The Spy Is Cast

by Diane Henders

  He slowly pulled away from my grasp and looked down at his undamaged hands, his face like iron. His fingers moved, and his shoulders bunched and then released. When he looked up at me, his face was still hard, his eyes remote.

  “If it’s really you, why’m I still tied up?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll cut you loose. I was afraid you’d freak out.” I pulled out my knife and freed his legs. When the blade approached his hand, he stiffened almost imperceptibly, and I moved slowly and carefully to cut the tie. Then I reversed the knife and placed the handle gently in his free hand. I wouldn’t make him suffer that fear again.

  He cut the remaining tie and stood slowly, still expressionless. Then he suddenly grabbed my wrist, spinning me around and wrenching my arm up behind me. The razor edge of the knife pressed hard against my throat. I froze.

  “Arnie, please don’t kill me. This is real life. If you kill me now, I’ll die for real.”

  I hoped my hammering pulse wouldn’t cut my own throat against the blade. Why the hell did I keep my knives so sharp?

  “You’re already dead. I saw ya die.”

  “No! It was all a lie. It was all in your head.”

  “Prove it. Tell me somethin’ nobody would know but you.”

  I panted shallowly, up on my tiptoes to ease the pain in my shoulder. “You have a cat. His name is John Lee Hooker. You feed him IAMS. His dish is by the fridge. You keep the cat food in the cupboard under the sink.”

  He yanked my arm, making me cry out. “Ya fuckin’… sick… bitch!” His voice was a savage snarl as the knife pressed harder. “I oughta slit your fuckin’ throat just for that alone!”

  “No, no, Arnie!” I gasped wildly. “I’m sorry…” Cold fear pierced my heart. “Arnie, did something happen to Hooker?”

  “You tell me.” I could feel the strain vibrating through his muscles.

  A small sob of pain and desperation escaped me. I tried again.

  “Back in March, you wrote a song for me. You sang it at Blue Eddy’s and embarrassed the hell out of me. Our first night together, we went out for sushi. You promised me seven orgasms. But you lied. It was more than that…”

  His grip relaxed and the pressure of the knife eased. I sank gratefully down from my tiptoes.

  “I didn’t lie,” he said softly. “I said, ‘or more’.”

  “You and your photographic memory,” I teased weakly. “And a couple of nights ago, you gave me the most amazing moustache ride. And you promised I had something to look forward to. I still want to collect on that, you know.”

  He dropped the knife and pulled me into a hard embrace. “Aydan. I’m sorry, darlin’,” he whispered roughly, his face buried in my hair.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I clung to him, loving the feel of his hands on me.

  He pulled away to look at me. “How’re ya still alive? Those other guys, the prisoners. They died.”

  “Yes. They died. This was different.”

  “Because of that thing you’re carryin’?”

  “Kind of. I can’t explain. Arnie… what happened to Hooker?”

  He swallowed. “I dunno. These assholes were layin’ for me at my place. I dunno what they did to him…”

  “Maybe he was hiding.” I grasped at straws. “Maybe he got scared and hid.”

  Hellhound’s face twisted. “Hooker? That’d never happen. Ya know how friendly he was.”

  “Is,” I said firmly. “If you didn’t see him, he’s probably okay. Cats can tell when people are dangerous. They know enough to stay away.”

  He passed a hand over his face. “We don’t have time for this. Ya said we gotta get out. Where the hell are we?”

  “Harchman’s guest house.” At long last, I heard the welcome sound of a helicopter through the open window. “And the cavalry just arrived. Forget what I said about escaping. I need to go into the n… trance. Right now.”

  I threw myself on the bed. “Don’t let anybody wake me until Kane or Germain tells you everything’s secure.”

  “But…” Consternation filled his face. “Where’s your watch? I don’t have the signallin’ thing. How can I wake ya up if I need to?”

  I scooped up the knife from the floor and tossed it on the bed beside me. “Poke me. And stand back.”

  I flung myself into the network toward the operating system. If I was Fuzzy Bunny, I’d push my data to the backup sites and destroy all the local files the instant I realized I was under attack.

  I shot through the virtual system, slamming ports shut and deflecting network messages as I went. Please, please…

  Sure enough, someone was trying to activate the sync routine. I killed it again. I kicked the user out of the system and locked down all user and administrator accesses.

  Another automated routine sprang up and I crushed it. I wove a solid ball of protection around the operating system and files, blocking all traffic. Nothing in, nothing out.

  I hovered in the centre, extending feelers in all directions, searching for activity. For an unmeasurable time, I hung in the darkened void, watching and waiting.

  Chapter 42

  I clenched into a rigid ball of misery, my throat seared raw. Pain hammered my head and body while jagged colours spun around me. I realized I was still screaming, and clamped my lips together. Gentle hands massaged my head. I gasped a shaky breath and slowly relaxed my rigid muscles. My eyes remained obstinately closed, tears streaming.

  I groaned and tried to rub my eyes, but my arms wouldn’t move. My eyes flew open blindly as I let out a frantic cry and started to struggle.

  “Let her go.” Kane’s voice, but he didn’t sound angry.

  The grip on my arms released immediately. “Sorry, darlin’.”

