Calculated Entrapment

by K. T. Lee

  “Oh, I can’t wait to tell Parker.” Ree snort-laughed. “This is hilarious.”

  Stefanie lost all pretense of self-assurance. “You will not. Seriously, Sis. I don’t need that in my life right now. I’ll sic Waffle on you.”

  “Nice try. Waffle is good at two things: finding explosives and loving on everyone in the room. He is a lot of things, but he is not an attack dog.” Ree rubbed her stomach in the way that pregnant women sometimes did. She probably didn’t even notice it. It was a good reminder of why Stefanie was doing what she was doing.

  Stefanie cleared her throat. “Maybe you should take a cue from him and work on being nice to everyone in the room rather than antagonizing your sister.”

  “Aw, but what fun is that? And seriously, you should have heard Mom digging for details when I first met Parker. And she didn’t even know he was FBI.”

  Stefanie rubbed her neck. “You know what, I’m finally starting to think that facing a crowd of Dmitri’s minions will be less stressful than this conversation.”

  “Love you too, Sis.”

  “It’s a good thing because, after all of this, you so owe me.”

  Ree’s voice turned serious. “I do. And thank you for putting yourself through this. Seriously, be careful.”

  Stefanie and Ree had long considered sarcasm and light-hearted teasing their love language. Ree’s sincerity quickly generated an intense pressure in her chest. She breathed out. “Ree. If something happens to me, I love you. Take care of your little baby.”

  “No. Don’t. None of that.” The words came quickly, as they often did when she was nervous. “You have Joey, Alexis, Matt, and Waffle at your back. I know Matt doesn’t always speak up, but the man would drive a tank to your office if he thought you were in danger.”

  Stefanie chuckled. “Something tells me you aren’t kidding.”

  “I’m not.” She paused. “When is your business meeting?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll rip the metaphorical bandage off and then, hopefully, we can all move on with our lives.”

  17

  The following morning, with half an hour left before she needed to leave for work, Stefanie leaned against her kitchen counter and wrapped her hands around a warm cup of coffee. She needed something to perk her up and tea would not do the trick today. She checked the time again. Still twenty-nine minutes to go. She would meet Joey at the building, despite her desire to drive to his house and carpool so she wouldn’t go in unprotected. It was amazing how quickly her wishful thinking that they were all overreacting had shifted into the same level of caution as her government-issued bodyguards. Unfortunately, the shift had taken its toll on her nerves. She put her empty coffee mug in the sink and poured what was left in the coffee pot into a travel mug. Half a lifetime later, when she was sure Joey would beat her to the building, she left. Her drive was unremarkable and her morning typical, the outside world seemingly unaware of the invisible tug-of-war taking place inside of her head. She managed to make it to her office and sort a slew of new emails in record time.

  Stefanie decided to wait until she’d finished the coffee in her travel mug before approaching Joey. See, she could act as if things were normal. She lifted her mug for another sip and was surprised to find it empty. It was time. Ignoring her shaking hands, she straightened out her shirt and walked into the lab where Nash and Joey were working.

  Nash rose and wiped his hands on a cloth. “Morning, boss. Our customers here yet?”

  “Good morning, Nash. No, they’re coming after lunch.” She pointed her thumb at Joey. “Putting this guy to work?”

  “You know it.”

  Stefanie looked at Joey. “You regret volunteering to work here yet?”

  “Not a bit.” Joey grinned. “Is Cole stopping by again today?”

  That was their signal. Stefanie gave the pre-planned response that indicated no one had done anything suspicious yet. “No, he’s out of the office.” Stefanie raised an eyebrow. “Are you two trying to get rid of me already?”

  Nash put his hands in the air. “No way. If you’re gone, I report to Cole. And he is way too busy flying all over the place to deal with me.” He leaned forward. “Plus, and you didn’t hear it from me, Cole has no business turning a wrench in my lab.”

  Joey tightened one last bolt and placed the wrench on the workbench. “Ouch. Let me know if he says that about me when I’m not in the room.”

