Ingrams & Assoc 1: Double Bluff Ch. 02

Another wall was a huge white board. There were markers scattered around and lots of cryptic messages already marked. On his desk was a large 27-inch Apple iMac, lots of documents and post-it notes, various small executive toys, a hand exerciser and three framed photos – one of his wife, one of his kids and one of him and a large group of children, all posing with bows and arrows.

Silverano looked up and April saw that the photos they had of him didn't do him justice. He looked younger in person. He wore a charcoal suit, but the jacket was on the back of his chair, he'd removed the tie and rolled up his sleeves. Bifocals sat low on his hawk nose. His short black curly hair looked slightly slick and his aquiline features clashed with the warmth his eyes promised. She took in the laugh and frown lines on his face, and wondered how he could tamp down that much emotion when conducting negotiations. He stood up to offer his hand to April and she saw that he was tall, at least 5'10" and well built, without being fat or appearing too buff.

He smiled at her and said, "Hi there, Mary. Sorry for the mess. Debra picked the damndest time to get sick, I'm afraid. We are in what my programming friends like to call 'Crunch mode' right now, with the negotiations with the Chinese. I lean on my PA a lot, so I hope you know what you are doing. You'll need to hit the ground running I'm afraid, no time to get up to speed slowly."

April smiled, nodded and shook his hand, not too firmly, glanced briefly into his eyes but then kept them averted as she said, "I understand, Mr. Silverano. I'll do my best. I know you are under pressure right now." She wanted him to be sure she was issue free, professional and knew her place. She also filed the fact that he had programming friends under the title 'Something to ask R&D about', since there'd been no mention of that in his brief. Now that she thought about it, he was negotiating a cyber warfare treaty, of course he'd have programming friends. They'd let that one slip past them.

"I'm sure you'll do just fine, Mary," said Silverano, and April realized he had already sized her up. She didn't know if it was purely professional or not, but she figured she'd soon find out, either way.

Mercer said, "Well, I'll leave you two alone. Paul, we should do another round of golf some time. You need to let me win back that fifty."

Silverano grinned and said, "Gary, if you want to lose another fifty bucks, then I'm all for it. Don't imagine it'll be any other way."

Gary Mercer looked back at him and, rather startlingly, gave him one of those Italian gestures that April had always believed was quite rude. Silverano just smiled wider and said, "Yeah, your mother too."

Silverano then noticed April looked a bit uncomfortable and said, "Don't worry. Gary is an honorary Italian. We have to give each other shit. It's in the contract."

April didn't know what to say, and just said, "Oh."

Silverano turned his attention back to Mercer and said, "Ok sonny, off you go. Go practice your swing. And practice getting your wallet out."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," replied Mercer, leaving the room.

"So..." said April, looking for something to say, "What can I do for you first, Mr. Silverano?"

"First, you can call me Paul. I'm only Mr. Silverano in the negotiating room, ok?"

April nodded.

"And then, I need all the department heads from State and the Pentagon civilian attachée for cyber black ops in the conference room by three p.m. today. Do whatever you need to get them here, we have some stuff we need to go over that has just come up. Can you do that, Mary?"

"Oh, I'm sure I can, Mr. Silv...Paul," said April, smiling demurely and thanking her yesterday self for spending the evening studying the operations manual for the State Department. She knew who to look up, who to call, all she had to do now was get started.

"The big deal right now are these upcoming negotiations with the Chinese. There's a preliminary meeting with some of their people in a couple of weeks – it's ostensibly a trading negotiation, but the real reason they are here is for this cyber warfare treaty we are trying to work out - and it needs to go smoothly and I'm going to be relying on your abilities, ok? You understand, this is important stuff. For you, for me and for the country. You get that, right?"

April nodded, letting her eyes widen just slightly.

"Good. And I don't normally ask this, since I have a Keurig coffee machine in my office, but it's broken right now. Can you get me some coffee? Black, one sugar, none of that macchiato shit. My countrymen have a lot to answer for when it comes to fucking up coffee. I just like mine regular."

