THE MIDDLE SIN

by Merline Lovelace

Her thumb ma­de anot­her pass. Jack re­fu­sed to gro­an, but he was dam­ned clo­se to it when she ga­ve a dis­gus­ted huff.

  "Hell," she mut­te­red. "So am I."

  "What?"

  "Get­ting the­re."

  His tho­ughts ri­coc­he­ted from her hot, tight fist to the crazy ho­pe he'd re­ad her right.

  "You want to run that by me one mo­re ti­me?"

  "Ever he­ar the ex­p­res­si­on 'ho­ist by his own pe­tard'?"

  "On­ce or twi­ce." A grin slas­hed ac­ross his fa­ce. "Fe­eling the he­at, are you?"

  "Don't smirk," she war­ned, tig­h­te­ning her grip.

  "I'm trying not to. So what do you want to do abo­ut the si­tu­ati­on?"

  She gna­wed on her lip. "Okay, he­re's the de­al. How abo­ut you han­d­le the pe­tard, I'll ho­ist, and we call this ro­und a draw?"

  His belly con­s­t­ric­ted so hard and fast he al­most bo­un­ced her off his lap. "Works for me."

  Okay, Cleo tho­ught as she plan­ted both fe­et on the flo­or. All right. So this sche­me had bac­k­fi­red. She'd think of anot­her way to ma­ke Jack suf­fer.

  La­ter.

  Right now she was mo­re con­cer­ned with get­ting rid of her sud­denly in­con­ve­ni­ent bri­efs.

  He sol­ved the prob­lem by ho­oking an arm aro­und her wa­ist and ha­uling her up­ward. Two se­conds la­ter, the silk bo­xers hit the car­pet. Fi­ve se­conds af­ter that, Jack roc­ke­ted out of the cha­ir, ta­king her with him, and he­aded to the bat­h­ro­om.

  "Don't mo­ve," he grow­led, pa­wing thro­ugh his sha­ving kit. "Do not mo­ve!"

  Sin­ce Cleo had her legs loc­ked aro­und his wa­ist and his pe­tard was po­king at her belly, she op­ted not to ta­ke is­sue with the gruff com­mand. Nor did she find any fa­ult with his lig­h­t­ning spe­ed on­ce he'd lo­ca­ted the con­dom he was se­ar­c­hing for.

  She was wet and re­ady when he set her down long eno­ugh to she­at­he him­self. Hot and eager when he hit­c­hed her up aga­in. And when he thrust in­to her, she al­most cli­ma­xed right then and the­re.

  She ma­na­ged to hold on as Jack pul­led out, sur­ged back and ram­med ho­me. Cleo's he­ad thum­ped aga­inst the wall ti­les. Her chin jer­ked up, knoc­king his in the pro­cess. A long, low gro­an rip­ped from her thro­at, al­most drow­ning Jack's stran­g­led grunt.

  It didn't, ho­we­ver, drown out the thump of his fist aga­inst the wall. Her wild se­xu­al ple­asu­re spun in­to fi­er­ce sa­tis­fac­ti­on, all fe­ma­le, all-con­su­ming, un­til Jack fro­ze in mid-th­rust.

  "Aw, shit."

  Only af­ter the tor­tu­red ex­p­le­ti­ve did she re­ali­ze his fist wasn't do­ing the thum­ping. The po­un­ding ca­me from the do­or to the su­ite.

  With anot­her cur­se, Jack whip­ped his he­ad aro­und. "You ex­pec­ting an­yo­ne?"

  "No."

  He was out of the bat­h­ro­om and ra­cing for his gun al­most be­fo­re her fe­et hit the flo­or. "Get dres­sed."

  Screw dres­sed. He ne­eded bac­kup. As Cleo had dis­co­ve­red, the­se Mal­te­se boys pla­yed for ke­eps.

  Sin­ce the ter­ry-cloth ro­be she'd slit­he­red out of ear­li­er still lay in a pud­dle in the outer ro­om, she sco­oped it up on the run.

  Jack did the sa­me with his aban­do­ned swe­ats. Drag­ging them up with his unen­cum­be­red hand, he thrust a leg in and hop­ped to­ward the do­or. The sight might ha­ve be­en co­mi­cal if not for the ni­ne mil­li­me­ter SIG Sa­u­er and Cleo's all-too-vi­vid re­col­lec­ti­ons of the ti­mes she'd se­en him use it.

  The per­son on the ot­her si­de of the do­or po­un­ded aga­in. Hard. Long. Lo­ud.

  The so­lid wo­od pa­nel was thick eno­ugh to block a bul­let, but Jack ap­pro­ac­hed at a sa­fe an­g­le, an­y­way.

