by Fiona Quinn
“No, absolutely not. Once this becomes known, the program is done. It’s just now getting populated to the point that it can be helpful.”
“Montrim never approached you about doing a sale to Israel?” Titus asked.
“No.” Zoe was thoroughly confused. She looked at the men’s photos on the screen. The two attackers from her condo had spoken another language. It could have been Hebrew. Was Israel trying to kidnap her?
“Is there any way that Montrim can access your data without your consent?”
“It’s protected. I have a hacker friend who helped me write the code for the firewalls. But nothing’s foolproof. DARPA has their own firewalls in place. All we can do is hold people off. My best defense for the database is that Montrim likes the money they get for gathering the data. DARPA needs this mission to be a secret. No one should be looking for it.”
“Montrim has some of the best minds in the world working for them on their military software applications. They could have put someone on the task of hacking you.”
“Why would they? That’s cutting off their nose to spite their face, right?”
Silence.
“Right?”
Gage had his warrior face on again. “We’re trying to figure all of this out.”
Chapter
Thirty-One
Zoe
If I be waspish, best beware my sting
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Zoe stood and walked to the corner to get some air. No one stopped her. Twenty-four hours ago, she was eating Chinese take-out and reading a book in peace. In less than a day, someone had tried to kidnap her, she lost a dear friend, she was hidden, tracked, shot at, and chased some more. And now she realized that she was at the center of an international intrigue, playing with people who didn’t have any rules. She pressed her forehead against the polished wood wall and tried to be still.
“Zoe.” Gage’s warm voice came from a good distance away. He sounded like he wanted permission to approach, and she very much appreciated that he was trying to honor her space.
When she turned, he took two steps forward. “We’ll figure this out. Okay?”
“In the wrong hands…the wrong mindset… Just think. Can you imagine what would happen if I developed a RoboSphecius to kill? When the CIA brought the project to me I could see how simple it would be to make the change. It’s simply a matter of uptaking poison instead of blood and secreting poison into the skin instead of onto a test strip. Depending on the weight and viscosity of the poison, it’s probably just a matter of making a few changes to the software and bam, it’s a killing machine. I could probably rig something together in less than a day. And what if this went open source? Or there was a mole? Our enemies could kill any leader not liked by someone with a RoboSphecius. Imagine if they could build as many RoboSphecius as they wanted? Soldiers could send the micro-robots into the camps. Sting. Pilot them back, refill, sting again, and again. They could sting an entire army, and they’d all drop dead in the blink of an eye. Marines like you.” A picture of Gage laying in the desert clutching at his chest, gasping for his last breath, with no way to protect himself against this assault came vividly to mind, and it felt like she was being stabbed.
“Hey.” Gage reached out and covered her hand with his. “I agree with you. I think you made the right choice.”
“Zoe and Gage, sorry to interrupt.” Tad walked toward them. “Forensics called to let me know that they’ve been monitoring your phones. Colonel Guthrie made three calls to Zoe and two calls to you, Gage. The timing is getting closer and closer, so we can assume he’s agitated. Zoe, your phone needs to be tossed in the trash. It’s too corrupted for forensics to guarantee they got it completely clean. Yours passed their tests, Gage, and you can use that one to make the call. They’re bringing it down now. Be careful, though, don’t reveal any new information since you last saw him, including your present location, or any of the intelligence we’ve compiled.”
“Roger that.”
Tad went to answer a knock at the Panther War Room door. Zoe assumed it was the forensics guy bringing down Gage’s phone.
Gage turned to Zoe. “Do you want to call or should I?”
“I really don’t want to talk to him. I’m not good at subterfuge, and he knows me too well. I think he’d press less with you.”
“Agreed.” Gage took the phone from Tad. He pulled up recent missed calls and pressed the number for Colonel Guthrie. As it rang, Gage laced his fingers with hers and leaned in so she could hear.
“Gage? Thank you so much for calling,” the colonel said. “My blood pressure’s been inching up all day. I called the hospital. They said Zoe was discharged. I tried her number. I hope I’m not bothering you, but it worries me that I’m going right to voicemail.”
“She’s fine. She just woke up from a long nap. We’ll be headed out to dinner here in a couple of minutes.”
“Good, good. Is she with you? Can I chat with her for a second?”
“Sorry, no. Zoe’s not available at the moment. Is there a message I can pass along?”
“Yeah, sure. Great. Let her know that Maeve and I’d like her to come stay at our house until this is all settled. The more I think about the break in, the more concerned I’m becoming. I should also tell you that I didn’t call Zoe’s parents. I thought she should be the one who decides what, if anything, she wants to say to them. She is an adult, after all.”
“She’ll appreciate that, sir. I’ll pass the invitation on to her. I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you tomorrow.”
“But tonight, Gage? Does she have someplace to stay? I want her to be safe. I couldn’t forgive myself if something were to happen.”
“She’s fine right now. We’re with friends.”
“She’s fine,” the colonel repeated. There was a long pause. “You’ve been great through all of this, Major. Thanks for being there for her. I’ll check in tomorrow.”
