How Spy I Am (20 page)

He gave me a
half-smile. “Thanks, darlin’. But we ain’t talkin’ about me.
Listen, I know ya been through some bad shit, but no lies now.” He
stroked my hair, his level gaze compelling me to truthfulness.
“D’ya really not wanna be with Kane? Or are ya just too scared to
try?”

“Arnie, let it go,
okay? I’m trying to protect him.”

“How d’ya figure?” he
demanded. “Tell me how you’re protectin’ him by shuttin’ him
out.”

I closed my eyes
momentarily to dispel the memories before speaking to his chest. “I
can’t give him what he wants. If I don’t end it, he’ll just keep
giving and hoping until he’s got nothing left. It’s even worse than
getting hit. Your body can heal, but starving for scraps of love
kills your soul.” I met his eyes. “I won’t do that to him.”

We gazed each other
for a long moment.

“Aw, darlin’,” he
rasped, and folded me into his arms. I laid my head against his
shoulder, and we held each other in silence.

After a moment,
Hellhound straightened. “Well, ain’t we a pair a’ fuckups?”

I blew out a short
laugh. “Yeah. That’s why we’re so good together.”

“Aydan…” He drew back.
“Ya know I don’t wanna get between you an’ Kane…”

I cut him off with a
sigh. “Arnie, there’s nothing to get between. How many times do I
need to say it?”

“Until I believe it, I
guess.” He held up a restraining hand as I opened my mouth to
argue. “Darlin’, I just gotta say this one thing, an’ then I’m
gonna butt out. Ya say ya can’t love him, an’ maybe you’re right,
but listen. You’re as tough as they come. All the times ya took a
shit-kickin’, I only ever saw ya cry your eyes out once.”

He cupped my cheek in
a gentle palm. “An’ that was when ya thought you’d lost Kane for
good.” His lips brushed my forehead. “Just somethin’ to think
about.”

I leaned my head
against his chest. “There was another time you didn’t see,” I
murmured. I raised my gaze to his. “It was when I thought I’d lost
you.” I touched his dear, ugly face where the bruises were finally
beginning to fade to a dirty yellowish-brown. “Just something to
think about.”

He stared down at me
for a couple of long seconds while I hoped I hadn’t activated his
well-developed flight response. Then he smiled and his arms
tightened around me.

“Lucky I know ya ain’t
lookin’ for commitment,” he rasped. “Or I’d be runnin’ like hell
right about now.”

I grinned up at him.
“Chickenshit.”

“Look who’s
talkin’.”

Back inside the bar, I
nibbled at my remaining cold chicken wings while I tried to immerse
myself in the blues. The musicians were as good as ever and the
crowd was getting louder. My mind relentlessly turned my scant
facts over and over while the shouts of good-natured abuse among
the rowdy cluster of men at the bar scraped my already-chafed
nerves raw.

I was just about to
signal Darlene for my bill when three of the noisiest drinkers
separated themselves from the group to stumble purposefully in my
direction.

I eased to a more
alert position, ready to move fast if necessary.

“Hey,” the tall
string-bean slurred cheerfully. “Don’t I know you?”

“Nope, ‘fraid not,” I
said, trying for pleasant but dismissive.

His short, pudgy
companion elbowed him with a juicy snicker. “You just don’t know
her with her clothes on. I told you, that’s Arlene Cherry,
dummy.”

“No, sorry, you’ve got
the wrong person,” I said firmly, standing up to edge away.

Stringbean closed in a
pace, peering down with a delighted grin. “Wow, howdy, Miss Cherry,
I sure am a fan!”

“Sorry, I’m not Arlene
Cherry. I have to go…”

Too late. The third
man chimed in, droplets of spit spraying from his loose lips.
“’S’not ‘Rlene Sherry,” he hiccupped. “Tits’r too shmall.”

“Is so,” Pudge argued.
“You can’t tell under that sweatshirt. She’s probably got ‘em
strapped down or something.”

“Hey, now,” Stringbean
protested. “That ain’t no way to talk in front of a lady. Miss
Cherry, you just ignore these boys, they ain’t got no class.”

“F…fuck clash,”
Spitbucket slurred, drooling an unattractive string of saliva over
his lower lip with the fricative consonant. “She’sh a f…fuckin’
porn shtar. She f… fucks for a livin’. Hey honey, sh…show me your
titsh.” He lurched forward, hand outstretched, just as Stringbean
stepped toward him, his face darkening.

