It had been too easy.
The poor bastard is lonely.
She loved her job, and it was necessary as was proven by what was going on this very minute, yet she did harbor some discomfort at what they were doing. The agency ran sting operations like this all the time. Their staff and contractors were constantly tested, tempted, asked casual questions in bars or coffee shops, and the vast majority passed with flying colors.
But Hummel had failed.
Because he had allowed himself to be manipulated, falling for the classic Honeypot trap. If she could manipulate him, then so could a Russian or Chinese agent. And he had given up the goods far too easily. They still weren’t certain how he had managed to get the data out of NSA Headquarters, but he had, which meant he had committed a felony.
A lot of them.
He was going to prison, probably for the rest of his life.
He had betrayed his country, all for the love of a woman he had never met.
Idiot.
Why couldn’t he have just said no? To his credit, he hadn’t posted it on the Internet to prove wrong those who had goaded him into stealing the data in the first place. Fortunately for the country, all those accounts were fake, operated by her and Penn, though there was still the possibility others might have been monitoring.
It was the Internet.
No, he hadn’t gone that far, but he had still stolen the data, and told her, a complete stranger. If she were a Russian agent, she would have lured him out of his house the moment she found out, then sent someone in to retrieve the data.
Exactly as she had done tonight.
And the damage to the country could be immeasurable.
For this was their ToolKit. What he had stolen was the key to how the NSA gathered its data, how it spied on friend and foe, how it protected the country from harm. If those tools fell into the wrong hands, then their enemies could protect themselves from the snooping the agency was guilty of, or worse, could use those same techniques against America and Americans.
She shuddered at the thought.
“Status?”
“It’s not here.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Repeat that?”
“It’s not here. I can’t find it.”
“Keep looking.”
“There’s no point. I’ve got the USB key right here, and it’s blank. Completely wiped.”
Graf pursed her lips, watching as Hummel climbed into his car. “He must have moved it to his PC.”
“No, I ran a scan. Nothing’s been copied on or off since he got home. I’m telling you, it’s not here. He must have wiped it.”
Graf cursed, starting her car. She pulled from her spot and gunned it ahead, steering in front of Hummel before he could drive away. She climbed out, her phone pressed against one ear, her free hand reaching into her pocket for her badge. She didn’t bother with her gun. She knew Hummel. She knew him better than he knew himself.
And he was no killer.
He didn’t even own a gun.
“You’re positive.”
“Absolutely.” There was a pause. “Could he have just lied to you?”
She shook her head as Hummel rolled down his window. “No, we were monitoring his station. We know he copied the data. So what the hell happened to it?” She stared at Hummel, his eyes red, his cheeks visibly stained, even in the dim light from the street lamps. “Keep looking.” She hung up and stuffed her phone into her pocket. “Mr. Clayton Hummel, I’m Special Agent Janine Graf, NSA. I’m going to need you to come with me.”
Hummel blanched as his jaw dropped.
Now that’s a pretty guilty look for a man who didn’t steal anything.
“Wh-what for?”
“It’s about a woman named Melanie Driscoll.”
Hummel went even whiter. Any more and she feared he’d pass out. “She w-was supposed to meet me for dinner.” His shoulders slumped. “She never showed.” He brightened slightly. “Did something happen to her?”
You poor dear.
He was so desperate for any possibility other than having been stood up, that the very thought she might be hurt somewhere actually held some appeal.
Time to end it.
She pulled out a separate phone and brought up the text message she had sent him earlier. She held it up. “I’m Melanie Driscoll.”
He stared at the screen, his eyes widening in disbelief, his head shaking. “No, no, no, no, no!” Each successive denial got louder, and Graf took a step back, her hand reaching to rest on her hip holster.
“Mr. Hummel, I’ll need you to calm down.”
Hummel stared at her, tears rolling down his cheeks, his nose wet and beginning to ooze over his upper lip. “Why? Why would you do that to me? How could you do that to me? I did nothing wrong! Why!”
“Standard operation, sir. We were testing you, as per your contract.” She motioned toward the door. “I’ll need you to step out now.”
He pushed the door open and turned in his seat, struggling to lift each leg out as his entire body shook, his shoulders racked with sobs. He shoved to his feet then caught his breath, staring at her. “I didn’t mean to do it. I only took it to prove to her, to you, that I was…” His voice faded as he turned away, too ashamed to continue.
But Graf was barely listening anymore.
I only took it to prove to her…
Her eyes narrowed.
So he did take the data.
She stared at him. “Mr. Hummel, where is the data you stole?”
His shoulders slumped and he dropped onto the hood of his car, the suspension protesting. “At home.”
“Where? Specifically.”
“On a memory stick I took from work. Take me there and I’ll show you.”
“We already have an agent at your house. He says the memory stick is empty.”
