You are Mine by Lisa G Riley Page B

tell that the
conversation was not over, that he had determined that they would
be discussing it later. He sighed, fed her another spoonful of soup
and mouthed, He says we’re going to Keenan’s house in a few
days . Says he should be getting some crucial information in
soon that will help us prepare and have surprise on our
side.
    Ida frowned, but said nothing. It was a bad
idea, she knew, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Brickman had already made up his mind.
    ***
    ARLINGTON, Virginia
    Coop sat at one end of the long mahogany
conference table and from beneath his lashes, studied the other
people in the room. Idiots, all of them, he thought impatiently.
They sat around arguing about the insignificant things while giving
the major events the short shrift. It was infuriating. He looked
over at his boss who looked just as disgusted as he. Ben nodded
slightly and Coop took that as his cue to take over the meeting.
Raising his voice, he spoke loud enough to drown out the petty
squabbling.
    “I need to know what you have decided to do
about the new information regarding Alexander Brickman,” he
demanded of the other four people in the room, all of whom ran a
division in the agency.
    When the squabbling began again, he
impatiently slapped his hand on the table. “It’s not a difficult
decision to make: either we share the information we have with our
counterparts who have been after the man for years, or we keep it
to ourselves. Pete,” he directed his comments to the DEA
representative, “your agency has wanted him for years. What do you
think? Do we tell your people in Mexico and Chicago where he’s
headed, or not?”
    An older, white-haired almost irascible
character, Peter Tam nodded his head. Coop had always liked the
other man. Unlike most people in their world, he didn’t obfuscate
and he made up his mind quickly. “I hate to say this, but I think
we should keep them and the local FBI office in the dark. Yes,
we’ve wanted Brickman for years, but the Guerreras are much bigger
fish and they tortured and murdered a DEA agent. I don’t want to
risk tipping them off about Paragon by going after Brickman. Of
course, I’m sure the FBI wouldn’t agree with me.”
    Coop knew that this was exactly why they
hadn’t invited the FBI representative to the meeting. He spoke up,
“No one’s asked me, but I think we should inform the agents in
Chicago and Mexico about Brickman’s impeding arrival to the
Guerrera compound. Keeping secrets from one another has gotten this
country in hot fixes in the past. And I’m going to say that I do
not like the fact that we’ve kept Cam out of this meeting.”
    “Yes, it is unfortunate that we’ve so
quickly reverted back to our old ways when this agency was created
expressly to keep mistakes of the past from reoccurring,” Ben put
in. “However, I can see the need to keep the FBI out of this
meeting as I agree that we should keep mum on this new information
regarding Mr. Brickman.”
    Coop was not surprised at Ben’s decision as
his primary goal was to keep his agent safe. He wanted Paragon safe
as well, but the difference was he knew she would handle herself if
something flared up and he planned to travel to Mexico himself,
regardless of Ben’s objections. He did not like that they were
keeping this information to themselves; they were all on the same
team after all, and as a former field agent he knew how much this
kind of information would have meant to him on a case he’d been
working on for months, let alone, years.
    “I suppose you’re looking at this from the
agent’s perspective, aren’t you, Cooper?”
    The question was put snidely and came from
Osborne Howard, a man who Coop had little respect for and whom he’d
always thought of as an officious, whiny, little pissant. He didn’t
bother to answer him, instead addressing his comments to the room
at large. “Are you all agreed that we should not share the
information?”
    A chorus of yeses was the