"The Coffee House Spy" 6

The sun was just climbing in the sky as Brent brewed a strong pot of coffee. He poured the dark brew into two hefty mugs and had just replaced the pot on its heated plate when there was a sharp knock on the apartment door. “Perfect timing,” he muttered.

Brent opened the door to a disheveled agent with an untrusting smirk.

“Had a good night spying on me Thies?”

“Ha! You’re funny Brent; you know I’m not supposed to be in here. Why’d you signal me?”

Brent shrugged. “I thought you might like some coffee and breakfast.”

The agent sniffed the air and groaned in surrender. “I’d say thank you, because the stale donuts and whatever’s in this thermos weren’t satisfying, but what’s the motive?”

“I remember the mud in that thing,” Brent nodded to the thermos, “it’s a form of torture. I’ve got real eggs and bacon in the kitchen and a fresh pot of dark roast, are you really going to pass it up?”

“If you didn’t offer, I might kill you for it.” Thiesel said, pushing Brent out of the way as he walked into the apartment.

“Come on in,” Brent invited with a chuckle and closed the door. He knew agents had to endure a lot of bad meals and sleepless nights on a stakeout, but to ask an agent of this caliber to take up watch duty wasn't done. He needed to know what Thiesel had been told about the case. Why had he accepted this assignment?

Thiesel didn’t stand on ceremony; he walked right into the kitchen and filled his plate to max capacity and devoured the meal in minutes. He was pouring a second cup of coffee when Brent interrupted him with a question; which he knew was the true reason for the hospitality.

 “Why are you tailing me Thies?”

The agent finished topping off his coffee before he answered. “Damned if I know; I was pulled from a mission overseas to come back and watch you; I thought you could shed light on why you’re in need of primo protection.”

“I hate to break it to you but according to Diamond, you’re not here to protect me, you're protecting a dog.”

The agent’s eyes glittered with denial and he shook his head. “There’s no way that’s true!”

“It is; Diamond thinks someone wants the dog.”

“That can’t be right; they wouldn’t need me to watch a dog when they could give that duty to any newbie. What the hell Brent!”

“Exactly, and if you haven't been told the truth then something isn’t right. There’s more we both aren’t being told.”

Thiesel sat down at the table, his expression troubled. “I wasn’t given a dossier on possible suspects to watch for; I was only told to keep you and Stacy safe.”

“Then basic protocol wasn’t followed,” Brent concluded.

“No, it wasn’t…Who wants the dog, did Diamond say?”

“No, but...he believes it’s connected to Russ’s disappearance; Russ gave me the dog to watch before he went missing.”

Thies’s eyes remained locked on Brent’s but his agent’s mask slid back in place. He’d been warned that Russ was a double agent and not to trust anyone who said otherwise; only now, he wasn’t sure what to believe.

Brent deciphered Thiesel's look and he didn’t like it.

“What have you been told Thies; tell me!”

“First, you'd have to tell me why your brother went off mission.”

Brent gave him a dark look and stood up. He was restless from the lack of information he had and frustrated with the pack of lies he’d been fed, and he didn’t like the implication his brother was disloyal.

”Spill it Brent,” Thiesel demanded and stood up too.

Brent wished he could spill it but he had nothing in the way of information to give him. 

"Relax Thies, I'm not hiding anything." he said and sat back down waiting for Thiesel to do the same before he continued.

"Okay, then tell me what you know."

Brent told him about last night's meeting with Diamond.

"He took us off our current assignment and informed us Russ wasn’t on a sanctioned mission when he disappeared. Diamond claims he doesn’t know what Russ was doing, but I’m not sure I buy into his ignorance.”

“Why?”

“Because Russ was committed to the bureau; he wouldn’t go off without a cause but until I find him…no one’s going to tell me what that cause was.”

Thiesel considered Brent’s explanation and his intuition told him Brent was telling him the truth; the truth as he knew it anyway. He leaned back in his chair and studied him.

“So your brother never said anything to you about the mission?”

“No, all he said was he’d be back in a week and that was two month’s ago.”

“Did he give you anything, anything that might hold a clue?”

“Only the dog,” Brent said with a smirk.

"Why would Diamond think someone wants that dog?"

"Unless the dog is a priceless breed; I haven’t found a clue to that either."

“What about Russ's apartment, have you searched there?”

“That's a dead end; someone at the bureau ordered it locked up two weeks ago and I have no access to it.”

“They locked it up two weeks ago?”

“Yeah, when they told me he’d gone missing. Up till then, I’d thought his mission had taken longer, as some do, and I wasn’t concerned he hadn’t contacted me.”

Thiesel gave Brent a hard look as he informed him, “They called me back from my mission a week ago; so either they’d found something in that apartment that put me on your tail or they haven’t found anything, and they’re hoping you’ll lead them to something.”

“Yeah, great deduction, but I’d already figured that part out.”

“Then its simple,” Thiesel said and took another sip of coffee, not bothering to expound on his statement.

“Simple...?”

“Yeah,” Thiesel put down his cup and nodded, “We’ll need to get into that apartment and into the stored files they have on Russ at headquarters.”

Brent gave him a cynical look. “And that’s simple?”

Thiesel smirked. “Well, maybe not for you.”

Brent was about to defend his abilities when he heard the apartment door open followed by Stacy’s voice.

“Hey, I smell bacon in here and there’d better be some left for me or there’ll be hell to pay, brother!” She chuckled at her own threat but she stopped short at the kitchen’s entrance and stared at the occupant there.