  I turned my blurry gaze toward the sound and blinked until Hellhound swam into focus. “Sorry,” he repeated. “We were just tryin’ to keep ya from hurtin’ yourself.”

  I relaxed when I realized what had happened. “Is everything secure?” I gasped.

  “Yes.” Kane’s voice again, and I swivelled my pounding head to focus on him.

  “Is Spider here?” I demanded.

  “Not yet. He should be here in about half an hour.”

  “Shit! I need to go back in…”

  Kane laid gentle fingers across my lips. “No, it’s secure.”

  “But…”

  “We pulled the plug. Completely.”

  “Oh. That explains…” I indicated the bed beneath me, its covers churned into wrinkled piles from my convulsive struggles.

  “Yes.” Kane frowned. “We didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t wake you. I have the signalling device, but you’re not wearing your watch. How…” he trailed off, glancing at Hellhound.

  “I had reason to believe the watch might be compromised,” I said. “I relocated the technology.”

  “Where is it?” Kane demanded.

  “Um… let’s just say that if you were planning to signal me, you’d have to get really friendly.”

  “…oh. We’ll have to relocate it again, then. Soon.”

  “That would be my preference.” I struggled into a semblance of sitting position.

  Hellhound held my hand, looking pale and shaken. “Jesus Christ, Aydan, what was that?” he muttered.

  I winced. “That was the worst-case scenario.”

  “It’s worse than ya said.”

  “I told you I didn’t have the necessary frame of reference.”

  “Jesus.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry, I’m okay.” He probably hadn’t needed to see that so soon after all the torture in the sim.

  Germain poked his head in the door and addressed Kane. “Need you out here. We’re still trying to sort out the prisoners.” He regarded me with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Kane told him, and Germain nodded and withdrew.

  I dragged myself to the edge of the bed and swung my feet onto the floor. My head swam. />
  When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the bed again. Kane frowned down at me. “Keep her there,” he told Hellhound. “Sit on her if necessary.”

  “Ya got it.”

  Kane left, and I moved over. “Lie down,” I told Hellhound. “You look like hell.”

  “I don’t dare, darlin’. Don’t think I’d ever get up.” He sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, stretching his legs out.

  I reached to take his hand again. I held it and stroked his lean, strong fingers over and over, memorizing their wholeness.

  When I woke, I was alone in the bed.

  I jerked upright with a panicky gasp.

  “Aydan, it’s all right.” Kane’s soothing voice came from the chair in the corner.

  “Where’s Arnie?” My heart pounded wildly.

  “He left about two seconds ago,” Kane reassured me.

  My hand flew to the still-warm spot on the bed. “Thank God.” I collapsed back on the bed, recovering. “I thought for a second I’d dreamed it. I was afraid he was still in the sim. How long was I out?”

  “Only about ten minutes. What happened here?” His voice developed an edge, and I could tell he was struggling to control it. “What the hell were you thinking, staying behind? When I specifically told you not to? Risking your life. Risking national security…” He snapped his mouth shut and skewered me with a look.

  I didn’t have the strength to summon up any defensive anger. I stared up at the ceiling and massaged my temples. “I was protecting national security,” I said tiredly. “And you. You’re welcome.”

  After a short silence, he spoke again, his voice even. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  My head throbbed, and I sighed and spoke with my eyes closed. “We’re in a lot more trouble than we knew. Or than I knew, anyway. Maybe you already knew.”

  Tension sprang into his voice. “How so?”

  “This network was connected to six other sites. They were synchronizing data. There are complete records of their ops, going back several years.”

  “You’re right, if there are six other sites, that’s more trouble than I knew about, too,” Kane said cautiously. “But why would you risk staying? You could have just come out of the network and left with Germain. Or with the police.”

  I hauled myself upright, scowling. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? Because of Hellhound?”

  “No. Well, yes, that was part of it, of course.” I rubbed my aching head. “I told you they were syncing data with six other sites. That I know of, anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s an automated routine that runs once a day, but it can be run manually as well. And there’s a failsafe, kind of a dead-man’s switch. If an alert is triggered in the network, the sync automatically starts up and pushes data out. But it’s a two-way street. The other sites can also pull data.”

  “And you discovered this, how?”

  “Poking around in the network.”

  “I thought you said your computer skills were ancient.”

  “They are. If I had to go in through the standard administrator interface, I’d be completely lost. But the guts of the system really haven’t changed much. Once I’m inside, I just expect to be able to find what I’m looking for, and there it is.”

  “That’s handy,” Kane said skeptically.

  “Yeah.” I shot him a hard look, but he had his cop face on.

  “Just as I was getting ready to leave the network, a new file appeared,” I continued. “The user was still editing it. I peeked in. It contained a full data record of you, Hellhound, and me.”

  I heard the hiss as he drew in a breath through clenched teeth. “What do you mean by full data record?”

  “I mean details about your cover as an energy consultant, about your work with INSET, about your …other… work, your home, your office, your chain of command, Briggs and Stemp. Details about Arnie, and his home address. The fact that I’m still alive and suspected of being able to access the network by unknown means. All kinds of stuff. As far as I read. As I said, it was still being edited.”

