Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

Lance’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, it’s only for a time, say a month.”

Holly stared at him, uncomprehending.

“I’m not firing you,” he clarified.

“Good, then I won’t have to kill you,” she replied. “Now what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not doing the talking; other people are.”

“Talking? Not about you and me, surely.”

“Well, maybe that, too. What they’re talking about is Teddy Fay.”

Teddy Fay was a name never mentioned at Langley, a great embarrassment to everyone in the building, except to those who secretly rooted for him. Teddy was the former deputy chief of Technical Services, the division that supplied operational officers with everything they needed to accomplish their missions: a weapon, a wardrobe, an identity or a cyanide capsule. Whatever, Tech Services obliged. But Teddy Fay, after retiring, had gone off the reservation, had started killing right-wing political figures, Middle Eastern diplomats-anyone who Teddy felt did not have the best interests of his country at heart-and no combination of the Agency’s and the FBI’s resources had been able to stop him or even find him. Holly was the only CIA employee who had ever even seen him since his retirement and then only when he was disguised.

“Am I getting blamed for Teddy Fay?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” Lance replied. “It’s just felt that you’ve had a number of opportunities to kill him and you haven’t done so.”

“Lance, I’ve seen the man only once when I knew who he was, and, on that occasion, I managed to put a bullet in him.”

“Yes, but not in the head or the heart,” Lance pointed out. “And given that, during your schooling at the Farm, you ran up the highest scores with a handgun of any trainee ever, some wonder why you didn’t do just a little better. In fact, I myself have wondered.”

Holly had wondered about that, too. “I won’t dignify that with a response,” she said, by way of saying nothing. She almost said that she was not an assassin but thought better of it.

“Be that as it may, you are just a little too hot around here at the moment, so take some leave. The director has had a word with the higher-ups, complaining about the unused leave time that some officers have allowed to pile up, and you’re high on the list. You’ve got nine weeks coming, and it’s time you took some time.”

“Lance, I’ve got an awful lot on my plate right now.”

“You need a change of diet,” he said. “And, you might recall, we’ve made a few modifications in that house of yours in Florida.”

Holly had nearly forgotten about that, and she had not visited the house since. “That wasn’t my idea.”

“Go there. E-mail or call, if you can’t stand being out of touch, but go.”

Holly sighed. “Well, I guess I could clean up my desk in a few days,” she said.

“You’ve got two hours to write me a memo on what’s pending, so I can reassign the work, then you’re out of here.” He paused for a reaction and got none. “Are you hearing me?”

“I’m doing that job for the director,” she said. She had grown fairly close to Katharine Rule Lee, the director of Central Intelligence, and she wanted to further that relationship.

“This request comes from the director; I’m only passing it on. Give me the file; I’ll handle it.”

Holly threw up her hands.

“Why are you still sitting there?” Lance asked.

“All right, all right,” Holly said, then slouched out of the big office and to her desk. Her work was neatly filed, and she made a stack of folders as she wrote her memo. She was done in exactly two hours. She knocked on Lance’s door.

“Come in.”

She walked into the room to find the director sitting where she, herself, had sat earlier that morning.

“Good morning, Holly,” Kate Lee said.

“Good morning, Director,” Holly replied. She set the bundle of file folders on Lance’s conference table, then handed him the memo and watched while he read it through.

“I thought I’d stop in and reassure you before you leave,” the director said. “It’s not that we’re trying to get rid of you; it’s ju