True Deceptions (True Lies)

by Veronica Forand

  She batted her eyelashes. “My favorite bubblegum is grape, and I have real issues with Virgos.”

  He didn’t smile.

  They arrived before she finished batting her eyes. No wonder he liked the location—easy access. Her outfit felt completely inappropriate for the jump seat inside the helicopter’s large cargo hold. This was not a luxury transport—it was made to transport goods. The large black headphones she’d been handed pulled at her hair. Simon buckled her in, and then they were airborne over London.

  The lights of the city faded quickly when they flew past the countryside and headed over the English Channel. Simon’s hand rested on her knee, but he otherwise ignored her. Instead, he called out orders to the crew. Did they work for MI6 or were they part of an even more clandestine operation? She might never know. He didn’t share much, if any, information with her. She was still on a need to know basis.

  The initial excitement of the flight faded. The loud drone of the rotors through the earphones dulled her senses and lulled her into a brief nap. When she woke, Paris greeted her in a yellow haze of light. Old, new, elegant, chic. The city was breathtaking from the air. Were they headed to some sophisticated hotel or restaurant filled with the rich and powerful? Her stomach, still empty from a missed meal, lurched as the helicopter descended into a far corner of what looked like a huge airport. Charles de Gaulle?

  “Be alert, angel. For anything.”

  “Okay.” She had no idea what dangers could possibly harm her, because he skimmed work related conversations to the bare minimum.

  He handed her a black leather tote bag, a Fendi, sleek and feminine. “Don’t let this out of your possession at any time.”

  “What is it?”

  “My back up plan.” Evasion. Again.

  The rotors slowed, but never stopped after the helicopter touched down. The airport covered a huge area, but they hadn’t landed near the activity swarming around the commercial jets. Instead, they’d landed by a line of hangers a mile or two from the main terminals. The only people in sight moved between a huge transport plane and a Black Hawk helicopter. Men carried large wooden crates from the plane and loaded them into the helicopter.

  Simon jumped out with his men and left her behind. A heavyset man dressed in a black, fitted suit strolled over to him. After they shook hands, Simon motioned a few of his team to assist with moving the crates.

  She watched through the window, disappointed that she was a mere observer again. Simon took his job seriously and wouldn’t use her at all if he didn’t need her. Part of her was content to remain in the background. Another part of her wanted to show off her skills and impress the man who made her heart and body sing.

  I should leave my heart out of it. As much as she wanted to, it was tough. There was something about the man that drew her to him. More than the sex. And it meant heartbreak eventually, because Simon wouldn’t quit handling arms deals for her. On the other hand, she might not live to move on to another assignment.

  Simon and his counterpart continued to call out orders on the tarmac while everyone else hustled between the plane and helicopter. It felt like an hour had passed since they’d landed. She leaned back in her seat and mentally walked through the first twenty numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. Her mind woke up from its weeks-long hibernation as the numbers populated her brain.

  The cargo hatch in the back opened up and cool air surged into the hold. The numbers in her head blew away as a team dressed in black invaded her space. The small army of men carried crate after crate into the space. They stacked and bolted them to the floor in front of her. A few men glanced at her. Well, not her exactly. Her legs. They otherwise ignored her. Simon was still standing next to the only other guy in a suit. Their conversation was becoming more animated.

  She hated waiting and was beginning to regret being Simon’s brainless model friend.

  A few minutes later, he arrived through the sliding door close to the pilot. He sat next to her and placed his headphones on again. “Looks like I need a computer expert. Up to the challenge?”

  Finally.

  “I’m dying for a challenge. What do you need?”

  “I need you to delay a flight coming in from Moscow.”

  Delay a flight?

  “I don’t understand.”

  He unbuckled her from the harness and lifted her black tote. “Follow me.”

  With his arm tight around her waist, he rushed her into a black Mercedes, driven by a man in a uniform of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and black boots.

  “Mr. Dunn, everything is set,” the driver said while glancing into the rearview mirror.

  “Thank you.” With that, Simon closed the partition between the driver and the back. “We need to transfer the cargo from this plane to the two helicopters before Russian authorities arrive and drag us into a customs nightmare. Stall the plane and we’ll have time to finish and leave.”

  “How can I delay a plane from landing? Streak across the runway.”

  He shook his head as though trying to rid his mind of that image. “As much as I’d love to see you naked, I’d prefer if you remained in the car. Clothes optional. Get into the website for the European Aviation Safety Agency. There’s an override to the tower and approach voice communication system for every airport in the EU. It was an experimental program. France protested the intrusion on its autonomy, but the system was never completely eliminated. Mess things up enough so no one can land. Nothing big, just a short delay. There aren’t many planes coming in at this time of night anyway.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Ten? She’d need more than that to locate the program, never mind override it. She’d hacked into many government agencies and found information for MI6 without leaving a trace of her presence, but she’d never had such a small window of time. What if she did it wrong?

