by Amelia Autin
“Don’t think what?”
“I know the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are paranoid about it, but I can’t believe...”
“Can’t believe what?”
She reviewed her security briefings in her mind, making sure she wasn’t crossing some kind of line by mentioning the possibility to Niall, and concluded it was okay. “Ever since the fall of the USSR, the main target in most of the battle simulations conducted by the Department of Defense—the DoD—is the PRC. The People’s Republic of China. And a lot of the cyber warfare is aimed at them, too, because of the computer hacking originating here.”
When Niall didn’t say anything, she continued. “If it’s them, it truly is like something out of a spy novel. But why me? I mean, I’m good at what I do, but I’m not the only GNC engineer out there. And besides, how could they think kidnapping me would get them what they want? They have to know the US government would suspect them if I disappear here, and it would create an international incident.”
An odd expression crossed Niall’s face. Then he said, “I think that’s exactly what someone does want. I think whoever’s trying to kidnap you wants to throw suspicion on the Chinese government, to cover up their real motive.”
* * *
There was so much he couldn’t tell her...yet. He couldn’t tell her someone had deliberately set out to make the US government think she was a traitor. That she intended to sell what she knew to the PRC. So that when she disappeared, no one in the government would be surprised. And no one would look very hard for her, except to catch a traitor!
He blinked when that thought occurred to him. Why hadn’t he seen it before?
“But who would want me that badly? I mean it doesn’t...make...sense...”
Her sudden hesitation made his sixth sense sit up and beg for attention. Hell, not just his sixth sense, all his senses. “You just thought of something. What?” he demanded.
“It can’t be that.”
“Talk it out for me.”
“Spencer Davies. Davies Missiles and Fire Control—although the company is more commonly known by its initials, DMFC. It’s located in Alamogordo, New Mexico. I was thinking about him on the flight here.”
“And?”
“And he’s tried to hire me several times, at a substantial bump in salary. He recruited me especially hard this year. But I’ve always turned him down, because...”
“Because why?”
“Because I don’t trust him,” she said in a rush. “Because he and his company have a reputation in the defense industry for taking shortcuts, and I don’t like that. Shortcuts are shortsighted in my opinion. They’ve never gotten caught. Well, not seriously. DCMA—the Defense Contract Management Agency,” she explained as an aside, although Niall knew very well what she meant, “has never done anything more than slap their hands and impose not-very-onerous fines. We’re competitors with them. Or rather, the company I used to work for is competitors with them,” she said, in the manner of one who was trying to be strictly accurate.
“Keep going.”
She wrinkled her forehead, as if trying to remember something important. “DMFC lost several big competitive contracts in the last year,” she said slowly. “To the company I used to work for.”
“Were you involved in those proposals?”
She nodded. “All of them. I even have a patent pending for the IRAD work I did leading up to one of the proposals.”
“IRAD?” he asked, even though he knew.
“Internal research and development. Some companies refer to it by the initialism IR&D, but we call it IRAD.” She buried her face against his neck. “But I can’t believe that’s the reason. I just can’t.”
“Does he know you quit?”
She raised her head and looked at him, then nodded again. Slowly. “I didn’t tell him the real reason, though. I just said I wanted to travel and my security clearance was an issue for some of the places I wanted to go. But I still can’t believe...” She trailed off, and the distress on her face told him she didn’t want to believe it.
Niall let out his breath long and slow. “I know someone who can find out for sure.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“How? No offense to your sister, but if what you suspect is true, it’s a matter for the US government.”
He laughed softly. “Keira is the US government,” he said, careful not to mention her last name. Not that Savannah would connect Keira’s married name, Walker, to her maiden name, Jones, but since she knew him as Niall Johnson he wasn’t taking any chances. “Or rather,” he continued smoothly, “Keira works for a hyper-secret government agency with a far-reaching mandate. This sounds like it’s right up the agency’s alley.”
“You’re kidding me. The agency?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Only because there was a security incident at my work three years ago. It was all hushed up, and the man pled guilty to a lesser sentence in exchange for keeping things quiet and agreeing to be a double agent for a time. He was a spy for the Russians, and the US didn’t want them to know he’d been ‘turned.’ The US funneled a lot of false information to them before the government finally shut him down last year and sent him to a federal prison.”
“If it was so secret, how do you know so much about it?”
She made a face at him. “First, he was assigned to one of the programs I used to work on, so I was questioned extensively by special agents from the Defense Security Service, the FBI and the agency. Second, the operation is over and the man is safely in jail. Third, I was one of the engineers selected to create the false information that was fed to the Russians. Do you know how hard that is? Deliberately sabotaging your own work?”
“I can imagine.” He hesitated, but he had to ask. “Why have you told all this to me? Isn’t that... I don’t know...a security violation?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I’ve only talked in general terms. I haven’t named names or specified what information was sabotaged or what missiles were involved or anything.”
