“This one was different.” Lars frowned down the length of his arm at his drink, nudging the glass with a finger, causing its contents to sway dangerously close to the rim. “It’s rumored his truck wasn’t carrying television sets.”
Harry waited. A tight knot had a stranglehold on his chest. Whatever his preoccupied friend debated telling him, it was serious.
Lars dropped his foot to the floor and his arm to his knee. He leaned toward Harry, his face troubled. “You didn’t learn this from me. A reliable source heard from a less reliable one that the missing truck contained refurbished aircraft parts acquired through a Canadian maintenance company.”
This wasn’t what Harry wanted to hear. “Did your reliable source happen to mention the name of the company?”
“No. But he might also have said something about a drone with weapons capabilities being delivered to a shipbuilding company that’s connected to a Canadian ex-pat with Dutch citizenship. That same ex-pat was on friendly terms with the missing businessman.”
The ex-pat in question would be Bernard Vanderloord. Had to be. There weren’t that many Canadians with his kind of connections. He’d been out of the Netherlands, so Lies hadn’t yet met him, but Harry had received an invitation to an opening night at a local theater and Vanderloord was supposed to attend.
He guessed this meant it was time to introduce them.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked Lars.
“Because a nuclear physicist who once did work for my department, and who I considered a friend—although granted, not a close one—died in London a few weeks ago. The official word is that he had an undiagnosed heart condition.” Lars’s troubled eyes met Harry’s. “The last time I saw him, he seemed very healthy. Coincidentally, he was also working on outfitting drones—built in Canada—with nuclear weapons. I thought you might find the information interesting.”
He did. Who would want a nuclear physicist arming a Canadian-manufactured drone dead? Where were those drones ending up?
The real question, Harry decided, wasn’t who was buying the drones, but rather, who was pocketing the money from the sale. His willingness to introduce Lies to Vanderloord took an uneasy, downward turn. He didn’t care what her job was. It didn’t feel right to throw a young woman into this kind of mess, especially since John Carmichael hadn’t known about the dead nuclear physicist and his connections to Canada and the Netherlands when he’d assigned her to the Canadian embassy.
Or maybe he had and Harry was being naïve. John ran a spy agency, not a temp service, and Lies wasn’t a secretary. He couldn’t ignore what he’d just been told. He’d have to pass this information on to her.
The conversation between the two men shifted to the world cycling championships.
An hour after that, Harry closed the door to his flat behind his friend. He reclaimed his chair by the living room window and stared out across the city, the night sky sparkling with lights. His thoughts immediately returned to Lies.
She was a flirt. Also easily bored, and it seemed she’d decided he was her entertainment of choice. She found dozens of little ways to get under his skin. Yet she did every mundane task he tossed her way with a careful attention to detail, as if her career in the diplomatic services rested on her ability to reconcile his credit card statements. He’d taken her to seven embassy functions so far and at each one she’d maintained her cover with ease. Everyone who’d met her accepted her as the well-meaning but very entitled daughter of a diplomat. As far as he could tell, he was the only one who paid any more than a surface attention to her. He had no reason to think she couldn’t do the job her real boss had assigned her.
But her becoming involved with Vanderloord was more dangerous than he’d suspected, or led CSIS to believe. Alcine had gone back to Italy scared, although she hadn’t been able—or willing—to explain why. If Lies didn’t already know any of what Lars had just told him, meaning she hadn’t been fully informed before accepting this assignment, then she had the right to back out. If she chose to stay, when Harry finally introduced her to Vanderloord he intended to stick close by her side.
He’d brought her here. That made him responsible for her safety.
Monday morning, he called her into his office. She looked tired and he wondered what she’d been up to all weekend. Irritation over the list of possibilities assaulting his imagination made him abrupt. Whatever it was, it must have been fun.
“I’m taking you to dinner,” he said. “There are a few things we need to discuss about your performance.” That was the code they’d established for anything important they didn’t want overheard in the office.
Her blue eyes lit up like those of a cat ready to pounce. She had zero respect for him or his position, especially when they were alone, and he’d learned to be wary of that particular glint in her eye.
She tucked a short, bouncy blond ringlet behind her ear. The diamond studs twinkled. “I’ll run home at five o’clock to change and then meet you back here.”
He saw no need for her to change. Her plan to do so further triggered alarms. She wore gray leggings and a black-and-gray striped tunic paired with wine-colored leather boots and clunky silver bracelets on both slender wrists. “What you have on is fine.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. My father would have a heart attack if I went out for a business dinner dressed like this.”
Whenever she brought up the fictitious father he knew he was in trouble. Yet in spite of it he was intrigued, curious to see where she was headed. “I thought we’d go somewhere casual.”
“I don’t believe you know what that word means.” She perched on the corner of his desk, making herself comfortable and him infinitely less so. “Tell you what. If you come by my flat around seven, I’ll cook dinner for you instead.”
Harry wasn’t especially great at witty repartee, but this one had been handed to him. “You can cook?”
