His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3) (2 page)

This time, however, he was the one seeking a favor, and John Carmichael had never been the type to cater to ego to begin with. That was one of the reasons they’d stayed friends over the years. So Harry was content to organize his thoughts and sip at the fresh cup of coffee he’d been handed. It wasn’t as good as the Dutch brand he’d gotten spoiled on, but it was close.

The assistant hung up the phone.

“You can go in now, Mr. Jordan,” she chirped. She was perky, personable and bright, and even though he was only thirty-six, she made Harry feel old and none of those things.

Nothing about CSIS made him comfortable. He hated intrigue and didn’t like having to be here. If not for the complete faith he had in John as a human being, he probably wouldn’t be. He’d have ignored the problem and hoped it went away.

That last part wasn’t true. Harry might wish he could ignore it, but he’d have dealt with it somehow. Knowing John as a personal friend made for a much easier decision. Harry had come to Ottawa to discuss Bernard Vanderloord with him in person because he hadn’t trusted the normal channels for passing on information.

It turned out he’d been right to be cautious. He was about to have an intelligence officer dumped on him, meaning he’d have to watch everything he said or did from now on because it would all end up with CSIS and then shared with God only knew who. The intelligence business worldwide relied on an exchange system. If he, or anyone else at the Canadian embassy, gave John’s agent information that could be used to buy better intelligence from another organization, John wouldn’t hesitate to exploit it.

A man couldn’t trust anyone in this business, not even his friends, and it made Harry tired.

He left his empty coffee cup with the assistant and opened John’s door.

A woman rose from the chair in front of the gleaming mahogany desk at the sound of Harry’s entry and turned in a smooth, graceful motion to face him. She was tall and slender, with short blond ringlets and side-swept bangs that curled over one of her very direct, long-lashed blue eyes. She had the pale skin, rosy cheeks, and full red lips of the stereotypical Dutch women gracing the country’s tourist brochures. The only things missing to complete the picture were the curly-tipped white cap, peplum, and plain wooden shoes. Instead, she wore a short-sleeved white blouse and a narrow gray pencil skirt that stopped an inch shy of her knees.

She was stunning. Harry could think of no better word.

“Harry.” John greeted him with genuine warmth as he came from behind the desk to take Harry’s proffered hand in both of his. “I want you to meet Marlies Wiersma, the intelligence officer I’ve assigned to your case.” He stepped aside to include her in the conversation. “Marlies, this is Harry Jordan.”

Her self-assured, dazzling smile revealed equally dazzling teeth. She shook his hand, her grip as firm as any man’s. She seemed to be memorizing his face, no doubt well aware that she left him tongue-tied. Restless energy oozed from her pores. John’s assistant had made him feel old and unimpressive, but this woman had him wrestling the inner dull fuddy-duddy Alcine, his Italian ex-girlfriend, had accused him of being.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jordan,” Marlies said. “Call me Lies.” She pronounced it
Lees
, with a soft
s
on the end.

He released her hand and regained his power of speech. “Harry.”

John picked up a stack of papers and tucked them under his arm. “I have another meeting about to start. Harry, Lies is available as of today. I’ll have Penny book her on the same flight as yours back to Amsterdam tonight, only she’ll be flying economy, not business. These are taxpayer dollars I’m spending. Feel free to use my office while you two work out the logistics. I’ll be back in an hour.”

John left. Harry claimed the visitor chair next to Lies’s and shifted it sideways so they were facing each other. She crossed those long legs, an action that slid her plain, narrow gray skirt up her thighs.

He cleared his throat and tried not to stare. He’d conduct this exchange as if it were a job interview, which in a way it was. “Have you ever worked as a personal assistant before?”

She hooked a short blond ringlet behind one ear, revealing a row of piercings with tiny diamond studs in them that winked in the sunlight.

“I’ve worked at a lot of things,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. I’ll do my homework. That’s what the Internet is for. I also trust you’ll point out anything I do that might draw unwanted attention.”

She was going to draw attention by breathing. John had to be out of his mind to think a young woman such as Marlies Wiersma, simply because she could speak the language, would be the right intelligence officer to handle someone like Bernard Vanderloord.

In his late forties, Vanderloord was what could best be described as a player when it came to the opposite sex. Alcine had fallen for him and she should have known better. Lies, while strikingly beautiful, gave off the air of a varsity athlete, not a sophisticated femme fatale. Vanderloord, a shark, would take one look at her and spot easy prey.

And then Harry realized how much of a dull fuddy-duddy he really was, because no doubt that was John’s objective. Lies—young, pretty, and ambitious—was bait.

Did Harry approve?

Not in the least. It left a bad taste in his mouth. But it wasn’t his call. All he had to do was satisfy himself that she could pull off her role as his personal assistant. The rest was John’s problem.

He fired a barrage of questions at her, most of which she answered either to his satisfaction or with skillful evasion, and he was impressed. She was smart. He made note of the areas where she’d need to be coached.

Then, it was her turn to grill him.

“Can you tell me a little about how the trade commission functions?” she asked. “Who works in your defense department? How many people come through in the run of a day? What is your client base?”

As far as his entire client base was concerned, he wasn’t going there. The only one who concerned her was Vanderloord. The rest didn’t need CSIS nosing around in their business.

