Josh, sitting on the couch across from his friend and security expert, grimaced faintly. “What about the naval base?”
Zach shrugged. “Everything’s inspected before it leaves port. But what’re they looking at, Josh? That’s the question. Disassemble any electronic device and it’s just a lot of spare parts. And even if they ship it in one piece, who’s to know what it is? They could probably label it some kind of computer on the invoice, and nobody’d be the wiser.”
Raven, sitting on the floor with her back against the couch, frowned thoughtfully. “So, once they were out of U.S. waters, they could meet that tanker of Yaltan’s and just hand the device over to him.”
Zach nodded. “Easy as pie. It’s Civatech’s ship, and Adam Moreton has the authority to divert it temporarily. The news about the tanker being turned back isn’t public, so the captain and crew probably wouldn’t suspect the neutral flag.”
Raven was chewing on a thumbnail. “In other words, once they get that device to Norfolk, it’s pretty much gone.”
“Unless somebody stops it,” Josh noted. “Zach, does Civatech ship overland by the same route every time?”
With one of his smiles that could easily frighten someone who didn’t know him, Zach nodded. “Regular as clockwork. And they wouldn’t want to vary the routine now. They average two trucks leaving Richmond every time they ship, which is twice a week. The next shipment is due to leave Norfolk the day after tomorrow. Friday. So two trucks are likely to leave Civatech tomorrow. Sure as hell, one’s going to contain an innocent shipment—and one won’t.”
They looked at one another for a moment, and then Raven sighed. “Derek needs to know. His only chance is to waylay that truck somehow.”
“We could go public,” Zach suggested. “Let the military or state police deal with it.”
Josh gave him a look. “On what evidence? It might take days, maybe weeks, for the police to put everything together. There is such a thing as due process, you know.”
Mildly, Raven said, “Zach, if you don’t think it’s safe for Josh to get involved openly, then he won’t. You know that.”
The big security expert stirred uneasily. “Luc found more evidence of tampering,” he said abruptly, referring to the chief investigator for Long Enterprises. “Your apartment. They hadn’t had time to finish the job, but …”
Raven turned her head to look soberly at her husband. “That’s it, then.”
“No, it damn well isn’t it,” Josh said. “I’ll take reasonable precautions, but I won’t hide inside a cage. Besides, all the attempts and threats have been in New York—there hasn’t been a whisper here. And I haven’t exactly been out of the public eye, with the strike threatening. If somebody had wanted to get to me, they could have.”
After a moment, Raven looked back at Zach. “So.”
He nodded reluctantly. His friend of more than fifteen years was a man who didn’t like to be backed into corners, and Zach had learned when to stop pushing. “All right. So how do we get in touch with Derek?”
Josh looked at his wife, smiling faintly.
“Where there’s a will,” she said, “there’s a way.”
The gazebo was a round, white little structure with built-in benches inside along the waist-high rails. It sat at the edge of a small lake where ducks swam, and it was deserted except for a tall man who was casually dressed and who lounged back on one of the benches, idly smoking a cigarette.
Shannon was grateful for Derek’s strong hand holding hers, even though she felt that his trust in the other man had likely been hard-earned over years of situations like this one, and that she could count on Derek’s instincts. Still, she felt a little nervous. She wondered vaguely and a bit uncomfortably about her own prejudices, wondered if her feelings were unconsciously based on propaganda.
But then Alexi rose politely as they stepped up into the gazebo, and Shannon knew that her uneasiness had little to do with “ideologies.”
He was as tall as Derek, black-haired, and with an athletic build. Probably, like Derek, he was in his mid-thirties. His face was handsome in a rather cold way, and his eyes so light gray they seemed almost colorless. And it was those eyes Shannon saw and felt, those eyes and the danger in them.
“Your partner?” Derek asked as they sat down across from the other man.
Alexi smiled faintly. “Watching.”
