His steady gaze never left her face. Hers lanced into him like a pointed stake aimed at his heart.
“Go on.”
“The baggage inspector recognized the General Services Administration logo on the disk and showed it to his supervisor, who popped it into a computer. It contained only one file. I told you what was in it.”
“Yes,” she ground out, “you did.”
She was still struggling with that. After a VA employee admitted he’d loaded millions of personnel files onto a home computer that was stolen in a burglary a few years back, every federal agency had tightened controls over personnel data. Yet someone had used her pass code to access her computer and collect the names, social security numbers, and financial information on twenty million of her fellow government employees.
“What I didn’t tell you,” Cutter continued evenly, “was that our lab techs found only your prints on the disk.”
If she’d opened a new box of CDs and handled the contents before walking out of Congressman Kent’s offices for the last time, Mallory didn’t remember it.
“All that proves,” she countered, “is the person who put it in my suitcase was very careful.”
“Agreed. What we need to do now is determine who that person was.”
She supposed she should be grateful for the we and for his calm deliberation. Then again, why the hell shouldn’t he be calm? She was the one tagged with identity theft on a massive scale.
The possibility she might land in the middle of another media blitz, this time as a suspected traitor, was so demoralizing Mallory had to bite down on the soft inner tissue of her lip to hold back an anguished groan.
The pain helped, but her voice still came out thick and heavy. “I’m not sure I should talk to you about any of this until I consult with a lawyer.”
“That’s your call, Mallory. We’ll work it any way you want.”
There it was again, that seductive, sympathetic we. As if they were on the same team. Partners. Friends. Lovers.
“But we have to work it,” he insisted with maddening deliberation. “I don’t have any proof at this point, but I suspect this morning’s attempted robbery was an attempt to retrieve the disk.”
Mallory had pretty much come to the same conclusion. Nothing else made sense, as Cutter proceeded to point out.
“Duchette wasn’t there by chance. Someone alerted him to the possibility that you would drive into town this morning to pick up the package waiting for you at the station and, presumably, resume your interrupted vacation. Someone who doesn’t know your suitcase floated away with your rental car and is currently resting at the bottom of the Bay of St. Malo.”
“The same someone you hoped I would lead you to.”
“That’s right.”
The blunt, unapologetic response ripped a hole in Mallory’s heart. She’d convinced herself Cutter was different. Worse, she’d fallen a little bit in love with him. Maybe more than a little.
Even after last night, after he’d dropped that bomb about the dossier, she’d granted him the grace period he’d asked for. Still hoping, still clinging to the ridiculous notion that he hadn’t played her for a complete fool, she’d decided to hang around for the explanation he’d promised.
Well, now she had it. She was the bait he wanted to dangle in front of a shadowy, international thug. Hugging her arms to hold in the hurt, Mallory lifted her chin and waited for him to continue.
“We know him only as the Russian. We believe he’s responsible for previous coordinated identity thefts, but nothing on quite this scale.”
Cutter watched her face and knew he slashed into her with every word. Shoving his hands in his pants’ pockets, he balled his fists and carved the next slice.
“We want him, Mallory. I want him. He and his kind have caused untold misery to hundreds of thousands of people. This gig would have been bigger, caused even more damage. If he’d gotten his hands on that data, the bastard could have brought our government to a temporary standstill.”
“This is all so unreal. And so ironic. Congressman Kent took the floor of the House just a few months ago and gave a speech stressing the urgent need for additional safeguards on personal financial data.” Her lips twisted in a mocking smile. “I wrote most of it.”
“Which makes you the perfect sacrificial goat if anything went wrong. You possessed an insider’s knowledge of the weak links in data protection. You could access restricted systems in your official capacity. You had damned good reason to want to get even with Kent.”
“And if I got caught,” she said bitterly, “I proved Kent’s point. Our information systems are so vulnerable that any disgruntled employee can walk away from the job with a disk full of unauthorized data.”
Cutter stiffened. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. Our systems are so vulner…”
“No! Before that.”
“Do you mean the bit about proving the pompous ass’s point? Trust me, Kent could turn even a theft by one of his own employees into a political advantage. Not only do I show myself for the predatory female that he painted me, I help get him reelected by making more headlines for him.”
“Kent’s up for reelection this year?”
“Don’t you read the papers?”
“I told you, I’ve been out of the country.” Dismissing her sarcasm with an impatient shake of his head, he strode across the room. “What’s the story with Kent? Does he have locks on his seat?”
Startled by his bulldog, in-her-face aggressiveness, Mallory shed some of her own prickly attitude.
“Not this time. He’s facing a tough challenge from his state’s former lieutenant governor. Or was,” she amended, “until the sexual harassment charges I filed edged his competitor out of the headlines and into obscurity. You wouldn’t believe how many points Kent gained in the polls after the charges were dismissed. My boss played the noble legislator, wrongly accused, to the hilt.”
“Jesus!”
Cutter paced the length of the library and back again, his mind churning with new and intensely disturbing possibilities.
What if they’d followed the wrong scent? What if the Russian wasn’t involved? Or involved only on the periphery? What if this was all an elaborate setup, with Mallory fingered to take the fall while racking up more points in the polls for her former boss?
