Page 13 of Jacking Jill

“Well, if that does work out, then you’re right,” Nancy said. “Once Robinson is President, he can issue an Executive Order to immediately close the loophole allowing hedge funds like Northrup Capital to use lobbyists to divert taxpayer money to fledgling countries like the Zeta Nation. Which means IMG Corp will just dump the Zeta bonds, and Diego’s cashflow will dry up like a raisin in the sun.”

Benson frowned very seriously. “Isn’t a raisin already a dried grape? Would it get dryer in the sun?”

Nancy tossed a pencil at Benson, who caught it before it marked up his snow-white Brooks Brothers shirt. “Get out,” she giggled, her face reddening to the color of her fiery hair. “Don’t you have a matchmaking mission to manipulate? Who’s next after Ice? Though technically your pattern has already been broken, because neither Hogan nor Ice are real names.”

“Oh, please. You know that a person’s real name is not necessarily the one assigned at birth. Names have power, and you damn well know who’s next,” Benson said with a snort. “Which reminds me.” He slid his Darkwater phone out from his suit pocket, swiped at the screen, tapped a few times, then frowned and stood up abruptly. He strode to the office door, yanked it open, stuck his head out, and yelled for Paige to get her butt in there immediately.

“Is something wrong, Mister Benson?” Anxiety streaked across Paige’s acne-scarred face when she hurried into Nancy’s office and saw Benson standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown crossed over his mouth.

“Many things are wrong,” Benson said gruffly. “First, I told you to call me either John or Benson. Nobody’s called me Mister Benson since my first-grade teacher, and she’s dead now. Of natural causes,” he added with a wink when Paige’s eyes went wide with childlike terror. “I did not murder my first-grade teacher, Paige. I was only six years old, for heaven’s sake.”

“You could have circled back later in life to do the deed,” Nancy pointed out chirpily from behind her desk. “Don’t believe a word he says, Paige. You do know that coyotes are considered trickster-demons in almost every ancient culture, right?”

Paige’s face lit up in a bright smile. Benson saw that she loved Nancy. The two of them had been working together for a couple of months now, ever since Benson stole Paige from the CIA’s technology team. She was the Agency’s star hacker, but after she’d been manipulated and played to perfection by the masterful Rhett Rodgers, Benson knew she needed to be in a place where she could heal those psychic scars, perhaps get stronger at the places where she was broken.

“Got it. John Benson. Coyote who did not murder his first-grade teacher. But just to be safe, do not call him Mister Benson ever again. Got it.” Paige nodded primly. “What else is on the list of things that are wrong, Mister Benson—I mean, John.”

Benson raised a stern eyebrow, then raised his Darkwater phone and held it so Paige could see the screen. “Why do I not have access to Jack Wagner’s Darkwater phone? I should have access to the camera and microphone of every Darkwater phone in our system. Is there a glitch? Some kind of problem with an upgrade? SIM card malfunction? Satellites blown up by aliens? Solar flares affecting the electromagnetic fields surrounding the earth?”

“Um . . . no,” Paige stammered, shooting a wide-eyed look at Nancy. “I . . . I asked Nancy if it was all right. You were still in the hospital, and so I asked Nancy if it was all right.”

Benson turned on his heel towards Nancy, the titanium plate in his reconstructed shin-bone hurting just enough to piss him off. “Asked Nancy if what was all right?”

Paige looked petrified. She pulled nervously at her blonde ponytail, which was already tight enough that it hurt Benson’s scalp just to look at it. “Jack Wagner asked me if there was a way to override that setting in the Darkwater phones,” Paige said in a trembling whisper. “Some kind of hack he could use so nobody could listen in without him allowing it. I said I couldn’t do that without your permission, but you weren’t around and so he asked Nancy, and Nancy said it was all right, and you were in the hospital, and . . . and . . .”