“One of our clients is the reason I’m here.” He’d already told John his story, and John had no doubt filled her in, at least in part, but Harry would repeat it to make sure Lies understood what she was getting into. “Bernard Vanderloord is a Canadian ex-pat who does business all over the world, primarily with military contracts. Basically, he acts as a third-party broker, buying and selling manufactured parts for maintenance and repair. I have reason to believe that some of those aircraft parts in particular are being purchased for one purpose, then modified, re-categorized, and sold for a secondary purpose. Europe’s open borders are convenient for moving re-purposed goods from one country, then shipped from a second or third country to circumvent trade embargos. It works a lot like money laundering.” John had said Lies was an expert on that subject, and she was nodding, so Harry continued. “The euro is fast becoming the currency of choice for money laundering, surpassing the American dollar, because of the number of countries that use it and because it can move across borders without being traced. So, not only has Vanderloord been trafficking in military goods, but he’s also exchanging currency. He’s set up a sort of hawala system in at least ten different countries, including Canada. You know what that is?”

She nodded again. “Yes. It’s an informal value transfer system. Money is given to a broker in one country, who calls a broker in a second country to release that amount to the intended recipient, minus a percentage. The brokers either exchange equal value goods or services for the cash, or hold a credit against a future cash exchange. Since a hawala system operates on a high level of trust, I’m assuming Mr. Vanderloord is using companies he’s either invested in or has a working relationship with.”

“For the most part.” He was trying to establish working relationships with Harry’s connections to further his networks and Harry wasn’t having it.

“How did you find out all of this?”

The tips of his ears began to burn. “The wife of an Albanian diplomat. She took me aside at an art event at their embassy in The Hague to tell me.”

Lies dissected that piece of information and came to the same conclusion he had. “She was sleeping with Vanderloord and he ended the relationship.”

“That would be a reasonable assumption, yes.” His face had to be matching his ears by now. The Albanian diplomat should have known better than to marry his mistress.
If she’ll do it with you, she’ll do it to you
, to paraphrase Dr. Phil. “It also means her information is suspect. She could be trying to get even with him. To be honest, she’s dramatic and politics isn’t her strong suit. She might have misunderstood something she overheard and blown it out of proportion.”

But he didn’t believe that, and he could tell by the slight inward, thoughtful drawing of Lies’s pretty red lips that she knew he didn’t.

He shifted the conversation off his clients and onto the daily operations of his office. Lies had a number of language skills besides Dutch that might come in handy, although when it came to sharing the details of her educational background, she was understandably vague.

After that, the conversation started to drag. A surreptitious glance at his watch warned Harry that John was overdue from his meeting. Harry couldn’t simply walk out of the office. He worked with the military and this wasn’t his first trip to National Headquarters in Ottawa so he knew the drill. Someone had to escort him downstairs to security so he could sign out and turn in his visitor pass.

Besides, he had a few things to discuss with John in private. The diplomat’s angry, sobbing, mistress-turned-wife left him unconvinced that a female intelligence officer handling Vanderloord was the best approach to be taking. Things could get messy and ugly, and he didn’t want an international incident unfolding on Dutch soil. Their shipbuilding industry had strong connections to Canada. Not to mention, this whole setup made him feel like a pimp.

And he hadn’t given John the whole story either. He’d left Alcine out of it. She swore she’d told Vanderloord nothing about the trade commission’s business and Harry believed her.

There’d be very little for her to tell anyway. He’d never indulged in pillow talk.

“If you have work to do, I don’t mind waiting for John alone,” he hinted to Lies.

“I can’t leave you alone, especially in the director’s private office.”

“Of course not. I wasn’t thinking.” Now he felt like an idiot. But he was struggling to find a casual topic of conversation with a beautiful woman in a context that was outside his usual frame of reference. If this were a social setting, he’d have no problem. At work, also not an issue. This wasn’t either of those. “I take it you’re familiar with the Netherlands already. What’s your favorite place?”

She flashed him that dazzling smile. It warned him she knew how uncomfortable he was and she’d use it as leverage if he gave her half a chance.

“The whole country is beautiful,” she said. “I do have to say, though, I have a particular attachment to Friesland. I have family there.”

They’d found common ground. He relaxed, although he didn’t let down his guard. “One of our biggest shipbuilding clients has offices in Friesland. I’ve taken a tour. For my own personal preference though, I like Leiden.” He shrugged. “There’s something about the youth and the enthusiasm of an international university town I find fascinating.”

“Because you forget what it’s like to be young?” She lifted one dark blond eyebrow and rubbed the tips of her long fingers along the tubular steel arm of her chair, a sparkle in her eyes making their blue depths appear even more vivid. “You aren’t such an old man.”

Her gentle teasing came from nowhere, changing the pattern his thoughts had been making from a straight line to a tangled maze he couldn’t maneuver. In any other situation he’d almost think she was flirting with him, but she wasn’t a social acquaintance, employee, or friend. Because he didn’t know how to classify her, he wasn’t quite sure where to take the conversation from here. Since she was CSIS, however, he’d sure as hell never be able to trust her enough to let down his guard. Their interactions, if he couldn’t convince John to replace her, were going to fall somewhere between informal and official. That translated to awkward and she’d take full advantage of it, as she was trying to do now.

She was a spy. He’d do best to remember it. Whatever game she was planning to play, he’d sit on the sidelines and mind his own business. Unfortunately, he couldn’t warn anyone else in his office or circle of acquaintances that she’d come in contact with. He hoped there wouldn’t be too much collateral damage.

“Not so much old,” he conceded dryly, “as wise. I do have a few years of experience behind me.”

Before she could comment on that, John reappeared. He strode into the room and tossed his papers on the desk. “How’d we make out?” he asked, his manner suggesting he believed the planning he’d left them to do had gone off without any hitches.

Not true.

“I’d like a few words with you,” Harry said to him.

* * *

Lies knew when she was being dismissed. She gathered the file John had given her earlier, shuffling the loose pages inside it so they were lined up neat and tidy with the edges, then stood.

“I’ll read this before I leave the office,” she said to her director, holding the file up in one hand. “I’m going to head home this afternoon to pack.”