The Finish Line

'We should be getting close now.' They rounded a curve and came out in front of a train station with yet another odd English name — St. Pancras.

'Clever girl. She's heading for the Chunnel rail link, I'll bet. Find us a place to park — we might be going on a train ride.'

11

Kate pushed the remains of her surprisingly good sole meuniere around on her plate, then speared another asparagus stalk and crunched into it, relishing the springy texture and hint of lemon it had been steamed with. Not quite as good as Mindy's cooking, but it'll do.

The thought of her live-in housekeeper made her smile. Mindy Todd was a college student and crime-TV junkie who served as her girl Friday when necessary, which was pretty much all of the time. Kate had wanted to take her to London, as the bubbly, dark-blond-haired girl had never been to the city. But the board had already put up such a squawk about Kate coming over in the first place, and Mindy's next school term had been about to start, so they had both reluctantly shelved the plans.

She was just coming up for air and a bite or two after a frenetic eight hours of logged-in work, overseeing the sifting of evidence and intelligence and also keeping up on the various other investigations that Room 59 had ongoing around the world. When Kate traveled, the agency traveled with her, and today was no exception. In between keeping an eye on the business at Wyvil Road, she had reviewed after-action reports, interviewed two operatives about a completed mission in South America for potential follow-up and written several dozen memos, addendas, order forms, and signed her name — electronically only, but it still felt like a lot — to more documents than she could count. In the end, while we may all pass on to whatever lies beyond this world, the bureaucracy will continue, implacable, unstoppable. Kate was trying to figure out whether she had just made that up or read it somewhere when her computer chimed.

'Call from — J. Burges. What does she want?' Kate muttered to herself before she hit the button that activated her computer's telecom program. She saw a severe-looking woman with every hair in place, dressed in an almost schoolteacher-plain black business suit, with half-moon glasses perched on the end of her aristocratic nose. 'Judy, what a pleasant surprise.'

Judy Burges was Kate's liaison to the men and women of Room 59. In theory, she was supposed to handle much of the day-to-day operations, leaving Kate free to handle the IIA Board when necessary, and to keep an eye on the other directors and the big picture. In reality, since Kate loved to get her hands dirty as much as the board would allow, she often stepped in to handle certain ops personally, which irked Judy to no end. Although Judy was an excellent liaison — which was one of the reasons that Kate was able to go on this trip in the first place — she had a tendency to overreach, and Kate was still working on keeping her in line.

Much like I'm probably about to do right now, Kate thought upon seeing the other woman's stern expression. Although she steeled herself for the confrontation she knew was coming, Kate let no trace of it into her face or voice. 'How can I help you?'

'Kate, this AA report just crossed my desk — are you really meaning to keep this Midnight Team on duty for the duration of this op?' Judy's upper-crust tone spoke volumes about what she thought of this decision.

Kate bit back the response that sprang to mind — which would have involved a physical impossibility — and tamped down her anger at being second-guessed. 'Good, I'm glad that arrived so quickly. Yes, as I outlined in the report, there are several excellent reasons to keep them on the job, not the least of which is the fact that they are familiar with the situation, and are already on-site.'

Judy shook her head. 'Surely we have other Midnight Teams that could take over. If possible, I'd suggest plenty of downtime, evaluation and perhaps even some retraining. This Southerland operative — it sounds like he's got a definite problem with authority — not what a team leader needs in this kind of situation.'

Kate resisted the urge to duck out of sight for a moment to massage her temples. 'Judy, you know I like to have team captains police their units unless more drastic action is necessary. After all, they did stop the terrorist plot, recovered the bioweapons and took out two of the hostiles, as well. All in all, a good day's work in my book. And since M-One didn't request any kind of replacement, I am accepting his willingness to go forward as an indicator that his team is operating at full readiness.'

'Be that as it may, it's how they did it that is of some concern, on-site or not…'

Kate decided to cut to the chase. 'Judy, we have an unknown force running, who is willing to kill anyone in its path to get what it wants. I've made the executive decision to place a team in the vicinity and try to recover this missing person first to see what they're after. Rather than risk an operative, I'm using a Midnight Team because they stand the best chance of taking these people on again and coming out alive. I'm using this Midnight Team because they've faced these hostiles before and won, and they will most likely do it again. End of discussion.'

Judy's lips pursed for the briefest moment, and Kate knew she had won. 'I see. Rather like using a chainsaw to cut up a birthday cake, but I expect they'll manage without causing too much collateral damage. I'd hate to see more news reports like what the tabloids reported this morning.'

'Yes, I saw it, too. Typical Fleet Street nonsense.' Kate glanced at the front page of a prominent British rag, its headline screaming Joint U.S.-U.K. Anti-Terrorist Squad Loose On London Streets. If they only knew the real story, they'd crap all over their keyboards, Kate thought. 'Just reporters grasping at straws to sell more copies. Besides, that's probably Samantha doing a bit of counterpropaganda. Hard to confirm anything when all of your sources refuse to be identified.'

Judy barely nodded. 'I suppose so. There are several other matters that require your input — if you're not too busy.'

'Not at all.' She should already know the words 'I'm too busy' aren't in my vocabulary, Kate thought, but she merely smiled. They spent the next twenty minutes going over other matters, keeping their interaction at its usual, barely cordial simmer. Kate wanted to draw the call to a close as soon as she could, planning to get up and take a walk around, even if it was just up and down the hotel hallway. But to do that, she had to extract herself from middle-management hell.

'All right, Judy, launch the Vanuatu operation — should be interesting, given its location. Our operatives may be interviewing the local fauna for details about what's going on there. Also, please handle the debrief for the operative who just returned from the Yucatan — if that illegal-immigrant-smuggling pipeline is still there, I want to know the reason why. Thanks, but I've got to run, Judy, I have an important conference that's going to be starting here soon.'

The British woman's face wrinkled in a frown of seeming concern. 'What? I have your schedule up here, and I don't see anything posted for the next…'

'It just came up, and I'll send you the details afterward. Postop on the law-enforcement conference.' Over Judy's surprised protests, Kate terminated the connection and leaned back in her chair with a sigh.

'It's a good thing I don't bother you that much.' The low voice in the doorway made her spin around to see Jake leaning against the frame, both hands held up in reassurance. 'Whoa, boss, calm down, it's just me.'

Kate sighed. 'I should be mad, but I guess sneaking up on me means you're doing your job well. How'd the training go?' Seeing as how she was going to be stuck in her hotel room, she had let Jake go for the assignment Samantha had discussed the night before. He had left without a word, leaving her to wonder when he slept.

'These guys are on the ball. Didn't have to show them too much. They were already well versed in most of the fine arts. We swapped a few tricks on covert surveillance and shadowing, and then spent a good hour on tactical driving.' A grin split his serious visage for a second before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. 'That was fun. On the way back, I checked with the lab about that pistol — no luck there. The serial numbers have been removed. It did have a fairly rare threaded barrel to accept a silencer, but they removed the numbers on it, as well. Looks like another dead end. How you doing here?'

Kate pulled off her headset and tossed it on the desk. 'I'm about ready to climb these very nice hotel walls. What say you to a couple of hours of sightseeing?'

Jake bowed slightly from the waist and motioned toward the door with his hand. 'I'm yours to command.'

'Well, yeah, that is the idea. Just let me change and…' The insistent trill of the computer brought Kate back to