Countermeasure (13 page)

Nathan recalled the look on her face when he had flashed a cheeky grin and waved the sheet of paper in front of her. “See? You need me!”

A sense of satisfaction filled him when he had seen the excitement flood her eyes after she snatched the paper from his hand and realized it was her golden ticket inside Crypto City’s walls. One step closer to answers.

Cassandra had rolled her eyes at him. “And you managed this, how?”

Snatching the paper back, Nate had wiggled his eyebrows. “Connections, my dear.”

As he drove around the parking lot looking for a spot, Cassandra commented, “You know you might get into trouble for this, right?”

Nathan shrugged it off. He knew it was a risk, but at this point he would do anything to get back into her good graces. He had waited too long to pursue her and now he needed to make up for lost time. As far as he was concerned, at the rate they were going, he should be able to convince her to marry him by winter.

Cassandra hopped out of the car before it had come to a complete stop, adjusted her jacket, and waited impatiently for him to join her.

“In a hurry?” he asked, getting out of the car.

“You think?” Cassandra took off for the entrance without waiting for him.

Nathan caught up just as she reached the glass doors.

“Damn, Cass. Chill,” he hissed, reaching for the door and holding it open for her. “You are supposed to be working for me, remember? Not me for you.”

Cassandra ignored him and moved ahead to the security desk. Nathan gave their names and security indicated where they should sign in before handing them their visitor IDs. Both were used to the routine and strict need for security measures. High security was a necessity at the NSA due to the delicate nature of what they handled daily: information—the exact thing Cassandra wanted to get her hands on.

To enter the complex, they passed through a second security screening and were asked to turn over their firearms. “But…” she started to protest; she felt naked without her gun—more so since her brush with the bullet. She was grateful that her security and investigation license and CIA background allowed her to keep her license to carry a concealed weapon.

“We have to,” Nathan cut her off with a whisper, turning over his weapon to the attendant.

“Fine,” Cassandra mumbled, handing hers over, accepting the fact that she wouldn’t be packing.

Nathan extended his hand, giving her the lead. Cassandra moved ahead to follow their escort to their first stop, the HR Department.

Nathan knew damn well she wanted to handle this her way, without any interference from him. He was certain she would have left his ass behind and hunted the NSA employee down on her own if she could have gained access to the building without his help.

They had agreed she would take the lead when inside. She wanted him to be seen and not heard when they were in the room with the NSA employee. This was her case and he was aware she was taking it all the way to the end, even without her father’s blessing.

Nathan wasn’t impressed to be relegated to back up, but he was looking forward to playing good cop–bad cop with Cassandra, just like in the old days.

Cassandra contemplated what they might uncover with that visit as they followed their escort. Although she didn’t have a profile to go by yet, she was almost certain that the NSA employee’s actions were shady. Who would snoop into a pharmaceutical company’s server unless it was to retrieve information that could result in profit? In her mind, whoever it turned out to be was a criminal.

When they reached a secured door, their escort swiped the access panel and led them through. They approached the well-dressed lady behind the desk who would help them narrow the IP to a specific computer and give them a name—the name she wanted.

The woman took the IP number from Cassandra and accessed her system, completely focused on the list displayed on her monitor. “Hmm…”

Cassandra eyed her. “What’s wrong?”

“The IP address is tied to an employee on the Echelon floor.”

“Is that a problem?” Nathan asked.

“What’s the employee’s name?” Cassandra asked at the same time.

“Not really, they are located in a secure area of the complex. His name is Trevor Bauer. A nice guy. Everybody around here loves him.”

“Can you have someone take us there?” Cassandra’s excitement colored her voice as she rolled his name over in her head.
Trevor Bauer. The chase is on, s
he thought, popping out of her chair. The clerk eyed her questioningly. Seeing the warning look Nathan shot in her direction, Cassandra quickly schooled her expression, keeping her energy banked until she could finally confront the man.

“I can call someone. It should only take a few minutes, but you’ll need to go through a new set of security procedures before you can enter the room. That place is more secure than Fort Knox.”

