Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) (18 page)

Because he’d discovered that camera. That was the only logical conclusion.

She was seriously afraid she’d throw up. She might have gotten rid of the pop-up, but the video with the original content remained at large in the world.

The elevator arrived. The doors slid apart, loud in the empty reception area, and she stepped inside on unsteady legs. She wanted so much to give Kale the benefit of the doubt, but if he’d even suspected the possibility of a video and said nothing to warn her he’d better have a good explanation.

* * *

A message from Dan asking for a meeting wasn’t the way Kale had planned to kick start his morning. They’d arranged a rendezvous in the parking lot of a local sportsplex where it wouldn’t seem strange for two men to sit in a car and carry on a conversation.

As he waited for Dan to arrive Kale’s thoughts refused to shift far from Irina. She was Dr. Jekyll and a really hot Mrs. Hyde—minus the murderous inclinations. He’d never been so turned on by a fuzzy pink bathrobe and matching slippers in his life, probably because he knew that underneath it her preference in underwear was lacy pink thongs. Pink was his new favorite color. He couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Or of her.

Dan had asked for this meeting. If this was about his personal relationship with Irina he planned to tell Dan that what they did together in private was none of his business. Kale was here unofficially and she wasn’t under investigation so there was no conflict of interest. He’d give up his vacation time if he had to. The trade-off would be worth it.

The passenger door of his car creaked open and his team leader hopped in. At thirty-seven Dan Hanson was the epitome of average, at least in physical appearance. Underneath the tax-auditor exterior he had the nerves of a cliff diver. A former intelligence officer with a background in psychology and anti-terrorism, he’d given up fieldwork two years ago to sit behind a desk.

Kale’s work too was normally focused on anti-terrorism, which was how he’d found himself on Dan’s team. Meeting Irina had been dumb luck, a simple case of being in the right place at the right time.

“Public transportation in this city leaves a lot to be desired,” Dan complained. “I gave up and rented a car at the airport.”

Enough with the small talk. If there was going to be bad news Kale wanted it straight up. “What’s so important that you had to tell me in person?”

“And hello to you too,” Dan replied. Amusement flashed for an instant in eyes that normally lacked any tells. The team leader kept his cards close to his chest. “Dr. Glasov’s connection to the RBN could be part of a larger problem. I told you before that the director is trying to keep a lid on certain information. We currently have a Canadian citizen under investigation. He’s an old friend of the Minister of National Defence. He operates abroad using the RBN as part of his network for transporting stolen military weapons systems parts. He has a clever system for private communication with his daughter over the Internet too. The intelligence officer assigned to that case is here in Nova Scotia, visiting family. I’m trying to decide if I should turn Dr. Glasov and her cyber issues over to him. If I do that it means opening a new case file and I’d be shining a light on her at a higher level. The lid would be off.”

The friendship with an expat of questionable morals explained why the director didn’t want sensitive information going to the defense minister’s office right now. There was likely a whole lot more to that story too. But all Kale really heard was Dan suggesting someone else might be handed responsibility for Irina.

That wasn’t going to happen. “There’s no need to open a case file on her. I’m OK with staying right where I am.”

“I’m sure you are.” Dan’s cool gaze said he saw right through Kale and his motives. “However. The RBN is already a common denominator. Considering the nature of Dr. Glasov’s work I’d really like to know if there’s any connection between her pop-ups and botnets and those missing military parts—or if a Canadian expat named Marc Leon Beausejour factors in anywhere.”

“The name doesn’t ring any bells,” Kale said slowly. “But if you’re looking for connections, why not investigate Irina’s father? She says he was a sort of journalist translator in the former Soviet Union. Maybe someone’s trying to get to him through her. Maybe he hasn’t entirely forgotten the motherland. Or been forgotten by it either.”

