“No. I’m just a civilian. We were just working together on this one thing.”
He frowned, and I could see him considering and discarding possibilities. “But Kane got the gun for ya?”
“Yes.”
“So maybe he knew he wasn’t gonna be around to protect ya?”
I almost doubled over at the sudden pain. I barely managed a whisper. “Maybe.”
“Aw, darlin’.” My pain was mirrored on his face when he took my hand.
Suddenly, I just couldn’t think about it anymore. I put the glass on the nightstand and pulled him to me. I kissed him hard, ignoring the pain from my bruised lips. “Arnie, I’ll understand if you’re not in the mood,” I whispered. “But I really need to forget about everything for a while. If you can.”
He kissed me gently. “But you’re so beat up. I can’t even touch ya without hurtin’ ya.”
“I don’t care. You can’t hurt me more than I’m hurting already.”
He looked deeply into my eyes. “Well, now, darlin’, I guess that’s true.”
His hands moved softly over my aching body. When we lay together afterward, the pillow was damp with tears.
The drive back to Silverside seemed even longer than the previous day’s trip, and it was not improved by the knowledge that I’d have to do it again the next morning. Early.
When I got back to the house, I found a message from Spider on my answering machine. It sounded as though his cold was worse. His voice was so hoarse that if he hadn’t said who it was, I would never have guessed.
When I called his cell phone, he picked up on the first ring. “Aydan?”
“Yeah, hi, Spider,” I mumbled. “Sorry I missed your call.”
“Aydan...” His voice broke. “What... Where are you?”
“I’m home now. I went down to Calgary to tell Arnie about John.”
He seemed to be having trouble holding his voice steady. “I’m... glad you went to him. Stemp said you’d gone on an errand and you’d be back today. I...” He paused again. “There’s another file in the system. I got an alert.”
Slow nausea crept through my stomach. “When?”
“Yesterday morning about eight o’clock.”
Kane was still alive at that time. I refused to believe he’d sent it. “I need to see it. Are you in today?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Sitting in my office at Sirius Dynamics, I stared blankly across the room. I couldn’t believe Kane would never come through that doorway again. His reassuring presence gone from the sim forever. Who would pour me into a bucket and carry me out? Who would fight through swamps and snakes, and pull open the bars of the cage for me?
I sucked in an unsteady breath and blew it out slowly as I reached for the phone. This wasn’t helping. I’d always taken care of myself. I’d just have to get used to it again.
As I dialled Spider’s extension, he appeared in the doorway. I surveyed him with horrified sympathy as I hung up the receiver. His eyes were reddened and deeply shadowed and his shoulders sagged as if their own weight was more than he could bear.
“Oh, Spider.” Without thinking, I went to him and held him. He buried his face in my shoulder and sobbed like a child. I swung the door shut with my foot to give him some privacy, and my own eyes brimmed with unshed tears while I stroked his hair and let him cry it out.
When he finally subsided into hoarse hiccups, I guided him to the couch and sat beside him with the tissue box. At last, he turned a ravaged face to me.
“I thought you were going to die,” he whispered. “And then Kane...” He buried his face in his hands. “This is awful,” he quavered. “I hate this.”
“I know.” I rubbed his back gently. “I hate it, too.”
“Stemp said he was a traitor.” He spoke without looking at me, his voice muffled by his hands.
“Stemp’s a liar.”
“Really?” This time he did look at me, his face reflecting desperate hope.
“Spider, I believe with all my heart that Kane was loyal. I don’t have any proof, but that’s what I believe. Let’s prove it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Let’s look at that new file for starters.”
“Okay.” He handed me the network key and opened up his laptop. “I’m glad you believe... believed in him, too. I know it doesn’t matter now, but...” His voice quavered into silence.
“It matters,” I told him fiercely. “It still matters.”
The new file turned out to be exactly what I’d expected. It was marked urgent, and it said I would be executed at the dump site the previous morning. I spoke to Spider through the network interface.