  "Wa­it!"

  Cleo snat­c­hed up the re­mo­te and jab­bed it at the TV. The scre­en buz­zed to li­fe.

  "I prog­ram­med a sig­nal ret­ri­ever for the se­cu­rity ca­me­ra in the hall," she sa­id in a bre­at­h­less rush. "Unless you de­ac­ti­va­ted the system when you mes­sed with my ge­ar, it sho­uld swing the ca­me­ra aro­und and gi­ve us a cle­ar vi­ew of who­ever's at the do­or."

  She tho­ught at first Do­re­en had fa­iled her. A pot­ted palm jum­ped in­to vi­ew and lo­oked li­ke it wo­uld stay the­re. Cur­sing, Cleo stab­bed the but­ton aga­in. To her re­li­ef, the palm drif­ted to the ed­ge of the scre­en.

  The ca­me­ra pic­ked up the ele­va­tor. A set of me­di­eval ar­mor. The en­t­ran­ce to the su­ite ac­ross from Cleo's. Then the eye pan­ned aro­und and scan­ned her do­or.

  Jack's mo­uth twis­ted. With anot­her aw-shit, he lo­we­red the SIG and un­loc­ked the do­or. When he threw the he­avy pa­nel open, Cleo ga­ped at the co­up­le in the cor­ri­dor.

  "Marc! What in the world…?"

  Slo­an to­ok Di­ane Wal­ker's el­bow in a whi­te-knuc­k­led grip and al­most drag­ged her in­to the su­ite.

  "What's wrong?" Cleo as­ked, wrap­ping her ro­be aro­und her. "Why are you and Di­ane in Mal­ta?"

  The exe­cu­ti­ve spe­ared a lo­ok at Jack, no­ted the se­mi­a­uto­ma­tic grip­ped in his fist, then swung his ga­ze back to Cleo.

  "Two re­asons. First, the me­di­cal exa­mi­ner ma­de the of­fi­ci­al ID. That was Trish bu­ri­ed in the sand."

  The news didn't sur­p­ri­se Cleo, al­t­ho­ugh the of­fi­ci­al call ad­ded a de­eper sha­de of gray to the murky hu­es sur­ro­un­ding this ca­se.

  "Did the M.E. gi­ve an es­ti­ma­te of how long she'd be­en in that pump ho­use?"

  "Ten to twel­ve days. Which brings us to the se­cond re­ason Di­ane and I are in Mal­ta. We've just dis­co­ve­red so­me­one used her pas­sword to ac­cess Slo­an En­gi­ne­ering fi­les."

  His glan­ce cut to Jack aga­in, sharp as a scal­pel and twi­ce as let­hal.

  "The fi­le this un­k­nown hac­ker ac­ces­sed in­c­lu­ded an un­c­las­si­fi­ed set of sche­ma­tics for the U.S. Mo­tor Ves­sel A1C Wil­li­am H. Pit­sen­bar­ger. I want to know what's go­ing on he­re, Do­no­van, and I want to know it now."

  Jack had spent al­most twenty ye­ars in in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons, first as a mi­li­tary cop, then as an OSI agent. He ma­de it a po­int to go by the bo­ok…as long as the bo­ok co­in­ci­ded with his gut in­s­tincts. Right now his gut was tel­ling him he ne­eded Marc Slo­an to fit the pi­eces of this dan­ge­ro­us puz­zle to­get­her.

  "Sit down. We'll talk."

  19

  Ro­om ser­vi­ce ma­de a se­cond de­li­very to the King's Su­ite in the small ho­urs of the mor­ning. Marc and Di­ane had be­en ser­ved se­ve­ral me­als abo­ard his pri­va­te jet du­ring the long flight from the Sta­tes, so the call was only for cof­fee. Lots of it.

  Whi­le wa­iting for the or­der to ar­ri­ve, Jack ret­re­ated to the bed­ro­om to dress. Cleo used the in­ter­val to bri­ef her cli­ent on the sho­oting in the cat­hed­ral whi­le Di­ane con­fir­med the re­ser­va­ti­ons she'd ma­de so­mew­he­re over the At­lan­tic for the Qu­e­en's Apar­t­ments. Evi­dently qu­e­ens ran­ked hig­her on the ho­tel's VIP sca­le than kings, as the su­ite oc­cu­pi­ed two flo­ors and ran to three bed­ro­oms.

