The Spy Is Cast (38 page)

He cut the remaining
tie and stood slowly, still expressionless. Then he suddenly
grabbed my wrist, spinning me around and wrenching my arm up behind
me. The razor edge of the knife pressed hard against my throat. I
froze.

“Arnie, please don’t
kill me. This is real life. If you kill me now, I’ll die for
real.”

I hoped my hammering
pulse wouldn’t cut my own throat against the blade. Why the hell
did I keep my knives so sharp?

“You’re already dead.
I saw ya die.”

“No! It was all a lie.
It was all in your head.”

“Prove it. Tell me
somethin’ nobody would know but you.”

I panted shallowly, up
on my tiptoes to ease the pain in my shoulder. “You have a cat. His
name is John Lee Hooker. You feed him IAMS. His dish is by the
fridge. You keep the cat food in the cupboard under the sink.”

He yanked my arm,
making me cry out. “Ya fuckin’… sick… bitch!” His voice was a
savage snarl as the knife pressed harder. “I oughta slit your
fuckin’ throat just for that alone!”

“No, no, Arnie!” I
gasped wildly. “I’m sorry…” Cold fear pierced my heart. “Arnie, did
something happen to Hooker?”

“You tell me.” I could
feel the strain vibrating through his muscles.

A small sob of pain
and desperation escaped me. I tried again.

“Back in March, you
wrote a song for me. You sang it at Blue Eddy’s and embarrassed the
hell out of me. Our first night together, we went out for sushi.
You promised me seven orgasms. But you lied. It was more than
that…”

His grip relaxed and
the pressure of the knife eased. I sank gratefully down from my
tiptoes.

“I didn’t lie,” he
said softly. “I said, ‘or more’.”

“You and your
photographic memory,” I teased weakly. “And a couple of nights ago,
you gave me the most amazing moustache ride. And you promised I had
something to look forward to. I still want to collect on that, you
know.”

He dropped the knife
and pulled me into a hard embrace. “Aydan. I’m sorry, darlin’,” he
whispered roughly, his face buried in my hair.

“It’s okay. It’s
okay.” I clung to him, loving the feel of his hands on me.

He pulled away to look
at me. “How’re ya still alive? Those other guys, the prisoners.
They died.”

“Yes. They died. This
was different.”

“Because of that thing
you’re carryin’?”

“Kind of. I can’t
explain. Arnie… what happened to Hooker?”

He swallowed. “I
dunno. These assholes were layin’ for me at my place. I dunno what
they did to him…”

“Maybe he was hiding.”
I grasped at straws. “Maybe he got scared and hid.”

Hellhound’s face
twisted. “Hooker? That’d never happen. Ya know how friendly he
was.”

“Is,” I said firmly.
“If you didn’t see him, he’s probably okay. Cats can tell when
people are dangerous. They know enough to stay away.”

He passed a hand over
his face. “We don’t have time for this. Ya said we gotta get out.
Where the hell are we?”

“Harchman’s guest
house.” At long last, I heard the welcome sound of a helicopter
through the open window. “And the cavalry just arrived. Forget what
I said about escaping. I need to go into the n… trance. Right
now.”

I threw myself on the
bed. “Don’t let anybody wake me until Kane or Germain tells you
everything’s secure.”

“But…” Consternation
filled his face. “Where’s your watch? I don’t have the signallin’
thing. How can I wake ya up if I need to?”

I scooped up the knife
from the floor and tossed it on the bed beside me. “Poke me. And
stand back.”

I flung myself into
the network toward the operating system. If I was Fuzzy Bunny, I’d
push my data to the backup sites and destroy all the local files
the instant I realized I was under attack.

I shot through the
virtual system, slamming ports shut and deflecting network messages
as I went. Please, please…

Sure enough, someone
was trying to activate the sync routine. I killed it again. I
kicked the user out of the system and locked down all user and
administrator accesses.

Another automated
routine sprang up and I crushed it. I wove a solid ball of
protection around the operating system and files, blocking all
traffic. Nothing in, nothing out.

I hovered in the
centre, extending feelers in all directions, searching for
activity. For an unmeasurable time, I hung in the darkened void,
watching and waiting.

