Page 45 of Embedded
“You guys got your mark, but I potentially lost my eyes and ears out there. A lot of work and time goes into these things. You must know that,” Glen said. The guy had no idea how close he was to having his throat ripped out. The fact that he even had the balls to try to explain himself astounded me. Nicole looked at my expression then at Cole’s, then turned to Glen.
“Glen, if you want to live to see another day, I’d suggest you shut the fuck up.” His eyes bugged out at her words, but he did close his mouth.
I saw Cole shoot Frank a look. Then he turned to Nicole. “Smart of you to wear your camera.” I could see the wheels turned in his head, and my own were at full speed. “Glen, where does this leave you? How do you see your and Nicole’s working relationship from this point?”
I was stunned. What kind of a question was that?
“I thought for sure I was fired,” Nicole held his gaze, “but then?—”
“I think we can do damage control,” Glen cut her off, “get Nicole back in the field. There’s a direction we can go where I think we can expose something within the next six months.”
“What the hell?” My blood boiled; he was crazy! “There’s no fixing this. Plus, Bruno knows she was working for us. If Nicole goes back, she’ll be as good as dead.”
“Given the level of intel, it outweighs the risks.” The bastard. I jumped to my feet, unsure I could control my actions at that point. Cole stood and kept himself between us. Glen looked at Nicole. “She thinks there’s a chance. You didn’t say no. Did you?”
“What? How could you ever consider this?” She really was reckless and crazy and…
“Because Glen knows what I know.” Nicole bit her lip as the tension in the room grew.
“All right, all right.” General Bruce banged on the table then held up his hand. “We can play ‘who knows what and who goes where’ later. But I will not have a brawl in my office this morning. So, with all that’s come out, Ms. Winter, it goes without saying that you’ve been compromised. You’ll certainly not be returning to Mexico as a US war correspondent. What you do with the DEA is up to you.”
“I understand, sir, but I think that might be a mistake.” Nicole set her bag on the table. “I have some serious intel that?—”
“Do you have more intel than what you gave me?” Glen dared to speak again.
“Glen,” she sighed heavily, “I have more information than you can even imagine.”
He stepped toward her then, and I made my move, but this time Frank grabbed my shoulder.
“Enough!” General Bruce’s phone rang, and he ripped it from his pocket and murmured into it. “Shit,” he growled. He shot Nicole an unimpressed look. “All right, everyone out but Ms. Winter and Agent Glen.”
“Nicole.” I stood and made a move toward her, but Frank stepped in my way.
“Paul,” he held up a file, “we need to talk, now.”
I watched as she tucked her GoPro camera away in her bag, avoiding eye contact with the rest of us. “Can it wait?”
“No, Paul, it can’t.”
NINE
BRUNO
“You have time to look over the menu, sugar?” The waitress stood there in her stained uniform with a finger pressed into a pancake she was about to serve and grinned down at me. Her voice had a thick southern accent.
“Coffee. Black.”
“Sure thing, just let me drop this off and I’ll grab that for you.”
I pretended to glance at the menu as I sat in a booth well back from the entrance. My eyes were on the door, and I wondered when she’d show. She was supposed to meet her father here, like she always did the last Monday of every month. Sadly for her, he wouldn’t be making an appearance. I knew he would be dealing with a flat tire and a dead engine.
“Your coffee, honey.” The woman plopped down the thick brew in an old white mug that looked to have been around since the early 1950s. “Cream?”
“No.”
“Sugar?”
“No.”
