Code of Conduct (Cipher Security Book 1)

by Smartypants Romance

  “She’s probably up in Northport, Michigan. Or at least someone there knows where she is,” I said.

  Shane nodded once. “I can leave today.”

  O’Malley scowled. “Eze’s got weapons training, so take him with you.” She looked about to protest, but O’Malley quelled it with his parting shot. “It wasn’t a suggestion,” he said as he left the room.

  For once, I was grateful to O’Malley for being a bossy prick.

  Greene pushed himself off the wall he’d been holding up. “It’s time for me to get inside ADDATA.”

  Shane looked ready to protest that too, but then seemed to realize her mistake. “You don’t mean you’re going to physically walk inside the building, do you?”

  His expression was incredulous. “Why would I do that?”

  Shane smiled at Greene, which was possibly the first smile I’d ever seen her wear in his presence. She pulled out her cell phone and wrote down a name and phone number, which she handed to Greene. “Here’s the cell phone number for Nathan Yorn, one of the ADDATA programmers working on the data sets. I don’t have access to CCSS7, but I assume you’ve already got something set up on Quimby’s phone, so you might as well monitor their programming department too.”

  “What’s CCSS7?” I asked.

  Greene seemed startled to be handed something physical, and he answered the question with a distracted air. “Common Channel Signaling System 7 in the U.S., or just SS7 in the U.K.”

  “You say that as though I should know what it means.”

  Shane answered with a smile that went straight to my groin. “It’s a network interchange program that acts as a broker between mobile phone networks. There are rumors that the NSA uses it to hack and snoop on targets.” Smart was unbelievably sexy on her, and it took me a moment to actually focus on what her words meant.

  Hacking a cell phone number? I shuddered to think of the possibilities.

  Meanwhile, Greene chuckled in the sort of tone generally reserved for evil masterminds as he pocketed the number. “My wife wants you to meet her friends,” he said to Shane.

  It was her turn to look startled. “I already met Kat. She has more?”

  The expression Greene wore was as baffled as Shane’s. “She can’t seem to help herself,” he said just before he left the room.

  31

  Shane

  “Things are different in the north, where body heat is a precious commodity and spring break-up is an annual thing.” – Aunt Shelley

  I couldn’t shake the feeling of unreality that had been creeping up on me since the conversation in the boardroom had begun. I was so glad Gabriel had been there next to me, and that was freaking me out too.

  I’d become far too attached to the comfort of knowing Gabriel was there, and I watched him as I contemplated the likelihood that this thing between us would go the way of my past relationship.

  Gabriel dialed his cell phone and smiled quickly at me as he waited for someone to answer.

  “Hi, Mum. How’s Mika?” he said, then smiled at her answer. “Can you put him on please?” A pause, and then, “Small Man, it’s Big Man.” His tone was serious. “I have news. My partner and I have to go out of town to investigate a law-breaker, so we won’t make it to dinner at Gran’s tonight.” He took a breath, clearly hating to disappoint his nephew. “Can you make sure we get invited to dinner the next time Gran makes suya? She’s going to grumble about me under her breath after I break the news to her, so I wanted you to hear it first.”

  I loved how serious this whole conversation was, and Gabriel met my eyes as he smiled at something his nephew said. “Yeah, your mum will let us come back over. She wants me to bring Shane to meet you. She knows you make me look good.”

  His nephew said something, and Gabriel smiled again. “Yeah, I like her.” I had to look away from his face then because I was in danger of going gooey. He wrapped up his conversation with Mika, and I busied myself with packing up my laptop as Gabriel finished his brief conversation with his mother. When he hung up, he shook his head.

  “I’m going to get dish duty for the next five family dinners for that one. She spent all morning making sticky toffee pudding and insists that we come to dinner tomorrow night while it’s still good to eat.”

  “We should be back from Northpoint tonight, right?” I asked.

