by Toby Neal
“Pierre.” She blew out a breath of both annoyance and relief. “I told you not to come into my office without permission.”
“As Hippocrates is believed to have said, ‘desperate times call for desperate measures.’” Raveaux waved his book at her. “I wanted to be sure to let you know the schedule as soon as you arrived.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes—a note was taped inside the open pages of his Jack Reacher novel. Written in bold block letters was, “THIS OFFICE IS BUGGED WITH VISUAL AND AUDIO. SO AM I. I HAVE AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR YOU.”
Raveaux closed the book and set it on her desk. “The deposition is set up in a conference room downstairs. Do you want to go over your statement with me, first?” His dark eyes telegraphed worry, concern—and urgency.
Sophie kept her face neutral, wearing the blank mask she’d learned years ago at the hands of her sadistic ex-husband. She’d stepped off the plane into something major, and she had no idea what it was. She needed that message from Raveaux.
How long did she have before someone, from some government agency, knocked down the door and took her, or Raveaux, in for questioning? Brazening this out and pretending to detect the bugs according to their normal security procedures seemed the best way to go.
“I haven’t been in this office for a while and I always do a security check when I come back from a trip.” Sophie removed a surveillance detection wand from the front drawer of her desk. “Let me make sure we’re clear before we get started.” She stood up and walked around the room in a familiar pattern—and if she’d been observed for long, they would know that she checked her office at least monthly.
Beeps went off in the light beside her desk and a node across the room near the curtains. “This is not good, Raveaux,” she said. “I’ll have to put off our talk until I can notify Paula of a security breach and order a full check of the premises. Where’s Bix?”
“He’s still on vacation until next week.” Raveaux lowered his brows. A finger subtly pointed to one of the plain gold cufflinks holding closed the sleeve of his dark blue shirt. That’s where he was bugged.
“That’s unfortunate. I prefer him to have to deal with things like this.” Sophie sat back down at her desk and hit the intercom button. “Paula, there’s been a security breach. We need a level three sweep of the building, beginning with my office.”
“Right away, Sophie.” Paula’s voice sounded as cheerful as if she’d called to ask for a coffee.
Sophie hadn’t used the device in ages, but she had a signal jammer in the tool bag she kept in her desk. That would work to temporarily disable the equipment, including whatever was on Raveaux. She had to work fast in case her detection of the surveillance triggered a raid.
Sophie took her keys out of her pocket, found her desk’s cabinet key and unlocked it, quickly pulling out a small zippered holdall she stored there. She unzipped the black nylon bag and grabbed the jammer, flicking it on.
An indicator light went green and pulsed. Sophie held the jammer aloft but put a finger to her lips, catching Raveaux’s eye—she had to make sure everything that could be used to listen in on them was off.
She held out her hand for Raveaux’s phone. “Turn it off, please.”
Raveaux did so, and handed it over. “This seems a little extreme, Ms. Smithson.”
He was still playacting for the button mike! Whoever was making Raveaux do this had a lot of power over him. Who could it be?
“We share and keep a lot of confidential information in our offices.” Sophie got up from her desk and pulled the cord to close heavy blackout drapes over the large, plate-glass window, in case of long-distance equipment monitoring them. “I would hate for any of our clients’ data to fall into the wrong hands. That’s why I’m glad I kept the computers off, in case they’ve been breached or programmed to send a signal to some other unit.” Sophie indicated the three monitors that decorated her desk. Amara, Jinjai, and Ying were heavily encrypted, even if they could have been activated without her fob, which, as far as she knew, was impossible.
Still, she had to test that the jammer was working.
Sophie reached into her carryall and took out a small surveillance cam about the size of a dime. She activated it by pressing the button on the back, then set it on her desk. She took out her phone and scrolled to an app, activated it. “Testing, one, two. Testing,” she said into the node.
The monitoring window on her phone remained a staticky white box; if the device was transmitting, she’d have had both audio and video. “Good. Signals are blocked.”
