Once Burned, Twice Spy

by Diane Henders

  My burner phone vibrated and I accepted the call from Reggie’s number, already second-guessing my decision to contact him.

  What if Holt had been monitoring Reggie’s phone after all? What if he was standing right behind Reggie while we talked, taking notes for evidence while the analysts traced the call right to Carburn Park?

  “Hey, bee-yotch,” Reggie drawled. “Swiped any classified shit lately?”

  “Uh…” Anxiety clamped icy fingers around my throat. “H-Have a nice day,” I croaked, and hung up.

  As Skidmark gave me a worried frown, my phone vibrated again. Then again.

  “Answer it,” Skidmark urged.

  “This is a bad idea,” I muttered, and pressed the ‘Talk’ button.

  Reggie was already in full cry. “…and answer the fucking phone, you fucking moronic-”

  “Hello?” I interrupted.

  “What the fuck was that? I bust my ass to run out of the building into the fucking freezing cold so nobody can hear us, and all you can say is ‘Have a nice fucking day’?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I thought this was a good idea but I’ve changed my mind. Just tell Holt I called you but didn’t tell you anything. ’Bye.”

  As I lowered the phone, Reggie’s frantic yelp floated to my ears.

  “Help! They’re going to kill me!”

  Chapter 36

  I jerked the phone back to my ear. “What? Where are you? Do you have your gun? Who’s trying to kill you?”

  “Why did you call me?” Reggie demanded. “And don’t worry, this line is secure.”

  “Who’s trying to kill you?”

  “Nobody. I just didn’t want you to hang up.”

  I fell back in the driver’s seat, pressing my hand over my thundering heart. “You asshole! You scared the hell out of me!”

  “Sorry,” he said, but I could hear the unrepentant grin in his voice. “So why did you call me? And don’t give me any bullshit.”

  I sighed. “I need to use the lie detector but I can’t come into the Department. I was originally wondering if you could talk to Jack about it but now I’ve decided it’s too dangerous, so just forget the whole thing. Thanks for running outside. I’m sorry you’re freezing your ass off for nothing.”

  He ignored my apology. “Holt took Jack and the lie detector back to Calgary.”

  My heart sank like a lump of lead. Somebody was getting questioned.

  And Kane hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Fuck!” I dealt the steering wheel a vicious blow, then shot a fearful glance around the deserted parking lot. What if Kane had been forced to divulge our meeting place? I hurriedly added, “Thanks, Reggie. I have to go.”

  “Call me if you want Jack to meet you somewhere. If she can, she will. We believe in you.”

  A lump rose in my throat. “Thanks. ’Bye.” I disconnected and ripped the battery out of the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” Skidmark demanded.

  “They might have gotten Kane…”

  The words strangled in my throat as a brown half-ton turned into the parking lot.

  Was Kane leading Holt to us?

  My hand hovered over the door lock as the truck parked beside us. Should I run?

  But I could never elude Holt and Kane if they had joined forces…

  As though reading my mind, Skidmark said, “He wouldn’t rat you out. Bet on it.”

  “He has a son to consider. Daniel is his top priority.”

  “Maybe, but he still wouldn’t rat you out.”

  Kane slid into the back seat and every muscle in my body went rigid with the need to flee.

  “Who wouldn’t rat us out?” Kane asked.

  “What did you do since you left the park?” Skidmark countered.

  Kane frowned. “I drove to a bus stop near the University of Calgary and used a burner phone to call Alicia so I could talk to Daniel and explain that I wouldn’t be home tonight. When the bus arrived, I planted the phone on its rear bumper and drove away. I drove an evasive pattern to be sure I hadn’t been followed; then went through a drive-through for some food and came here. Why?”

  “You didn’t see or talk to anybody else?” Skidmark persisted.

  “I saw hundreds of people, but nobody I recognized; and I talked to Alicia, Daniel, and the Wendy’s drive-through employee.” Kane’s voice hardened. “Why?”

  Some of the tension seeped out of my body. “Because Holt’s here in Calgary with the lie detector.”