Derek nodded, unsurprised and accepting, but Shannon felt the hair on the nape of her neck rise. She’d never liked being stared at, and the sensation of being watched now disturbed her. Still holding her hand, Derek squeezed it gently, and she realized he was aware of her feelings.
“Still Gina?” he asked Alexi.
“Still.”
Derek smiled a little. “When are you going to marry her?”
Without hesitation, and in the same tone his counterpart had used, Alexi replied, “When she recovers from the idea that she’s in love with you.”
Shannon felt a jarring shock, and when she looked at Derek she saw he was honestly surprised.
“I didn’t know,” he said finally.
Alexi laughed almost soundlessly. “No. How could you? You’ve seen her—what?—half a dozen times in as many years? And, to be fair, you must have looked very much like a white knight to her on those occasions. It was inevitable. She hasn’t quite lost her romantic view of this business, our Gina. She will soon.” His last comment was made flatly, and the colorless eyes brooded for an instant.
Shannon could feel Derek’s sudden alertness, and tried herself to tap into the undercurrents she was dimly aware of. There was something more here, she sensed, but she couldn’t begin to grasp what it was.
Derek didn’t say anything; he just watched the other man steadily. When Alexi met that calm gaze, his own eyes lost the brooding look and smiled.
“The sun always sets in the west,” he said lightly.
“End run,” Derek murmured.
“End run. Much more unexpected.” Alexi was silent for a moment, and then his gaze flicked to Shannon’s puzzled face. “I followed Miss Brown to your apartment.” His voice was brisk now, businesslike. “Discovering it was yours was a bit unexpected—but not unwelcome.”
“So it was Civatech you were on?”
“Yes. Via a Middle Eastern route. Word reached us some weeks ago that a certain fanatical enemy of both of our countries had been contacted through an intermediary to discuss the purchase of a rather extraordinary device. He couldn’t, of course, conquer the world, as he wishes to, with this weapon alone, but it would be an important addition to his arsenal. And if he managed to manufacture a number of the devices, he might upset the balance of power.”
Derek didn’t react to the information with any change of expression, he merely asked, “And how did you get on to Shannon?”
Alexi seemed to debate for a silent moment before saying, “It was simple to discover that Miss Brown took care of Adam Moreton’s correspondence when his personal secretary was absent. Miss Brown’s office is in the unrestricted section of the building, unlike Moreton’s secretary’s office. The obvious means to gain access to that correspondence was to temporarily remove his secretary so that Miss Brown would handle it—in her unrestricted and accessible office.”
“You didn’t hurt her?” Shannon burst out, horrified.
Alexi smiled. “Moreton’s secretary? No, Miss Brown. In point of fact, though she called in sick, she’s entirely well. Just rather … involved with a handsome young attorney.”
“Neat,” Derek commented.
Alexi inclined his head slightly. “And simple. He is, of course, one of ours. He was initially somewhat disgusted to find that after years of training his task was to merely be himself and make love to a woman. But she is a rather beautiful woman, so I doubt he still considers it a hardship.”
If anything, Shannon was even more horrified. People as pawns. She was beginning to understand that the world she had stumbled into held layers upon layers of deception. “Tha
t’s terrible,” she whispered.
Alexi glanced at her, a flicker of sympathy softening his hard eyes. “She won’t suffer, Miss Brown,” he said gently. “The initial meeting was planned cold-bloodedly, but humans are just humans, after all. They are merely two people who met, as is always the case. She may fall in love. He may fall in love. And we may avert a crisis.”
“So the end justifies the means?” she asked tightly.
He nodded slowly, still holding her gaze. “Always, it comes to that question. And the answer is: if the end is to prevent a war that could kill millions horribly, then almost any means can be justified. And if one heart is broken, then the only sadness is she won’t know that what cost her so much spared so many others unimaginable pain.”
Shannon didn’t know quite how to respond to that, and her eyes fell before Alexi’s steady gaze. She suddenly wondered how many times Derek had been forced to make a choice that had broken a heart, or cost a life, to spare others or to avert something terrible.
