His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3)

by Paula Altenburg

  The answer was a resounding maybe. “What do you think?”

  The sheets rustled as he rolled onto one hip. He grazed the line of her jaw with a knuckle. “I think you only said that to shock me.”

  “See? You know me better than you thought you did.” She threw her leg over his thighs and burrowed against him. “For what it’s worth though, I wanted you badly enough that we can never be sure.”

  His soft chuckle rumbled around her. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Go to sleep. It’s late and I’m exhausted.”

  * * *

  “I’m going to be late for work,” Lies said. A quick glance at her watch confirmed it.

  Harry had stipulated that their relationship wasn’t to carry over to the office and she’d respect that. She felt a tingle of guilt that she wasn’t going to tell John Carmichael, or at the very least Dan, but she planned to keep it out of her workplace too.

  What was happening between them was private.

  Despite the ticking clock and desire for discretion, the last thing she wanted to do was crawl out of Harry’s bed. He was towel-drying his hair with brusque strokes in the adjoining bathroom. What he hid under his business suits was deceiving. Right now he had another towel around his narrow hips and looked delicious. He had strong arms and a broad chest, and buttocks well-muscled from bike riding.

  He dismissed her concern with the negligent shrug of a man in complete charge of his workplace. “If anyone asks, tell them we had a breakfast meeting scheduled before I left for the airport.”

  She’d forgotten he had meetings in Paris that afternoon and tomorrow. With a sigh, she threw back the bedclothes and went in search of her dress.

  The car Harry had reserved to take him to Schiphol drove her home en route. He insisted on walking her to her door. An elderly gentleman wearing a black hat and carrying a hand-carved cane hooked over one arm hobbled out of the lift as they waited to get in, wishing them both a caustic Goedemorgen that reeked of disapproval.

  Lies compared her rumpled appearance with Harry’s and at this time of day, it wasn’t favorable. In his usual suit and tie he looked every bit the diplomat. She could only imagine how she must look. At least no one would guess she was an intelligence officer. Her cover was safe.

  “That was my neighbor,” she said as Harry slid the lift door closed and they were alone in the cramped space. “First we have loud sex and disturb him. Now I arrive home in the same clothes I wore last night, and to look at you, he’ll never believe you were the same man both times. I’m going to have to move.”

  “Moving would be an overreaction, don’t you think? You’re here temporarily. You can survive a few weeks of judgmental neighbors.” The shifting corners of his mouth hinted at the sense of humor he possessed underneath all that reserve. “Unless he tries to purchase your services. That could prove awkward.”

  The reminder that she wouldn’t be here forever, and the casual tone in which it was delivered, were equally as jarring as the ancient lift lurching to a halt at her floor. He could sound less accepting of their limited time frame. While they’d agreed not to become emotionally attached, they’d barely begun to explore each other physically.

  Harry didn’t linger. He had a driver waiting downstairs and a plane he was perilously close to missing. He placed a hand on her hip and gave her a quick kiss good-bye. “Please try not to take advantage of my absence by placing the entire embassy under surveillance. I’ll call you tomorrow after my flight gets in.”

  His casual assumption that she would be free for him on a Saturday night had the opposite effect on her than the one it should. It warmed her, giving her a happy little glow inside that remained throughout the morning and well into the afternoon.

  When her office phone rang at a few minutes before three o’clock she thought it might be him.

  It wasn’t however.

  “You sound in a good mood,” Bernard said.

  She twisted the phone cord around her finger and settled into her character. “Of course I am. It’s Friday.”

  “Let me see if I can improve on it. Don’t forget that I’m picking you up at seven tomorrow night.”

  Her happy glow dissipated, its bubble burst by intruding reality. She’d been so looking forward to Harry’s return that she’d forgotten about dinner—but building a relationship with Bernard took priority. This was her first opportunity to get inside his home and she had to plant a wire.

  Optimism didn’t completely desert her. Her evening with Harry could still happen. His flight wouldn’t land until ten. He wouldn’t make it to her place before eleven. She could be home by then.

  “I’ll be ready and waiting,” she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bernard picked her up at her flat, but instead of heading through The Hague he took a route that led to the A4 highway and out of the city.

  “I thought we were having dinner at your place,” Lies said.

  He checked over his left shoulder as he changed lanes, weaving through traffic. “We are. I keep a flat here to use whenever I have business in the city so I can avoid the commute, but my main residence is in Centrum Amsterdam.”

  A drive that took the better part of an hour.

  Lies saw her plans fall apart. Planting a wire wouldn’t do her much good if she and the listening device were in separate cities. Also, she’d miss Harry’s homecoming later that night. Bernard would have other guests to consider and couldn’t possibly have her home in time to meet up with him.

  “Who else will be joining us?” she asked.

  “It will be just the two of us, I’m afraid. The other couples were forced to cancel so I hope you’re hungry.” Not taking his eyes off the traffic, he reached across the console and touched her knee.

