Hot Intent (Hqn) (22 page)

She skidded to a stop in the doorway, her shoulder screaming in protest. He was sprawled across the bed, his naked, muscular back as beautiful as a statue in the peachy streetlight coming in the window. An alarm clock beside the bed said it was a little before 6:00 a.m.

Restless and uncomfortable, she gave up on sleeping and pulled on a turtleneck shirt she found in Alex’s backpack. It was big on her and she had to roll up the sleeves. But it fit over her bulky bandages. She found a notebook and tore out a piece of paper. She laid it on the tile kitchen counter to write a note to Alex. That way, an impression of her note wouldn’t be left in the notebook.

“I’m going out to take care of something important. I’ll talk with you about it when I get back. Please be here.” She underlined the
please
and signed the note with a
K.

She took her purse from the kitchen counter where Alex had left it. It must have been in the front pocket of her sweatshirt when she bolted from the condo last night. She crept out of the apartment quietly. Where was she? Thankfully, her cell phone, which had been in her jeans pocket, had a mapping application. It placed her in northern Virginia. She wandered a couple of blocks until she found a bus stop. It took studying the map inside the shelter to figure out how to get to Langley using public transportation, but in about an hour, she stepped off a bus a few blocks from CIA headquarters.

She called Uncle Charlie’s cell phone, which he didn’t answer, and left a brief message naming the coffee shop she was sitting in. A sparse early morning crowd stared at computer screens or read newspapers while they waited for paper cups of caffeine alertness to kick in. She finished with, “We need to talk. Off campus.”

Her uncle surprised her by striding into the café not even a half hour later. Wow. That was fast. He wore a suit and tie beneath his dressy wool overcoat, too. Either she’d caught him on his way out the door to work, or else he’d rushed like a big dog to get over here to meet her.

He slid into a chair across from her at a tiny table. “What’s up, Katie-kins?”

She noted that his lips barely moved. Was he worried that someone was watching them on a security camera? She did her best to emulate him, murmuring from behind a frozen half smile, “You tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

She spoke low in deference to their public location. “I got shot last night. Was it your guy?”

He jolted at that. “No!” If that wasn’t genuine surprise, he was a fantastic actor. “Are you okay, Katie?”

“I’m fine only because a trauma surgeon was there to take care of my injury.”

“Mmm. Lucky,” was Charlie’s noncommittal answer.

“Alex said it was a pro. Used some sort of Teflon-tipped round preferred by snipers to shoot me.”

“Christ, Katie. What’s that all about? How are you, really?”

“I’ve been better, but I’ve been worse. Good news is I’ll live. As for what it’s about, that’s what I’m hoping you can tell me.”

“Thank God you’re safe.” He reached across the table to squeeze her hand in what she took as a real gesture of concern. Then he asked casually, “How was your trip?”

“Interesting. Did André tell you what we found?”

He frowned slightly. “No. Should he have?”

She lowered her voice further, even though no one was sitting near them. “I have no idea what your chain of command is. We found sarin. A lot of it. With Arabic labels. In a bunker.”

Charlie went still and visibly paled before her eyes. He leaned forward to mutter low, “What proof is there?”

“None. We lost it on the way out. But we have pictures of victims and the barrels it’s stored in. A whole bunker full of barrels, by the way. And Alex examined dozens of dead victims.”

“And you told Fortinay about this?”

“Yes. We told him nearly a week ago.”

Charlie’s gaze went hard and angry. So. André, or André’s boss, had kept that little bombshell under wraps, huh? Maybe they were waiting for the proof to come out of Cuba before they blew the lid off it. Or maybe the White House was using the time to prepare for the coming showdown with Cuba and big brother Russia. It was all way, way above her pay grade.

“Where’s Alex now?”

“Safe house.”

“Any idea at all who might have shot you?”

“None. I’m a kindergarten teacher, Uncle Charlie. I thought
you
might know.”

His eyes, so like her mother’s, were troubled.

Katie leaned forward across the tiny bistro table. “What can you tell me about something called Cold Intent?”

“Where on earth did you hear that?” he blurted.

