezed the clip until his knuckles turned white. He hated it when his boss referenced his dead fiancée. "Is it wrong to care about a missing ten-year-old girl?"

"It's not wrong to care about the girl. It is wrong to obsess to the detriment of your health. Who are you going to help if you collapse in the field from a stroke or heart attack?"

Looking anywhere but in Brandon's knowing eyes, Parker fought back the one thought he would never admit to Brandon, his doctor, or even Chin, his partner. The thought that he wouldn't mind taking a bullet in the field. Searing pain, even death, had to be preferable to this hollowness in his gut. It wasn't sadness anymore. Deanna had been dead for two years now. Murdered at the hand of a psychopath. It was just a void, nothingness.

"Parker?"

He shook his head and refocused. "You're right."

"But this isn't a bogus assignment. The Bureau has had a discreet tail on Miss Summers for years. I talked to Link and Tom, since they were the last ones assigned, but all they said was she's a great girl." His lined face split with a grin. "They said for you to have fun and don't let her out of your sight."

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Nope." He flexed a thumb across his lips. "One more thing."

Parker waited.

"You're not to let her know that you're protecting her. Don't even tell her that you work for the government."

"Oh?"

"She has a thing against the government apparently, something to do with some project she was a part of. She rebelled against her first bodyguards."

"Rebelled how?"

"Don't know exactly, but one of them wound up with a broken leg. You don't want her to run off because she discovers you're with the government, so make up some story to stay close to her. Got it?"

Parker nodded, wondering if she was a martial arts expert. His boss tossed a file on his desk, and the fanning pages revealed thick strokes of black ink over most of the intel. Brandon stood, his expression grim, straightened his jacket, and left the room.

* * * *

The security access card slid through the reader, turning the light to green and allowing Brandon to enter the emergency stairwell. He jogged two flights to the roof and exited through a metal door. Gravel crunched under his feet as he moved toward the main bunch of air compressors, the hub of the building's cooling units. An arm waved him closer. That's all he could see was the arm, encased in a white shirtsleeve, coarse black hair curling up the back of the hand, a chunky ring on the middle finger. The rest of the man was in shadows behind hulking metal. Brandon had never seen his boss's face clearly.

Once he was close enough to see his superior's gray overcoat and fedora, Brandon slowed for breath. The rumbling of the fans and a nearby helicopter made it extremely hard to hear his first words. Brandon leaned in closer and cupped his ear.

The gravelly voice said, "Did you give him the assignment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you sure he can be trusted?"

"Absolutely." Parker was the one man Brandon would trust with his life. "He's no traitor."

The shadowy face looked grim as he nodded slowly. "We need to stop this leak, before we lose any more of this country's assets."

"Absolutely, sir."

"And you're sending him alone, correct?"

"Yes, but I don't like it. Are you sure…?"

"He must be alone, Brandon. No one else can be trusted."

A scuffling, scratching sound near the wall made Brandon think rat. They didn't have rats in his building, did they? "He'll likely call Malone for back-up."

His boss pulled the fedora lower on his brow. "Malone will know even less than he does. I think that will work out fine."

Brandon almost saluted, because his superior always made him think of an admiral or general, someone deserving the utmost respect. Instead, he nodded curtly and turned to leave. When he turned around again, the man was gone.

* * * *

John Chin, a wiry man radiating energy, entered Parker's office a few minutes later. He'd obviously been waiting for the big man to leave so he could get the scoop. "So what's the assignment, man?"

"Vacation in Mexico apparently, and some girl to watch."

Chin smiled wide, showing amazingly white teeth next to his tan skin. "Just what you need. My wife and I went last year. Parasailing, surfing, scuba diving. Who's the girl?"

"Hell, if I know." He'd already shoved the file into his briefcase. He'd read it more on the plane, and judging by the amount of black, that wouldn't take him long at all. "Probably some senator's daughter. And it is an assignment, not a vacation."

"Sure, sure. You'll like the view by the pool, too. My wife hit me every time I tried to take them all in."

"Them?"

"The babes, man. The bikinis, and some were topless." He whistled. "Really nice. So they didn't tell you more about this girl? Is she as young as Missy?"

Parker leaned back in his leather chair. Topless babes--that had possibilities. "I gather she's an adult since she won a trip to Mexico."

Parker folded his hands in his lap. He supposed this babysitting job was better than a forced vacation. He could work on his tan, knock back a couple Dos Equis, and keep up with Missy's case via Wi-Fi on his laptop. He grinned at Chin, causing his partner to narrow his eyes in suspicion. Yes, he'd relax and get his blood pressure down.

Even if it killed him.