  Her heart sank. She’d made a miscalculation. If she’d known they’d be alone at his home, and in another city to top it off, she would have refused the invitation. Her reservations had nothing to do with Harry and his disapproval—the odds in this scenario simply weren’t in her favor. She was supposed to be the ambitious-but-spoiled daughter of a diplomat who was using Bernard to claw her way to the next level, but she had no clear idea of what he wanted from her in exchange and that was a dangerous position to be in.

  She should tell him to stop the car and demand he turn it around.

  She was too curious as to where this was headed however. Why had he arranged to get her alone and an hour away from home? Why had his interest in her suddenly ratcheted up several notches?

  “What an inconvenience for you,” she said. “There’s no need to go to so much trouble for me. It’s only dinner. We can stay in The Hague and save you two hours of driving.”

  “You’re no inconvenience. Besides, I already had the catering arranged.” He drifted into the left-hand lane and shifted into sixth gear. “You’re welcome to spend the night. I have a big home with plenty of spare room. We can both return to The Hague tomorrow in time for work on Monday.”

  She wasn’t spending the night with him, but she’d save that argument for later. He was playing a game and she was curious as to what it was and what he wanted from her. By all accounts he was well connected, so it was possible he’d found out she was with CSIS. Perhaps he was as curious as Harry as to how far she would go in order to get what she wanted.

  But she couldn’t shake the belief that it was Harry he was trying to goad. Spending the night in Amsterdam with him would certainly do that.

  Pragmatism pushed away any concerns she had about how Harry would react if she did. She refused to waste her limited time with him defending the decisions she made as an intelligence officer. In her line of work, there was sometimes an unavoidable blurring of the lines between professional and personal. She’d crossed them twice now—once with Michael and again with Harry—because she was human. John Carmichael had told her to trust herself and she did.

  Pop music wafted from the car’s custom stereo system. Bernard sang along with the latest hits as flat expanses of fields
and small villages and towns sped past. The incongruity was disconcerting—and, she suspected, calculated. He too was pretending to be someone or something he wasn’t, posing a challenge she couldn’t resist either.

  Yes. She did like this game.

  Less than an hour later they took the exit off the highway and drove into the heart of Amsterdam. Bernard parked in a private lot on a shady street along one of the many canals. The street’s tall, narrow row houses were constructed of sandstone and tilted at alarming angles. Dating back as many as five hundred years, they’d been built using wooden braces that had been sunk into an unstable bed of wet, reclaimed ground. Property owners, taxed on the frontage of their homes, had opted to go higher and deeper to gain more square footage of living space and this was the result. Over time, the wooden braces had rotted and the buildings shifted. Now the homes were divided into separate living units.

  They entered Bernard’s unit through a communal basement that contained a small lift. The lift took them to his condo on the second floor. It opened onto a modern living room with a fireplace and breathtaking view of the canal.

  As she took it all in, Lies couldn’t contain her admiration. “This is so beautiful!”

  Bernard appeared pleased by her praise. “Let me show you around.”

  A narrow corridor led from the living room, past a guest bathroom and the dining area, into a kitchen outfitted in the very latest of stainless steel appliances. Antique Delft blue tiles lined one wall of the kitchen.

  The dining room table had already been set for two. From a central open staircase in the living room Bernard led her to the third floor, with two large bedrooms and a shared bath. The fourth floor contained the master bedroom and an enormous private bath outfitted with a whirlpool, bidet, double sink and more of the Delft blue tiles. Outside of the master bedroom, in an open area that served as an office, a built-in desk stretched the entire width of the floor. The hipped-beam ceiling and bent walls turned the narrow windows into skylights.

  Lies’s pulse hammered at the sight of the computer on the desk and the papers scattered around it. This explained how Dita had come by the information she’d passed on to Harry—Bernard worked from home. Planting a listening device might prove worthwhile after all, and this could well be the only opportunity she’d get.

  “The final stop on the tour is the terrace,” Bernard said, heading for the staircase.

  “Do you mind if I use your bathroom first?” she asked.

  He paused with one foot on the bottom stair and his hand on the low metal railing. “Of course not. Join me on the roof when you’re ready. I’d like to show you the view.”

  Inside the master bathroom, she retrieved the fine-wired device from under her skirt where she’d taped it to her thigh. It took only a few seconds for her to insert it into the space between the wooden door frame and wall. She wouldn’t be able to monitor it as much as she’d like but it was better than nothing. She eyed the bidet, shook her head over the idea of it, then flushed the toilet beside it and washed her hands.

  When she emerged from the bathroom she was alone. The door at the top of the stairs was open to the night. She listened but heard nothing other than the faint hum of city traffic from outside.

  The papers on the desk proved irresistible. The letterhead on one piece in particular captured her attention. It was from a shell company she’d come across already when looking into Bernard’s business dealings.

  Shell companies weren’t illegal. They had no assets and on their own were usually inoperable. That was what made them attractive to underground economies. Because they remained legal entities, money could be moved through them. She wished she could take photographs. Instead, she’d have to make do with her memory.

  She’d scanned the contents of five similar pages when a whisper of movement at the top of the stairs caught her ear. A shadow filled the doorway. She didn’t move from where she was, but waited for Bernard to descend the first few stairs to where they could see each other.