“Well, this is actually good news.”
“Why?” He sounded thoroughly dejected.
“Because now we know for sure our leak is somebody with a top-level security clearance. You only found out I was supposed to be executed yesterday morning, right?”
“Yes... Just about an hour before you called me yesterday. The memo was there when I got in. That’s why I was in such bad shape, and I had to pretend I had a cold because everybody had strict orders not to discuss it or let you know anything was going on.”
“So there wouldn’t have been time for our leak to talk to anybody else. He’d have to have sent this message himself. And Stemp said he’d put surveillance cameras in place at the internet cafe the day before yesterday. All we need is those surveillance records.”
“Right!” Spider’s voice regained some energy. “I can get those.”
“Now?”
“No, I’ll have to find out from Stemp where the records are being stored.”
Ugly suspicion reared its head. “Don’t bother, then, Spider,” I said as casually as I could. “We can get them later. Right now I need a break and a snack. I’m coming out.”
I stepped through the portal slowly, but the pain still made me swear and whimper. When I finally straightened and let go of my head, I avoided Spider’s concerned gaze and dragged myself to my feet.
“Come on, Spider, let’s go to the Melted Spoon.”
“I’m not really hungry,” he demurred. “I’ll just wait here for you.”
Shit.
I sighed and let my shoulders sag. It didn’t require much acting skill. “Spider... I’m sorry to be a pain, but I could really use some company.” I let my voice tremble a bit, and he looked up with instant sympathy. I knew I could count on his soft heart.
“I’ll come with you, then. I could use a walk. I’ll just drop the key off downstairs on the way.”
At our table at the Melted Spoon, I pulled out a pen and scribbled on a napkin. “Spider, I was thinking about making some changes to my program. What do you think about this?”
I pushed the napkin over to him, and he frowned at it for a moment while he read my note. He met my eyes cautiously. “I think that might work.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew his scanning device. I held my breath while he activated it.
“Clear.” He leaned forward over the table. “Why the note? What’s going on?”
“I was afraid we might be bugged or under surveillance at Sirius. Or here.”
“Surveillance for sure at Sirius, that’s company policy. Probably bugs, too, and the network is monitored.”
“I’m afraid to discuss anything about this leak while we’re inside Sirius. If it’s somebody with a high-level clearance, they’ll be able to listen in on everything we say.”
Spider’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Crap. Oh.” Comprehension dawned on his face. “That’s why you told me not to bother with the surveillance records.”
“Yes. Can you hack them instead?”
He sat back smugly in his chair. “I can hack anything.”
I laughed. “Anybody else, I’d accuse of boasting. You, I believe. How soon can you get them?”
“Gee, I just happen to have my laptop with me.” He set it on the table between us.
“You alw
ays have your laptop with you,” I teased him. “It’s a permanent part of your body.”
“Uh-huh.” His fingers flew across the keyboard, and my heart eased as the sparkle came back into his eyes.
I sipped my tea and nibbled my muffin while he worked away, utterly absorbed. I was just draining the last few drops of lukewarm tea when he straightened.
“Here we go.” He turned the screen so we could both see, and brought up a surveillance record. “This is from yesterday morning, starting at seven A.M. when the cafe opened.”
We watched the fast-forward intently and my heart plummeted when Kane’s massive shoulders temporarily blocked the camera. “Stop there!”
Spider punched a key and we exchanged a sick look as he rewound and then played the record forward. We watched Kane sit down at a terminal. He worked for a few minutes before rising to leave.
My hands were shaking. I peeled my tongue loose from my dry mouth. “What time was that?” My voice came out in a whisper.
“Seven-thirty.” Spider’s voice was full of relief. “Too early. The file wasn’t sent until eight-ten.”
“Oh.” It came out sounding like a sob, and I quickly added, “Good. Keep going. Go a little slower now. This is our critical timeframe.”
