Captain's Call of Duty

I can’t wait to nail him. Oh, wait. Work. This is the mission I’ve been dreaming of getting. Minus the war zone. But hey. It’s a start.

Their lunch arrived and she stared down in dismay at the juicy burger, piled high with all the trimmings. She doubted she could get her mouth around that thing, let alone do it in either a neat or ladylike fashion.

Abandoning fashion for common sense, she unfolded her napkin and tucked it into the front of her shirt before she tackled the hamburger. Jim grinned and did the same. But then, he was wearing a three-hundred-dollar silk tie.

“When do you have to get back to the office?” he asked just as she took a bite of her sandwich.

She chewed convulsively. Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Finally, she was able to answer safely, “Tomorrow morning. Trevor gave me the rest of the day off.”

“Who’s Trevor?”

Stunned, Alex stared at him. He sounded a shade defensive there for a second. “My boss. Chandler’s chief of staff.”

“Ahh.”

To Alex’s immense relief, they ate in silence after that. The last thing she needed was for Jim to have to give her the Heimlich maneuver and for her to spew half-chewed hamburger all over the place.

“Did you drive?” he asked after he casually flipped a couple of bills on the table to cover the meal and a hefty tip.

“No. The Beast is still up on the Hill.”

“Why do you keep that thing anyway?”

Because her father had saved his money for a year to buy the wreck and the two of them had fixed it up together the first winter after her brother died. She was fairly certain the car had saved her brokenhearted father’s life. And then he’d given it to her when she graduated from high school…. Its sentimental value was beyond price.

“It still runs. Why would I get rid of a perfectly functional car?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “Guess I’m driving then.”

They got into his sexy little Beemer—how did he manage to keep getting plum parking spots like that?—and headed out.

Of course, the love nest came with underground parking for two. The Beast was going to adore getting to sit beside Jim’s sleek sports car. The building also had a weight room, hot tub and indoor swimming pool, but she doubted she and Jim would be making much use of those facilities.

The building manager gave them each key cards to the building, their own security codes, and introduced them to the doorman. Finally, they were shown up to their borrowed flat and left alone.

The place wasn’t as posh as Jim’s house, but then he’d no doubt had some fancy decorator with an unlimited budget do his place. But it was a whole lot nicer than her apartment, and the furniture all matched. More to the point, it was less than three blocks from the Dirksen Building, well within the range of the bug she’d planted in the senator’s laptop.

“It only has one bedroom,” she accused. With an obscenely huge bed, no less.

“What part of love nest don’t you grasp?” he replied.

She glared at him and changed the subject. “How in the heck am I supposed to sneak my gear up here past all those doormen and security cameras?”

“I’ll help you carry it up. We’ll bring it up in pieces if we have to.”

“Oh, we’ll have to, all right.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got your back, kid.”

She really wished he’d quit calling her that. It made her feel about twelve years old. But she supposed it was better than Al. That’s what he called her around the battalion when he wasn’t bellowing out her last name at her. She sighed. How did Lana Kelley so effortlessly keep her female identity around all those guys on the ranch? Every summer, when the time drew near for the arrival of the Kelley kids for their annual summer sojourn in Montana, she’d dreaded Lana’s arrival nearly as much as she’d anticipated Jim’s.

It took the rest of the afternoon for them to shuttle electronic surveillance equipment from the battalion to Jim’s car, and from his car to the love nest, disguised in cardboard boxes he took delight in labeling things such as Naughty Lingerie and Miscellaneous Toys.

By supper time, she had an elaborate computer system up and running on the desk in the corner of the living room—the shadow system to Chet Chandler’s—and a second one to record and backup everything from the first one.

“Does it work?” Jim asked over her shoulder as she typed in the senator’s password to activate the system.

“Of course it works,” she replied scornfully. “I built it.”

“Now what?”

“Now we watch what Chet does. He’s checking his calendar right now.”

It was a little eerie watching commands and words scroll across her screen as if a ghost were typing on her keyboard.

“So, just out of curiosity,” she asked, “is this a legal wiretap, or is it completely off the books?”

“Both. My superiors have declared this a Homeland Security investigation, which means we have permission to pretty well stomp all over the good senator’s constitutional privacy rights. But it’s definitely way off the books. We don’t know how deep into the government whoever’s controlling Chet has their hooks. Only a handful of people have any idea what you and I are doing.”

“Heck, I don’t have any idea what we’re doing. For months I’ve been working for the senator and I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“Have you got a white-noise maker?” he asked quietly.

She frowned. “We’ve already swept the place for bugs or cameras.”

“I know.” He gave her a sober look.

Well, okay then. “Lemme go get it.” It took her several minutes of digging around in her “Boring Underwear” box to find the darned thing, but she brought the noisemaker into the living room and plugged it in. She threw Jim an expectant look.

He gestured for her to sit on the other end of the sofa from him. Even with the electronic interference of her gadget all around them, he still spoke barely above a whisper. What on earth could be making the man this paranoid?

“We have reason to believe that Senator Chandler is part of a large-scale conspiracy. The same one that nearly killed my father.”

“How’s Hank doing by the way? Any change?”

“No. They’ve still got him in the induced coma until the swelling in his brain comes down some more. We were hoping he could tell us exactly who’s involved in this conspiracy, or at least who threatened him when Lana was kidnapped. It may be a while yet before he can talk … assuming he remembers anything at all when he wakes up.”

“What does Lana have to do with this conspiracy thing?” Alex asked, startled.

“We believe whoever kidnapped her did it to force my father into cooperating with this group. Maybe they needed him to do something for them.”

“Why couldn’t they get some other congressman to do their dirty work for them? Why him?” Alex asked.

Jim shrugged. “Until he wakes up and can tell us that, your guess is as good as mine. Lord knows, my old man is no saint.”

That wasn’t news to her. But it was hard to imagine him lying unconscious in a hospital bed. He’d always been so loud and forceful and dynamic. As a kid, she’d been more than a little afraid of him.

“What do you know about this conspiracy?” she asked.