All That Mattered, Ch. 14

Amanda wrung out the washcloth and pretended not to notice that Lee was pretending not to watch her. She shook her head ruefully. This wasn’t the time or the place for pride.

“It’s not about that,” he said. “It’s about being able to take care of myself. What if you’re out on a case somewhere?”

She should have known.

“It looks like these scabs are getting ready to fall off,” she told him instead. “Monica said that would be a good sign. You’ll probably be able to start wearing the stump sock the next time you visit her.”

“Amanda. You’re not answering the question.”

“I didn’t hear one being asked.”

He closed his eyes. “Damn it.”

“Still not a question.” She brought the washcloth back up.

He surged forward to take it from her. “I need to do this.”

“Lee.”

“The whole point of you cleaning it was that I wasn’t keeping the edges clean enough. You just said yourself that they’ve sealed up. This is where I need to take it back over.”

Deciding not to try and snatch the washcloth back, she picked up the bottle of peppermint oil, poured a capful into one hand, and then used the other to scoop lotion from the jar next to the oil. “Maybe I like being able to take care of my husband sometimes.”

“Oh, come on.” He took a deep breath, perhaps in response to the smell as she combined the peppermint oil and lotion. “I don’t need you to baby me.”

“Good. Because I’m not.” Tapping his other leg, she signaled for him to bring that foot up into her lap as well. “This is about me trying to help you feel better.” Since he was clearly intent on cleaning the incision himself, she started with his good foot, gently massaging the lotion into the arch.

Lee leaned back and closed his eyes. “That feels nice.”

“And that is the point,” she told him. “Sweetheart, I know you can clean the incision now. But it’s…” she trailed off, trying to find words as she kept working over his skin. “It helps me feel closer to you,” she admitted, almost annoyed at having to say it out loud.

Now his eyebrows went up. “Cleaning my feet makes you feel closer to me?”

She laughed. “I’m not ready to give up an excuse for peppermint. And if you’re going to finish with the incision, you should finish. Maybe then I’ll let you use the peppermint oil.”

“Oh?” he asked, but he, too, was beginning to laugh. “And what exactly did you have in mind, Mrs. Stetson? Or should I be asking ‘where’?”

“Wouldn’t you —”

Footsteps thundered down the stairway. “Mom? Have you seen my history book?”

Lee shook his head. “It’s right where you left it, Jamie. On the kitchen table with the rest of your things. Haven’t we already had this discussion?”

Jamie appeared at the bottom of the steps, giving them a look only a thirteen-year-old could manage. “What, about taking my books upstairs? Why should I, if I don’t need them to do my homework?”

“You’re the one who just asked about a school book,” Amanda pointed out.

“Yeah. Because I wanted to look something up. Christy’s on the phone and keeps telling me the Silk Road was just about trade. Maybe it was, but I think the Mongols knew it was about ideas too. Because otherwise why did they have stuff like that whole mail system?”

“You’re both right,” said Lee. “But go get your book and prove it to your girl.”

“My girl?” Jamie scoffed as he headed into the kitchen, returning quickly with the book. “She’s not my girl. She’s just a girl.”

“Uh-huh. Upstairs.”

Jamie mumbled something on the way, but it was too low for either one of them to catch it. Lee grinned after him.

“Finish your incision,” said Amanda, although she was smiling too. “There’s no point skipping steps since you’d just have to go back and redo the whole thing.”

“Really? Since when haven’t I skipped steps?”

“Since you married me,” she answered. “You just said it to Jamie. Foreplay can be verbal. It also,” she continued, “requires patience.”

“Foreplay? Is that what this is?”

Now Amanda was laughing. “Isn’t it?”

---

“Isn’t it time to move on from those stills?” Zeta set a cup of coffee beside Douglas’ elbow. “I thought we’d already figured out as much as we could.”

“Good morning to you as well, my dear.”

She blushed. “Good morning, sir. Those are the stills that I had Scotty pull off his B-roll for me.”

