I pulled myself together with an effort. “Thank you. You just saved my life again.” I thought about it for a few seconds. “No wonder you were mad, after you went to bat for me. I’m sorry.”
Kane smiled down at me, sexy laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. “It’s all right. You didn’t know. I’m glad you think it’ll solve the problem.” He stood and reached down a hand to pull me up.
He sobered as I brushed off grass clippings. “But, Aydan, don’t charge in like that again without checking with me first. That could have gone very badly.”
“I’ll try. I’m just not used to reporting to anybody else.”
He eyed me speculatively while we walked across the grass. “This must be making it hard for you to deal with your... other operations.”
“John, I have no other operations. I’m just a civilian. You know that.” I sighed inwardly. I’d thought he’d abandoned the idea that I was an undercover secret agent.
“Of course,” he agreed.
We made our way back to Sirius Dynamics in silence. Outside the building, I leaned my aching body against the wall. “So, how do you feel about going to Eddy’s?”
He shrugged. “It’s only a quarter to eleven. He’s not even open yet. Are you hungry already?”
“No, I’m due there at eleven to do his books. And if you’re not letting me out of your sight, then you’ll have to come, too.”
“Well, let me see. That’s tough. Go to the pub and eat lunch and listen to blues. On department expense.” He grinned. “I think I can force myself to do that.”
“Good, because you’re driving. And I’m having a beer for lunch.”
In the parking lot at Eddy’s, I turned to look at Kane. “So why exactly are you following me around?”
His brows drew together in concern. “Aydan, you’re under twenty-four hour guard. Remember?”
I laughed. “I remember. I meant, what should we tell Eddy? And Lola. I have to be over at Up & Coming at one. What’s our cover story for why you’d be tagging along with me?”
“Oh.”
“I think Eddy will believe you’re just there for lunch.” I couldn’t resist stirring the pot. “But exactly why would you visit a sex shop with me? And stay there for an hour and half?”
He shot me a devilish look. “What makes you think I’m not a regular customer there?”
Gulp. I realized how badly the tease had backfired as I felt the flush spread up my face. I did my best nonchalant shrug. “Well, if that’s the case, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to keep yourself entertained.”
“I’m sure I will.”
I got out of the truck and headed for Eddy’s back door with perhaps a little more haste than was absolutely necessary.
At a quarter to one, I finished my beer with a distinct sense of discomfiture. Up to now, I’d been sufficiently distracted by my struggles in the sim to keep my mind off lusting after Kane. Now I seemed to be making up for lost time.
Jesus, I hoped Lola had put that chocolate-scented leather thong away somewhere. Ever since she’d mentioned it a few weeks ago, I’d been harbouring a particularly tasty fantasy involving it and Kane. He definitely had the body to show it off to maximum effect, with those broad shoulders tapering to six-pack abs, narrow hips, and perfect ass. Not to mention the way he’d amply fill that yummy package of chocolate-scented heaven...
“Aydan?”
I jerked out of my glassy-eyed reverie at the sound of his voice. “We’d better get going. You said we needed to be at Up & Coming at one?”
“Yeah.” I drained the last few drops from my glass and tossed some cash on the table.
“Don’t worry, Stemp can pick this one up,” Kane grinned as he handed the money back to me.
I made an effort to act normal. Or what passes for normal for me, anyway. “Yeah, probably easier to expense a purchase here than at the sex shop.”
He laughed. “True. Though it might be fun to try.”
“I think Stemp would fail to see the humour.”
“Probably.”
Chapter 31
When we walked into Up & Coming, Lola and Linda were behind the counter with their heads together.
“Duck,” I said to Kane. “When these two get together, the results are deadly.”
They laughed, and Lola brightened visibly as she looked Kane up and down. “Hi again, Big John. Looking for something special?”
I beat a hasty retreat into the back office as he gazed down at her, eyes twinkling. “Can you show me something fun for couples?”
Don’t think about it. Just don’t think about it. I buried my head in the books.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help eavesdropping on the conversation while I did my entries. Lola flirted shamelessly and Kane teased her back good-naturedly. I tried to close my ears to Lola’s enthusiastic account of their products, but I failed.
Great. Now I had a whole new set of tempting mental images to overcome.
I heard Kane excuse himself before he apparently picked up a phone call. His end of the conversation faded slightly as if he was moving toward the door, but it was still audible.
“Yes…” he said. “Fine… No, I’m here for another hour or so. …If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it. I want to get it done today. Thanks.”
He hung up, and Lola launched into another detailed description. I refocused with difficulty.
A few minutes later, Lola’s raised voice interrupted my already-disordered train of thought. “Aydan! Can you come out here for a second?”
“Why?” I inquired warily.
“Big John needs you.”
Ha. I wish.
“It’s all right, Aydan, don’t bother.” Kane’s voice held the hint of a chuckle.
“Come on!” Lola popped into the doorway and seized me by the arm. “This’ll just take a minute.”
Despite my better judgement, I let her drag me out into the shop.
“Here, put these on,” she ordered, and handed me the thigh-high boots. Again.