  She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

  Simon lowered his eyebrows. “You can’t do the first major task I give you?”

  “I…ah…don’t have a computer.”

  “Here.” He handed her the black tote.

  Sure enough, inside was a small laptop with a satellite link. “You don’t understand. I could mess this up.”

  “Remove the computer from the bag and turn it on.” His voice lulled her into compliance.

  When she had everything set up, he touched her chin. “EASA. And I need this completed in seven minutes now.”

  She typed in the website he provided to her and then looked for a backdoor. Nothing obvious.

  The man in the black suit rapped on the window. Simon opened it a crack.

  “Where are they?” Simon asked.

  “They’re on final approach, and we have about twenty cases left.” The man spoke in a strong Eastern European accent. Russian?

  “Give me five minutes.”

  Five minutes? Her stomach twisted, but her concentration remained focused.

  She finally made her way inside. Everything was organized. She located the specific program, which listed over a hundred airports, and then paused. In reality, she had no idea how to shut down the communications of one airport in one specific European country and prayed there were alternate operations that would prevent planes from crashing into each other. And then she found CDG on the list, the acronym for the Charles de Gaulle International Airport.

  “I found it.”

  “Scramble everything.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  With shaking hands, she disrupted the control tower communications. “Done.”

  “Good. Keep everything down for five more minutes. I’ll be right back.” Simon followed the other guy to the transport plane, and they both began giving orders to their men again.

  A plane descended low into the airport. What the heck was it doing? Nothing should be landing now. Her chest tightened until she had to struggle to inhale. She watched in horror as the landing was aborted, and the engines th
undered into a lift off. It was a commercial jet. Normal people who had nothing to do with guns. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t watch innocent people die by her hands. She released the program and slammed the cover of the computer as though it was burning her hands. Her work at Vauxhall never seemed to harm anyone, but she’d never sat under a starry sky filled with potential victims of her handiwork.

  Anger shredded her composure. Did Simon have any respect for human lives? How could he be so callous? Why did she keep making him into a good guy?

  The rotors of both helicopters started up. Even from inside the car, the noise was deafening. Within seconds, both helicopters lifted off.

  Her body wouldn’t stop shaking. Perhaps it was the cool wind on bare arms and legs, but most likely it was fear. This was not an office job, where she was cloaked in a cubicle among a hundred colleagues. This was one woman and hundreds of lives.

  Simon hopped back in the car and tapped the divider for the driver to move. He then placed his arm over her shoulder. “Mission accomplished.”

  “What mission? Why did I risk those innocent lives?”

  “You delayed the flight and prevented the Russian authorities from tracking those guns to Teodor, my main supplier. And you allowed forty-eight crates of weapons and ammunition to move to their final destination.” Not the slightest bit of regret crossed his face.

  An icy chill stabbed at her chest. “I almost killed a plane full of people to save a few crate of guns that will be used to kill more people.”

  “Your job isn’t to question why you do something. It’s to do it and then move on to your next task.”

  “But—”

  “You wanted a job using your expertise. You wanted to be useful. Congratulations. You finished the job perfectly. I would have preferred that you shut down the system for the entire time I’d requested, but I won’t punish your insubordination this time.”

  “My insubordination?” Her voice rose into a yell. “Are you serious? I don’t think Tucker—”

  He placed a hand over her mouth and closed the gap between them, his mouth an inch from hers. “Do not ever mention his name, or the name of anyone else from there, outside the flat. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  His lips remained too close to hers. “Ever kill anyone, Watson?”

  “No. Never.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Are you sure of that? It’s easy to justify all your activities in a nice building in the center of London. Don’t kid yourself. My job may involve an unfortunate amount of fatalities, but I’m putting my own life on the line as well. Hiding in a cubicle while drones bomb far away locations based on information you’ve provided doesn’t make your victims’ deaths any less your fault. You’ve done more damage from your desk than I ever did on the ground.”

  He was right. She’d never really thought about how her work assignments affected a larger operation—a potentially deadly operation. Her face felt hot and her lungs weighed down with regret. She buried her head into his shoulder. Was she helping the world or hurting it?

  “You’re one of a kind, angel. I hope you can keep some of that innocence you possess, but you need a reality check. Headquarters likes to gloss over the ugly parts of the job, but you should always think about the end result.” He lifted her chin, waited for her eyes to meet his, and then kissed her. A deep, straight-to-the-heart kind of kiss.

  She bit his lip and shook her head. As much as she enjoyed kissing him, this wasn’t the time.

  He backed away, but kept his hand touching her cheek in a comforting move. His breathing was heavy. “Dinner, hotel, or home?”

  A night in Paris with a hot dude. Normally, she’d beg him for the adventure, but not right now. “Home.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cassie’s rose-colored view of her world had turned more of a blood red. This career was not Disney sweet, and she was not the pacifist she wanted to be. She’d taken the job with SIS for the challenge and the money. Then she’d blindly handled her job never thinking of the far-reaching consequences.

