Page 40 of A Time & Place for Every Laird (A Laird for All Time #2)

“You let her get away again?”

Jameson yelled, the sound echoing through the small room of the mobile NSA surveillance unit that was serving as his temporary office while his team searched Bainbridge Island. He glowered at the two men who stood, eyes cast to the ground, before him. Well, they had better fear for their lives, if not their jobs, at this point. Enough was enough. “Who saved her this time? My ninety-year-old granny?”

he sneered. “Did she hit you over the head with her purse?”

“He took us by surprise, sir,”

the more senior of the pair justified the failure. Simms might have been a lean man in his forties but he was by all reports an excellent fighter.

“He took both of you by surprise?”

Jameson asked disbelievingly as he shuffled through the grainy surveillance photos taken from cameras at Pike’s Market and the Bainbridge terminal. None of them provided a clean shot of Claire Manning or the assailant who had taken out three of his best men that day. “How is that possible?”

“He was fast, sir,”

Simms explained. “I was out before I even knew what happened. I barely even saw the guy.”

Jameson snorted rudely at that and leveled a glare at the second agent. Jackson was built like a defensive lineman and had actually been one. By all accounts, no one in his class at Quantico had ever been able to take him down. “What about you, Jackson? Aren’t you supposed to be a black belt in something or the other?”

“As Simms said, sir, he was pretty damn fast,”

Jackson defended lamely. “He fought like a pro. Said he was a SEAL.”

“And you believed him?”

Jackson shrugged as if his defeat had offered the only answer.

To Jameson, the outcome was inexcusable. Two armed and trained agents defeated by a single individual equipped with nothing more than a stick. It was an embarrassment to his department. “Do you think it was J42?”

The two agents shared a look, and Simms responded with a shrug. “I don’t see how it could have been. He didn’t look anything like the man on the surveillance tapes and spoke with a local accent. I was given to understand our mark couldn’t even speak English.”

Jameson only grunted at that. He wasn’t certain what his target was capable of any longer. The anomaly had evaded capture for eleven days. Eleven days! Obviously it was resourceful, perhaps more able than Fielding had thought. To Jameson’s mind, there was no chance it had managed to elude them for so long without help, but he couldn’t see it making intelligent conversation.

“Damn it, Jackson,”

Jameson cursed and dismissed the pair of agents. “Go get your fucking nose looked at. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

So, if Claire Manning hadn’t been saved by their escapee, who had helped her? Did it even matter? Maybe she knew the guy, maybe she didn’t. All that did matter was that the Manning woman’s presence on the island had been confirmed, and if she was there, Jameson was certain that he was close to finding his prisoner.

He didn’t know if she had been leaving or arriving at the island when Simms and Jackson had come across her in the parking lot, but he did know that she hadn’t gotten on the ferry then, and her car was still under surveillance in the parking lot. She had to be somewhere nearby.

“Marshall, what have you got on the search?”

Jameson said to his junior agent, who had been lingering silently in the corner of the makeshift office.

“Still waiting on a warrant for a door-to-door search, sir,”

Marshall said, prompting a round of vile cursing from Jameson.

“You’re not going to get one, you know?”

Nichols said from his position behind the desk with his feet up. “I told you, you have no grounds.”

“Marshall, extend the BOLO to Claire Manning’s person,”

Jameson said. “Get her picture out to every police station in the city. Tell them to use deadly force, if necessary.”

Even Marshall’s brows rose at that, and his nervous gaze shifted to Nichols, who shook his head at the junior agent. “Hold on that, Marshall. Please close the door and give Special Agent Jameson and I a moment.”

Marshall fled the room and Nichols looked up at Jameson. “I cannot condone this, Jameson. Colonel Williams already feels that you’re chasing a red herring here. What are you going to do with this woman if you find her? Torture her for information she doesn’t have? Kill her and call it collateral damage?”

“What agency do you think we work for, Nichols? The Sunshine and Fucking Roses Agency?”

Jameson sneered. “We need to get this thing closed out by whatever means it takes.”

“There is no agency in this country that has the right or power to harm American citizens,”

Nichols pointed out. “It was one thing to threaten violence to your anomaly but I cannot let pass a threat to Mrs. Manning’s person without cause.”

