The Spy’s Secret Family

by Cindy Dees

  He nodded slightly. “I’ll engage them in conversation while you make arrangements for Ellie.”

  He went downstairs and didn’t engage in conversation as much as he threw a tantrum, demanding that the law enforcement agencies do something. Personally, he understood that they had no leads to go on and their hands were tied until the kidnapper made the next move. But he kept that opinion to himself as he ranted and generally forced everyone’s attention onto him while Laura had a quiet word with Marta about watching Ellie for the night and milk in the freezer.

  Laura slipped into the living room and made eye contact with him. He allowed her to talk him down off his fake ledge and the police were more than happy to let the two of them retire upstairs to the privacy of their suite.

  “Are we good to go?” he asked Laura when the door shut behind her.

  “Yes.”

  He eyed the black turtleneck and slacks she’d laid out on the bed. “I gather you’re planning to break into the guy’s house?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Do you have a better idea?” she demanded.

  “Actually, yes.” He headed for her closet and pulled out an elegant linen sheath dress, silk stockings, fashionable stilettos, and an expensive pearl necklace. “Put these on. And do up your makeup and hair to the hilt.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Let’s knock on his front door. Or more precisely, you knock on the front door. He won’t think twice about opening the door for a woman who looks like you. Once he’s got the door open, I’ll join you. If we have to force our way in after that, so be it. But I bet he doesn’t put up a fight. He’s a businessman, not a thug.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m not thinking all that clearly right now.” She glanced at him gratefully, and the spark of warmth in her eyes shot through him like a lightning bolt. Even in the midst of this crisis, she attracted him like no other woman.

  She was authorized to be off her A-game. It was no surprise she’d fall back on her old CIA habits in a situation like this. But he knew life as a CEO. And if a beautiful, elegant woman showed up at his front door, he’d have let her in.

  Laura dressed quickly and came back into the sitting room looking like a million bucks. Her flesh impact hit him like a physical blow. “You’re a hell of a woman,” he murmured.

  “I’m a freaked-out mommy.”

  “Stay strong, sweetheart. For Adam.”

  She nodded and stepped close, leaning against him. They stood together quietly for a moment.

  “Ready?” he murmured.

  “Let’s do it.”

  It was ridiculously easy to sneak out of their house. Laura knew every detail of the security system and made easy work of slipping past it. They pushed his BMW out of the garage in neutral and let it roll down the slight hill behind the house until it was out of sight of the mansion. Only then did Nick start the engine and guide the vehicle toward the back gate.

  The trip to the Virginia suburbs of D.C. went quickly. Laura was grim and silent beside him. She definitely had her Super Mommy game face on.

  The GPS efficiently led them to an elegantly restored row house in the heart of Old Town. Nick pulled into a driveway a few houses down and turned off the engine. He murmured, “You go first and I’ll lurk in the bushes until Kloffman has opened the door.”

  Laura nodded coldly. Super Mommy was in full grizzly-bear mode. Satisfaction coursed through him. AbaCo’s senior leadership had coming whatever Laura could dish out and then some.

  He followed her to the front porch and crouched beside the lush rhododendrons flanking the front steps. She rang the bell and stepped back so she’d be in plain sight through the door’s peephole.

  The door opened.

  Laura pitched her voice in a sexy contralto. “Mr. Kloffman? I work for the United States government. Do you have a few minutes to speak with me?”

  “Of course. Please come in.”

  Bingo. Show time.

  Chapter 8

  Laura was surprised at how easily it all came back to her—the technical skill, intense focus, the cold calm. Her mindset also included absolute willingness to do whatever violence was necessary to find and rescue her son.

  As she passed through the front door, she placed her shoe strategically in front of the wood panel. Nick materialized behind her and had slipped inside before Kloffman was even aware of the man behind her.

  “Who in the hell are you?” Kloffman growled as he caught sight of Nick.

  “My name’s Nikolas Spiros, Herr Kloffman.”