Finally, Sophie turned off her own phone. She popped out the sim cards of both hers and Raveaux’s and set them down on the desk. She activated the desktop fan on the corner of her work area and leaned into the breeze, her hair, now past her ears, tossing in the wind. “Finally. I think you’re safe to tell me what you need to if you keep your mouth in the air stream.”
Just then a knock came from the door.
They both moved away from the fan. Raveaux, who was closer, stood up and opened it. Two men Sophie recognized from the tech department entered. With little conversation or fanfare, they removed the audio/video surveillance devices and wanded the room again for good measure. Sophie noted how Raveaux slid his hand deep into his pocket, concealing the device he wore, and moved away from the security team so it wouldn’t be detected.
Raveaux couldn’t afford for his handlers to know his bug had been discovered. Fear spiked Sophie’s heart rate. He was taking some kind of tremendous personal risk in giving her whatever message he carried.
Finally, the tech team left.
Sophie locked the door behind them and, pressing her back against it, turned to face Raveaux. “This will buy us a few more minutes if there’s someone on the way to detain me.”
“That’s not what’s happening right now, but it could.” Raveaux’s olive skin had gone white around his lips with stress, but his intelligent dark eyes were determined. He gestured for her to come forward into the fan’s air space again. “In case we missed anything.”
Sophie rolled her office chair out from behind the desk and sat down in it, facing him. The blades of the old-fashioned metal fan blew a stream of air between them. Their knees were close enough to touch. Sophie moved restlessly in her chair, uncomfortable with Raveaux’s intent gaze. “Hurry. What is it you have to tell me?”
Chapter Forty-Four
Raveaux
Raveaux reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper-wrapped, cylindrical object. He held it out to Sophie. “For you.”
Her honey-brown eyes were wary and her golden tan paler than it should have been, given a month on a Thailand beach, but her hands were steady as she took the package. “What is this?”
“Open it. You’ll need it.” The plain brown paper bag wrapping the spare burner phone Raveaux had brought Sophie annoyed him with its crudity, but it was all he’d had in his apartment to hide the device he’d fortunately had stowed away in case of needing to place any confidential calls—he was sure he was under surveillance in his apartment. Retrieving the phone from a side pocket in his suitcase, concealing it and wrapping it had been a feat of ingenuity involving hiding in the shower. “We’ve made a window to talk here, but make no mistake. We’re both under a microscope.”
Sophie uncovered the phone. “This a burner?”
“Yes. Unused and charged.”
Her gaze flicked up to his. “Who is doing this to you? To us?”
“A multi-agency task force made up of CIA, FBI, NSA, Interpol, and the Secret Service. I’m not entirely sure who’s waiting for you down in the conference room, but in case you didn’t realize it—there’s no deposition today.” He drew a calming breath and shut his eyes, sorting his thoughts as he leaned forward into the flow of air from the fan. “I was given a file loaded with information about a cyber vigilante called the Ghost, aka Sheldon Hamilton, aka Todd Remarkian. Who he is. Where he is. What he’s been up to.”
“Oh no.” Sophie s
wayed and grabbed the desk for support. He was glad she was already sitting down.
“Yes. These agencies have collected a tremendous amount of information, most of it not provable in a court of law—and until recently, they’d been content to have driven him out of the United States to operate out of that camp in Thailand, or wherever he is. Now, they’ve decided that he’s a threat to national security, and they want him. Badly.” Raveaux had spent many a sleepless night after his meeting with the ambassador until finally, he’d come up with this plan to warn Sophie—leaving out the part about her father’s involvement. He didn’t want to hit her with that unless he had to—she was already dealing with enough. “I was visited by a two-man team consisting of an Interpol agent I knew from my detective days in France, along with a CIA agent. They threatened me with deportation and worse if I didn’t get you back here with an excuse, and use that to help capture Connor.”