She shrugged, a light lifting of one shoulder. “How hard can it be?” He had no quick comeback for that and she laughed. “Relax, Harry. Yes, I can cook. We’re having steaks. You can bring a bottle of wine if you like. I won’t have anything that’s up to your standards.”
Dinner in private with a beautiful woman who worked for him would be inappropriate, and under normal circumstances he’d never suggest it. But, considering the conversation they needed to have, it might be for the best. Still, letting her get her own way entirely wasn’t a safe thing to do.
“I’m not a wine snob.” He wasn’t a snob at all, or at least he liked to believe that he wasn’t, and it annoyed him that she was constantly alluding to it with these little digs. “I wasn’t born into money, Lies. I worked for this position.” He got in a dig of his own. “The same, I’m sure, as you worked for yours.” Since she was currently pretending to be someone whose father had earned her this position, she could hardly rebut.
Lies patted the desk. “In that case, there’s no need for you to bother with wine. I have a lovely bottle I picked up at the market.” Her lips curved into a bright smile as she stood. “See you at seven.”
And with that, Harry decided as the door closed behind her, he’d just lost any advantage he might have held. He drummed his fingertips on his thigh.
He was taking that bottle of wine.
Chapter Four
Things were finally progressing with Vanderloord. No matter how hard she pushed, nothing else would have made Harry agree to come to her place for dinner.
Lies was relieved. The embassy was dull as dirt. She wasn’t meant to work in an office day in and day out. Life was too short.
She stopped at the market on her way home to purchase the steaks she’d promised Harry, as well as ready-made salad and a few pastries to go with their post-dinner coffee. Food in the Netherlands was reasonably priced, fresh, and much of it already prepared for convenience. She loaded her purchases into the basket on her bicycle, unlocked it from the bike rack outside of the store, and pedaled home, where she stowed the bicycle in the ga
rage on the main level of her building and took the lift to her floor.
Inside her flat, she dropped her groceries on the marble counter in the tiny kitchen and got to work. The steaks had been pre-marinated and would only take a short time to cook. She set placemats, napkins, and cutlery on a tall bistro table with two high-backed stools that faced sliding windows overlooking the roof garden on the townhouse next door.
The bell rang at two minutes to seven and Lies let Harry in. He’d changed into a sport jacket and jeans and looked very handsome. Casual, too. She took the bottle of wine he handed her and examined the label while she got over the shock.
“It’s Canadian,” she said.
His grin of smug satisfaction that he’d surprised her gave her insides an odd little rush. When he smiled he wasn’t nearly as stuffy.
“I always give out Canadian wines,” he said. “We have several excellent wineries and our embassy is here to help promote Canadian businesses internationally.”
Lies, recovering, shook her head in mock despair. This sounded more like the Harry she’d come to know. “Congratulations. You’ve discovered your super power. You turn social engagements into business transactions.”
Harry’s grin deepened. “And you thought I was a snob.”
“That was your word, not mine.”
“But you thought it.”
“OK, yes I did,” Lies admitted, entranced by that smile. This side of Harry was rare. “And I take it back. You aren’t a snob. You’re a workaholic.”
“I prefer to think I’m dedicated. I like to give everything I do one hundred percent of my effort.”
The rush in her stomach spread to her toes before reality dug in its heels. Anyone else she’d accuse of flirting with her. Harry, however, meant just what he said.
He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. The sleeves of his white cotton shirt had been rolled to the elbow. “Something smells good.”
“I promised you steak.”
While she finished putting dinner on the table, he uncorked the wine and poured it in glasses. A few minutes later, they were seated across from each other. Harry sliced into his steak. It cut like butter, she was pleased to see. It had been a while since she’d cooked one for anyone else and she’d worried.
“What do you know about a nuclear physicist who died in London a few weeks ago?” he asked.
So much for polite dinner conversation. Of all the things she’d thought he’d bring up, this item hadn’t entered the picture. She wasn’t sure how much of what she knew was safe to disclose. It depended a great deal on why Harry was suddenly interested. CSIS believed the CIA, or possibly the Israeli Mossad, had targeted the physicist because of his involvement in the development of nuclear weapons. CSIS also believed he’d been helping arm countries that hadn’t signed the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.
She set down her knife and fork, laying them carefully along the edge of her plate, then picked up her drink. She eyed him over its rim. “Why do you ask?”
She listened with vigilant attention to details and a growing concern as Harry relayed to her the conversation he’d had with his friend in the Dutch Kernfysische dienst. Aircraft parts from Canada, and headed to Russia through the Netherlands, was a serious problem on several levels. The Dutch had initiated trade sanctions against Russia, and overall, relations with Russia remained uneasy throughout Europe. Canada didn’t want to find itself caught in the middle, even inadvertently. The trail left by those aircraft parts could lead as easily to Canada as from it, and Bernard Vanderloord, a Canadian national, appeared to be at the hub. Harry, as defense trade commissioner, had a real problem unfolding and she couldn’t help him with it other than to relay his information back to her director. CSIS wasn’t planning to shut Vanderloord down and she couldn’t tell him.
Dan owed her more chocolate.