  “So they’re questioning someone,” Kane deduced immediately. “But not me. If they’d been questioning me it would have taken much longer than an hour.”

  “Right, of course.” I gave him and Skidmark a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I’m just being paranoid.”

  “As you should,” Kane said. “But since Holt couldn’t catch me, I can guess who he would have picked up for questioning.”

  Comprehension dawned, and my stomach twisted. “Shit. Arnie. That’s why he didn’t give the right response to your text.”

  “Probably.” Kane shrugged. “Don’t worry; he doesn’t know anything. When we last talked, he had just found out from Stemp that you’d been assigned to an off-grid mission. He didn’t trust Stemp so he’s been moving heaven and earth trying to find you; but he didn’t expect to hear from you and he’s completely in the dark.”

  “Except for your mysterious text,” I said, my voice as hollow as my chest. “Holt’s too good an agent to miss that. He’ll ask Arnie who it was from; Arnie will say something like ‘an old friend’, which will be true; but Holt’s next question will be ‘Is it Kane’. And there’s no way to fool the lie detector.”

  “True, but that’s where the interrogation would end. Hellhound would just stop talking.”

  “So Holt would know for sure that he was hiding something.” My guts wrenched at the memory of Arnie tied to a chair, his wonderful hands mutilated beyond repair, suffering horribly…

  “Aydan.” Kane’s big hand closed on my shoulder shook me back to the present. “Hellhound will be all right. He’s with the good guys. Holt won’t torture him.”

  I sucked in a gulp of air, fighting tears of residual horror mixed with relief. “Right. Flashback.” My voice wobbled and I swallowed hard to steady it. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Understandable.” Kane cupped my cheek in a gentle palm for a moment before leaning back again. “Actually,” he went on thoughtfully, “It might be good if Holt is interrogating Hellhound. We know Hellhound will never betray us, but Holt will waste hours trying to break him. And while Holt’s doing that, he can’t chase us.”

  “I guess.” My voice came out small. “But Arnie will get arrested and charged with obstructing an investigation, and he hasn’t even done anything wrong.”

  Kane gave me a grim smile. “None of us have. Yet.”

  “And you shouldn’t!” I twisted to face him fully. “John, please just go to the police!”

  He stiffened and I braced myself for his wrath, but instead he drew a vibrating burner phone out of his pocket and frowned at it.

  “It’s Hellhound,” he said, and turned the screen toward me.

  I read aloud, “Hey babe wanna rock n roll 2nite?” I added, “Is that the right code? Does it mean he’s… okay now?”

  Kane popped the battery out of the phone and rolled down the window to toss both pieces into a nearby trash can, making a perfect two-point shot. “There’s no ‘right’ code. The words could be anything; it’s the protocol that matters. We have several burner phones we keep in reserve. We’ve both memorized the numbers, and the initial text goes to one of them. If a reply comes from the phone that received the text, it’s a signal that we’re compromised. If we’re clear to communicate, we reply from a different phone to a different predesignated number.”

  I sat up, stowing that little gem in my mental spy manual for future use. “Brilliant. So if somebody was coercing you, they’d either prevent you from replying at all, or else force you to reply as though nothi
ng’s wrong. And if you’re under surveillance, it looks normal to reply to an incoming text. But any reply is the wrong answer.”

  Kane nodded and withdrew another burner phone from his pocket. “But this is the last predesignated one I have on me. If we need more, I’ll have to raid one of my caches.”

  “So this had better work,” Skidmark said.

  “Yes.” Kane’s thumbs tapped rapidly over the keys. “If he wants to join us we’ll implement one of our extraction strategies. Between the three of us we shouldn’t have any trouble getting him away from any pursuers.”

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” I protested.

  “You don’t get a vote,” Skidmark said. “Sorry, girlie.”

  I hissed out a breath of tense irritation, but since my options had apparently dwindled to throwing a tantrum or not, I decided to save my energy.