“I know why they’ve decided he’s a threat, but I need to warn him right away. How are they planning to capture him?” Sophie’s eyes had gone wide.
“Download the flight plan from the Security Solutions jet and make a raid on wherever you’ve been hiding,” Raveaux said. “They wanted to verify that he’s there first, though, hence my bringing you a burner you can use to warn him. You said you know why they decided he was a threat—why is that?”
“It involves my mother.” Sophie smiled humorlessly. “She’s an assassin and a spy, and she was recently extracted from Guantánamo. I’m sure they suspect Connor’s involvement, and Pim Wat is public enemy number one. They won’t be happy that she got away.”
Raveaux’s mouth hung open at this revelation. Frank Smithson hadn’t said a word about Pim Wat, but the woman was his ex-wife. The ambassador had to have known much more than he’d chosen to share with Raveaux. What were his real motives?
“Pierre. Thank you. You took a huge risk in telling me, and you didn’t have to.” Sophie gazed at Raveaux, and he felt her eyes moving over each of his features, warm as a touch. “Give me a moment alone with the fan. I need to use the phone you brought me for an important call.”
“Of course. I’ll go to the restroom.” Raveaux’s whole body felt lit up from her gratitude, her trust. He exited the office, waved to efficient Paula at her station in the lobby area, and entered the men’s room.
This room probably wasn’t bugged, but he still was, and Voise, who’d been chosen to be his handler, would be wanting a report on his meeting with Sophie. He moved a potted plant in front of the door to slow down anyone entering, and went into one of the stalls.
The cufflink at his wrist was audio only, thank God. He spoke into the tiny hole that marked the receiver. “Subject is on high alert after routine sweep for bugs in her office yielded two discoveries. She turned on a jammer at her desk, quote, “until we go through the whole building with a level three sweep,” and she closed the curtains, as I’m sure you noticed. I stayed on point and helped her review her statement for the deposition. You didn’t miss anything. She should be down to the conference room shortly; I will make sure of it.”
Raveaux flushed the toilet, exited the stall, and washed his hands, wishing he could drown the damn cufflink under the water—but he was “skating on thin ice” as the Americans said, and if Sophie didn’t show up at the conference room, he was going to be in deep trouble.
But he wasn’t going to make her go there alone. He’d find a way to get the meeting stopped if it got out of hand . . .
Raveaux headed back to Sophie’s office, but when he opened the door, she was gone.
His stomach plummeted.
He’d be going to Guantánamo for sure if she’d made a run for it.
Raveaux turned off the fan and replaced it on the corner of Sophie’s desk. He opened the curtains. Everything had to seem normal.
He returned to the reception area. Paula looked lovely, as usual, with a plumeria pinned behind her ear and a fitted floral sheath dress that made the most of her buxom figure. “Paula, excuse me. I was expecting to continue my meeting with Ms. Smithson. It’s a matter of some urgency. Do you know where she went?”
“Oh, you two must have had a misunderstanding. She went down to the conference room for her deposition already. I’m sure you can meet after that. Do you want me to pencil you in on her schedule?”
The “deposition” was almost certainly going to result in Sophie being taken into custody until Connor was captured, but he forced himself to smile. “Yes, please. Have her call me when she’s available. Thanks so much.”
He turned and took the stairs, walking deliberately, considering his next moves.
He could ditch the surveillance device and make a run for it. Try to stay off the grid and out of sight until all of this blew over. But he didn’t have the resources and connections here in Honolulu that he did in France, to pull off invisibility for more than a day or two.
That left him with having to continue to play his part, and hope that the team believed he was complying with their plan.
But he didn’t have to do that entirely.
If Sophie really had followed through with walking into whatever waited for her in the conference room, things were going to be unpleasant for her, and get worse from there. He had to try to head that off.
