Look-Alike

by Meredith Fletcher

  The smile wilted as he surveyed his two visitors.

  “You’re not Fatima.” Tuenis reached down to pull the sheet up to his neck.

  “No,” Elle agreed. She took his clothes from the folding butler and tossed them to him. “Get dressed.”

  “What?”

  “Dress,” Elle said. “Now. Or I’m going to hurt you.”

  With a single jerk, Elle tore the sheet from the computer expert’s naked body. He yelped in embarrassment and dove for his clothes.

  SAM’S SILENCE BOTHERED ELLE. At the train station, her sister had seemed glad to see her, even though the present assignment had hung over both of them. Now, Sam seemed a million miles away. It was more than a little unsettling.

  From Dmitri’s, Elle led the way to Achterburgwal Canal and flagged down a water taxi. The pilot didn’t ask about Tuenis Meijer, who had sat between them with his hands taped behind him. In Amsterdam, Elle knew from past experience, only the ordinary seemed to attract attention after dark.

  They left the water taxi only a short distance from Rusland Street where the houseboat was moored. According to Sam’s information and Tuenis’s very believable honesty, he lived there alone.

  “What’s bothering you?” Elle asked. She spoke in Russian because it wasn’t a language Tuenis was reputed to know.

  For a moment, Sam continued on in silence. “Tonight didn’t go as I’d planned.”

  “You have the man you came to get.”

  “This should have been simple.”

  “It was,” Elle argued. How could her sister not think tonight’s activities were anything but simple?

  “We got into a gunfight in a sex shop.”

  “How would you have gone about getting our guest, then?” Elle asked.

  After a few steps, Sam admitted, “I don’t know.”

  “You said time was of the essence.”

  Reluctantly, Sam nodded. “It is. But I know a simple retrieval op shouldn’t be as high profile as this one has been.” She paused. “Obviously you have your own way of working, Elle, but it’s not my way. It’s not what I feel was warranted in this situation.”

  Elle stopped and stopped Tuenis as well. She held on to the man’s elbow possessively. Tuenis shrank away, as if afraid he was about to be ripped apart.

  “You’ve never been to Amsterdam before,” Elle accused. “You don’t know how things are done here.”

  Sam said nothing.

  Her sister’s silence infuriated Elle. How could she stand there so calmly and make no response? “Couldn’t your agency have sent someone more experienced in this area?”

  “I was asked to pick up Tuenis by Alexandra Forsythe and Allison Gracelyn,” Sam said.

  Elle matched the names from stories she’d shared with Sam. “They’re both from Athena Academy.”

  “Yes.” Sam sipped a breath.

  Trusting people was hard for Sam. Elle understood that. Though Sam had grown up in the more affluent American world, her life had been lacking in so many ways that Elle’s hadn’t been. Knowing that allowed Elle to be patient.

  “Something came up in an investigation they were conducting,” Sam said. “Several files involving blackmail schemes were all grouped together under a folder headed Spider.”

  A surge of excitement rattled through Elle. The SVR had its own Spider files involving blackmail and payoffs as well as political corruption.

  “Allison managed to track some of the Web activity back to a domain hosted and operated by Tuenis,” Sam went on. “I’m supposed to bring him in.”

  “Without CIA backing?” Elle shook her head. “How are you supposed to do that?”

  “Allison is working on that,” Sam replied. “If we hadn’t basically abducted Tuenis, I was hoping to talk him into accompanying me.”

  “Or getting into his hard drive and Web space,” Elle finished.

  “There’s something else, too,” Sam said.

  “What?” Elle wasn’t happy now. She was certain her mood matched her sister’s.

  “One of the files that Alex and Allison pulled had to do with our parents.”

  A wave of uncertainty and fear filled Elle. Their parents, their lives and their deaths, remained mysteries to her though she had looked at their files. Despite her attempts at acceptance and her adoptive father’s apologetic reassurances that she wouldn’t ever know what had happened to them, she still longed to know. “What about our parents?”