  After a brief exchange of texts, Kane looked up with a satisfied nod. “All right, we’re on. The location is one of those convoluted residential areas composed of concentric circles with only one egress for traffic; but it has several walkways through it to surrounding commercial areas. Hellhound will drive into the neighbourhood expecting to be followed. We’ll be in position with our vehicles on the commercial side. He’ll leave his vehicle as though he’s walking to one of the houses, but instead he’ll dive down the footpath. The commercial area has fast access for escape in any direction, so we only have to make sure nobody spots our vehicles. The two of you will drive, and I’ll be waiting near the commercial side of the footpath. If anyone pursues him on foot, I’ll take them out when he emerges through the choke point.”

  I gulped. “Um… when you say ‘take out’… I hope you mean with my trank pistol…?”

  “Of course.” Kane frowned. “These are our fellow agents. I don’t want to cause bodily harm.”

  “Okay, just checking.” I didn’t point out that since he’d quit the Department, they weren’t exactly his fellow agents anymore.

  They might not be mine much longer, either.

  The thought formed a cold lump in my stomach.

  When we pulled into the busy parking lot an hour later, my guts knotted at the sight of all the vehicles. Pedestrians everywhere. How could we make a fast escape?

  I eased out a slow breath and reined in the frantic bookkeeper inside my skull.

  Settle down. We’re not going to make a fast escape; we’re going to make an unobtrusive escape. Not the same thing at all. The only tricky part would be making sure Hellhound’s pursuer, or pursuers, didn’t see him getting into the Saturn. After that we’d be anonymous among all the other cars.

  My guts tightened another notch. What if Holt had pulled out all the stops and sent an armed team after Hellhound?

  Would they shoot when they realized he was escaping?

  My heart flinched from the thought.

  The map we’d consulted earlier hovered in my mind, and I steered toward the footpath just as Skidmark pointed in the same direction and said, “That should be it. Far as possible from the entrance to the neighbourhood.”

  I found a spot a short distance away from the fence and parked. A few rows over, Kane steered the brown half-ton into another parking spot.

  When Kane approached, I popped the door locks. As he slid into the back, I asked, “Are you sure Arnie’s phone wasn’t tapped?”

  “Not positive,” Kane replied. “But even if it was, Holt has no way of knowing where he’s going. Neither of us mentioned the location except with a code reference. Holt will have no choice but to follow.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t have a helicopter up.”

  Kane’s lips tightened. “If Hellhound sees a helicopter he’ll abort, but I think that’s unlikely. Hellhound wouldn’t have contacted us if he had doubts about his ability to get clear. And if Holt was suspicious, Hellhound would still be under interrogation; or else under arrest.”

  I followed his line of reasoning, hoping it was true. “So Holt must believe he’s innocent. So he likely won’t pull out all the stops to follow him.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  I grimaced. “Or Holt’s just letting him go to see if he’ll lead the way to us.”

  Kane gave me a grim smile. “That’s what I’d do. Skidmark, here are the truck keys.” He handed them over, then gave me a commanding look. “If Hellhound or I can’t make it to the vehicles for any reason, drive away and leave us. If you spot anything, and I mean anything unusual at all, drive away and leave us. Clear?”

  I nodded and told an incomplete truth. “Clear.”

  ‘Clear’; but not ‘agreed’. There was no damn way I was going to leave them.

  Kane turned to Skidmark. “Clear?”

  “Yep.” Skidmark opened the car door. “Give me time to get to the truck and catch my breath before you move.”

  “All right.” Kane glanced at his watch, looking composed as always, but I read tension in the gesture. As the door closed behind Skidmark, Kane added, “I’m going to get in position. We’re early, but not by much. Nice and tight, just the way I like it.”

  He reached for the door handle but I snagged his sleeve, an involuntary grin pulling at the corners of my mouth. “Really? That’s your exit line?”

  He stared blankly at me as though mentally replaying his previous sentence. Then a naughty answering smile spread across his face and his voice coasted down into a panty-vibrating rumble as he leaned toward me. “Truer words were never spoken.”

