They shook their heads.“We have dates tonight.”
David’s blood ran cold.He tried to keep his voice light.“The girls from the Academy earlier?”
“No,” Rogers said.“A couple of analysts we’ve been mack—” He glanced at Faith.“Been interested in for a little while.”
“Well, good luck to you two,” Faith said.“I hope you successfully mack tonight.”
The two men looked at each other but decided to just let Faith’s comment pass.Hammerton laid the beer on the counter and said, “Enjoy.It goes better with chocolate ice cream, but it’s good by itself too.”
“You need to watch your damned cholesterol,” Rogers told his partner on their way out the door.“The hell you talking about, chocolate ice cream?”
When the door closed behind them, Turk barked, reminding Faith about his dinner.Faith retrieved it from the microwave and asked David, “So, anything interesting happen while I was away?”
David hesitated for a moment, but he was past the point of trying to hide anything from her.“Actually… yes.”
She looked hard at him.“How serious?”
“Pretty serious.”
She took a slow breath, then gave Turk his food.Turk dug in eagerly, and Faith closed the distance between them.“Okay.Talk to me.”
David recounted his encounter with the CIA agent earlier that morning.Faith listened without interrupting, her beautiful brown eyes more intense than worried.When David finished, she said, “He didn’t threaten you?”
“Well… the whole ‘it’s in yours and Faith’s best interests to stay away’ thing kind of sounded like a threat.”
“But nothing explicit.No, ‘stay away or else’?”
“Not in so many words, no.”
She nodded.“Cybercrimes told me they tried to get into your computer.”
“Yeah,” David said.“I figured.”
She took another deep breath and heaved an exasperated sigh.“Jesus, David.”
“I don’t have a choice, Faith.If it was Turk—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Faith interrupted.“I’m just saying this is serious.”She ran her hands through her hair.“Have you told Michael?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you, first.”
“We should tell him.I know he’s not back here until Friday night, but we need to loop him in.Jessica too.The CIA is taking this extremely seriously if they sent an agent to the FBI Academy.”Her brow furrowed.“Where were Rogers and Hammerton?”
David gave her a tight smile.“The CIA staged two security incidents.One to distract security, and one to distract Rogers and Hammerton.While security was dealing with a vandal, Rogers and Hammerton were breaking up a fight.”
“Yeah,” Faith said.Her eyes widened.“Really?”
“Holy shit.”
Faith shook her head.She bit her lip and looked anxiously at Turk, who was finishing the last of his food.David walked to her and pulled her into his arms.“We’ll be okay,” he said.“We can handle this.”
“It’s not enough to just say that,” Faith said.“This isn’t a gang or a serial killer.This is the Central Intelligence Agency.There are stories about them in the Bureau.”
“There are stories about them everywhere,” David said.“Some actors have made a nice career out of playing CIA agents.”
“There are stories from people who haveworkedwith the CIA.They’re a different kind of serious.They’re like Delta Force or DEVGRU.They’re almost inhuman.They don’t lose.”
David didn’t know what DEVGRU was, but he understood Faith’s point.“Youdon’t lose.Wedon’t lose.”Realizing that wasn’t enough, he said, “Look, how valuable can this program be, really?It’s a mind-control program for dogs.The CIA surely isn’t going to risk exposure and all of the expensive rearranging it would take to make this problem go away.If we can gather enough evidence to put pressure on them, they’ll just shut it down.You’re in the news again, and they’re not going to risk killing you or me with the media worshipping you like they are.We’ll be okay.We just need to keep being careful and patient, and above all, persistent.We can handle this.”
