Traitor Games

by Sidney Bristol

  Lillian got that feeling. The summit was supposed to be it. They’d rally the troops and it would all be over. Finally. Instead they were fugitives and traitors to the very country they were trying to protect.

  “Tell me about your wedding?” Lillian asked. She needed to hear something good.

  Carol detailed the Grecian wedding and the less sensitive adventures she’d been on over the last year since they’d seen each other. One topic led to another and before Lillian knew it, they’d passed away hours. It was almost like old times, except now they were swapping stories about narrowly avoiding death instead of office drama. It was a vast change to their lives.

  By the time Lillian made it to the suite she shared with Noah, she was ready to curl up and sleep. She stepped into the room and flipped on the lights.

  A dark lump lay on the sofa in the front room.

  Lillian pressed her back against the wall as the man groaned.

  That was not Noah.

  “Brandon?”

  Oh, shit…

  The man sat up and blinked at her.

  “I couldn’t find you.” His words were barely audible.

  “You should be in your room. Asleep.” Lillian stayed where she was, with as much distance as she could manage between them.

  Brandon swung his legs off the sofa and covered his face with his hands.

  He’d lost the mother of his child and the love of his life. Lillian’s heart went out to him. She ached for him.

  Why had he come here instead of his own room?

  She crossed to stand behind the armchair.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Brandon dropped his hands. “Do you think Mol suffered?”

  The question hit Lillian in the gut at a hundred miles an hour. It felt as though a hole were carved through her. She searched for words.

  “No, I don’t think she suffered.” Lillian had no idea, but it was the only answer she could think of that might ease Brandon’s pain.

  “I told her, in the beginning, what I did was dangerous. I told her a baby was a bad idea. Mol wasn’t the kind of woman who listened. She never fucking listened.” He shook his head.

  “That’s why you loved her, wasn’t it? You couldn’t order her around. She didn’t do what you wanted. She did what you needed.” Lillian circled the sofa and sat next to Brandon. She took his hand and squeezed.

  He didn’t say anything, and Lillian doubted her words would ease his pain. They sat like that for several moments, neither speaking.

  Love was dangerous. She got that now in a way she hadn’t before. Noah’s words, his commitment to being alone, made sense. Which meant she was screwed. Her feelings for Noah weren’t yet as deep as Brandon’s were for Mol, and she already knew losing Noah would devastate her.

  “I should…go,” Brandon mumbled after a while.

  “You need to rest,” she said.

  “Everyone keeps saying that.” Brandon let go of her hand and stood. “Thanks.”

  She watched him cross the room without glancing back at her. He opened the door and another figure loomed in the way.

  Noah.

  Lillian swallowed.

  “Brandon.” Noah growled the other man’s name.

  “Night.” Brandon pushed past Noah into the hall.

  “Noah?” Lillian shoved to her feet.

  He watched Brandon walk away down the hall before stepping into the room. Noah’s gaze was…dangerous.

  “He wanted to talk about Mol.” She closed the distance between her and Noah. “He’s barely holding it together.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “What? No. I mean, I held his hand. I was just trying to comfort him.”

  Noah’s frown deepened and he reached for her, sliding his arm around her waist. “Lily, I’m not mad at you. That man, we don’t know what he’s capable of. Walk me through what happened.”

  Lillian related the few moments she’d been alone with Brandon. As she spoke, other pieces fell into place. “Do you think he planted a listening device or something in here?”

  “No.” Noah’s answer came without hesitation. “But I’ll check.”

  The knot of tension in her stomach relaxed. She leaned against him, glad for these moments alone.

  “Lily?”

  “Hm?”

  He lifted her chin until he could stare down at her. “I’m always going to trust you without explanation until you give me a reason not to. Understand? I am the jealous kind of man, but I’m not stupid. You wouldn’t stand for that, and I don’t want you to.”

  She kissed his cheek. “For the record, I’m the jealous type, too.”

  “Are you now?” He brushed his lips over hers.

  She set her mouth to his and this time he moved, his lips sliding against hers. His other hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair. He walked her back, until she ran into the armchair. She grasped his shirt in her other hand and tugged it up.

  “You have to stop.” He groaned and wrapped his hand around her wrist. “I only came to tell you we’re going to keep going.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed down her disappointment.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Later.”

  She pushed at his chest. “Go do amazing things before I change my mind.”

  “I could stay and do amazing things…”

  “Go.” She chuckled.

  Noah kissed her until her toes curled inside her boots.

  “Later, then,” he whispered.

  He took a step back and then another one.

  She leaned on the chair, her knees more than a little weak.

  “I’ll lock the door this time,” she said.

  “You know that won’t keep me out, right?”

  “I was counting on that.”

  Noah grinned. He spun around and strode out of the room, leaving her emotions ping-ponging around in her chest.

  That man was the greatest danger to her and he was her biggest hope.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tuesday. SICA Safe House, Washington, D.C.

  Dave lifted the empty teacup to his lips and slurped.

  The two little girls sitting across from him squealed in laughter. Their brown eyes danced with light nothing in this world could dim.

