CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Riley was immediately on the phone with the CIA while I called the Secret Service office in Omaha. They were the closest office, which meant they were on the ground there now.

I was transferred to Agent Bill Savage, the officer already in Willow Grove. After explaining what we'd found out about a possible attack, he replied in a tone normally reserved for an incontinent, lobotomized Communist.

"We've checked the plant, and everything's fine, Ms. Wrath," he grumped.

Translation—we don't like the CIA, and stop acting smarter than us or we will tell on you.

"Check again," I insisted. "Because what we've found could mean an assassination attempt on POTUS."

POTUS is a fancy acronym for President of the United States. What's funny is that the Secret Service thinks that's a secret code. But I found out about it watching The West Wing on TV back in the 1990s. And the creativity stopped there, folks, because the First Lady is FLOTUS, and they even call the Supreme Court SCOTUS. Lazy, lazy Secret Service.

Now that I thought of it—most government agencies used acronyms. There's CIA for Central Intelligence Agency, FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even CDC for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wait…shouldn't that be CDCAP? Seems like someone dropped the ball on that one.

I heard mumbling in the background and went back to paying attention. Agent Savage—which, by the way, is an awesome name—was arguing with someone. Riley looked questioningly at me while he was on his phone. I rolled my eyes, which told him pretty much how it was going.

"I think this is bullshit," Savage growled. "But bring what you've got over here, and I'll at least take a look at it."

I knew he'd give in. No one, especially an agent from Omaha, wanted to see the president and half the town of Willow Grove, Iowa blow up just because they didn't check all the doors and windows.

I hung up just as Riley did and filled him in on what was happening.

"Yeah, the Agency wants us to check it out. I guess we're going on a little road trip."

"You have no idea. Little road trip is right. It'll take us about ten minutes to get there," I said.

And it would. Unless Riley drove like my grandmother and kept it under forty-one miles an hour. But come to think of it—she never once got in an accident. Of course, she was half-blind and cheated on her eye exam, so maybe she thought she was doing sixty. It's hard to say.

After putting out some food for the cats, we got into Riley's SUV. I called Rex from the road to explain what was going on. He didn't sound happy either. All the men in my immediate vicinity seemed to think this was my fault…which seemed pretty unfair.

"Hit the drive-through," I demanded as we came up to a fast-food joint.

To my complete surprise, Riley did as I asked. Mr. Health Weirdo ordered a salad while I got the deluxe burger with fries and a chocolate shake. We pulled back onto the road, and I dug in. Riley kept glancing over at my food.

"Hungry?" I asked before shoving a fistful of french fries into my mouth.

"I'll wait for my salad, thanks." Riley focused on the road, but more than once I saw him side-eying my dinner.

"You'll have to, because you ordered a salad. Not exactly finger food." Who the hell orders a salad when there are so many other wonderfully greasy options? That makes no sense.

We arrived in Willow Grove before he had a chance to reply. In spite of the late hour, this sleepy little town was buzzing with activity, because here, two cars on Main Street is practically a traffic jam. I'd always liked Willow Grove. It looked like Disneyland's Main Street USA with its cute little brick ice cream shop, theatre, and town hall. This town had a building code that all new construction had to be ridiculously adorable. Even the gas stations were red brick with black shutters. You had to love that.

 The fertilizer plant was on the other side of town and surrounded with news vans by the time we got there. This building, unlike the rest of the town aesthetic, just looked like a factory. I guess even Willow Grove couldn't think of a way to make a manure manufacturing building adorable.

We drove up to a man in a suit who was guarding the entrance. Savage had already marked us as "okay," whatever that meant. I was a tad wounded he didn't label us "exceptional," but there is a bit of a rivalry between the two agencies. Okay, there's a huge rivalry. These two organizations did not like each other.

Riley parked the car and reached for his salad as I crumpled up my wrappers and tossed them on the floor and jumped out. I guess seeing and smelling my food made him a little ravenous, because I've never seen anyone attack plastic and Styrofoam with such violence.

"Ms. Wrath? Mr. Andrews?" A very short, hostile man in a cheap suit approached. "Bill Savage. Let's get this over with."