****

By the time they gained access to the control room, Cassandra was more than ready to take on the prick she believed had a part in making her life damn miserable, and who could be the key to getting her back into her father’s good graces.

The massive control room was overwhelming. Lined with walls and walls of screens, the room buzzed with activity. In addition to the screens, each computer station had two monitors and an employee sitting in front of them, totally absorbed in the multiple displays of rolling data cluttering them. Concentration was the key to their work; curiosity, their main source of motivation.

Nathan approached one of the closest analysts in the room and asked in a low voice, “Excuse me, can you point me in the direction of a guy named Trevor Bauer?

Cassandra waited by the door and scanned the room. She noted the body language and facial expressions of the analysts as they went about their work and interacted with colleagues.

Everyone in the room appeared to feed on the buzz of activity like a light sucking energy from a socket. The man Nathan spoke with pointed to the other side of the vast open concept room.

“Come on, Cass.”

Cassandra scanned ahead, trying to determine where he was headed. Her eyes touched on one employee in particular sitting at the very back of the room in a section located off to the left. The man looked completely out of place, casually dressed in a polo shirt and what looked to be jeans. It totally suited him, but not the room’s environment.

She took him in all at once. From his disheveled appearance, she could tell he had a bad habit of combing his fingers through his hair, which he demonstrated at that very moment by mussing his dark mop even more. He appeared athletic, with a swimmer’s physique, and his slightly tanned skin indicated he probably spent a lot of time outdoors. She turned her focus to his facial expressions: confident, relaxed, friendly.

He was in deep animated conversation with the man sitting across from him, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile every so often, indicating a close and comfortable relationship. It was that whisper of a smile that sent a twinge of heat flaring across her skin. She had no idea who this man was, and frowned trying to understand why he intrigued her so.

Cassandra slowly followed behind Nathan as she continued her assessment. She noticed a five o’clock shadow blanketing his strong jaw, a straight nose, wide shoulders, and trim yet muscular arms. Deep in thought, she took mental notes of his confident gestures and posture. That was a man comfortable in his own skin.

“Hey, snap out of it, Cass. Are you coming? He’s sitting in the back.”

Cassandra hadn’t realized that she’d stopped following Nathan. His question startled her out of her musing, bringing her back to the present.

“Cass?” Nathan’s tone and questioning sharp eyes indicated he was puzzled by her behavior, but she didn’t take the time to enlighten him.

Returning her focus to the task at hand, she answered, “Sure. Where to?”

Looking forward to confronting the pesky NSA employee they had come there to catch, with one last look at the two men she had been scrutinizing, Cassandra moved ahead of Nathan. With a hand on her lower back, he steered her into the next aisle and in the direction of the two men who had caught her attention.

With each step her body grew tenser and her anger mounted. As they drew closer, it dawned on her that one of those men had hacked the EXClinic’s system. Cassandra stopped before reaching the grouping of desks and the NSA analysts who occupied them. She turned to Nathan and asked, “So. Which one is our man?”

“I thought you knew already by the way you were studying him,” Nathan commented tersely under his breath, frowning as he nodded toward the man.

Cassandra followed the direction of his nod and her heart skipped a beat
. Damn
. The same man her eyes had been drawn to only a minute earlier. The same man who had caused the irregular thrum of her pulse. What was worse, Nathan seemed to have picked up on that vibe.

Her head snapped back to look at Nathan and she narrowed her eyes at him. Since their encounter that night in his hotel room, he had become territorial toward her. She didn’t like where things were going, but with all the commotion since the breach, she just hadn’t had the time to analyze that ball of wax yet, and wasn’t about to get into it now. “Chill, as you told me yourself, Nate. Let me handle this.”

Cassandra took a deep breath. Armed with the anger ebbing in her veins, she stalked to Bauer’s desk, followed closely by Nathan—so close, she could almost feel his heavy breathing down her neck.
What the hell?
she thought, elbowing Nathan in the gut to make him back off.

