Page 89 of Vaquero
Chapter Thirty-Six
“She’s what?” Julio asked, choking at how terribly wrong this interview had gone. He couldn’t believe his ears. After he’d hit Fort Campbell just long enough to connect with an outgoing helo bound for Washington, DC, he’d landed at Reagan National Airport. There FBI agents hustled him and the two Dolls across the Potomac River to FBI Headquarters. Now he was seated in a posh interview room that didn’t include two-way mirrors, or a metal table with posts for cuffs and shackles. Or the alleged murderer, Doctor Barbara Hazelton.
“You heard right,” Senator Sullivan said. Seated across from him on a similar white leather couch, McQueen looked like he hadn’t slept any more than Julio had.
“She tried to kill Hotrod, sir,” Julio asserted, the flaming injustice of this latest twist beyond his comprehension.
“Not so. She knows how to fly that Blackhawk,” FBI Agent in Charge, Stan Millard stated. “She’s certified and she would’ve landed it safely and escaped once you two were neutralized. You’re the one who put Hotrod in danger.” His head rotated from Julio to McQueen. “Speaking of your buddy, where is he?”
Julio didn’t wait for Sullivan to answer. “You tell me,” he replied, returning stare for stare, but damned sure not going to out his brother. “You’re the one running double-agents, not us.”
“Professional courtesy, Millard,” McQueen bit out. “We wouldn’t be here today if you’d been straight with me the first time I called.”
“What the fuck were you doing sending men into Minas Gerais?” Millard snapped.
McQueen’s palms hit his knees as he lifted to his feet, walked to Millard’s desk, and looked down at the agent. “You need to remember who you’re talking to, Agent Millard” —McQueen didn’t even bat an eye— “Where is Director Strong this morning? Get him in here.”
Millard had the grace to blink in the face of a true predator with actual political power at his fingertips. “My apologies, sir. Yes. Yes, of course.” He straightened some things on his polished oak desk. Things Julio couldn’t see beyond Millard’s flamboyantly large nameplate. Things that probably didn’t amount to a hill of beans, but made him look and feel important. “You have to understand, Senator. This operation has been three years in the making. Until this avoidable mistake” —he shot an accusing glare at Julio— “the Bureau had everything under control.”
McQueen crossed his arms in that quintessential I-don’t-give-a-shit stance that he did so well. “No you didn’t, not if it unraveled this quickly. I’m done speaking to you, son. Get Zachary in here. Now.”
Millard’s eyes shifted to the door, but he was smart enough to say, “Yes, sir.”
Not everyone could command the director of a federal agency. But Sullivan could.
Jumping to his feet, Millard still had to crane his neck to look up at the senator when he scurried out of the office. But there was small comfort in that show of submission. Doctor Hazelton, who Julio had just been told was an FBI double-agent working inside the United Kingdom for the United States government, was still going free, along with her Matryoshka Doll girlfriend. As usual, the man with boots on the ground was the last to know.
It took thirty long minutes before Director Strong cracked the door open. At least as tall as Sullivan, and just as silver-haired, he wasn’t alone. No. That would’ve been too easy. A bedraggled Barbara Hazelton, wearing shackles, cuffs, and an orange jumpsuit, shuffled in at his side.
“Senator,” Strong said with a curt nod at Sullivan as he shut and locked the door behind him. “Agent Juarez. Good to see you again. What’s it been, two years?”
“Twenty-one months, sir,” Julio replied as he nodded back at one of the most powerful men in America. Twenty-one months since he’d rescued his wife and son. Eighteen months since Bianca walked into the sea. Eleven months since Tomas passed away in his sleep. In Julio’s arms. Foolish anniversaries to remember. Harder ones to forget.
Director Strong had sent an operator into Brazil to assist Julio the day he’d gone into Domingo Zapata’s lair to retrieve Bianca and Tomas. Agent Persia Coltrane, one damned brave woman and a fine undercover operator. She’d already been working inside Zapata’s small circle of guerillas. She’d set the fire that had caused enough distraction and allowed Julio to get his family out of Zapata’s bunkers.
“My apologies for what you’ve been through, Julio. Perhaps this will help.” Zachary Strong directed Hazelton to the wooden chair alongside Millard’s desk. Dropping to one knee, he undid her shackles first, then her cuffs. “Anything I can get you, ma’am? A good stiff drink? Coffee?”
Once freed, she rolled her shoulders, then eased back into the chair with a sigh. Interestingly, the woman sported bruised and bloodied knuckles, a black eye, and a fat, shiny lip. She looked like she’d been in one hell of a fistfight since Julio had last seen her. “Thanks, Zachary. A glass of water would be nice. Sure feels good to be out of that cell and away from that bitch,” she said in her perfect British accent.
“You bet,” he replied as he filched a bottled water from Millard’s private refrigerator behind his office door and handed it to her. “These gentlemen deserve the truth, Eva. Tell them.”
Hazelton graciously accepted the bottle, uncapped it, and took a long swallow before she shook her hair over her shoulders and turned back into the savvy woman Julio knew. “Yes, I suppose they do. But this stays between you fellows and me. Understand?”
“They’ve both got more clearance than you,” Strong muttered. “Just tell them.”
That seemed to surprise her. “Senator Sullivan. Agent Juarez.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I misled you, but I am the best nuclear engineer in the world. Unfortunately, I’m also a double-agent working for Director Strong inside the Matryoshka Dolls. My real name is Eva Bell.”
“That’s why the black eye and bruises,” Julio said. “You had to keep your cover.”
Her bloody cracked lips pursed before she winced and rubbed a fingertip lightly over them. That shine had to be antiseptic salve. “Ouch. Yes. The other Doll you captured is Anastasia Zoytova, and the second she came to, she accused me of betraying her. It became necessary to prove my worth. Inside the Dolls, that means you fight to the death. Unfortunately, your men” —she sent a withering glare at Director Strong— “stopped me before I could strangle her. Now that she’s still alive, she’ll accuse me again. She’s got more clout than me. You do realize there’ll be repercussions, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Which you’ll have no trouble overcoming.”
“Damned straight,” she bit out as the back of her knuckles came up to her tender lips like a prizefighter’s.
“Quit stalling,” Strong urged.
Eva tipped forward, her battered fingers clenched between her knees. “It’s like this. My parents migrated from Russia to England when I was just a little girl. I have no recollection that far back, but I do know they were then, and still are, Russian spies. They were sent to create an alibi and a sleeper cell. I was their first agent. By the time I turned seven, I knew how to kill an adult male with drugs, razors, wires, knives, and a multitude of pharmaceutical products. Not that I had actually done it, but I’d watched enough training films, and I’d practiced. I was capable. I also knew how to plant explosives. Easy for me, because who would’ve suspected a child? Especially an adorable, blond, little waif with a proper British accent and bright blue eyes?”
