The Spy Is Cast (19 page)

Inside, Germain handed
me a phone. “This line’s secured. The uplink is over there.” He
pointed to a laptop on the counter in the kitchenette.

I turned to Hellhound.
“I’m sorry, if I’m not allowed to tell you about this stuff, you’ll
have to wait outside while I talk to Spider. I can’t say what I
need to say otherwise.”

He nodded. “Do what ya
gotta do, darlin’.” He clumped down the steps and strode away.

I dialled Spider’s
number. “Spider, it’s Aydan.”

“Aydan, hi! How’s it
going?”

My throat closed up
again and I struggled for a few seconds. “It’s… been better,” I
said hoarsely.

Alarm sprang into his
voice. “What’s wrong?”

I tried, but the words
wouldn’t come. “Germain will brief you later,” I whispered. I
cleared my throat and took a deep, calming breath. “Spider, I need
to know if there’s a way I can access the Sirius network remotely.
I’ve memorized some faces. If I could go into a sim and recreate
them, then you could download the data and do facial recognition.
Is there any way to do that from this satellite uplink?”

There was silence on
the other end of the line. “Aydan,” Spider said finally. “I need to
know what’s wrong.”

I handed the phone to
Germain and sank onto the dinette bench to bury my face in my
shaking hands.

I heard Germain step
to the door of the RV. “Hellhound!”

The trailer rocked as
Germain went out, and his voice receded while he spoke to Spider.
The door opened and closed again, and soon I heard the sound of the
microwave. A couple of minutes later, a paper bowl slid under my
nose. I looked up at Hellhound’s scowl.

“Ya gonna eat this, or
am I gonna hafta force-feed ya?” His gruff words were belied by the
gentleness of his hand stroking my hair.

I gave him a smile
that didn’t feel convincing even to me. “I’ll eat. Thanks.” I
picked up the fork and started to shovel in the food. I recognized
one of the mass-produced entrees, some sort of pasta with tomato
sauce. It didn’t really matter. I ate without tasting it and
scraped the bowl clean.

By the time I’d
finished, Germain was back in the RV. I looked a question at him,
and he said, “He’ll check into it and call you back.”

“Thanks.” I eyed my
watch. Nearly an hour had passed. Kane could be running out of
time. Or dead already.

I shook my head to
suppress the thought and got to my feet, feeling a lot stronger
after the meal. “I’m going over there. See if I can see
anything.”

Germain blocked the
doorway, his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest. “No.
You’re not.”

“You know I’m the only
one who can do it.”

“Yes. But you still
have important intel. You need to wait until we hear back from
Spider. If we lose you, we lose everything.”

“Don’t try to hold me
here.”

“I won’t. I just want
you to wait a little longer.” He pointedly eyed the fists I hadn’t
realized I’d clenched. “You won’t have to fight me for it.”

I sheepishly relaxed
my hands and rolled my bunched-up shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t mean
it that way.” I sank down on the bench again.

He gave me a smile
that didn’t quite reach his eyes, his own posture easing. “I stood
in your way once. I’d rather not do it again.”

“Smart man,” I
joked.

The phone rang, and
Germain picked up immediately. “Any luck?” he asked without
preamble. I read the answer in the slump of his shoulders. “Okay.
Thanks anyway.” He hung up.

“It won’t work,” I
said flatly.

“No. He’s sending a
link that will connect you to his facial recognition database.
We’ll have to search it manually.”

I clamped down hard,
trying to stay in control. When I finally spoke, my voice sounded
dangerous even to me. “You don’t seriously expect me to sit here
for hours looking through a database.”

“No,” he replied
quickly. “I want you to give me as complete a description as
possible of the men you saw. I have to stay here while you do the
recon anyway. I’m the only one who can implement Plan B if
necessary. While I’m waiting, I’ll use your descriptions to narrow
the field. When you’re back, you can look at the shortlist while we
strategize.”

I blew out my relief
in a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll need to take Arnie with me. He’ll have
to operate the… um, signalling device if necessary.”

“Hang on a minute,”
Hellhound broke in. “If that patrol chased ya an hour ago, they’re
gonna have fuckin’ massive security out there now. How the hell
d’ya think you’re gonna get close enough to do what ya gotta do? Ya
said ya were gonna check rooms? Shit. No chance.”