  “Not likely. At least you’re actually helpful. Cole asked me if he could look at a transmitter well over a month ago and he still hasn’t brought it back.” Nash shook his head. “It’s not like I can ask my boss’s boss if he’s done pretending he understands what we do.”

  Stefanie smiled a tight smile as her heart began to pound. It was the transmitter. Cole said it had been found on the ship, not that he’d borrowed it from the lab. She hadn’t been imagining the additional signal on her first trip out. But why did Cole lie to her? Behind Nash’s back, Joey raised his eyebrows. Good. He noticed her alarm. Finally realizing she’d paused for a non-normal period of time, she crossed her arms. “What have I told you about not scaring the new people?”

  “I shouldn’t scare the new people.” Nash hung his head in mock sincerity. “But Joey doesn’t scare easily, do you, Joe?”

  The question sucked the breath right out of Stefanie’s lungs, but Joey didn’t seem to notice. “Not that easily. Hey, Peggy said something about you bringing a dog in today?”

  “Oh yeah, that.” Stefanie managed to project some light annoyance. “Well, apparently the Board of Directors hired some consultants who told us we need to be making more of an effort to appear like a rising company and find new, innovative ways to attract top talent. And snap a few pictures for the website.”

  Nash scrunched up his nose. “Ew. We paid someone to tell us that? Joey here is willing to work for free. We must be doing something right. Although I’m not going to complain about a dog in the office. I love dogs.”

  “Well, Joey is getting paid, we’re just not the ones writing the check.” Stefanie gave him a half-smile. “Anyway, I have a friend in the area who is trying out this rent-a-dog program. You know how some companies have pets? Basically, she’s offering a service where you can dog-share for a few days a week and pay for the privilege.”

  “And we spent our lab budget on borrowing a dog?” Nash rubbed the back of his neck.

  Stefanie raised her hands defensively. “Nope. She’s doing it purely to get her name out there. A doggy billboard, if you will. Bad news is that I committed to her before we found out we’d have customers. Can you guys keep an eye on the dog if I need your help? I’m assuming they’re sending some kind of purse-sized dog. It has to be a breed that travels easily.” Stefanie deliberately misstated Waffle’s information. She didn’t need to look like she’d rehearsed the story countless times with Alexis.

  Nash and Joey exchanged a look. If Stefanie didn’t know better, she might not have known he was in on it. Joey shrugged. “Will fur hurt your parts?”

  Nash scanned the room. “Should be okay today. As long as he isn’t radioactive.” Nash held up one of the lab’s Geiger counters, used to monitor water near nuclear plants. “I just finished the bracket on this one, so it can be snapped in whenever a customer wants it. In fact, everything I have on our demo platform should be streaming data to your phone.” Nash snapped the Geiger counter into the nearly complete platform with a flourish.

  Stefanie checked the custom app. None of the readings were particularly informative, since the sensors just sitting on a table, but the data was updating automatically as if she were streaming it from one of their buoys. Soon, the readout from the Geiger counter appeared on the app, showing tiny levels of background radiation. “Nice. That is an excellent proof of concept.”

  “You can use it to impress our newest clients. All sensors should be reading out to your phone now. You can show them as much or as little as you’d like.”

  * * *

  Once Stefani
e left the room, Nash eyed Joey curiously. Joey kept his head down. He’d been working to conceal his increasing comfort with Stefanie, but maybe he hadn’t done as much as he should have. Nash nodded at the place she’d just been standing. “I wouldn’t go there. At least until this thing wraps up.”

  Joey stilled. Was he talking about the internship or something else? “I think you’ve got me all wrong.”

  Nash put away a small wrench he’d been using, taking his time to reply. “I don’t usually get people wrong. There’s something going on, even if it’s one-sided. We look out for each other here.”

  Joey tensed. Was Nash in on all of this? Joey shrugged and threw out a red herring. “I’m…interested. But I’m not dumb enough to act on it until this internship is over. Then, well, who knows? I don’t want to mess up an opportunity to work here later, either. It’s so hard to get your foot in the door until you have experience.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. I started here right after school and just never left. A lot of my friends have struggled with that, though.”

