Dirty Deeds

by HelenKay Dimon

  Alec’s hand balled into a fist on the armrest. “Is Jase alive? If he is, I think we should fix that.”

  That reaction meant everything. Alec didn’t question him or suggest he’d fucked up by trusting the wrong person. Knowing only pieces and only one side, Alec believed Gaige. He hadn’t known how much that would mean until he heard the fury in Alec’s voice and realized it wasn’t aimed at him. It showed his support.

  The weight that had been crushing his chest, nearly suffocating him, lifted. For the first time in a year Gaige felt like he could breathe without coughing. Like he could talk without examining each word or defending his actions.

  “Jase is on the run. He planned well.” The motherfucker. “People who knew him then think we broke up and he’s off finding himself. That’s what his texts to them said.”

  Alec shook his head. “This guy doesn’t take responsibility for anything.”

  “Other than Seth and his team, you’re the only one I’ve told.”

  “I can find Jase for you.”

  That felt even better. Alec might be able to do it, too. He had connections and eyes everywhere. Which was why Gaige had to say no. Alec would make it his mission to track Jase down. That would lead to more danger and kick the whole betrayal up again.

  For his sanity, Gaige had to let that part go. He had to try to put his life back together. Until he met Alec he figured he’d be doing that alone. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  They were supposed to be only having sex—keeping things light. That theory worked at the start and Gaige had tried to hold on to it. In his head he kept saying that’s all this was, but a part of him knew better. This wasn’t just about the relief of being trusted. This was something more…for him, at least.

  “You can’t go after Jase.” When Alec’s eyebrow rose, Gaige qualified his response. “Okay, we can, but don’t.”

  Alec stared without saying a word before finally nodding. “For now.”

  With his past spread out right there, Gaige moved on to the problem in front of them. “We’re on the plane now because, while Svalbard has seed information online, its security is on a closed circuit. I need to get in there and get access. Then we need to look inside the two supposedly unused vaults to make sure they really are empty. The glitch I found in the security video suggests that might not be the case.”

  “I also want to see what’s in the boxes Drummond supposedly sent off schedule.” Alec drummed his fingertips on the armrest. “They could have been used as subterfuge to get something else in the vault. I want to know.”

  “You have cover because of your relationship with Astrid Larsen. We need to use that.” That meant leaving Seth out of the loop. Gaige knew Seth might try to limit his access or keep him from crossing a line, and Gaige sensed he might have to do that before this was all over.

  “Astrid?” Alec winced. “I can’t believe she’d be involved.”

  Gaige understood. They were friends, or at least colleagues, and Alec wanted to know he didn’t mess up by trusting the wrong person.

  Nothing in her background suggested a problem. Gaige knew because he’d looked. “She might not be, but I can tell you from experience that sometimes you don’t know you’re trusting the wrong person until they’re waving a gun in your face.”

  “Words to live by.”

  “Right?” Relief shot through Gaige over and over again. He’d kept so much balled up inside for so long, depended only on himself. Taking this step loosened the valve on the mounting pressure.

  With the information out and the sketchy outline of a plan on the table, he could concentrate on something else…like the very sexy but scowling man in front of him.

  Gaige relaxed back into his chair. “How many hours is this flight?”

  Some of the tension eased out of Alec. His shoulders fell, and a small smile played on the corners of his lips. “Why?”

  Gaige glanced at the door to the cockpit. “They need to stay up there, right?”

  “I can order them to.”

  Now he’s getting it. The flat look in Alec’s eyes gave way to something very different. Heat. Excitement.

  “I’ve never had sex on a plane.” Gaige pretended to look out the window. “Imagine the view as I ride you.”

  “Why are you still sitting over there?”

  One of the many things Gaige liked about Alec was his near-guaranteed green light when it came to this topic. The man liked sex. Made sense since he was so damn good at it.

  Just one more thing. “Do you happen to carry condoms on this thing?”

  Alec shifted as he slipped his hand into his front pants pocket. He held up a condom between two fingers. “Of course.”

  “I like how prepared you are.”

  “Show me.”

  Chapter 20

  Later that day they checked in at Svalbard. They’d landed and made the ride to the vault. Astrid greeted them as soon as they stepped inside and unzipped their heavy jackets.

  With the introductions out of the way and Astrid thinking Gaige was a security specialist, they walked through the cold hallway. Ice formed on cinder blocks and lights hung down from the high ceiling. Pipes ran above their heads and cameras followed every step.

  None of it fazed Astrid. She moved with a steady confidence. Her blond hair was tucked into a ponytail that made her look far younger than forty-five. Watching her now, listening to the running verbal tour she provided to Gaige, Alec liked her as much as he had when they first met. Her enthusiasm for the project never waned.

  They turned a corner and entered what looked like a large metal tube. It stretched out in front of them, taking them more than three hundred feet deeper into the mountain.

  “Thanks for the unscheduled tour,” Alec said from behind her.

  She stopped and turned to face him with her usual welcoming smile. “For you? Anything.”

