Above All, Honor

Chapter Six

"Are you awake?"

"Did you get what I need?"

"More or less. I don't think this is going to make you very happy."

Normani sighed as she pulled her robe around herself and stumbled towards the kitchen and her first cup of coffee. "Tell me."

"She's not going to be easy to slip away from. Twelve years in the investigative division. Her specialty was tracking Colombian drugs paid for by counterfeit US dollars. Crooks scamming crooks. Apparently, she was very good at it."

Normani watched the coffee drip into the pot, her thoughts swiftly calculating. "Why is she suddenly assigned to protection? What aren't you telling me?"

"There are substantial holes in the information on her. As a matter of record, she was involved in a multi-jurisdictional snafu last year. The Secret Service had surveillance units watching a drug factory on the outskirts of DC. Apparently, the ATF was involved because they thought the same guys were trafficking guns as well as phony money. Unbeknownst to either Federal agency, the DC narcotics unit had an agent under cover with the drug boys. Somehow, the Colombians got wind of it, the narcotics detective's cover was blown, and she was killed in a shootout. Agent Pete was shot trying to warn her off seconds before the whole place went crazy."

Normani's stomach tightened. "She was shot?"

"In the thigh. That's not the whole story, though."

"What is?"

Her caller hesitated. Even friendship had its limits.

"Pete has a sterling reputation, Normani."

"I don't intend to sully it," the First Daughter snapped.

"There are rumors– not many, and no one will commit to knowing anything for sure, but I got something. She's well liked by her colleagues–"

"Alright, I get your point," Normani interrupted. "You don't want to tell me, but you will. Because if you don't, I'll make sure you're never an Assistant Director."

"Normani!"

"I'm kidding, and you should know that if you don't after all these years. Tell me who she is, Blair. She's got control over my life."

"Donna's sources say the woman who was killed was her lover."

"Christ," Normani breathed after a short pause.

"That may explain the change in assignments. A thing like that can ruin you for field work."

Normani pictured the clear-eyed, focused woman who had tracked her down at the bar with seeming ease two nights before. None of the other agents had ever been able to find her once she'd slipped into the shadows. Or at least none had ever dared to.

"I don't think she's ruined for anything, B. She's ice."

"That would fit."

"What do you mean?"

"There's one other rumor, buried so deep I'm not even sure it's her they're talking about."

Normani sat on the edge of the stool at her breakfast bar, her coffee forgotten. "What is it?"

"You've heard of the very hush-hush escort service that operates on the hill?"

"You mean the one that provides all kinds of companions– boys, girls, either or both for senators, dignitaries, and supposedly... my father?"

"I don't know a thing about your father!"

"It doesn't matter one way or the other to me. He leaves me alone, that's all I care about. What's this got to do with Pete? Is she trying to shut it down, or what?"