  Joey pretended to care about the bracket components Nash had given him to work on earlier in the morning, then looked up. “How did you find this place? It’s not exactly one of the tech giants.”

  “I had a professor at college who knew the OEG was looking for someone. It’s nice to have Stef on board now, though. To be honest, I was a little worried when Cole got hired – he had a lot of spit and polish and I thought he wouldn’t know his stuff. But he was smart enough to hire Stefanie, so that’s good. I like what I do and I’m good at it, but she’s better at packaging our work to make it more accessible to management. And she’s got the experience to help us get more papers published and give the company more clout. The more clout we have, the more toys I can buy for the lab.” Nash waggled his eyebrows and rummaged through the drawers until he pulled out a tiny screwdriver.

  Joey wanted to press for the source of Nash’s employment, but it didn’t especially matter. Everything kept coming back to Cole. Unfortunately, Cole wasn’t around today. “So, if I want to come back, I suppose I have to talk more with Cole. What’s his deal? Is he as nice as he seems?”

  “He can be.” Nash shrugged. “But he mostly just does all the meet and greets with investors, customers, and all of that, so we can focus on the work. He’s a tough interviewer because he wants to make sure we can operate well enough without him when he’s not here.”

  “Who is Cole’s boss?

  Nash shook his head. “Some President of Technology or whatever title he has. I don’t really work with him much. Honestly, I barely see Cole.”

  “Oh?” Joey felt himself start to clench his fist but forced himself to relax it. He was getting closer.

  “Yeah, he’s busy so he sometimes sends communications through Peggy.” Peggy was the woman at the front desk. The CIA had been monitoring her emails and phone calls and they hadn’t spotted anything worthwhile yet. Maybe they should take a closer look at her too.

  “This place gets more interesting every single day I’m here.” Joey turned back to the equipment he was supposed to be assembling.

  There was a long pause before Nash replied. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to think about it.”

  Nash and Joey worked in companionable silence for the rest of the morning. Around the time Joey typically left for lunch, he stopped into Stefanie’s office. She was leaning into a notepad, scribbling. Her brow was fully furrowed, and she whipped her head up at his entry. He closed the door behind him. “You ready?”

  Stefanie swallowed. Generally, and certainly this morning, she had the easy mannerisms of a practiced and confident professional. It was only in the moments when he caught her off guard that he realized how hard she worked to maintain it. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Hey, a couple of weeks ago, I detected a weird signal that Cole said came from an extra transmitter on the ship. Today, Nash said Cole had borrowed it – but he wasn’t on the trip that day.”

  Joey’s eyebrows shot up. “Hm, that’s at least a little suspicious. What could he do with an extra transmitter?”

  “Deploy another research platform, I guess.” Stefanie crossed her arms. “That had to have been what I detected. Who knows what’s on it? It doesn’t tell us anything, other than my new boss bamboozled me into thinking he was honest. How was I so gullible?”

  Joey gave her a sympathetic smile. “Some people are extraordinarily good at putting on a show. I’d give you a longer pep talk, but your customers are coming soon. Let’s see if we can figure out if they’re the reason Cole wanted that extra transmitter.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Fine.” Stefanie forced her mouth into a line. “Everything will be fine. We’ll chat with them, figure out what they’re up to, and it’ll be fine.”

  Joey closed the distance between them. “You know, Nonna Gina always says that the more times you say something is fine, the less likely it is to be true.”

  Stefanie closed her eyes. “Nonna Gina is pretty smart. What would she say about you giving me the earpiece I was promised so we can get this over with?” She opened her eyes and held out her hand.

  Joey laughed. “She’d like you – she isn’t any good at sitting around worrying about a problem either.” He placed a small device in her palm and when she stared at it curiously, he pulled one out of his own ear and showed her how to place it. “Need some help?”

  Stefanie raised an eyebrow. “Are you hitting on me?”

  Joey grinned. “Do you want me to? I was just trying to help you stay safe from Dmitri’s spies, but I can multitask.”

