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Kaiya stood staringout the window over the kitchen sink, her arms folded against the early morning chill, a cup of cold coffee clasped in her hand. The news was on, the anchor talking about the upcoming visit from the president of the United States. She didn’t pay much attention; she had it on for noise. She had been there since first light, and she was so tired that she felt completely numb inside. Unable to sleep, she had spent the night moving from window to window, trying to outdistance the panic that kept trying to break loose.
And it wasn’t that exchange or her damned inconvenient attraction to Kodiak that kept her awake. It was a renewed fear and uncertainty and a terrifying feeling of inadequacy. She could lose her job over this. One word from him would be enough. She understood control. From the very first moment she could remember, she’d had to maintain it over her own life, her very identity in society and at home. Key people had influenced her decisions from an early age, and she’d lived with the consequences of her naive compliance until she was at the point where she didn’t even know who she was anymore.
And now the responsibility of both Australian and American citizens seemed like a monolith on her shoulders, a weight that she would never,couldnever ignore. She saw what kind of consequences erupted from callous and inept decisions.
It had all come down on her in the middle of the night. With that awful feeling of loss devastating her defenses, the self-doubt had come rolling in like a great crashing wave. She wasn’t alone. She knew that. She could always count on her family or her colleagues. She dodged the thought that she could trust the Americans.
If she still had a job, that is.
She looked at her clock and saw that she needed to set off for work. Now that she didn’t have to worry about shuttling the Americans from the base to headquarters like an Uber driver, her schedule wasn’t as tight.
She was supposed to give the Americans a rundown of their security services, so they knew who they were working with and where a lot of data came from to be compiled by counterterrorism.
She left her place, a shiver going down her spine when she passed the place where she’d had her fight with Kodiak. She attributed it to the cold, not the memory of his power or the kind of heat he generated. Slipping into her all-terrain utility vehicle, she buckled up figuratively and literally. It was time to face the music and see what kind of punishment she was going to receive for her transgressions against the vaunted Americans.
She parked in the lot outside the building and noted that there were two all-terrain vehicles along with a sleek, black motorcycle sitting in front. The vehicles she’d requisitioned last night. The guys in the motor pool were amazing.
Her lips thinned at the memory of Kodiak telling her to get them their vehicles. She secured her utility vehicle, or as the type of car was referred to, ute, and headed into the building. After going through security, she passed through the lobby expecting to be summoned to Tessa’s office. But the guards behind the desk just nodded to her. She took the lift up to her floor, made her way to her office, and put her bag into her desk drawer.
Freya, a staffer, poked her head into her office. “Selma from patrol called several times about Michael Jones.”
“What about him?” Kaiya asked, immediately concerned. Michael, or Mickey as he went by, was one of her most observant and reliable informants. She cursed and pulled out her phone. She had turned it off to try to get some sleep. She had missed like ten calls from him. She would have to call him later. She couldn’t be late for this meeting and the Americans were waiting.
“She didn’t say, but she thought you should know before you saw it on the reports.” The woman went to go, then stopped. “Oh, and the Americans are waiting for you in the conference room.”
“Ta, Freya,” Kaiya said and grabbed up her notes for the briefing, worried about Mickey. She stopped by the beverage station and got herself a cup of coffee from their top-of-the-line coffee maker. Aussies were terrible coffee snobs.
When she reached the conference room, she took a deep breath. Time to face her foreign allies. She was sure they discussed her yesterday after Kodiak returned to the van.
When the door opened, the low buzz of conversation stopped. All of them turned their attention to her.
Still feeling miffed about the clash of wills between her and Kodiak when she was supposed to toe the line, she went to the podium and found the clicker there, plugged in her laptop for her PowerPoint, and deliberately avoided looking at Kodiak as she booted her computer and loaded up her presentation. She suspected there wasn’t much he missed after his forceful talk with her yesterday, but she didn’t give a damn. Part of her chafed at her boss’s orders, and the other part, the rebel part she often kept under wraps, chafed even harder against the fact that speaking her mind was her right.
But she didn’t want another confrontation with him, especially in front of his teammates and the CIA Officer.
When she realized she’d touched on personal aspects of her life and her past, she felt shame all over again. Even if what her parents had wanted her to do, to conceal, was for her own good, she still had a right to her opinion. Why was she still mute on the subject?
She shook that off and cleared her throat.
“G’morning. I’m going to give you a quick rundown on the agencies we work with so that you have an overview of our hierarchy and how we fit into the terrorism process here in Sydney. Let me know if you have any questions along the way.”
She clicked the first slide, which showed an organization chart. “The Federal Police are under the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet as our governing body, and specifically the International and Security Group, which includes counterterrorism, border security, counter foreign interference, critical infrastructure, and cyber security.” She put up the next slide. We work closely with these agencies: Department of Home Affairs, which is a combination of your Homeland Security and State Department, including the Centre for Counter-Terrorism Coordination. Also, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization or the ASIO, where we combined your FBI and CIA into this organization, Department of Defense, Attorney General’s Department, and we have a National Security Hotline.”
“So, you’re reporting and coordinating with all these departments on this specific mission?” Kodiak asked, his smooth, deep voice setting off every speck of estrogen in her body. There was plenty about him to admire and enjoy.Bugger me!She had to keep reminding herself she didn’t want to interact with him on any personal level, except she did. Talk about being torn between wanting to get to know him and keeping her distance in reverence to her deep-seated feelings about how Americans could be so heavy-handed, sometimes callous, and out of touch with the reality of the world. She’d experienced that heavy-handedness…that entitlement they expected whenever they thought they were in charge of something.
He was different. She would give him that. Even through that awful, embarrassing, confrontation with him, he’d never once raised his voice. His tone had never dropped into a condescending range either, now that she thought about it. He’d been clear and straightforward. There had been no censure in his tone, or anger for that matter, just the message he wanted to convey.
“The Centre for Counter-Terrorism Coordination, chiefly,” she said, scorning the husk in her voice. She cleared it trying to sound more professionally detached. “My boss answers directly to them. The center sees the overall picture from all terrorism threats, including overseas with reports from our embassies and field agents. All of that intel merges with information disseminated from AFP, ASIO, border security, cyber, Home Affairs, and the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, of course.” She closed her laptop. “Agents overseas are focused on immediate threats against not only Australians, but all of our allies. We at AFP are localized, domestic. We see the trees. They see the forest.”
“So, we can depend on all these resources while tracking down bad NSH actors?” Anna asked, her brow raised as she glanced at Kodiak.
“Yes, of course, but we have a challenge that’s not a normal one.” She didn’t want to dismiss the monumental effort this was going to take, and conventional means wouldn’t work.
“What’s that?” Anna’s gaze came back to her, and she wondered at the shrewd look in her eyes.
“From what I gathered, NSH doesn’t have followers. This seems to me to be some sort of personal revenge on the part of one of your citizens. A powerful one who has vast wealth and resources and who can hire nondescript local people to perpetuate these acts. It’s like trying to find a needle, not in just one haystack, but numerous haystacks.” She shifted from behind the podium and walked toward the group. “But that doesn’t mean we’re blind and bumping into things in the dark.”
