by Tiffany Snow
The hallway was thickly carpeted, swallowing our steps as we walked. The decor was different on this level, with ornate wood paneling on the walls and crown molding. Elegant and tasteful, the rooms I glimpsed as we passed were understated, yet obviously expensive.
We stopped in front of a set of double doors. Slade knocked and waited. A man’s voice answered.
“Come in.”
I thought perhaps we were about to meet the pope or someone of equal religious import, judging by the reverent way Slade opened the doors. So, I was a little disappointed that it was just another man, only this time he was sitting behind a desk and didn’t appear to have a weapon.
He rose when we walked in, and his gaze landed on Clark. Rounding his desk, he approached us until we stood mere feet away, then stopped.
Shorter than Slade, he was well dressed in a three-piece suit and tie. His shoes were polished to a high gleam, and his hair looked like something out of a fashion magazine. He was olive-skinned, and one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen, but his eyes were cold and calculating as he sized us up.
Giving me a once-over, he dismissed me and turned his attention to Clark. “Slattery,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d be gracing us with your presence anytime soon, especially not with your current level of . . . notoriety. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now and save the taxpayers’ money on a trial?”
I sucked in a breath in alarm, my head going through scenarios to try to get us out of there alive . . . and coming up empty.
“Since when have you been concerned about the taxpayers, Zane?” Clark scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’re a Republican now.”
My eyebrows climbed to my hairline. Antagonizing the already-angry man didn’t seem like the smartest way to go, though perhaps the quickest, judging by the guards’ itchy trigger fingers.
Zane didn’t reply, and it felt as though the whole room had taken a breath and was holding it, then he suddenly grinned.
“Holy shit, Slattery. I should’ve known only you would have the balls to pull a job like that, then stick around. Though I have to say, I’m surprised that you missed. Losing your touch in your old age?” He laughed, then moved forward to clap a hand to Clark’s injured shoulder. “Good to see you again. God, how long has it been?”
This must’ve signaled something to Slade, because he made a gesture with his hand, and he plus the two guards melted into the hallway, closing the doors behind them and leaving us alone with Zane.
I let out my breath, but didn’t relax. We were still in the lion’s den.
“Sit down,” Zane said, gesturing to a sofa close to the windows. He took an armchair opposite. “So tell me,” he continued once we were all settled, “what brings you here, and who is your lovely friend? And what’s this about something I need?”
“This is China,” Clark said. “She’s my partner.”
I scrutinized Clark. He was a shade paler than he had been before, though he acted fine. I wondered if the pain of his wound was getting to him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, China,” Zane said, turning on the charm. “Clark, you’ve certainly increased the caliber of your companions.”
Clark just responded with a thin-lipped smile. “I need your help,” he said. “And you need mine.”
“Of course, absolutely,” Zane said. “You may not have left under the best circumstances, but we don’t hold grudges.”
I wasn’t a human lie detector by any stretch of the imagination, but even I wanted to guffaw at that whopper.
“What do you need?”
“Information.” He pulled the Gemini talisman out of his pocket. “On this.” He handed it over. “We found two of those yesterday, right before someone tried to punch our ticket out of here. No other message or motive. Does it ring a bell?”
Zane frowned as he examined the metal symbol. “It’s certainly been a long time, but yes, I remember.” He glanced back up at Clark. “I don’t think you were privy to all the particulars of Operation Gemini.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I don’t know the finer points. I thought it happened around the time of your last mission, before you came to work for me.”
Clark stiffened at the mention of his last mission. “So you can’t help me?”
“I can give you a name,” Zane said. “Someone who should know and be able to help you.”
“Who?”
“Ah,” Zane said, steepling his fingers underneath his chin. “Information is an expensive commodity, Slattery.”
“Which is why I didn’t come empty-handed,” Clark said.
“So I see,” Zane said. “I’ve been trying to find just the right person for a job I need done.” His gaze swung to mine. “And here you are.” He smiled and it sent a chill down my spine.
“She’s not an assassin,” Clark said. “And she’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t care what you meant. I know exactly who she is,” Zane replied. “One of the top cybersecurity hackers in the world, and you bring her right in the front door. The only thing you missed is gift wrap.”
“Would you believe she’s a med student that I sweet-talked?” Clark said. “It’s been a little lonely on the road.”
Zane’s friendly pretense fell away. “Stop bullshitting me. I knew you’d be coming here before you did. And I’ve known about her for longer. So, if you want something from me, you’ll do what I say. When you came here, you gave up your choices.”
“I walked out of here once,” Clark said. “I can do it again.”
“Maybe. But she won’t.”
As if orchestrated, the doors opened again and we were surrounded. Two men yanked me up from the chair and began dragging me toward the door. I fought them, twisting to see Clark fighting as well, though doing a much better job than I was.
But as good a fighter as Clark was, he was outmatched six to one. There was a flurry of fists, and they had Clark’s arms pinned behind him. Not-Terry landed a punishing blow to Clark’s jaw, and I screamed, terrified.