  “It’s almost a six-hour drive. If Jorge can cover Oscar tonight, it’s probably safer if we come back tomorrow,” he said.

  The idea that I might be staying overnight with Gabriel Eze struck me right in the solar plexus, and my shock must have shown on my face because he took a step backward. “Or we can drive back tonight if you’d prefer.”

  I felt betrayed by my physical reactions, and I controlled my expression with effort. “We’ll play it by ear. At this rate we should get there by dinner, so hopefully the gallery will still be open and we won’t have to track down Aunt Shelley at her home.”

  Gabriel studied me as he packed up his bag. I watched his hands rather than having to look in his eyes, but I could feel them on me nonetheless. “I will admit to a growing fascination with your bag,” I said, to distract myself.

  “It would suit you,” he said. “I’d give it to you, but I’m not sure you have anything with which to negotiate.”

  That statement startled me right out of my weird mood. I couldn’t ignore that kind of challenge. “Oh really? There’s nothing I have that could entice you?” I added enough edge to my voice that it didn’t seem quite as flirty as it sounded, and Gabriel pretended to consider.

  “Let’s see … hmm, no, nothing comes to mind.” He grinned as he slung the bag over his chest. “Shall we head back to our building? Ten dollars says I can be packed and ready to go before you are.”

  I smirked. “You’re on.” He had no idea who he was dealing with. I was the queen of low-maintenance travel. For one night I could tuck a pair of underwear and a credit card in my pockets and be ready to go.

  I blew a kiss to Stan on our way out of Cipher, and called Jorge about Oscar on our way home. He welcomed the chance to stay at my place with my dog, because I had faster internet than he did, and I was still in the free premium channels part of my satellite subscription.

  When we got to our building, I stood in the lobby and smiled at Gabriel. “Okay, I’m ready to go.” I held out my hand. “Ten bucks, please.”

  He stared at me. “We’re probably going to be spending the night. You’re not ready for that.”

  I shrugged. “Sure I am.”

  “Prove it,” he said, which didn’t actually annoy me at all. I liked being able to surprise him.

  I opened my leather messenger bag. “Computer, wallet, battery charger for my phone, contact lens solution and case, glasses, toothbrush, hair band, and deodorant. I’ll wash my underwear in the hotel sink, and I’ll sleep naked. I could get by on just a credit card, but I usually carry the basics so I don’t have to use it on stupid stuff.”

  He stared at me, and finally shook himself. “Sorry, I got hung up on the sleep naked part.”

  “I get the sense you’d be fairly easy to distract,” I said with a grin. “Mental images of nudity to you are kind of like shouting ‘squirrel’ to a hunting dog.”

  “Not nudity in the abstract, I’ll have you know,” he started for the stairs. “Come on, you win – spectacularly, I might add. But you should spend the time cuddling the beast while I get some things together.”

  I followed him up. “So, naked people in general don’t do it for you?”

  He scoffed. “There is nothing fascinating about the male body. It is, as they say, a meat wagon to carry around a consciousness.”

  I shuddered at the mental image. “I might have to agree to disagree about that, but how is a female body not just a meat wagon too?”

  “I refuse to reveal the baseness of my thoughts and say out loud something utterly offensive about wagons for meat.”

  I groaned at that, just as it deserved. “You do that well – s
ay you’re not going to say a thing as you say it anyway.”

  “I’m British,” he shrugged. “It comes with the accent. I’ll be down in a few minutes. Pack your running gear so we can go for a night run up there.” He left me outside my apartment and took the staircase up to his at a sprint.

  Oscar thumped his tail from the couch, where he’d snuggled in for his day nap. He got up and stretched slowly, half-on and half-off the couch, until I dropped next to him and gave his belly the appropriate level of attention. I told him Jorge would be taking him on a run later, and he could probably sleep with him on the couch if he didn’t take up the whole thing. I was fairly certain all the important words, like “run” and “Jorge” and “couch” got through.

