How Spy I Am

by Diane Henders

  Hellhound smiled as if reading my mind and shrugged out of his jacket. As he bent to remove his boots, I stopped him. “Don’t bother. It’ll hurt your ankle. Just leave them on.”

  “Nah. Don’t wanna mark up your floor,” he replied.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s so old it won’t matter,” I argued, but he persisted, and I winced as he eased his boot off.

  He shot me a meaningful look. “How ‘bout some music?”

  “Sure.” I hurried to the living room to drop in the first CD that came to hand, and moments later the first notes of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet made us both smile.

  “Good old Satchmo,” Arnie rasped as he reached into his pocket to withdraw the scanner again.

  I gave him a nod and headed for the bedroom to retrieve the other scanner Stemp didn’t know I had.

  When I returned to the living room a few minutes later, I let Hellhound’s sexy rough-edged voice ease my frustration while he sang along with the music, limping systematically back and forth with the scanner. The green light glowed steadily until he neared me.

  When the red light began to flash again, I gave him a frustrated grimace and waved a thumbs-down at my own scanner. I couldn’t get far enough away from myself to use it. He shrugged philosophically, and I sprawled on my worn sofa to attempt patience while he finished the scan.

  At last, he reappeared from the back bedroom and shot a thumbs-up at his scanner. I relaxed in the knowledge that I was the only thing in the house that was bugged.

  I made space for him on the couch beside me. “Come here,” I encouraged. “You should put your foot up for a while.”

  He stooped to give me a light kiss. “Sorry, darlin’, I gotta go.” He limped into the kitchen and I followed, catching up with him as he reached the front door.

  “Why don’t you stay for a bit?” I ran my hands over his chest and leaned in to kiss him.

  His arms closed around me, but he didn’t deepen the kiss as I’d hoped. I gave him a little tongue-tease and pressed closer.

  When I still wasn’t rewarded with one of his world-class kisses, I reached up to nibble his ear and whisper, “If you stay, this porn star will make it worth your while.”

  I pressed my hips against him, running my hands down his back to fondle his ass. He drew in a breath, his arms tightening around me, and I stretched up again to murmur a description of exactly how he’d benefit from staying.

  He groaned, and this time his lips and tongue met mine with the hot hunger I’d anticipated. Just as my insides were beginning to melt, he pulled away.

  “Jesus, darlin’, you’re makin’ this hard,” he rasped. “I really gotta go.”

  I grinned and slid my hand down to assess the enticing bulge in his firmly-packed denim. “I was planning to make it hard. And it worked.”

  He caught my hand and held it. “Stop, Aydan, I can’t. I gotta go.”

  His seriousness sent a chill of concern down my spine, and I searched his face. “Sorry, Arnie, I didn’t mean to push you. If you’re not in the mood, it’s okay.”

  He barked a short laugh. “I’m so in the mood, I’m one kiss away from rippin’ your clothes off an’ doin’ ya right here on the kitchen table.”

  “Well, in that case…” I reached up to kiss him again, but he avoided my lips, gently pushing me away.

  “Sorry, darlin’, I really gotta go.” He jammed his boots on, wincing, and made for the door.

  I trailed him uncertainly. “Okay. Good night…”

  “G’night.” He cupped my cheek in his palm for a moment, an indecipherable expression on his face, and then turned and limped out.

  I wandered back into the living room. The CD had ended and silence surrounded me. I had always prized my solitude, but the house seemed cold and empty tonight.

  I threw myself onto the sofa, its aging springs protesting under the assault, and stared up at the ceiling.

  So much for Kane’s ‘I love you, Aydan’. What a load of shit. He hadn’t even cared enough to help Arnie look for me. He couldn’t wait to be rid of me so he could make time with Honey-The-Gorgeous.

  I blew out a sigh. What the hell did I expect? He was a spy. Lying was as easy as breathing for him. Spies didn’t worry about breaking hearts; they just completed the mission and got out. Lucky I hadn’t fallen in love with him.

  And anyway, I could scarcely blame him for being eager to seize his freedom. He must have felt as though he was in some kind of purgatory, assigned to a desk and babysitting me after his former exciting life as a field agent.