  Alexis’s voice came through Joey’s earpiece loud and clear. “Your mic is hot. We heard that.”

  Joey cleared his throat, thankful Stefanie hadn’t. Stefanie blushed a little, then wiggled the earpiece into position without his help. She moved her jaw up and down, trying to get a feel for it. She poked at the earpiece one more time, then left it alone. Joey spoke into his and she gave him a thumbs up. He heard his own voice in stereo in his earpiece. “Okay, we’re good to go. Now we just need one bomb-sniffing dog.”

  “Roger that.” Alexis’s voice came through again. “Waffle and I are on our way.”

  A minute later, Stefanie’s phone beeped and Peggy’s voice came through the line. “Stefanie, you have a visitor. Did you order us a dog? Oh, my goodness. He has his own badge!”

  Joey gave her a silent high five motion, stopping before making contact. She pushed the button to talk back. “I did! Thanks, Peggy. I’ll be right out.”

  * * *

  Stefanie walked into the lobby and found a woman she only barely recognized. Alexis was wearing a ball cap, a very convincing curly brown wig, and what looked like maybe even a nose prosthetic. She held a clipboard out for Stefanie to sign. “This is Waffle. He’s been fed and had bathroom breaks. He should be good until we pick him up in a few hours. If not, we’ve included a leash, along with treats and some toys in his bag. We hope you enjoy your time with the Bay Area Barks Employee of the Month!”

  Peggy watched Waffle with unmasked joy. Joey could think whatever he wanted, but Peggy’s affinity for Waffle certainly made her less likely to be a criminal in Stefanie’s mind. She brought Waffle back to her office where Joey was waiting. Waffle tapped his nose into Joey’s hand, a doggy version of hello, then worked his way around Stefanie’s office. When he didn’t alert, she brought him out to the lab area where Nash stopped to give him a pat and Stefanie kept walking him, telling Nash that she was giving Waffle a chance to smell everything so he could settle down.

  Stefanie returned to her office with Joey close behind. She shut the door and praised Waffle until Peggy’s voice came through on her intercom. “Stefanie, your customers are here.”

  She pressed a button. “Be right out.”

  Stefanie looked Joey up and down. “You’re armed, right?” Joey nodded and Waffle wagged his tail. Stefanie held him by his leash. “I’m going to go out and work him around the new visitors, then I’ll bring him back to yo
u.”

  At the sound of the word “work,” Waffle looked back at her and gave her what she could only assume was the dog version of a wide smile. He lowered his nose to the ground and stayed close while they went back to the lobby. Waffle didn’t alert on his way out and also didn’t tug the leash. There were three strangers in the lobby, looking a bit bored and somewhat impatient, but not particularly suspicious.

  Stefanie greeted them all and they eyed the dog curiously. She introduced herself and Waffle, who trotted around the lobby in his Bay Area Barks vest. Fredrick’s English was impeccable and German accent quite subtle compared to her expectations. He was probably in his late forties and wore well-tailored jeans and a button-down shirt. Oliver had a thick Australian accent and an affable nature. He was dressed a little more formally than Fredrick. Tony was middle-aged and friendly, with an accent that indicated he was from somewhere in the Midwest. Tony carried a large briefcase and the others held laptop bags. They all seemed personable, although a little stiff around each other. Maybe they were a new team?

  Waffle sniffed around each person like any dog might, but when he reached Tony’s briefcase, he lay down. Laying down could only mean one thing. Stefanie pushed back the fear in her stomach and pulled Waffle’s red reward toy out of the bag as if trying to coax him up off the floor. He jumped up and grabbed it from her hand. He stayed close to her, somehow sensing her fear. She gestured for the new crew to follow her, panic filling her lungs. “Silly dog, just laying down in the middle of the lobby. Let me pick up one of my coworkers and we’ll regroup in the meeting room.”

  The three men who had arrived nodded agreeably, and the lack of reaction in the face of Waffle’s conclusion left her confused. She’d half expected her FBI counterparts to storm the lobby or the consultants to panic, but instead, everything proceeded as if nothing unusual had happened.