Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2)

by Paula Altenburg

  Kale feigned an indifference he didn’t feel, reluctant to reveal how much his team leader’s decision mattered to him. This definitely wasn’t the time to tell Dan to mind his own damn business about Kale’s relationship with Irina.

  A group of adolescent boys carrying matching kit bags with team logos passed in front of the car, laughing and pushing each other as they headed for the entrance to the pool.

  “I’ve already established a cover,” he said, watching as the boys shoved their way through the doors, each jockeying for first place. “Someone new would have to come in and start over fresh. Why not send another intelligence officer to London?”

  “I don’t have anyone else who knows both Farsi and Arabic.” Dan’s careful expression said he had more to say. Kale waited for it. “I could buy you two weeks. In return you’d have to convince Dr. Glasov to hack into the RBN for CSIS and tell us what’s going on.”

  “If you’re trying to bribe me you should know that what you’re offering isn’t a carrot. It’s a stick.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Martin. I’m not stupid. We both know you’re still sleeping with her. If you weren’t you’d have your bags packed and be halfway to London by now. Two weeks,” he repeated. “Take it or leave it.”

  He was going to take it, but it wasn’t nearly enough time. “Why not have CSEC do the dirty work for you?”

  “Because we don’t want the minister’s office to find out what’s going on,” Dan reminded him. “We also don’t want to leave a trail leading back to the Canadian government.” He handed Kale a thumb drive. “This is a ghost VPN. I’m assured it’s so secure that Dr. Glasov can be in and out of any network, no matter where it is, and no one will ever know she was there. Even if she’s caught, under the circumstances no one would question her motives for hacking into the RBN. The Russians might question ours though, since the FSB uses the RBN for some of its cyber operations.”

  More and more, Kale didn’t like what he was hearing. The FSB was the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation—the Russian equivalent of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “Say she’s in, she’s not caught, but she finds nothing. What happens to her after the two weeks are up? What if there aren’t any new leads?” Who would protect her?

  Dan’s gaze narrowed. “We aren’t a babysitting service. She’s being harassed, yes, but so far everything’s been personal and that’s not our problem. Other than her email list getting spammed there’s no real proof anyone’s after her designs. She hasn’t been physically threatened either. We’ll tap her phone and monitor her travel. The RCMP will be directed to have someone keep an eye on her house for a few months in case things escalate. That’s the best we can do.”

  Kale had never been one of those guys who could turn the safety of the people he cared about over to others. And he did care about Irina. Not only was two weeks not long enough to find out who was cyberstalking her and why, he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t have grown tired of her by the end of them. He doubted if she’d be done with him either. Not if last night was any indicator. But he had no real choice in the matter. His main work was anti-terrorism not espionage. Two weeks was all he had.

  This was why he tried to keep his relationships casual. Good-byes could be messy and he hated being the bad guy.

  He slid the thumb drive into his pocket. “I’ll see what I can do but she was pretty adamant about not wanting to have anything to do with the RBN. She’s a weapons systems placement designer not an Internet security expert. She sure as hell isn’t a spy.”

  Dan opened the car door and got out. He leaned his head in. “I have faith in you. After all, you talked her into bed. Try using some more of that charm. If you can’t keep it zipped you might as well put it to good use.”

  “You’re a dick,” Kale said.

  Dan laughed. He patted the roof of the car. “I’ll see you in London in two weeks.”

  Traffic was light on the highway as Kale drove back to the airport to pick up Irina. When he arrived there were only two other cars in the parking lot.

  He glanced at the dashboard clock. He was a few minutes late. She wasn’t at the door waiting for him, meaning she’d gotten immersed in her work, and he had no idea when she might resurface. He rolled the windows down, cranked up the radio, and reclined his seat, getting comfortable. It could be worse. At least she wasn’t a shopper. Keeping tabs on her in a crowd would be a nightmare.

  At 1:17 she emerged.

  Rather than get out of the car to help carry her laptop as he normally would he stayed where he was and watched her approach. God, she was pretty. He couldn’t decide if it was good luck that he’d been assigned to her or a personal disaster. Two weeks were nothing.

  She’d tucked loose waves of her long, light brown hair behind her ears. A casual breeze tossed the tendrils so that she had to capture her hair with her free hand to keep it from tangling in knots. Over a pair of pale gray, conservative shorts she wore a cropped, darker gray sweatshirt, perfectly acceptable weekend office attire. A stack of silver bangles jangled from the slender wrist of the hand gripping her laptop.

  It was hard to get his head around a woman who looked like a timid pixie possessing the kind of intelligence she did. It was harder still to imagine her panting his name while he was deep inside her, his pants around his ankles and her back pressed to a wall, and yet that had happened. He hated the possibility of any harm coming to her. He didn’t want to think about the two week time frame he was working with either.

  The thumb drive burned a hole in his pocket. His gut and his conscience told him it was wrong to ask her to hack into the RBN. She was a scientist not a spy. She knew full well what the risks of such an action were, probably better than he did. If CSIS was going to “shine a light on her,” as Dan had put it, then Kale would far rather that light come from the Minister of Defence’s office than Russian organized crime. In her line of work the FSB would be equally bad. Either way her professional reputation could take a serious beating.

