“Senator Hyland?”
“Yes.”
“This is Samira Desta. I believe you are looking for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHATDIDSAMIRAjust say? Jamie hissed her name again but the comms were evidently still only working one way—and patchy at that. What was she doing? He’d heard typing, and then she’d dialed a number on a landline, going by the distant tones.
Merde, she’d called Hyland’s room? Fitz or not, Jamie had to get inside.
A tinny, echoing man’s voice came through the earpiece. Hyland. She’d put the phone on speaker? “...believe many people are looking for you. Where are you?”
“In your hotel. I want to talk to you and you alone.”
“My hotel? Where, exactly?”
“First, I want assurances. You want the name of the person I’m communicating with and you want to stop me testifying against you, and I’m willing to discuss both those things. But you are threatening people who are important to me. I need proof they are safe and will remain so. And I need a new identity and money in exchange for my silence.”
Shite. Go, Samira.
“Whoa, whoa,” Hyland said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, but I’m sure you’d prefer not to discuss this over the phone.”
A stocky man in a black suit charged out of the security tent, a dark bruise on his temple. The goon Jamie had sedated in the hospital. Jamie ducked behind a column, hunkering under the baseball cap he’d grabbed from the car. The earpiece exploded into crackles. When he peeped out again, the guy was talking to Fitz—urgent, hushed. Fitz spoke quickly into his phone, pocketed it and followed him inside. Going after Samira?
Jamie wandered up to the police guard at the tunnel entrance, one hand in his trouser pocket. He nodded at the officer, who waved him in.
“I know you’re not alone, Ms. Desta,” Hyland was saying. “Is your companion with you?”
The earpiece squealed with interference, drowning out her response. The body scanner beeped as Jamie stepped through. An officer did a paddle scan and let him pass. A plainclothes woman stood by a computer with a handheld scanner. She reached for Jamie’s lanyard.Here we go.
“Early start to winter out there,” Jamie said, choosing an American drawl to match the credentials on his pass.
“Try wearing a kilt,” the woman said, jerking her head toward a hotel doorman.
“No, thank you, ma’am.” Never again in his life, if he could help it.
The scanner beeped. Jamie’s face came up on its screen—the photo Samira had taken a few hours earlier. Diplomatic Security Special Agent Harrison Roberts Jr. Top-secret clearance.
Nice work, Samira.
“Thank you, Agent Roberts,” the woman said.
In the lobby, Fitz and the driver had disappeared. Jamie strode toward the lifts, watching the floor indicator. The right-hand elevator passed the second floor and stopped on the third.Putain.
The crackling in his earpiece morphed into Samira’s voice. “You have gone after everyone who is close to me. You should know that I am about to do the same, unless you do what I say.”
“What do you mean?” Hyland said.
“The carrot and the stick—isn’t that how it works, Senator? I have information that will destroy your daughter’s reputation, and we both know how muchthatmeans to her.”
“What information?”
Was Samira bluffing? Hyland didn’t seem to be buying it.
“I will speak only to you, and only if you come alone,” Samira said.