Riley was in the process of taking his first bite. He put the spork back down with a sigh and got out of the van. By the way—I love sporks. You'd think that with their spoony shape and tiny fork tines that they'd be fairly safe, right? Well, you'd be wrong because one time in Vladivostok I used a spork to kill a Chechen terrorist. I would've used it on his partner, but the damn thing broke, and I didn't have a spare. So, I had to use my firearm, but that wasn't as much fun.

Savage frowned as he glimpsed the salad on Riley's seat when he opened the door.

"A salad? You'd never last long in the Secret Service on that crap. You need calories, man."

Why did men call each other "man"? That never made sense to me. Kelly's never called me "woman," and I've never called Philby "cat." Do they do it to remind themselves what gender they are? You'd think they wouldn't forget something like that, but who knows?

I shrugged, "I told him that, but he wouldn't listen."

Riley shot me a look, but I ignored him. "I wouldn't even attempt to join the Secret Service because I have something called dignity."

Savage's neck turned purple, but he wisely didn't respond. Instead, he turned to me.

"What's wrong with your hair, Ms. Wrath?" Savage pointed as if I'd somehow forgotten where my hair was. Oh right. The pink bangs.

"That's not regulation!" he barked. I caught Riley trying not to grin. "You should have respect for the office, Wrath!"

"Actually this is part of my disguise," I sniffed. "I'm undercover in an all-female, Iowa-based terrorist ring." I didn't think my Girl Scout troop would mind me referring to them as terrorists. In fact, they'd probably like it.

I was just about to follow up with a joke—how many Secret Service agents does it take to screw in a lightbulb? The answer varies based on who the president is, but I assure you—it's hilarious. Unfortunately, I was rudely interrupted.

"Do you think this is funny?" Savage shouted as if we weren't a few feet away. "I don't have time for this! What is this so called evidence you think you have?"

I decided not to go for the cheap shot, even though I could have. It's no secret that the Service is the lowest ranked team in the Homeland Security softball league (the CIA is first, by the way, but that's probably because they cheat). Instead, I handed the photo to the diminutive agent and explained why we thought tomorrow's event was a target. It was kind of hard talking to him because he was a whole head shorter than me.

He frowned. "I think that's a pretty flimsy theory." Savage handed me back the photo.

"You can't be serious," I said. "There's a potential threat aimed at Willow Grove. And tomorrow is the only time anything important will ever happen here."

That wasn't entirely true. Once, in the '90s, a bunch of Iowa state legislators were caught in a tavern in Willow Grove, throwing a private party with a bunch of call girls and a donkey. It made the national news for like…a minute. I always wondered where they got those prostitutes from. Probably from Sin City, aka Omaha. The donkey was probably local.

Bill Savage grimaced as if he smelled something bad. I'd bet it was Riley's vinaigrette dressing, but said nothing.

"At least walk us through the plant," Riley said calmly.

It's an old spy trick. When someone starts screaming, you speak softly so they have to stop screaming to listen. It works every time.

"Then we can tell Langley and Senator Czrygy that you'd done your job."

I tried not to laugh out loud. Riley had just mentioned my dad—who chaired the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and was one of our Iowa senators. Savage didn't know that Czrygy was my father.

"Fine," the man snapped. "But you're taking precious time away from us setting up."

Oh right…we were impeding him doing his job. Well he won't have a job tomorrow if the president explodes in a fecal factory.

We followed him into the main entrance. Savage took us through every office in the administrative wing. Outside of a few seed corn calendars and various John Deere memorabilia, there wasn't much to see. Then we stepped out onto the main floor.

There must've been a hundred men and a few women racing in every direction. Some were in suits, like the Secret Service agent we were standing over, and the rest were dressed in everything from flannel shirts and jeans to khakis and polo shirts. It was a total mess. No organization at all. How did they think they could keep this place clear?

"We've been over every inch of this building in the last four days," Savage said. "Every single employee has had background checks. Hell, the whole town has had background checks. So I don't see how there could be any threat."

Seriously? "The threat won't come from someone who lives in Willow Grove, or even Iowa. You can't prescreen people you don't know—and that's where the problem lies," I insisted.

