by Sara Craven
“I’ll get you one that’s top of the line,” he said, leaning back and crossing one leg over his knee, tapping the back of the sofa with his fingers. “You know the logic behind making the women wear them?”
She blinked slowly and scoffed. “Oh, there’s logic to that, you think?”
“Sure. They say if a man leaves his treasure out in plain view, other men will think it’s for the taking. So he must conceal it.”
“Then the ridiculous custom should work both ways. How would you men feel if we put sacks over your heads to ward off the competition?” she snapped.
He seemed to consider that for a minute, then shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. See, guys will never steal a pig in a poke. They want to see what they’re getting for their trouble. But women? They just can’t seem to resist uncovering a mystery. Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Speaking of animals…” She slammed him with a sofa cushion and got up, crossing her arms, and looking down at him. “You’re the pig, Vinland. A truly chauvinistic pig.”
“Hold on a minute and don’t stomp out on me yet,” he said, replacing the cushion and leaning forward. “We need to get a few language lessons going while we wait for our traveling papers. You’ll need to know a few phrases in Arabic. It would seem strange if you hadn’t picked up any from your husband.”
“I know a little. One of my suite mates at college was Jordanian. Her English was good, but I had to help her with colloquialisms. She tried to prep me for a future visit to her part of the world. I think I learned enough to shop and order food.”
His newly darkened eyebrows flew up. “Well, hurrah. That’s gotta be an omen.”
She paused, throwing him a jaded look. “Omen? Don’t tell me you’re superstitious.”
He grinned again. “Sure am. Omens, signs, especially predictions. My grandma, who had the sight, warned me that one day a sharp-spoken woman with red hair would turn my life around. All these years, I thought it was my tenth-grade history teacher who straightened me out by threatening to flunk me. Now I know better.” He spread his arms wide. “Just look at how I’ve changed since I met you.”
“I never know when you’re serious. This is never gonna work.”
“It’ll work,” he promised, losing the grin. “It has to. I’m deadly serious about this mission, Dawn. There’ll be no more joking around once we’re on our way.”
She nodded, sighed and walked over to the window, looking out again over the quiet neighborhood. The very essence of upper-middle-class America. “I wonder where we will be going,” she murmured. “Exactly.”
“Doesn’t matter as long as it’s where he and the stolen information are,” he answered, approaching, placing a hand on her shoulder in what seemed a reassuring gesture. She felt the heat of his palm nearly scorch her skin. “For starters, if Allah is with us, we make the deal where it’s relatively safe, identify all the parties involved, eliminate the threat and get out before the showdown.”
“Are you Muslim?”
“Nope, Methodist. You?”
“Presbyterian.” She turned, her face scant inches from his. “And if God’s not providing us an easy solution?”
He shrugged. “We go wherever and do whatever it takes.”
“Do you know what was stolen and what the outcome will be if we aren’t successful?” Dawn asked, moving away from him so she could concentrate. Lord, he had a force field or something that she knew she needed to avoid. It wasn’t that easy when it was drawing her in like heavy-duty gravity.
“Kenro Applications. Ever heard of it?”
“They do atmospheric studies and evaluate ecological conditions here and in space, right?” she guessed.
“Yeah, that’s right.” He gave her a look of approval and indicated she should sit down again. When she did, he sat opposite her in the chair, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “They’re a NASA subcontractor, not a large company, extremely specialized. Some of the stolen data was research they had supplied.”
“I’m getting a scary picture here,” she muttered.
“You’re familiar with Halmann Electronics?”
“Radar.” She thought for a minute. “If you’re saying Zelcon was working with both, then this has to do with testing a technology that’s already developed?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. As if only half paying attention to their conversation, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face this way and that. “More kohl on the lower eyelids, I think.”
Dawn pulled back absently and pushed his hand away. “So we have specialized atmospheric alterations from this Kenro Apps. And radar from Halmann. The plans must have to do with producing some sort of antiradar thing, maybe a shield of some kind.”
“Not producing it. We already have it and it’s called AHSADS, an atmospheric dome to prevent any heat-seeking equipment on satellites from pinpointing human activity on the ground. The software for testing it is what they took.”
Dawn experienced a chill. She stared into Eric’s eyes, seeing her concern mirrored there. “To use over weapons development sites? Training facilities? God, there are any number of uses. Everybody with anything to hide from the world will want that. They can reconstruct it from the testing data, can’t they? That would explain exactly how it works, what components are used and so forth?” she asked. “And if they do, it would seriously hamper our efforts to locate terrorist training camps and troop concentrations.” She paused, thinking about that. “Anybody’s.”
He nodded slowly, holding her gaze.
“We have to get it back before they disperse it all over the place,” she declared, grabbing his arm. “Our satellites would be useless.”
“And seriously impact our intelligence-gathering capabilities.” He placed his hand over hers where it clutched his sleeve. “They surely realize that exclusivity of the information will make it much more valuable, so it won’t be offered to just anyone. I think there will be a bidding war among several potential customers who would benefit from the technology. They’ll be the ones who have big bucks and also the resources to recreate it.”
“Bidders like you, in your alternate persona as this Arab?”