Germain scowled. “I
agree. That place will be crawling with guards now. It won’t matter
how stealthy you are, you won’t be able to get close enough.”

“I’m not planning to
be stealthy,” I said slowly. “I think a direct approach will be
better. I’ll hide in plain sight. More or less.”

“Too dangerous,”
Germain objected. “If they’ve captured Kane, someone may remember
the two of you attending the party on the weekend together. You’d
be walking into a trap.”

“I wasn’t planning on
walking in. Do you have the site map with you?”

Germain pulled the
roll out of the closet and spread it on the table. I leaned over
it, calculating distances. “I think we were about… here… when I
made contact.” I marked a dot on the map. “Look at the layout of
the building site. See how the road swings around here. Wouldn’t
you say this distance is about the same?”

I marked another dot
beside the road. “What if a couple was just biking down the road
and decided to pull off for a rest? Get off the bikes for a while,
stretch out at the side of the road?”

“That could work.”
Germain’s expression lightened. “They’ll be expecting somebody
covertly trying to approach the buildings. The woods will be
crawling with security, but if you’re not trying to approach at
all…”

“Good, then it’s a
plan. I better go check and make sure I didn’t blow out the front
fork seals on the Honda, and then I’m ready to go.” I slid out of
the bench.

“Not so fast,”
Hellhound growled. “What about this signallin’ thing? I can’t go in
completely fuckin’ blind here.” We both looked to Germain.

He grimaced and rubbed
his chin, his hand rasping over the stubble. “I’m sorry, I don’t
have the authority to make that decision.”

“Then call somebody
who has the authority.” I did my best to sound reasonable, and it
came out just slightly less than a snarl.

Germain apparently
took no offense. “I already did. I put in a call to Stemp while I
was outside. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve just gone ahead and
asked forgiveness later. Now I have a direct order not to
disclose.” His hand squeezed into a fist, the knuckles glowing
white.

I slammed my own fist
onto the table. The paper bowl jumped and the fork clattered to the
floor. “Fuck! Fucking moron! Head up his fucking ass!
Goddammit!”

Hellhound laid a hand
over my clenched fist. “Never mind. Let it go, darlin’. Ya know I
never wanna know more than I hafta. Just tell me what ya need me to
do.”

I ground my teeth for
a few seconds before deciding he was right. No sense wasting time
bitching about it. “Okay. I’m going to tell you as much as I can
without going into specifics. Carl, stop me if you have to.”

I organized my
thoughts for a few moments. “I’m carrying a very valuable piece of
technology. It’s inside my wristwatch at the moment. I can use that
technology in ways nobody else can. If it falls into the wrong
hands, the results could be disastrous. Think national security
disastrous. By myself, I’m no use to anybody. With the technology,
I can…”

“Stop. That’s enough,”
Germain interrupted. He turned to Hellhound. “Nobody can know that
Aydan is carrying this technology, or even that it exists. And
nobody can know she’s the only one who can use it. If you breathe a
word, you’re signing her death warrant.”

Hellhound’s face
hardened, and he nodded once.

I really didn’t want
any reminders about how dangerous this was. I sighed and
continued.

“In order to use this
device, I need to go into a trance-like state. When I’m in that
state, I don’t know what’s going on around me. When I come out, if
I do it correctly, I have some pain and it takes me a minute or so
before I can function again.”

I rubbed my aching
temples. “That’s the best-case scenario. Worst-case, I’m pulled out
of the trance-like state by an external stimulus of some sort. If
that happens, I’m completely incapacitated, for several minutes. I
can’t see or hear. I scream and thrash around. I can’t stop it, and
I can’t control it. If that happened, you’d have to take the watch
off my wrist and escape. That technology is the top priority.”

“An’ leave ya there?
That ain’t gonna happen,” Hellhound growled.

“It has to happen,”
Germain countered. “There’s nothing you can do. You can’t carry
her. You can’t even hold her, she fights so hard.”

“And another thing,” I
added. “If the watch comes off my wrist while I’m in the n… trance,
that’ll trigger the worst-case reaction, too.”