“I read it. Alex doodled the words.”

“Katie-kins, I’m urging you in the strongest possible terms to drop that line of inquiry. Do you hear me?”

“Y-yeah, sure,” she stammered. “Consider it dropped.”

Charlie exhaled in relief.

“Can I ask about Alex’s mother and if you’ve turned up anything on her?”

Charlie’s shoulders went rigid once more and he painted on a ghastly imitation of a smile. Whoa. What was up with Alex’s mother that had him so freaked out?

He spoke so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “Claudia Kane. That was her name. She was American.”

“Was? Is she dead?”

“Her file is closed.”

God, she wished she knew how to interpret that. If only Alex were here to dig through the innuendo and doublespeak. She made careful note of Charlie’s body language to describe to Alex later. Her uncle swallowed convulsively and wiggled an uncomfortable shoulder.

“How did she get to Moscow to meet Peter? Was she one of yours? Surely, she was. Civilian Americans didn’t get into Russia easily at that time.”

“Leave it alone, Katie.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking you to.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not enough. Alex is falling apart, and he needs answers.”

“Falling apart?” Charlie echoed in quick alarm.

She sighed. “Something happened to him at Gitmo. He was drugged, and he’s been a little crazy ever since.”

“What did they give him?” Charlie demanded.

“I don’t know. The syringes I saw were filled with a pale yellow serum.”

Her uncle frowned. “I’ve seen all the standard interrogation meds. Scopolamine and the other standard medications are colorless. Describe how he’s crazy? Is he violent? Psychotic?”

“Nooo,” she answered slowly. “I’d describe him as paranoid. Defensive. Angry. Maybe even a little schizophrenic.”

“Those are not typical symptoms of truth serums. They’re designed to lower inhibitions, not raise false ones. Sounds like they hit him with a mind-altering substance of some kind.”

“They who?” she demanded low and urgent. “And why?”

Charlie opened his mouth to answer. Snapped it shut.
He knew.
But he wasn’t going to tell her.

“Can you at least tell me how long the effects will last?” she pleaded.

“Stuff like that usually runs its course in about a week. Maybe two at the outside. Of course, it’s possible for residual effects to persist for years or permanently.”

“Don’t tell me that,” she groaned under her breath.

He shrugged apologetically.

“What more can you tell me about his mother, this Claudia Kane?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes were wary. Guarded. He
so
knew more about Alex’s mother than he was telling her. The woman was a CIA operative, or else her uncle was the tooth fairy.

“Was she a sparrow? Was she sent to Moscow to seduce Peter, or was that an unplanned side excursion in her mission?”

“You know I can’t answer that, Katie.”

But his gaze had flickered down and to the left evasively. She’d guessed correctly. Claudia had been a sparrow—an agent who used sex to compromise targets and to gather intelligence via pillow talk.

Charlie lifted his gaze, spearing her with an intense stare. “I’m telling you. Leave it alone, Katie. You have no idea who or what you’re messing with.”

She frowned, staring back questioningly. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just warned her off more than Alex’s mother. He’d warned her off all of it.

He gathered his hat and newspaper. “You’ll send me those pictures, yes?”

That was an abrupt shift of topic. “Yes. Of course,” she mumbled.

“We’ll have to do this more often. It’s delightful to see you again, Katie-kins.” He startled her by leaning down to kiss her cheek affectionately.

“Be careful or people will think you’re having an affair with a younger woman,” she muttered.

He chuckled, put on his hat and turned to leave.

She stayed a few more minutes, finishing her coffee so it didn’t look like they’d just come in here for an information trade. She’d picked up a few things from Alex, after all.

*

T
HE
MAN
IN
the corner of the café with his nose buried in the business news glanced up briefly as Katie finally left the café and hurried away. He pulled out his cell phone and placed a phone call.

“Tell Reggie he missed last night.” And knowing the sniper, the guy was going to get right tweaked about it, too.

The voice on the other end betrayed no hint of dismay, or any emotion at all, for that matter. “That’s a shame. Where’s the target now?”

“Moving east from here. On foot.”