Spitbucket attempted a
dodge and tripped over his own feet. His momentum pitched him
forward, slamming his palm with unerring and unfortunate accuracy
onto my left boob.

I let out a yell at
the impact, slapping his hand away and shoving at him to deflect
his fall when he continued to topple forward. Seconds later, my
back was jammed against the table in an attempt to avoid the action
when Stringbean folded Spitbucket in half with a fist to the gut.
Pudge made an ill-advised attempt to separate them, and in seconds
all three men’s fists were swinging.

Some other members of
their group hurried to intervene, but an unlucky backhand from one
of the fighters made contact with a face, and the erstwhile
peacemakers dove into the fray, bellowing.

I did a quick shimmy
sideways, collecting a couple of minor bruises while I squeezed
around the yelling, flailing tangle of bodies. I had almost made it
clear when the volume and pitch of the battle changed suddenly
behind me.

I whipped around in
time to see Kane and Hellhound wading into the melee while Eddy
slipped out from behind the bar carrying a short but business-like
wooden bat. Several brawlers backed off fast and melted into the
crowd. Two others rushed Hellhound from opposite sides, fists
windmilling, but he simply took a step back and seized a collar in
each fist, augmenting their forward momentum with a jerk of his
powerful arms. Their foreheads slammed together and they collapsed
like rag dolls at his feet.

Three misguided fools
tackled Kane, who dropped them in their tracks with lightning-fast
blows, his face reflecting no more concern than if he’d swatted
some particularly annoying gnats.

Eddy slowed to a halt,
staring open-mouthed while his unused bat sank to half-mast. The
sudden silence in the bar surged into an excited hum as Kane and
Hellhound stepped over the groaning bodies to my side.

Hellhound slid an arm
around me. “Ya okay, darlin’?”

“Fine. Thanks.” I
looked up at Kane, who was still wearing his cop face. “Where did
you come from?” I asked. “I didn’t even see you.”

“I was over in the
corner. I came in when you were outside a few minutes ago.” He gave
me an unreadable look. “If you’re all right, I’ll start doing my
RCMP act here.” He jerked a contemptuous thumb over his shoulder at
the one-time brawlers, who were slowly dragging themselves into
varying approximations of sitting.

“I’m fine. Don’t
charge the tall guy, he was trying to help me.” I peered around
Kane, but Stringbean had vanished. He must have been part of the
smarter retreating contingent, and I was glad. He’d seemed like a
decent guy. “Never mind, he’s gone anyway,” I added.

Kane nodded and turned
away.

“Well, darlin’, had
enough excitement for one night?” Hellhound inquired.

“Yeah, I think
so.”

Little did he know how
exciting my evening had really been.

“Kane’s going to have
some explaining to do,” I muttered to Hellhound. “He told Eddy he
was an energy consultant.”

“No big deal. He’ll
just say he’s RCMP workin’ undercover.” He caught my eye
meaningfully. “An’ he is. Technically.”

“True.” I fumbled in
my waist pouch with a trembling hand and dug out a twenty. I caught
Eddy’s eye as he worked with Kane to sort out the bodies, and he
nodded when I tucked the money next to the cash register at the
bar.

I turned back to
Hellhound. “Thanks for rescuing me, but what if one of those guys
had landed a punch on your face? You’re nowhere near healed. I
can’t even imagine how much that would hurt.”

He shrugged. “Yeah,
prob’ly woulda pissed me off pretty good. Lucky for them they
didn’t. Come on, I’ll walk ya to your car.”

At home, I wandered
restlessly through the house, waiting for the last of the
adrenaline to dissipate and trying to put together pieces that
didn’t form any kind of recognizable picture. Not for the first
time, I wished I had Hellhound’s photographic memory. I didn’t dare
write anything down.

So Smith had known
Sirius was trying to recruit me. Why would a Russian agent know
about Sirius’s programs? Unless Robert had told him, but that
didn’t add up because Smith had said ‘Robert didn’t know at
first’.

But Robert had known
about Sirius’s recruitment plans right from the start. So what had
Smith told him that he hadn’t already known?

