The Spy Is Cast

by Diane Henders

  Hurt flashed across his face before his expression closed down. I met his eyes, willing him to understand.

  “As soon as you begin to choose which orders you will or won’t carry out, you’re a threat to Stemp. And, by extension, a threat to national security. And if that happens, your career, and probably your life, is over. You are all about duty. You have to be.”

  He opened his mouth as if to respond, and I steeled myself to do the only thing I could think of to protect him.

  I turned on my heel and walked away without another word.

  A Request

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  Looking for the next e-book?

  Book 1: Never Say Spy

  Book 2: The Spy Is Cast

  Book 3: Reach For The Spy

  Book 4: Tell Me No Spies

  Book 5: How Spy I Am

  Book 6: A Spy For A Spy

  Book 7: Spy, Spy Away

  Book 8: Spy Now, Pay Later

  Book 9: Spy High

  Book 10: To be released 2015

  Humour by Diane Henders

  Probably Inappropriate

  Definitely Inappropriate

  Totally Inappropriate

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  About Me

  By profession, I’m a technical writer, computer geek, and ex-interior designer. I’m good at two out of three of these things. I had the sense to quit the one I sucked at.

  To deal with my mid-life crisis, I also write adventure novels featuring a middle-aged female protagonist. And I kickbox.

  This seemed more productive than indulging in more typical mid-life crisis activities like getting a divorce, buying a Harley Crossbones, and cruising across the country picking up men in sleazy bars. Especially since it’s winter most of the months of the year here.

  It’s much more comfortable to sit at my computer. And hell, Harleys are expensive. Come to think of it, so are beer and gasoline.

  Oh, and I still love my husband. There’s that. I’ll stick with the writing.

  Diane Henders

  Since You Asked…

  People frequently ask if my protagonist, Aydan Kelly, is really me.

  Yeah, you got me. These novels are an autobiography of my secret life as a government agent, working with highly-classified computer technology… Oh, wait, what’s that? You want the truth? Um, you do realize fiction writers get paid to lie, don’t you?

  …well, shit, that’s not nearly as much fun. It’s also a long story.

  I swore I’d never write fiction. “Too personal,” I said. “People read novels and automatically assume the author is talking about him/herself.”

  Well, apparently I lied about the fiction-writing part. One day, a story sprang into my head and wouldn’t leave. The only way to get it out was to write it down. So I did.

  But when I wrote that first book, I never intended to show it to anyone, so I created a character that looked like me just to thumb my nose at the stereotype. I’ve always had a defective sense of humour, and this time it turned around and bit me in the ass.

  Because after I’d written the third novel, I realized I actually wanted other people to read my books. And when I went back to change my main character to not look like me, my beta readers wouldn’t let me. They rose up against me and said, “No! Aydan is a tall woman with long red hair and brown eyes. End of discussion!”

  Jeez, no wonder readers get the idea that authors write about themselves. So no, I’m not Aydan Kelly. I just look like her.

  Bonus Stuff

  Here’s an excerpt from Book 3: Reach For The Spy

  A faint noise woke me. My eyes flew open and I held my breath, listening. Had the sound come from outside the open window? I strained my ears, but heard only the usual quiet of a July night in the country.

  A tiny, metallic click from the doorknob made me change the rhythm of my breathing, slow and deep. I let my eyelids droop so I could watch the door through the fringe of my lashes.

  Damn that shaft of moonlight. It fell directly across me in the bed, but the doorway itself was in shadow.

  The door swung open slowly and silently. A large, dark figure moved toward my bed.

  I emitted a small snore followed by a deep sigh and rolled over, letting the bedsheet fall away as I reached under the opposite pillow and clenched my fist around the crowbar. The moonlight emphasized the curves and hollows of my naked body. The intruder froze, staring.

  That’s right, asshole. Take a good look. It’ll be the last thing you ever see. Just come a little closer, now…

  He turned away abruptly, and I was instantly in motion. The crowbar hurtled toward his temple in a flat, vicious arc with all my strength behind it.

  “Aydan.”

  At the sound of his whisper, I let out a yelp of dismay. I tried desperately to slow and alter the trajectory of my weapon, but it connected solidly with his head. He fell.