  “Would you like another?” The older girl grasped the teapot with both hands.

  “Now, girls.” Dave peered over his glasses at them. “You promised that if we had a cup of tea you’d go to bed.”

  “One more?” The younger sister frog-hopped around the table.

  Dave stared down at the girl and sighed. Children were his weakness. His one regret. He’d given everything to the company before he realized it was a waste of time, then he and the others began SICA. After that it was too late. Children weren’t in the cards for him. He liked to think he’d have been a good father, given the chance.

  “Please?” The older sister clasped her hands together.

  “One more. After that, you’re going to bed so I can tell your daddy you’re behaving. Hm?”

  “When is he coming back?” A single mention of the girl’s father wiped the smile off the older child’s face.

  “Soon.” Dave picked up his teacup and extended it to the girls.

  The older sister picked up the teapot and poured him the imaginary concoction, but her bright smile was gone. Soon enough, they’d never smile again, and that was a shame. They were beautiful children cursed with an unfortunate father.

  Dave supervised the girls’ routine for bed, read them a story, then recorded a short message of them telling their father good night. So far Demetrius wasn’t performing as hoped, but the value of a motivated team member could never be undervalued.

  The couple caring for the children never acknowledged Dave. They knew the drill.

  He left the house under cover of darkness and got into his waiting car. Unlike the girls, he wouldn’t get any rest tonight. The warehouse hit had left them vulnerable and scrambli
ng to shore up their system, not to mention they had no idea where the targets had fled to. They’d escaped the UK somehow, and Dave intended to find out how. It was just a matter of time until they picked up the trail.

  …

  Wednesday. Safe House, Hamburg, Germany.

  “I think I got it.” Noah pulled the syringe out from the computer tower and stared at the bit of hardening foam. The stuff came out as a liquid and solidified almost instantly. With the sticky texture, it would cling to anything. He was counting on the foam expanding into all the nooks and crannies around the detonator to keep it from going off.

  The SICA towers were booby-trapped to within an inch of their lives. The casing couldn’t be opened without setting off a spark that would catch fire. In a regular computer that wasn’t much of an issue, except these were not typical machines. The outsides weren’t plastic or metal. They were made from some sort of composite material. They’d tested the back panel and the thing had gone up in ash in under sixty seconds. Then there were tiny detonators inside to create shrapnel of what wasn’t burned.

  All in all, Noah had counted eighteen different fail-safe measures and they had yet to turn the machines on.

  “Are we ready to try it?” Andy crouched next to him.

  “I dunno…”

  They’d spent all night getting to this point. Ideally they’d rest and try to crack the system later, but they didn’t have the luxury of time.

  “Let’s try it.” Andy straightened. “Did you document those last charges?”

  “Yeah.” Noah picked up the piece of paper on the ground. “If you’re going to turn it on, you need to be ready to crack it. We don’t know what kind of security measures they’ve got going on.”

  “One thing at a time.” Andy circled the table and sat on an ottoman they’d dragged over to serve as a chair.

  They’d moved the other towers to the far side of the room and gathered every fire extinguisher they could after their rooftop test earlier. If they fucked up and one caught fire, it could send the whole building up in smoke.

  “Here goes,” Andy said and pressed the power button.

  A beep heralded the whirling of the tower fan.

  Andy backed up, giving the table a wide berth.

  Lights inside the computer flashed and nothing sparked.

  “Looks pretty good on this side,” Noah said.

  “Yeah. Here, too.”

  They remained standing, watching the computer until the fan cycled down.

  “Now what?” Noah asked.

  “Let’s see what she’s running.” Andy slid onto the ottoman and began typing.

  Noah kept his eyes on the guts of the machine. They didn’t know when any keystroke or mouse click might trigger a fail-safe.

  “This is going to take a while.” Andy groaned and scrubbed at his face.

  “What’s a while?”

  “Look at this and tell me what you think?”

  Noah circled the table to look at the black screen. A white cursor blinked in the middle of it.

  “What do you want to bet that takes a secure ID token?” Noah crossed his arms over his chest. “Any chance we pulled one off the body at the warehouse?”

  Andy grimaced. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Can you break it?” Noah could, but it wouldn’t be pretty and it wouldn’t be quick.

  “Yeah.”

  “How fast?”

  “Couple of hours, maybe a day, if we’re assuming it’s a two-factor authenticator?”

  “What if we called Demetrius?” Noah watched Andy’s face. He didn’t flinch or bat an eyelash.

  “Are you willing to take that risk?” Andy asked.

  “Are you willing to sit here for a few days while those fuckers get closer to Carol?”

  Andy’s jaw muscle twitched.

  Yeah, Noah didn’t want Lillian here longer than she had to be, either.

  “I’ll make the call,” Noah said.

  “Use this.” Andy pulled a phone from his pocket. “The encryption’s the best on the market.”

  Noah took the phone and dialed the number Demetrius had left for them on the recorder. Given how early it was, he didn’t know if their contact would answer. Everything was a risk right now.

  “Hello?” a deep, gravelly voice said.