“What do I need to do to convince you that I am right here, Nichols?”

Jameson wanted to know. “A another tragedy like so many others this country has seen lately?”

“No one wants that, but how about showing me some actual proof?”

“She’s somewhere on this damned island. Let me find her and you’ll have it.”

A knock on the doorjamb cut off any response Nichols might have made.

“What is it?”

Jameson barked.

“Sir, Mrs. Manning is here,”

Marshall sputtered, and Jameson smiled grimly. His blood was pumping in triumph.

“Where did they find her?”

“She, uh … well, she came to us, sir.”

His brows shot up at that. Nichols’s did as well. “Did she now? Well, don’t keep her waiting. Show her in.”

The agent skittered away as Jameson wrung his hands in malicious glee, looking at Nichols with victory in his eyes. He had her. Finally he had her. Hot damn!

“Jameson, I feel that I should remind you …”

The growl in Jameson’s throat turned to a purr of triumph when Claire Manning was escorted through the narrow door. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept. A quick look at the clock showed it to be seven in the morning, which might explain many things or nothing at all.

“Mrs. Manning, come in. Have a seat.”

Jameson leaned against the desk, blocking Nichols’s view and sipping lukewarm coffee from a paper cup as he savored his moment of triumph.

“Do you have any more of that?”

Jameson looked up to find the woman staring pointedly at his cup. “Of course. Where are my manners?”

“That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

Gritting his teeth, he stood and moved to the door. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Both.”

Cracking the door, Jameson shouted for Marshall and put in a request for more coffee for both of them and waited, studying his elusive prey with all the pride of a hunter taking down his first big buck. For all her visible fatigue, Claire Manning was a lovely woman of slender build and vivid coloring. She would be eye-catching to any red-blooded man. Perhaps that was why the anomaly had latched on to her after seeing her in Fielding’s lab.

Marshall returned with the coffee, and Jameson shooed him away once more before handing one of the cups to Claire. Leaning his hips against the desk, Jameson sipped from his cup, contemplating the best way to force the truth from her. He doubted Nichols would be game for anything more forceful than a moderately raised voice.

“Nice RV, Phil. Can I call you Phil?”

she asked, looking around the small space as she sipped her coffee. “I have to say I’m surprised to find you here. I mean, if I had known you were looking for me, I might have come sooner.”

Jameson gnashed his teeth, not believing a word of her innocent prattle. “I did mention in Spokane that I would have more questions for you, didn’t I?”

The woman had the gall to wave her hand dismissively. “I thought that was something you said to everyone. When Dr. Crandel called to confirm the lab closure, he didn’t mention anything about staying, so I leapt at the chance to get away.”

“And where did you get away to?”

he asked as evenly as possible. “The lab reopened at the beginning of the week, and yet you did not report for work.”

“Oh, well, that’s your fault, really,”

she said, surprising him into silence with her words. His fault? The only blame he was due would be in hunting her to the point that she didn’t feel safe to return.

“How is that?”

“What you said before when you were at my house? Do you remember? You were right. You were absolutely right. What an epiphany! But I suppose I should thank you. You made me see what a mistake I was making, so I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my life.”

Jameson tried to remember what he had said that would have garnered such a reaction. Something about trading one job for the next? Was that it? “You’re going to try to tell me that the reason you’ve been missing for the past two weeks was because I said something that made you rethink your life?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m quitting my job at Mark-Davis because of you.”

Nichols choked with laughter behind him, and Jameson frowned more deeply.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide then why have you been evading my agents?”

he wanted to know.

“How could I evade them when I didn’t know you were looking for me?”

“Still, you didn’t cooperate when they came for you. Why?”

“Well, a girl can never be too sure that ID’s like that are real, you know? I wasn’t going to hang around only to find out they were serial killers or something,”

she said. “Like I said, I wasn’t expecting you.”

That had to be a lie. There was no other possibility.

“They didn’t identify themselves to the other man?”

Nichols asked, and the woman leaned to the side to see him better.

“Actually, no, they didn’t,”

she answered with a ring of truth. “That guy thought they were trying to kidnap me. Nice to know that there are still good people in the world who would stop to help a woman in need, huh?”

