Chastity Flame (18 page)

"If we work together, we can do so
much. I hope you will bond with me in this little experiment. We
will triumph together."

"
Victoria concordia crescit
," Damien
muttered.

"What?" Chastity said, her forehead
wrinkling.

"Victory grows through harmony, or
something like that," Damien said. "Bet this kind of thing wasn't
quite what they had in mind with that motto."

"So have I got this right," Chastity
said as they moved among the knots of excited conversation during
the break. "They all put their money together via his computer
system, so they appear to be jointly wealthy?"

"That's what I got," Damien said,
swilling some of the rich coffee and grimacing. He had forgotten
how strong it was. Reaching for a creamer, he continued. "It seems
like they can then brag about their holdings even though their own
finances might not be that much."

"Yeah, I got that," Chastity said,
tapping her lip. "But what good will it do him?"

Damien shrugged. Around them the
greedy glee was voluble. "Maybe at this stage they don't need it to
do anything nefarious. They just want to get people signed up for
the software distribution.

The penny dropped. Chastity grabbed
Damien's arm. "That's it!"

"What?"

"The software!" She looked around and
lowered her voice even further. "He doesn't give a hang about the
money, it's getting them all on board with his software. Wesenlund
wants access to their computers, their networks. He wants to make
them all vulnerable."

Damien considered this. "Once they're
in the system, the access potentially can go both ways. Oh God—I
bet you're right." He grabbed Chastity and kissed her. "You're
brilliant!"

Chastity didn't know whether to
grumble or be pleased. The press of his lips on hers resonated
through her body and she realised that it was impossible to pretend
she hadn't enjoyed the sensation. But she wasn't going to make a
big deal of it. "I want to see what Kevin and his team make of this
scheme. They'll have a much better sense of how realistic it
is."

"Especially with their new addition,"
Damien added. It seemed it was the perfect time to have added a
hacker to their midst.

"I'm going to step outside and make a
call," Chastity said, rifling through her bag for the mobile. "I'll
be right back."

"Oh, don't go so soon, Ms. Dallow."
The dulcet tones seemed to come out of nowhere. Wesenlund came up
behind Damien so the latter had to turn around in order to see the
man as he greeted her. Up close the cold blue eyes were startling
yet, Chastity couldn't help but notice. He thrust out his elegant
hand toward Damien. "You must be Mr. Dallow, then I
suppose?"

"Harald Edmundson," Damien purred with
confident pleasure. "Quite enjoyed your little talk today. I have
the most inordinate confidence in your abilities, Mr.
Wesenlund."

"Please," he said, the smile
broadening like a crocodile's, "call me Sven. We are all friends
here, Harald. Isn't that right, Ms. Dallow. Or may I call you Rose?
Or would it be Katrine. I find this all so very," he paused,
gesturing helplessly, "confusing."

Chastity tried to conceal her
irritation. It was not as if they had really expected to be able to
fool him. But their plan to avoid getting too close to him seemed
to have failed spectacularly. "Ms. Dallow will do," she said,
trying to keep from snapping.

"Interesting," Wesenlund said, turning
confidentially to Damien. "I don't recall there being a Ms. Dallow
on the invitation list."

"My wife was unable to make it to the
conference," Damien said easily, laying a hand on Wesenlund's arm.
"Ms. Dallow was kind enough to accompany me and offer valuable
advice. She's quite irreplaceable."

"I have no trouble at all believing
that," Wesenlund smiled. He glanced down at Damien's hand as if it
were somehow a bug that had crawled onto his exquisitely tailored
sleeve, something insignificant and yet slightly revolting. Damien
noticed yet did not remove his hand. Chastity fought the urge to
smile as the silent contest went on between them. She felt a surge
of warmth toward Damien. In another time, she could imagine the two
of them with swords crossed. But here they were only silently
smiling, unmoving.

"It must be nearly time for the next
session," she said at last, hoping her words would have the desired
effect. The two of them looked at her and nodded, as if agreeing
this would be an appropriate draw. Men, she thought. Millennia have
passed and still the same chest beating behaviors come
out.

"Indeed," Sven said with a seemingly
detached tone. "We will talk more about the internet here, that
system of tubes, as the American politician so memorably described
it. One must wonder what old men might be looking down the tubes at
us, ja? Security is so important."

"Well, I'm just going to step outside
and make a phone call first," Chastity murmured. She reached out to
squeeze Damien's arm. "See you inside?"

"Of course, I'm sure we will have so
very much to learn from our fearless leader here," Damien said with
a brief nod at Wesenlund.

"I have such sights to show you,"
Wesenlund agreed, reaching in his pocket for a small notebook. "We
have so very much to do in order to show our lucky investors just
what a cornucopia of delights they will receive as a part of their
bounty."

"I wouldn’t miss it for the world,"
Chastity said with a smile, which even she could tell came off
rather forced. "Won't be a moment."

"Hurry back," Damien said, and the
look in his eye said much more than his words and Chastity felt a
flush creeping up her neck at the thought of him, the sight of him.
God, he was devilishly handsome. Rules or no rules, she was going
to have him tonight. Why should she deny herself such
delights?

"Yes, indeed, hurry back. You don't
want to miss a thing." Wesenlund offered another shark-like smile
and turned with Damien to head back down the corridor to the
ballroom. Chastity watched them go, then stepped out into the warm
sun of the early afternoon. She pressed the call button on her
mobile and said, "Have I got news for you."

Chapter Fourteen

By the time Chastity had finished the
call, certain that Kevin and his team were right about the
likelihood of Wesenlund's scheme succeeding, she felt a grim sense
of satisfaction. He was clever, indeed—Kevin had been quite
impressed, something she was unaccustomed to hearing—but they had a
whole team of techie boffins eager to roll up their sleeves and dig
into the problem. They would no doubt get it sorted.