“And nothing,” Benson barked, glaring at Nancy, then looking back at the shivering Paige Anderson. “Fix it, Paige. Now, please. I need eyes and ears on whatever the hell Jack Wagner is up to. Has he picked up his bike from where Diego very politely parked it after stealing it while Jack was shaking off his overexposed dick in a gas-station outhouse?”

“I . . . I’ll get right on it,” Paige said hurriedly. “It might take some time, though. Those phones aren’t easy to hack.”

“Well, clearly you are easy to hack,” Benson grumbled. “You work for me, Paige. Not Nancy. Certainly not Jack fucking Wagner. Where the hell is he, anyway?”

Paige gulped, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. Benson cursed inwardly at his outburst, reminding himself that Paige was still recovering from the burning humiliation of being manipulated by Rhett Rodgers into doing some very bad things. He was about to apologize, but held his tongue when he saw Paige straighten up and shake off his harsh comment about how she was easy to hack.

Good, Benson thought with a secret smile that he hoped Paige couldn’t see. She’s toughening up. She’s going to be stronger than ever soon. She’ll be ready when fate calls her number, when destiny whispers her name.

Keller called Paige’s name from outside now. She glanced at Benson, who grunted and nodded for her to get on with tracking Diego. Benson would catch up with them once he was done with Nancy.

Paige left, and Benson flipped the door shut, making sure it closed hard, just shy of a slam. “That was out of line, Nancy.” He strode back to her desk, placed both fists on the polished pinewood, leaned his broad-shouldered body forward. “You know damn well that I need access to my guys on these missions. Especially when they don’t want me to have access. That’s the entire fucking point. You made a decision that puts every Darkwater man in danger, Nancy. What the hell were you thinking?”

Nancy didn’t flinch even as Benson’s shadow loomed over her. She met his forcefully intimidating posture with a sharp gaze that Benson thought was new, like perhaps all those years together had taught Nancy more about the Darkwater way than Benson had realized.

“Firstly, it’s only Jack’s phone,” Nancy informed him. “And it’s partly your fault Jack was so insistent. Apparently, you humiliated his big brother Ice with your phone-eavesdropping during the last mission.”

“Ice humiliated himself by getting hog-tied by a woman half his size.” Benson fumed for a bit longer, then took his fists off Nancy’s desk and sighed. “Well, it’s done now so there’s no point in throwing a tantrum. Paige will fix it soon enough. She’s damn good.”

Nancy nodded. “She’s amazing. Whip-smart, and she’s toughening up. You see the way she shook off your rude comment about how she was easy to hack?”

Benson grunted in approval, sat down heavily in the chair across from Nancy’s desk, took a moment to gather his thoughts.

It didn’t take long for those thoughts to circle back to Darkwater’s number one priority at the moment.

Diego Vargas.

“I’m surprised he’s still in the country,” Benson said. “Diego’s smart enough to know that the Senator is out of his reach now. With the Secret Service involved, Diego can’t pull off an assassination without getting caught or killed. And he’s not the suicidal type.” Benson smiled, his eyes shining as his mind flicked back to Mercy and Cari, the mother-and-child hostages the CIA had rescued from Rhett Rodgers’ basement after the Ice-and-Indy mission. “Especially now that he’s got something to live for.”

Nancy frowned. “You think Diego stayed in the country because of Mercy and Cari? Is that why you’ve got Cody, Edge, and Dogg doing round-the-clock surveillance on her convenience store in Baltimore? You expect him to show up there?”

Benson shook his head. “I do not expect him to show up there again. He knows we’ll be staking it out for months, if not years.” He took a breath, exhaled slowly. “But they matter to him. Diego compromised his entire Zeta-Nation mission to save their lives after Rhett took them hostage to blackmail him into killing Kaiser and me. Diego should have walked away from Mercy and Cari, let Rhett kill them—hell, Diego would have known that a snake like Rhett would never have let them go anyway, even if Diego fulfilled his end of the bargain.” Benson smiled. “You see how Darkwater pulls all the players into its vortex, Nancy? You think a cold-hearted bastard like Diego Vargas would ever make a decision like that before he got mixed up with Darkwater?”

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