  “You are a charmer.” And he meant that. His bullshit meter kept scanning, looking for any sign that she’d been using him all this time. Nothing ticked. She wasn’t nervous about his unscheduled trip or the strange request that he be able to check boxes.

  Gaige suggested the excuse. He wanted to plant just enough of a question in case anyone was watching. Let any interested party know that Drummond questioned the earlier unscheduled seed deliveries, but maybe for reasons that had to do with problems at Drummond and not the vault.

  “And you worked with us to streamline our process for checking in seed boxes without causing an international incident.” She cleared her throat. “Well, you did after your dad…” Her smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

  Alec wondered how many years would pass before this kind of thing stopped happening. “It’s okay.”

  She bit on her bottom lip. “He meant well.”

  He actually didn’t but Alec didn’t point that out. He didn’t look at Gaige either because he didn’t want to see the question there. “Diplomacy is tricky. Let’s just say it wasn’t his strongest asset.”

  “I prefer international wrangling to some of the other requests I get,” she said.

  Gaige looked at her. “Like what?”

  “You’d be amazed how many men contact us about storing their seed.”

  The ventilation system continued to hum and the lights buzzed, but neither Gaige nor Alec said a word. Alec wasn’t sure what to say other than to point out some men were idiots.

  “Wait.” Gaige seemed to give himself a little shake. “You mean sperm?”

  Now that it was out there, Alec had to say something because damn. “Talk about having an inflated sense of self.”

  Astrid laughed and the sound echoed off the walls. “Exactly. Some are quite insistent that humanity will need to have access for future procreation.”

  “I don’t even know what to say to that,” Alec said.

  Gaige snorted. “I do. You don’t get paid enough.”

  “Very true.” Astrid patted Gaige on the arm. The gesture was motherly, which fit her since she had three kids at hom
e that she was raising by herself.

  They started walking again. Alec paid more attention than usual to the doors they walked through, the security watching their steps. That was Gaige’s job, but a second look couldn’t hurt. They’d walked through the cold tunnels and two doors and emptied out into a large space that was literally an ice cavern. The white walls had been carved out of the inside of the ice mountain. The cold outside helped to maintain the temperature inside.

  Here, in the main chamber, there were pipes running through the ceiling and a wide space where the seed trolleys traveled. And three sets of doors.

  Since this wasn’t really a tour, Alec jumped to the topic that brought him here. “About the favor you did for me.”

  She waved him off. “For Drummond, and you have been an active supporter, so it was no trouble to reopen the vault to accommodate your distribution issues.”

  That’s not exactly what he wanted her to say, but still. “Thank you.”

  “Did you figure out who did it?” Astrid looked from Gaige to Alec as she asked the question. “The attacks on your transportation routes, I mean.”

  There was the excuse, the reason someone used to get those unscheduled Drummond shipments in the vault. It made sense. Distribution problems, attacks on transportation convoys happened all the time. But this time it was all made up, and Alec wanted to know why.

  “That’s part of why we’re here.” Gaige took over. “We’re working on it.”

  Alec followed Gaige’s lead. “But, as you would imagine, we need to ensure none of the deposits have been compromised.”

  Her shiny disposition disappeared. “If you thought that was an issue you should have warned me earlier.”

  “I didn’t know it was a possibility until now.” Alec rushed to reassure her. This could be a crack in her cover but he suspected this was really about being afraid and furious that he might have put the vault at risk. “I promise that as soon as I knew of the potential problem I came here, and the packets are sealed. It’s about potentially imperfect seeds. Nothing more.”

  Astrid was a smart woman. She came to the vault with two advanced degrees in science and an unshakeable belief that she was the best person to run this place. Alec agreed. Hell, when the position came open two years ago, he supported her promotion behind the scenes, pushed for it. There was no way she would just accept Alec’s word and be fine. She’d demand answers and assurances…unless she was behind whatever was happening here. In that case, Alec had no idea what she would do.

  “You say it’s fine but you brought Mr. Owens with you.”

  “You can call me Gaige.” With a smooth tone and calm demeanor, Gaige slid into security manager mode. “My job is to check for compromises in security and revamp existing protocols to prevent any future issues on Drummond’s end. This is about our failures and procedure, not yours.”

  The fake job description seemed to satisfy her, at least temporarily. Alec didn’t like having his company take the hit for looking unprepared but once this was resolved he could tell her the truth. Probably.

  “Are you worried about the vault’s security?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I’m actually fascinated by the redundant protections.” Gaige leaned closer to Astrid as if they were sharing a big secret. “I’d like to implement something similar at Drummond.”

  “I’m happy we can help.” She stepped over to the middle set of doors. “The vault.”

  Gaige looked around, scanning the walls and ceiling before he frowned. “I expected…”

  Astrid’s smile returned. “What?”

  “Big locks and armed guards? I don’t know. With all the security in the structure, I figured the seeds themselves would be more protected.” He held up both hands. “You know, like the equivalent of a bank vault. But this is just an ordinary set of double doors. Steel, sure, but still doors with a handle and lock.”