  She put her laptop in the backseat before joining him in the front of the car. He took one look at those long-lashed green eyes as she fished for the seat belt and his stomach constricted. Something had happened. Her whole body language was too stiff.

  So much for his good luck. This day had been headed straight to hell from the get-go.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Another pop-up on my work computer.” She latched the seat belt with a loud click. Her fingers were shaking and she refused to meet his gaze. “I managed to get rid of it, at least for now. I don’t think it spread. I have no idea if it will come back though.”

  Her voice was quiet. Controlled and remote. Very much Dr. Glasov and he didn’t like it. It meant she was furious and the most likely target was him. The constriction in his stomach spread to his lungs. His heart pummeled his ribs. If she’d gone to the trouble of removing a pop-up after explaining to him that the company she was working for had their own IT security protocol for such things, then he had a good idea what it contained.

  “I can explain,” he said.

  “I doubt it. But you’re welcome to give it a shot.”

  While he didn’t blame her for being angry he wasn’t getting into a fight with her in the parking lot of her workplace. There were security cameras everywhere and she had a professional reputation to protect. He preferred to take this somewhere she couldn’t walk away from him either, but that would still be discreet. He couldn’t imagine Irina—and especially not Dr. Glasov—making a public scene.

  He brought his seat upright and turned the key in the ignition. “We’ll talk over lunch.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The fifty minute drive to the Annapolis Valley region of the province was nerve-wracking, at least from Kale’s perspective.

  Irina was silent which meant she was thinking. No good ever came of that. It would help if he knew how bad that video was, but he wasn’t about to incriminate himself further
by asking the wrong questions. There was the possibility that he might be wrong—that the pop-up wasn’t of them in her living room at a really bad time and in a few eyebrow-raising positions. He’d let her do the talking so he could get a sense of how best to proceed.

  But so far she wasn’t talking.

  He took Exit 10 off the highway onto a main road that meandered through quaint towns and field after rolling field of apple trees and grape vines. After another ten minutes of silence he turned into the drive of the winery he’d chosen for a late lunch. Acres of vineyard stretched uphill toward the base of the North Mountain, which formed a natural barricade against the high tides of the Bay of Fundy on the far side.

  The mid-August heat body-slammed them as they got out of the air-conditioned car. The air was humid and heavy, filled with the smells of irrigated earth and the flowers scattered in beds around the winery buildings and paths. They walked a shrouded, rock-walled lane to the restaurant positioned behind the outlet wine store.

  It was shortly after two o’clock and the main part of the restaurant was empty. The hostess led them to a cozy table near a rustic stone hearth. While they looked at the menus Kale ordered a coffee for him and tea for Irina. Once they were alone he broke the silence. She’d had more than enough time to think. He wanted to know what was going on inside her head.

  “If I’ve done something wrong, then tell me straight up. The silent treatment is a little junior high, don’t you think?”

  She looked up from her menu, blinking those lovely green eyes. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Because she’d skipped junior high. She could be so deadpan sometimes. He fought back a smile of relief. She didn’t sound as if she were still angry but it was difficult to tell. She didn’t always react the way he’d expect.

  “Why don’t you tell me about the new pop-up?” he prompted her.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you didn’t see fit to mention the surveillance camera aimed at my living room window?” she countered. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t know about it before we had sex on my sofa with the curtains wide open.”

  There went any hope he’d harbored, slight as it was, that he’d been mistaken about the pop-up’s subject matter. She was most definitely still angry about it too. At least she hadn’t mentioned that he’d been the one to encourage her to leave those curtains drawn back. That was a positive sign.

  “I didn’t know. I swear. Once I found the camera I reported it. We decided to leave it in place so whoever put it there wouldn’t be scared off. We hoped they might come back for it. So far they haven’t.” He played with his knife, weighing the risks of trying to lighten the mood. What the hell. He might as well go all in. “Out of curiosity. Did the video make me look fat?”

  She cast him a look only diminished in its death ray effect by a stream of sunlight that captured the light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “And to think I’m the one being too junior high.”

  Oh yeah. She was mad.

  “Look on the bright side. That computer degree came in handy. You got rid of the pop-up before anyone else saw it,” he said.

  “The degree works best when you’re causing the chaos, not doing damage control. I only got rid of one instance of it. Once things go online they’re out there forever. Don’t forget someone still has the original too.” She crumpled her cloth napkin between her fingers, then smoothed it out flat. “The quality is poor and our faces aren’t clear. While our mothers might recognize us it would never stand up in court. That’s the one positive in all this.”

  He should have known she’d be practical once she got over the shock. Letting her have that time in the car to think had been the right thing to do after all. “I guess that explains why I’m still alive.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “No it isn’t,” he admitted.

