the way,” Steve asked, “If you are not going to Brussels, who is your team leader?”
Marshall paused for an instant, before the sound of the front door unlocking made them both look up. “That is what I want to talk to you about. I need a team leader. It will take about two weeks. I’m sure the White House can spare you.”
Before either could say anything else, the sound of high heels clicking on the tile foyer told them it was Kella.
“Steve? Are you home? My trip to Cairo is off. Let’s go somewhere.”
She stepped into the living room, sitting down and taking her shoes off. “Oh, hello Marshall. I didn’t know you were here.”
Steve looked at Kella, as he did anytime she would stride into a room. He had been with her for two years, having met her at a diplomatic reception in Paris. Then as now, her tall frame, copper skin, and long curly black hair made an eye-catching vision. Although born in Timbuktu to a family of desert nomads, her lineage included a New England ship’s captain shipwrecked on the coast of Mauritania and sold into slavery and several French Foreign Legion soldiers who had gone native. Her parents were killed in a Tuareg rebellion and, when her stepfather was assigned to the American Embassy in Paris, she attended the prestigious ENA—the Ecole National d’Administration. The DGSE, the French intelligence service, then recruited her on the recommendation of her step-grandfather, who was the DGSE’s director.
Steve knew her air of self-confidence was well-founded. Her looks and her several languages—Arabic, French, and English, as well as her native Tamasheq— had been key ingredients in the success of two clandestine operations. And the mini Glock she removed from an ankle holster and placed on the coffee table, authorized by the Military Intelligence Department, gave her world-class ranking as an adversary.
Turning to Steve, she said, “What about that trip to Paris we have been putting off? We really should visit my grand-père. We haven’t seen him since his surgery.”
Suddenly a small gray kitten darted across the room, batting a cork in front of him like a crazed hockey player.
“Pascal! Pascal!” Kella said, reaching for the kitten and picking him up. “Marshall, have you met Pascal? Isn’t he cute? I named him after a French philosopher.” Turning to Steve, she added, “What are we going to do with Pascal when we go to Paris?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kella continued, looking at Marshall. “Steve told me the other day an old friend from MI6 had called you. That’s amazing! Do you have friends in all the agencies? I thought intelligence officers were supposed to keep their identities secret from each other. In fact, I thought you worked against each other. “
“Nigel Barnes and I were in Tehran during the Ayatollah’s revolution. I helped him, and he helped me. He had been in Iran for many years, spoke Farsi, and was a Persian expert. He’s retired, but we’re still in touch. He has a house in Southern France, like a lot of Brits. They still haven’t gotten over once owning and then losing most of France.”
“And what about that French guy who had us to dinner one time in Paris. Was he intelligence also?” Steve asked, smiling.
“That was my good friend, Jean-Claude Clair, head of the French counter-terrorism squad,” Marshall said.
“You’re still in touch with that Belgian colonel, right?” Steve added.
“You mean Colonel Vanness. Yes, a good guy and a good intelligence officer. We had some successes.”
“I’m so glad you’ll take Pascal,” Kella said, single-mindedly.
Marshall raised both hands and, shaking his head, said, “Oh no. I don’t get along with philosophers, especially French philosophers. But, if the two of you want an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, let me make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Kella accompanied Marshall to the door and returned to find Steve sitting on the sofa, his hands entwined behind his head. “An offer we can’t refuse? That’s ridiculous! You were awfully quiet. Don’t tell me you want to do this.”
He leaned forward, popped a couple of peanuts into his mouth, and said, “Well, it’s not like last time, going into denied territory and running for our lives. Belgium is a member of NATO.”
Kella could see he was trying to tread carefully, which made her suspicious. “You know as well as I do these short, low risk operations never turn out as planned. Besides, the White House is not going to let you go on such short notice.”
She picked up the cat again and sat down beside Steve. “Let’s forget about Belgium and go to Paris. We’ll see my grand-père and have some fun.”
“I know this is a prestigious position I have, and it was an honor for the president to offer it to me. But it’s a desk job, and you know what I think about bureaucracy and paperwork.”
He moved closer to Kella and put his arm around her shoulders. “Here is what I’m thinking,” he said, moving closer. “As long as we’re going to be in Paris, where you have seen and done everything there is to be seen, let’s do something different, something special.”
Kella, leaned back against his chest, took the cat off her lap, and turned toward him. “What?”
“Well, after we’re done with the general, which should take no longer than a week, we could go to Paris and get married.”
Kella’s eyes widened. She made a purring sound, leaned closer against Steve, and slipped his hand inside her blouse.
6. The White House, West Wing
V.A. Dalton, the president’s chief of staff, made up for her short stature with a famous temper and her close relationship with the chief executive. She had made her reputation in Chicago politics, which was also President Tremaine’s political cradle. He called her Vicki, but no one else dared.
Kella, Steve, and Marshall were Dalton’s luncheon guests in one of the West Wing dining rooms. Thérèse LaFont and Hank Maloney, the president’s counter-terrorism adviser, completed the guest list. The dining room was rather small and, unlike other government spaces where agency logos were the dominant decoration, paintings adorned the white walls. Marshall recognized one by Winslow Homer: “Breezing Up,” portraying three boys and a man in a catboat on a choppy sea, a simile for the luncheon.
LaFont made the introductions as they sat at the round table. “So you’re the girl who won’t stay down,” Dalton, dressed in black pants and blouse, short black hair covering her ears, said to Kella. As everyone at the table understood, she was referring to Kella’s life-and-death struggle with several assailants in the dark of an Israeli defense installations, where she had shot a Jihadist who was about to kill Steve.
“Are you part of a hit team? I thought the purpose was to capture, not kill.”
“Hit team?” Kella replied with an annoyed frown “We are not assassins. The target is responsible for many American deaths. But we want him for what he knows about current plans to kill more. My role will be to assist in the initial surveillance and then get the base in Romania ready.”
“Kella saved my life, and now I am her eternal responsibility,” Steve said with a grin.
“I should have noticed that ring,” Dalton said,