Derek had listened silently, without comment, to the discussion. “So,” he said finally, “Shannon was Moreton’s secretary. And a lot more accessible. What then?”
Alexi chuckled suddenly. “For a high-tech company as security-conscious as Civatech, they made a basic mistake. Miss Brown types correspondence on a simple electric typewriter.”
“The ribbon,” Derek guessed. “A film ribbon?”
“A film ribbon. It was simple to slip in near the end of the day when Miss Brown took her letters away for the proper signatures, and replace the ribbon. And, though a bit time-consuming, it was quite simple to reconstruct her letters from the ribbon.”
Derek nodded slowly. “All right. Why were you following her the night her apartment was destroyed?”
“Another lapse of security on Civatech’s part,” Alexi explained. “They may sweep their restricted sections for electronic devices, but they apparently ignore the people who work in the unrestricted sections. During one of my … visits to Miss Brown’s desk, I scattered a few bugs. Just on the off chance, you understand. Several bugs were planted inside ballpoint pens she used. On the day she voiced her misgivings to her supervisor, she was carrying one of the pens.”
Shannon felt a chill. It was unsettling, deeply and coldly unsettling, to know she had been under observation, had been watched and listened to when she had been completely unaware of it. It made her skin crawl.
“Did you figure her for a weak link?” Derek asked impersonally. “Or a target?”
“Given her background, it seemed entirely possible she was an agent. The assumed name, and the connections necessary to place her in a company like Civatech appeared suspect. However, her somewhat naive approach to her supervisor made that theory unlikely. Given her identity, it was also unlikely that she could be turned, and she didn’t seem to know enough to be of substantial help to us. But I thought it possible they might move against her; Moreton is known to be paranoid in the extreme at times. Any movement would have been welcome at that point, so I followed her.”
Shannon could hardly breathe. She stared fixedly at the floor of the gazebo, risking only a quick glance at Derek’s face and finding it unchanged. Had he understood? She felt her skin crawl again at the realization that her background had been checked, her past explored by Alexi. And Derek would know now that she had lied to him about who she was. He had understood Alexi’s words, of course he had.
But he didn’t comment. He merely said, “All right, Alexi. So what’s your objective?”
Alexi smiled faintly. “My orders are to locate Cyrano, and take it back with me. It’s a prototype; the blueprints were destroyed before Moreton could step in to protect them. To duplicate the device would take years, perhaps decades. It was a joint effort between several technicians, none of whom knew of the overall project. With the device, duplication would be possible—without it, there is no chance.”
Derek was smiling. “Your objective, Alexi,” he said softly.
The other man was smiling as well. “My only concern is that our fanatical Middle Eastern friend not get his hands on such a dangerous weapon. And I don’t believe that the balance of power need be upset by anyone else having it. What about your objective, Derek?”
“I want it destroyed. At the very least, defanged.”
“Then we’re in agreement.”
Derek nodded. “I’d say so. A common goal. And we have to move fast. If their attempts to get Shannon are any indication, somebody is panicked and pushing hard. Moreton, I’d guess. Any idea why?”
“A good one, I believe. Word reached us last night that our fanatical friend had attempted to send one of his tankers into U.S. waters flying a neutral flag. Needless to say, the ship was halted and turned back. If that vessel was the intended means to get Cyrano out of the country, Moreton and his partners could be facing a delay that could cost them dearly—especially with Miss Brown, the possessor of troublesome knowledge, on the loose.”
“Makes sense.” Derek gazed broodingly off into the distance for a moment. Almost absently, he asked, “Any idea who Moreton’s partners are?”
“None. But I believe he has at least one, and possibly several. Moreton hasn’t the international connections necessary to establish contact in the Middle East. His partners must have that, but they’re well hidden.”
After a moment, Derek said, “We’ll have to go in. Or else trick Moreton somehow into bringing the device to us.”