That inanity was so trite, Jameson could only snort humorlessly.

“He took out two of my most formidable agents.”

“If you say so.”

My God, Jameson thought. Did she really think this was funny? “And the man you were seen with at Pike’s Market?”

“My brother.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

Jameson shoved a hand through his thinning hair with barely contained frustration. “If you didn’t know that I was looking for you, then what are you doing here?”

“I came because they won’t let me have my car back until I do,”

the woman said with a serene smile. “So can I go now?”

“No,”

Jameson ground out. “I want to know where you’ve been for the last ten days. You haven’t been to your parents’ house or returned to your own. Where were you? On this island?”

“I came over to walk on the beach and reflect on life,”

Claire said, draining the last of her small Styrofoam cup of coffee and tossing it into a waste bin next to the desk. “As for the rest of it, I’d say it’s none of your business.”

“I say it is.”

‘Then I say show me your warrant, Phil,”

Claire said pleasantly, hazarding a guess, and was rewarded by Jameson’s glower and a chuckle from the man behind him. “But you can’t, because you don’t have one, do you? Tell me, does Big Brother even know you’re here? Whatever you’ve been after, you’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

“I told you,”

the other man said, and Claire leaned to the side to get a better view of the man at the desk. He was a pleasant-looking man in his mid-fifties or so who managed to somehow look both amused and completely bored with the entire situation.

“Who are you?”

“Jim Nichols with INSCOM, Mrs. Manning,”

he said pleasantly. “It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“Nice to meet you,”

she answered slowly, weighing his importance in comparison to Jameson’s with the NSA. Given his relaxed posture behind the desk, Nichols must not be far down from Jameson, and he looked far more unconcerned with her presence than the NSA agent did. Was it her imagination or did he seem to be on her side? “Do you support this madness, Mr. Nichols?”

“Can you assure me that you aren’t hiding a savage beast from us?”

Claire’s brows rose but she nodded. “I can. Am I free to go then?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“She knows where it is and she’s not leaving here until she tells us where it is!”

A muscle jumped in Jameson’s cheek as he ground his teeth. Clearly frustration was eating at him, but she wasn’t about to give him what he wanted when he turned to her. “I don’t know how you managed all this, but you’re making a big mistake,” he said.

“As Charles Schulz once said, ‘I’ve never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once but I was wrong.’”

Claire tilted her head to the side and smiled. She could almost hear Jameson’s teeth grinding. It was an unexpected pleasure.

“It’s dangerous, you know.”

“Charles Schulz? I doubt Snoopy would agree.”

Nichols bit back a bark of laughter, which only seemed to string Jameson’s nerves even tighter.

“Mrs. Manning, you are walking on very thin ice here. Where is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My conversation with your friend Darcy Washington tells me that you do,”

Jameson countered. “You felt sorry for it, right? You wanted to save it.”

It took a lot of effort for Claire not to lash out as Jameson repeated those derisive words. It? Was that all they thought of Hugh? Was that all the consideration they had ever given him? “I told you, I don’t know what …”

The agent slammed a palm down on the desktop, the smack echoing through the small office, and Claire jumped in her seat. “Where is my fucking science project?”

“Jameson …”

Nichols cautioned.

With one last frown, Jameson pointed to the door. “Out, Nichols, and take your bleeding heart with you.”

“I will not,”

Nichols said as he stood. “Someone in this room needs to remember that she does have some rights.”

Fear and rage coiled inside of her, sending her heart racing, but when Claire spoke, her voice was arctic in its chill. “Why are you pushing this so hard? Leave me alone. Leave him alone.”

Jameson smiled coolly in triumph, and even Nichols’s brows rose. “So you do know it.”

He looked over his shoulder at the other agent. “Now who’s to say I told you so?”

“Him, and I never said I didn’t,”

Claire countered as calmly as possible. The anger roused by his objectification of Hugh had thrown her thoughts into chaos, and she had spoken without thought. “You don’t need to do this. He’s not dangerous. Leave him alone.”

“I can’t do that because it… he is dangerous, Mrs. Manning,”

he sneered. “Whether you’d like to admit it or not. He could bring disease into this world that you know nothing about.”

