The Bane Affair

by Alison Kent

  Dr. Bow settled his glasses back in place, staring until Woody couldn't take it anymore. He returned his gaze to his monitor, unable to blink though the dry burn in his eyes felt like sand needles shoved to the back of his skull. He was so going to fry before this scam was over. The look on the old doctor's face was enough to snap him in half like the scrawny twig he was.

  Then again, scrawny or not, he was the one who had the goods. He was the brainiac, the one who'd written a third of the encryption program the CIA's analysts were using to trans­mit data to their agents in the field, the one who'd left a back­door crack that only he knew where to find. That put him in a position his gamer buds would envy.

  Whoa! That's all he had to do. Think of this with a gaming strategy. He'd reminded himself earlier that this was reality; that didn't mean he couldn't think like the gamer he was. He sure as hell wasn't getting anywhere thinking like a criminal.

  He nodded, turned a sly gaze back to Bow. "I've always wanted to visit Bora Bora."

  "I was thinking of Tahiti myself," the doc said with a bit of a grin.

  "What about Natasha?" Woody asked before he remem­bered that his foot had a hard time fitting into his mouth.

  Bow's smile vanished. "What about her?"

  "You taking her to Tahiti, too?"

  He looked away. "Natasha isn't part of this."

  "I'm not so sure. I think she's pretty involved. At least that was how it looked when I was out"—smoking a joint, Woody'd almost said—"uh, getting some air on the terrace last night. I couldn't sleep. The meds and all."

  "What does that mean? What did you see?"

  Duh. Now what was he supposed to say? "She may not be part of this deal, but she's definitely mixing it up with Deacon."

  Bow rolled his chair closer to Woody's workstation. "Listen to me, Dr. Jinks. I need to know exactly what it was you saw."

  Obviously it wasn't a good idea to talk about her tits or her ass, he thought, tugging again on the fly of his pants. And he sure as hell wasn't going to spill the beans on the way she'd been tied up. Even now it had him thinking of another shower with a whole lotta soap.

  He shrugged, grabbed hold of his Dr. Pepper. "The two of them were pretty hot and heavy there on the balcony."

  "Whose balcony? Which room?"

  "Uh, second floor. Far side of the house looking up from the bench at the end of the terrace."

  "Deacon's room."

  Woody shrugged. "You say so."

  Dr. Bow drummed his fingers on his wheelchair's control panel, his eyes blinking rapidly. "Have you managed to cap­ture any of the CIA transmissions?"

  "Getting there. Got some good pieces of code that I'm working on," he said, congratulating himself on his brilliance since he wasn't getting stroked here. "I was about to show what I had to Mr. Deacon this afternoon but lost the feed"— oh so conveniently, too, he snickered to himself—"and never got it back."

  The thought of the government dudes finding his Counter-Strike strategy zooming along their wires gave him a case of the giggles. He hadn't messed with any of their current trans­missions, of course. He wasn't going to do that until Deacon was around to see a real-time demonstration and everyone in­volved knew what was going down.

  And then he'd have some sort of immunity from prosecu­tion or whatever, right? As long as he cooperated and swore he'd been held against his will? Threatened at gunpoint? Or— even better, he thought, getting into this criminal stuff now— had a bomb strapped to his chest with the detonator in Bow's shaky hand?

  "Good. Very good." The doctor backed away. The washed-out, beat-up, done-in look on his face vanished to be replaced by a victorious halo, as if Woody's news was the best thing Bow had heard in his lifetime. "Natasha and Mr. Deacon will be traveling to the city for the weekend, some nonsense about a birthday party she's required to attend."

  "Deacon's taking her to a birthday party?" One night of pussy and she was treating the dude like her bitch. Woody straightened his shoulders. He had way too much pride to be ruled by his dick. He liked the idea of that making him a better man than the Spectra dude. "Didn't seem like a party guy to me."

  "No." Dr. Bow shook his head. "Mr. Deacon has business to see to. They'll be back on Sunday. Does that give you enough time to prepare a live test?"