“Good night, Colonel.”
“Incoming,” Tad called and put a new image up on the screen.
“Hey, that’s Ruby Goldstein.” Zoe walked over to stand in front of the live picture. “She and Lily were friends in undergrad. Where is this?”
“An interview room here at Iniquus.” Brian told her.
“Is she here because of Lily’s death?”
“Ruby’s married name is Leibowitz. Do you know her husband, Sal Leibowitz?” Titus asked.
“No. I haven’t seen Ruby since…well, it’s been years.”
“Lily left her husband and was living with you when she went to a party for the USIPAC as a guest of the Leibowitz’s. She didn’t mention that to you?”
“I wasn’t Lily’s keeper; we didn’t run our schedules by each other. We got along because we both like our boundaries.”
“When did she tell you that she started dating Charlie?”
“I don’t know, months ago. I never met him. He was someone I knew about peripherally. His name. That he was older. That he made her happy. It was nice to see her bloom again after that disaster of a relationship with her ex. That is seriously all I can tell you. I had my mind occupied with the DARPA push to get the WASPs actionable and,” she caught Gage’s eye, “I had my own social life. I wasn’t really involved in Lily’s.”
“We need to figure out who’s the best person to talk to Mrs. Leibowitz,” Titus said.
“How did Margot get her here?” Prescott asked.
Tad smiled. “She said that they had spoken with the senator earlier about Lily, and Ruby’s name had come up. Margot thought she’d like to have the information so she was well-armed if any reporters came knocking on her door.”
“Smart move.” Titus folded his arms over his chest and scanned the room. “Okay, I think we send Zoe in, since Ruby and she know each other, but we also send Gage in to do the questioning, because he’s been in the room through all stages of information gathering. He’ll know best how to get to the needed intel. Thoughts?” He looked at
Prescott.
“Agreed. Gage has enough field experience, he knows what he’s doing,” Prescott said.
“Zoe?” Gage asked.
“I’m just there to greet her and make her feel safe? I don’t have to talk to her?”
“That’s right,” Titus said.
Zoe didn’t dislike Titus, but his hard face always made her feel like she had been caught doing something wrong. She felt unsettled and apprehensive around him, though his words and actions had done nothing but support and protect her. So why did she felt like he was sending her into the lion’s den?
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Zoe
Don’t pick a wasp out of a cream-jug
~ Jewish Proverb
Gage put his hand on the small of her back and the roomful of people filed out the door and moved up the hallway.
In a completely different part of the building, where things looked less like a military complex and more like a resort hotel, Titus opened a door and Zoe started to walk in.
“That’s the observation room,” Gage said, and pointed to the door next to it. “We go in here. Ready?”
“Yup.” Not really. But they said all she had to do was sit there. She could do that.
As they moved through the door, Margot stood, shook hands with Ruby, and slid past them.
“Hi, Ruby,” Zoe said.
“Zoe, oh goodness, Lily is dead, can you imagine?”
Ruby stood and wrapped Zoe in an embrace. Lily was dead. Why did Zoe have so much trouble grasping that? She pulled back and shook her head. No, she couldn’t imagine Lily dead, despite all of the evidence, all the things people had been telling her. It seemed more nightmare than real.
Ruby’s gaze travelled between her and Gage and back to her.
“This is Gage Harrison. He knew Lily too.”
“Why do they have us here? What do they need us to know? The woman who brought me in said that they had information they wanted to share with me in case the media came around asking questions. Does this have to do with Lily’s affair with Senator Billings, do you think?”
“Why don’t we sit down?” Zoe pulled out a chair and slid into the seat.
Gage followed suit. “I’m trying to understand what brought us together too. We were told that you introduced Lily to the senator?”
“That’s right. I did. Do you think people are trying to hold me accountable for their affair? That would be…I don’t want to be embroiled in this.”
“None of us do. Let’s see if we can’t help each other figure this out,” Gage said. “You and Lily weren’t close friends, were you?”
“No.” Ruby shook her head. “In college, yes, but she married outside of the Jewish faith, and my husband didn’t like that. It caused tension. Lily and I were estranged until I learned that Lily divorced her husband. Sal thought it would be okay for us to bring her back into our lives, that maybe we could get her involved in our work with the USIPAC, and she would meet a nice man she could settle down with.”
“Yet Senator Billings is a Christian,” Gage said.
“That introduction was happenstance. I never thought that Lily would have an affair with the man. He was married. He was twice her age.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He’s not exactly in the best shape.” She sat up again. “My mind never went in that direction.”
“Recently, you and Lily were getting together frequently, several times a week.” Gage tried to lead her in the direction they needed her to go.
Ruby’s brows knit, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. “Now how exactly would you know that?”
“Did you know that Lily and I were roommates?” Zoe inquired.
“No.” Ruby seemed to relax. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“Did Lily talk about me with you?” Zoe watched Ruby quickly look up to the right, then she shook her head. “No. No, you didn’t come up.”
“What did come up in your time with Lily? You were helping her help your friend, Senator Billings, weren’t you?”