  “As you pointed out, there are redundancies. The vault is locked. The doors throughout the structure are locked. We watch everything on security video. Entries and exits are logged and checked, and every deposit into the vault has to be pre-approved. Really, not that many people have access to anything in here.”

  “Is it possible to meet with the person in charge of security?” Gaige shifted his weight from foot to foot and blew on his hands through his gloves. “You know, just in case I need to bounce ideas off someone later.”

  “Absolutely.” Astrid punched in a code on the security panel next to the door. The green light flicked on and there was a click. She slipped the key into the lock on the door, and a second later she opened it and ushered them inside.

  Racks of boxes were lined up in rows. The setup wasn’t that different from what a very organized, and freezing, garage might look like.

  While she walked them through the lettered and numbered aisles, Alec looked around. Even though the temperature dipped lower, the video surveillance continued in here.

  She slipped into row R, section four and stopped. “Here is the box from your last delivery.”

  Alec didn’t wait for more. He grabbed it off the shelf and set it on the floor. All of the markings on the outside were right. Even the label looked as if it had been printed on company letterhead.

  He broke the seal and opened the top. Inside were vials and piles of sealed foil packages labeled GENE BANK. When he turned one over he could see the seeds through the panel. These were genetically modified seeds. Under Svalbard’s rules, food hybrids designed for a specific purpose were forbidden in the vault.

  He forced his smile to stay in place as he glanced up at Astrid. “Excellent service, as always.”

  She helped him close and reseal the box, then guided it back to its space on the shelf. “You two look cold.”

  “I can’t feel my hands.” Gaige rubbed them together again.

  It sounded like a joke but Alec was pretty sure Gaige was serious. Alec guessed it would take days back in Munich before they thawed out again.

  “You should be here when it’s really cold.” Astrid laughed at her own joke as she gestured for them to leave the aisle. “Do you want to see anything else in here?”

  “We’ll check every pack sent in those special deliveries and do a video conference with the scientists back in our lab tomorrow. Then we’ll know for sure that everything is in order with the seeds.” That was the cover story they’d come up with for needing to be in the vault. The subterfuge would allow Gaige some time and the opportunity to crack Svalbard’s security and see what was really happening in those other vaults. At least Alec hoped that was true.

  Gaige stopped and then raised his hand as if he’d thought of one more thing. “This has nothing to do with us, but I’m curious. There were three doors in the hallway.”

  “There are two other vaults. Those are empty now but will be used in the future as we collect more seeds.” She shooed them into the hall then locked the vault door behind them.

  “Do you check them?” Gaige asked.

  She stilled with her fingers still locked on the door handle. “For what?”

  “Leaks? Ice?”

  She started moving again, this time faster. “The temperature is regulated and a camera highlights the inside.”

  She said all the right things. Her security speeches matched the party line, matched everything Alec had ever been told about security here. Whether she was right was the question.

  She was a tall woman, probably close to six feet. That meant long legs. She practically had them sprinting across the main chamber again. They kept going until they reached a door marked SECURITY.

  She hit a button on the security panel and the camera above their heads swung around to face them. After a small wave she typed in a code and turned another key and pushed the door.

  Gaige’s eyes lit up when they stepped inside. One whole wall consisted of monitors. Another set lined the area where one man sat and another hovered over him. The place was a high-tech dream inside a mountain, with panels of lights and
buttons.

  Images flashed across the screens. The security photos weren’t static. The cameras moved and the angles changed. Only a few showed any human movement. Most focused on a piece of equipment or the racks of seed boxes.

  The man who was standing straightened up when they entered. He walked over to greet them, and Astrid immediately broke into introductions. “You remember Daniel Berg, our head of security.” She pointed past him to the man seated at the long desk. “This is his assistant, Einar Hagen.”

  Daniel nodded. “Mr. Drummond.”

  Alec did a quick once-over. He took in the gun and the confidence. Daniel was about fifty and tall. Very trim with an athletic build. There was nothing soft about him.

  “He’s here to double-check the seeds that came in the last delivery.” Astrid looked at Gaige. “Gaige Owens is in charge of restructuring Drummond’s security.”

  Daniel whistled. “That sounds like a significant undertaking.”

  “And it better be done right,” Alec added, because if any of this had been real that was the sort of thing he would say.

  Gaige shook Daniel’s hand, then dropped it. “I think you can understand the pressure I’m under.”

  Alec decided to try another test. He could see security personnel walking around on the monitors but the man standing in front of him was the one in the know. Daniel handled every seed delivery personally, including the fake ones. “Thank you for your help in November.”

  Daniel frowned. “Is that why you’re checking the security?”

  “Part of it. You know how it is. You find a hole and it leads to a full recheck,” Gaige said as he stepped to the side of the group and watched the monitors. He kept moving until he stood right behind Einar. “Damn, this is impressive.”

  “We think so,” Einar said.

  Gaige leaned in and put his palms flat against the table next to Einar’s keyboard. “I was just in there.”