  “All the files were encrypted and coded,” Sam explained. “It takes time. Allison is working on breaking the encryption and code. She thought perhaps she would have it broken by the time I got back. As soon as she knows, she’ll tell me.” She caught herself and rephrased her answer. “Us.”

  Turning, Elle gazed at the houseboat only a short distance away. “You also want access to Tuenis’s records aboard the houseboat, then, right?”

  “Or to acquire access to them from his machine long enough to copy them,” Sam agreed.

  At that moment, the iPAQ in Elle’s jacket went off. She took the PDA from her jacket and consulted the flashing screen.

  “It’s a silent alarm,” Tuenis said. “I have it tied to the boat’s computer wifi. Someone has broken into the boat.”

  Elle made the decision. She pushed the iPAQ into Sam’s hands. “Let me borrow the pistol you commandeered.”

  Without hesitation, Sam handed the weapon to her. “Be careful,” Sam added.

  But Elle was already in motion, striding toward the houseboat.

  Chapter 5

  Pulling Tuenis into motion, Sam walked to a position beside a forty-foot yacht moored at the side of the canal. She immediately attracted the attention of the boat’s security officer, but he remained at the railing twenty feet away.

  For a moment, Sam saw Elle slinking through the shadows along the canal, then her sister was gone—vanished into the darkness provided by the boats tied to cleats. Party music— industrial, techno and old-fashioned rock and roll—thundered from the nearby boats and from clubs that dotted the area. Amsterdam was proving louder by night than by day.

  “Who are you people?” Tuenis asked.

  “Quiet,” Sam snapped. The thought of Elle encountering whoever was on the boat by herself didn’t rest easy. Maybe Elle had more experience with the city, but she wasn’t invincible.

  “Are you guys criminals or government?” Tuenis asked.

  Sam silenced the man with a sharp glance. “Another word,” she promised, “and I’ll tie you to an anchor and heave you into the canal.”

  Tuenis nodded weakly.

  Sam took her cell phone from her pocket. Chipped for international use, the phone also had a GPS locator. The global positioning satellite system accessed at least twelve of the twenty-four satellites in fixed orbit around Earth at any time.

  She punched in Riley McLane’s number and waited.

  Riley answered on the second ring. “Miss me?” he asked, and she could hear the mocking grin in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’ve been thinking,” Riley said, “I shouldn’t have gotten angry the way I did. I know that—”

  “I need help,” Sam interrupted.

  Riley paused.

  “At least, I may need help.”

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

  That was one of the things Sam loved about Riley. He was more talkative and chatty than she was, and more willing to reveal his feelings—maybe even more certain about how he felt—but he knew when to listen.

  “Can you access a satellite view of my position?”

  “Yes. Give me a minute.”

  Tensely, Sam waited in the shadows.

  ELLE CREPT CLOSE TO SATYR DREAMS, then put a hand on the houseboat. As a water taxi sped by, she ducked to avoid the splash of light that ran along the vessel’s gunwales.

  Getting the rhythm of the houseboat, she leaned her body weight on the side and pulled herself over as it rocked on the wave. Lithely, she rolled to her feet
and flattened beside the stern door. A quick glance at the security system told her it had been bypassed.

  Holding the H&K .45 in her left hand, Elle eased the safety off and put her hand on the door to test it.

  It was unlocked.

  Readying herself, Elle raised the gun and swung into position just inside the door.

  The soft blue-white glow of a computer monitor filled the bedroom. Data streamed across the screen.

  And the illumination fell across the dead man lying in the middle of the floor. She knew exactly what the black dot in the center of the man’s forehead was.

  Silently, a shadow separated itself from the darkness. Only motion gave her attacker away. She pulled the gun up and fired. The pistol kicked back against her palm as the weapon’s silenced “cough” wheezed into the houseboat cabin.

  Inside the room, a man cursed in surprise.