  Plus, any man in the world would jump at the opportunity to be with a woman like Honey. Jack. Whatever.

  I let out a growl and glared at the bandage on my arm.

  Just an asset. Nothing but an object, to be used and then discarded when something better came along.

  I jerked upright and slammed my fist into the cushions, then sprang to my feet and dealt the couch a vicious kick. The pain in my unprotected toes made me yell, and I bombarded the cowering sofa with a flurry of kicks and punches, swearing at the top of my lungs.

  My fury faded rapidly as my weakened body surrendered, and I sank to the floor, leaning my swimming head on the seat of the sofa. The thought of the listening device in my arm filled me with the same sick disgust as a parasite burrowing under my skin. I shuddered and dragged myself to my feet.

  Goddammit, I was sick and tired of playing by everybody else’s rules.

  I strode down the hall to find the peroxide bottle.

  It wasn’t much worse than removing a deeply embedded splinter. A few minutes later I held the tiny blood-slicked capsule triumphantly aloft in the tweezers, grinning satisfaction laced with pain.

  My elation ebbed with the realization that I wasn’t really any farther ahead. I still had to keep the damn bug with me, or they’d know I’d removed it.

  My favourite electronics genius would know what to do with it, but Spider was still living with his parents until his fire-ravaged house was rebuilt. I couldn’t go over there tonight, dammit.

  Still trapped. Still helpless.

  The thought caught my throat, spurring my breath into shallow panting. The panting tried to turn into sniffling, and I shook my head, stiffening my spine and squaring my shoulders. I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  I was fine. Just exhausted and strung out from hunger and stress and captivity. I could take the bug to Spider in the morning.

  I’d just go and find something to do in the mean time.

  I trailed down the hallway into my office and flopped into my desk chair. When the computer booted up, I clicked restlessly through some email, too tired and cranky to respond.

  I eyed the phone. I should probably call my friends and tell them I was still alive.

  Hell, what did it matter? They’d be just as happy to find out I was alive tomorrow. Assuming they cared more about me than Kane did.

  I banished that thought and scowled at the screen, hoping something would catch my interest. The old crossword puzzle icon made my heart squeeze in sudden grief.

  Robert and I used to do the puzzles together every night. After he’d died, I’d kept playing, clinging to the nightly ritual until my pain abated enough to let it slip away.

  If only I’d understood how much he loved me. If only he’d succeeded in whisking me away from this godawful spy’s life.

  But Stemp had ordered his execution. Stemp, the source of all my misery.

  I shook off the old cold ache and started the crossword puzzle, holding Robert’s smile in my memory.

  Chapter 10

  The familiar iron bars burned my skin. The air crushed out of my lungs, light fading to blackness while I jerked and twisted frantically. I fought for breath in mindless terror, my screams nothing more than empty whispers.

  I bolted up in bed, my last scream still echoing in the dark bedroom.

  Panting, I slumped forward to massage my face. Apparently I’d been grinding my teeth again, too. My jaws th
robbed fiercely.

  I held my head in my hands until my pounding heart regained its normal rhythm. The sadistic glow of my clock-radio taunted ‘3:24 AM’ and I flopped back onto the pillow with a whimper. Only half an hour since the last time I’d woken screaming.

  I rolled over to bury my face in the pillow, firmly denying the impulse to call Hellhound. He’d already turned me down once tonight. Begging would just be pathetic.

  I got up for a drink of water before lying down again, deliberately relaxing my muscles one by one. Yoga breathing. In. Out. Slow like ocean waves.

  My mind circled. Stemp had backed me into a corner from which there was no escape. Car: gone forever. Cover story: no hope there. And Kane?

  I blew out a sigh and turned over, yanking the blankets up around my shoulders.

  No point in fighting to get Kane back as my handler. He had done his duty. He deserved a chance to go back to the life he wanted to live. Now that Stemp knew Kane hadn’t been compromised after all, he shouldn’t have any trouble getting another assignment.

  I rolled over again, rubbing my aching forehead with the heel of my hand.