  Heart pounding, I floundered toward the huddled form on the floor. As I reached him, he sat up slowly. I flung myself on him from behind, one arm across his massive chest while my other hand clamped over his mouth.

  “We’re bugged,” I breathed urgently in his ear.

  His large hand closed around my wrist, and I let him pull my hand away from his mouth.

  “I know,” he said in normal tones. “I’m jamming them.”

  I collapsed onto the floor behind him, gasping. “Jesus fucking Christ, John! Don’t ever fucking do that! I nearly fucking killed you, for chrissake!” If frequent use of obscenities indicated one’s level of intellect, I’d apparently dropped about a hundred IQ points in the last couple of seconds.

  “I noticed.” He touched his head, and his fingers came away dark in the moonlight.

  “Shit!” I started to scramble up, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t turn on any lights.”

  “I need to look at that,” I argued. “I was going for a home run until the last second. You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll live. It just glanced off.”

  I blew out an irritated breath and knelt beside him to trace my fingers through his hair, exploring the sticky area near the top of his head. At least there wasn’t any squishiness that would indicate a fracture.

  I stepped across him into my ensuite bathroom and came out with a clean washcloth. “Here.”

  He accepted it and pressed it against his head. He glanced up at me, and then looked away quickly. “Aydan… Could you please put some clothes on? This is really… distracting.”

  “Oh!” I glanced down at my white skin, practically glowing in the moonlight. My forty-six-year-old body was in pretty good shape except for the extra ten pounds or so around the middle. I’d never been shy about it. And getting naked with John Kane was near th
e top of my private list of things to do, but I was pretty sure braining him with a crowbar didn’t qualify as foreplay.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. Now was not the time. I stepped quickly to the chair in the corner where I kept my clothes laid out for quick access. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt before turning back to him.

  “Can you stand up?” I asked.

  He rose. “I’m fine. We need to talk.” He sat on the edge of the bed and I perched beside him.

  The moonlight made a dramatic study of his strong, square features. His silvered temples gleamed against his short, dark hair as he turned to eye me piercingly in the pale light.

  “How did you find the bugs?” he demanded. “Do you have a scanner?”

  “No. I found them the good old-fashioned way. Is Stemp monitoring them?”

  “Yes. How did you know you were bugged?”

  “I smelled them.”

  His dark brows snapped together. “What?”

  I grinned. “Stemp needs to be more careful choosing his minions. Whoever he sent to install the bugs was a smoker who wore cologne. I smelled him the instant I came in the house. I checked everything over, and when I couldn’t find anything missing, I started to look for things that had been added.”

  Kane nodded slowly. “You’re good.”

  I peered at him in the moonlight. “What the hell are you doing here? Dammit, Stemp is going to notice the bugs are jammed. I didn’t want him to know I knew about them.”

  “He won’t know. I got Webb to generate a circular loop to feed the monitor. We have an hour.”

  “You got Spider involved in this, too? What if you get caught?” I demanded. “It was bad enough when Stemp just thought you were sympathetic toward me. If he finds out about this, you’re going to be next on his hit list, right after he whacks me.”

  He went still, watching me. “What makes you say that?”

  “Come on, John. It’s not rocket science. Stemp needs me right now, but he doesn’t trust me because he can’t manipulate me. The instant he’s got an alternative, I’m going to get a lead suppository.”

  I sighed. “In fact, you’ll probably be the one to get the order. That’s what I’d do if I was Stemp. If you carry out the order to kill me, you keep your job. And live. If you refuse, he passes the order down the food chain to get rid of both of us. And on down the line to get rid of anybody else who isn’t willing to follow orders. Get all the housecleaning done at once.”

  “That’s the most paranoid, cynical thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  “Yeah. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He blew out a breath. “So that’s what you were trying to tell me when you walked away from me last week. You were warning me to keep my distance. To protect me.”

  “Yeah. And here you are. Shit.”

  “Will you stop trying to protect everybody else and start looking out for yourself for a change? I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

  I sighed inwardly. He sure was a big boy. In every sense of the word, from what I’d had the opportunity to observe. Too bad he had to be permanently off-limits if I wanted him to stay alive.

