The Bone Chamber by Robin Burcell Page A

taking in the monotonous off-white walls, standard industrial linoleum flooring. “I give. Where are we?”
    “The Washington Recorder .”
    “A newspaper?” She laughed. “Mild-mannered reporter, à la Clark Kent? I thought federal law prohibited intelligence agencies from having cover identities as reporters.”
    “Reporters from American media. Unlike Clark Kent, I’m not a reporter,” he said, pulling a business card from his pocket and handing it to her. “I’m an editor.”
    “Of course.” She looked at the card, which read, “ International Journal for World Peace. ” “Convenient. Offices throughout the world, no doubt?”
    “Would you expect anything less? My boss is the publisher. Not that he publishes or I edit.”
    “A shadow paper.”
    “Precisely. It just so happens that the IJWP rents space from the American newspaper that occupies this building.”
    “The American paper you rent space from wouldn’t also happen to be owned by the agency you work for?”
    “We need a place to go to work every day without raising suspicion that we’re drug dealers or earning a salary without means of support. Unlike the IJWP , our American paper has a staff that fully mans, reports, and publishes on the floors below ours, and we use the AP. A lot.”
    “So you’re a covert operative,” she said, walking to the window, looking down to the street below. “Running a paper.”
    “A foreign paper. You’d be surprised what we learn from the letters to the editor.” He unlocked his desk, grabbed a set of car keys, then checked the messages his secretary had left for him. When he looked up, he saw Fitzpatrick trying to make a call from her cell phone. “You’ll have to use a landline. No signals in, no signals out on this floor.” He pushed the telephone toward her.
    She picked it up, punched in a number. “Hey, Scotty,” she said, then listened to whatever it was her ex told her. “Yeah, I’ve still got a key. Be careful.” She hung up, looked at him, her expression unreadable. “He’s still out on the robbery. They’ve holed themselves up somewhere in the downtown area.”
    “Hostages?”
    “Only one bank teller, and she escaped when they tried dragging her into their car.”
    “Lucky for her,” he said, picking up the inside line to call his secretary and let her know he was back. “Done. We deliver the briefcase, then we’re out of here.”
    They stopped for a cup of coffee in the break room, then, coffee in hand, continued on to the director’s office. Griffin knocked, waited for the “come in,” then opened the door. His boss, Ron Nicholas McNiel III, was talking to one of Griffin’s team members, James “Tex” Dalton. Griffin introduced Fitzpatrick to both men.
    Tex stood, and with his usual shit-eating grin, said to Fitzpatrick, “You doing anything tonight?”
    “She’s visiting her boyfriend,” Griffin said.
    “Doesn’t hurt to ask.”
    Fitzpatrick smiled at Tex. “If plans change, I’ll let you know.”
    “You do that, darlin’,” Tex said, laying on a thick drawl he used to impress the ladies. Like many on Griffin’s team, Tex spoke several languages, but with an added skill of having accents down to an art. He’d recently finished a stint in the Boston area. No one could’ve told he wasn’t Boston born and bred.
    “We should be going,” Griffin said, then directed Sydney toward the door.
    “Zach?” his boss called out. “Have a minute?”
    Fitzpatrick gave a neutral smile. “I’ll wait out here.”
    Griffin stepped back in, shut the door.
    “They recovered the car that ran over Tasha Gilbert. It matches the description of the vehicle that hit Dr. Balraj’s car a couple weeks ago. They’re doing an analysis on the paint transfer. The color matches.”
    “So she was targeted by the same people?”
    “So it seems. Why Tasha, though? She has absolutely no connection to Balraj or his assistant.”
    A good question, Griffin thought. Dr. Balraj was a