  I met his eyes squarely. “I couldn’t take a chance on letting that out to Fuzzy Bunny’s entire organization. I had to disable the sync and block incoming requests. I had to make sure they didn’t restart the routine. And I had to make sure you brought in the big guns to pick up everybody here, because I didn’t know who the user was. But I didn’t get a chance to tell you. The only way to make all of that happen was to stay.”

  A muscle rippled in his jaw as he processed that. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I should have known you’d have a good reason. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

  “It’s okay. But I really need Spider the instant he gets here. While the system was up, we had a fabulous opportunity. I could sneak through the virtual data tunnels and get the IPs for the other sites. But the longer the system’s down, the greater the chance that the other sites will realize something’s wrong and lock us out.”

  Kane was dialling before I finished speaking. “Webb. Where are you? Good, the sooner the better. It’s even more urgent than I originally thought.”

  He hung up. “Ten minutes, give or take.” He hesitated. “You might want to relocate that key. We’ll need to be able to signal you.”

  “Right.” I rolled off the bed with a groan. “This could take a minute.”

  “Call me if you need help.”

  We eyed each other for a beat. Despite my still-pounding head, I couldn’t hold back a wicked grin. “Really?”

  A faint flush crept up his face. “That didn’t come out quite the way I meant it.”

  “It’s okay.” I trudged for the bathroom.

  Chapter 43

  I carefully unwrapped the key from the scrap of plastic I’d used to protect it. The plastic buckled, and the miniscule circuitry bounced and skittered across the counter. My heart in my mouth, I slapped and batted at the tiny dot like a demented cat, trying to pin it down before it escaped completely. When I finally cornered it, I leaned heavily against the counter for a second, recovering from the panic.

  Using the tweezers from my waist pouch, I held my breath and shakily tucked the circuitry back into my wristwatch before pressing on the backing again with a sigh of relief. As I emerged from the bathroom, Spider came in, gaping at the opulent decor.

  “Wow,” he breathed. “I didn’t know people actually lived like this.”

  “This is just the guest house,” I told him. “Wait’ll you see the real house. Speaking of which.” I grabbed his arm and hustled him toward the door. “You can gawk later. We’ve got to get back into this network ASAP.”

  I glanced over at Kane. “Are we clear to go up to the main house?”

  “Yes. Everything’s secure,” he assured me. “I’ll come with you, though, just in case.”

  “Thanks. I’ll feel better knowing you’ve got our backs. I’m not sure how long we’ll need to be in the network.”

  I briefed Spider while we walked up to the main house, observing the activity on the grounds with half my attention.

  One helicopter sat in the middle of the cul-de-sac, another down by the lake. Armed men moved here and there over the entire property. As we entered the house, I caught a glimpse of rows of prisoners seated in the enormous dining room. I wondered absently how many of them were actually on Fuzzy Bunny’s payroll, and how long it would take to sort them all out.

  We wove our way through the labyrinth to the server room. Its door stood open, and two armed men straightened to attention at the sight of Kane.

  He nodded to them. “I’ll take over in here. Guard the door. Nobody comes through without my say-so.”

  The men took up positions on either side of the door in the hallway, and Kane swung the door shut. He regarded Spider and me. “So?”

  I turned to Spider uncertainly. “I have no idea what I’ve really done. I locked everything down solid from inside, and it was still all dark and quiet when these guys
pulled the plug and kicked me out. But I don’t know what’ll happen when we power it up again. And I can’t go in until it’s powered up.”

  “It’s okay,” he reassured me. “First things first. We’ll physically disconnect it from the outside world so it can’t transmit or receive any data. Then I’ll power it up and shrink the broadcast range down to the size of this room. After that, you can work from the inside, and I’ll work from the outside. We’ll get it sorted out.”

  I sighed. “Thank God you’re here. Let me know when you need me.”

  He approached the consoles cautiously and methodically traced the cables between servers and external connections. After several minutes of careful study, he disconnected some of the cables and sat down. The whirring of fans and beeping of electronic equipment ensued.

  He typed rapidly for several minutes, utterly focused. Then the tempo of his typing picked up. The keystrokes got heavier as he leaned forward, his shoulders tensing. I shot an alarmed glance over to Kane’s frowning face.

  Spider punched in several key combinations with unnecessary force before throwing himself back in the chair, churning his hands in his hair. “I can’t crack it. I’m locked out!”

  “Shit! My fault! I locked it down!” I dropped to the floor where I stood, and lunged into the network’s void. I rocketed along the virtual corridors, hyper-alert for any activity. What if someone was able to access the network interface and overcome my security?

  To my relief, everything was still dark, and I hurried to the user access area. I was afraid to attempt anything else, so I quickly created and enabled an administrator ID for Spider and backed out of the network again.

  I wrapped my arms over my head in an attempt to ward off the crushing pain, and croaked out the ID and password as soon as I could speak. Then I panted and rocked miserably until I was reasonably certain my brain wouldn’t explode.

  Kane sat down on the floor beside me and began to massage my head and neck. I flinched when his fingertips dug into the knotted muscles, and he stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “I thought this helped.”