Encrypted (30 page)

Didn’t he get it? Didn’t they
all
get it? This was no accident. No natural spread of the disease.

“We’ve been
purposefully
infected,” Amanda
said,
finding it silly to have to state something so obvious.

“I…I haven’t been feeling well
,
either,” Henderson admitted. Neither had she. Everyone had chalked it up to stress and fatigue
,
w
hen
really
,
someone had been planting the bacteria right
in
the heart of the laboratory.

“Dear God,” Henderson said
,
his tone wounded. “They truly are brilliant
,
aren’t they?”

Amanda nodded. Who better
to
infect than the people charged with stopping the plague
?

The plan was
so
simple
,
elegant
,
and ironic that Amanda would have laughed, except for the fact
that
they would all be dead within twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER 12

C
i
udad
Juarez
Hotel

11:12
p
.
m
.
,
MST

Ronnie wiped her eyes. Her hand came back black. It turned out
that
five coats of mascara and tears didn’t play together so well.

Ugh. And with the hot
,
steaming water creating a veritable fog around her, the stench of the three cans of hair spray Quirk used nearly gagged her. Not that her stomach felt all that great before. Each time she felt any morsel of numbness setting in, that last image of Zach flashed in her mind. The sound of his voice during their last conversation, worried
,
yet hopeful, caressed her ears.

Fantasy was
so
much better than reality.

After so long in the bath, her fingers had long ago
raisined
. Perhaps it was time to wash her hair and get to bed. She leaned over the porcelain tub and fished around in her “go” bag, but couldn’t find any shampoo. Really? Quirk put that much product in her hair and didn’t give her some way to get it back out again?

Feeling leaden, her legs complained as she rose from the bath. Grabbing a robe off the hook, she pulled it on before stepping out into the bedroom.

“Quirk, did you pack shampoo
,
or what?”

Her assistant turned around, hand shoved behind his back. Ronnie strode over as Quirk held her iPod above his head.

“Is that him?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Her legs no longer felt heavy.

“Who else?” he said, squirming away.
“
Someone
has to be strong for you.”

“Is that the 9
-
1
-
1 override code?”

Her assistant still wouldn’t hand it over. “If he
’
s in physical danger, I will bed a woman!”

He tried to stand on his tippy
-
toes, but Ronnie was a good two inches taller than
he
. She snatched the iPod from Quirk’s grasp and put the earbuds in.

“Zach?” Ronnie asked, half afraid of the response she was going to get. Was he pissed? Distant? Dismissive?

“Ronnie, I
—
” Zach said before the line went quiet.

“I,
what
?” she nearly shouted.

A
rustling
came
on the line
, and
then another voice, heavily Latin influenced
,
spoke. “We have him
,
so you’d best listen carefully.”

Ronnie’s back straightened to a rod.

Quirk cocked his head
.
“What, is he begging you to meet him again?”

She shook her head and mouthed, “He’s been kidnapped.”

Her assistant snorted. “Yeah, right.” Then
he
went back to packing.

As the man on the line took a deep breath, Ronnie put a bud in Quirk’s ear.

“Unless you agree to surrender yourself at the time and place of our choosing,
and
then do as you are instructed, Special Agent Zachary Hunt will die.”

“Damn it
!
” Quirk muttered.

No freaking kidding. This was one instance where she did
not
want to tell Quirk
that
she told him so. But here they were. Ronnie shoved her assistant
toward
his laptop. Quirk popped the earbud out as he sat
on the bed.

“Al
l
right, al
l
right. I’ll put a trace on it,” Quirk conceded.

Ronnie turned her attention back to Zach’s captor. “I need to speak with Zach.”

“You have little room to demand anything.”

“Look,” she said. “Clearly
,
you need something from me
,
and I am not giving it to you until I am sure
that
Zach is safe.”

“Um, perhaps we shouldn’t antagonize the kidnappers quite so much,”
Quirk
piped up.

She mouthed, “Find him
,
” as Zach’s captor went into some long
,
rambling
speech about how
he
was in control.

Ronnie cut him off. “Put him on the line
,
or this is going to be an extremely one
-
sided conversation.”

No response. Ronnie held her breath.

Had she pushed too hard?