She stopped and stood beside Bauer’s desk, waiting impatiently for him to notice her. He continued to talk to the guy sitting at the desk facing his, making plans for what sounded like a fun outing later that night. Geeks had a life out of the cage after all.

“What time?” she overheard Bauer ask his buddy.

“Eight okay with you?” Their eyes were fixated on their monitors, totally oblivious to Cassandra and Nathan’s presence. Cassandra decided to take the opportunity to capture a baseline of Bauer’s expression to use as a comparison when she interviewed him shortly.

“Sure. I should be out of here by five,” Bauer answered. “Are you going to finally ask Jennifer out?”

The wide, cheeky grin that spread across his face sent her heart stammering her chest. The little crooked tooth in his otherwise perfect mouth left her with an urge to kiss him and slide her tongue over it. She frowned deeper at the urge.
Where the hell did that come from?

After several moments, she had acquired a sufficient baseline to get a good read on him. She stepped closer, intent on interrupting their conversation.

“No…If there’s no rejection, there’s no need to….” His buddy lifted his eyes from the screen, finally noticing Cassandra standing impatiently next to Bauer and Nathan behind her. The buddy cleared his throat to get his friend’s attention.

Hearing what sounded like a large frog stuck in George’s throat caused Trevor to look over at him to be sure he hadn’t choked on his own drool at the mention of Jennifer. It was only then that Trevor noticed George’s eyes focused on something to the side of his desk. Turning his head to see what it was, his eyes collided with a shapely, woman’s waist. Surprised, he let his eyes slowly travel upward, noting the worn leather of her jacket, pausing for a moment at the hint of the curve of her breasts where the blouse’s top two buttons had been left undone. His pulse jumped a bit as his eyes continued their journey. He enjoyed the smoothness and golden tone of her exposed skin right before he sank into her eyes—the color of warm aged Irish whiskey—set in the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

His eyes locked with hers and time stood still. He honed in on her features. The glow of her tanned skin, her full lips, her auburn hair conservatively tied in a ponytail at the back of her head, and her eyes…again he was drawn back to her eyes. An overwhelming familiarity stunned him, and left him searching his memory for a time when they might have crossed paths. Her incredible eyes were fixated on him and gleamed with unadulterated…anger…
What the hell?
Trevor’s brow shot up, and with a slight tilt of his head, he asked her without preamble, “Have we met?”

Whiskey Eyes answered dryly, “Not yet, Mr. Bauer.”

The tightly controlled tone of her voice and the calculating look that flooded her eyes as she continued to stare down at him raised his hackles. His own eyes narrowed in response and his face tightened as his survival instincts kicked in, dampening his first reaction to her.

He then noticed the rigid stance of her body, the flexing fingers tightening into fists and loosening again. She was tightly strung and spoiling for a fight.
Who the hell is this woman and how does she know who I am?

Suddenly she leaned down so that her lips were close to his ear and a small flash of goose bumps caressed his neck where her warm breath touched it. Shock rocked him when she whispered very softly, “You’ve been a very bad boy, Mr. Bauer.”

Trevor’s hands tightened in reaction and, although he had no friggin’ idea what the hell she was talking about, he quickly checked to see if anyone else in the vicinity had overheard her. Trevor schooled his features, leaned back in his chair, and studied her as she pulled away.

It was then that Captain America, who had been standing behind her, came into view. The man frowned, came up to her side, and whispered something in her ear. The way his hand gripped her elbow and his lips brushed her hair demonstrated informality and a hint of closeness. The sight of his body leaning into hers irritated Trevor for some reason. His own frown deepened as he tried to understand why the thought of the two being intimate chafed him so. He was even more intrigued when the woman quickly peeled Captain America’s hand from her arm and stepped slightly away from him.

“Fine,” she whispered curtly to the man before turning her attention back to Trevor.

Trevor didn’t know this woman, this beauty standing before him, who had just confronted him with the apparent belief he had done something wrong. Her gaze returned to him and made him squirm inside, but at the same time, made him feel somehow owned by her.