Claire shook her head. “The only disease around here is you, Agent Jameson.”

“Mrs. Manning,”

Nichols cut in, though there was a smile playing at his lips as if he was pleased with her icy retort. “Are you saying that you did assist in the security breach at Mark-Davis?”

“What? No! Of course not!”

Claire said honestly.

“But you lied when you said that you weren’t hiding it from us,”

the INSCOM agent pressed.

“No, I wasn’t,”

Claire insisted, trying to regain the upper hand. God, she was a miserable liar. All this was for naught if she didn’t keep Hugh safe. “There can be one without the other, you know.”

“Where is he, Mrs. Manning?”

Jameson pressed once more.

Claire took a deep breath. “Honestly, Phil, what makes you think I know? He forced me to get him off the campus and he hid in my house for a while, but I left him on the highway between here and Spokane more than a week ago.”

“I don’t believe you, Mrs. Manning,”

Jameson said after studying her shrewdly for a moment, and Claire decided she needed to make a concerted effort to hone her skills at fabrication in the future.

“Mrs. Manning,”

Nichols broke in softly. A classic case of good cop/bad cop, Claire thought. “I do believe you were coerced into helping him escape. I do and Jameson does as well, whether he admits it or not. No one blames you for being strong-armed by a greater power, but you needn’t protect him any longer. Just tell us where he is and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“You’d kill him?”

“No, we could send him home,”

the agent baited the hook with an undeniably potent lure and Claire’s heart skipped a beat. “Do you know what that means? What it really means? You do, don’t you? You want to save him? Give him up to me then, Mrs. Manning, and I promise to get him back where he belongs. To his real home,”

he offered silkily, proving that he was as dangerous as Jameson, perhaps even more so.

But was it possible? Claire mentally reviewed Fielding’s reports. There was nothing in them that evenly remotely hinted that Fielding had overcome that setback and could control the destination of the wormhole. Nichols had to be lying.

But what if he wasn’t? Hugh should have the choice.

But if Nichols was lying … Hugh would be at Jameson’s mercy, and it was obvious to Claire that there wasn’t much of that in the NSA agent. “You can’t do that.”

“I can if you tell me where he is.”

Every fiber of her being urged her to negate the possibility that there was any truth to his words. “No, if you could do that, you would have done so before all this.”

“Are you really going to make that choice for him?”

Indecision held her in its grasp for only a moment. Clearly both these agents would go to any length to find Hugh. Nichols was calm and composed, but Jameson’s eyes were steely with determination, and lying would be only the tip of the iceberg to a man so obsessed. She could not risk Hugh’s safety on the off chance that Nichols’s benevolence would see him home once more. Though she might be condemning Hugh to a bleak future when his own life awaited him in the past, Claire shrugged with forced indifference. “I guess so, since I don’t know where he is now. If there’s nothing else, I think we’re done here.”

“Mrs. Manning, you have to tell us how to find him!”

Jameson cut in once more.

Ignoring him, Claire stood, hitching her purse over her shoulder, and turned to the door, but Jameson caught her wrist. “He’s a killer, brutal, violent, and vicious.”

Claire looked pointedly down at his hand. “I’m sure you would know the type.”

“He is a savage, Mrs. Manning.”

“You truly think that, don’t you? And that’s precisely why you’ll never find him. You couldn’t pick him out of a crowd to save your life.”

They were making the same mistake she once had. Looking for a primitive savage who grunted and pounded on the table for his food. She almost laughed because he had done that once … almost. They would never believe Hugh read Michio Kaku much less understood his work. Not if she swore it on a stack of Bibles.

“God damn it, woman!”

Jameson ground out. “We’ll follow you. We’ll always be a step behind, and eventually you’ll lead us right to him.”

“No, Phil,”

Claire said, unable to fully banish the grief from her voice, knowing that in that one thing there was truth. “I won’t.”

She wrenched open the door and to her surprise, there was Hugh filling the small space. He looked from her to Jameson’s hand on her arm and pierced the agent with a fierce scowl, a low growl rumbling from deep within his chest.

“Who the hell are …”

Jameson began before Hugh’s fist shot out and caught him hard across the jaw. The agent spun, his eyes rolling back in his head as he fell to the ground.