  Yoga breathing. In. Out. Slow like ocean waves.

  Dammit.

  In the dull light of early morning, I shivered my way out to the garage. A chill wind scooped up the light snow from the ground to hiss against the vinyl siding as I slipped into the comforting warmth of the building.

  The empty bay stabbed my already-aching heart. My Saturn was the first and only car I’d bought almost-new. Almost two hundred thousand miles on the clock, and it had never let me down. Now it was a gutted, twisted wreck.

  Kind of like my life.

  I shook off the thought and climbed into my battered half-ton truck to head for Silverside.

  On the highway I peered through watering eyes, trying to stay alert while I nearly yawned myself inside-out. By the time I parked in the Sirius Dynamics parking lot, I’d tried and failed to achieve an attitude adjustment.

  I hauled my foul-tempered self up the stairs and into the spartan lobby. The security guard watched in unemotional silence while I signed in, and I plodded upstairs feeling thoroughly under-appreciated. Nothing like a heart-warming display of friendship to start your day off right.

  The corridors were deserted, and I grumbled my way toward my office, scowling at the carpet. When I turned the corner into my doorway, a burst of adrenaline made me snatch for my gun, my hand in motion before my brain fully registered the threat.

  I aborted the movement at the last moment when comprehension dawned.

  “Welcome back!”

  A chorus of voices and a roomful of grinning faces made me convert my grab for my waist holster into a clutch at my chest in an attempt to prevent my heart from punching through my ribs.

  “Welcome back, Aydan!” Spider crowed as he flung his lanky arms around me. “Thank God you’re all right!”

  I returned his hug, trying to catch my breath and slow my panicked pulse. I felt a grin spreading over my face at the sight of the balloons taped to my desk. There was even a cake.

  That explained the presence of the many researchers whom I knew only slightly. Hey, I didn’t blame them. Free cake, hello.

  Stemp was mercifully absent, but Richardson stood near the back of the room, flanked by Sam Kraus on one side and Honey… er… Jack Travers on the other. My bubble was slightly deflated by her presence, but I shrugged and let it go as I turned to respond to Spider’s excited chatter.

  Under the cover of circulating bodies, I slid my note into his hand. He stiffened as he scanned it and gave me a single wide-eyed look before nodding and drifting away, looking entirely too casual.

  I shot a nervous glance around the room, but everyone seemed to be concentrating on eating. I relaxed. So far, so good.

  Some time later, the researchers abandoned the decimated cake like jackals slinking away from a stripped carcass, and the population of my office dwindled to Spider, Richardson, Sam, Honey, and John Smith.

  Richardson spoke, sounding apologetic. “We’re your team, I guess. Dr. Travers and I are the only ones who don’t know the ropes, so tell me what you want me to do.”

  Honey laid a hand on his arm. “Please call me Jack. And I hope you won’t mind if I call you Mark.”

  Richardson shot her a slightly bashful glance. “No problem, Jack.”

  Clouds parted and angels sang when she smiled at him and squeezed his arm appreciatively. I turned away to hide my amusement at Richardson’s valiant attempt to appear unaffected.

  “Aydan just goes into the virtual network and does her thing,” Spider explained to Richardson. “You’ll go in with her in case she needs somebody to pull her out for some reason, because we can’t wake her externally the way we can everybody else.”

  Richardson shuddered. “No, and I don’t ever want to see her dragged out of the network again. That was horrible.”

  Spider’s youthful face creased in concern as he eyed me. “Aydan, are you sure you’re up to this? You look really tired.”

  “Thanks, Spider, I’m fine,” I assured him. “What will Jack and Sant-… Sam be doing?”

  Sam chuckled, his round belly jiggling, and I laughed, too. “Sorry, Sam. I just can’t get used to not calling you Santa Claus.”

  “You still can, you know. You did for so many years.”

  I grinned. “Only if you bring me treats the way you used to when I was a kid.”

  “Maybe I should,” Sam joked. “Maybe it would make you happier when you have to go into my lab downstairs.”