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  Standing in the ops mission control room, Riley McLane stared at the images on the wall screens. He was a little over six feet tall and dressed in a brown turtleneck and tan slacks. Although he was currently riding a desk job, he wore his pistol in shoulder leather. His wavy black hair hung just above his eyebrows. His cheeks were smooth, freshly shaven.

  Amsterdam. What the hell are you doing in Amsterdam, Sam? The question chafed at him.

  The mission control room was quiet except for the hum of the computers and electronic equipment. Occasionally whispered conversations over the headset reached his ears.

  “C’mon, Tolliver,” Riley coaxed. “This connect isn’t going to take all night, is it?”

  “No.” Tolliver was young and intense. He kept his hair trimmed to baby-chick down that was golden yellow. Round-lensed glasses reflected the wallscreen. His fingers flew knowingly across the keyboard, then he hit a final sequence and leaned back. “We’re in.”

  The view on the center four screens changed, opening up on a night view of a canal in a busy metropolitan area. Sam’s phone GPS showed up as a pulsing orange dot.

  “Can you get closer to Special Agent St. John?” Riley struggled to keep the tension out of his voice.

  “I’m on it.” Tolliver worked the keyboard again and brought up a closer image. “You are going to get permission for the use of this spy satellite, aren’t you, Special Agent McLane?”

  “You bet.” Riley would, of course. But it wouldn’t be permission he was seeking. Rather, it would be forgiveness. In the spy trade, he’d learned that it was often more productive to everyone involved to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Permission usually never came, and forgiveness was generally around the corner and most of the time no later than the next presidential election.

  Sam stood in the shadows of a tree along the canal. Riley could tell from his lover’s posture that she was worried. He wished he could put his hand on the wallscreen and touch her.

  “Start capturing images, Tolliver,” Riley said. Although he was more inclined to fieldwork, Riley was also being groomed as a handler. He didn’t want to come in from the violent world that he loved, and felt that he could do the most good in the trenches, but he knew that sooner or later he would be forced to do it.

  Tonight, however, he was thankful he was in a position to help Sam. He clicked over to Sam’s phone connection. “I’m here.”

  Tolliver worked quickly, downloading image after image and saving it off to a file.

  “I’m here with Elle,” Sam said. “She’s in a houseboat about two hundred feet southeast of my position. Farther along the canal.”

  Covering the mouthpiece with a hand, Riley said, “Back out. There’s a houseboat on the canal. A second agent is aboard.”

  “What agent?” Tolliver clicked the keys and the view backed out. The houseboat came into focus.

  “It’s a need-to-know, Tolliver. Just acquire the images.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Riley didn’t want to have to explain how Sam happened to be in Amsterdam with her twin sister, who happened to be an excellent Russian spy. He had no clue himself.

  “What am I looking for, Sam?” Riley asked.

  “Someone broke into the houseboat,” Sam answered. “Elle went to find out who.”

  “Is the person or persons still there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Riley heard the irritation and frustration in Sam’s voice. As carefully guarded as she was with her emotions, he doubted many people would have noticed. “What are you working?”

  “Private business.”

  “For the school?” Riley knew from recent experience that Athena Academy graduates had a tendency to operate quietly in the background to deal with their own issues.

  “There’s no time to talk about it now.”

  Shelving his irritation, Riley studied the screen, finding Elle standing beside the houseboat’s stern door just as the woman moved out of the shadows. An instant later, a quick illumination flared into being, then just as quickly disappeared.

  “That was a gunshot,” Tolliver said.

  “I know.” Tension swirled inside Riley. He knew the flash indicated a weapon had been fired. He’d spent years out in the field. “Does Elle have a weapon, Sam?”

  JOACHIM DIDN’T GET A GOOD LOOK at the woman as she came through the door. He’d gone after her immediately, hoping to catch her by surprise. Instead, she’d caught him almost flat-footed by firing so quickly. There had been no hesitation. Whoever she was, she intended to kill him.