“No. Once was enough.”
“You’ve already worn them once?” Kane sounded amused. And possibly intrigued.
I sighed. “Yes. Thanks to merciless coercion by this imp of evil. That’s how Harks’s shit-for-brains buddy got the idea that I was a hooker. Thanks but no thanks.”
“Come on,” Lola cajoled. “Big John really wants to see what they look like on you.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s just humouring you.” I turned to go back into the office.
“Aaay-daaan...” Lola sang. A chill of foreboding trickled down my spine as I turned slowly. “Look,” she carolled as she held up the boots in one hand and the chocolate-scented thong in the other. “You wear something nice for him, he’ll wear something nice for you...”
A choking noise made us all turn. Spider stood framed in the doorway, a sheet of paper crumpled in his hand. His face apparently couldn’t get any redder, so he turned an unbecoming shade of purple instead.
“Lola,” I said hastily. “Just because we came through the door at the same time doesn’t mean we’re together. I don’t know who the other half of John’s couple is, but it isn’t me.”
“Oh.” She looked abashed only for a second. “Well, then, put on the boots so he can see what they’ll look like on his girlfriend.”
“I really don’t think that’s appropriate,” I mumbled, and scuttled back into the office.
When I dared to raise my head a few minutes later, Kane and Spider were discussing Spider’s paper and Lola was looking disappointed. Linda hovered nearby, her eyes sparkling with interest. I ducked back into my paperwork and tried to concentrate.
By the time I emerged cautiously at two-thirty, Lola was the only one left in the shop. She pounced on me.
“Aydan, you’re kidding me. You’re not making a play for that fine specimen of a man?”
I shrugged. “That would be cheesy. He’s got a girlfriend.”
“Well...” Sh
e looked unconvinced. “Maybe they’re not serious.”
I patted her shoulder. “And maybe they are. I’m not about to ask. See you.”
I went out the door with a confident stride, but my mind was elsewhere. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now I wondered what Kane did for female companionship. I knew he’d been divorced years ago, and he’d never mentioned a girlfriend. But I sure as hell didn’t get the impression he suffered from a low sex drive.
Then again, he was a spy. He could probably keep multiple girlfriends and never let them find out about one another. And a guy like him could have his pick of women.
I realized I’d trailed to a halt on the sidewalk, and I scoped out the street casually. After his insistence about keeping me guarded, I found it hard to believe Kane would have just vanished.
Sure enough, his Expedition was parked a half-block down the street, just out of the direct sight line of anybody inside the sex shop. I strolled toward it, noticing Spider’s custom-painted lime green Smart car parked behind it.
With a glance up and down the street to make sure nobody was watching me, I slid into the passenger seat. Kane punched a speed dial button on his phone and spoke cryptically. “Pull out. Meet us at Sirius.”
At my raised eyebrow, he disconnected and explained, “Lola was a little too eager to put us together as a couple, so I thought it would be better if we left separately. I took surveillance of the front entrance. Webb was watching the back.”
“Was that a good idea? Seems to me the last time you put Spider at the back door of a shop, somebody ploughed into him and nearly ruptured his spleen.”
Kane grinned. “You weren’t even close to his spleen. And anyway, he volunteered. Eagerly. That little brunette might have had something to do with it.”
“Ooh.” I bounced my eyebrows. “The kid who blushes if anyone even utters the word ‘sex’, and the owner of a sex shop. Sounds like a match made in heaven.”
“For one of them, anyway,” Kane commented with a wicked grin.
I laughed. “Not to be inappropriate here, but I’m sure Spider would prove to be a quick study if properly motivated.”
Kane shook his head. “I’m not even going to go there.” He pulled out and steered the truck back toward Sirius Dynamics.
Inside the building, Kane waved me toward the glass doors. “You go on up. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I swiped my fob past the prox pad and let myself into the office area with a buoyant sense of relief. In my office, I resisted the urge to do a quick happy-dance. Probably Stemp had surveillance there, too. Despite evidence to the contrary, I did actually attempt to preserve my dignity at times.
Sinking onto the couch, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. A few minutes later Kane’s tap on the open door made me start.
He frowned. “Webb’s not here yet?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“Hm.” He came in and handed me the tiny box containing the network key. “Keep this concealed at all times. There are only a couple of people here who have a high enough security clearance to know about it. Webb or I will bring it up for you every day and take it back down again when you’re finished.”
I gazed up at him. “Did I say thank you for this?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Again. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
He smiled. “I have an inkling.”
Spider rushed through the door, his cheeks pink. “Sorry I’m late. I got... um... tied up.”
I bit my tongue. It didn’t stop me.
“Kinky,” I teased.
He blushed scarlet. “Um. I brought my laptop so I can monitor your session.” He bustled over to the desk and busied himself setting up the computer, his cheeks still flaming. Kane’s lips twitched, and I hid a smile of my own.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Spider said a few minutes later, his eyes still riveted to his screen in an almost-convincing display of concentration.
“All right.” I grinned. “Let’s see what my little toy has given us to play with.”