"Sure," replied April. "I just need to find the break room."

"Third door down on your left," said Silverano, turning back to his desk and picking up the phone.

The agent part of her wanted to study how he worked, but as his PA, she had to get started on her duties. First though, coffee.

-----

Over the next three days, April did her best to be efficient, smile a lot and be as prescient as she could be. She immersed herself in the work, watched Silverano in his meetings and studied him as best she could, to be ready to adjust the parameters of what she needed to be to him to help him over what was coming.

He was clever, smart, and understood the value of silence. He was passionate when he truly believed something, and could turn on some pretty good artificial passion when he believed the situation demanded it. She caught him doing it twice and had to smile into her iPad as she watched one meeting's occupants believe that he cared about teenage hackers in Beijing.

She noticed he was all about balance. When talking with his counterparts in other offices, he was careful to balance out what he offered them, based on what they offered him. She noticed it again when he was talking to the Chinese. His success in negotiating came partly from that strong, ingrained sense of fairness and balance he had. He even went as far to admit some of what the U.S. was asking for wasnotbalanced, and argued back in meetings with other departments, as though he were the Chinese and representing their point of view. It was interesting to watch; April got the distinct impression that balance and fairness were an essential part of Paul Silverano's makeup, something that was going to make the incoming DNA results even more painful for him.

One moment of note was the first phone call from Jenny Silverano, his wife. April had been sitting in the office, trying to match up travel schedules for a couple of delegates for the upcoming in-person negotiations, when she'd answered the phone and been treated to a shrill, nasal voice, that reminded April of every New York Jewish Princess she'd ever seen, that declared, "So, you the new office bimbo eh?"

Not knowing quite how to respond to that, April had replied, "This is Mr. Silverano's office. How may I direct your call?"

There was a snort on the other end of the phone and April heard, "Oh my God, he's got Siri working for him now?"

April was taken aback. If this was who she thought it was, her mission required her to be on good terms with who was on the other end of the phone, but she still hadn't identified herself yet.

"Um, hello? Can I ask who is calling?"

"This is his wife. I'm Jenny. You can call me Mrs. Silverano."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Mrs. Silverano. I'm Mary, I'm new here. I didn't know it was—"

Jenny interrupted, laughing. "I know, I know. I'm just giving you a hard time. Think of it as hazing. I really like Jenny, his last PA, so you have big high heels to climb in. So, is the dirt bag in?"

"Mr. Silverano is on a conference call. I can get him to call you back right after that, if that's ok? Probably at least an hour though."

"Sweetie, if you can actually get him to call me at all, I'd be impressed. He never calls me back."

"Sure, Mrs. Silverano. I'll have him call."

"I'll believe it when I hear it," replied Jenny Silverano drily. "Later, Barbie." And the phone went dead.

April sat there, thinking about the phone conversation, and thought, 'I'd better be sure and make sure he calls back then.'

Thankfully, she remembered to push him, and while Paul seemed to be good about returning almost anyone else's call, he dragged his feet calling his wife back. In the end, April found the number in the previous PA's rolodex, made the call and transferred it directly to Paul's phone.

The next day, Paul came in and dumped a Starbucks card on her desk. She looked up at him, surprised- and he said in the tones of a man who doesn't want to say what he's going to say, but he has to, or His Wife Will Be Upset, "It's from the wife. She says if you can make me call her back, you're worth keeping. This is her gift. It's for fifty bucks."

April's eyebrows raised. A fifty-dollar Starbucks card was some gift for someone you've never even met. Having delivered his message, Paul went red, turned away and went into his office, closing the door firmly behind him.

She had primed the pump of getting to know him in a less-professional capacity – she was wearing a wedding ring on her right hand, she was wearing a very conspicuous chain around her neck with a half heart on it, and her earrings were carefully chosen to be conversation starters. She even had a signed baseball on her desk, prominently displayed, hoping he'd ask about it. In fact, almost everything she wore or had as part of her image was designed to get a conversation started, and while it worked far too well with the other girls in the office – she couldn't get coffee without being asked for her life story from all and sundry – Silverano alone seemed immune to curiosity.