  It would be cutting it close considering the contacts he needed to warn. Sweat sprouted in Woody's pits; he wished the other man would roll his decrepit old self out of here so he could head for the shower.

  He wanted soap, couldn't stand smelling himself any longer, and got to his feet, praying the professor didn't notice that he couldn't keep his own hands from shaking. "Plenty of it. But if you don't mind, I've gotta jet before I take a leak all over myself."

  Nine

  They made the drive to the city two days later on Saturday morning, and made it with the Ferrari's top down.

  The rush of air was cool but not frosty, yet due to the speed at which they traveled, the wind bit sharply at Natasha's cheeks. Studying her reflection in the car's passenger-side mir­ror, she couldn't decide if she looked more like a victim of sun­burn or frostbite.

  Unless she wanted to spend the entire evening deflecting teasing accusations of carpet burn to her face and how were her knees, by the way, she'd need a full facial before going out tonight.

  Funny how she hated the idea of her girlfriends' harassment while not minding as much that Peter witnessed the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer effect of the elements. Wednesday night spent in his suite and Thursday morning's elevator escapade had certainly stripped away any worries that he might find her physically unappealing, she mused, sinking even deeper into the plush leather seat.

  Well, okay. She did care, but she wasn't going to obsess. At least no more than she normally obsessed—a woman's prerog­ative, right?—when in the company of a man she was inter­ested in attracting.

  Today she'd dressed to emphasize her coloring and—yes, she admitted it—her breasts, which he seemed to find fascinat­ing, wearing wide-leg designer corduroys in navy and a skinny sweater in variegated reds, both pieces which she'd picked up at Daffy's on Broadway at the end of last season. She'd clipped her hair up but found herself fighting rogue strands deter­mined to blow into her mouth anyway.

  Honestly? She really didn't mind. In fact, earlier, when Peter had offered to stop and put up the top, she'd simply shaken her head.

  The wind in her ears, even if it was also in her hair, made talking impossible—a good thing since she and herself were al­ready deep in an exhausting discussion and she wasn't sure she had the mental energy to expend talking to him, too. Who would've imagined she had so many arguments—both pro and con—for continuing this affair they'd begun?

  And what a beginning. Even when she'd been involved and sleeping with a man on a regular basis, that sex, the sex they'd shared during those three amazing encounters, wasn't at all what she was used to. It wasn't the bondage or exhibitionism, the positions or the way bodies were pleasured and explored. Not at all.

  She'd known from the moment she'd first seen him that his appetites would be nothing if not intense. His needs and re­sponses, as well.

  No. It was the secrets. Why had he not invited her to share his shower? Why had he not fully undressed until she'd been on the balcony? Even in the elevator he'd allowed her to see nothing of his body. He was avoiding exposure and she wanted to know why.

  But more than the secrets, it was the way the intrigue be­tween them had heightened her desire—a state of affairs that went against the honesty she so highly valued and left her quite vexed at herself. Since that morning in the elevator it had been nigh on impossible to keep her distance. But she had. She needed to know more about him before taking their relation­ship forward.

  She certainly wasn't going to become involved long-term in anything that required dark rooms and shadows, drawn cur­tains and closed doors—conditions that bred dishonesty and a clear lack of trust. He hadn't asked her to join him in any such relationship, no
.

  And when she stepped outside her fantasy world, she knew this thing between them was temporary. But she did need to make that secrets-and-lies business clear with herself before the two of her fell in over her head.

  She grabbed another handful of wild hair and tucked it be­neath the teeth of her clip. Peter glanced over, and though he wore sunglasses in sleek pewter frames, she swore he arched a questioning brow her direction. She smiled, shook her head again.

  Oh, but she was tired. The two-lane road screamed beneath them, a rush of greens and reds and golds flashing by as they drove, the kaleidoscope of colors and the wind in her ears lulling her to sleep.

  She didn't want to go to sleep. She hated the idea of waking groggy and disoriented when discovering whatever it was this man was keeping from her required wits she wasn't even sure she had. Still, if this was no more than the fling she was certain it was, his secrets shouldn't matter.