“This is starting at eight o’clock. I’ll run it at regular speed.” His fingers flew across the keyboard again, and we exchanged glances while the video ran. He paused it at the eight-twenty mark, and we stared at each other.
“Shit.” I rubbed the frown wrinkles out of my forehead. “What are the chances that three top-level Sirius people would be there at the same damn time?”
I peered at the screen again. “Can you tell what they’re doing?”
“No. But I think Mike Connor spends most of his waking hours there. He was just getting into World of Warcraft when I met him in March, and he’s been going crazy on it ever since. But we investigated him in March, and he came up clean.”
“Well, I don’t believe Germain would rat me out,” I said firmly. “It’s got to be Stemp, dammit, I know it! He’s such a slimy sonuvabitch!”
Spider turned an anxious face to me. “He’s the director. It can’t be him.”
“Well, it’s got to be somebody. And I don’t trust him any further than I can throw him. A lot less, in fact. He’d lie to you as soon as look at you.”
“Yes, but...” Spider’s voice trailed off. “But I just don’t dare think of the ramifications if the director himself is corrupt.”
“Better start daring,” I said grimly.
“But he put the cameras in himself,” Spider argued. “He’d have to be an idiot to go in there and send that file when he knew he’d show up on the video.”
“That guy’s so twisty, he could make it look like anything he wanted.” I rubbed my forehead again, feeling the precursors of what promised to be a whopper of a headache. “Well, until further notice, we’ll have to consider Stemp, Germain, and Connor under suspicion.”
Spider’s face fell. “I really hate this.”
“Me, too. Let’s go, we’ve already taken too long a coffee break. We don’t want anybody to get suspicious.”
As we walked back to Sirius, I turned to Spider. “Hey, Spider, can you sneak me one of those scanning devices?”
“I thought you didn’t want one.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Okay.”
My headache fulfilled its potential after a couple more hours in the network, and I groaned as Spider and I walked down to the main lobby to turn in our security fobs. “God, I’m not looking forward to a two-hour drive tomorrow morning.”
“Oh. Are you going...” Spider gulped. “Are you going to the funeral?”
“Of course. I fly out tomorrow morning at eight-fifteen.”
“Germain and I got a flight at eight. Do you want to ride down with us?”
“Depends, when are you coming back?”
“We leave Winnipeg on Sunday at two-thirty.”
I sighed relief. “In that case, yes, I’d definitely like to ride with you. I leave at one-fifty, so I’ll just hang around the Calgary airport until you guys get in. Oh, and can I ride with you in Winnipeg, too? I was going to bum a ride with Hellhound, but he went out this afternoon, and he’s not coming back until Monday.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks, Spider, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Can we pick you up at five tomorrow morning?”
“That’ll work.”
I trailed into my stuffy house and opened all the windows before scrounging for some semblance of nutritious food. I nibbled without enthusiasm before wandering outside to my garden.
There, I stood in the moist aromatic soil and held back tears while I ate fresh peas.
Chapter 40
Exhausted, I crept into bed early, hoping to get a decent sleep before my early morning. At last I found a position that didn’t aggravate my bruises too much, and drifted away.
Kane’s anguished eyes burned into mine. He raised his gun, black in the bright sunlight. His expression changed to shock as he fell slowly. His limp body sprawled in the mud. The gun slipped from his lax fingers, the sunshine picking out the logo on the barrel as it settled in the grass. Stemp stood over Kane’s body, firing into it again and again while I screamed…
I bolted upright as the last scream ripped from my throat. Panting with physical pain and overwrought emotion, I curled down again, rocking with grief. Stemp was the leak. He had to be. I knew it.
My mind wouldn’t let go of the vivid imagery of the dream. Ridiculously green grass, the logo on the pistol, Kane’s eyes. I whimpered and scrubbed at my face. How long would I have to dream this, over and over?
I remembered the look in Kane’s eyes. Nobody could fake that. Stemp had to be lying. In the darkness, the image hung in front of me.
