Free Flashpoint by Suzanne Brockmann

glanced at her, she saw surprise and even wariness in his eyes. No doubt he was wondering if, as a comspesh, she’d had access to his Agency file. His
real
Agency file, not the one that proclaimed
Access denied
. She had, after all, tracked him to Mexico. That hadn’t been easy to do. “Never mind. Off topic. It’s inconsequential. I’m sorry, go on.”
    She realized that he was more put off by her being here than he was letting on. And he was less rested and relaxed than she’d thought at first, too. He kept rubbing his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
    “It’s been three years since I’ve been in Kazabek,” he said. “But I think it’s better to say we met just a few weeks ago.”
    “Weeks?” And after knowing each other such a short time, they were already married?
    “Yeah.” Nash didn’t seem to think that was far-fetched. “They know me in Kazabek as James Nash. I’m the director of a not-for-profit organization called People First,” he told her.
    “James,” Tess said, “not Jimmy?”
    My name’s Jimmy.
    He met her eyes only briefly, and she knew he remembered telling her that, too. They had both been naked at the time.
    “No.” He cleared his throat, went on. “The story is that I was hired by PF right out of college. Which, by the way, was right down Mem Drive from you. I went to Harvard.”
    During the interview, she’d told Tom Paoletti that she’d attended MIT. “Really?”
    “Yes, really. Is that so hard to believe?”
    “No,” she said swiftly. “I just . . . I had no idea.” His file hadn’t mentioned Harvard, but of course, it wasn’t that sort of file. “When were you there? Maybe we could say we met in Cambridge, you know, and were friends for years before—”
    “I was there right after I participated in that manned spaceflight to Mars,” Nash told her.
    Tess stared at him. He was just such a good liar, it was hard to know what was truth and what was cover story. What was real and what was make-believe.
    “Where did you really go to school?” she asked.
    “Harvard,” he said. But then he added, almost gently, “
Really
is relative. The only
really
you need to be concerned with is the one that drives our cover story. Which is I went to Harvard, graduated fifteen years ago, worked for People First ever since.”
    “You worked for the Agency for fifteen years,” Tess said aloud, and he paused. He was clearly wondering how she knew that, and she then realized that this wasn’t public knowledge.
    “You told me,” she reassured him. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to lie.
    But like most liars, he was extra suspicious. “When?”
    “How should I know?” she said with an eye roll that expressed just the right amount of exasperation. “You came into support and sat on my desk only 854 times in the past three years. It was one of those times.”
    If she’d been specific—May 14, 2002, at 3:30 in the afternoon—he would’ve known she was making it all up.
    Instead he nodded. “Here’s the deal, okay? We met three weeks ago, in D.C.”
    “Not while we were at school?” Tess asked. “It seems perfect—”
    “It’s not. There’d be too many years of ancient history to keep straight. We met three weeks ago, while I was in town for a conference,” Nash told her. “People First is based out of Boston, but I travel a lot. Particularly to D.C. Where you live . . . doing what?”
    “Working for a dot com?” It was what she probably would have done if she hadn’t been recruited by the Agency. “How about . . . After MIT, I worked for a dot com that peaked big, but then died,” Tess suggested. This was kind of fun. Or at least it would have been if she’d been playing this game with anyone but Nash. “It gasped its last breath a year ago. I’m so,
so
sick of computers, I decided to go back to school, right there in D.C. To law school.”
    “Are you really sick of computers?” he asked.
    Tess gave him a look. “Harvard?”
    Nash nodded,