“How do you know all this?”
“Lily and I were roommates.” Zoe was offering a false door for Ruby to walk through. True, Lily and Zoe had been roommates, but Lily had never mentioned anything about Ruby. By juxtaposing the statement with Ruby’s question, Ruby would assume it was the answer to her question, and Zoe wouldn’t need to lie. She hated to lie.
“Did Lily seek out your expertise in forensic auditing to help her find information for the senator?” Gage asked.
“Yes, she did. And I was helping. Of course, I was.”
“And you talked to someone else about this, didn’t you?” he asked.
Ruby went pink. Her hand slid to her throat. “What is this?” she whispered. “Why are we really here?”
Zoe reached out and took Ruby’s hand. “I’m here because I’m scared, to be honest. Lily told someone something, and it’s putting lives at risk. The people here are telling me that Lily was murdered. That it wasn’t an accident at all.”
Ruby’s eyebrows stretched toward her hairline. “The news said she committed suicide.”
Zoe looked her in the eye and thought she saw fear but also guilt. “What did you do, Ruby? You told someone something. And you told them my name.”
Ruby just stared at her, dumbfounded.
“People came to my condo to kidnap me.” Gage gave her knee a warning squeeze. She must be disclosing too much. She was supposed to leave it to him and his field interrogation skills. But she couldn’t seem to sit back and let him take over. “I can’t go home. I’m terrified. Ruby, help me. Tell me what you did so I know how to be safe.”
Ruby opened her mouth and shut it again. She pulled her hand from Zoe’s and clutched it to her chest. “Lily was killed?” Her hands came up to cover her face. “You were attacked?”
Zoe reached out and pulled Ruby’s hands away so she could look Ruby in the eye. “You made a mistake. You can help to correct it. Please, tell me.”
“I’m sure that’s not right. I didn’t speak to anyone in the United States. I only spoke to my cousin because he’s studying the same thing you are.”
“What am I studying?” Zoe asked. “What did you tell him?”
“That you developed a means of identification through blood that’s more useful than DNA because it’s a quick and dirty, yes or no kind of test, and that you had developed a system like CODIS to index your findings. He’s trying to do this—has been working on this for decades. I thought he could come and speak to you and get a direction for his work. Maybe you could collaborate.”
“Lily told you that’s what I do?”
“Your name is on the files that she was able to find to give to the senator.”
“You said you spoke to no one in the United States. Where does your cousin live?” Gage asked.
“Jerusalem.”
Zoe could feel his tension rising. “And when was this phone call?”
“This past Wednesday, late afternoon, is when I spoke with him.”
“Wednesday, you’re sure? Not earlier than that?”
“I promise you that’s when I called. See?” She pulled her phone from her purse and showed Gage the number. She’d called at 16:39, almost midnight in Israel.
“Thank you, Ruby. This is helpful to our timeline. Is there anything else you told your cousin besides the information about the biomarkers?”
“He asked if the program was already being implemented, and I said yes, for years now, and he wondered what new project Zoe was working on.”
“And what did you tell him?” Gage asked.
Zoe was astonished that Gage had kept his face so placid, like he didn’t really know what was going on. He, like Zoe, was a friend of Lily’s who’d got caught up in something scary. She needed to think later about the ease with which he slid into this role and how simple he seemed to find it to maintain. But not now. Now she needed to know how her secrets were being shared.
Ruby’s voice
was so low that both she and Gage had to lean in until they were almost head to head to hear her. “I told him you were working on a new program for the CIA. With your new weapon, you can remotely pinpoint people for assassination. I told him that was the technology that he should be developing.”
“Wait.” Zoe sat straight up. “That’s not true. That’s not what I do. Why would you tell him that?”
“It is what you do. It was in one of the files that Lily shared with me when we were trying to follow the money trail for the Senate hearings. The CIA had come to an agreement on the price they would pay Montrim to have you develop your microrobotics in this direction.”
Zoe felt a noose tightening around her neck. Her voice could hardly squeak through. “And you told all this to your cousin?”
“Yes, but Zoe…” This time it was Ruby who was reaching out with placating hands, petting arms, clutching at her fingers. “He is very circumspect. He would never tell anyone. I just thought it might be interesting for him to come and see what you were doing, I thought Lily wouldn’t mind introducing you two and that it might be a good project for him to be involved with. We are, after all, allies. Friends. But then Lily…” Her voice drifted off and her eyes filled with tears.
“The Israelis think that I’m building a remote killing machine?”
Ruby swiped her wrist across her eyelids and sniffed loudly. “Aren’t you?”
“No. I am most certainly not. I’m not developing anything with the CIA.”
“Well, what are you working on?” Ruby looked thoroughly confused.
“Field forensics analysis of blood stains.”
“Oh. Well, that is very different.” Ruby glanced around, tears streaming down her face. Her gaze landed on a box of tissues.
Gage followed her line of sight and went to retrieve the box for her. “Why did you think that Zoe would share a project like that with the Israeli government?”
“Not the government. I was only thinking of my cousin, the researcher.”