  He twisted as he saw her hands shift. The bullet grazed his chest, sliced through his shirt and pulled at his jacket as it ripped through. Another inch or two and he’d have been a dead man. He wrapped both hands around the woman’s and forced the pistol from his direction.

  She fired again, and the muzzle flash ripped through the cottony darkness. The bullet slapped low into the wall behind him, letting him know she was a pro because she was firing at the center of his mass rather than panicking for a head shot.

  In the next handful of seconds, Joachim found out he had a hellcat on his hands. Her elbows and knees lifted, crashing into his body rapidly, going for his crotch and his face—softer tissue areas. He maintained his lock on her hands, then swept her feet from under her and fell on top of her, knocking the breath from her with his weight. He was more than a foot taller than her and had her by at least a hundred pounds. She shouldn’t have given him much trouble. But she did.

  He made the mistake of lifting his head to look at her and identify her. She responded by crashing a forearm into his nose and left eye. Blinding pain screamed through his head and he lay on top of her again, somehow managing to knock the pistol away.

  “Stop,” he said. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  “Like you didn’t hurt the guy on the floor?” She continued struggling, but—for the moment, at least—he had her arms pinned.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  She went still. “Then let me up.”

  Cautiously, Joachim lifted his head and looked at her. With the blue monitor glow washing over her, he saw that she was one of the blond women he’d met earlier at Central Station. Not only that, she was the one he’d been so intrigued by. Almost instantly, he grew aware of how her body lay pressed under his. Before he knew it, his body responded and he was pressing with more than he’d intended.

  He didn’t know what surprised him more: that the woman was the one from Central Station, that his body could react so quickly under the circumstances…or that she arched her back and headbutted him in the face.

  Bright pain ignited inside Joachim’s skull. If his nose wasn’t broken, he was going to be further surprised. Blood dripped into his vision from a cut over his left eye.

  He cursed.

  “You,” she accused. Those beautiful ice-blue eyes widened in shock.

  Shifting, straddling her uncomfortably now with his excitement hard against her belly, Joachim held her wrists and sat up. He looked down at her. “What are you doing here
?”

  “You were following us.”

  “How could I be following you if I got here in time to kill that man before you did?” he asked.

  Another thought occurred to Joachim. “Where’s your sister?”

  She glared at him.

  Joachim growled a curse. “Don’t play games. That could get your sister killed. There are worse people out tonight than me.”

  SAM WAITED ANXIOUSLY after the muzzle flash. Riley’s question kept wriggling through her mind. Does Elle have a weapon?

  Then the second muzzle flash blazed to life inside the houseboat.

  “What’s going on?” Tuenis asked.

  For a moment, Sam considered releasing the man and going to her sister’s aid. With luck, they could find Tuenis again. Then Riley spoke into her ear over the phone.

  “Sam, you’ve got trouble.” His voice was deadly calm. “Three men—no, four men are closing on the houseboat. You’ve got to get out of there.”

  Instinctively, Sam pulled Tuenis back into the shadows with her. She scanned the street with her peripheral vision, not trying to see the men, just opening her vision up to spot approach patterns.

  Two of the men came into view at once. Both men were unknown to her, but both moved liked predators closing in for the kill. A moment later, she spotted the third and fourth. All of them converged on the houseboat.

  “Who are they?” Sam asked.

  “I thought you could tell me,” Riley replied.

  “No.” Desperate, Sam glanced around and spotted a small seventeen-foot speedboat moored behind the yacht. The canal was the fastest way out of the area. She pushed Tuenis into motion. “Move ” she ordered.

  At her direction, Tuenis clambered into the speedboat. Their movement had attracted the attention of the four men, temporarily freezing them in place. By that time, Sam had cast off the lines to the mooring cleats. She jumped to the wheel and reached below, jerking out wires to hotwire the boat. It felt like years before the engine fired, and she shoved the throttle forward and cut the wheel sharply. The speedboat powered out into the canal, bumping against the yacht ahead of it and drawing a string of curses. A water taxi sped by, missing her by inches. She kept the throttle buried and headed for the houseboat.