45
Drake lookedlivid after the aborted call.
The X-54’s cabin didn’t offer a great deal of privacy. Their close proximity engendered a level of togetherness that Clarissa had never desired with Drake Nason. Yet for the last six hours, they had debated their differing perspectives of global tensions—military versus clandestine operations—and it had been fascinating.
“Who put the bee in your bonnet?” Clarissa couldn’t begrudge him not having his phone on speaker, it washisphone, but she’d dearly love to know what had happened on the other end of that call.
“Miranda’s having a meltdown. Someone pushed her too hard.”
“General Drake Nason, perhaps.”
He spun to glare at her. For an instant she was facing the pure soldier.Thatshe understood.
Clarissa began counting on her fingers. “She lost a third of her team four days ago when Taz and Jeremy came East. And you had to know that Taz and Jeremy would have contacted her for advice about doing their first investigation on their own at the George in DC.Iknow because I was there. Second, she’s on an Alaskan crash investigation and you have her shipped off to the South Seas before she’s done. Youknowhow much she hates that. Except, third, you don’t let her finish that one either and you’re now ripping her ass off to Brunei. Why? To meet with people.Strangers.Shit, Drake, how did you think that was going to turn out?”
His face had shifted from fury to horror…and then back to fury. “If you saw all this, why didn’t you say anything? You’ve been sitting a foot away for six hours and you don’t say a damned word?”
Clarissa wanted to unload it all on him.Because you’ve made it so abundantly clear that you’d rather be dunked in boiling oil than ask for my or the CIA’s advice.
Wanted to make him suffer for every time he’d put her down, cut her off, blocked her initiatives—all of it.
But he had chosen her forthismeeting. There was only one of this type of plane anywhere in the world, and there were only the two seats. Out of all of the possibilities, when the shit truly hit the fan, he’d chosen her.
She tried to argue herself out of it, but couldn’t.
So—she told him the truth.
“The wonders of twenty-twenty hindsight. I wasn’t the one pushing her buttons, but I didn’t see it coming either.”
Drake grunted.
After a while, he spoke morosely. “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”
“Welcome to the human race.”
“Okay, if you’re suddenly so brilliant—”
“I’ve always been brilliant, you simply refused to notice. I may have slept with Clark. But no matter how many times you implied or thought it, I wasn’t sleeping my way to the top. I’mdamnedgood at my job. And ImissClark!” Against all likely possibility, shedid.He hadn’t been a brilliant man, but he’d been a damn good one. She hadn’t had much experience with that. And the way he’d always seen her as beyond beautiful and sexy and brilliant… Holy hell! She reallydidmiss him. That was a nasty irony to discover after he was dead.
He’d been poisoned, then burned to death. Somehow that fire kept eating away inside her. What happened when there was nothing left to burn?
“If you’re soalwaysbrilliant, how do I go about mitigating this?”
Drake was finally asking her advice and she didn’t have any handy recommendations.
“Okay, thinking aloud here…”
He nodded for her to continue.
“I… No. We… Oh, crap. I don’t have anything. Either her team gets her back on her feet or they don’t. It’s beyond our control. All we can do is hope for the former.”
They sat in silence for many miles before she thought of a question.
“Why were you calling her? What was your question for her?”
Drake tipped his head to crick his neck. “For Roy. I hate not being there for him. He insisted that without Clark to send, it was up to me to go to Brunei.”
It was perhaps the first time in the whole flight she felt on top of it.
“I know exactly who to call.”