  He sat back in his chair. He’d gotten his personal and professional lives intertwined and while he felt guilty as hell about digging her deeper into a situation already disturbing to her, he had a problem now too. Thanks to her fancy degrees and an impressive list of peers her professional reputation would likely survive a poor quality sex tape. His employer might not be as willing to overlook it and being forced to take a desk job would kill him. He was a field agent.

  “You aren’t alone in that video, Irina. This might come as a surprise, all things considered, but I’m not into exhibitionism. Or voyeurism for that matter. What goes on between two consenting adults is nobody else’s business. I don’t need the whole world sizing my junk or judging my performance. And yeah. This impacts my career so I’m angry too.” He might not be an exhibitionist or into voyeurism, but he seized opportunities when they arose. If he was ever going to get her to hack into the RBN this was his chance. He had to push the right buttons. “I want them stopped as badly as you do.”

  The waitress returned with their coffee and tea. They placed their meal orders and she gathered the menus before once again leaving them alone.

  Irina lifted the small silver pot the waitress had left beside her napkin and poured a stream of steaming orange pekoe into a white porcelain cup. A frown marred her brow. “We don’t know what whoever’s behind this is after. We don’t know who they are. Why hasn’t CSIS used their resources to go online after them by now?”

  “About that,” Kale began, uneasy again. She still believed he was here in an official capacity. He was and he wasn’t. He didn’t know if she’d fully appreciate the subtleties of that distinction. “I met with my team leader this morning. He claims CSIS doesn’t want anyone on the other side of the RBN to track their activity back to the Canadian government. The Russian government is known to use the RBN too. It could be viewed as an act of hostility.”

  “Posting porn videos of unsuspecting participants isn’t hostile? Doesn’t the fact that the RBN is being used to harass a Canadian citizen mean anything? Especially one who does the work I do?” Her frown deepened into suspicion. “CSIS could have been monitoring activity from this end, but it’s obvious they’re not. What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He dodged the question. “CSIS wants you to hack into the RBN for them. You have the right security clearances already in place.”

  She laughed without mirth. “I get the importance of international relations. I understand why they don’t want to do it themselves. The difference, however, is that the person doing the hacking at CSIS would be faceless. I’m not. It’s my life and reputation on the line.”

  “You’re being dramatic.” Guilt pinched his conscience as he pushed another button. She was the least dramatic person he knew.

  Her gaze sharpened. “I disagree.”

  She was trying to decide what game he was playing. Or more likely what team he was on. He withdrew the thumb drive from his pocket and set it on the table between them. “You’d be anonymous. They gave you a ghost VPN.”

  She didn’t pick it up. Hurt filled her eyes as she figured out he was Team CSIS, and his gut wrenched. He had no choice. He wasn’t so much Team CSIS as Team Doing-What’s-Right.

  “One they could use themselves,” she said, quick to recover. “Or anyone could use. I find it hard to believe a spy agency doesn’t have better-trained cyber security resources than me. So why ask me to do it? What do they hope to accomplish?” She folded her arms on the table and leaned toward him. “It isn’t anything that will benefit me. If they were truly interested in my welfare we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

  While he didn’t like spilling government secrets Kale was going to have to be more upfront with her. She was being asked to do what amounted as a favor to CSIS on faith. She was too smart to accept one-sided terms without a reasonable explanation, and yet he couldn’t tell her about the possible connection between the RBN and another, higher priority case.

  He returned the thumb drive to his pocket. “There’s been a security breach at CSIS. Any new cases are being vetted by the departm
ent’s director before information can be passed on. We can’t ask CSEC—the Communications Security Establishment of Canada—to assist, which is what we’d normally do. They’re the ones with the cyber security talent. And that right there is more than I’m authorized to tell you,” he said lightly. “Don’t make me have to kill you.”

  She didn’t respond to his feeble attempt at a joke. Of course not. She’d never be deflected by humor. She’d be focused more on the information he gave her and sifting out what was important. He waited for the explosion when she drew her conclusions.

  Their lunches arrived. He dug into pan fried halibut and roasted red potatoes. Irina’s garden salad remained untouched in front of her.

  She settled her napkin on her lap. “CSIS doesn’t believe I have a real problem,” she said. “This whole time the only action they’ve taken, based on what I’ve told you, has been to get you to go bowling with me.”

  He took as long as he could to chew a mouthful of food, choosing his next words with caution. “I’m here aren’t I? They know who you are. Until this security breach at the agency is sorted out though, pop-ups and botnets that don’t have access to sensitive documents simply aren’t high priorities for them.”

  “Then why are you still here? To convince me to do CSIS’s work for them? What if I won’t do it? How much longer will you stick around if I say no?”

  He set his fork on the edge of his plate. The conversation kept teetering on the edge of professional and personal, something he wasn’t used to. This was another good reason to keep those two areas separate in his life from now on. Lesson learned—although far too late in this particular instance. He didn’t know how she felt, but for his part he had no wish to extricate himself from their personal relationship yet. She had layers that he liked exploring. She was smart. Too smart for him really. She made him think. And while hardly a risk taker she was pretty and sweet, adventurous and fun in her own quiet way.