“Roger. Will acquire the target momentarily. No need to follow.”

“Great,” the man replied brightly. Frankly, he was surprised he wasn’t receiving orders to follow the girl and clean up Reggie’s mistake.

“Come in now. We need to revise the strategy.”

“Ya think?” he retorted jokingly. “Okay, I’m outta here. I’ll see you in a few.” He picked up his gym bag. A metallic clank and its unusual weight were the only hint as to its lethal contents.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A
LEX
WAS
FURIOUS
. He’d risked his damn neck to save Katie and she’d pulled a runner on him? Her note notwithstanding, he had no faith she’d return.

He was so done with her. He was done with all of them and their damned head games. His computer beeped to indicate incoming email, and he opened the first one of two that caught his attention. It was a file from Blondie. She must have sent it before she died. It had a gigantic attachment. Had she sent him... He opened the email that went with it eagerly.

Cold Intent is some serious shit, dude. I think you need this hacking algorithm more than I do. You’re gonna have to dig all the way to the bottom of the CIA cesspool to find what you’re looking for. I got too spooked at what I was finding to keep going and backed out. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to finish this research project on your own.

Swearing under his breath, he opened the second message, from C¥berE¥e, and decrypted it impatiently.

It was short.
You want me to sit on what you sent me? Are you shitting me? It’s not dynamite. It’s a fucking nuclear bomb.

He sat down to type and encrypt his reply.

Our deal remains in place. If you don’t hear from me for a week, send everything to every major newspaper on the planet. I’m sorry to drag you into this, but I needed somewhere fast and secure to send the data. I only need you to sit on it a few more days, until I don’t need a dead man’s switch anymore. Then you can destroy it all.

He hit the send button and leaned back, frowning at the blank screen. He ought to destroy the flash drive and its evidence of chemical weapons in Cuba right now. If it fell into American hands, a global crisis on the scale of the Cuban Missile Crisis would explode. And personally, he had little faith in today’s politicians to get a solution right like Kennedy and Khrushchev had.

He stood up to go tear apart the flash drive and flush its pieces, but the doorknob rattled and he whirled and pulled his pistol instead. He waited tautly, his finger starting to squeeze through the trigger.

“Alex? It’s me. Let me in.”

Swearing under his breath, he moved to the door and threw the lock. He stepped off to one side, pistol at the ready in case she was not alone and being coerced.

Katie stepped through the door and started to close the panel behind her. He spun out of hiding and she jumped violently. “Holy crap. You scared the heck out of me, Alex!”

He straightened and lowered the gun. “Where were you?”

“I went to see my uncle.”

Stunned, he burst out, “Why on God’s green earth would you go to Langley and lead the CIA right back here to me?”

“I was really careful to make sure I wasn’t tailed. I rode buses all over northern Virginia to be sure I was clean.”

“They don’t need to tail you on foot. The CIA has satellites and security cameras to do the job. We’ve got to get out of here immediately.”

She threw up her hands. “I have nothing but the clothes on my back. I’m packed and ready to go.”

He grabbed his backpack and tossed his computer into it. “C’mon. They’ll be here any second.”

She sucked in sharp breaths of pain between her teeth as he raced down the stairwell. Tough. It was her fault they had to flee this place. He ducked into the alley behind the building and used the skeleton key he’d made for the restaurant’s delivery door a few yards down the alley to open it. Katie slipped under his arm just as a whistling sound split the air. Sonofabitch. He shoved her inside and threw himself on top of her frantically.

A big explosion shook the building and stuff rattled on the shelves around them, raining down dust, but this building hadn’t been in the direct line of fire.

“Oww!” she complained beneath him. “And what was that?”

He pressed up onto his elbows and stared down at her. He registered her body’s welcoming softness and the way she fit him perfectly. He answered tightly, “That was a rocket-propelled grenade. My safe house is probably a smoking hole right about now.”

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry—”

“Later.” He pushed up and away from her. Damn, she’d felt good underneath him. Evil seductress— “Let’s go.” He dragged her to her feet by her good arm and peeked out of the storeroom into the restaurant kitchen. Empty. They wound through the place, unlocked the front door from inside and strolled out onto the street.