  I got up to grab a sling bag from the hall closet, tossed my cheetah leg and running shoe into it, and then despite my earlier bravado. I broke down and packed a change of underwear and another t-shirt in addition to running tights. I kept the tapestry coat on because it was warm and stylish enough to work for most scenarios, but I added a cashmere scarf to my bag in case I needed to dress it up even more.

  Gabriel was scratching Oscar’s ears when I came out of the bedroom, and he nodded at the sling bag. “You broke down and packed something to sleep in?”

  “Nope. You said pack running shoes. In here is one shoe and one leg. Not nearly as sexy as you were hoping for.”

  “Aaaand… squirrel!” he said with a sigh. “No pajamas equals naked in bed. It’s about as sexy as packing can get.”

  And since there was nothing I could say to refute that, I kissed my dog on the head, grabbed two water bottles from the fridge, and then locked my apartment door behind us.

  There was a bunch of construction on the I-90 East out of Chicago, but once we hit the I-94, things picked up. Gabriel let me drive the first part, since I offered, and I was happy to hand over the wheel when we stopped for gas in Grand Rapids. He was a good road trip companion, just as easy to talk to as to be silent with. We spent most of the trip either listening to history podcasts or discussing them, and things got particularly lively after a podcast about the technological inventions that caused historical swerves. I pointed out that the producers hadn’t done a particularly good job of seeking female representation among their innovators, and he challenged me to name three black ones. We both agreed that it would be far more interesting if more of history was written by someone other than the victorious white guys.

  I slept for a little while on the way to Traverse City, and Gabriel listened to the soundtrack of Moana, which was oddly soothing. I woke up to a very different landscape as we traveled along the west arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. It was breathtaking, and I must have made a sound, because Gabriel turned off the music.

  “It’s different than I expected up here,” he said.

  I nodded as I took in the view. “I grew up in the Sierra Mountains, which are full of tall, old-growth trees. This landscape is so flat and almost barren, even though we’re surrounded by water. It’s beautiful and desolate at the same time.” I felt a kinship with it that surprised me.

  “I was a city kid, through and through. The first time I saw mountains was on maneuvers in Scotland. I tried to run up to the top of one, and nearly killed myself in weather that changed on a dime. When I’d recovered, I made it my mission to learn to climb them properly, and then spent every weekend as high as I could climb.” He smiled at the memory, and I was struck by how relaxed it made him look, as though even the memory of being outside in nature calmed him.

  “I spent almost every weekend backpacking when I was a kid. We’d get home from school on Friday, Dad would tell us to pack extra socks, a toothbrush, and a down coat with our sleeping bag and pad, and by dark on Friday night we’d be setting up camp somewhere.”

  “So that’s where you got your superior packing skills?” he asked with a grin.

  I shrugged. “That happens when you’re expected to carry your own pack from the age of six. You also learn what’s necessary when you decide a sleeping pad is too heavy and you don’t want to bring it. It only takes one night of hard, cold ground to understand what is and isn’t worth the effort.”

  “I’ve had a lot of nights on cold, hard ground. When you’re tired enough, you sleep, and if you don’t, those are the nights you should be awake anyway.”

  “From your time in the military?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Believe it or not, the British military is actually fairly considerate of its soldiers. The Peacekeepers are less so. Or perhaps the pretense of British civility has no place in the war zones of the rest of the world.” His words faded to silence, and he seemed lost in thought for several minutes.

  “How long has it been since you’ve been backpacking?” he asked me, probably just to change the channel on his own thoughts, since he couldn’t know how fraught that question was for me.

  “Since I was sixteen. I bought myself a new pack for my twenty-third birthday, but it’s still in my closet with the tags on.” I felt oddly guilty whenever I thought of my unused backpack, like I was letting my dad down.

  “Apparently, there are some great backpacking trails in the Huron-Manistee National Forests, which we went through about an hour ago. We should go sometime.” Gabriel’s tone was perfectly casual, and somehow I managed to twist the words around in my head.