She did make some headway one afternoon as she delivered some paperwork and while she waited for his signature, she hovered and looked at the pictures on his wall. He looked up and saw her examining the pictures, particularly of his kids and just watched her. She recovered herself and blushed when she realized he was looking at her looking at his kids and she murmured, "Sorry. I just... it's nice to see a family like this. Makes me wish..." She picked up the papers and made to leave.

Silverano said, "Makes you wish what?"

April looked at him and said, "That I had a family like that. Well, I do, but not biological. I'm adopted. I love my parents like nothing on earth, but sometimes, you just look at this kind of family and wonder...you know?"

Silverano studied her. "Adopted? Nothing to be ashamed or upset about there. Your parents are undoubtedly very fine people. I have a special place in my heart for those who adopt. It shows they don't let biology dictate who they love."

April smiled shyly and bit her lip and said, "Of course. I know they love me. It wasn't a hard upbringing at all. At times I think I got more love than most because they had to fight so hard to get me. No just getting pregnant, they had to go through so much, you know."

Silverano nodded. "Yes. No question."

"Sometimes I think everyone should be adopted. I think if every parent had to go through what they did, a lot of kids would end up better adjusted."

Silverano laughed. "Perhaps you're right. Definitely food for thought there, Mary."

April smiled weakly and left the room. She was pleased. She'd got that thought out there, and it was an essential plank of her intended therapy plan.

On the way back to her small office-supplied one-bedroom apartment – carefully chosen in terms of location so it was just further out from the office than the Silverano's house, so she could follow Paul Silverano's white BMW to work every morning and tail him home, without arousing suspicion. It was standard operating procedure to gather as much Intel as was possible on an intended client, and this was one more way she could see what his life was like. Twice a week she saw him stop off to pick up his and his friends kids in his BMW and take them to archery classes, or take them to the park where he organized flag football games.

She made the decision that offering a seduction was probably going to be the only way she would get the inside scoop on his decision-making and thought processes. She could do it without pillow talk given enough time, but there just wasn't any. When the DNA results came in, she needed to be someone he would lean on and confide in, and she didn't have any other way to integrate herself in the short term.

However, she didn't take the decision lightly. A sexual relationship with him would mean enticing him to break his marriage vows. From what she'd seen so far – certainly from the conversations she'd had with his wife Jenny over the phone and what she'd heard from his office when the door had been open — it didn't seem that strong of a marriage, but still, she knew that with her skill set, Paul Silverano would likely put up little resistance, and therein lay the rub.

In the end, she compromised. She would make the offer, but in a deniable and subconscious way. He would know, but what he decided to do about it would be entirely up to him. She'd put him in a situation where the likely result would be the two them ending up in bed, but make the decision all his. She knew damn well she was splitting hairs, but it was necessary for her to be able to look at herself in the mirror. She was beginning to understand that being a field agent meant making hard decisions, and decisions on the behalf of other people – decisions that would impact their lives and turn things around a pivot. She had a couple of sleepless nights wondering why she felt she had the right to do this to people? But then she thought that this is what she was hired for. She just had to believe in herself and her ability to help and move forward. It was arrogant, but this is what she had intended from the start. It was just harder to actually do it now she was there. The gap between theory and practical reality had never been so great.

That night she made her evening phone call to the office and spoke to Desirea about her decision. Desirea was forthright in her assessment.

"I really don't like this. We don't know what you're getting into – you may well end up doing more damage than good. This needs to be done in a very deniable way and for Christ's sake, be careful. I'm really not happy about this, but I do concur that in the short term, we need some pillow talk. You just...be careful, April. Let us know exactly what is going on."

So the next day, she wore her little pencil skirt with the long slit up the front, the black thigh hi stockings, heels and the tight tailored white blouse with the open front that she had for just such occasions as this. The slit in the pencil skirt was in the front and with careful manipulation, at the right angle, it provided glimpses up to her stocking tops.