He did have to admit that she made for a good cover. Anyone who looked at her saw a perfectly normal young woman who wasn’t the slightest bit suspicious or scary. If she ever decided to become a field operative, she’d make a good one. By association, she made him fit in with the normal world around them.

“Now what?” she asked on cue as they turned the corner and headed away from the mess of his life behind them. Sirens screamed in the distance. They had to be well clear of this area before it was crawling with cops and fire trucks.

“Now, we keep on walking. And we don’t look back.”

*

A
S
DARKNESS
FELL
on a long, harrowing day, Alex finished searching a cheap motel room in Delaware for surveillance devices and sat down on the bed to think. He hadn’t planned to disappear with Katie. He’d assumed she would choose to stay with Dawn if it came down to a choice between the two of them. He could respect that. The baby needed her more than he did. Although sometimes he wondered about who was neediest—

He cut off the thought before it could finish forming in his head. He did not need relationships. He did
not
need her. Katie was a liability. End of discussion. Which meant he had to get rid of her, and sooner rather than later.

“Uncle Charlie told me your mother’s name this morning.”

He lurched around to face her and stared at her in shock. How in the hell had she pulled that off? He’d had the best hackers on the planet digging for years for information on his mysterious mother, and Katie had...what? Just waltzed into CIA headquarters and
asked?
Tension stretched his vocal cords taut. “Tell me.”

“Her name is Claudia Kane. Charlie hinted that she’s dead but wouldn’t say so outright.”

“Why would he tell you her name and not tell me?” Alex demanded.

“Have you ever just asked the CIA for her identity?”

He frowned and answered evasively, “She came up during my training. But they never told me anything about her.” His mother had been the focus of a particularly nasty interrogation session involving car batteries and some of his rather tender body parts. The bastards had known he had no information whatsoever about her, but they’d tortured him, anyway, just to be sure he wasn’t holding anything back.

She shrugged. “Before we left for Cuba, I asked Charlie to research her for me. For you.”

He had to give Katie credit for being honest. She hadn’t ducked the fact that she’d visited her uncle this morning, or that she’d been asking about his mother. One thing he had never doubted about her was her honesty. She had always been straight up with him, sometimes to her own detriment. Still, this news had him reeling. His mother, that faceless ghost who’d hovered over him his entire life, had a
name?
Was she coming forward? Was this a first step by her to approach him? Eagerness and desperate need raged in his stomach at the idea of finally filling that gaping hole in his life. The emotions were too turbulent, too powerful, to shut away in a mental drawer. He tried, and failed to contain the glee and terror.

Appalled at his loss of control, he forced his mind back to the business at hand by sheer dint of will. Katie had asked about his mother before Cuba, huh? He blurted, “Did you inquire about her before or after that gunman took a potshot at you on the roof of the condo?”

“Before.” Katie threw him a wide-eyed look. “Do you think the attempts on my life are related to my asking about her?”

It was possible. Had the attacks not been about Cold Intent at all? Had they been purely about his mother? Which begged the question of why an inquiry about his mother had sent an assassin into action against Katie. It was hard to believe that Uncle Charlie would set up his own niece to be sanctioned for a hit.

His mother was alive and had a name.
God, he wanted to talk to her. To get the answers that had taunted him with their absence for all these years. Why did she leave him? Did she love his father?
Did she love him?

Alex ordered Katie, “Start at the beginning and don’t leave out anything about your conversations with your uncle, no matter how small.”

He listened intently as she described her two meetings with Charlie, the one before Cuba and the one this morning. Alex’s first impulse was to be suspicious of the information. Why would the CIA cough it up to her, when they’d refused for all this time to tell him?

This was probably part of the grand manipulation of Alex Peters the CIA seemed to delight in playing at. Or maybe Uncle Charlie genuinely wanted to please his niece. It was possible, of course, that the information was caught up in some sort of internal power struggle within the agency. The CIA made a habit of hiring wolves, who in turn made a habit of fighting over turf. Was his mother just another bone being snarled and scrapped over within the wolf pack? Or was
he
the bone?