Suddenly I jerked upright, my mouth dropping open. Stemp was lying. I knew it for certain now. That hadn’t been a tranquilizer gun in Kane’s hand. It was his Sig Sauer P226. My memory jogged by the detail in my dream, I could remember the pistol lying in the grass. The Sig logo on the barrel had been unmistakeable in the bright sunshine. Kane was no traitor.
I curled up and cried.
I was still awake when my alarm went off at four A.M. Groaning my way through my morning routine, I dressed in the blouse and slacks that I would wear to the funeral.
When I heard the crunching of tires on gravel at five, I closed up the house and climbed into Germain’s SUV. His and Spider’s faces looked drawn and tired in the dim light of the dashboard panel. We exchanged subdued greetings, and fell silent while the highway unrolled in front of us in the gray light.
At the airport Germain offered to drop us at the departure area, and I gratefully accepted. I was only carrying my small backpack, but I still felt too stiff and sore to walk for very long. Spider and I stood by the check-in, waiting for Germain to park.
I looked up at his pale face. “Hey, Spider, I remembered something last night.”
“What?” he asked listlessly.
“I know for sure Stemp was lying. He said John was going to shoot me with a tranquilizer gun and take me to Fuzzy Bunny, but it wasn’t a trank gun in John’s hand.”
“Are you sure?” His brow furrowed. “What does that really mean?”
“I’m positive. And what it means is that John really intended to shoot me.”
Spider’s eyes widened. “Kane was going to kill you? And you’re still coming to his funeral?”
“Yeah, of course.” I took another look at his horrified face. “Hey, Spider, that’s a good thing. It’s good that he was going to kill me.”
“Aydan, that’s awful,” he wailed. “That’s not a good thing at all!”
“No, no, it’s good. It means he was following orders. He wasn’t a traitor! And there’s more. Right after those guys took me out, I was lying there with my face squished into the dirt, and Stemp said ‘I didn’t think he’d really kill you.’ What doe
s that tell you?”
Spider shook his head in bewildered dismay. “I don’t know. What?”
“It tells you he knew John didn’t have a trank gun in his hand. He knew John was holding his Sig. And then, a few minutes later, Stemp lied to me and told me it was a trank gun. He’s a filthy, disgusting liar. And a murderer.”
Spider’s mouth dropped open. “Then we’re in serious trouble. And you’re in serious danger.”
I twitched an impatient shoulder. “Same old, same old. That’s not what matters. What matters is that we were right. John died a hero. And when we finally nail Stemp’s ass to the wall, John can rest in peace.”
“Do we tell Germain?” Spider whispered. “Here he comes.”
“No, not yet.” I turned to greet Germain. I believed in him, but I wasn’t quite ready to share my theories. I needed more time to think about our next step.
By the time we sorted out the rental car paperwork and left the Winnipeg airport, we had just enough time to stop for lunch before heading for the chapel. We picked at our food, and then Spider and Germain carried their bags into the men’s room to change.
They emerged a few minutes later, Spider in a dark suit that made him look even paler, and Germain in an impeccable dress uniform bearing a double row of medals, his usually cheerful face grim and withdrawn. The drive to the chapel was very quiet.
I clamped down hard on my emotions as we entered the lobby. Kane had been a brave man. The least I could do was show a little courage of my own. A few men stood around the lobby, most of them in uniform. I glimpsed General Briggs, but fortunately not Stemp. As we made our way toward the chapel doors, I realized with a shock that Hellhound was standing near the entrance.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had known he wouldn’t be wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt, but the imposing man in the immaculate uniform made my jaw drop. He’d never be handsome, but his stern, ugly face had a stark magnetism.
His expression softened as I came up to him. “Hi, darlin’.” He folded me into his arms, and I pressed against him for a few seconds of comfort. As I drew away, he turned to the ramrod-straight uniformed man beside him. “Sir, this’s Aydan Kelly. John’s partner. Aydan, this’s John’s dad.”
Reach For the Spy Page 24