  “Yeah.” I forced a chuckle. “I don’t think a candy cane is going to cut it, though. Try a five-course gourmet meal, and then we’ll talk.”

  “Too rich for my budget. Anyway, to answer your question, Jack’s area of expertise is…” Sam sobered and hesitated, glancing at the other occupants of the room. “…the project you tested a few days ago,” he finished.

  His usual jolly demeanour reasserted itself and he smiled, his blue eyes twinkling above his rosy cheeks and snowy beard. “We think your project will tie in very well with that development, so Jack has been temporarily assigned to your team, and I’m assisting her with her research in return.”

  He combed his fingers through his beard. “We’re both looking forward to this very much. I have some work to do in my lab downstairs, but Jack will stay and observe your session here.” He beamed at us before making his exit.

  Honey’s stunning smile reappeared. “It’s so nice to see him happy again. He was devastated when he thought you’d died. We’re all so glad you’re okay.”

  I nodded slightly embarrassed thanks and turned my attention to Spider when he spoke again, turning his usual happy-puppy expression toward Jack.

  “You can follow the session with me on my laptop,” he said. “We’ll stay outside the virtual network and monitor through the physical interface. I can explain what’s happening, and we can communicate with Aydan and Richardson inside the network, too.”

  She smiled and hefted the familiar small case in her hand. “Thanks, but I’ve brought my own monitoring equipment.”

  “Remind me not to tell a lie,” I joked as she laid out the case on the sofa beside me.

  She eyed me, frowning. “Don’t tell lies,” she said seriously. “It’ll get you into trouble sooner or later.”

  “Um… yeah…”

  She pinned Smith, Spider, and Richardson with a laser-blue gaze, each in turn. “The contents of this case are highly classified. All you need to know is that this is a mobile brainwave monitoring unit, just a portable version of Sam’s lab downstairs. Clear?”

  Oops. Me and my big mouth.

  “Clear.”

  She nodded acknowledgement of their ragged chorus and returned her attention to me as she placed the electrodes on my forehead.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed silently.

  She gave me a half-smile, and Spider handed over the tiny box containing my network key.

  I waved Richa
rdson toward a chair. “Might as well get comfortable.”

  I blew out a breath and stepped into the virtual reality network where I stood waiting in the void. When Richardson’s avatar materialized beside me, I held my expression carefully neutral.

  He glanced down at his combat gear, bristling with what seemed an excessive number of knives, and hefted the submachine gun tucked into the crook of his arm. His blue eyes crinkled into a self-deprecating smile, the elusive dimple in his cheek flirting attractively before vanishing again.

  “I guess somebody’s feeling a little inadequate,” he quipped.

  I laughed. “It’s okay. Don’t fight it, it’ll change on its own when you get more comfortable with all this.”

  About an hour later, I’d decrypted several files, and Richardson’s combat gear had gradually faded into his fashionable real-world shirt and slacks.

  I rubbed my tired eyes, surreptitiously watching him. He was young, fit, and undeniably handsome, but I hadn’t realized how much I’d grown accustomed to Kane’s muscular bulk. My mind drifted back to our summer surveillance op, thanking the indulgent gods all over again for that man-candy glimpse of Kane in his underwear.

  Kane, ohmigod, those killer six-pack abs and that massive chest. And those bulging arms. And those shoulders a woman could sink her teeth into. That I had sunk my teeth into, once. And the way he filled those hip-hugging black briefs…

  The air in the file room shimmered and began to take shape in front of me, and I yanked my attention back to the file on my virtual desk. Do not think about things like that in a brainwave-driven simulation.

  And anyway, hot as Kane undeniably was, that opportunity had passed. I sighed and determinedly redirected my wandering mind.

  “How are we doing, Spider?” I asked the ceiling.

  “Fine. That’s the last of the urgent files. Now you need to go into Fuzzy Bunny’s network and see if they believed Stemp’s car crash story.”

  I carefully avoided thinking about the consequences of that story. So I was an internet porn star. So eager eyes were watching the so-called me doing unspeakable things with a pudgy, disgusting little slimeball. So what. Stay calm. Like Hellhound said, it wasn’t that bad.