A Father's Sacrifice (2 page)

Alfred Mintz frowned at her as the elevator doors slid silently open.

She wiped her palms again, and stepped out into a brightly lit hall. It looked as if all the walls were made of glass. Natasha swallowed nervously. Not very substantial. She resisted the urge to glance up at the ceiling. How did these walls hold up the tons of dirt and steel above their heads?

Ignoring the burning sensation on her scalp that signaled rising panic, she concentrated on staying calm.

Mintz started down the hall, leaving her to catch up. “You may not get to meet Dr. Stryker tonight. If he’s in the virtual surgery lab, we won’t disturb him.”

They passed empty offices, furnished cubicles with computer workstations, and a door labeled Restroom And Showers that thankfully was not walled with glass.

“I thought he was anxious for me to get started reinforcing the firewall,” she said.

Just past the restroom was a longer, solid glass wall. She saw a dim glow through the glass, although the
glare of the brighter hall lights kept her from seeing inside the room clearly. She had the impression of chrome and steel.

Mintz stopped at the door. He nodded, his gaze on something or someone beyond the glass.

Natasha shaded her eyes and squinted. The room was an exercise room—a very well-equipped exercise room.

And as she watched, a very well-equipped man stepped off a treadmill and grabbed a towel.

A few seconds later, the man stepped through the glass door and walked toward her with loose-limbed grace. He wore a gray T-shirt and gray exercise pants. The T-shirt was dark with sweat, and hugged the planes of his chest and shoulders. Its tail hung loose, hinting at a flat, ridged belly. The pants fit snugly over his lean hips and long legs.

His biceps flexed as he toweled his face and hair, then slung the towel around his neck.

Natasha gaped at him. Who was he? Not Stryker, surely. This guy did not look like a famous neurosurgeon. Maybe he was the young bioengineer she’d been told was building the interface implant—Jerry Campbell.

Mintz stepped aside as he approached.

When Natasha pulled her gaze away from his sweaty, sexy body and met his gaze, the lines around his red-rimmed blue eyes and the exhaustion on his face came into focus.

This was no kid.
But, who—

His sharp blue eyes burned into hers.

“Dylan Stryker, this is Special Agent Natasha Rudolph,” Mintz said.

“Ah, yes. NSA said you’d be here by this evening,” Stryker said wryly, lifting one brow.

It was him.
“Well, NSA and the FBI tend to respond more favorably to requests than demands.”

“I don’t have time to wait for the bureaucracy to process a request.”

His gaze flickered down her body and back up. Then he held out his hand. “So
you’re
the best hacker-buster in the known universe.”

She stared at the elegantly long, blunt-tipped fingers and neatly trimmed nails. His hands were the only thing about him that fit the information she’d been given. They looked like surgeon’s hands.

The only recent photos of him were long-range, grainy tabloid shots. From them she’d gotten the impression of a thin, hatchet-faced, obsessed scientist.

Boy was she wrong!

“Hacker-buster?” She shook her head. “No. Computer expert.” Her voice was steadier than her insides.

This was Dylan Stryker. Her head spun as lurid headlines filled her vision.

HORROR IN THE HAMPTONS.
Mad Doctor Hides Hideously
Maimed Son In Airless
Underground Dungeon.

It was typical tabloid fare and it made her shudder each time she thought about it, made her dread meeting Stryker’s child, whom Decker had told her was paralyzed. How could anyone keep a child in this place?
Underground dungeon—underground lab.
Close enough.

“Dr. Stryker.” She took his extended hand, and his intensity hit her like the back draft from a fi
re. Shock and awareness skittered along her spine. His grasp was firm and brief, leaving her palm feeling singed by his touch.

“So, Agent Rudolph, are you really the best?” His voice held a challenge.

“Yes, I am,” she said without hesitation.

His straight mouth tilted slightly at one corner. “Good. Perfect.”

He nodded, dislodging a trickle of sweat that slid down over his temple and down his jawbone.

He glanced at his watch, used the towel on his damp hair again, then turned to Mintz. “Get her settled and put her to work. What about equipment?”

“Brought it with her. Where do you want her?”

