Aimpoint by Candace Irving (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📗

it comes to honeytraps. Not that I've seen it, mind you. I've had you squirreled away in that back office for eighteen months to shield your pretty face from the bulk of the soldiers who move through this post. And in all that time, you've done squat."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, I know. You've done your thing for the provosts at Baumholder and Wiesbaden."

And Grafenwoehr, Landstuhl, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern—but who was counting? Evidently, not Brooks.

Nor was she thrilled with the way he was now eyeing her naked face, basic braid, and minimally tailored suit. Especially when he offered up his first eager nod since he'd barked her through the door of his office. "Yup. I've changed my mind. Shit, I should've approved it yesterday. Well, I'm doing it now. Go slap on some lipstick and a tight skirt, and get that bastard's attention. You've put out for the rest of Germany; it's about time you put out for us."

The implication behind that double entendre was deliberate and ugly, and Brooks knew it. She ignored it. She knew full well he wasn't so much as pissed at her, as stinging from that gun-shy comment. Because he knew who it had been really directed toward. Just as he also knew that, deep down, it fit.

But she'd make him pay for it. In people.

"And Agent Jelling?"

"Take him. It's not like I want him touching anything else around here."

Go for broke. "And Special Agent Ellis?"

Yet another nod.

Hallelujah. It seemed miracles were still possible in her world.

"But Ellis is strictly emergency backup; that's all. I don't like that woman, and I don't trust her. The way you collect these lost souls baffles the hell out of me."

Oh, for Christ's sake. Mira had been exonerated years ago. Heck, it was why she'd turned her back on the Navy's mea culpa and its offer to reinstate her into its nuclear power program and joined NCIS instead. It was also why Mira understood Regan and her own motley collection of demons in a way no one else could.

She opened her mouth to defend her friend, but her boss spoke first.

"Doesn't matter. Ellis and her considerable baggage are not my problem, so long as you keep her away from me. According to her CO, Ellis will be here by zero six hundred, whether I approve or not. You might as well abuse her. The woman can do research on the fly with Jelling. Hell, she can even hold your virtual hand in the ladies room while you're out and about doing your thing to reel in LaCroix. But she does not go near him. Nor does Jelling. I don't want either of them fucking this up. Understood?"

She bit down on her tongue and nodded.

Brooks was still livid enough that he'd find a way to revoke Mira's assistance. No matter who'd approved it.

"Yes, sir."

"Then get to work, Chief. Give me what every other post's provost has been raving about on this side of the Atlantic. But be goddamned vigilant. Because if you're right and your performance is off, by even a fraction of a whiff, we'll have a nightmare on our hands. Not only will LaCroix be tipped off, but anyone else he may be working with will be in the wind, never to be seen again. At least not by us. So find an in with that asshole and get what we need, and do it soon. Before the bodies start piling up—in Munich or elsewhere."

Regan nodded crisply and scooped Platt's phone records off the desk, then turned around to exit the office. She was halfway to her own when her phone rang.

Mira's name flashed across the screen as she retrieved it. "Speak of the devil. I understand you'll be landing in time for breakfast tomorrow. Need a ride?"

"Yes. But there's another reason for my call—and it's not good."

Regan juggled the sheaf of papers in her hand as she elbowed her way through the door of her office. She didn't mind that Jelly was absent for his first official briefing since that fiasco. She had bigger worries.

Somehow, she knew what had happened.

LaCroix. "He called Platt's phone, didn't he?" The one NCIS and the DC Metro Police had confiscated when Scott Platt had been brought in and booked into a cell to keep his uncooperative mouth from doing a one-eighty and flapping open long enough to tip off his good buddy LaCroix.

"Ten minutes ago."

On a Friday? At fourteen hundred? They were six hours ahead of the East Coast, making it eight in the morning on Platt's end. Worse, it was a deviation from their Saturday/Sunday call pattern.

One that did not bode well.

Regan dumped the phone records on her work table and picked up the folded square of paper Jelly had addressed to her. "Did LaCroix swallow it?"

"I think so. Hell, I hope so. The Intensive Care Unit nurse we had manning Platt's phone was nervous, but I'm pretty sure she pulled it off. She threw in enough medical jargon to stump me. If we're lucky, her critical accident and coma story bought us some time. How much, we won't know unless LaCroix decides to call via the hospital's main line to confirm. If he does, the rest of the unit's nurses and physicians are prepared to back her up. But if some unsuspecting doc from another floor walks by and picks up that phone, the cover story could fall apart and fast."

The clock was ticking then, in more ways than one. "Understood."

"How's it going on your end?"

Regan sank into the metal chair at the table. "Not as well as I'd hoped, but it's getting there. Brooks shot down the tap and tail again, but he's regrown his pair enough to finally decide to send me in. I've got some research and planning to do, but I'll have my cover identity worked up before you arrive."

"I'll let you get to it, then. See you soon. Wish it was under better circumstances."

"Ditto."

Regan hung up the phone and opened the note Jelly had left.

Went home to