“Yes. My job is to outbid the others while taking names. Yours is to see if the seller is the same guy you saw. I’ll give you odds he’s either the same dude who offed Bergen or a very close associate who’ll want to be present when the deal goes down.”
“Why would you think so?”
Eric’s eyebrows drew together, his face unfamiliar without the light of humor. “Greed. The more partners involved in this, the less hefty the cut.”
Dawn rubbed her hands together nervously, then looked up at him. “How do you find out whom to contact and where?”
“Your None Such Agency, of course,” he replied, using the sobriquet some had tacked on to her outfit back in the days when it was not supposed to exist. “Thank goodness your people at the National Security Agency have a finger on the pulse of every transmission worldwide. We’ll make use of that. Or rather, you will, since we’re well aware of what you did for NSA before you switched to fieldwork and started crawling through vents.”
She laughed bitterly. “Are you kidding? They won’t let me near our electronic brainiacs, not with this cloud of suspicion over my head. No way to hack into their tracking systems, either, trust me on that.”
He took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “I do trust you, Dawn. So does Jack, or you wouldn’t be here listening to all this. And,” he added, with a pause for effect, “we wouldn’t share the passwords we acquired.”
So now he had let the cat out of the bag. She wasn’t really a suspect at all. They knew she was innocent, or they’d never allow her in on something as critical as this. Her relief was so enormous, it nearly eclipsed the buzz of tension his nearness caused.
Eric sat quietly and watched while Dawn concentrated, her fingers flying over the computer keys. She had been at it for several hours. She would
type like crazy, pause, cuss a little now and then, hum with satisfaction when she met with success, then repeat the process.
At Mercier’s suggestion, Eric had brought her to their office in McLean where she could use the secure connections on their top-of-the-line computers in the room they called The Vault. The place always made Eric a little claustrophobic.
The fifteen-by-twenty windowless space was lead-lined and outfitted with every available protection against intrusion, physical or electronic. There was only one seriously fire-walled line leading in and out, a secure connection on which they could access whatever they needed in the way of top-secret sites.
Jack had worked for NSA and the setup here was similar, but on a much smaller scale. His former affiliations served him well in other ways, too. The passwords, however he had obtained them, got Dawn into the bank of sites set up by various terrorist organizations that NSA kept tabs on regularly.
She was searching those that might indicate new technology for sale on the underground market. Word had already gone out to less secure sites that something had recently become available. The timing of that indicated it could be the stolen data.
“Pay dirt!” Dawn whispered with excitement. “Eric, I think this is it. Look.” She clicked another page on the benign-looking Web site and moved to one side so he could see. “There it is, the invitation. Arabic, French, Farsi, I think, and English.”
Eric slipped on his glasses to cut the screen glare and read what she had found. “This is it! I knew you could do it,” he said with pride.
He picked up the secure phone to Mercier’s office. “Jack? We’re ready to RSVP. And we have a name. An alias, of course, but we’ll need to run it through Interpol and see if anything kicks out. He signs himself Quince.”
“I’ll handle that and join you shortly,” Mercier said. He hurried into the computer room in less than five minutes.
“Good moves, Moon,” he said with a perfunctory nod.
“How do we explain gaining access to their exclusive client list?” Dawn asked Mercier while Eric e-mailed his acceptance, choosing his words carefully. The characters of the Arabic font strung out across the screen as he typed.
“We don’t have to,” Eric replied. “I’m attending as Jarad Al-Dayal, oil tycoon and secret leader of a very select Iranian group, ostensibly based in Qatar. Al-Dayal gives no explanations for his actions or how he gleans his information.”
“And what if the real Al-Dayal also responds to this?”
He looked up at her as he clicked on Send. “Not a problem.”
“Eric is Al-Dayal,” Jack explained. “He is also the group. It has a remarkably deadly reputation in the world community, considering it has done absolutely nothing in the way of terrorist acts.”
The computer pinged. In unison, they turned, staring at the message on the screen.
“Bingo. We have a destination,” Jack murmured softly, as if the messenger could overhear. “You’ll need to get going ASAP.”
Dawn’s lips rounded in a soundless, “Oh.” Then her eyes narrowed. “This says Leros. Isn’t that Greek?”
“Leros is in the middle of the Aegean, between Greece and Turkey,” Eric announced.
“A Greek Island?”
He nodded. “And a fairly large one with a big tourist population. It’s a much better location than I figured we’d draw. My money would have been on Qatar or Jordan, at best. Maybe we can ditch the chador and buy you a swimsuit.”
Jack cleared his throat and looked disapproving. “You know that Leros is probably only your first stop. My guess is one of the privately owned islands where it will be next to impossible to get backup to you.”
Eric smiled slyly. “I trust you’ll try, Jack.”
Mercier spoke to Dawn, ignoring Eric’s aside. “If you would, please back us out of the connection without leaving traces. The plane is waiting. I’ll call about the flight plan.”
“What about a change of clothes?” she asked, her eyes on the screen as she pecked away at the keyboard. “I am not wearing these for the third day in a row.”
“Taken care of,” Eric said, “Trust me, everything’s been ordered and you won’t lack for clothes.”