I bowed my head and stepped confidently into the clean white void. Kane popped into existence beside me just as I took a deep, satisfied virtual breath.
He smiled. “Better?”
“You have no idea.”
I folded sim-space effortlessly and stepped into the file room. A neat stack of files waited for me in the location I’d designated for my listening device, and I grinned as I picked up the top one. “Come to Mommy.”
A thought struck me as I flipped it open. “Hey, John, can you read this?” I stuck the file under his nose.
He frowned down at it for a moment. “No.”
“Mmm. Too bad.” I heaved a sigh. “I’m going to look through these files first, and then I have an idea I’d like to try. It would be great if I could build my little device so it decrypted the files as they came in.”
Spider spoke up from the external network connection. “Aydan, if you could do that, it would be incredibly valuable.”
“Well, I’ll give it a try as soon as I’m through these files, then.” I plopped down at the virtual desk and started translating.
After the first half-dozen or so I took a break, rubbing the back of my neck as I glanced over at Kane’s intent expression.
“What?” I asked.
“This is a gold mine,” he replied, an edge of excitement in his voice.
I realized that while I’d been absorbed in my decryption, he’d been working through another network interface. His face held the predatory focus I’d seen on a few other occasions, the age-old expression of a hunter stalking his prey.
I grinned and dove back into the pile of documents.
A blip in the sim and a small stab of pain behind my eyes made me look up at last. “What, Spider?”
“I said, it’s five o’clock. Are you ready for a break?”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you. Did you?” I turned to Kane.
“What?” He glanced up, obviously interrupted in the middle of a thought.
I chuckled. “That’ll be a ‘no’, then. Spider says it’s time for a break.”
“Oh.” His gaze was still far away. “I just need a minute here...” His voice trailed off as he concentrated on his virtual terminal.
“We’ll be out in a few minutes, Spider,” I said. “Signal me again if it goes over half an hour, okay?”
“Okay.”
I picked up the next file and began decrypting. Panic drove through me, and I scanned wildly for the date/time stamp.
“SHIT!” I bellowed, and sprang invisibly into the data stream.
I rocketed down the virtual tunnel, a wild roller-coaster ride that careened through IPs and blasted through firewalls while I held onto invisibility with all my concentration. If I betrayed my presence now...
I screeched to a halt outside the last firewall, my attenuated consciousness snapping back into me like a rubber band. I knew my virtual body didn’t even need a heart, but the drumming in my ears hammered on unabated while I panted.
Now came the tricky part. I seeped through the firewall, swift but stealthy. Burrowing into the heart of the enemy network, I sniffed undetectably through data packets as I made for my goal.
At last I identified the file I sought. Dread suffused me as I wrapped my feelers around it. Too afraid to hope, I narrowed my concentration to infinitesimal detail, feeling and smelling and tasting and sensing.
I gulped overwhelming relief. Still intact. Untouched.
I destroyed it without a trace.
How many others were there? Slithering into the network services, I checked their sync routines. Six other sites. This was going to take some time.
Time that might have already run out for me.
A half-formed prayer on my virtual lips, I chose a tunnel at random and propelled myself down it.
If I didn’t make a clean sweep, I’d be doomed. Dead woman walking.
I found no evidence of t
he file at the first sync site. That was the good news. The bad news was that I found another web of connections. I’d have to explore them, too, just to be sure. But first I needed to check the main sites. Snapping back to the original site, I took the next tunnel.
An eternity later, I crept along the last tiny strand of connection. I had found and eradicated two other copies of the file in other connections, neither of which appeared to have been viewed. So far my luck was holding.
Nothing there. Thank God.
I let the connection end, leaving me floating in a limbo of unidentifiable tunnels. For a few seconds, I let my exhausted consciousness drift, washed along by streams of data. Then I sighed and turned for home.
Which was... where, exactly?
The fear that had driven me forward swelled into a shock of panic. I’d stretched myself so far along so many convoluted routes, I couldn’t feel anything anchoring me anymore.
For the first time, I stopped to wonder what would happen if one of the connections I’d used was severed. Would I float forever, unable to coalesce back into myself?
Twisting wildly, I searched for anything that felt like me, but I’d spread myself so thinly I could only find traces here and there. I clamped down on terror and calmed my mind as best I could.
Just go one step at a time. Like a droplet of water gathering raindrops. I held the image and seeped backward with sluggish desperation.
I lost all sense of time while I slowly gathered myself. Wending my way through infinite corridors, I held panic at bay. Collect one drop at a time.
At last I recognized the server where I’d originally started. I tried to marshal my consciousness into the rubber-band form I’d used earlier, but I couldn’t manage it. All I could do was dribble formlessly back down the data tunnel toward Sirius Dynamics.
With the last of my sentient thought, I hoped Kane had brought his bucket.
He was going to need it.
Chapter 32
I trickled into the corner of the familiar virtual file room and lay in a stagnant puddle. With no eyes to see and no ears to hear, I sensed Kane pacing the room.
Reach For the Spy Page 18
