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Benjamin Parker. He worked for Canadian Intelligence, andTJ’s former team had backed him up when he was on assignment in Australia.Unfortunately, that assignment had collided with his uncle’s team’s assignmentand everything had gotten seriously fucked up.
And his cousin had apparently been thinking about thehandsome agent ever since.
Ben’s eyes went right to Kenzie. Who he thought was Kara buthe was certain that wasn’t her real name, so he’d made one up so everything wasextra confusing.
Okay, his uncle was right. The sexual tension was kind ofnauseating. It wasn’t like with him and Lou. That was fine, exciting even. Butwatching his cousin drool a little was…a lot.
“Do you ever take meetings in anything but a sex club?” theCanadian asked, his eyes still on Kenzie.
She’d been right about her boobs distracting him. He hadn’tlooked at anyone else in the room.
Kenzie’s lips curled up. “Why would I when it works sowell?”
“Mr. Parker, would you like to explain to me why you attemptedto kidnap one of the members of my team? And while you’re at it, make a goodargument as to why I don’t send you back to your handler in pieces.” His unclegot right to the point.
But TJ had spent time with Ben. He knew exactly whatmotivated the man. “Because he either thinks Emmanuel Huisman is The Jester, orThe Jester can lead him to proof of Huisman’s crimes.”
It was the only explanation. TJ was sure Parker had worked alot of ops, but his primary focus was bringing in Emmanuel Huisman, a childhoodfriend who he believed with all his soul was also a terrorist. If there was onething he’d learned about Parker, it was how focused he was on bringing downthat man.
It had worried him in the field, and it worried him evenmore seeing the Canadian looking at his cousin like he could devour her in twobites.
Lou nodded his way, a cookie in her hand. “I think you’reright. And one of the things I’ve heard is that The Jester is the arms dealerwho sold the weapons used in the Jakarta bombings. He blamed Huisman for thoseattacks.”
There was history between Parker and the man who ran theworld-famous Huisman Foundation. They specialized in neurological studies andwere known for backing innovative projects like the one that had saved hiscousin Tasha’s life a few weeks back. He couldn’t forget that it had been adrug with research funded by the Huisman Foundation that had helped Tasharecover when they thought she would die from the wounds she’d received in thefield.
It could have been Lou, and he would never have told her howmuch he loved her. She wouldn’t have known that she was the best part of him.
Lou leaned in like she was thinking the same thing, her eyeson Tasha as she sat down beside her father.
TJ leaned over and brushed his lips against her hair, lovingthe fact that she didn’t move away from him.
“And that is why I wanted to talk to Lou.” Ben pulled outthe chair across from Kenzie. “If that’s her real name. Like Ms. Magenta.Hello, Maggie whatever your real name is. I assume everyone lied to me.”
So he was still bitter about the op. “Like you told thetruth.”
“I certainly did to you,” Ben countered. “But it feels likeyou kept a couple of secrets from me. I trusted your team.”
“You absolutely lied to me.” Kenzie sat back, lookingcompletely comfortable in her own skin. “And if you think Sergeant Taggart hereis involved with an arms dealer, then you don’t know him at all. I assume youwanted to take Lou to get information about TJ out of her. Tell me something,Ben. Did you take her because you remembered how she reacted to seeing TJ? Didyou think you could convince her that he was some kind of evil go between?”
“My name really is Lou, and he’s not involved with thisguy,” Lou said, sitting up straight and going professional.
“I wanted to talk to Lou because I thought she would be themost reasonable of all of you,” Ben said, settling in. “I thought about havingmy boss call your boss, but the truth of the matter is my boss isn’t interestedin listening to my theories right now. I’m afraid he didn’t appreciate the wayI handled the last op.”
“Are you telling me you did this without your handler’sapproval?” his uncle asked.
“I’m saying I am working with MI6 on this project, and theyhad final approval,” Ben countered.
Oliver sighed. “Well, we all know I didn’t handle things theway I should have, and I’ve certainly apologized. In my opinion, bringing in amember of Sergeant Taggart’s team was necessary to ensure that an important CIAasset wasn’t being used to further the interest of terrorists.”
“You thought if the sergeant was bad, the rest of us were,”Big Tag said.
“I thought there was a possibility that something had gonewrong,” Oliver admitted.
“Look, the truth of the matter is we have a long familyhistory of being betrayed by people we should have been able to trust,”Samantha said, her expression grave. “Not only did my father’s partner try tokill him, Ollie and I had a colleague who nearly cost our whole team theirlives. I’m afraid we came into the situation with what you Americans would callbaggage, and I apologize for that. I don’t think recriminations are going tohelp us at this point. I think the better plan of attack is to lay our cards onthe table and hope that Mr… What do you go by thesedays?”
Samantha was doing an excellent job keeping their tieshidden.
“Mr. Lemon works, but he can call me Ian. Everyone at theAgency does, after all.” His uncle wouldn’t give away his last name ever. Nomatter how much he trusted another operative. “Tell me how you came to theconclusion the sergeant is involved with the arms dealer known as The Jester.”