“In the office across from the virtual surgery lab.” He pointed farther down the hall. Then he looked at her. “How much equipment do you have?”

“I’d rather have an office upstairs—” Natasha started, but Mintz was listing her equipment for Stryker. Neither one of them paid any attention to her.

“Is there anything else you need, Agent Rudolph?”

Windows. Lots of windows. “Any chance I could work upstairs somewhere?”

“No. Out of the question.” Stryker eyed her suspiciously. “Are you sure you can handle this job?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, thankful her voice was still steady. She had a job to do. And that meant forgetting that there were truckloads of dirt and an entire mansion over her head. Her career was on the line. She had to succeed—windows or no windows.

“I assume I can start right away.” The quicker she got started, the quicker she could expose the hacker and get out of this hole in the ground.

“Alfred’ll take care of anything you need,” Stryker said with a wave of his hand.

As he turned away, his gaze met hers in a fleeting, intense glance that seared her to the bone. His clear blue eyes burned as brightly as an oxygen flame, warming her cheeks and stirring a cauldron of unexpected emotions within her.

He might be tired and unkempt, underfed and distracted, but Dylan Stryker exuded an air of command and—she searched for the right word…
masculinity
…that hummed through her like the ring of a perfectly pitched tuning fork. She blinked and dropped her gaze.

“Thanks, Alfred.” Stryker headed back to his lab.

Natasha felt stunned. According to his file, Stryker was thirty-three, and already known worldwide for his breakthroughs with computer-assisted mobility in nerve-damaged patients.

Natasha had studied everything the FBI had on him, including clippings from the tabloids. He’d been thirty when his wife was killed three years before.

It has long been rumored that Stryker’s infant son did not die in the mysterious car crash that killed his wife….

Natasha stared at Stryker’s broad shoulders and lean hips until she realized Mintz had left her behind again. She hurried to catch up. He used his thumbprint and keyed in digits from a pass code generator. The door clicked open to reveal a small foyer banked with elevators.

“Where are we going? I need to start work.”

Mintz punched the call button. “I’ll show you to your room first, so you can freshen up. Have you eaten?”

She nodded, finding it difficult to pull her thoughts away from Dylan Stryker. He was so completely different from her expectations. He was driven, maybe even obsessed. But there was something else about him. Something dark and haunted lurked behind his brilliant blue eyes.

“I assume you’ve been fully briefed on our situation?” Mintz asked.

“Yes, sir. I’m here to stop a hacker and construct a firewall. And of course, to help with physical security.”

Mintz shook his head. “Physical security is not your job. Two of your fellow agents are on the outside to help my staff handle that. You concentrate on the computer.”

Irritation stiffened her shoulders. “I’ve studied the aerial photos. You’ve done a good job of camouflaging the house.”

Too good for her taste. This was her first assignment since her injury. And now she understood why Decker had given her a choice. He’d told her that the staff psychiatrist had declared her
minimally
qualified. At the time she was furious, and eager to prove the shrink wrong.

Now she got it. How ironic that this job tapped into her worst fears. Before her injury, this would have been just another assignment, and her mild claustrophobia would be manageable. But now she was fighting for her career. If she couldn’t conquer her irrational fear of closed spaces, she’d lose her job.

She suppressed a shudder, drew in a lungfu
l of conditioned air and repeated the mantra Dr. Shay had given her to calm her panic.

Quiet and safe. Plenty of fresh air. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

It was nighttime now, but she knew from the photos Decker had shown her that even during the day, the massive house was shrouded in darkness. “I saw the infrared photos. How do you keep from broadcasting body heat?”

“The canopy that stretches over the entire house is made of a specially designed heat-repelling mesh,” Mintz answered. “Some sunlight does get in. But it’s very good camouflage.”

“Right. The perfect hiding place,” she said wryly.

“Not perfect,” Mintz responded. “We do what we can to quash any rumors that this is Dylan’s base of operations. But occasionally somebody tries to breach the walls, or flies over in a helicopter. Usually paparazzi.”

The faint note of disapproval in his voice intrigued her. She looked at him, but his stern face gave away nothing.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.

“And now it looks like we’ve got a hacker.”

“Did I understand that your computer guy said he got in and out clean?”