Dan drummed his fingers on his knee and stared out the windshield, a frown of concentration on his face. “Anton Glasov isn’t a problem,” he finally admitted. “He was working for the Canadian government in Russia. That’s why he defected here. If Dr. Glasov goes back a generation or two she’ll find she has less Russian in her family tree than he’s led her to believe. Once he met and married her mother he dropped out of the spy game completely. His choice. And while it’s possible someone might be using his daughter to try and get to him I can’t see why. The wall is down. He hasn’t been active anywhere in more than thirty years. No, Dr. Glasov’s work is a far more likely target than he is.”

And they’d established that her work was only accessible through her head. Kale’s gut clenched. He handed Dan the file folder he’d grabbed from the backseat of the car. “Here’s the printed list of Irina’s email contacts. I didn’t see the name Beausejour anywhere on it.”

Dan examined the folder. “Did you get a list of contacts from her workplace computer too?”

“No,” Kale admitted. He’d gotten…sidetracked. “I’ll ask her for one.”

“If you can get it to me before my flight leaves tonight, I’d appreciate it.” Dan scanned the names. “Baby Jesus. Between them these people could take over the world. Or destroy it.”

“Now you see why I didn’t want to email the list to you.”

“I keep expecting this piece of paper to catch fire and self-destruct.” Dan hummed the theme music from
Mission Impossible
as he tucked it back in the folder. He tapped the edge of the folder against his thigh. “My other reason for coming here was to tell you that you’re needed in London, but now I have to figure out what to do about Dr. Glasov.”

Kale feigned an indifference he didn’t feel, reluctant to reveal how much his team leader’s decision mattered to him. This definitely wasn’t the time to tell Dan to mind his own damn business about Kale’s relationship with Irina.

A group of adolescent boys carrying matching kit bags with team logos passed in front of the car, laughing and pushing each other as they headed for the entrance to the pool.

“I’ve already established a cover,” he said, watching as the boys shoved their way through the doors, each jockeying for first place. “Someone new would have to come in and start over fresh. Why not send another intelligence officer to London?”

“I don’t have anyone else who knows both Farsi and Arabic.” Dan’s careful expression said he had more to say. Kale waited for it. “I could buy you two weeks. In return you’d have to convince Dr. Glasov to hack into the RBN for CSIS and tell us what’s going on.”

“If you’re trying to bribe me you should know that what you’re offering isn’t a carrot. It’s a stick.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Martin. I’m not stupid. We both know you’re still sleeping with her. If you weren’t you’d have your bags packed and be halfway to London by now. Two weeks,” he repeated. “Take it or leave it.”

He was going to take it, but it wasn’t nearly enough time. “Why not have CSEC do the dirty work for you?”

“Because we don’t want the minister’s office to find out what’s going on,” Dan reminded him. “We also don’t want to leave a trail leading back to the Canadian government.” He handed Kale a thumb drive. “This is a ghost VPN. I’m assured it’s so secure that Dr. Glasov can be in and out of any network, no matter where it is, and no one will ever know she was there. Even if she’s caught, under the circumstances no one would question her motives for hacking into the RBN. The Russians might question ours though, since the FSB uses the RBN for some of its cyber operations.”

More and more, Kale didn’t like what he was hearing. The FSB was the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation—the Russian equivalent of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Say she’s in, she’s not caught, but she finds nothing. What happens to her after the two weeks are up? What if there aren’t any new leads?” Who would protect her?

Dan’s gaze narrowed. “We aren’t a babysitting service. She’s being harassed, yes, but so far everything’s been personal and that’s not our problem. Other than her email list getting spammed there’s no real proof anyone’s after her designs. She hasn’t been physically threatened either. We’ll tap her phone and monitor her travel. The RCMP will be directed to have someone keep an eye on her house for a few months in case things escalate. That’s the best we can do.”

