“Flattery will get you another slice of pie.”
He chuckled. “No more tonight. I’m fine.”
“Are you ever going to take a vacation?” she asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “I’ve already arranged to have Christmas Eve off.”
She glared at him. “A vacation is longer than one night long.”
He frowned. “It is? Are you sure?”
“There’s more to life than just work.”
“I’ll think about that, when I have time.”
“Have you watched the news today?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“They had a special report about violence on the border. It seems that the remaining Fuentes brother sent an armed party over the border to escort a drug shipment and there was a shootout with some border agents.”
He grimaced. “An ongoing problem. Nobody knows how to solve it. Bottom line, if people want drugs, somebody’s going to supply them. You stop the demand, you stop the supply.”
“Good luck with that” She laughed hollowly. “Never going to happen.”
“I totally agree.”
“Anyway, they mentioned in passing that one of the captured drug runners said that General Emilio Machado was recruiting men for an armed invasion of his former country.”
“The Mexican Government, we hear, is not pleased with that development and they’re angry at our government because they think we aren’t doing enough to stop it.”
“Really?” she exclaimed. “What else do you know?”
“Not much, but you can’t repeat anything I tell you,” he added.
She grinned. “You know I’m as silent as a clam. Come on. Talk.”
“Apparently, the State Department sent people into our office,” he replied. “We know they talked to our lieutenant, but we don’t know what about.”
“State Department!”
“They do have their fingers on the pulse of foreign governments,” Rick reminded her. “If anybody knows what’s really going on, they do.”
“I would have thought one of those other government agencies would have been more involved, especially if the general’s trying to recruit Americans for a foreign military action,” she pondered.
His eyebrows arched.
“Well, it seems logical, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Actually, it does,” he agreed. “I know the FBI and the CIA have counterterrorism units that infiltrate groups like that.”
“Yes, and some of them die doing it,” Barbara recalled. She grimaced. “They say undercover officers in any organization face the highest risks.”
“The military also has counterterrorism units,” he replied. He sipped his cooling coffee. “That must be an interesting sort of job.”
“Dangerous.”
He smiled. “Of course. But patriotic in the extreme, especially when it comes to foreign operatives trying to undermine democratic interests.”
“Doesn’t the general’s former country have great deposits of oil and natural gas?” she wondered aloud.
“So we hear. It’s also in a very strategic location, and the general leans toward capitalism rather than socialism or communism. He’s friendly toward the United States.”
“A point in his favor. Gracie Pendleton says he sings like an angel,” she added with a smile.
“I heard.”
“Yes, we had that discussion earlier.” She was also remembering another discussion over the phone and her face saddened.
He reached across the table and caught her hand in his. “I really am sorry, Mom,” he said gently. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually like that.”
“No, you’re not.” She hesitated. She wanted to remark that it wasn’t until she asked about the lieutenant giving Gwen a rose that he’d gone ballistic. But in the interests of diplomacy, it was probably wiser to say nothing. She smiled. “How about I warm up that coffee?” she asked instead.
Gwen answered the phone absently, her mind still on the previews of next week’s episode of her favorite science fiction show.
“Yes?” she murmured, the hated glasses perched on her nose so that she could actually see the screen of her television.
“Cassaway, anything to report?”
She sat up straighter. “Sir!”
“No need to get uptight. I’m just checking in. The wife and I are on our way to a party, but I wanted to make sure things are progressing well.”
“They’re going very slowly, sir,” she said, curling up in her bare feet and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt on her sofa. “I’m sorry, I haven’t found a diplomatic way to get him talking about the subject and find out what he knows. He doesn’t like me.…?”
“I find that hard to believe, Cassaway. You’re a good kid.”
She winced at the description.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Good woman. I try to be PC, you know, but I come from a different generation. Hard for us old-timers to work well in the new world.”
She laughed. “You do fine, sir.”
“I know this is a tough assignment,” he replied. “But I still think you’re the best person for the job. You have a way with people.”
“Maybe another type of woman would have been a better choice,” she began delicately, “maybe someone more open to flirting, and other things …”
“With Marquez? Are you kidding? The guy wrote the book on staunch outlooks! He’d be turned off immediately.”