  “If we’re going to help each other we need some proof you’re on our side,” Noah said.

  “Covering for you and letting you get away aren’t enough?”

  “You know how it is.”

  Demetrius blew out a breath. “What’s the job?”

  “We need a secure passcode. PIN and the token number.”

  “Fuck,” he groaned.

  “You know what you’re looking for?” Noah hoped Demetrius wasn’t just a trigger guy.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know what you’re looking for. One of the guys leaves a PIN pad sort of thing lying around.”

  “An admin PIN pad?” Damn, Noah was willing to bet Andy could do a lot with that.

  “Yeah. I do this, I want to know how we’re helping each other. This isn’t a one-way street, understand?”

  “We’ve all got something on the line.”

  Noah hung up and stared at the phone for a moment. That had gone better than he expected.

  “Well?” Andy asked.

  “One of the guys he’s with has an admin PIN pad. He’s going to try to get it,” Noah said.

  “Without the PIN it doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, you’d rather break a four-digit PIN than that and the token number.”

  Andy covered his face and groaned. “True.”

  “Let’s get some sleep. We can spare a few hours.” Noah nodded at the doors.

  Besides, he wanted to see Lillian again. Hold her. His jealous streak had reared its ugly head yesterday. She’d soothed him when she said she felt the same, but that didn’t change the fact that he craved her.

  …

  Wednesday. SICA Warehouse Site, London, United Kingdom.

  Demetrius pushed to his feet. The frail cot creaked under his weight. He checked the time.

  Five o’clock.

  He wasn’t made to be awake at this hour, yet sometimes his babies had other ideas. Those two girls liked to rise with the sun, reminding him he wasn’t all that young anymore.

  It was too early for the others to be up, but maybe that would work in Demetrius’s favor.

  Following the raid on the warehouse they’d reinforced the entrances and begun following leads to figure out where their targets had gone. It seemed pretty obvious to him that the targets had skipped the country, and yet they’d spent the better part of a night and day focused on the greater London area and where a person could drive to in that time.

  No one had bothered to ask Demetrius, so he’d kept his opinion to himself.

  When he did a high-risk hit, he always had four different escape plans in place. Getting away from the crime in the first few hours before people figured out what had happened was key. These targets weren’t stupid. They knew what they were doing.

  Demetrius didn’t bunk with the others. Hector didn’t trust him, which was smart. If Demetrius had a man by the balls, threatening his family, he’d be twice as careful. The difference was the others. Hector knew who Demetrius was and why he was there, but the rest didn’t. That made them lax.

  He opened the door to what was little more than a storage closet and peered out into the hall. It was dark and quiet.

  He padded down the hall, the concrete on his bare feet shocking him awake.

  The smell of coffee drifted toward him.

  Shit.

  It had to be Hector.

  Demetrius kept going through the double doors into a main gathering area. The lights were half on, the coffee pot gurgled and the morning newscast played softly in the background.

  A young, pasty man sat at a table, head in his hands.

  Fuck his luck.

  It wasn’t Hector.

  The computer boy. T
he one with the admin PIN pad.

  “You make enough to share?” Demetrius strolled to the coffee pot.

  “What?” The boy’s head snapped up and he blinked at Demetrius.

  “Falling asleep on the job?” He plucked a cup from the stack and watched the dark liquid drip into the cup.

  “No. No, I’m awake,” the kid said.

  They’d lost the four core tech-support people. Demetrius didn’t know when or how, but from the mutterings he was willing to bet they hadn’t all died. He was willing to bet at least one had simply skipped town. Which left the low man on the totem pole doing the job and learning the ropes.

  Bad for Hector and his people.

  Good for Demetrius.

  “What do they have you working on?” he asked.

  “Facial recognition. Predictive algorithms. Tracking cell signals.” He blew out a breath. “We get lucky every couple of hours and there’s a ping off one of the phones in evidence, but whoever keeps calling it is using an encrypted line. It’s going to take a while to break it, if it’s even valuable.”

  “I see.” Demetrius finished pouring himself a half-cup of coffee. “How did you get into work like this?”

  “Oh, the CIA hired me out of college. Said if I proved myself here, I could get a fast track through the academy.” The kid grinned and leaned back in his chair.

  This wasn’t a CIA operation.

  Was the kid in the dark?

  That would be a cruel wake-up call for him one day.

  “Good for you,” Demetrius said.

  “My parents think I’m interning. They aren’t thrilled, but I keep feeding them the line that it’s going to work out.” He unzipped his jacket then shrugged out of his hoodie.

  A red and white object, the size of a credit card, lay on the table.

  This was too easy.

  Demetrius peered at the doors, most of which were shut.

  “There’s more if you need it. I’ve got to piss.” The kid got up and shambled into the restroom.

  Demetrius didn’t wait. He strode across the room and picked up the PIN pad.

  The number showing was good and all, but without the other part of it this was useless.

  He rolled it over.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered.

  All the security in the world didn’t matter if some fuckwit kid wrote his PIN down on a piece of paper and taped it to the back.