I clenched into a
rigid ball of misery, my throat seared raw. Pain hammered my head
and body while jagged colours spun around me. I realized I was
still screaming, and clamped my lips together. Gentle hands
massaged my head. I gasped a shaky breath and slowly relaxed my
rigid muscles. My eyes remained obstinately closed, tears
streaming.

I groaned and tried to
rub my eyes, but my arms wouldn’t move. My eyes flew open blindly
as I let out a frantic cry and started to struggle.

“Let her go.” Kane’s
voice, but he didn’t sound angry.

The grip on my arms
released immediately. “Sorry, darlin’.”

I turned my blurry
gaze toward the sound and blinked until Hellhound swam into focus.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “We were just tryin’ to keep ya from hurtin’
yourself.”

I relaxed when I
realized what had happened. “Is everything secure?” I gasped.

“Yes.” Kane’s voice
again, and I swivelled my pounding head to focus on him.

“Is Spider here?” I
demanded.

“Not yet. He should be
here in about half an hour.”

“Shit! I need to go
back in…”

Kane laid gentle
fingers across my lips. “No, it’s secure.”

“But…”

“We pulled the plug.
Completely.”

“Oh. That explains…” I
indicated the bed beneath me, its covers churned into wrinkled
piles from my convulsive struggles.

“Yes.” Kane frowned.
“We didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t wake you. I have the
signalling device, but you’re not wearing your watch. How…” he
trailed off, glancing at Hellhound.

“I had reason to
believe the watch might be compromised,” I said. “I relocated the
technology.”

“Where is it?” Kane
demanded.

“Um… let’s just say
that if you were planning to signal me, you’d have to get really
friendly.”

“…oh. We’ll have to
relocate it again, then. Soon.”

“That would be my
preference.” I struggled into a semblance of sitting position.

Hellhound held my
hand, looking pale and shaken. “Jesus Christ, Aydan, what was
that?” he muttered.

I winced. “That was
the worst-case scenario.”

“It’s worse than ya
said.”

“I told you I didn’t
have the necessary frame of reference.”

“Jesus.”

I squeezed his hand.
“Don’t worry, I’m okay.” He probably hadn’t needed to see that so
soon after all the torture in the sim.

Germain poked his head
in the door and addressed Kane. “Need you out here. We’re still
trying to sort out the prisoners.” He regarded me with concern.
“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“I’ll be there in a
minute,” Kane told him, and Germain nodded and withdrew.

I dragged myself to
the edge of the bed and swung my feet onto the floor. My head
swam.

When I opened my eyes,
I was lying on the bed again. Kane frowned down at me. “Keep her
there,” he told Hellhound. “Sit on her if necessary.”

“Ya got it.”

Kane left, and I moved
over. “Lie down,” I told Hellhound. “You look like hell.”

“I don’t dare,
darlin’. Don’t think I’d ever get up.” He sat on the bed and leaned
back against the headboard, stretching his legs out.

I reached to take his
hand again. I held it and stroked his lean, strong fingers over and
over, memorizing their wholeness.

When I woke, I was
alone in the bed.

I jerked upright with
a panicky gasp.

“Aydan, it’s all
right.” Kane’s soothing voice came from the chair in the
corner.

“Where’s Arnie?” My
heart pounded wildly.

“He left about two
seconds ago,” Kane reassured me.

My hand flew to the
still-warm spot on the bed. “Thank God.” I collapsed back on the
bed, recovering. “I thought for a second I’d dreamed it. I was
afraid he was still in the sim. How long was I out?”

“Only about ten
minutes. What happened here?” His voice developed an edge, and I
could tell he was struggling to control it. “What the hell were you
thinking, staying behind? When I specifically told you not to?
Risking your life. Risking national security…” He snapped his mouth
shut and skewered me with a look.

I didn’t have the
strength to summon up any defensive anger. I stared up at the
ceiling and massaged my temples. “I was
protecting
national
security,” I said tiredly. “And you. You’re welcome.”

After a short silence,
he spoke again, his voice even. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

My head throbbed, and
I sighed and spoke with my eyes closed. “We’re in a lot more
trouble than we knew. Or than I knew, anyway. Maybe you already
knew.”

