Close Quarters

THIRTY-SIX

Lindsay Citera was leaving the washroom in the Operations Centre when she heard a vaguely familiar voice drifting along the corridor. For a moment she couldn’t place it, but she guessed it must be coming from close by her comms room. Callahan had arranged for a sit-in replacement for regular breaks, and she had left a fellow trainee named Matt to hold the phone while she was out for a comfort break. But if somebody was down here she needed to be back at her desk.

She smoothed her fingers across her eyes and picked up her pace. It had been a while since she’d last spoken to Watchman, and she’d been staring at the monitors ever since as if that alone would get him to call again with news. Not that she was hanging on his every word, but she could barely even guess at the stress he must be under. At least being able to exchange information with him, however insignificant it might be, was better than sitting here with nothing to do.

As she was learning fast, being comms support for a live operation wasn’t the all-action, breathtaking activity she and most of her trainee colleagues had imagined. Forget everything you saw in films, with lots of shouting for more intel, location of target groups and calls for backup; most of it involved a great deal of waiting, with brief periods of feverish note-taking and background research work when the calls came in.

As she rounded the corner, the identity of the voice’s owner suddenly came back to her, along with a tang of his cologne, and she felt a sense of panic. Benson. Why was he back here? Christ, she’d only been away from her desk five minutes, max.

She entered the room to find the senator leaning over Matt’s shoulder while the younger man explained the workings of the various screens. One was a satellite display showing a detailed layout of the Ukraine countryside near Pavlohrad, with an overlay of local conditions such as traffic movements, weather and, recently added by a National Security Agency feed, a colour schematic of reported troop movements in the area, both government and separatist forces. On the next screen was a detailed log of Lindsay’s last conversation with Watchman, with a timeline trace of his route from Donetsk and a computer-generated transcript of his report. This included the confrontation with the troops in Donetsk and his escape with Travis.

‘Sir?’ She stepped inside the room, easing past Benson’s bulky form, and reached across to shut down the report screen. As she did so, she gripped Matt’s shoulder angrily, digging her nails in, and threw him a murderous look as he looked up and took off his headset. She’d expressly told him to leave the screens in sleep mode, so that there was no danger of them being seen by anyone unauthorized.

‘It’s all right, young lady — Lindsay, isn’t it?’ Benson waved a casual hand and stepped away. ‘I remember how conscientious you are. Nothing seen, nothing remembered. I have Assistant Director Sewell’s authority to be down here.’ He smiled in a self-important way, trailing his eyes over her chest before nodding at Matt. ‘Your young colleague here didn’t let anything slip, I promise. It was actually you I wanted to speak to.’

‘Me?’ Lindsay looked at him and felt the cold knot of apprehension in her stomach. What on earth could this man want to ask her? She glanced around hoping Brian Callahan would come to help her, but he was nowhere in sight.

Benson misinterpreted her reaction and gestured towards the corridor. ‘Good idea. Perhaps we could find a seat somewhere quiet. I’m sure Matt, here, wouldn’t mind staying on for a few minutes to hold the fort?’ He glanced at Matt for confirmation, patting him on the shoulder like a favoured nephew.

‘Of course, sir. No problem.’ Matt flushed under the senator’s touch and Lindsay was pleased to see that he looked ready to squirm. Serves him right for being such a suck-up, she thought.

‘Good, good. I need your take on life here as a new recruit and trainee, Lindsay, and what your hopes and aspirations in the organization might be.’ He led the way along the corridor to a room with a water cooler, and they took seats. He brushed at an imaginary speck on his sleeve and added, ‘You’d be helping me enormously for a report I’m preparing for an upcoming Senate Select Committee.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘It would be of great value, believe me.’

‘Fine, sir. How can I help?’

‘Well, first of all, why not tell me about your family. You have a sister, I believe? Karen, is it?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’ Lindsay felt the knot loosen a fraction. Maybe this was nothing more than what he’d said: information for a report and background data about staff. Human resources stuff.

She looked down at her feet while gathering her thoughts. Talking about Karen wouldn’t take long, and was easy to explain. She was a headstrong kid who’d got in with the wrong kind of people. But hopefully that was now heading the right way. She just hoped Benson wasn’t going to ask about Tommy; that was something she preferred not to go into. It was all on her file, but Tommy had screwed up in so many ways it was hard to know where to start, especially telling it to a stranger. She felt disloyal at the very thought, but there was no hiding the fact that Tommy had brought most of it on himself and seemed not to care about the effects on the rest of the family.

She looked up and saw Benson was smiling almost patronisingly. At that moment it suddenly hit her that he knew Karen’s name. But how could he? She felt the knot harden again. Did this mean he’d been given access to her personnel file?

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Karen. What does she do for a living?’