He saw her chin come up, a sure sign of rebellion. “I’d rather have picked out my own stuff, thank you very much. And besides that, you could have given me a little more warning that we fly immediately. I might have had things to take care of before we left.”
“We’ve paid your utility bill,” he assured her. “And you don’t have a cat. The plants can be replaced. Your dieffenbachia is dying, anyway. You overwater.”
“Since you’ve never seen my apartment, I’m not even asking how you know that,” she snapped. “We’re not flying commercial, I take it.”
Eric laughed. “With all my oil money? Are you kidding? Private jet. Straight flight to Athens and a hop from there to Leros.”
She gave a mirthless little laugh. He noticed her fingers tremble slightly over the keys when she paused to wait for a prompt. Was she nervous, scared or just eager to get under way?
This mission was unlike anything she had ever been involved with. He wished he could give her a hug right now, take her in his arms and promise her that she would be fine, that he would never take her with him if he didn’t believe she could pull it off. There was no point beginning their partnership with a lie, however.
Maybe it would help if he let her know that her personal safety was one of his main concerns. Or maybe it wouldn’t help. It could throw her off her game. It could throw him, too. The mission had to take precedence, and they both needed to keep that foremost in their minds.
Mercier was watching them closely, his shrewd gray gaze flicking from one to the other. Eric gave him a thumbs-up and then placed a hand on Dawn’s shoulder and squeezed. Her muscles tensed beneath his palm and he could tell what an effort she made to steady her breathing.
Dawn was no novice in this business. He needed to stop worrying about her and coddling her. Nothing would undermine her self-confidence quicker than that.
Eric suddenly experienced a pang of gut-wrenching apprehension, but quickly dismissed it. He couldn’t function in this role if he lost his absolute belief in the success of the mission. He also couldn’t operate efficiently if he kept allowing that lovely little body of hers to snag his attention and work him into a sweat.
She finished exiting the program, got up from the chair and stretched.
“I’ll transmit whatever we can find on this Quince while you’re in flight,” Mercier said.
Time for a test, one Eric felt extremely reluctant to make, but it had to be done. The removing-glasses trick had not worked with Dawn. He had tried it twice and given up. But Jack was a good subject, one he’d never had problems reading before and usually without even trying.
Eric took off his glasses and looked directly at Jack, fully expecting to glean whether the boss had anything in mind he wasn’t saying. Nothing. Not even the white noise that usually accompanied an unsuccessful attempt to read someone. However, the failed attempt didn’t worry Eric especially in spite of the surprise it provided. Maybe it was the room itself hampering things. God knows it blocked out everything else.
He slid his glasses back on and shook Jack’s hand. They didn’t say goodbye. He noted that Dawn followed suit, merely inclining her head to Mercier. Her lips were firm, her stance confident. Together they left silently and hurried down the hallway.
“If you’re Al-Dayal, what’s my name?” she demanded as he ushered her out to the car. She still wore that obstinate look, one that warned him she might be masking fear with anger.
“Aurora, my second wife. It means Dawn.”
“I know that.” She frowned up at him as she got into the vehicle. “Give me a break. So where is number one spouse these days?”
He peered down, keeping his expression serious. “No longer with us. She refused to follow orders.”
“Okay, hotshot. I get the picture,” she snapped as sh
e grabbed the handle and slammed the door, nearly catching his fingers in the process.
He rounded the car and got in. Dawn being a little angry was better than Dawn shaking in her boots, he supposed, but she would have to get over both reactions and do it pretty damn quick. When they arrived at their destination, he needed a calm, subordinate spouse who would stay in the background. Somehow Eric had trouble imagining that.
He sighed and shook his head as he looked over at her and stuck the key in the ignition.
She was probably nervous as hell, but she was concealing it pretty well. Everything about this mission would be as foreign to her as a trip to Mars. He wished she were better equipped, that he could prepare her adequately, but there simply wasn’t time for a full indoctrination. He’d just have to help her wing it.
Dawn appeared anything but subservient, and he wasn’t altogether sure she could fake that. “Look, you can do this, okay?” he said.
She yanked her seat belt across her slender curves, clicked it in place and huffed. “Of course I can do this. I’ll just pretend I’m my great-grandmother.”
Eric cranked the car and pulled away from the curb, laughing. “Honey, I can’t believe the women in your family were servile even that far back.”
“Well, she managed up to a point. Until about two years into the marriage, so I was told.”
Did he dare ask? “What happened then?”
Dawn smiled, eyes narrowed menacingly. “Granny got fed up and nailed his butt to the wall.”
“Figuratively speaking, I hope.”
“She shot him in the behind with a load of bird shot. I hear he never walked quite right after that.”
Eric winced. “Can you restrain yourself for a week or so, you think?”
Dawn shrugged. “Probably, but just in case, we’d better not drag this out any longer than we have to.”
“Ten days, absolute max, I figure.”
Eric fully meant to keep to that deadline, but not because he thought for a second she would blow her cool and endanger the mission. Despite her bragging about her granny’s dubious antics, Dawn was too much the professional to act out when their very lives depended on it.