“Let him go! You asshole!” I struggled, dragging my feet, but they treated me like a sack of potatoes.
“Hurt her and you die,” Clark hissed through blood staining his mouth.
“I’ll be sure to take that under advisement. In the meantime, I believe a bit of payback is in order.”
Before I could see what they were going to do to him, I was dragged through the doorway and down the hallway. Literally. Because I was fighting to get back to Clark. It was like trying to move a brick wall. We halted when they dragged me into an elevator, and I decided fighting any further was useless. All it was doing was draining my energy.
No one said anything as the elevator moved. I was in the middle, surrounded by armed men. I didn’t even reach shoulder height of any of them. Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” played over the elevator’s speaker. The lights changed above the doors, signaling we were on level BB. A ding sounded and the doors slid open.
I walked on my own power down the concrete hallway that looked like a leftover bunker from the Cold War. We came to what could only be termed a cell, and they pushed me inside, closing a pocket door made of one-way glass to lock me in.
Well.
They hadn’t taken my phone, but there was no signal available and—surprise, surprise—no complimentary Wi-Fi. A lone twin-size cot was in the room, along with a modern-looking sink and toilet. I’d been inside another prison cell before, though it had been in China, and a shiver of dread snaked down my spine. I’d been badly beaten the last time I’d been a captive. It was something I tried not to think about.
I had several useful apps on my phone. One of them was handy for accessing networks when a password wasn’t just left on the bedside table for you. I scanned for available networks and started the program working. It took some time—and I was sure PFG security wasn’t going to be like hacking into a coffee shop—but it hadn’t failed me yet.
The door swooshed
open and Clark was shoved inside. I jumped to my feet as he collapsed to his knees. The door closed again, but I barely noticed, falling to my knees by Clark.
“Oh my God, are you all right?” An idiotic question, in retrospect, as he obviously wasn’t all right. But it’s what fell out of my mouth.
“Ouch,” he mumbled, his eyes fluttering open. “The floor is hard.”
I helped him up and over to the bed. That’s when I noticed the shirt I’d given him had a darker, wet spot on his shoulder. I touched it lightly, and my fingers came away red with blood.
“Oh no. They opened your wound.” Distraught, I didn’t know what to do. I had no medical supplies here.
“Least of our worries.” He grimaced. “Zane holds a grudge. Apparently.”
“Lie down,” I said, going to the sink. I took off my long-sleeve shirt and wet it. “You need to rest.” When I returned, he was still sitting up. A bruise was darkening his jaw, and his blood was drying above his lips. I pushed lightly and he fell back on the bed.
“If you insist,” he deadpanned.
I carefully cleaned the blood from his face. His eyes were closed again, and I winced at the cuts to his face and lips. Even with the marks and bruising, he was still beautiful.
“Zane really doesn’t like you,” I said, dabbing at a spot of blood on his neck.
“Yeah, well, I kind of have that effect on people.”
“Are you going to tell me now how you got out? Because, obviously, Zane isn’t over it.” I settled next to him on the cot.
“I’d love to say I suddenly grew a conscience, but that’s not a hundred percent true,” he said. “I just got sick of working for someone else. Decided I was done with PFG and Zane. Problem was, I took a couple very lucrative clients on my way out.”
I paused in cleaning him up. “You have clients that just want people killed?”
His eyes cracked open. “No. I stopped that line of work. They’re people who need information, usually on other people.”
Relieved, I went back to work. “Sounds like business, then. He shouldn’t have taken it so personally.”
“The accounts were worth over a hundred million.”
My jaw dropped. “In dollars?”
He gave me a look that said I’d just said something stupid. “No, in chickens. Of course in dollars.”
I’d had no idea Clark had that kind of money. I’d never put a great deal of thought into it, either, though I knew he lived in that gorgeous log home in the backwoods outside of Raleigh.
“Okay, then. I can see why he might still carry a grudge,” I allowed. “But beating on you was uncalled for and childish.”
Clark huffed a laugh. “I’ll make sure to tell him that next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said. I was angry. Pissed off, to be accurate. Clark was important to me, and within the span of a day, he’d been shot and now beaten up. For someone who’d saved me so many times, this time he was the one who needed saving.
“You’ve got mad ninja skills that I’m just now hearing about?” he asked as I pulled my phone from my pocket.
“Something like that,” I replied, only half paying attention. My little app had done its work. I was inside the network. “Try to rest,” I told him, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. It was soft and silky between my fingers. His eyes fluttered closed at my touch.
My heart twisted inside. Clark had no one, it seemed. He reminded me . . . of me. I’d used my routine and schedule to help keep a barrier around myself for years. So many people who’d come into my life when I was younger had hurt me. My self-imposed isolation had been an act of self-defense. As for Clark, his last mission must have messed him up so badly, it had killed him inside for a while.
I worked on my phone for a few minutes, gratified to find that Zane wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. All kinds of things connected to Wi-Fi now, ubiquitously called the Internet of Things. And the vast majority of them were unsecured.