  And they didn't. They didn't matter at all. It was just her damnable need to know everything, and to never be deceived or used again. . . .

  When she next looked up, Peter was making his way through the Upper West Side toward her 73rd Street apart­ment, and the Ferrari's top was up. Her exhaustion had been more serious than she'd realized for her to have slept through him stopping the car. Then again, riding in the heated and padded leather bucket was akin to being rocked to sleep.

  Another moment spent rousing herself to wakefulness and it hit her. Hard. Her stomach clenched around a knot of suspi­cion as she realized that she'd never given him directions or even told him where she lived. Yet here he was, pulling up to her place with a confidence that told her he hadn't once made a single wrong turn.

  She shifted in the seat, turned her gaze his way. "I wasn't aware I talked in my sleep. And coherently enough to tell you exactly where to drop me off."

  He draped an arm over her headrest, toyed with the clip on the back of her head until she reached up and shook her hair free. That seemed to please him, and he stroked the strands, smoothing down the flyaway wisps. "I know my way around the city."

  His touch was so simple but so intoxicating. Doubts were quickly swirled up in a soft stirring of desire. "Right to my front door? When I haven't even told you where I live?"

  He shrugged one shoulder. "Like I said, I thoroughly check out everyone with whom I intend to do business."

  No. He wasn't getting off that easily, she decided, worrying her hair clip with both hands. "Wick I understand, but his per­sonal assistant? That's going a little bit overboard, don't you think?"

  He smiled, a lift of his lips that didn't manage to reach his dimple. "You're much more than an assistant though, aren't you, Natasha?"

  His fingers in her hair were distracting enough that she al­most missed the nuance of suspicion in his tone. She supposed wariness was required by whatever business he was in, but she bristled anyway. "Other than being his goddaughter, no. With Wick's contacts and his work being on a global scale, it may seem so. But I simply manage his affairs. I don't involve myself in them."

  Peter's hand had stilled while she talked, and she could read nothing of his expression beyond the set line of his mouth. Still, she sensed that he didn't believe her, that he was looking to her for an admission, a confession, when she'd already given him the full extent of her truth.

  She didn't like being disbelieved. "Would you mind taking off your sunglasses?"

  He hesitated for a moment, then dipped his head, pulled the frames from his face, and returned his gaze to hers.

  If she'd hoped to see suspicion in his eyes, she'd hoped in vain because all she saw was need. The caress of his hand over the back of her head was no longer so simple, but sensual, a reminder of the night they'd spent in his bed, of the passion they'd shared, of the reason she would no longer think of a man's silk tie as simply an article of clothing. The knot in her belly tangled and tightened; she feared if she didn't leave his car now she never would find the strength.

  And so she said, "I'm meeting my friends at ten, the second floor of Slick Velvet. I have to let the club's doorman know you're with me or they won't let you in, membership required and all that. So just meet me out front. I'm assuming you don't need directions?"

  He stared into her eyes, trailed his fingers through her hair until he reached the skin of her neck just beneath her ear where he rhythmically, hypnotically stroked.

  It was all she could do not to lean forward and kiss him, not to take him by that very same hand and lead him upstairs to her bed. Her body came alive under that touch, sparking off a sizzle capable of burning up her skin.

  She had to get the hell out of here. Now or never.

  And so, reluctantly, she reached for the door handle and climbed from the car.

  Her heart racing madly, she stood there in the middle of the street watching as he sped away.

  It wasn't until he slid sideways around the next corner, gunned the engine and disappeared, that she realized he'd never assured her she would see him later at all.

  Christian left the Ferrari with the valet at the midtown hotel where Hank kept a penthouse suite, grabbed a taxi, and made his way the dozen or so blocks to Smithson Engineer­ing's offices. Hank's legitimate business, which provided the SG-5 team cover and made him a buttload of money building dams, roads, and bridges worldwide, occupied the twenty-first through twenty-third floors of a financial district high-rise.