  “I know you can take care of yourself,” I agreed. “But Stemp was watching us, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t see anything that would make him mistrust you. He’s your boss, after all. You’ll still have to work with him long after I’m gone.”

  His brows drew together. “What you said last week… About how I’d follow orders no matter what. Do you really believe that? That I’m nothing more than a robot following orders?”

  I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “No… But… that’s what Stemp needs you to be. And that’s the safest thing for you to be right now.”

  “You really think I’d kill you if he gave me the order.” His voice was even, but I could hear the edge of suppressed hurt and anger.

  “John…” I sighed and tugged my fingers through my long hair, yanking out the night’s tangles. “You’re one of our government’s top agents. You’ve spent most of your life in military and law enforcement. That tells me your top priority is doing the right thing for this country. Am I right?”

  “Of course.” He frowned at me in the shadows. “Where are you going with this?”

  “What if it turns out that it’s the right thing for you to kill me?”

  He jerked back. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Think it through. Right now, I’m both incredibly valuable and incredibly dangerous. I can crack any data encryption, and I’m working for our government. Valuable. But I’m a civilian and Stemp doesn’t trust me. As soon as he finds another way to break the encryption, I’ll stop being valuable, and then all that’s left is the danger that our enemies will scoop me up. He can’t afford the risk.”

  “You’d never turn traitor,” he said with certainty. “I’ve seen the sacrifices you’ve made.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I know what groups like Fuzzy Bunny will do to get what they want. As long as I’m alive, there’s the risk that I’ll be captured.” I looked him square in the eyes. “I’m no hero. I don’t have any illusions about how long I’d withstand torture. So killing me might be the right thing for everybody, including me. Would you refuse that order?”

  He sat silently, frowning. Finally, he said, “That’s what you meant. When you said Stemp would be doing you a favour if he killed you.”

  “Yeah, something like that.” I changed the subject. “So is Stemp actually evil, or is he just an asshole?”

  “He’s a ruthless bastard,” Kane said slowly. “I can’t always agree with his methods, but nobody can argue with his results. Since he took over as civilian director two years ago, we’ve had major improvements in our operations. You shouldn’t have threatened him.”

  “That wasn’t a threat. It was a sincere promise. If he does anything to harm anybody I care about, I will utterly destroy him. Or die trying.”

  He laughed suddenly. “Aydan, you’re crazy.”

  I grinned at him. “You’re just discovering that now? What made you come to that conclusion after all this time?”

  “Even when you can’t possibly win, you fight anyway. Stemp has people and resources you can’t even imagine. And you’re relying on your nose to sniff out bugs.”

  I raised a shoulder and gave him a half-smile. “I learned long ago that being willing to fight is sometimes enough to prevent the fight in the first place. Sometimes you win, just because anybody in their right mind would know that you can’t possibly win.”

  He sobered. “Aydan, you can’t possibly win this one.”

  “Ah. Victory will be mine, then. So why are you here? You thought it’d be nice to pop by and get your brains bashed in? You know damn well I keep a crowbar under my pillow. What the hell were you thinking?”

  His lips twisted wryly. “Yes, I knew about the crowbar. But I thought you were asleep. No woman would intentionally throw off the sheets and lie there naked if she thought there was an intruder in the house.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” I smirked at him. “Someday that ‘most women’ stereotype is going to jump up and bite you. Or crush your skull with a crowbar. You knew I was armed and dangerous, and you still turned your back on me because of your preconceptions.”

  “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  “And it nearly got you killed.”

  “What if I’d been a murderer or a rapist? What if I hadn’t turned my back? Where’s your clever strategy then?”

  I shrugged. “Tell me you noticed when I reached under the pillow. You didn’t, did you? Because you weren’t looking at my hand.”

  He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “True,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “So it didn’t really matter to me whether you turned away or not,” I told him. “Either way, I got a weapon into my hand without you noticing. I might not have won the fight, but at least I had a chance.”

  “And you’d fight even if you couldn’t win.”
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  I patted him on the shoulder. “Now you’re getting it. So why are you here? We’re wasting our hour.”

  **End of Reach For The Spy, Chapter 1**