“Clark?” I asked, once I’d finished what I needed to do.
“Mmmm?”
“Something happened on your last mission. Something really bad. I know you—at least I think I do, and you wouldn’t just start . . . doing what you did . . . without an impetus strong enough to overcome who you really are.” I needed to know. Or perhaps he needed to tell me.
His eyes opened again and he looked steadily at me.
“What was it?” I was shooting in the dark here, but I wanted to understand. Because the two sides of the equation didn’t correlate. Not unless everything I knew and felt about Clark was somehow flawed, and that I’d been duped by my own naïveté.
I waited, mindlessly combing my fingers slowly through his hair, and wondered if I was right.
“It was my brother.”
My fingers froze. He was gazing at me, his blue eyes clear and unblinking.
“My younger brother,” he continued. “He’d joined the Army the same as I had, followed in my footsteps, turning Special Forces. We were together on the mission. We worked together a lot. Knew each other’s moves and how we each thought.
“When things went to shit that night, the team got separated. I was in communication with command but had lost radio contact with the members of the team, including my brother. Command told me to get out. I had the flash drive with what we needed. But I refused to leave the team. CO told me they’d made it out, that I was the last one, and I believed him. So I bugged out.”
“What happened?”
“They’d lied to me,” he said. “They told me whatever I wanted to hear so I’d get the drive to them. It wasn’t until I was back that I found out only three other guys besides me made it out. The rest had been killed.”
“Including your brother.”
“Yes.”
Well. That explained . . . so very much.
“What was his name?” I asked.
The Adam’s apple in Clark’s throat moved as he swallowed before answering. “Rob. His name was Rob.”
I slotted my fingers through his. “I’m sorry for your loss, Clark. You punished yourself, didn’t you. That was what working for PFG was all about.”
He glanced away, staring up at the ceiling. “I was angry. At myself. At the Army. I’d given them my loyalty and put my life on the line so many times. And they lied to me. They couldn’t even retrieve his body for a burial. He was just . . . gone.”
I didn’t have the right words to say to him, so I held his hand and hoped talking about it helped him. He’d left PFG, so at some point, he had moved on. But it was clear the pain was still there.
“I’ve never told anyone before,” he said.
Startled, my gaze flew to his. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “Never had anyone to tell. No one to give a shit enough to hear my sorry-ass sad story.”
This was important. It took a lot for me to share personal things, so I understood that his telling me—and only me—was a Very Big Deal.
“I’m glad you told me.” I said the words with as much sincerity as I could imbue them with, since I lacked the skills of prose to convey how much it meant that he had confided his deepest pain with me.
“I thought, if I’m going to have any shot of us being more . . . then you should know what I am. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
The words . . . us being more . . hung in the air between us.
“Clark—”
The door swished open and I jumped to my feet, standing protectively in front of the bed. Zane walked in.
“Hiding behind a woman now, are we?” he asked with a sneer. “How progressive of you, Clark.”
I could hear Clark moving to stand. “She’s my friend. An unknown concept to you.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I believe we were in the middle of negotiations,” Zane replied. “I have a job I need done. You need a name.”
“China’s not going to do a job for you,” Clark scoffed. “She’s not for sale.”
>
“China,” Zane said, addressing me, “you’ve seen that there is no love lost between Clark and me, so I will have no qualms about using him for target practice, should you refuse.”
There was no doubt in my mind that he was absolutely serious. “What’s the job?”
“An easy one, for you. A database hack, changing some information, and removing a couple of names.”
I was sure there was a catch. “What database?”
“The FBI’s Terrorist Screening database.”
And there it was. “And how do I know you’ll keep your word if I do this?”
“You don’t. But then again, you don’t have much choice.”
He was right and we all knew it. I wasn’t about to let Zane punish Clark further or hurt him in any way.
“He goes where I go,” I demanded, taking Clark’s hand. “I’m not letting him out of my sight.”
“Agreed.”
“And he gets medical treatment,” I added. “From Dr. Jay.”
Zane rolled his eyes. “You’re not in much of a position to make demands, but fine. I’ll have him patched up. Now let’s go. We’re in a bit of a time crunch.”
The two guards who’d accompanied Zane escorted us out of the cell. I walked slowly, not wanting to let them rush Clark, who I knew had to be hurting even though his face remained stoic.
“Doctor first,” I said to Zane’s back.
“Doctor during,” he tossed back. “Like I said, we have a deadline. And I’m done negotiating.”
We were led to stairs and climbed to the floor above us, which was again decorated in the style of the foyer, with tiled floors, muted gray walls, and indirect lighting. Zane used a key card to open a door, and we followed him into an oversize office.
A line of six workstations were set up in one area, while a long conference table was in another. There were a couple of couches arranged perpendicular to each other. Windows lined one wall, and there was a man working behind a metal-and-glass desk that stood alone. He glanced up from his monitor when we entered.
“How are we doing on time?” Zane asked him.