“Okay. Makes sense. But let’s get back to my original point. I can ask Keira to check on this Spencer Davies and his company on the QT. She’s a whiz at research, can uncover things no one else seems to be able to. And before you say it,” he said when Savannah opened her mouth, “I also know the man she works for, the head of the agency in DC. I’m sure he’d authorize Keira to get involved.”
“How do you happen to know him?”
Uh-oh, he thought. But he didn’t want to lie to her again. The lies he’d told her at the start—that was his assignment. This was different. So he told her the truth. Just not all the truth.
“My sister’s husband also works for the agency...rather high up in the ranks.” Yeah, head of the Denver branch qualifies as high up in the ranks. “And two of my brothers were major players in one of the agency’s ops.” Just like Savannah, he couldn’t name names. Not for security reasons—that op was long since closed and the bad guy was six feet under—but because the names Alec and Liam were unusual enough they might ring a bell, especially since both had been in the news a year ago. And if she recognized Alec and Liam, the surname Jones just might come to her mind, too.
He wouldn’t just contact Keira, though. He’d already scanned and sent to his own agency the fingerprints he’d lifted from the china trays this evening, as well as from the railing on the outside staircase. So he’d also turn over the name of Spencer Davies and his company, DMFC, for further investigation. Hopefully somebody would turn up something.
“I have to ask you again,” he told Savannah, tightening his arm around her. “Will you go home now?” Now, meaning now we have solid proof you’re a target.
If he hadn’t been holding her so close he might have missed they way her body went ab
solutely still at his words.
“You want me to go home.” Her voice was flat. Emotionless. Then she pulled away and slipped from beneath the covers. She dug into a drawer and pulled out an oversize T-shirt, which she tugged on over her head before turning to face him. “How would going home now make me safer?” she asked in reasonable tones, which surprised the hell out of him. He’d thought from her initial reaction she’d be upset. “If you’re right, I’m just as much a target in the US as I am here. At least here I have you for security.” She paused. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about that now.”
Anger, hot and swift, flashed to life. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Chapter 12
“You don’t owe me anything, Niall,” Savannah said in that same reasonable tone, which conversely bugged the hell out of him for some reason. “I certainly don’t expect you to risk your life for mine. Someone tried to injure you tonight, maybe even kill you, in order to get you out of the way. I’d understand if you were having second thoughts about being my lover for the rest of this cruise.”
Fury bubbled through him, and he threw off the covers, stomping to the chair over which he’d thrown his clothes before climbing into bed with Savannah. “That is total BS,” he said between clenched teeth as he jerked his jeans on commando.
“Is it?” She raised her chin. “Then explain why you want me to go home.”
That question stopped him in his tracks, with his shirt in his hands. She has you there, hotshot, a voice in the back of his head jeered. And though it was an effort, he tried to look at things from her perspective. “You’re right,” he said finally. “You’re safer here than you are in the US, because I’m here with you. But you’re wrong about me changing my mind. Anyone who tries to get to you has to go through me. Period. End of discussion. You got that?”
A slow smile spread over her face. “I hear you loud and clear. I just hope our neighbors on that side didn’t hear you, too,” she said, gesturing to the other side of the stateroom from Niall’s cabin.
Well, crap. He glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which glowed two eleven in bright red numerals. He waited a minute in silence, holding his breath. And when no one rapped on the wall between the staterooms, he let his breath out slowly. “Looks like we skated on that one.”
Savannah walked over and took the shirt from his hands. She smoothed out the wrinkles from where he’d clutched it tightly in his anger, then laid it over the back of the chair. When she looked up into his face, she was still smiling. “I think you care about me,” she said softly.
He snorted. “You think?”
She moved her head in an infinitesimal nod. “I do. If I were a betting woman, I’d make book on it.”
Busted. But he wasn’t going to admit it. “I just don’t like being thought a coward, that’s all.”
“I never, ever thought you were a coward.”
Baffled, he asked, “Then why did you say what you said?”
“Because I was angry. And when I’m angry, I say things I don’t mean.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t sound angry.”
She laughed softly. “I know. I’m not like most people. I don’t yell and curse and stomp around when I’m angry.” By which she meant him, obviously. “I get... I don’t know...super calm and super reasonable. I take after my dad that way. My mom was the emotional one. She’d get mad at my dad for something or other, and he’d calmly reason her out of it.”
“Sounds like they were a good match.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “They were.” Then she shook her head as if she were shaking off the memories, good and bad. “So...” She stepped into his personal space and placed her hands on his bare chest, stroking lightly. “Want to kiss and make up? I’ve heard make-up sex is incredible.”
* * *
Make-up sex was incredible, Savannah thought as she and Niall strolled the decks after breakfast. She stifled a yawn, telling herself that in a contest between sex with Niall and sleeping, sleeping came in a far distant second.