  The layout was typical for a corporation Smithson's size. The corner offices, those with the best views, the ones with the most square footage, etcetera, belonged to the executive offi­cers and department heads, with the clerical pool on the floors beneath sharing space with the information technology sup­port team and accounting staff.

  Though Christian officially worked for the firm as a project consultant and had every legitimate reason to enter through the lobby and take the elevator up, he didn't. He was under­cover, and though the likelihood that he'd run into anyone in Bow's employ was virtually nil, he had no story to explain what business Deacon had in the building should anyone ap­proach him about seeing him there. Especially on a Saturday.

  Besides, he was headed for the twenty-fourth floor.

  To keep his nose clean and his story on the up-and-up, he had the driver make the corner, handed him a twenty, and ducked into Brighton's Subs & Spuds. Wearing Perry Ellis pants in olive green and a geometrically patterned silk Prada shirt— both duplicated in Christian's size from Deacon's wardrobe— he easily blended into the smaller than usual lunchtime crowd of corporate professionals dressed down for a weekend spent in the office.

  Or he would have blended if Kelly John Beach hadn't been standing in line to order and staring toward the door as Christian walked in.

  He caught the other SG-5 operative's gaze but for a mo­ment. Both men had been doing this long enough to know never to make extended eye contact or any gesture a tail could construe as communication. Christian simply glanced at the stylized poster of a Rueben and vinegar chips before exiting through the glass doors that opened into the parking garage between the buildings housing the sandwich shop and Smithson Engineering.

  Once across the main floor, where a parking attendant pointed out the 'No Pedestrians Allowed On Driveway' sign, he headed for the service elevator instead of the building's lobby and punched the button for the twenty-fourth floor.

  The boxy cage clattered and groaned. Christian closed his eyes, shoved his fists into his pockets, and conjured up the safest picture that came to mind: Natasha between his legs, going down.

  Yeah, well, maybe not so safe, he admitted, a tingling set­tling in behind his balls, but it beat the hell out of the memory of what had spawned the flare-up of his boxy cage phobia. And since the ride up was already over, he didn't have much time to think of it either—a very good thing since he needed one hundred percent of his brain cells for the task at hand.

  The elevator opened into a closetlike space. He pushed open the swinging doors and walked down the floor's long sile
nt hallway carpeted in boring dirt brown and painted in­dustrial tan. Halfway down the corridor, a single glass door led into a reception area, sans receptionist.

  The walls here were papered in a textured bamboo. A black-lacquered, chrome-legged table sat in the center of the room on the same brown carpet, a cordless single-line phone the only other accoutrement.

  Lettered on the door behind the table was the name DATA 2 TECH. That and the two twelve-inch windows on either side, through which visitors could peer at the banks of servers be­hind, told them the floor was indeed a data farm. What no one could see unless they made it from the reception area into the racks of warehoused equipment was that the floor was also the ops center for the Smithson Group.

  No one ever made it that far.

  Christian punched the security code into the lock and walked through the heavy bulletproof door into darkness. Once it latched shut behind him, overhead lights switched on to reveal a high-ceilinged, four-walled enclosure outfitted top to bottom in soundproofing tile.

  The exit out of the confining cell and into the floor's true nerve center required a thumbprint scan. He rubbed the sweat from his palm onto his thigh then pressed his dry thumb onto the biometric authentication pad installed in lieu of a knob onto the second door.

  Mechanized bolts and pins disengaged and the door swung open. He stepped into the ops center sweating like a pig. He understood the need for security, had no problems with the precautions taken, agreed with every aspect of the infrastruc­ture designed to keep the SG-5 control room impregnable—all but one. The size of the goddamned safety vestibule.

  The walls separating the tiny chamber from the ops center were constructed of sixteen-inch steel, which meant any unin­vited guest who got in wasn't getting out. That didn't mean he had to like it. He didn't. And he prayed every time he walked inside for the scan not to fail.

  Struggling to steady his breathing and pulse, he headed for his bank of terminals in the circular workstation that was half the size of a baseball diamond. He dropped into his chair, dropped his head back, and closed his eyes. Less than five min­utes later, Kelly John tossed a sack from the deli into his lap.