Alexi appeared mildly interested. “I would like to know, my friend, how you propose to do that.”
Derek grinned. “Beats the hell out of me. But, according to everything I’ve been able to find out, despite Civatech’s occasional security lapses that place is the next thing to impregnable. And they’ll be nervous, on guard. We don’t have a way in. So we’ll have to make a way out for Cyrano.”
“An interesting problem,” Alexi murmured.
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Derek glanced at his watch, then, frowning slightly, looked around at the placid lake and the quiet park.
“What?” Alexi asked quietly.
With a brief grimace, Derek said, “They found us this morning. Too quickly.”
Alexi glanced at Shannon, then said, “The Sherlock Holmes maxim. Eliminate the impossible. Whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be truth.”
Derek, too, glanced at Shannon, an odd glance out of shuttered eyes. Then he said softly, “I’ve done that. I don’t like what I’m left with.” He shook off the thought almost visibly. “We’ve no more than a few days, I think. They should have a backup plan for shipment of the device, so they’ll move quickly. We have to prevent that—or take advantage of it.”
Alexi nodded. “I may be able to discover something.”
“We’ll meet again later today, then. Here.” He sighed and got to his feet, still holding Shannon’s hand and pulling her up gently. “Six o’clock.”
Alexi agreed with a nod. His gaze flicked to their clasped hands, and he smiled.
“Give my regards to Gina,” Derek told him.
“I will.”
SEVEN
SHANNON WALKED QUIETLY at Derek’s side as they left the gazebo and went back through the park to his car. One of his cars. She was aware, during that short walk, that he was alert, wary, that his senses probed the areas all around them.
And she felt … what did she feel? Disturbed by the meeting with Alexi. For several reasons. Because Alexi knew who she was. Because she understood a little better now the world both men lived in. A world of danger and deception, a world where some choices meant terrible things. A world where an “enemy” agent could speak casually of plotting an innocent meeting between an unsuspecting woman and another enemy agent.
It was insane! Agents and fanatical Middle Eastern men bent on taking over the world, dangerous devices, hired killers, and secret meetings. She was so ordinary; things like this just didn’t happen to ordinary people.
“Shannon?”
&n
bsp; She realized they were standing by the car, and she hastily got in the passenger side. Her hand felt cold now without his holding it, and she felt alone. You’re turning into a clinging vine, Shannon. You’d better get used to being alone; he won’t always be here. He may not be here for much longer.… Or she wouldn’t be. She’d run, like she always had.
Run … run … run … It echoed in her mind, a mocking litany of failure. And with it were other echoes, rebounding in her head jarringly. “I care about you.” But had he made love to Gina? “You must have looked very much like a white knight to her.…” Yes, she could believe that … easily, because that was what he had been to her. Lover. But just for one night. Wasn’t she allowed just one night? She wasn’t cherishing any illusions, she didn’t think he was hers forever.
Did she?
The homey little burrow welcomed them with its undisturbed silence. Derek hadn’t said anything at all during the ride, and neither had Shannon. She caught herself limping as she went into the living room, and hastily sat down on the couch, swearing inwardly. Always giving away her insecurities.
Quickly, she asked, “What were you and Alexi talking about at first? That about the sun setting in the west? And something about an end run?”
Derek moved to look out the front window. “Alexi’s coming over to our side for good—that’s what he meant about the sun setting in the west. And an end run is a football play and military tactic where the aggressor runs wide around his own left or right flank while they block for him. In other words, Alexi is letting his people think he’s over here doing their work, while he fully intends to stay here. Rather than an open and dramatic defection, he’s just slipping away from them.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Shannon?” Derek sat down in a chair beside the couch and lit a cigarette. “You haven’t said a word about letting your mother know you’re all right.”
She started. “Oh. Well, she’s—she wouldn’t have heard about the explosion.”
“Why not?” Derek asked mildly.
“She’s … out of the country.”