She tied all this off with a black velvet choker and some hoop earrings, designed to catch the light. Red lipstick, hair pulled up in a bun, and glasses and she looked the stereotypical secretary.

That morning, she found an excuse to be in his office, crouched down by a lower drawer, sorting through some papers. Silverano was on the phone, walking back and forth, expounding in Chinese and sounding quite frustrated.

He paced the room, attention on his call, gesturing as some people are wont to do when talking on the phone, even though no one on the other end can see. April wondered how long she'd have to be down there before he noticed. She'd arranged her self so the skirt slit was uppermost, and had had to pull it back a bit so she could crouch down. Her legs were slightly parted, and if Silverano looked down, he could without doubt see the tops of her stockings. Her blouse was also arranged so the from the angle of above, it was possible to see down to her bra. The bra was carefully chosen to be extremely low cut – more of a breast hammock than a bra, and even potentially get a nipple peek. April sorted through papers, doing her best not to obscure the view.

She heard Silverano finish the call, sigh, and throw the phone on the desk. He walked around the desk towards her – she could see his shadow moving along the floor – and then he stopped. She held her breath; it was the moment of truth. She knew she needed to say something inane, in order for the moment to work; he had to believe it was an accident.

"So, do you think the Redskins...." she began and looked up. He was standing over her, looking down intently. She trailed off as she met his eyes, doing her best to create a moment. He took it as genuine, and there was no doubt itwasa moment.

He'd seen her stocking tops, seen down her blouse and he'd seen that she'd seen. Both knew what the moment had been, and both knew that in that second, a subtle shift had occurred. A shift of what their relationship was based on, what it could be and how it might get there. Power had slightly shifted to April, which would put her in the driving seat now.

They sat there for a moment, neither saying anything, then Silverano turned and walked back behind his desk, putting it between them, and hiding his rather obvious erection at the same time.

He didn't meet her eyes but said, "That'll be all for now, Mary, thank you. I need to make a private call."

April came to her feet as smoothly as she could, gave him a small smile, even though he wasn't looking at her, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

-----

The next day was another step forward in Operation Silverano Seduction. April wore prim and proper clothes, but with scandalous high heels. At lunchtime she sat in her office, picking at a salad as Silverano came out of his office on his way to have lunch with some friends. He stopped and studied her a moment.

"Mary, do you ever eat away from your desk?" he inquired.

April had been careful to eat only at her desk, trying to look as pitiful as possible. It had been hard to turn down the invitations from the rest of the floor to go places – she always replied that she was trying to learn the systems there and needed to spend the extra time at her desk. She got some sympathetic looks, but mostly she was left alone at lunchtime. She made sure that Silverano saw her sitting at her desk, with a sandwich or a salad, looking sad and staring at her monitor. She was sure that at some point the basic decency he had would prompt him to take her with him for lunch. Perhaps today.

"Um, mostly, yes," she replied, poking at her salad with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

"Why?" asked Silverano.

"Oh, I have lots to catch up on, lots to learn so I'm ready for when you need me," she replied, not meeting his gaze.

Silverano had been a negotiator long enough that he knew a transparently false statement when he heard one. He stood there, not moving and not saying anything, letting the silence go on so April would attempt to fill it.

Eventually she did. "Ok, so I don't know what there is around here to eat, ok? And frankly, some of the people in this office feel a little...predatory. I feel like I'm being undressed visually."

The last statement was a deliberate attempt to play on what had happened the previous day, and it worked. She watched Silverano turn himself away so that she couldn't see his erection.

"Um, well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Mary. Let me make it up to you. Let's go to lunch," he said, still facing way from her and talking to the door lintel. April had to hide a smile. "You know, I really need to have a word with the cleaning staff," he said, as he ran his finger along the top of the door jam and inspected it for dust.

"Um. If you're sure..." said April, hamming up the little-girl-lost aspect and unexpectedly hating herself for doing it.

"I'm having lunch with some old friends at the Convection Club. You can come along. It would do them good to see that I have an attentive PA!" joked Silverano, trying to lighten the mood and draw her attention away from the fact that he could see that April was wearing that lacy bra again.