  Not that Di­ane and Marc wo­uld oc­cupy mo­re than one, Cleo gu­es­sed when the small gro­up re­con­ve­ned. The fact that Ms. Su­per Ef­fi­ci­ency had ac­com­pa­ni­ed her boss to Mal­ta in­s­te­ad of re­ma­ining be­hind to ke­ep the of­fi­ce mac­hi­ne run­ning spo­ke vo­lu­mes. So did the pos­ses­si­ve hand Slo­an slid un­der her ha­ir to mas­sa­ge her na­pe.

  When ever­yo­ne even­tu­al­ly gat­he­red aro­und the par­qu­et­ry-top­ped tab­le in the di­ning sa­lon, the dis­cus­si­on cen­te­red on Trish and the in­c­re­asingly ur­gent cir­cum­s­tan­ces of her de­ath.

  "The me­di­cal exa­mi­ner w
as still fi­na­li­zing the autopsy fin­dings when we left," Slo­an sa­id. "But he con­fir­med the marks on her neck we­re bru­ises and the­ori­zed she was held un­der­wa­ter un­til she drow­ned. The M.E. al­so thinks she went in­to the wa­ter right the­re at Sand Cre­ek Sta­te Park. Evi­dently the wa­ter in her lungs con­ta­ined plan­k­ton that's spe­ci­fic to the fres­h­wa­ter cre­ek that fe­eds in­to the bay the­re."

  "What abo­ut the preg­nancy?" Cleo as­ked. "Did the M.E. con­firm that?"

  "Yes."

  When Slo­an didn't of­fer any fur­t­her in­for­ma­ti­on, Di­ane tuc­ked her hand in his and an­s­we­red the un­s­po­ken qu­es­ti­on.

  "They ran the DNA of the fe­tus. We got the re­sults just be­fo­re we lan­ded. Marc wasn't the fat­her."

  "Char­les­ton PD is run­ning the DNA pro­fi­le aga­inst fe­de­ral and in­ter­na­ti­onal law-en­for­ce­ment da­ta­ba­ses," Slo­an in­for­med them. "They se­emed to think it might be a whi­le be­fo­re they re­ce­ive a res­pon­se."

  "I'll ta­ke ca­re of that," Jack pro­mi­sed. "Tell me abo­ut this bu­si­ness of Trish's pas­sword."

  "I de­ac­ti­va­ted it af­ter I went over to her apar­t­ment and dis­co­ve­red she was mis­sing," Di­ane sa­id, her hand still loc­ked in Marc's. "I pro­bably sho­uld ha­ve do­ne it the first day she didn't show for work, but I as­su­med… We all tho­ught…"

  "We ho­ped she was just off par­t­ying," Marc fi­nis­hed.

  "You sa­id so­me­one had ac­ces­sed yo­ur fi­les using Trish's pas­sword. We­re yo­ur pe­op­le ab­le to tra­ce the qu­ery to a spe­ci­fic com­pu­ter or ser­ver?"

  "No. Who­ever went in­to the fi­le knew what he was do­ing. He co­ve­red his tracks. My folks only dis­co­ve­red the qu­ery when they went in to per­ma­nently clo­se Trish's ac­co­unt."

  "The OSI is exe­cu­ti­ve agent for the De­fen­se Cyber Cri­me Cen­ter," Jack sa­id. "The spe­ci­alists at the Cen­ter ha­ve a lit­tle mo­re ex­per­ti­se than most at fer­re­ting out hac­kers. I'll put them on it. You're su­re the only fi­le the in­t­ru­der hit was the one con­ta­ining the sche­ma­tics for the Pit­sen­bar­ger?"

  "I'm su­re." His hand still wrap­ped aro­und Di­ane's, Slo­an le­aned for­ward. "Yo­ur turn, Do­no­van. What the hell's go­ing on?"

  Jack ras­ped a hand ac­ross his chin, we­ig­hing how much to tell the man. Every in­ves­ti­ga­tor worth his salt ga­ve out only eno­ugh in­for­ma­ti­on to get sus­pects or in­ter­vi­ewe­es tal­king or, bet­ter pet, to let them trip over the­ir own sto­ri­es. Ye­ars is an un­der­co­ver agent had ad­ded sur­vi­val to Jack's per­so­nal list of re­asons for pla­ying his cards clo­se to his chest.

  Then the­re was the slight mat­ter of na­ti­onal se­cu­rity. No­ne of the three pe­op­le fa­cing him we­re cle­ared at the le­vels ne­eded for spe­ci­fic de­ta­ils. The best he co­uld do was gi­ve Slo­an and his com­pa­ni­on the sa­ni­ti­zed ver­si­on he'd gi­ven Cleo ear­li­er.

