Page 34 of A More Perfect Union

“Lucky you,” he said,his voice dripping with sarcasm.

She waited, thinkinghe would say more, but he clammed up. She had more questions to ask, but heprobably wasn’t going to respond truthfully, so she chose the most importantone, the one she’d been dreading. “Has your father ever used the services ofthe Darcy Agency?”

She heard Dixonstifle a gasp, but Rook’s face, to her credit, didn’t change from her neutral,I’m just soaking all this in, expression. Bloomfield, on the other hand, stoodso fast, he sent his chair crashing to the ground.

“I hope you enjoyedthis little outing, Major, because it’s going to be your last,” he said.

“Maybe so, but atleast I’ll have done my duty.”

Donny shook his head,made a show of saluting Dixon, and marched out of the room. Zoey looked down atthe table. Her knuckles were white from gripping the side, and she took a fewlong, slow breaths to calm down. Her role as a ball-buster was a completefacade, and once General Bloomfield heard from his son, she was probably goingto be reassigned to a post in the middle of nowhere for the rest of her career,assuming she still had one.

“Well, that wentwell,” Rook said, breaking the silence.

“I should go talk tohim,” Dixon said, staring longingly at the door.

Zoey snapped toattention. “You’ll do no such thing.” She could tell Dixon was practicallyfoaming at the mouth to corner Donny and commiserate about her tactics in aploy to find a way to suck up to Bloomfield Senior and undermine her command.“We’ll talk to him again, but not today. He’s a hothead and needs to calm downbefore we get any decent information out of him.”

“I agree,” Rook said.“Besides, there are other ways to get the information we need.” Before Zoeycould press her on the point, she changed the subject. “Anyone else here weneed to talk to?”

Dixon shuffledthrough his file. “Colonel Mitchell is on the list. He wasn’t there that night,but his name was on the list of possible ‘clients.’ He’s a professor in the,get this, Information and Cyberspace department. We asked him to come byyesterday, but he wasn’t available. Maybe he’s on campus today.”

Zoey picked up herphone and dialed the provost to ask if Mitchell was available. She probablyshould’ve mentioned he’d come by her office yesterday and chewed her out, butshe’d written it off to posturing on his part and forgotten about it until now.She’d wanted to wait until Louden got back with her about Mitchell’s filebefore pursuing an interview with him again, but Dixon was right, they may aswell see if he was around while they were here.

The provost was inmeetings off campus for the rest of the afternoon, but his secretary said shewould take a message and have him call her tomorrow. Deciding they could waitone more day before poking the beast, Zoey told her that would be fine.“Mitchell’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. I guess it’s time to startworking through the rest of the names on the list. Shall we head back to theoffice?”

“Actually,” Rooksaid, “I’m supposed to meet with Ms. Scott to update her about our progress andI’m sure she’ll want to hear from you directly. Perhaps Major Dixon could pullthe files we need, and we could start in on the rest of the list tomorrow?”

Zoey looked at Dixonwho was shaking his head no, which only made her want to do the opposite.Telling herself she was only agreeing to Rook’s plan to irritate Dixon, shesaid, “That sounds like a great plan. Major, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Withoutwaiting for a response, she followed Rook from the room, full of renewed energyat the prospect of spending the rest of the day with her.

* * *

Rook held the door tothe car open and waved Zoey in, happy she’d managed to wrangle her away fromthe annoying presence of Major Douchebag. Clearly, Zoey found Dixon as annoyingas she did, and she’d admired the way Zoey had put him in his place. While Zoeymight feel it was her duty to put up with another afternoon being in a roomwith Dixon, Rook had no such allegiance and no one could pay her enough tosuffer his presence any longer today. As she settled into the car, George askedwhere they were headed next. Shooting a look of contrition at Zoey, she gavehim an address in Maryland.

“We’re not meetingMs. Scott at the White House?” Zoey asked.

“Please don’t callher Ms. Scott. She’ll get a big head. And actually, we’re not meeting Julia atall. Not today, anyway.”

Zoey’s brow furrowed.“Any chance you want to tell me where we’re going?”

“We’re taking a fieldtrip to the offices of the Lorraine Darcy Agency. I thought it might be fun todrop in and see what kind of women make otherwise upstanding officers act likefools.” She paused and stared at Zoey’s expression. “You look mad. Are youmad?”

“Mad is not the word.I guess I’m not sure why you felt compelled to lie.”

“It wasn’t a lie somuch as a cover, a way to get you away from Major Marshall Dixon, who I’mhoping you find as annoying as I do.”

“Trust me, he’s notmy favorite person by any means, but what if he asks me later about the meetingat the White House in front of General Sharp or Bloomfield?”

“He won’t. Guys likehim—all that promise and nothing to show for it—don’t like feeling inferior andthere’s no way he’ll draw attention to the fact you were called to the WhiteHouse and he was left behind.”

“How do you know somuch about him?”

Rook spent a momentconsidering how much to share. She’d had Eric dig into Dixon’s background forno other reason than she wanted to know more about the people she was workingwith, but Zoey was likely to take offense at the intrusion. What she’d foundhadn’t been all that interesting. Dixon had graduated from West Point andserved his required five years of active duty at Fort Irvine and Fort Polk,respectively. A West Point graduate relegated to two of the most despised postsin the service likely meant he’d always been as much of a douche as he was now.He’d started working at the Pentagon a year ago, and Eric hadn’t been able tofind anything about why or how he’d gotten the reassignment. “Remember what Isaid about other ways to get information? Well, I did a little research. I liketo know who I’m working with.”

“And what about me?Did you do a little research about me too?”

Rook swore shedetected a hint of flirtation in Zoey’s voice, but she wasn’t sure she couldtrust her reactions where Zoey was concerned. She tested the waters with somemild flirtation of her own. “Maybe,” she said with a grin. “Is there somethingspecial you’d like me to know?”

“Where is this placewe’re going?”

---