Raveaux exited the stairwell on the third floor and walked confidently into a maze of cubicles and offices until he reached an empty room with the door ajar. He slipped inside, shut the door, and locked it. He grabbed a jacket hanging on the back of a chair and wrapped it quickly around his wrist, covering the cufflink, and pressed it tight against his side. He then stood in the flow of the tall floor fan, and hit an outside line on the desk phone. He called the main number for Sophie’s office.
“Security Solutions. Paula speaking.”
“Paula? It’s Pierre Raveaux. I couldn’t speak freely because of being bugged. Call your on-site security team to come help Sophie in the conference room. The men interviewing her are not lawyers. They’re hostile agents, and she’s in trouble.”
“Right away, Mr. Raveaux.” The phone went dead.
He hung up the receiver.
He’d done what he could—and it might cost him everything.
He unwrapped his wrist, draped the jacket back over the chair, and slipped out, closing the door. None of the people working in their offices so much as looked at him.
He stepped back into the stairwell, and soon reached the bottom of the stairs. He straightened his sleeves, touching the cufflink. The tiny gold piece of tech felt as heavy as an anchor on his wrist. He longed to try to go dark and disappear.
Instead, he spoke aloud into the cufflink. “Returning to my apartment. Available for debrief when the team is ready.”
His fate lay in Sophie’s hands, now.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sophie
Sophie took a moment to visit the women’s restroom to prepare, before heading into the conference room for whoever waited for her there.
After a nervous pee, she hid the burner phone by taping it to the back of one of the toilet wells. She then went to the sink area, washed her hands, and touched up her makeup from a little zippered bag inside her business tote.
She brushed down her black, easy movement dress slacks and plum-red silk blouse, making sure they were immaculate. She then chose a lipstick that matched the blouse and dabbed it on her full lips. A whisk of mascara, a whiff of perfume, and her favorite Tahitian pearl earrings completed her ensemble.
Thankfully, Sophie had been able to reach Connor on the burner Raveaux had given her; he’d promised to leave Phi Ni for the Yām compound immediately. Hopefully, he got out before they raided the island—she’d done all she could to ensure that.
Sophie stood back and assessed herself in the mirror. She looked smart, powerful, well put together, and in control. Gone were the days of wearing yoga pants and carrying a knapsack filled with tech equipment; Sophie was a female CEO in the male-dominated world of private security, and she
needed to look professional—especially today.
Sophie walked into the lower level conference room with the long stride of a confident woman in a hurry, her head up and her expression annoyed. “Agent McDonald,” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
She did not have to do much acting to seem surprised. McDonald, a portly man prone to loud aloha wear with the reddened nose of a drinker, had been her handler at the CIA during their attempt to recruit her some years ago. She’d neither seen nor heard from him since.
“We’re here to interview you on a matter of national security. “McDonald gestured to another man seated next to him. “This is Special Agent Pillman of the FBI.”
“I know who you are,” she said, as Pillman, gray-haired and pale-eyed, held up a credential wallet. She disliked the agent heartily. He’d worked for Internal Affairs when she’d been with the FBI, and he’d been particularly rough on her friend Lei Texeira during an investigation. “More importantly, what are you two doing in my building? I’m supposed to be giving a deposition.”
McDonald leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers, with their short, bitten nails, over his belly. “Ah. That, my dear, was a fabrication. We needed you to come back to the states on a matter of national security.”
“So you say.” Sophie had to keep an upper hand as long as she could; the men’s relatively relaxed demeanor told her that Raveaux’s warning to her had not yet been detected. She could add to his credibility with them. “That bastard Raveaux must be your plant. Remind me to fire him on your way out.”
“Don’t blame the man too much; he’s a guest in our country and wants to stay here.” McDonald hadn’t brushed his teeth after lunch, and a bit of parsley set off his grin.
“I will be recording these proceedings.” Sophie took her phone out of her pocket.
Agent Pillman stood up, and, faster than she would have believed, reached across the table and plucked it out of her fingers. He tossed it to McDonald. “Still unlocked. You can check her last calls.”