The elite agent was casually sitting at the table, the gorgeous elite agent, and she was momentarily stumped for words, and movement.

“Good morning Stacy;" Thiesel greeted her, "I think we’ve left you a strip or two but there’s plenty of coffee." He lifted his cup as proof and finished the brew with a satisfied sigh.

Stacy continued to play a convincing mannequin.

Thiesel stood up. “I should go, get some sleep and a change of clothes but I’ll be back on watch later; we’ll flesh out a plan then.”

“Sure,” Brent said with a nod.

“See you,” Thiesel said to Stacy as he walked past her.

Stacy had no smart come back; in fact, her brain was bereft of thought. She nodded dumbly to the agent’s retreating back and feared her expression bordered on goofy, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. When the apartment door closed, her brain woke up and she drew in a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her eyes swung to Brent.

“What was he doing here?” She demanded in a blistering tone, hoping to save face after her gaga reaction.

“I’d say he was capturing your imagination,” Brent teased her.

“Oh shut up and pass me the bacon.”

Brent continued to chuckle as he gave her a plate of eggs and bacon and a mug of coffee but while she ate, he did fill her in.

*

Emily opened the kitchen curtains letting in the fall day's early morning sunlight and waited for her coffee to finish brewing.

She had a stack of manuscripts she was behind in editing and that was the reason for her early start today; she had to catch up. Her boss at SHT had left her a message; she needed to submit these manuscripts to printing in two days.

She’d just settled in at the kitchen counter, with the first of those manuscripts open in front of her and had taken her first fortifying sip of coffee, when Sir Harry barreled into the kitchen whimpering.

“Now?” she asked the dog, but seeing his back legs dancing in place she knew the answer, “Okay, give me a minute.”

Sir Harry had no minutes to spare and telegraphed that by his louder whimper and his frantic dance.

Emily looked down at her comfy jogging pants and t-shirt like pajama top and decided it was good enough for a ‘just after sunrise’ dog walk; hardly anyone should be out and about this early.

She grabbed her sweater off the peg near the door and the dog’s leash she’d hung there too but when she went to clip it to his collar, she noticed he didn’t have it on. She couldn’t imagine where it was but then she had a foggy, late night memory of taking it off the dog, only she couldn’t remember why, or what she’d done with it.

The dog bumped his nose on the door impatiently and she had no time to dwell on the missing collar.

“Okay, we’ll go but you’d better behaved Harry because you’re going to be off leash on this walk,” she warned him as she opened the apartment door.

She thought the dog must have understood her because he stayed by her side as they walked down the first two flights of stairs but when they rounded the second floor, a male figure was on the stairs ahead of them and Sir Harry ran down and right into the man's back legs. The man nearly lost his balance but managed to stay upright, and turned to face his attacker.

Emily was stunned, with one foot firmly on the stair under her and the other poised over the next step down, she stared at the man’s face; it was arresting in its symmetry. She couldn’t even blink to reset her mind.

“Hi.”

He said in a voice deep and manly. It was her brain that gave the descriptive narrative for that voice. It was straight out of a steamy romance novel and…so was he. Emily shook away the school girl thoughts and managed to squeak out a corresponding, "Hi."

“Is that your dog?”

“I’m so sorry he barreled into you,” Emily finally apologized and placed her airborne foot down on the lower step, “he’s just in a hurry to get outside.”

“Oh, then I’ll let you both pass,” Thiesel said with an understanding smile and stepped back to allow room for them to pass him. He knew, according to Brent, this was the dog he was supposed to protect; it looked to him that the dog could very well protect itself.

Sir Harry took full advantage of the open space and raced down the stairs and around to the next landing but Emily continued down the stairs at a slower pace and stopped on the step with the man to give him a grateful smile.

“Thank you for being so understanding.”

“No problem and you’re welcome.”

“Do you live in this building? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”  Her voice sounded giggly and girlish and she wanted to slap her hand over her mouth, even as she took note of his six foot two height and his blistering blue eyes.

“My brother moved into an apartment on the fourth floor; I was visiting him.” Thiesel made the lie believable by his easy response.

“That's nice,” she mumbled. Then Harry’s sorrowful whine echoed from below, “I’ve got to get him outside, but it was nice to meet you,” she said breezily then ran down the rest of the stairs.

Once outside she was over her uncharacteristic mooning and again impressed with Harry’s well trained behavior. 

Harry stayed within two feet of her as they walked and when she said stop, he did. She felt confident he wouldn’t run away and decided to walk him over to the small park that was two blocks away from her building.

Even with the early morning chill, she admitted she was enjoying the walk and the canine companion.

“I could get use to this,” she told the dog and he turned and tilted his head at her, “But,” she continued, “now that you’ve marked a few territories, maybe we can go back home and I can finish that cold coffee and you can have some breakfast?”

Sir Harry did an about face and began to walk towards home.

Emily laughed; thinking he must have understood the word breakfast.

“You are a smart dog aren’t you?” she said, holding his leash in her hand and swinging it as she walked with a light step out of the park.

*

The heavy set figure of a man stepped out from behind the trunk of a large oak. He was convinced the woman and the dog were unaware of his presence and had no idea they were being watched. He took out his phone and punched in a code.

“I found the dog,” he said to the person on the other end of the line then listened to the response and nodded, “I haven't seen him but he has a dog walker and she won’t be a problem.”