  I sucked in a breath of Kane-scented air, hot blood rushing to places it had no business going. Dammit, why had I said that?

  “Well… I guess, um…” My voice came out breathless despite my best efforts to stay detached. His intense grey gaze sucked me in, and I teetered on the edge of disaster for a long moment before we toppled toward each other.

  The kiss melted all thought from my mind. Hard and urgent, softening into a hot and hungry exploration as luscious as dark chocolate…

  I jerked back, my head spinning.

  “Uh…” I tried again, but words failed me. I licked my lips, savouring the delicious remnants of sensation.

  Only inches away, Kane’s dilated eyes locked onto my mouth and a growl rumbled from his chest. Or maybe it was a groan.

  No, that was me.

  “Um…” I swallowed hard. “I… I guess you’d better go. Stay safe.”

  “You, too.” Kane pressed another short, hard kiss to my lips and got out of the car.

  He strode away, his gait as easy and confident as always. Just a pedestrian among many others, but his movement in the opposite direction from the mall might as well have come with a spotlight and alarm bells.

  Nobody gave him a second glance.

  I stared around the parking lot. How could people not notice a man of Kane’s stature getting out of a car to walk away from a mall during Christmas-shopping season? If I were in their shoes, I would have been instantly on the alert.

  Letting out a small breath, I forced myself to lean back in the seat. That was only my guilty conscience. Or maybe I was finally developing some actual spy skills. Hooray.

  And anyway, it wasn’t as though Kane had any other choice. He would have been even more noticeable if he’d been furtively slinking among the vehicles in the darkness. Even the most oblivious civilian would notice that.

  When Kane reached the tall fence that separated the residential neighbourhood from the commercial area, he slowed, then took out his phone and trailed absently to a halt as he stared at it.

  Keeping his gaze on the phone, he wandered over to loiter near the walkway as though completely absorbed.

  I shot a glance over to the brown truck. Skidmark was behind the wheel, slouched down with his arms crossed over his chest and his head drooping. Just an old man grabbing a nap in his truck while his wife was in the mall.

  My heart thudded against my ribs, all my senses keyed up to tingling readiness. I pressed my palm against the butt of my Glock, but it didn’t reassure me
as much as usual. Kane had my trank pistol. Bullets were my only remaining option.

  If Kane’s or Hellhound’s lives were at stake, would I shoot at my own colleagues?

  I didn’t know.

  Chapter 37

  I stared out the windshield, my gaze locked on the empty walkway where Hellhound would appear. Afraid to blink, I watched for so long that my vision began to blur white.

  I blinked.

  No, that wasn’t my vision; that was snow, dammit. The fine crystals that had spangled the air earlier were thickening.

  Over by the fence, Kane shifted his position and wiped the face of his phone, still staring down at it as though there were nothing more important in the world than a text conversation that kept him standing out in the darkness at thirty below.

  At least the heat inside my car melted the snow as it hit the windshield; but it wouldn’t for much longer…

  Was that a flicker of movement at the far end of the walkway?

  I powered down the window and strained my eyes, my pulse pounding.

  Hellhound’s bulky black-clad figure hurtled into view. My heart lurched as another man appeared behind him, legs pistoning as he skidded around the corner and nearly fell, then righted himself to dash in pursuit.

  He was gaining.

  A hard lump of fear closed my throat.

  Hellhound was nearly at the mouth of the walkway. Kane dropped to a crouch, the trank pistol rising.

  Hellhound’s pursuer yanked a gun from his pocket and his words carried clearly through my open window. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  Hellhound kept running.

  His pursuer put on a burst of speed, his gun hand bouncing wildly with every step. I could only watch, my muscles knotted. Surely he wouldn’t fire toward a crowded parking lot?

  But he was only a few yards behind Hellhound…

  Hellhound cleared the walkway, and an instant later Kane’s dart found its mark as the pursuer sprinted past his position. The man collapsed, his momentum carrying him forward in a boneless tumble that was probably going to leave some spectacular bruises. I would have winced in sympathy, but there was no time.