MASON AND SAGE

Chapter 11 ~ Mason

As part of an elite, covert operations team in the Marines, I was used to missions that required patience and stealth. You had to gather intelligence, track your target's movements, set the trap and then spring it, neutralizing the target, all without tipping off your prey ahead of time. To get to mission accomplished, there were hours and hours of legwork required. The key to a successful mission, though, was patience above all else.

Today, my patience was about to pay off. After weeks of effort, the target had been acquired and all of the pieces were in place; there were dots over every i and a cross through every t. The target was tied up tight and didn't even realize it yet.

"Eva, could you come into my office, please?" Robert Manning, the Deputy Director of the CIA and Eva's boss, gave a grim nod to all of us gathered in his office after he hung up the phone. Go time.

She walked into his office, having no clue of the shit storm she was about to walk into.

"Shut the door, please," he said to her. After she pushed the door shut, she was able to take in the room's occupants all at once, and she froze, unable to contain the brief flash of fear before she schooled her features.

"Have a seat. We'll try to make this as stress-free as possible, given your condition," Robert said.

She took a seat, her eyes looking to me, but I looked at her steadily with all the hatred I felt for her and she couldn't hold my gaze for long. Bitch, you really think I'll help you after what you cost me?

"Eva, there have been some serious allegations made against you -- allegations that involve using my name and position to falsify a paternity test under the pretense of national security."

"Sir, I can explain --"

"Eva, the paternity test shows that Major Mason Pierce is the father of your unborn child, correct?"

"Yes." She straightened in her chair, trying to brazen this out, knowing she was trapped.

"I'll ask you this once. Is that true?"

A brief hesitation, then, "Yes."

"Excellent. Now the Major claims there is no way your child is his because he has not had sexual relations with you in almost two years. Is that true?"

"No, when we met at a restaurant with friends several months ago, he...we had sex in the alley behind the restaurant that evening."

"The Major alleges that this man, Captain Nathan James, is most likely the possible father of your child because he was the one who actually engaged in sexual relations with you behind that alley that night. However, Major Pierce is not ruling out that there were other men who could be the father. He is just stating that there is no way the child is his."

"No, that 's not true -- it was Mason!" But her voice sounded less and less sure with every lie she uttered.

"Then the paternity test we're going to do right now will show that. You'll be detained until the results come back, without access to any electronic devices, just to make sure there's no question of tampering with the results."

"You can't --"

"Oh, I not only can, I am," he shot at her. 

Robert decided to quit playing with his mouse and stood up, leaning over his desk. "Let's get something straight, Eva. I do not like my name -- my very position and reputation -- taken advantage of the way you did. There are witnesses at the lab that have corroborated what you did in my name. That means more than one person knows how you abused your position of trust, forged my signature and did so to falsify a paternity test that didn't have the first thing to do with national fucking security! We have two highly decorated Marines agreeing on the events that happened in the alley that night. This is never going to get to lawyers because you've already fucked this up enough and if this were to get out, it would hurt the organization, it would hurt my boss and it would hurt me, and that is something I am not going to let happen."