Whirling, he strode back to the woman watching him with wary distrust.
“Sit down,” he snapped. “We’re going to take this from the top. I want to know who knew you were leaving for France, who had access to your computer, and everyone who stands to gain if and when Congressman Ashton Kent is reelected.”
Not until hours later, after they’d expanded the list to include everyone who stood to lose if Kent failed to win reelection, did they begin to zero in on a name.
By then Gilbért had returned from town and Madame Picard had substituted the tray of untouched pastries with a heaping platter of ham-and-goat-cheese sandwiches. Cutter downed two, but Mallory only picked at the accompanying salad garnished with walnuts and crisp apple slices. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the intense grilling. Was she still a suspect or what?
“This guy, Dillon Porter,” Cutter fired at her between man-sized bites. “You say he tried to talk you out of bringing charges against Kent?”
“Dillon is Kent’s senior staffer. He’s been around the Hill a long time. He knew how tough it would be for me to make the charges stick. He also warned me to expect a vicious media backlash. He hit the bull’s-eye on both.”
“Is he on Kent’s payroll, or a permanent employee of the House Banking and Trade Committee?”
“He works directly for Kent, but…”
“And he’s the person you called yesterday to help expedite your passport?”
“Yes, but…”
“What did you tell him? Exactly.”
“I didn’t speak with him personally, just left a message on his voice mail. I told him I’d lost my passport and
had run into a bureaucratic wall trying to get a replacement. I asked him if he could look into it from his end and pull some strings.”
“You didn’t mention losing anything else?”
“No.”
“Nothing about the traveler’s checks or rental car or suitcase?”
“No. But I did give him the number here, so he could contact me if necessary.”
“Someone with Porter’s connections wouldn’t have any trouble tracing the number to Madame d’Marchand’s country estate.”
Cutter downed the last of his sandwich, his jaw working on the crusty bread while afternoon sun poured in through the library windows. Light sparkled on the old, uneven glass and picked out reddish highlights in his dark hair that Mallory had never noticed before.
She wouldn’t have noticed them now if not for the fact that he’d planted himself in the upholstered armchair set at right angles to hers, with only a round, leather-topped drum table between them. Dusting his hands on a napkin embroidered with the château’s crest, he leaned forward and pinned her with a hard look.
“Did this Porter character know you were leaving for France?”
“Everyone at the office knew. I’d been saving and planning for it for ages. I—I almost cancelled. The arbitrator took so long to make his determination. But after the decision, I had to get away.”
“Did you take your suitcase to the office at any time before you left for Dulles Airport?”
She shook her head.
“You didn’t use it when you cleaned out your desk? Or swing by to say goodbye to friends on your way to the airport?”
“I didn’t have many friends left after the hearing.” She covered the still-sharp sting of abandonment with a shrug. “Most of the other staffers didn’t want their names associated with mine.”
In fact, they’d bailed like rats fleeing a burning tenement building. All except Dillon. He’d never once compromised his loyalty to Congressman Kent, yet had offered Mallory brutally honest advice when asked and a shoulder to cry on when she’d chosen not to follow it.
He’d also, she recalled with a sudden catch to her breath, delivered the written copy of the arbitrator’s decision.
“What?” Cutter asked, his gaze sharp on her face.
“I just remembered. Dillon stopped by my apartment the day before I left. Just for a few moments, to drop off some paperwork.”
“Where was your suitcase?”
“I don’t know.” She scrubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead, struggling to recall those last, chaotic hours before she’d made her escape. “In the hall closet, I think. Or I may have carried it to the bedroom to start packing.”
Cutter didn’t need to hear more. Shoving out of his chair, he unclipped his cell phone and stalked to the window. Feet braced, eyes narrowed on the topiaries trimmed into fanciful shapes in the formal garden outside, he waited for Mike Callahan to acknowledge his signal.
He’d already apprised Hawkeye of the incident in the woods. His controller was working the Remy Duchette connection hard, searching for ties to the Russian. Cutter’s terse call propelled him in a new and potentially explosive direction.
“Congressman Kent’s senior aide?”
Looking as happy as a lion with a thorn embedded in its paw, Lightning shoved a hand through his sun-streaked mane and paced the length of his office.
“Is Slash sure about this?”
“He sounded sure to me,” Mike confirmed grimly.
He’d spent most of the afternoon digging into Dillon Porter’s past, present and anticipated future. In a town where who you knew carried considerably more weight than what you knew, Porter had racked up an impressive set of credentials. Seventeen years on Capitol Hill, first as a page, then an intern, then a professional staffer, had solidified his power base and made him indispensable to Congressman Kent. The fact that he’d stuck with Kent despite the legislator’s rumored extracurricular activities suggested Porter was every bit as ambitious as his boss. Longevity carried its own cachet on the Hill.
“As far as I can tell,” Mike informed his boss, “Porter’s clean. I’ve screened his financials, his contacts with registered lobbyists, every overseas junket he took with his boss. I couldn’t find anything that even suggested a link to the Russian.”