  “I’ve been thinking about buying a Mac. Do you like yours?” she asked, gesturing at his computer. She hadn’t disturbed the screensaver. The papers too were exactly as he’d left them. She’d been careful. “Do you do any desktop publishing with graphics? I’d like to try creating brochures for the office.”

  “I have a professional design program installed.”

  “Could you show it to me?”

  He descended the stairs and approached the computer. She read nothing in his facial expression or body language to suggest he found her curiosity alarming or intrusive, although that meant little in the long run. He was a better actor than she was. And she was good.

  He gathered the papers and straightened them before sliding them into a folder. He then spent the next few minutes showing her the software program he used. She caught a quick glimpse of the icons on his desktop but saw nothing other than things any ordinary business would use.

  “Now,” he said finally, shutting down the program and the computer with a few clicks of the mouse. “Let me show you the terrace. It’s the real reason I bought this home.”

  When she saw it, she could understand why. A wooden fence divided the townhouse roof into quarters so that all of the owners sharing the building had their privacy. The fence surrounding Bernard’s terrace was three feet high at the lip of the roof and eight feet along the other three sides. A teakwood patio set and two lounge chairs fit the space nicely. Scattered planters with shrubs provided a touch of greenery.

  The view from the living room had been impressive enough. From the rooftop it was spectacular, revealing breathtaking examples of the city’s eighteenth century architecture. Nearby, the Rijksmuseum’s towers breached a sea of clay-tiled rooftops, private gardens, and trees.

  She shivered a little. She’d left her jacket downstairs and the night air blowing off the IJ, the body of water leading to the North Sea, was crisp despite the residual heat from the concrete and brick of the city.

  “Let’s go see what the caterers left for us,” Bernard said.

  Dinner in the formal dining room was delicious. Twice now she’d been treated to gourmet cooking. She wasn’t used to the decadence and could see how easy it would be for an intelligence officer to get lost in this type of game.

  But by the time they reached dessert, Bernard was on his third glass of wine and the game was far less entertaining. Unpleasant certainty, along with feminine outrage, settled into her stomach. He’d had no intentions of driving her home tonight. Being over the legal limit was going to be his excuse.

  The entire evening was so…calculated. If she were exactly what she pretended to be—a girl straight out of college with little experience around men much more mature than she—then maneuvering her into this situation was unforgivable of him. It was an abuse of power and she had no patience for it.

  She set her napkin beside her unfinished pastry. This required a different tactic than the approach she’d been using, which would have allowed him to save face. Now the gloves were off.

  “You didn’t invite anyone else this evening, did you?” she challenged him.

  His smooth, sheepish smile contained more satisfaction than apology. He bore the air of an unrepentant schoolboy caught red-handed breaking some minor and inexplicable rule. “No.”

  And yet he wasn’t interested in her sexually. She was certain of it. “Why did you invite me?”

  His gaze dropped to the front of her dress, which showed very little cleavage and was hardly enticing. “Is it so ridiculous to think I might be attracted to you? Is the difference in our ages a problem?”

  She smothered her anger. They were still playing a game and she’d be damned if she’d lose. “Yes and no. In that order. The only attraction you feel toward me is based on whatever you believe I can do for you. What might that be?”

  His eyes laughed at her, but he sounded sincere enough when he replied. “You sell yourself short, Marlies. I find you very attractive. More so by the moment. But for
the sake of playing along, I could ask you questions too. Why did you allow me to bring you here? What do you want from me?”

  Caution seized her. He knew who—what—she was. But how?

  All of their prior interactions flipped through her head at a dizzying speed, leading her to a single conclusion. He had no proof, only suspicions.

  She clasped her hands together and rested her elbows on the table, leaning on them so they carried her upper body weight, striving to appear relaxed. An unruly ringlet tickled her right eyebrow as she grasped at bits and pieces of dinner conversation from evenings on her family farm so as to craft a plausible story.

  “I have a friend in Ottawa,” she said, “whose family are horse people. He believes he can make money by purchasing embryos from Vyatka breeders in Russia, transferring two or three at a time into more common brood mares, then flying the brood mares to Canada. He ships four horses for the price of one. He offered me a percentage if I can arrange a meeting for him. I was hoping you might have connections in Russia I could use.” She knew nothing of horses other than that the Vyatka was a rare Russian breed. That was why she’d added a friend to her story. If asked for details she could plead ignorance and defer them to him. However, the situation she’d described wasn’t so different from how Bernard had gotten his own start in business.

  His expression closed over. Candlelight sparked off the abrupt chill in his eyes. But if he had an opinion on the viability or even veracity of her supposed friend’s business plan, he kept it to himself.

  “My connections in Russia are useless right now. The Netherlands has imposed trade sanctions against them.” He played with his half-empty glass, twirling the stem between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s my turn. Why did Harry suddenly decide he needed a personal assistant?”

  If he’d hoped to catch her off guard with his question he was destined for disappointment. She shrugged. “I thought it was obvious. Because my father called in a favor.”