The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

being noted?
    Dyer could think of only one explanation. He hated to believe it. But what else was there?
    He looked around. One other agent had a desk in this room. The other four were stationed elsewhere in the suite, the better to rush Garner’s residence from multiple angles if the need arose.
    The other agent in the room wasn’t looking Dyer’s way.
    Dyer took out his cell phone, set it in its dock next to the terminal and waited for it to sync up. When it did, he captured a single frame of the video feed, clearly showing the woman’s face, and sent it to the phone. He took it back out of the dock, then stood and left the room.
    He stepped into the bathroom across the hall, turned on the vent fan and the water for masking noise, and dialed a number on his phone. It was answered on the second ring.
    “Greer.”
    “It’s Dyer. Do you have a minute?”
    “Sure.”
    Dyer explained about the woman, and sent the image to Greer’s phone. He also relayed his hunch. Greer didn’t like it any more than he did.
    “I find that very, very hard to believe,” Greer said.
    “I’d prefer another theory myself,” Dyer said. “Got one?”
    The line was silent for a moment.
    “I don’t get the motive,” Greer said. “Garner’s a single man. If he wants to entertain a guest, it’s his business. Why would he feel the need to hide it?”
    “Maybe she wants to hide it. Maybe she’s somebody. Or somebody’s wife.”
    Another silence on the line.
    Then Greer said, “If Garner’s asking these guys to keep someone out of the logbook, and they’re actually doing it, their balls are gonna be hanging from the director’s trailer hitch before the week’s out.”
    “Which is why I called you,” Dyer said. “I’d rather keep mine hanging where they are.”
    Greer was quiet again. Dyer could hear a pen or pencil tapping on his desk. A fast, tense rhythm.
    “Fuck,” Greer said. “All right. Let me run it up to a few guys at the top, and a couple friends at Justice. See if there’s a precedent for handling something like this. And I’ll see if anyone recognizes her. I’ll get back to you.”

Chapter Thirty-Six
    Garner spent the rest of the evening compiling a list of names, drawn from records on his computer as well as paper documents. He came up with close to a hundred, and then began going through them systematically, using his computer to pull up detailed information on each of them. To Travis they appeared to be mostly military and FBI personnel. Garner made shorthand marks next to some of the names. Others he simply crossed out.
    Bethany offered to help. Garner looked puzzled as to what she could do. She rattled off her credentials in about thirty seconds, and he told her to pull up a chair.
    Night settled on the city. The skyline lit up in random bits and fragments until the whole thing was blazing. Travis stood at the living-room windows and looked down over the park. From beneath the forested expanses, warm light from footpaths streamed up into the darkness.
    Paige came up beside him. They stood there for a while, silent.
    “Never been here before,” Travis said.
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    He nodded.
    “My mom lived here for a long time when I was a kid,” Paige said. “That building right over there. The brick one with the blue light on the roof.” She pointed across the park. Leaned against him so he could sight down her arm.
    He felt her skin against his. After a second she seemed to notice it too. Seemed to notice that he noticed. She didn’t say anything, just shifted back to her own balance, putting a few inches between them.
    It occurred to him that they hadn’t been alone with each other at any point since she’d stepped through the iris from Finn’s office yesterday. It’d been the three of them, hardly more than an arm’s length from one another, every minute of the way. Until now.
    The silence was suddenly harder to take.
    “So you spent a lot of time here?” he said.
    “Yeah. Every summer. And Thanksgiving or Christmas, every other year, that kind of thing.”
    “That must’ve been fun. Hanging out here as a kid.”
    She shrugged. “I liked it. Plenty to do.”
    It felt like talking to someone’s sister-in-law at a graduation party. Like he didn’t know that she liked to sleep on her side, naked, and that she preferred someone’s shoulder to a pillow. Like he didn’t know what her earlobes tasted like, among other things. Like none of it had ever happened.
    It