  "It star­ted abo­ut a month ago. We pic­ked up so­me chat­ter that in­di­ca­ted in­te­rest by a fri­endly go­ver­n­ment in the Pit­sen­bar­ger. No one got too ex­ci­ted un­til per­son or per­sons un­k­nown used yo­ur DNA pro­fi­le to ac­cess the clas­si­fi­ed por­ti­on of the Af­lo­at Pre­po­si­ti­oning da­ta­ba­se that des­c­ri­bes the exact mu­ni­ti­ons pac­ka­ges lo­aded abo­ard the Pits." ' Cleo ga­ve a lit­tle huff. "I ima­gi­ne the puc­ker fac­tor shot off the charts when the analysts fac­to­red in the con­nec­ti­on bet­we­en Trish Jac­k­son and Ad­ri­an Mus­ta­fa Mo­ore."

  "You got that right. And it's go­ing to re­ach a new high when I ad­vi­se the Old Man of this la­test hit on Slo­an's fi­les."

  "I'm bet­ting yo­ur cyber-cri­me folks will track the hit to our fri­end Ad­ri­an," Cleo pre­dic­ted. "It's be­gin­ning to so­und as tho­ugh he ro­man­ced Trish with the spe­ci­fic in­tent of using her as a da­ta so­ur­ce."

  Di­ane glan­ced aro­und the tab­le, a frown cre­asing her brow. "I'm ha­ving tro­ub­le un­der­s­tan­ding this. If un­k­nown per­sons co­uld hack in­to a clas­si­fi­ed air for­ce da­ta­ba­se using the DNA pro­fi­le Marc had on fi­le, why wo­uld they want Trish's pas­sword? She cer­ta­inly didn't ha­ve ac­cess to the sen­si­ti­ve kind of in­for­ma­ti­on they co­uld get from the APR"

  "Go­od qu­es­ti­on," Jack sa­id. "Wish I had an an­s­wer for it."

  He glan­ced at the ot­hers, on­ce aga­in me­asu­ring how much to tell them. Cleo he trus­ted. Mostly. Her lit­tle ja­unt ac­ross the At­lan­tic wit­ho­ut co­or­di­na­ting with him first had pis­sed him off ro­yal­ly, but he knew she wo­uldn't de­li­be­ra­tely fo­ul an on­go­ing op.

  Slo­an was a dif­fe­rent story. Jack re­cog­ni­zed that a go­od part of his ani­mo­sity to­ward the man stem­med from his all-out cam­pa­ign to get Cleo in­to his bed. Gran­ted, Slo­an ap­pe­ared to ha­ve shif­ted his at­ten­ti­ons to his ele­gant exe­cu­ti­ve as­sis­tant. On­ce a ho­und, tho­ugh, al­ways a ho­und.

  Still, this wasn't abo­ut whet­her or not the man co­uld ke­ep his pants zip­ped. It was abo­ut a ship lo­aded with tons of ex­p­lo­si­ves and an as-yet na­me­less, fa­ce­less pre­sen­ce known only by the co­de na­me Do­mi­no.

  "You've got strong ti­es to the ship­ping world, Slo­an. Ha­ve you he­ard any re­fe­ren­ces to so­me­one who go­es by the han­d­le Do­mi­no?"

  The exe­cu­ti­ve's bre­ath his­sed out. "Christ! So that's what this is abo­ut. I was thin­king ter­ro­rists."

  Jack kic­ked his opi­ni­on of the man up a grud­ging notch. From the so­und of it, he'd al­re­ady ma­de the le­ap from won­de­ring abo­ut the Pits to re­cog­ni­zing it as a tar­get.

  His as­sis­tant hadn't con­nec­ted the dots yet, tho­ugh. She glan­ced from Slo­an to Jack to Cleo, saw the grim com­p­re­hen­si­on on the­ir fa­ces and wan­ted in­to the cir­c­le.

  "Will so­me­one ple­ase clue me in? Who is this Do­mi­no?"

  "He bro­kers car­gos," Slo­an sa­id slowly. "The kind that can't be han­d­led thro­ugh re­pu­tab­le fre­ight or con­ta­iner com­pa­ni­es. Con­t­ra­band pro­ducts. Il­le­gal im­mig­rants. Sto­len ar­ti­facts. No one knows his re­al na­me or his ba­se of ope­ra­ti­ons, but I've he­ard ru­mors abo­ut him and his kind for ye­ars."

  "Go­od God!" Di­ane gas­ped. "You think he's got con­t­ra­band or sto­len ar­ti­facts stas­hed in one of the mu­ni­ti­ons con­ta­iners abo­ard the Pit­sen­bar­ger?"