“No one will blame you if you want to ask for a reassignment and go home,” Harry said.
The comment interrupted Lies’s train of thought. She’d been frowning at her plate as she’d processed everything he’d told her and what it could mean. “Why on earth would I want to go home?”
“You don’t need to be caught up in this. Whatever’s going on, it’s more dangerous than I led John to believe.”
Harry was worried about her. That was both sweet and exasperating. She hadn’t gotten her job by being pretty. Or thanks to her rich, fictitious daddy.
“I’m an intelligence officer. There’s always going to be an element of danger to the work I do,” she replied. “It’s part of the game.”
“Game?” Harry echoed. His eyebrows rode up his forehead to express incredulity at her choice of words.
“Of course.” Treating each case as a game was a disassociation tactic they’d been taught in training and she was good at it. “Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.”
“What happens if you lose a game where the stakes are higher than you expected?”
“If the stakes are high for me, then they’re going to be astronomical for the other team. I make sure the odds are in my favor.”
“They can’t always be.”
“And that’s what keeps the game exciting.” Lies picked at her salad, stirring it around with her fork. “I know you don’t get it, Harry. That’s why you’re on a different career path from me. But I love what I do. And don’t expect me to believe that the stakes aren’t high in your line of work too.”
“Mine don’t end up with me dead.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s melodramatic. I stand a greater chance of dying in a plane crash.”
“Tell that to the guy who disappeared while delivering aircraft parts to Russia.”
“Transactions of that sort are rarely a secret. There are too many players. My own mother doesn’t know what I do. That’s the whole ‘spy’ part of it.”
“You’ve never been caught in the act?”
Michael’s face crowded into her thoughts. He hadn’t trusted her from the very beginning, but she’d figured that out before she’d gotten in too deep. And he’d never associated her with CSIS. He’d expected her to run to the police and been led to believe that she’d been too scared to do it.
“No,” she said. “If you don’t have your target’s trust then you aren’t going to learn anything of real value anyway. On the other hand, if you’ve earned a high level of trust you aren’t likely to lose it. I’ll try to earn Vanderloord’s trust. I either will or I won’t. He, however, will never have mine and that gives me the advantage.”
Harry’s brown eyes continued to radiate doubt. “Vanderloord’s been operating a long time. I doubt if he’s trusted anyone in years.”
“I’m not after the keys to his safe, Harry. I don’t need to catch him red-handed with stolen aircraft parts in the back of his truck either. I have to figure out how his network operates so it can be dismantled. I’ll pay attention to where he goes and the people he talks to. He has his sights on you and I want to know why. Since I have access to you, and to the same information you do at the embassy, I’m already two steps closer to what he wants than he is.”
“What about the dead nuclear physicist?”
“Who’s to say he didn’t really die of a pre-existing, undiagnosed heart condition?” Lies countered. If the defense minister was somehow involved in that, her boss would have a stroke.
Harry attacked his steak with his fork and knife. “I don’t like any of this. I should never have gone to John.”
Lies longed to ask if it would make any difference to him if she were a man, but she already knew the answer, so why start a fight?
“When will I meet Vanderloord?” she asked instead.
The small living area of the flat had darkened with the slow, dwindling twilight. Landscape lighting in the rooftop garden next door flickered on, illuminating manicured shrubs, as well as the table where Lies and Harry were sitting.
He swallowed a bite of steak. “Wednesday night. There’s a theater o
pening that embassy staff have been invited to. I believe a few of the performers are Canadian and they’re hoping a large Canadian presence will help with promotion.”
A night at the theater was on par with a trip to the dentist. “Don’t you people ever get invited to anything fun?”
“The Dutch aren’t as enthusiastic about truck pulls as you are,” Harry replied. “But the next soccer match tickets are yours.” He shifted the subject. “What do you do for entertainment? Give me an example. Tell me about your weekend.”
“I helped my cousin paint her living room.” And OK yes, she spotted the irony.
So did Harry. His mouth twitched at the corners. “How disappointing that I don’t have fun social engagements like that on my calendar.”
“There was dancing involved.” She twirled a finger. “Oh, yes. And a criminal element.”
“I’d be disappointed if there weren’t. Let’s hear the details.”
She told him about Baart and the restaurant, although she left out Yasmin’s part in it.
“You could tell he was involved in criminal activity simply by looking around?” Harry sounded skeptical. “Isn’t that called jumping to conclusions?”
“I’m a trained observer, specializing in money laundering.” It was why she was here, she could have reminded him. “When a restaurant’s tables are busy, but no one touches the cash register all evening except to take money out, something is definitely wrong.”
“Fair enough, although I doubt it would stand up in court. How does the dancing fit in?”
“There’s a nightclub next door to the restaurant.”
“Of course there is. Did they need their walls painted too?”
Lies laughed. He had a good sense of humor, quiet and dry, if one listened for it.
They finished their dinner and the bottle of wine. Harry helped her clear the table, carrying the dishes to the kitchen sink. She started the coffeemaker, amazed he hadn’t yet made up some excuse to leave.
His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3) Page 5