* * *

Zach watched the veins in
Jorge
’s forehead bulge. Guess the operative wasn’t used to having anyone talk to him like that, let alone a woman. Grant shrugged
,
though.

“Let the lovebirds talk.”

Brusquely
,
Jorge
stuffed the buds in Zach’s ears.

“Hey,
sexy
,
”
he said
,
trying not to sound too tortured.

“Hey
there
, yourself,” Ronnie answered, but
he
could hear the strain in her voice. They both knew
that
they were being monitored. She hadn’t stayed out of jail for so long
by
being naïve. Naïve like they could carry on an illicit relationship behind the
backs of the
FBI and
the
CIA.

“Have they injured you?” she asked.

“Depends on your definition…”

Jorge
leaned in close. “Tell her what we want.”

“How many are holding you?” she asked. Unfortunately
,
her question was piped in
to the whole room.

Zach answered as quickly as he could
.
“Five that I know of, but
—
”

The buds were ripped out.
Jorge
put them back into his own ears.

“That will be enough,” the CIA agent grunted. “Now you will hear
our
terms.”

No matter how politically correct Grant tried to
appear
, Zach knew that no matter what
Jorge
promised Ronnie, there was no way
that
he was leaving this room alive.

* * *

Ronnie only half-listened as the man went on and on about the conditions of this supposed meet
ing
. “You will come alone and unarmed
,
blah, blah, blah.”

Or at least
,
that was all she heard as Quirk’s eyebrows nearly met in the middle of his forehead as he pounded away at the keyboard. Finally
,
his face tilted up with a smile. Quirk gave a thumbs
-
up and turned the screen toward her.

A nice
,
green circle showed where the CIA was keeping Zach.

“Hey,” she said, interrupting the operative’s diatribe. “Let’s not do that and say that we did.”

She could hear the man fume on the other side before he spoke
.
“You do not seem to understand
—
”

“Let me talk to Zach
,
or
—
”

* * *

“Or what?”
Jorge
chuckled. “You will trigger the self-destruct
mechanism
?”

The operative shoved the iPod toward Zach
,
who noticed that Grant, ever so brave, backed away to the f
a
rthe
st
corner of the room.

“I would warn against it
,
since your precious agent is the one holding the device.”

Well, not so much holding it, as not being able to get outside of the iPod’s blast range. Would Ronnie really detonate it? Would she save her skin and crispy
-
fry his?

Ronnie’s voice echoed in the small room. “Really? On no, whatever will I do?”

Zach knew she was being sarcastic, but
Jorge
didn’t seem to quite understand the difference. Once Ronnie’s tone got serious, maybe he would. “Don’t screw with me, spook,” she said. “I know that you are company trained. So listen to the stress levels in my voice. I am not bluffing. I am not exaggerating. Let. Me. Talk. To. Zach.”

Seriously, were they not listening to her? The woman meant it, yet
Jorge
and Grant grinned stupidly
at
one another.

“Or?”
Jorge
asked.

Ronnie’s voice filled the room. “You, my dear sir, die.”

“You are a hacker who lives off the grid. So what exactly do you propose to do to me?”
Jorge
challenged.

Zach was pretty darn sure
that
Jorge
did not want to know.

“Don’t say
that
I didn’t warn you.”

* * *

Ronnie bit her lip. She
was
serious. But was she committed to this course of action?

“You try anything
,
and I will kill him without hesitation,” the operative stated. “Without regret. Without remorse.”

She knew that. She’d heard it in
his
voice. Even if she did exactly what he wanted, Ronnie knew that Zach would never survive his encounter with the CIA. He could raise way too many questions back home.

And unfortunately
,
they had given the CIA the perfect cover for Zach’s death. He had
,
after all
,
come across the border to fraternize with one of the FBI’s
M
ost
W
anted suspects. Zach getting “accidently” killed as he made his escape would be an easy sell.

Ronnie glanced
at
Quirk. His lips
were set
in a firm line. As master
-
level hackers
,
they always knew
that
this day might come. Of course
,
they assumed
that
it would be one of them on the other side of this call. They were prepared. She just wasn’t sure if she could go through with their contingency plan.

“Just give Zach the earpieces,” she said
,
h
oping against hope
that
the agent would finally become reasonable.

“Over my dead body,”
Jorge
growled.

Gulping
,
she answered, “Okay.”