And then there was ‘I
had Irina, Robert had you…’

Irina suffered from
schizophrenia and killed herself. Wait, who had mentioned
schizophrenia recently?

Smith, that’s who.
After the ghost showed up in the network. And he had looked
inexplicably concerned.

I stared at my
wide-eyed reflection in the hall mirror. Kasper the Friendly
Ghost
? I thought Robert’s joke had been that ‘ghost’ meant
‘spy’. But could Smith actually be the ghost in the network? Could
he somehow invade my brain? That sure as hell hadn’t felt friendly.
Surely Robert wouldn’t joke about something like that. Would
he?

I stumbled down the
hallway, unable to keep still while my mind worked furiously.

Shit, I’d been right.
Smith hadn’t been concerned for me. He’d been worried because he’d
been caught trying to control me.

Or maybe he was just
remembering how his girlfriend died. His girlfriend, who had
apparently done what I did…

My heart kicked my
ribs, adrenaline surging. The Russians had a brainwave-driven
network, too! And they’d been using it long before I ever started.
That’s what Robert hadn’t known.

Shit, what did that
really mean? And why was Smith here in Canada at Sirius now? Was he
still working for the Russians? Or somebody else? Using me instead
of Irina to gather information so he could relay it to enemies
unknown?

I stood frozen for a
long moment in the middle of my living room, my pulse thundering in
my ears before I jerked into action, snatching up the phone.

The receiver was
clenched in my hand, my finger poised over the buttons before
reason reasserted itself. Who was I going to call? And what was I
going to say?

I couldn’t say
anything to Stemp without revealing the fact that Robert was still
alive, and as soon as I did, he was as good as dead. I had to talk
to Robert first.

And anyway, blurting,
’Smith is a Russian spy, I know because he told me’ wasn’t very
convincing. The Cold War was long over.

And… shit.

I sank onto the edge
of my sofa, the handset sagging into my lap. Smith’s name change
wasn’t a secret. It was in his personnel records at Sirius; Kane
had told me back in March. If Smith had anything to hide, the
analysts would have found it. Wouldn’t they?

And if Smith really
was a spy, surely he wouldn’t openly confess it to me. What else
had he said? ‘We’re all working together here’.

And then there was
that ominous, ‘it was getting worse, but they kept pushing her’,
and ‘we had to save you’. Save me from what? Was using the network
going to damage my brain? Induce schizophrenia?

I didn’t doubt it had
serious long-term effects. I’d only worked in it for a few months,
and I was already suffering screaming nightmares and anxiety
attacks. Not to mention thinking I was Betty Hooper, whoever the
hell she was.

I shook myself and
took some slow, deep breaths. There was no reason to believe those
symptoms were a direct result of using the network. I’d also been
attacked, captured and tortured during that time. It was normal to
have an emotional reaction to that. I knew all about post-traumatic
stress. And Sam had explained away my identity problem.

Dammit, I needed to
talk to Robert. Why the hell hadn’t he contacted me?

But what if he did?
What if he was working for the bad guys?

Maybe I should call
Stemp…

I wrestled with
increasingly improbable scenarios until my brain refused to swim
through the raging sea of indecision any longer and I found myself
in front of the computer, doing crosswords again.

When I finally
abandoned the effort and went to bed I tossed and turned,
struggling through threatening disjointed dreams and screaming
myself awake over and over.

In the morning, I
propped my aching head in one hand while I hunched over my cereal
dish. Maybe I should tell Stemp anyway. If Robert was in hiding, he
had to be doing something criminal.

But I didn’t
know
that, dammit! And he was… had been… my husband.

And besides, it wasn’t
just Robert’s life at stake. If Stemp found out Kane had failed to
kill Robert, it could destroy Kane’s career, especially after his
recent suspension.

I turned my spoon end
over end, concentrating on its quiet tap against the tabletop as my
fingers slid down it.

Tap. Slide. Tap.
Slide.

So what if the
Russians had a brainwave-driven network? It wasn’t really
surprising. There was no reason to believe they hadn’t developed it
on their own. Certainly they had enough resources.

Tap. Slide.

So maybe I was doing
the right thing by waiting to find out more from Robert. After all,
Smith hadn’t actually indicated Irina could decrypt files and
breach secured networks.

Tap. Slide.

Though her work had
been important enough to the Russian government that they forced
her to keep working despite her mental illness.