  If Simon knew she’d been deceiving herself for years about her benign assignments, why hadn’t she realized it herself? It would take her time to figure out if she even wanted to return to her old position. Was she helping the world or hurting it? Lives lost versus lives saved—that was one bit of calculus she didn’t care to learn.

  Simon’s views tended to be black and white about their work. Nothing, not the death of a plane full of people, or threats against his life, seemed to bother him. And yet, he displayed acts of kindness and a moral center all the time. Although he never apologized for placing her in such a horrible position, he provided her with comfort and strong arms to fall into after the storm.

  She spent the next week studying the newest lightweight portable drones. Without a full description of why they were needed, she could only teach Simon the basics about the different options available. The man was smart. He picked up enough knowledge of robotics and remote flight systems to speak intelligently to most people in the field. He relied on her for more detailed issues, like software applications and GPS guidance.

  And when their work was done, they continued on with a relationship that scorched her inside and out and was guaranteed to break her heart. It didn’t matter. Being with Simon felt completely right. When she returned to office work and a life alone in a flat, she’d remember this period in her life as crazy and passionate and eye-opening.

  After a week of feeling cherished, however, he’d returned her to the background upon entering the Middle East. The cold environment in the middle of the desert provided ample opportunities to feel worthless. Men, thousands of them, moved around her with no time to acknowledge her existence either as a colleague, a woman, or a human being. Life in Jordan was about rank and power. Cassie’s rank, however, hovered at the bottom of the food chain.

  Making things worse, Simon halted his carnal pursuit of her. Instead he treated her like a business colleague. Public displays of affection were frowned upon in Jordan, so the few times he touched her were to lead her somewhere or stop her from going somewhere he didn’t want her to go. He never held her hand and barely spoke to her. Her sexy lover had disappeared, and a cold, calculating arms dealer had taken his place.

  After they’d checked into their hotel in Amman, Simon’s leased black Mercedes took them into the desert. Several other cars, some with diplomatic flags, followed. Soon, an entire complex of buildings rose up from the horizon. Colored banners and a large white sign with a golden winged sword welcomed them to SOFEX Jordan. SOFEX—Special Operations Forces Exhibition.

  Moving through security involved a series of checkpoints, each one more strenuous than the last. Finally, the car pulled up to a large cement exhibition hall. Cassie and Simon entered the air-conditioned building through two large doors. She’d been to high tech conferences in the past where the companies touted their wares with over the top displays and large plasma screens showing how their technology beat that of their competitors, but the scale was not the same as at SOFEX. In addition to the sheer size of the convention, the complex housed weapons, ammunition, aircraft, rockets, and so much firepower someone could begin and end the next world war without calling for reinforcements. Companies displayed the latest in attack helicopters near the next generation of warplanes. Every major defense company with weapons to sell had a display area.

  That afternoon they mingled with the throngs of other attendees and perused what felt like a thousand displays. Simon needed to touch every weapon he encountered. He talked prices and workmanship and guarantees. Cassie was permitted to linger in the background. He occasionally introduced her to men who stared at her in a predatory manner, but otherwise discounted her existence.

  The phrase boys and their toys replayed over and over in her head as groups of men in camouflage, military uniforms, long flowing robes, and power suits handled pistols, rifles, and a thousand other things that could kill innocent children. Once in a great wh
ile, she’d see a conservatively dressed woman either displaying products or accompanying a delegation through the main areas. A rarity. Cassie’s navy blue suit and sturdy heels helped her blend into the surroundings, although her hair, even pulled tight into a bun, was about as a subtle as a golden turban in the crowd of somber colors.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “I’d love a cup of coffee.”

  They purchased two coffees at a small cafe tucked in between a handgun manufacturer and a company that made night vision goggles. They never sat. Instead, they strolled through the main building from display to display. Her feet were not loving all the walking, not in the two-inch pumps she’d worn to appear professional.

  “Let’s make our way to the North Korean booth. We need to get things started.”

  Simon picked up his pace without looking back at Cassie. She stayed with him, trying to keep her limping to a minimum.

  They must have walked a half a mile through thick crowds, occasionally stopping to meet someone of some importance to Simon. The North Korean booth seemed fairly deserted compared to other displays. Simon stepped up to the platform and shook the hand of one of the four men in dark suits lingering around the booth. The man waved Simon and Cassie both into a back room behind their video screens.

  “Mr. Dunn, it is nice to finally meet you.”

  “And you, Mr. Lee. This is my assistant, Cassie.”

  Mr. Lee gave her a very succinct bow. “Let us go for a walk.”

  They strolled for another half mile or so and exited the building next to a small outdoor display area for Pelican Technologies, a relatively new manufacturer of drones.

  Simon, his hands behind his back, meandered along, nodding and shaking his head to various questions. He pointed to several mini-drones on display. Mr. Lee focused his full attention on Simon.