“They are.” He indicated the report that was also on his desk. “And you’ve done a fantastic analysis of their content and context. I’m looking for patterns. I’m also not interested in hearing you call me ‘sir’ again. I’m not that old.”

Douglas noted her belated double take, and her decision to cover it with a sip of her own coffee, with quiet approval. He’d been right in his recommendations to Melrose. She was sharp. Observant. Sensible enough not to immediately blurt something out when she realized it. Still a bit green, yes, but that was quickly fading.

“What kind of patterns are you looking for?” she asked now, after she finished the sip.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. “To be honest, I’m impressed that you spotted Stone at all in these shots. It takes a sharp eye to do that.”

She flushed again, but held steady. “Thank you. I had help.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, Miss Zeta. There’ll come a time when it’s needed.” He turned back to the pictures and indicated the pair of dividers he was holding. “Right now, I’m looking at the light and the angles. Trying to see if there’s any pattern to the time of day when he appears.”

“But the photos are time-stamped.”

“It never hurts to double-check.” He pointed at one picture, taken in the 16th arrondissement. “This one is time-stamped for 13:23. But you’ll notice the next one is for 13:25, even though the light comes from a completely different direction.”

“They’re on different days,” she countered. “He’s wearing different clothing.”

“There wouldn’t be a four-degree difference in the angle across two consecutive days.” He tapped the dividers against his desk. “These are two slightly different camera angles. Not enough to be noticed on a first look, but clear when checked.”

She nodded slowly. “That would make sense, especially since this is B-roll and not security footage. They wouldn’t have been worrying about perfect continuity. As long as it looked close enough, that would have been fine.”

He regarded her for a moment. “I didn’t know you were so familiar with film production values.”

Her color rose again, but nowhere near where it had been before. “Like I said, I had help. But that’s how production usually works.”

“On the contrary.” He pulled the third picture taken from a similar location and with a similar time stamp. It, too, had a slightly different angle to the shadows. “We’ve confirmed that these were definitely taken on three different days, based on Mr. Stone’s clothing. They were also taken from three different locations.” He laid the dividers down. “Or were they?”

She frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“That’s where I’m not sure,” he told her. “Mr. Stone wasn’t a professional operative. He wouldn’t have been running rehearsals, nor would he have suspected surveillance.” He paused. “But that’s what this appears to be. Three days. Three sites. Same hour. Only a slight adjustment in angle each time.” He paused. “How long was he in Paris?”

“Francine said he’d been there for two weeks.”

He shook his head. “That would barely shift the angles.”

“So he was being watched pretty much from the moment he got there?” she asked.

“Yes. I believe so. What I don’t understand is why — or why it would come through on this ‘B-roll,’ as you’ve called it. Was it taken by an IFF cameraman?”

She took another sip of her coffee. “I’m not sure. Scotty — ah, Mr. Parker — says that sometimes they’ll hire foreign nationals to do some of the work. It creates a job, and goodwill, and things like that.” Then her features sharpened. “Wait a minute. If it wasn’t our cameraman, he’d have kept his own copy.”

“Yes.” He thought about that for a long moment. “We should bring this to the Stetsons.”

She nodded. “And I’ll go find Sco — Mr. Parker and ask who took this footage. I’ll head to the Q-Bureau afterward. That way I can brief all of you at once.”

No, he thought as she walked away. She wouldn’t remain green for long at all.

---

Lee had hoped for a chance to sit down with a newspaper after this morning’s physical therapy appointment — which, for a change, had gone quite well. But it wasn’t long at all before he heard a knock on the Q-Bureau’s door.

“Yeah,” he called. “Come on in.”

The door opened to admit Douglas Trent, who was holding a large folder. “I’ve something you should see.”

In the past, he might have had his feet up on the desk. Today, they stayed underneath it. The left one took his weight as he leaned forward. “Now?”

Trent frowned. “Is now a bad time?”

“No, I just…” he shook his head. So much for continuing his pleasant morning. “What have you got?”