  The German spluttered, looking back and forth between the two of them. “You! I thought I recognized you. You’re that Delaney woman.”

  “That’s correct,” Laura answered grimly. “We need to chat, sir.”

  “How dare you? How did you find me? I want my lawyer.”

  “This isn’t that kind of chat, Werner,” Nick said in an entirely too pleasant tone of voice. “Shall we step into the living room?”

  The German must have sensed the threat underlying Nick’s words and moved without comment into an antique-filled parlor. A thrill coursed through her at the danger in Nick’s voice. She remembered sharply why she’d been attracted to him in the first place. It had been this sense of sexy risk that had clung to him.

  Kloffman sank down in a wingback chair and stared defiantly at the two of them.

  “So here’s the deal, Werner,” Laura said reasonably. “We’re going to ask you a series of questions. If you give us the right answers, we’ll leave and not bother you again. If you give us the wrong answers, you are going to have a very long night. We’d like to keep this civilized, but we are under no obligation to do so. Understood?”

  Kloffman swore under his breath in German. “I know who you are. I’ll see you both in jail for this.”

  Nick shrugged. “Panicked parents politely question the man most likely to have kidnapped their son, and you think any jury in the world is going to do more than slap our wrists?”

  “I didn’t kidnap your son!”

  “Of course you didn’t,” she replied smoothly. “The same way you didn’t kidnap Nick. Your flunkies did it for you. Plausible deniability is important for a man in your position, is it not?”

  He shrugged, obviously aware that answering the question couldn’t help his cause.

  “Surely you knew about Nick’s kidnapping and the kidnappings of dozens of other people who were held aboard your ships. It must have been a profitable little side business. What were you getting for your special guest service? A million dollars a year per prisoner? More?”

  Nick stiffened beside her. His rage was palpable at being in the presence of the man who very likely was the kingpin behind his kidnapping.

  “Care to comment on who paid to have Nick kidnapped?” she asked without warning.

  Kloffman’s gaze darted back and forth between them. He definitely knew something he wasn’t sharing with them.

  “His loving wife, perhaps?” Laura snapped.

  “I have no idea.” Kloffman’s eyes slid down and to the left, a sure tell that he was lying.

  Laura leaned in close. “Was it her? Yes or no.”

  “No.” Another glance at the floor and a jump of the pulse pounding in his temple.

  She looked up at Nick grimly. “At least that mystery’s solved. It was your bitch of a wife.” She looked back down at Kloffman. “Where’s our son?”

  “Why would I kidnap some child?” Kloffman demanded angrily. “I’m not a monster.”

  “Five years in a box on one of your ships says that’s not true,” Nick snarled.

  Kloffman subsided, glaring belligerently.

  Laura spoke grimly. “The fact remains that no one but you has both the means and the motive to kidnap our son and pressure Nick not to testify against your firm. AbaCo’s going down in flames next week and Nick is the spark that’s going to ignite the firestorm.”

  Kloffman smiled coldly. “AbaCo is by no means going down in flames. Qu
ite the contrary.”

  A chill passed down her spine. The German was entirely too sure of himself for her comfort. He should be sweating bullets if he was involved in Adam’s kidnapping. But instead, he was sitting here as smug as could be, actually smirking at her.

  She pulled out her pistol, and it had the desired effect on Kloffman. He paled. She spoke grimly. “Convince me why I should believe that you and AbaCo had nothing to do with our son’s disappearance.”

  Kloffman’s lips pressed tightly shut and she leaned forward, caressing his cheek with the barrel of the weapon. Her voice was velvet. “You see, Herr Kloffman. I’m a mother. And if something bad happens to my baby boy, I’m not going to give a damn whether or not I live or die. It won’t matter to me one bit if I rot in jail for the rest of my life. So I have nothing to lose by putting a bullet through your knee—or through your head.”

  Kloffman began to tremble and a fat bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. Now he was getting into the proper spirit of things.

  “I swear. I had nothing to do with your son’s kidnapping.”