Walking back into the auditorium,
Chastity glanced around the room. Onstage, Wesenlund's team took
turns explaining the various layers of the Spigot system with the
help of rather cutesy animated images and vocabulary determined to
make the whole venture sound fun and harmless. The water motif had
been embraced and expanded and there were a lot of nautical words
thrown gratuitously about.

Chastity was not terribly surprised to
see that Wesenlund had ceded the stage to his protégés. Undoubtedly
he had more important things to do now that the hordes were
onboard. He would probably come back for the final wrap-up then
wander the cocktail reception shaking hands and pressing chilled
glasses of vodka and lakkalikor into their hands. It was the
prerogative of the rich and mighty to avoid the hoi polloi at every
chance. Wesenlund did not strike her as the hearty man of the
people type, so doubtless he was delighted to skip the pleasantries
and glad-handing.

However, she also did not see Damien
anywhere. He was not sitting where they had been previously.
Casting her eyes around, she could not locate him anywhere across
the wide ballroom. She scanned the rows again more carefully. No.
She ignored the shrill little voice that called for panic and
considered things calmly. Perhaps Wesenlund had decided to press
Damien further. Chastity decided to make her way discreetly toward
the backstage area. She would simply ask some of the staff where
Wesenlund had gone and of course, whether he had been accompanied
by a tall handsome man with devastatingly deep chocolate brown
eyes.

It gave Chastity an unpleasant feeling
to realize that a big part of her concern for Damien had nothing to
do with the job. His security was her concern, but there was an
ache growing in her middle that had nothing to do with security
compromise. As she walked swiftly toward the backstage area, her
thoughts were of his hands, his mouth and the fear that suddenly
she had been deprived of them.

Chastity was disciplined enough not to
let the anxiety affect more than her pace, but she could feel her
heart beat faster even as she willed it to slow down. She spotted a
young woman with a clipboard. "Excuse me. I'm looking for my
husband. He was chatting with Mr. Wesenlund the last I saw him."
She smiled winningly.

The young woman looked skeptically at
her, but Chastity refused to be put off. "Harald Edmundson? Tall,
good-looking, dark hair, mocha skin tone—you'd have to be dead to
miss him."

The woman shook her head. "I did not
see him."

"Did you see Mr.
Wesenlund?"

"I'm afraid I cannot divulge that
information," the woman said with crisp finality. "A lot of people
want to chat with him personally, but he simply doesn't have room
in his schedule for that kind of thing." She smiled spasmodically,
indicating little apart from irritation.

Chastity controlled her own annoyance
with some effort. "I am not looking to buttonhole Wesenlund for a
chat. I would simply like to find Mr. Edmundson."

"I haven't seen him." The woman went
back to making notations on her pad and Chastity thought it best to
depart. No use talking to her and no need to draw attention to
herself. She considered hanging around but there was little reason
to believe that Damien had left on his own.

Back at the hotel, Chastity paced back
and forth while considering what to do. She could go back to the
cocktail hour and hope that Wesenlund showed and would be willing
to at least hint that he had in fact been responsible for Damien's
absence. But she couldn't wait that long, could she?

The phone rang. Chastity stared at it
with a sinking feeling. She took a deep breath and answered.
"Hello?"

"Ms. Dallow," Wesenlund said with
evident pleasure. "How nice to hear your voice. I was beginning to
think you had abandoned us."

"It was a lot to take in," Chastity
said, sitting on the edge of the bed, her body tense as she
listened intently. "I thought I should relax and let it all sink
in."

"And your lovely partner?" his voice
teased.

"What about him?"

"Such an interesting young
man…"

"A colleague," Chastity said as
lightly as she could manage.

"Oh, Ms. Dallow, I think not. There is
a certain, shall we say, electricity evident between some people.
One needed no special glasses to see that such a charge exists
between you and your handsome colleague."

"We had to present the image of an
adoring couple," Chastity said stiffly. "I am quite the actor when
I need to be."

Wesenlund tsked. "Now, let us not play
this game, Ms. Dallow. Or should I say, Ms. Flame. That is your
technical name, is it not?"

Chastity could feel her face flush at
his speaking her name. No one outside the organization knew her
code name. An ugly word, infiltration, but it was the only one that
would do. No wonder Wesenlund was smug. "I've been called that,"
Chastity agreed with as casual a tone as she could manage. "What's
in a name?"

Wesenlund chuckled. "A rose by any
other name, indeed. Well, Ms. Flame, we are in a tricky
situation."

"Are we?"

"I have something you want, and you
know entirely too much about my organization. We are at an impasse.
Whatever shall we do?"

"You can start by giving me my
colleague back," Chastity said a little too hotly. Did it matter?
She doubted anything would change the ruthless nature of
Wesenlund's little game.

His icy grin was nearly palpable
through the phone. "I'm afraid I cannot do that, Ms. Flame. We will
have to make the game a little more fun than that, don't you agree?
If I gave you your 'colleague' as you call him, what would keep you
occupied while I play at world domination?"

"I would think that was more than
enough to keep you busy. Dominating the world take a lot of energy
and time. There may be enough gullible and greedy people to make
your little scheme work, but not if we can intercede before things
take off." Chastity hoped that the suggestion of their being on to
his plan might cause him to reconsider the plan a little at least,
though she doubted it would stop him.

"Such trouble you have all gone to,
simply to inconvenience a mere business man," Wesenlund said with
apparent wonder. "Such a shame."

"Are you going to make demands?"
Chastity asked impatiently. "You may be at leisure, but I have
loads of things to do. If you want ransom or some kind of price, do
let me know and I'll get my people on to it." It was a risk being
so brusque with him, but she had the feeling he enjoyed twisting
the knife a little too much to let it go without a
fight.