Page 2 of Acting on Instinct
Iniquus was worth every penny that they negotiated to engage their shiny golden trustworthiness and their eminently ethical work, a rarity in today’s world. Langley often contracted with Iniquus when something needed doing, but their hands had to be well away from the heat. It must be nice to work for Iniquus and put your head on the pillow each night knowing your fight for the greater good was clean and shiny.
Did that sound catty?
Yep.
She shouldn’t, though.
Still, here at Iniquus, and in particular talking with Lynx, White often felt that her deodorant couldn’t do enough to hide the stench of the hard choices she’d made as a CIA field officer.
There was so much on the line with today’s meeting, and White was feeling the pressure. This wasn’t just for the CIA and keeping the United States safe; this was damned personal.
White pulled into the parking lot and put the car in park, releasing her seatbelt before swiveling around to look at Nomad. “Okay, let’s talk about Lynx. Lynx is in her mid-twenties. She has long blond hair and the kind of looks that any casting agent would choose if the script said, ‘girl-next-door.’ She will smile at you sweetly, wearing a feminine pink dress with wide skirts and kitten heels. She will ask you nonsense questions. She will put her hair up into a ponytail. She will slide her shoes off her feet and look at her pretty, pink-pedicured toes. And then she will pull some answer out of her ass and hand it to you wrapped in a ribbon. And as you reach out to accept the answer, you will look down and think one of two things: “How is it possible that you came up with that?’ or, ‘I am such a dolt, why didn’t I see the answer sitting there as plain as the nose on my face?’”
“What do you think today will be?” Nomad asked.
“Has to be the first. We fine-tooth combed everything that we had.”
“Which was precious little when it came to identifying the men.” Nomad looked toward the front entrance. “Has she ever failed?”
“She has failed, but she failed because we handed her garbage and we knew it and she’s said so.”
“We’re handing her garbage now. There are what, four billion men in the world? We’ve asked this young lady to identify four of them, when our advanced systems couldn't. It stretches my imagination that Lynx can tell us who they are. I am setting my expectations at subterranean.”
“Don’t count her out,” White said with a scowl.
“But you don’t like her.”
“I have no reason to dislike her. It’s just … Look, Lynx and I have a complicated history together. She has always been clear about her job and her ethics. Uncle Sam chose to screw her over on a personal level in a very horrible and ongoing way, and I was part of that scene. Not that I did anything to her. I was an extra in that play. But I would prefer to use other tactics than to supplicate at her feet. Here, we have no more cards to play, so I’m biting the bullet. Mixed metaphor, shut up about it.”
“She requires supplication, this young lady? You’re cussing quite a bit, and that’s unlike you.”
“She does notneedsupplication. Shedeservessupplication, though, not from me, but from someone. What you’re sensing from me is stress. If Lynx isn’t successful, we’ve hit a dead end, and innocent people will die.”
“I feel the pressure, too,” Nomad said quietly. “In my mind, that Moroccan mission for Delta Force Echo isn’t complete. I left the enemy out there to attack again. I had an opportunity to kill them, but in that moment, I couldn’t see well,and I thought Red and I were the victims of a robbery, not that assassins targeted us. I didn’t assess the event accurately.”
“It was a complicated scene, and you didn’t have orders to kill. If you had followed through, it would have been murder.”
When White grabbed her door handle, Nomad immediately popped his door open, grunting as he unfolded himself. Once out, he took a moment to unkink his tight muscles.
White stood up and waited for him to get it together.
She knew how big Nomad was, and she should have rented a bigger car.
Details, even as seemingly simple as the size of vehicle choice, weren’t usually overlooked by her, and White felt bad.
Here she was, the gal highly trained in psychological manipulation, letting her mind get the better of her.
White jumped up and down in place, shaking her hands as she looked at the green grass, letting the color shift her brain waves to calm and creative.
When she felt her mood switch, she stopped to find Nomad adjusting the patch over his eye, looking at her. “Do or die,” she said, starting off across the parking lot toward the atrium entrance.
Nomad strolled beside White, taking a single stride for every two that White made to keep up. She thought it was like being a toddler running along beside her grown-up. She didn’t like the dynamic, so she regained the upper hand by offering information and counsel about Lynx.
“Lynx’s answers stretch everyone’s imagination, every time. Believe me. And at the CIA, many a man is extra butt-hurt because she looks so innocent as she offers up a theory, and they look like dolts. You’ll see once you meet her. She’s going to throw you off because it will all seem so improbable. Brace yourself.”
Nomad reached out, grabbed the handle of the glass atrium door, and pulled it wide. “Glad to look foolish for the cause.”
Chapter Two