He nodded. “Jerry Campbell. He’s the bioengineer working with Dylan. He assured us the hacker left nothing behind.”

“Bioengineer? Who’s handling the computer system?”

Mintz cleared his throat impatiently. “Dr. Stryker wants as few people involved as possible.”

“I don’t know how good a bioengineer he is but he’s wrong about the hackers. They always lea
ve something,” Natasha said firmly. “I need to talk with him, find out what he saw.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight? What he tells me will help determine what other equipment I’ll need.”

Mintz shook his head. “He’s busy with Dylan tonight.”

“Well, maybe when he takes a
break,
” she said impatiently. She needed to get finished and get out. The assignment was already giving her the creeps.

The FBI shrink’s evaluation taunted her. Hasn’t fully dealt with her claustrophobia. She had to defeat the feeling of losing control if she was going to succeed.

“Believe me, Agent Rudolph. We’re anxious for you to get started. Get the equipment you brought set up tonight. Assess the system. Decide what else you need. Then first thing tomorrow, you can meet Campbell and have him brief you on the hacker’s movements.”

Natasha started to press him, but he held up his hand.

“Dylan’s at a critical point in the debugging process right now. I’m surprised he stopped long enough to exercise, although with the amount of tension he’s carrying around…” Mintz set his jaw. “He needs you, but he resents the time it’s going to take to bring you up to speed. Time is the one thing he doesn’t have. If you’re as good as your superiors say you are, he’ll figure it out soon enough.”

She tried one last frontal attack. “NSA is
extremely
anxious to get their hands on that interface.”

“NSA is not Dylan’s primary concern.”

Before she could ponder that comment, the elevator doors slid open, and they stepped
out into the atrium through which she’d entered. It was laid out in brightly veined Italian marble. A mezzanine lined with bookshelves bisected the walls.

The high ceiling was crowned by a massive domed skylight. Although the sun had set, a pink and purple glow filtered through the glass dome.

“I assume the skylight is shielded, too?”

Mintz glanced up. “Yep. The mesh doesn’t block the moon and stars as much as it does the sun. And there’s clear plastic sheeting to keep out the rain while allowing a little sunlight in.”

The vise that had squeezed her chest since she got here loosened a bit. She took a long cleansing breath. At least she could see the sky—sort of.

Mintz gave her a quick rundown of the house’s layout. He pointed to the front doors. “That’s north. The staff quarters are on the east. The kitchen, the patio and Ben’s play area are that way.” He pointed southward. “And the west door goes to the family quarters. Your suite is in there, next to Ben’s.”

As he finished, a metallic thumping echoed in her ears.

“Alfred!” A toddler ran in from the kitchen area.

“This is Ben.” Mintz’s controlled drill-sergeant face creased in a smile.

Natasha’s heart twisted in compassion as the little boy ran clumsily toward Mintz. The metallic thumps were caused by bright silver braces that crisscrossed his little legs like an erector set. Beneath the clanking of the braces, she heard the almost silent whirr of a motor.

“Alfred!” Ben shouted. “Where’s my daddy?”

He was the image of his father—black hair, blue eyes. He didn’t seem to notice the braces that encumbered him.

The tabloid stories held a kernel of truth, but they were totally wrong about the child. Ben wasn’t pathetically crippled. He was bright and energetic. Still, a horrific vision haunted her—a crumpled, crushed vehicle with a baby trapped inside, crying for his mother.

She shuddered and her breath hitched.

“Agent Rudolph, are you all right?”

She forced herself to breathe evenly. “Of course.”

Ben tugged on Mintz’s hand. “Is Daddy coming?”

“Pardner, why aren’t you in bed?” Mintz said in a surprisingly gentle voice.

“I’m waiting for my daddy.”

“Where’s Miss Charlene?” Mintz inclined his head toward Natasha. “Ben’s physical therapist.”

Ben’s face began to crumple. “Not Charlene. Daddy. He can take me outside to see the moon.” Tears shimmered on his long lashes.

As Natasha watched in astonishment, the grizzled security chief lifted Ben. The boy wrapped his arms around Mintz’s neck and tucked his face into his collar.

“Your daddy’s working tonight. I want you to meet someone.”