Hummel’s eyes widened as he looked up from staring at the ground. “But that’s impossible. I was going to show it to her, I mean you, tonight, if you wanted to see it.” He blushed, turning away. “It was going to be my excuse to get you to come back to my place.” His voice cracked. “It was all a lie.” He sighed. “I’m going to die alone.”
Graf resisted the urge to reach out and comfort him. She felt horrible for him, yet he was guilty of stealing state secrets. Of espionage. Of so many things.
But where was the data?
14
Lee Fang Residence
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Present Day
“You should just move in.”
CIA Special Agent Dylan Kane winced as he took a chunk off his chin with his razor. He stared at his girlfriend, Lee Fang, in the mirror. “Huh?”
“You’re bleeding.”
“You surprised me.”
“Judging from the look on your face, I’d have said shocked.”
He quickly finished, rinsing off his razor before tapping it dry on a hand towel, sensing this was about to get serious. He loved Fang. She was probably the first woman he had ever truly loved. He had been with dozens if not hundreds of women, but none had captured his heart, and none had ever been meant to be true relationships. As an agent, he slept with lots of women for the job, and as a broken soul, he had used booze and women to drown out his loneliness, his isolation.
Until Fang.
She had healed him, and he had never been happier. He stared at her scar, still fresh from when she had been shot recently, then his eyes drifted to the rest of her naked body as she toweled off.
My God, she is incredible.
She was tight. Very tight. Ripped abs, toned all over but not to the point where she looked like a man. She was just in incredible shape. Former Chinese Special Forces, she had been forced to betray her country in order to save it from corrupt generals supporting a coup attempt in the United States. She had been living in here ever since, essentially in witness protection on a grateful American government’s pension, going slowly batty until they had recognized in each other their mutual need for
companionship—companionship where their secret lives could be shared freely.
He hated the lying.
Especially to his loved ones. His parents had only recently discovered what he did for a living, and it had mended fences with his father broken long ago. It shouldn’t have been necessary, but his father was a stubborn ass sometimes—all the time—though their relationship was now the best it had been since he had left the Army to join the cover company arranged for him by the CIA—Shaw’s of London. He was an insurance investigator, allowing him to travel the world on business, leading a flashy life investigating multi-million dollar frauds.
All the while actually spying or killing for the American people.
Yet with Fang, it was different. She had been in the business, she understood the need for secrecy, but because he had been the agent sent in to extract her, she knew what he did for a living. It was so nice, at the end of a mission, to come to a place he felt safe, with someone he felt completely comfortable with, and not have to give the cover story of another tedious investigation.
He grabbed Fang’s towel and pulled her against him. “Okay, you shocked me. But in a good way.”
She stared up at him, her eyes glistening, then she dropped her head, pressing her forehead against his chest. “It was just an idea.”
He reached down and tipped her chin up with a gentle press of his thumb. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “A great idea.”
She smiled.
And goose bumps rushed over his entire body. Not experienced in true love, he wasn’t sure if this was a typical response, but he just wanted to make this woman happy. And when he succeeded, it was a euphoric feeling that would envelop him. He smiled back and kissed her on the lips, gently at first, then with a growing urgency. She hopped up, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and he stepped over to the wall, pressing her back against it as their need became urgent.
She gasped as he found her, his moan drowning her out as they attacked each other with a feral intensity that made it all the more exciting, and all the more rapid. Only minutes later they were gasping for breath, both spent, both totally satisfied, and both needing to shower again.
Fang grinned as she disentangled. “That was fun.”
Kane stepped back and leaned against the bathroom vanity. “Oh yeah.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “So, umm, about that whole moving in thing.”
Fang picked up the forgotten towel. “What do you think?”
Kane reached out a hand and she took it, stepping closer, but not so close that a wagging participant might say hello. “I practically live here anyway.”
“You do.”
“When I get back from a mission, I check my mail, grab a few things, and come here.”
“If you don’t come here first.”
“Exactly. I’m basically paying rent for nothing.”
“I hate to waste money.”
“And it would save me time, so we could actually spend more together.”
“Wasting time should be a crime.”
He paused. “I wonder if Langley will object.”
Fang’s glow dimmed. “Would they?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt an operational agent has ever shacked up with a Chinese special operator on the run from her own government.”
She rested her cheek against his chest and sighed. “What if they say no?”
Kane wrapped his arms around her. “Then I’ll resign.”
She pushed away and stared up at him. “You would do that for me?”
He couldn’t believe he was saying it, but he was. He adored this woman, and would do anything to make her happy, even give up a job he loved.
It shocked him.
And frightened him a little.
He smiled. “Absolutely.”
She patted his chest. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. You’d be miserable if you couldn’t kill people or blow things up.”
He grinned. “I could always become a paid assassin.”
She chuckled. “We could partner. The husband and wife hit squad.”
He smiled and she flushed. “I like the sound of that.”
She pushed away slightly, her cheeks still burning. “Let’s try living together first.” She dropped her eyes. “But so do I.”
