“No, ma’am. I’ve never been much of a penny-pincher.”
She sipped a Coke. He’d had to find her a glass and ice. She was pretty and she looked delicate, but Ethan wasn’t misled. Dr. O’Farrell wasn’t anyone he’d want to cross.
She’d rescheduled their morning meeting until after lunch, compelling him to spring for a second night in D.C., unless he’d wanted to check out and meet her in a public place or go to her office. And he didn’t.
“I knew you’d make it out of Colombia alive,” she said.
He wondered if she’d ever been out of the country. Paris, maybe. London. Montreal. He let his eyes connect with hers. “Did you?”
Something about his look must have bothered her, because she glanced away and quickly set her Coke on the cocktail table. “Have you told me everything that happened with Tatro and his henchmen?”
Henchmen. Ethan couldn’t remember someone ever using that word in a high-level meeting. Any meeting. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You can call me Mia.” She smiled tentatively. “It’s fine.”
He didn’t respond. After today, he hoped never to have to see her again. Not that he disliked her or there was anything wrong with her particularly. He just didn’t want to stay in the same orbit as the Mia O’Farrells of the world.
“Bobby Tatro was the ringleader?” she asked.
Her language reminded Ethan of old westerns. Yet he didn’t know many people more tapped into the real world than Mia was. She wasn’t naive—she just seemed that way. A tactic, maybe. A habit. He didn’t know if she was an ideologue or a nut or a pragmatist, or simply an intelligent woman navigating her way through a tough town and a hard job, just trying to do the right thing. Ethan didn’t know if he could trust her. But none of that mattered anymore. He was done. He was going home, even if he didn’t know where that was.
“It was my job to get Ham Carhill safely out of Colombia. Nobody asked me to sort out the players.”
O’Farrell frowned so deeply her eyes shut. “There are still a lot of unanswered questions.”
“I don’t see how that’s my problem.”
Actually, he did see how it was his problem. After finding the picture of Juliet in Tatro’s hut, Ethan had known he wouldn’t just be flying home to Texas and leaving all the unanswered questions about Mia O’Farrell and who had her ear behind him.
But he could pretend, at least for now.
She sat back on the elegant sofa, turning her frown on him. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Major Brooker? That’s why you’re here. Because of the unanswered questions.”
So much for pretending, he thought. He just shrugged at her without comment.
“How did Bobby Tatro choose Ham Carhill as his victim? How did he find him? How did he pull off such a complicated operation so soon after his release from federal prison? We can start with those questions. You think I have the answers. I don’t.”
“Who tipped Tatro off we were on our way?” Ethan fired back. “That’s another good question.”
Mia’s frown deepened. “You say that as if you think I did.”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“No.” She inhaled through her nose. “No, I didn’t. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that he wasn’t there—”
“It wasn’t a coincidence.”
Ethan glanced around his tastefully decorated suite. He was more suited to a desert foxhole or a HALO jump into the middle of nowhere—swatting mosquitoes in Colombia as he’d done just three days ago. Washington wasn’t his world. Neither was his fancy hotel. But he’d showered, shaved, had a good breakfast and lunch. He could check out now and walk away, not sit here and play games with a presidential adviser who wasn’t telling him everything she knew about Bobby Tatro, Ham Carhill and what had gone down in Colombia over the past few weeks. Not even close. And whatever she was holding back had her scared.
He hadn’t told her about the photograph of Juliet he’d found in Tatro’s hut. If he was wrong about Mia O’Farrell and she wasn’t just in over her head—if she was a snake—then she didn’t need to know any more details than what he’d given her.
“You and Deputy Longstreet have had your names in the papers a couple times this year,” Mia said. “It’s possible someone saw the stories and made the connection between you and Ham because of them.”
“I was more or less a footnote,” Ethan said.