  Nick replied tersely, “Convince us you and your goons didn’t do it.”

  Kloffman stammered, “I’m sure nobody in the firm would do such a thing without my approval.”

  Nick leaped all over that. “So you’re admitting that no major black ops happen at AbaCo without your knowledge?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Kloffman looked like he’d blurted that out without thinking. He fell silent and a thoughtful look entered his eyes. She gave him as long as he wanted to work through whatever was on his mind. Nick also looked inclined to let the man stew in his thoughts for the time being.

  Eventually, Kloffman said heavily, “Many things hap pen without my knowledge at AbaCo. I’m purely a figurehead around there.”

  Laura stared. The statement had a definite ring of truth to it. The guy was a figurehead? “Who’s the real power at AbaCo, then?”

  Kloffman glared at Nick. “As Ms. Delaney put it so succinctly, a cabal of criminals put in place by your bitch of a wife.”

  “Can you prove that?” Laura demanded.

  “Why should I?” Kloffman shot back.

  She considered him carefully. “Because I’ll hold you responsible for kidnapping my son and kill you if you don’t?”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Look. They pay me a small fortune to be the public face of AbaCo. But I’m not about to go down in flames, as you say, for all the activities they’re into.”

  Nick leaped on that right away. “What else is AbaCo up to besides human trafficking?”

  Kloffman snorted. “That’s the tip of the iceberg.”

  Laura had no trouble believing that. “Again, I ask if you have any proof.”

  “Why should I hand any of it over to you?”

  Nick asked reasonably, “Who else would you give it to? If you were going to hand it over to the U.S. government, you’d have done it before now—when it became clear the feds are going to come after AbaCo with everything they’ve got in the upcoming trial. But you saw what Meredith’s goons did to me. I think you’re afraid to cross her. And rightly so, by the way.”

  Nick was doing an excellent job of playing good cop. Which left her to play bad cop.

  She leaned forward. “Don’t be stupid, Werner. I have the gun, and I won’t hesitate to use it.”

  The German looked back and forth between them. “Let me make a phone call to inquire about your boy.”

  She considered briefly. Why not? What could it hurt? She nodded and allowed the man to pull out a cell phone. He put it on speaker and laid it on the coffee table in front of him before hitting a speed dial number.

  Nick commented as a man’s voice came on the line, “I speak fluent German.”

  She threw him a grateful look. That could prove immensely helpful.

  Kloffman nodded irritably at them. “Klaus. It’s Kloffman. Did you hear that Nick Cass’s boy was kidnapped?”

  “It’s all over the news,” a heavily accented voice replied in English. “Serves the bastard right.”

  Kloffman asked, “Do you know anything about it that could implicate AbaCo?”

  “No.” The guy sounded genuinely surprised. “We had no such orders. Besides, everyone would suspect us right away. We’re not that stupid. Just do what you were sent to Washington to do and stay out of things that don’t concern you.”

  Laura was surprised by the scorn in this Klaus guy’s voice. That didn’t sound anything at all like the respect due a genuine CEO. She glanced over at Nick and he was frowning, too. Apparently, Werner was telling the truth about being a figurehead.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Klaus.”

  The German ended the call. “Satisfied?” Kloffman spit out.

  She answered, “Not yet.”

  “Look. I have children of my own. I would not hurt your son.” As her gaze hardened, he added in desperation, “Why would I kidnap your boy? The trial’s going to be stopped anyway.”

  Laura started, and it was Nick who leaned forward and said smoothly, “Who did you cut the deal with, Werner?”

  “The CIA.”

  Laura was stunned. Her own agency had sold her out?

  Thankfully, Nick didn’t miss a beat and nodded beside her. “Of course. I’ll bet you’ve held a few prisoners for the agency, maybe given them a heads-up where certain shipments were headed. You scratch their back, and now you’ve called in the favor and forced them to scratch yours.”