He pulled her close again and kissed her. She thrust her hips away and he laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. We’ll be at this all day if we don’t stop now.”
She grinned. “I like the sound of that, too.” She raised a finger. “But! You promised you were going to help me rearrange the living room.”
He paused, pursing his lips. “You know, if we’re going to live together, maybe we should get a new place. Something a little bigger.” He reached over and put on his watch, snapping the clasp shut. “We could get a two or three bedroom, set up an office, a home gym. A home theatre?” He grinned.
“Sounds good to me. Would we stay in Philly?”
He shrugged. “We can if you want. I like it here, but we could live anywhere. Langley might like me a little closer. And I know my folks wouldn’t want me moving any farther away.”
His CIA-issued watch sent a discrete pulsing electric shock into his wrist, notifying him of an urgent communication. He frowned.
“What?”
He shook his wrist with the watch, and she nodded. He entered the coded sequence of button presses around the sides. A message scrolled across the crystal.
Contact CL immediately.
He smiled. “It’s Chris. Something urgent.” Chris Leroux was the best friend he had in the world. Fang was probably closer to him now, though friends and lovers should be in two different categories. He had met Leroux in high school, an insecure, brilliant teenager constantly picked on and bullied. Kane had been the jock, and was struggling with his grades. Leroux ended up tutoring him, and they had become friends, and Kane Leroux’s protector. They had lost touch after high school, reuniting by accident at Langley, both working for the Agency unbeknownst to each other.
Leroux was probably his only friend in the world besides Fang. He was friendly with some of his old Delta Force buddies from Bravo Team, though those types of friendships usually fell to the wayside when you became a CIA operator.
But Leroux was someone he always tried to keep in touch with, and with his friend’s brilliance recognized through promotions, they often had the opportunity to work together, Leroux sometimes the voice at the other end of his earpiece.
Fang climbed back in the shower as Kane grabbed his phone, calling Leroux. “Hey, buddy, what’s up?”
“We need you to pay a visit to someone. Off the books.”
Kane grinned. “Those are always my favorite. Send me the details. I’ve got some business to finish up here then I’ll get right on it.”
“Already done.”
“Great. Talk to you soon.” He ended the call then stepped into the shower.
“Am I your unfinished business?”
He smiled, taking Fang into his arms. “Yup.”
15
Clayton Hummel Residence
Annapolis, Maryland
Two Years Ago
Janine “Melanie Driscoll” Graf shook her head at her partner. Teams had been going over Clayton Hummel’s house for days, and had turned up nothing. He was squeaky clean. No classified data had been taken home, physical or otherwise, and his computer logs were clean. There was no evidence he had ever possessed the stolen data, or shared it with anyone.
It made no sense.
They had the logs from his work computer proving he had transferred the data to an external device. There was no doubt it had happened. That device had a unique identification code installed by the manufacturer, and it matched the device they had found beside his home computer. There was no evidence it had ever been copied to his machine, which agreed with his own initial statements before he lawyered up. They had even found the small piece of tape he had used to hide the microSD card under his
watchband, the tear matching exactly the roll of tape in his desk drawer at the office.
Everything he had told her matched with what they had found.
Except that the memory card was empty.
If he had never stolen the data, was it just pride that made him stick to his story? That might make sense if Melanie Driscoll actually existed, but she didn’t. She was a digital fabrication. There was no woman to prove his manhood to, except, perhaps, her. She didn’t get a chance to play that card, however, once the lawyers got involved. Now her access was limited, and toying with his emotions was no longer on the table.
But why hadn’t his lawyers just said he never stole the data, that it was just a boast to a woman he was trying to impress? That might actually get him out of it. He could have made up a story that he copied the files to do some work elsewhere in the building, then decided against it, wiping the memory card clean. He could have claimed he snuck it out of the building as a security test, and was going to report his findings.
There were so many possible stories he could have come up with, yet he hadn’t. He had stuck to his story that he had taken the data, and that it should be on the card.
And without any evidence to back up his claims, their case was going nowhere, fast.
They might even have to let him go.
The embarrassment to the agency might not be worth the effort to prosecute. The man wasn’t a national security threat if he didn’t work there. He had proven he could be manipulated, so his security clearance had already been revoked, and if nothing had been stolen, her supervisor was already suggesting it all be swept under the rug.
That decision was above her pay grade, but she still couldn’t understand what had happened to the data. If he had indeed stolen it, and he hadn’t wiped it, then someone had.
But who?
“Penny for your thoughts?”
She glanced at her partner, Donald Penn. “They’re worth a hell of a lot more than that.”
He chuckled. “Nickle?”
“That’s better.” She sighed. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened to the data. I mean, we know it was copied onto the device, we know the device is now blank, and we know he continues to claim he not only copied it, but didn’t delete it. If we believe him, then someone else must have deleted it.”
Retribution - A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller Book #7 Page 5