“So Slash thinks the data theft may be a setup, with the ultimate goal of making Kent look good for pushing for tighter controls over personal financial data?”
“He thinks it’s a possibility. Kent was facing a tough challenge for reelection until the publicity resulting from the Dawes allegations painted him as a combination of unjustly accused and sly old dog.”
“Knowing Kent, he parlayed both roles into a solid block of votes.”
“Yeah, he did. The latest polls indicate the good ol’boys back home are solidly in his camp, but some women voters are still on the fence.”
“They’d topple off quick enough if Mallory Dawes was branded a thief as well as an oversexed temptress.”
“That’s the working hypothesis.”
Lightning shoved back his suit coat and splayed his hands on his hips. He knew as well as Mike they were walking a political minefield here. The President himself had stumped for his good pal and longtime political crony. Kent’s reelection was essential to the party’s midterm legislative agenda.
“What’s your game plan, Hawk?”
“I’m going to get up close and personal with Porter. He doesn’t know me from squat but, seasoned staffer that he is, he’ll certainly know that the Military Marksmanship Association has more than ten thousand members.”
Not to mention strong ties to the NRA. Mike had his opinions about gun control, which didn’t necessarily coincide with those held by many of his fellow sharpshooters. He suspected Dillon Porter would see only dollar signs, however, when he linked Mike with the powerful lobbying organization.
“When are you going to establish contact?”
“Tonight. I obtained a copy of Porter’s schedule. He’s on the Hill until six, then he and his boss head over to a reception in honor of the new Secretary General of the World Bank.”
“The World Bank?” A smile spread across Lightning’s tanned face. “Well, well.”
Mike matched Nick’s grin. They couldn’t have orchestrated the initial contact any better if they’d planned it. Adam Ridgeway, OMEGA’s former director, now headed the International Monetary Fund, the operating arm of the World Bank.
Keying his intercom, Lightning summoned his executive assistant into the office.
“Do you know what your folks have on the agenda tonight, Jilly?”
“They’re attending a function for the IMF. Wayland and I were supposed to go with them but he had to fly up to New York on a case. Why? What’s the deal?”
“Hawk wants to connect with someone attending the soiree.”
Her glance slid to Mike. He’d steeled himself for the impact of those sapphire eyes…or thought he had. Damned if it didn’t hit him with the force of a 40mm rubber-tipped, riot-control bullet.
“That works out perfectly. You can be my escort.”
The protest came fast and straight from his gut. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Sure it is. I’ll be your cover, Hawk. Pick me up at seven.”
Chapter 12
Mike had landed in a number of desperate situations since joining OMEGA. He couldn’t ever remember feeling as hinky as he did when he pulled into the circular drive leading to the home of Gillian Ridgeway’s parents, however.
Set on a wooded lot in McLean’s priciest neighborhood, the two-story brick residence wore a graceful patina of age. Ivy climbed up the mellow brick. Boxwoods framed the walk to the door. Leafy maples and oaks shaded the house, molting bright layers of orange and red onto the carpet of lawn.
Mike drove up the circular drive and parked his newly washed Blazer under the pillared portico. The scent of wood smoke filled his lungs as he mounted the front steps. One thought filled his head.
This was an assignment. Just an assignment. Gillian Ridgeway’s sole purpose was to provide an entrée into her father’s set. With that admonition firmly in mind, Mike rolled his shoulders to settle his tux and leaned on the doorbell.
Instant chaos erupted inside. When the door jerked open a moment later, the noise shot up another ten or twenty decibels. Maggie and Adam’s teenaged son added to it by bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“Would you please shut up!”
The sheepdog lunging frantically in the kid’s hold ignored the booming command. Tongue lolling, jowls flapping, it howled an ecstatic welcome and went up on its back legs to paw the air. Mike was treated to a hairy chest, a freckled pink belly, and a sack of balls that would have made a stallion strut. The dog was hung like a Clydesdale.
“Shut up, I said!”
Grunting with the effort, Adam Ridgeway II—Tank to everyone who knew him—hauled on the hound’s collar to drag him away from the door. Dark-haired and brown-eyed like his mother, the kid gave every indication he’d soon match or exceed his father’s height. Both parents lived in mortal fear of the not-very-distant day Tank would qualify for his learner’s permit and hit the streets.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he shouted over the still-ecstatic barking. “He’s just a pup. Hasn’t learned to mind real well yet.”
No kidding.
“C’mon in.” Planting his sneakered feet, Tank struggled to control the leaping, cavorting animal. “Been meaning to ask you. When are we going to the range?”
Thankfully, Maggie’s intervention saved Mike from having to answer. Grimacing at the unceasing din, she shouted over the rail of the circular stairs.
“Tank, please! Take him outside.”
Muscles straining under his maroon-and-gold Washington Redskins sweatshirt, the teen hauled the hound down the hall.
The sheepdog thought the rough handling was great fun. His claws scrabbled on the marble tiles. His tail scissored back and forth. He made repeated lunges, woofing joyously and almost knocking Tank on his butt several times before both disappeared through a side door.
Stranded with a Spy Page 12