Kale had never been one of those guys who could turn the safety of the people he cared about over to others. And he did care about Irina. Not only was two weeks not long enough to find out who was cyberstalking her and why, he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t have grown tired of her by the end of them. He doubted if she’d be done with him either. Not if last night was any indicator. But he had no real choice in the matter. His main work was anti-terrorism not espionage. Two weeks was all he had.

This was why he tried to keep his relationships casual. Good-byes could be messy and he hated being the bad guy.

He slid the thumb drive into his pocket. “I’ll see what I can do but she was pretty adamant about not wanting to have anything to do with the RBN. She’s a weapons systems placement designer not an Internet security expert. She sure as hell isn’t a spy.”

Dan opened the car door and got out. He leaned his head in. “I have faith in you. After all, you talked her into bed. Try using some more of that charm. If you can’t keep it zipped you might as well put it to good use.”

“You’re a dick,” Kale said.

Dan laughed. He patted the roof of the car. “I’ll see you in London in two weeks.”

Traffic was light on the highway as Kale drove back to the airport to pick up Irina. When he arrived there were only two other cars in the parking lot.

He glanced at the dashboard clock. He was a few minutes late. She wasn’t at the door waiting for him, meaning she’d gotten immersed in her work, and he had no idea when she might resurface. He rolled the windows down, cranked up the radio, and reclined his seat, getting comfortable. It could be worse. At least she wasn’t a shopper. Keeping tabs on her in a crowd would be a nightmare.

At 1:17 she emerged.

Rather than get out of the car to help carry her laptop as he normally would he stayed where he was and watched her approach. God, she was pretty. He couldn’t decide if it was good luck that he’d been assigned to her or a personal disaster. Two weeks were nothing.

She’d tucked loose waves of her long, light brown hair behind her ears. A casual breeze tossed the tendrils so that she had to capture her hair with her free hand to keep it from tangling in knots. Over a pair of pale gray, conservative shorts she wore a cropped, darker gray sweatshirt, perfectly acceptable weekend office attire. A stack of silver bangles jangled from the slender wrist of the hand gripping her laptop.

It was hard to get his head around a woman who looked like a timid pixie possessing the kind of intelligence she did. It was harder still to imagine her panting his name while he was deep inside her, his pants around his ankles and her back pressed to a wall, and yet that had happened. He hated the possibility of any harm coming to her. He didn’t want to think about the two week time frame he was working with either.

The thumb drive burned a hole in his pocket. His gut and his conscience told him it was wrong to ask her to hack into the RBN. She was a scientist not a spy. She knew full well what the risks of such an action were, probably better than he did. If CSIS was going to “shine a light on her,” as Dan had put it, then Kale would far rather that light come from the Minister of Defence’s office than Russian organized crime. In her line of work the FSB would be equally bad. Either way her professional reputation could take a serious beating.

She put her laptop in the backseat before joining him in the front of the car. He took one look at those long-lashed green eyes as she fished for the seat belt and his stomach constricted. Something had happened. Her whole body language was too stiff.

So much for his good luck. This day had been headed straight to hell from the get-go.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Another pop-up on my work computer.” She latched the seat belt with a loud click. Her fingers were shaking and she refused to meet his gaze. “I managed to get rid of it, at least for now. I don’t think it spread. I have no idea if it will come back though.”

Her voice was quiet. Controlled and remote. Very much Dr. Glasov and he didn’t like it. It meant she was furious and the most likely target was him. The constriction in his stomach spread to his lungs. His heart pummeled his ribs. If she’d gone to the trouble of removing a pop-up after explaining to him that the company she was working for had their own IT security protocol for such things, then he had a good idea what it contained.

“I can explain,” he said.

“I doubt it. But you’re welcome to give it a shot.”

While he didn’t blame her for being angry he wasn’t getting into a fight with her in the parking lot of her workplace. There were security cameras everywhere and she had a professional reputation to protect. He preferred to take this somewhere she couldn’t walk away from him either, but that would still be discreet. He couldn’t imagine Irina—and especially not Dr. Glasov—making a public scene.