“Deacon. You’re breathtaking, as usual.”
He grinned. “Yes, I am.” They both laughed and shared some office gossip about a few handlers and the administrators before Deacon turned to the matter at hand. “You have some news to share?”
“I was more than surprised to hear Noel’s leaving. He seemed so solid at work. Then with you and Hammer taking time off, I knew something was up. Big Joe confirmed it when he started asking me to look up some things for him.” She paused when the waiter came to take their orders. She selected a wine, but Deacon passed.
After the waiter left, she continued, “I hear things. A lot of things I’m not supposed to. I took the job with Perkins & Wright because of the pay raise and location—they’re based in England, you know.”
“Nice. You talked about wanting to go there.” He had a thing for recall, and he remembered her chatting about her desire to travel overseas, England especially.
“I did. You’ll have to come out and visit me,” she said, practically purring.
He just smiled. “What else do you know? What other good gossip do you have for me?”
Her grin faded. She leaned closer. “There’s some buzz going on. Worry that one of our own has gone rogue. In a big, bad way. You remember when Borislav and Meridia were replaced last year?”
He nodded. Both handlers had been moved to other divisions, supposedly. But since Big Joe handled Deacon’s ops, he hadn’t thought much of it.
“Well, they didn’t transfer. They died. Two supposed accidents: a car crash and a heart attack, recently proven to be intentional.” She unnecessarily added in a whisper, “Assassinations.”
“No shit.”
“No shit.” She guzzled the wine the waiter set down for her.
Deacon didn’t touch the water the waiter brought him, not trusting anything anymore. If he didn’t prepare it, he didn’t eat, drink, or touch it. “I’m confused. Two accidents are now classified as murders? Why investigate something that happened a year ago? Who authorized it?”
“I don’t know. I only know the higher ups are worried. They started looking at people who had issues with both handlers, and three names came up at the top of everyone’s lists: yours, Hammer’s, and Burleigh’s.”
“Romero Burleigh.” Why the hell did the asshole want him, Noel, and Hammer gone?
Brenda tapped her cheek. “I remember he really had it in for Noel. Noel was the first one to report him for assaulting women on the Azerbaijan mission. I found similar reports showing you and Hammer had also made note of his actions.”
Deacon hadn’t realized Hammer had narced on the guy as well. Hammer and Burleigh had worked on an op that hadn’t gone as expected, but Deacon hadn’t heard any details. So reporting Burleigh was the tie, then. Mexico was what? A red herring? “Reports you found? Whose reports?”
“I found them, yes. They’d been filed under Meridia’s section, but when I showed them to Big Joe, he said they weren’t Meridia’s. That Meridia didn’t file his reports that way or something. Frankly I wouldn’t know. I never handled his materials.
“What I do know is those reports got back to Burleigh a few months ago. Yasmine told me so. You remember her. She and Burleigh had a thing going on when he was working Portugal.”
“Yeah? I thought he was hooking up with Sue Ahn,” he said, waiting to hear what Brenda knew of that.
“Sue Ahn?”
“Wings?”
Brenda laughed. “Oh right. The information broker, wannabe contractor.” She snorted. “Sue only got those wings after Burleigh talked her into being one of his ‘angels.’ You know, like a play on Charlie’s Angels? It was a joke, but it got less funny when I saw the same tattoo on Yasmine. She was so smart. I never understood how she could fall for a user like him. Even after he left, she sang the bastard’s praises.”
Mention of angels and wings stood out like Solene wearing nothing but a towel. He couldn’t dismiss the coincidence. Now more than ever Deacon knew they were on the right track with Burleigh.
“Sue left, and Yasmine followed a few months ago. I haven’t heard from Yasmine since. And now we find out that two handlers who crossed Burleigh are gone. You might be next. Be careful, Deacon.” She frowned. “I keep kicking myself. I should have called Yasmine out for fraternizing with a contractor. But she was a friend.”
“Yasmine was too easy to take advantage of. But I would have thought Sue would have been stronger. She idolized Hammer, you know. At least, until Burleigh started mentoring her.”
Brenda grimaced. “I don’t think that did her any good. She seemed more broken than bright-eyed after her first few ops. Burleigh always made sure to ask for her on missions. From what I read in Meridia’s reports, theirs was not a healthy relationship. She never complained, and Burleigh was always more than polite around her in debriefings. But Meridia noted something off.”
“Neither Sue nor Yasmine said anything about his treatment of them?”
“No.” She frowned. “There was something else though. Something that tied Burleigh to suspicious activity a few years ago. Meridia took his reservations to Big Joe. Soon after they started looking hard at Burleigh. When reports of him assaulting women came in, it was just what they needed to get rid of him.”
“What do you mean, what they needed?”