Trent stepped to his desk and laid out the stills from the B-roll, explaining the significance of the differing light angles. “Miss Zeta is checking with the film unit to see whether an IFF cameraman took this footage, but we suspect not. She’ll likely be here momentarily.”

At that, Lee chuckled. “Not if Scotty has anything to say about it.” But then he sobered. “You think Stone was under surveillance the entire time he was in Paris.”

“Or close to,” confirmed Trent. “Likely much longer than anyone suspected.”

“I don’t know if anyone suspected anything at all.” He opened a desk drawer, looking for a magnifier. “She’s got sharp eyes if she noticed Jonathan from this much of a distance.”

“She does. I’ve told Melrose I see a lot of potential there.”

“I’ll second that, next time I see him.” Lee moved the magnifier slightly to the right of Jonathan’s figure, but it slid away from his fingers, skidding across the desk pad. Trent caught it before it hit the floor. “Damn it. Thanks.”

“Quite all right. What are you looking for?”

“What does Stone have with him?” He compared two shots. “He’s not carrying a briefcase, which is unusual. And he’s guarding the right side of his coat. Something’s in there.” Lee paused. “This might not have been a one-trip assignment.”

But Trent was distracted, instead focusing on something else on Lee’s desk. He groaned inwardly when he saw what it was: the discharge paperwork from this morning. “That’s kind of personal.”

There was an odd tone in the British agent’s voice. “Your middle name is Hamilton.”

“Family name.” He reached for the folder, intending to put it away.

“It’s my middle name, too. Or one of them anyway. Douglas Geoffrey Hamilton Trent.”

“Interesting coincidence.”

“And it’s also a family name.”

The skin on the back of Lee’s neck tightened. “So? It’s not that unusual.”

“Perhaps, but…” Trent trailed off. “My grandfather always said that he had an American relative. His youngest sister, I believe.” His eyes flicked up. “And don’t I understand that you’re half-British yourself? Possibly even a dual citizen?”

“My mother was from England. But she died when I was little. I was born here and I’m an American citizen.” But then he paused. Even with the documentation he and Amanda had found last year, information about his parents was still scant. He blew his breath out, trying to remember the family tree she’d drawn. “But Hamilton is her maiden name, and I know she was the youngest of four. What about it?”

“It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think? We never did hear that much about my great-aunt Jennie.”

Lee went utterly still.

“My mother’s name was Jennifer,” he said slowly. “But everyone called her Jennie.”

Trent’s voice was quiet. “Her eldest brother’s name was Arthur. Yes?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long pause. The stills lay forgotten.

“That was my grandfather’s name.”

Their eyes met.

“I’m not particularly close to that part of my family,” Trent continued. “They can be…rather difficult.”

“Is that so?”

The door opened abruptly, admitting Zeta and Amanda. Both stopped short.

“Sweetheart?” asked Amanda.

Lee kept his eyes on Trent’s. “Not now.”

“But soon?”

“Definitely.”

“All right.” Amanda’s tone was soft, but firm. “Zeta and I have news about the case.”

“Yes,” said the younger agent, though she sounded nervous. “Scotty checked the requisition logs. We did get that B-roll from a civilian contractor. And there’s more.” She paused, biting her lip.

Lee and Trent looked at her in unison.

“Go on,” said Lee.

“The contractor was working for a company called Ansar Productions. Based out of London, but they have an office in Paris and right here in D.C.” She stopped and took another breath. “And the address — we’d seen it before. It’s the same as the one we found on the card in Jonathan’s apartment. For Ansar Cleaners.”

“All right,” said Lee. “We need to check that out. Except I…” He stopped, the words catching him hard and without warning. “…can’t.”

There was a brief, awkward pause.

He kept his eyes on the file in front of him. “And Amanda probably shouldn’t either. Both of us are known intelligence agents.”

He didn’t look at his wife, but he didn’t have to. He could feel her gaze on him.

Trent folded his arms. “If there’s any connection at all to London, I could also be identifiable.”

Zeta nodded.

“But don’t go alone,” said Amanda. “Take Scotty. That’s part of my news. Since he’s pretty much already on it anyway, I got clearance to read him into the case. You’ll want to do that before you go. Make sure he knows the stakes.”