  "That wo­uld be dif­fi­cult to ac­com­p­lish," Jack rep­li­ed, "se­e­ing as the con­ta­iners we­re pac­ked, se­aled and lo­aded abo­ard the ves­sel when it ca­me in for rep­le­nis­h­ment at Sunny Po­int Mi­li­tary Oce­an Ter­mi­nal."

  "But not im­pos­sib­le," Cleo co­un­te­red.

  She still had a vi­vid men­tal pic­tu­re of all tho­se ac­res of cra­ted equ­ip­ment wa­iting to be sor­ted and pac­ked in­to the se­emingly en­d­less strings of ship­ping con­ta­iners. She knew fir­s­t­hand how tight se­cu­rity was at Sunny Po­int, but any pe­ri­me­ter co­uld be bre­ac­hed gi­ven ti­me and de­ter­mi­na­ti­on.

  Unfor­tu­na­tely.

  "I don't think he's in­te­res­ted in bro­ke­ring con­t­ra­band stas­hed away in the mu­ni­ti­ons con­ta­iners," Slo­an an­s­we­red. "I think he's in­te­res­ted in the mu­ni­ti­ons them­sel­ves."

  "What are you sa­ying?" Her eyes wi­de with dis­be­li­ef, Di­ane sle­wed aro­und in her cha­ir. "You think this Do­mi­no cha­rac­ter is plan­ning to ste­al the en­ti­re car­go?"

  "May­be not him­self, but he co­uld be put­ting out the word that he's in­te­res­ted in bro­ke­ring the de­al if so­me­one el­se ta­kes the ini­ti­ati­ve."

  "So­me­one li­ke Ad­ri­an Mus­ta­fa Mo­ore and fri­ends?"

  "Exactly."

  Cleo pla
­yed de­vil's ad­vo­ca­te. "But why go thro­ugh a mid­dle­man? Why not just ar­ran­ge the he­ist him­self?"

  "Too risky," Slo­an an­s­we­red with a sha­ke of his he­ad. "Be­si­des which, the­re wo­uld be plenty of pro­fit to go aro­und. From what I re­call of the specs, the Pits can ship so­met­hing mo­re than fo­ur mil­li­on short po­unds of ex­p­lo­si­ves."

  "Clo­ser to fi­ve," Cleo mur­mu­red.

  "You can ima­gi­ne what fi­ve mil­li­on po­unds of the most sop­his­ti­ca­ted bombs and mis­si­les on earth wo­uld bring on the black mar­ket."

  Actu­al­ly, Cleo co­uldn't. She had eno­ugh tro­ub­le with ti­me dif­fe­ren­ces and cur­rency ex­c­han­ge ra­tes. Es­ti­ma­ting the va­lue of all tho­se tons of la­ser-gu­ided bombs and he­at-se­eking air-to-air or air-to-sur­fa­ce mis­si­les was so far be­yond her ca­pa­bi­li­ti­es she didn't bot­her to try.

  "What ha­ve you he­ard from the crew of the Pits? " Slo­an as­ked Jack. "Ha­ve they re­por­ted any in­c­re­ased sur­ve­il­lan­ce, eit­her in port or on the se­as?"

  "Not so far. Just the op­po­si­te, in fact. The cap­ta­in's res­pon­se to the war­nings we sent ad­vi­sing him of the po­ten­ti­al thre­at in­di­ca­ted he'd he­ig­h­te­ned se­cu­rity abo­ard the ves­sel. He al­so sa­id he hadn't ob­ser­ved any unu­su­al in­te­rest or ac­ti­vity in any of the ports they'd pul­led in­to. All this just star­ted to bre­ak in the past for­ty-eight ho­urs, tho­ugh. We're still fit­ting the pi­eces of the puz­zle to­get­her."

  "Now you ha­ve anot­her pi­ece," Slo­an re­min­ded him. "The entry in­to my com­pany's fi­les using Trish's pas­sword."

  "Right." Sho­ving back his cha­ir, Jack pus­hed to his fe­et. "I ne­ed to work that. I al­so want to ex­pe­di­te the DNA run on Trish's baby. Why don't you and Ms. Wal­ker grab so­me sle­ep whi­le I set the whe­els in mo­ti­on? You lo­ok abo­ut as whip­ped as I felt when I ar­ri­ved in Mal­ta."

  Slo­an's jaw set. "Whip­ped or not, I'm do­ne with sit­ting on the si­de­li­nes. If eit­her you or Cleo get a le­ad on this Ad­ri­an Mo­ore and go af­ter him, I want to go with you. I bro­ught him a pre­sent."