Tension sprang into
his voice. “How so?”

“This network was
connected to six other sites. They were synchronizing data. There
are complete records of their ops, going back several years.”

“You’re right, if
there are six other sites, that’s more trouble than I knew about,
too,” Kane said cautiously. “But why would you risk staying? You
could have just come out of the network and left with Germain. Or
with the police.”

I hauled myself
upright, scowling. “No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Because of
Hellhound?”

“No. Well, yes, that
was part of it, of course.” I rubbed my aching head. “I told you
they were syncing data with six other sites. That I know of,
anyway.”

“Yes.”

“It’s an automated
routine that runs once a day, but it can be run manually as well.
And there’s a failsafe, kind of a dead-man’s switch. If an alert is
triggered in the network, the sync automatically starts up and
pushes data out. But it’s a two-way street. The other sites can
also pull data.”

“And you discovered
this, how?”

“Poking around in the
network.”

“I thought you said
your computer skills were ancient.”

“They are. If I had to
go in through the standard administrator interface, I’d be
completely lost. But the guts of the system really haven’t changed
much. Once I’m inside, I just expect to be able to find what I’m
looking for, and there it is.”

“That’s handy,” Kane
said skeptically.

“Yeah.” I shot him a
hard look, but he had his cop face on.

“Just as I was getting
ready to leave the network, a new file appeared,” I continued. “The
user was still editing it. I peeked in. It contained a full data
record of you, Hellhound, and me.”

I heard the hiss as he
drew in a breath through clenched teeth. “What do you mean by full
data record?”

“I mean details about
your cover as an energy consultant, about your work with INSET,
about your …other… work, your home, your office, your chain of
command, Briggs and Stemp. Details about Arnie, and his home
address. The fact that I’m still alive and suspected of being able
to access the network by unknown means. All kinds of stuff. As far
as I read. As I said, it was still being edited.”

I met his eyes
squarely. “I couldn’t take a chance on letting that out to Fuzzy
Bunny’s entire organization. I had to disable the sync and block
incoming requests. I had to make sure they didn’t restart the
routine. And I had to make sure you brought in the big guns to pick
up everybody here, because I didn’t know who the user was. But I
didn’t get a chance to tell you. The only way to make all of that
happen was to stay.”

A muscle rippled in
his jaw as he processed that. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I
should have known you’d have a good reason. I’m sorry for doubting
you.”

“It’s okay. But I
really need Spider the instant he gets here. While the system was
up, we had a fabulous opportunity. I could sneak through the
virtual data tunnels and get the IPs for the other sites. But the
longer the system’s down, the greater the chance that the other
sites will realize something’s wrong and lock us out.”

Kane was dialling
before I finished speaking. “Webb. Where are you? Good, the sooner
the better. It’s even more urgent than I originally thought.”

He hung up. “Ten
minutes, give or take.” He hesitated. “You might want to relocate
that key. We’ll need to be able to signal you.”

“Right.” I rolled off
the bed with a groan. “This could take a minute.”

“Call me if you need
help.”

We eyed each other for
a beat. Despite my still-pounding head, I couldn’t hold back a
wicked grin. “Really?”

A faint flush crept up
his face. “That didn’t come out quite the way I meant it.”

“It’s okay.” I trudged
for the bathroom.

I carefully unwrapped
the key from the scrap of plastic I’d used to protect it. The
plastic buckled, and the miniscule circuitry bounced and skittered
across the counter. My heart in my mouth, I slapped and batted at
the tiny dot like a demented cat, trying to pin it down before it
escaped completely. When I finally cornered it, I leaned heavily
against the counter for a second, recovering from the panic.

Using the tweezers
from my waist pouch, I held my breath and shakily tucked the
circuitry back into my wristwatch before pressing on the backing
again with a sigh of relief. As I emerged from the bathroom, Spider
came in, gaping at the opulent decor.

“Wow,” he breathed. “I
didn’t know people actually lived like this.”

“This is just the
guest house,” I told him. “Wait’ll you see the real house. Speaking
of which.” I grabbed his arm and hustled him toward the door. “You
can gawk later. We’ve got to get back into this network ASAP.”