“I will. I’ll go down right now.”

“Good idea,” said Lee as he turned back toward Amanda and Trent. They had a lot to talk about.

---

She wondered what they were talking about in the Q-Bureau. She didn’t wonder whether they were talking; the tension in that room had been thick enough to see, and the case was only part of it. Nancy had no idea what the rest was.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

She also wasn’t sure she wanted to know exactly what the “More” stood for in Georgetown Mail and More. She and Scotty stood on the sidewalk while she double-checked the address. Yes. This was correct: 1741 36th Street Northwest, Suite A.

The business occupied the first floor, its plate-glass windows open to the street. A narrow side door, painted the same tired brick red as the trim, was marked Entrance to Offices Above. No business names were listed beside it; there didn’t appear to be room for any.

Scotty’s eyes darted around, though the rest of him remained still. “Are we going to go in?”

Nancy considered that. They were here to observe, not engage — but the business was open to the public.

“Yeah,” she said. “But let’s make it quick.”

Inside, there was no line.

“Look for A-302,” she murmured to Scotty before approaching the counter. The proprietor, an older Asian woman, looked bored but rose to assist.

“What’s your pricing like?” Nancy asked.

The woman slid a laminated card across the counter. “Month. Three month. Six month. Year.”

“Those are the only options? I only need about six weeks.”

“Six weeks is three month.”

Nancy exhaled softly and studied the prices. Scotty was just visible in her peripheral vision, doing a credible job of looking curious as he examined the wall of mail boxes.

“All right,” she said. “We’re going to be receiving a few packages — maybe about the size of a shoebox. What’s the smallest size you’d recommend?”

“Large,” the woman replied. “Small too small. Best for envelopes only. Medium maybe, but very tight. Large better.” She tapped a picture of one of the larger brass doors.

Scotty’s hands twitched, but he otherwise looked appropriately bored as he shifted his attention to another wall of boxes. Then he blinked, uncurling one hand.

Based on the laminated card Nancy was holding, A-302 was an extra-large box.

“You know what?” she said. “That’s a little more than I want to pay. Let me check into some of the other options around here.”

“We cheapest. Plus twenty-four-hour access. But you check. I be here when you get back.”

Outside, she kept her steps brisk until they were completely around the corner.

“All right, then. It’s a mail drop.”

“Not just that.”

She glanced over at him.

“I got a good look at the bulletin board,” Scotty said. “One of the companies up there — Al Safa Media Group? We use them as a contractor sometimes. Their card lists this same address. I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t actually seen it.”

Nancy didn’t interrupt.

“Which is pretty normal,” he added quickly. “Lots of businesses that run out of warehouses or people’s basements use places like that. But…” He hesitated. “It’s a big coincidence.”

He shifted his weight. “And if it’s spelled the way I remember, ‘al-safa’ means ‘clarity.’ Or ‘purity.’ Something like that.”

“You speak Arabic?”

“No.” He shook his head. “One of the gaffers mentioned it once. Said that’s where the name came from.”

“Al Safa,” she said slowly. “Ansar.”

His eyes widened. “You think that’s important?”

“I think we should talk to Sunlight about it.”

“You should, you mean.” He shifted the camera bag higher on his shoulder. “I still have some more of those establishing shots I need to get. Can we meet back up later and you tell me what she says?”

“Yeah,” she told him. “What establishing shots are you supposed to be getting this afternoon?”

“Just stuff around this area, and maybe a little toward Foggy Bottom. For set pieces, you know?”

“If you happen to see anything,” she said, “could you work that in to what you get?”

“Sure. But what am I looking for?”

“Anything out of place. Or repetitive. Someone watching the street instead of working. Delivery trucks that come back more than once. Patterns.” Then she met his eyes. “But if you can’t get the shot without being obvious about it, don’t try. Just note the time, place, and description.”

“You think there’s danger?”

She actually laughed. “I’m an agent. I always think there’s danger.”