  Why did I always have to make things complicated? I had never gone backpacking without my dad, and I didn’t even know how my leg would react to a thirty pound pack on my back. I should have been jumping at the chance to do something I used to love, instead of yelling at myself to get over it already.

  “…Or not,” he finally said.

  I realized my arguments had all been internal, and he hadn’t had the benefit of my brain on loudspeaker to know that I’d even heard him. “Sorry. Yeah, that would be nice.”

  “Really? Because on the scale of one to enthusiastic, that answer rated deep in the negative numbers. It’s fine if you’re not interested. I’ve just always preferred actual conversation with another human in the woods rather than talking to myself to keep the bears away.”

  “I’ve never backpacked alone,” I admitted.

  “I don’t recommend it except as an antidote to family reunions. The silence can make your thoughts alarmingly loud.”

  I smiled wanly. “I don’t have family reunions either.”

  He glanced at me quickly, then returned his focus to the road, but not before I caught his look of surprise. After a moment he said, “Dinner with my family is never just a spectator sport, nor is it for the fainthearted.”

  He’d hesitated just long enough that I knew it wasn’t what he’d originally wanted to say.

  “I look forward to dinner with your family,” I said, with an intentionally bright smile.

  Gabriel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I’ve become gun-shy about asking anything personal of you. I’ve come to expect silence and withdrawal. I have to tell you, it feels awful to run every question through a ‘will this piss her off?’ filter.”

  I stared at the road ahead of us, and the silence stretched between us as I probed his words like a tongue does a cavity. The self-indulgence of it made me want to scream, and I finally had to speak or be consumed by the silence.

  “When I ran away from California, I left everyone behind – friends, co-workers, family, the cheating ex – everyone. Other people knew Mitch was cheating on me, and when I finally figured it out, I realized the look I’d been seeing in their eyes was pity. And then, because I stayed with him after discovering him in bed with the other woman, I became someone even I didn’t like or respect very much. When I finally did leave, the only way I could find my confidence again was to shut the door on all of it – on every person who said nothing, on everyone who had seen me strip myself of my dignity and turn into that naked, mewling baby Voldemort thing from the last Harry Potter movie.”

  Gabriel barked a startled laugh, and it made me feel good that
I could lift a little significance out of the gut-spill.

  “It took about six months for me to hold my head above water, and another six before I felt like I could swim back to shore. I guess part of me is afraid that if I connect with any part of that past, the memories of who I let myself turn into will suck me back into the deep end. Unfortunately, it’s made me pretty rigid about even sticking my toes in.”

  The view of the lake outside had clearly affected my metaphoric speech center, but it was a pretty appropriate description of what it had felt like to lose myself. It was not a place to which I would ever willingly return, and I thought Gabriel’s own statement about being gun-shy fit me far too well.

  “Does your family know you’re alive?” he asked after several minutes of silence.

  “I send my mom a Christmas card every year.” I didn’t mention that the first year I drove across state lines to mail it so the postmark wouldn’t give me away. I didn’t actually hate my mother; I just felt betrayed by her.

  “I won’t pretend to understand your relationship with your family – I suppose that requires details you’re not willing to share. I do understand a bit of your reaction to the place, and the person you let yourself become while you were there. I suppose I’ve done something similar about my time in Nigeria.”

  He let the words fade into silence, and another mile passed before I finally pulled up my big girl panties to speak. “So, here’s the thing. My normal M.O. is to let something like what you just said slide, even though I’m totally intrigued and want to ask all the questions. Because I know that if I start digging, then you get to ask questions in return, and before you know it, we’re having an actual conversation with sharing and stuff.”

  I deliberately allowed my speech to reflect the teenaged girl I felt like – nervous, twisty, and far too self-conscious for comfort. But nothing in this moment was comfortable, so I soldiered on, silently blessing Gabriel for keeping his expression impassive.