The questions swirled around him so thick and fast he hardly knew where to turn his attention. He felt out of control. Buffeted by hurricane-force confusion. Why were they doing this to him? Or was this about him at all? God, and he’d thought his CIA field training had been a mind-fuck. This was a thousand times worse. Who to trust? What to think? What to feel?

More agitated than he could ever remember being, he pulled out his laptop and initiated a deep web search for information on one Claudia Kane. As he’d expected, there was nothing. As in
nothing.
Which was, in its own way, informative. In this day and age, nobody left absolutely zero trail of their existence. Not unless that trail had been professionally swept clean. Interesting.

If Katie’s information was correct and his mother had been an American intelligence operative, the nontrail would make sense. Hell, Claudia Kane probably wasn’t even her real name. He would have to dig into the CIA’s computers if he wanted more. Or, of course, he could always ask Peter....

His train of thought derailed. Actually, that wasn’t a half-bad idea. His father had never spoken of his mother. But then, Alex had never asked about her, either. It had always been understood between him and Peter that she was an off-limits topic of conversation.

Thoughtfully, he activated one of the burner phones in his pack and dialed his father’s personal cell phone number.

“Son. To what do I owe this pleasure?” The connection was scratchy, but he could make out his father’s voice, speaking in English. He replied in Russian. They were both cautious of wagging ears around them apparently.

“Tell me about my mother.”

There was a long pause filled only with quiet static. Then, “Why?”

“Because I’m asking.”

Peter’s voice was heavy. “What do you want to know?”

“Was her name Claudia Kane?”

He thought he heard his father inhale sharply, but it was hard to tell over the poor connection. His father’s answer was wooden. “That was a name connected to her, yes.”

“Was she an American operative? A sparrow?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Did she target you specifically?”

“I have always believed so, but I have no proof.”

“So she didn’t attempt to blackmail you or turn you?”

“No,” Peter answered firmly. Okay, his father sounded like that was the truth. He never could be one hundred percent certain with Peter, but that was as close to sounding as if he was telling the truth as his old man ever got.

Alex asked reluctantly, “Did you have feelings for her, or was I a...business transaction?”

“I loved her. Never doubt that, my son.”

“What about her?” Alex asked heavily. “Did she have feelings for you? Or were you just a job?”

“You would have to ask her.”

“She’s still alive, then?”

“As far as I know.”

“C’mon, Father. That’s the sort of thing you’d use your position to be certain of. I deserve to know the truth.” When Peter did not reply, he added reluctantly, “My life may depend on knowing the truth.”

“What’s this?” his father burst out.

“Is she alive or not?”

“You’ll tell me what’s going on?” Peter challenged.

Alex closed his eyes tightly. That was all the answer he needed. His mother was alive. And a casual inquiry about her from Katie had elicited two sniper attacks. Not only was Claudia Kane still alive, she was still an active operative. And apparently, she or her superiors didn’t appreciate somebody poking around into her existence.

“Do you know her real name?” Alex asked quietly.

“I do not know that she has a real name. She has moved from legend to legend over the years, and never retains any one identity for long.”

“Do you know where she is now? What she’s doing?”

“I’m sorry. I do not. Last I heard, she was directing an operation called Cold something. Our source only captured the first word of the name.”

“Cold Intent?” Alex blurted. “I’d bet my life that’s it. Hell, I
am
betting my life on it.”

His
mother
was part of Cold Intent? He reeled in shock. What the hell was she doing with that bunch? Why would the woman who gave birth to him be out to kill his girlfriend? Surely, this Claudia Kane wasn’t trying to keep other women from moving in on her son. He highly doubted the woman felt the slightest inkling of maternal protectiveness toward him. Otherwise, she never would have abandoned him with his father all those years ago.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked urgently. “Tell me. I can help. You’re my son. If you’re in trouble, let me pull you out. I’ll even bring out the girlfriend and the baby safely. You have my word on it.”

“Thanks. But we’re good for now. Anything you can find out about Claudia Kane or Operation Cold Intent would be helpful.”