Hellhound glowered.
“So you’re tellin’ me ya go into this trance, an’ there’s no way to
get ya out without half killin’ ya.”

“No, not exactly.” I
held up Spider’s invention. “This is a signalling device. If I’m in
the n… Jesus! Trance, if I’m in the trance, you can hold this
device up against the wristwatch and push the button. That signals
me that I have to get out, um, I mean, wake up. It still takes me a
few seconds before I can do much, but at least it’s
manageable.”

Hellhound turned his
scowl to Spider’s invention as he took it carefully from my hand.
“So there’s no other way? This signallin’ thing’s the only way to
get ya out safely?”

“Yeah. So the plan is,
we take a ride. We find a nice comfy patch of grass in the ditch.
And we kick back for a while. You watch, I… do my thing. I come
out, we hop on our bikes and head back here.”

“Good plan,” Germain
said. “If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll go to Plan B unless I
hear from you otherwise. I hope this works.”

“Me, too.”

I scribbled out the
descriptions for Germain before heading outside. There was no
visible leakage when I examined the motorcycle’s front forks. I
shrugged as I straightened, trying to hide the way my heart thumped
painfully at the thought of getting on the bike again.

Hellhound caught my
eye. “Fuck it, it’s a rental.”

I forced a laugh,
trying to relieve the tension while we donned our jackets and
helmets.

Clutching the
handgrips with aching fingers, I led the way past Harchman’s place
once, watching for any evidence of guards or dogs. All seemed
quiet. We pulled a U-turn several miles down the road and idled
back to a spot I thought would work.

We rode the bikes down
into the shallow ditch and dismounted. As I pulled off my helmet,
Hellhound stopped me.

“Maybe ya should keep
that on.”

“It’s too damn hot.
I’ll suffocate if I’m not moving. Besides, who keeps their helmet
on when they’re relaxing by the side of the road?”

He gave me a twisted
smile. “Darlin’, ya looked like the best wet dream I ever had,
ridin’ over that hill with your hair flyin’ in the wind. But I
don’t mind if I never see it again. I’d rather ya rode safe.”

“Me, too,” I assured
him. “But I don’t think we’ll end up leaving here in a hurry. We’re
too exposed. By the time we know we have to move, there won’t be
time to get away. If we have to move that fast, I won’t be going
with you.”

“I ain’t gonna leave
ya,” he said seriously.

“Arnie, it’s not a
discussion. If the shit hits the fan, take the watch and run like
hell. And if you can’t escape, take it and throw it away where it
can’t be found.”

His jaw set. “I can do
that.”

I had a feeling I
hadn’t won that argument, but I didn’t see what else I could do. I
sighed. “Okay. You know the drill, right? If you need me to wake
up, put the signalling device against my watch and press the
button. Anything else happens, take the watch and run.”

“Got it.”

I lowered myself to
the ground. “Let’s hope this works. Let’s hope I’m close
enough.”

He sprawled on his
back beside me, one elbow crooked behind his head. His other arm
pulled me close. “Good luck, darlin’.”

I laid my head on his
chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.
Insects hummed in the hot grass, and I wished we were nothing more
than we appeared. Two people out for a pleasant day’s biking, a
rest and a cuddle by the side of the road, and then maybe a nice
meal and a cold beer. And maybe a hot night.

I closed my eyes and
drifted into the void.

I checked each room,
finding all the first ones vacant. Thank goodness, Harchman had
apparently concluded his fantasy and left. As I approached the
firewall, I steeled myself for what I might find in the next
branch.

Reluctantly, I peered
into the room where I’d discovered the prisoner. It was clean and
vacant. Nice thing about virtual torture, no messy cleanup
afterward. I swallowed queasiness, trying to harden myself with the
black humour.

Moving slowly to the
next room, I hesitated, still swallowing hard. I already knew I
didn’t want to look inside. Raised male voices and the sounds of
heavy impact seeped through the door. Each impact was accompanied
by a hoarse grunt. I was afraid I knew that voice.

I had to look.

I peeked in. My meal
tried to escape and I jerked back into the corridor, gulping air
and swallowing sour bile.

These men seemed to
enjoy destroying their victims’ faces. The raw meat from the neck
up could have been anybody, but I could easily identify Kane’s
short dark hair and massive upper body.