They’d risen early, mainly because he wanted to get down to breakfast when the dining room opened, so he could pick out the couples from their tour group he wanted to breakfast with this morning. And when everyone had finally left, Niall had somehow made off with half a dozen juice glasses...stashed in her carry-on bag, which he’d had her bring down to breakfast instead of her purse. A quick trip to her stateroom later, she’d been fascinated at how efficiently he dusted, lifted and catalogued the prints, before bundling the juice glasses back into her bag for a return trip to the dining room.
It wasn’t until they were walking out again that a thought occurred to her. That’s odd. Why does Niall have a fingerprint kit with him...on vacation?
She started to ask him about it, then changed her mind. Asking him implied she suspected him of something, and she didn’t want to give that impression. Besides, the concept of “need to know” had been deeply engrained in her from the day she’d gone to work for her previous employer. If Niall thought she needed that info, he’d tell her. Until then...
They took the elevator to the top deck, which Savannah hadn’t visited yet, and she was delighted with the swings. “Oh look! My grandparents had one of these on their front porch when my mom was little—I have pictures.”
She dragged Niall to the closest swing and pulled him down beside her, then fished her camera out of her jacket pocket. “Smile,” she pleaded, leaning in close as she took a selfie of them, then two more for insurance. She scrolled through them quickly, pausing on the last one, then returning to the first to show Niall.
“It’s not fair,” she said, turning off her camera and stowing it in her pocket.
“What’s not fair?”
He pushed off with his foot, setting the swing in motion, and she waited a moment to enjoy the sensation before answering him. “I’ve taken...umm...” She cleared her throat. “A few pictures of you, and in every one you’re gorgeous. I don’t think it’s possible for you to take a bad photograph.”
He chuckled and continued pushing with his foot. “My mother wouldn’t agree with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hated having to hold still for pictures when I was a kid. And I especially hated those formal family portraits—you know the ones I mean. Five kids, and my mother wanted a family portrait taken every year. My dad in his USMC dress blues. That was the one given. Everything else was stage-managed by my mother, including the identical little monkey suits she wanted her four boys to wear, and the girly-girl dress she’d picked out for Keira. Hoo boy, that was a fight every year, let me tell you.”
“In what way?”
“Not so much for us boys. All it took was a stern word from my dad, and we’d dutifully don our duds. But not Keira. She was his baby girl, and he never put his foot down with her. I even heard him plead her case with my mom one year.”
“Plead her case?”
“Keira did not want to wear anything that looked too feminine. She wasn’t ‘sugar and spice and everything nice,’ she wanted to be ‘snips and snails and puppy dog tails’ like us.”
“Tomboy?”
Niall grimaced. “Not that, really. More like she wanted to be taken seriously, which my dad, I’m ashamed to say, never did until shortly before he died. She wanted the respect the boys in the family got automatically.”
“Oh.” Savannah suddenly felt a sense of kinship with a woman she’d never met. Although she’d always had the support and respect of both her parents, she’d chosen a male-dominated field and was constantly having to prove herself. So much so that she’d resigned in writing, then had been tightlipped when her male superiors tried to talk her out of it rather than risk crying in front of them.
“So what happened with Keira? How did she manage to change your
dad’s mind?”
He smiled as if at a particularly fond memory. “She followed every one of her brothers into the Marine Corps.”
“I think you mentioned that before, but wow. More power to her.”
“Yeah. She served four years, like all of us except my older brother, who’d intended to make it his career. Most of her service was in the military police.”
“Good for her. What about you? You told me you weren’t an officer, but what did you do in the Corps?”
“Sniper.”
She blinked because she never would have guessed. Not that Niall didn’t come across as a complete professional where his job was concerned, but he seemed too...too kind. Too considerate. And though he tried to hide it, too emotional, something that was especially obvious when he talked about his family. When she thought of snipers—not that she thought of them often, but when she did—she imagined steely eyed loners with no emotion. Killers.
* * *
The riverboat docked at the Shibaozhai Pagoda after lunch for the first of their side tours. You could see the pagoda from the boat, and Niall would have been just as happy to stay on board as roughly half of the passengers chose to do. But Savannah was gung ho to experience everything, so Niall would climb to the top of the twelve-story pavilion with her.
He followed her up the hundreds of wooden stairs, thankful he was in shape, pausing on every landing for Savannah to gaze out the window and marvel at the world below. A few of the climbers with them stopped when they reached the wooden ladders that would take them to the very top, but not Savannah.
He tested the strength of the ladder before he would let her proceed, then told her, “You go first. I’ll make sure no one gets too close.”
They finally reached the small summit, which wasn’t that high as far as buildings went, but was rather up there when you realized you’d climbed the entire way to the top. Savannah peered out through the round window, exclaiming, “Look, Niall. You can see all the way to the bend in the river!”
Her enthusiasm for just about everything amused him, but it also made him wonder how he’d allowed himself to become so jaded over the years. You used to have enthusiasm. What happened? When did you lose it?