  “Exactly,” Kloffman exclaimed, obviously relieved that Nick was on the same page. “In another day or two, the federal prosecutors will announce that national security could be compromised by proceeding with the case, and all charges will be quietly dropped. I have no need to kidnap your boy to silence you.”

  Then why did Meredith and the shadow operators at AbaCo go after Adam? Petty revenge? The question still remained as to how they’d managed to move so fast against her heavily defended estate. It just didn’t add up in Laura’s gut. She was missing something major, here.

  Nick, bless him, was carrying the conversation while her mind stayed frustratingly blank. He asked the German, “When will the announcement be made stopping the trial?”

  “Two days from now.”

  Laura’s heart sank. If AbaCo was behind his kidnapping, they had two days before Adam’s life became irrelevant to his kidnappers. How were they ever going to find him in so little time? Worse, if the trial was dead in the water, she and Nick had no leverage whatsoever to force this man to help them find Adam. Unless…

  She leaned forward. “Werner, here’s the deal. Even if the trial is halted, Nick and I aren’t going to stop. We’re going to go public with everything we have on your company. We’ll use the media to full advantage, and with what we’ve got on AbaCo, we’ll destroy the company. In fact, we can probably do a more effective job of ruining it without the constraints of a trial to tie our hands. Do you believe me?”

  Kloffman stared at her for several long seconds. Finally, he said heavily, “What’s it going to take to stop you from doing that?”

  He might be a figurehead, but he undoubtedly liked his paycheck. He also seemed to understand that, as the figurehead, he’d be the sacrificial lamb.

  Nick replied gently, “Save yourself, Werner. You don’t strike me as a bad type. Don’t let Meredith and her cronies drag you down with them.”

  “How?” Werner snapped. “Who’ll believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t people believe you?” Nick asked. “I’m living proof that someone at AbaCo is up to no good. And there are others who have been victims of the company.”

  Werner shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s not about the prisoners they keep. It’s about the cargo.”

  Nick glanced at her. Werner seemed inclined to talk to Nick, so she nodded subtly at him to take the lead. “What about the cargo?” Nick asked.

  “AbaCo has become the freight carrier of choice for every nefario
us group you can think of—drug lords, weapons dealers, terrorists, slavers, illegal lumber smugglers, you name it.”

  Nick paled beside her. It had to be painful to hear that his family’s firm had fallen so far. “Do you have proof?” he asked hoarsely.

  Kloffman hesitated one last time, and then he capitulated all in a rush. “I’ve been collecting it for years. Bit by bit. I had to be careful. But I’ve got cargo manifests, incriminating emails from customers, shipping documents, even financial records.”

  “Why haven’t you taken it to the authorities before now?” Nick queried.

  “What authorities?” Kloffman answered bitterly. “The same ones who are also using AbaCo to do their dirty work? How do you think the CIA gets weapons and supplies to the various regimes Uncle Sam can’t publicly support?”

  The three of them fell silent.

  Laura eventually broke the silence. “Who within the company does the dirty work?”

  “The Special Cargo division,” Kloffman answered promptly.

  That made sense. The people on trial for kidnapping Nick came out of that group. But the Feds had been combing through that division’s records for most of the past year and not found anything to indicate that AbaCo was engaging in widespread criminal activity.

  “Do you have access to their real records, then?” Laura asked curiously.

  Kloffman nodded eagerly. “I’ve been copying everything for the past three years.” He added sourly, “They didn’t even bother to restrict my access to the accounts. They think I’m too stupid to notice what they’re up to.”

  Nick made a commiserating sound, and Werner shared an aggrieved look with him. Nick really was incredible at garnering empathy and trust from the German. He asked gently, “Do you have copies of these records with you? If you wouldn’t mind sharing them with us, I swear to you we’ll see they fall into the right hands.”

  Kloffman reared back sharply. “No way. They’ll kill me.”

  No need to ask who “they” was. Nick said soothingly, “Not if they don’t know who the source of the leak was. I give you my word of honor we won’t reveal where or who we got the information from.”