Riley nodded. "She's right. There are too many people. Do you know who all of them are? Seems to me it would be very easy for a terrorist to infiltrate this mess."

Savage turned beet red. "I know how to do my job! No one who wasn't prescreened will come anywhere close to this plant tomorrow!"

The little man had had enough of our meddling. He escorted us back to the parking lot, ignoring our protests. We got back into the car, and Savage walked away. The Secret Service was done with us.

We didn't drive off right away. Riley was attacking his now wilted salad. I found a couple of loose french fries in the bag and devoured them. They were cold but still better than any salad.

"Now what?" Riley asked as he wiped his face on a napkin.

"Now," I said as I took out my cell, "I call Dad. I hope you packed a suit, because we will be coming back here tomorrow as part of Senator Michael Czrygy's team."

 

 

Of course, my father was only too happy to have us there. "I wasn't going to go," he told me on the phone. "But now it looks like it could be fun!"

Only my dad would think a possible terrorist act in a fertilizer plant would be fun.

"Are you in Des Moines?" I asked. If he was, I'd be upset with him for not telling me in advance. I'd wanted him to meet Philby and the kittens.

"No," Dad said. "But I will be there in the morning."

Since Who's There was the nearest city to Willow Grove, it made sense he'd book a hotel in my town. I couldn't have him over because someone was squatting in my guest room. So, if we got lucky and didn't have an explosion, I'd get to have Dad over for dinner. Then he'd meet my cats. Well, for as long as I still had four, that is.

We made arrangements to pick up my father at the Radisson in the morning and drive him to Willow Grove. I'd offered to pick him up at the airport, but he declined. I didn't ask. It was probably some super-secret Illuminati carpool or something.

I sat in the kitchen in my pajamas with a glass of wine and Martini in my lap. Riley was making calls from his room. His room? Man, we seriously needed to straighten this out. The idea that Riley had his own room in my house had taken root now. I didn't like it.

To be honest, I was having trouble even thinking about sleep. Terrorism, whether domestic or foreign, was nothing to take lightly. I'd had enough of that back in my spy days. That's why I'd come back to Iowa, to get away from it.

But now the fight was coming here. Which sucked. This was my home. I had a personal connection to Who's There and its people. Seamus Bailey had been murdered. Bad guys had taken up residence in the old Philips' place. And Lucinda wasn't on fire any more. That was the real threat, if you asked me.

All kidding aside, in the past two years I'd set up a home with pets, a best friend, a boyfriend, and twelve little girls who thought I was amazing. Okay…they never said out loud that they thought I was amazing—that's just a given at this point.

I'd lived in maybe a dozen different countries over my career as a secret agent. For the most part, they'd all been exotic, fascinating, and dangerous. And as much fun as that was, the best years have all been here, in the small town I'd grown up in. If you'd asked me if I'd thought that possible five years ago, I would've laughed.

I wasn't laughing now. At all. Red and Blue or whoever they were and Evelyn aka Vanessa did not belong here. Tomorrow, I was going to take them down, no matter what it took. And then, I'd have to figure out a way to keep bad guys away from home in the future.

The idea of Riley moving here had been bothering me. Probably because I realized he was somewhat seriously considering it. For a spy, settling down was like being reincarnated in the same place for fifteen consecutive lifetimes.

If I was a magnet for trouble, I can only imagine that two of us would be worse. But then, there'd be two of us to ward things off too. Did I want him here? No. He would just complicate things. This weird unfinished romantic mess wouldn't have any kind of closure—especially if he moved next door. Although the way things were going, Riley probably thought he'd already moved into my house.

He knew my troop. He and Kelly were friends, and Riley was Finn's godfather. What about Rex? My boyfriend had never said anything bad about Riley and always behaved professionally toward him. But how did he really feel about my ex being here so much and living in my house to boot?

I shook my head and gave up. Besides, I needed to get some sleep—tomorrow would be a dangerous day. I headed down the hallway, the four cats leading me in the procession. Outside of Riley's room, Moneypenny and Bond began clawing at his door. I could hear him on the phone, and without breaking his conversation, he opened the door and let the kittens in.

Philby and Martini had the good grace to join me in my room. After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I crawled into bed and eventually, willed myself to sleep.