How Spy I Am (45 page)

I made my voice
confident. “Same as before. Keep Stemp from butting in, and watch
my tracker. More than two hours without moving, and I’m in
trouble.”

His jaw clenched. “Can
you tell me at least a little more?”

“No. Sorry.” I headed
for the bunkroom before I could change my mind.

I had just picked up
my jacket when Kane’s broad shoulders blotted out the light from
the hallway. He advanced slowly, his gaze searching my face.

“The cameras are
disabled in here,” he murmured, his velvet baritone tickling my
ears and sending a rush of heat to more southerly areas.

“Uh…” I replied. I
followed my brilliant repartee up with an audible swallow and
licked suddenly-dry lips.

His gaze locked onto
my lips. “You shouldn’t leave without a kiss for luck.”

“Uh…” I cleared the
hoarseness out of my throat and sidled for the door. “That’s
probably not a good idea…”

“I’m sure you’re
right.” He stepped closer.

I drew in a shaky
breath. “You know, since anybody could walk in. That would be
bad.”

“That’s very
true.”

He was standing so
close I could feel the heat radiating from him. Licking at my body
like a hot tongue…

A couple of shallow
breaths did nothing to ease my lightheadedness. His eyes were dark
in the half-light, focused on me with hungry intent. A whiff of gun
oil and leather weakened both my knees and my resolve.

“Ohmigod…”

I hadn’t realized I’d
spoken aloud until he pulled me against him, his lips burning on
mine, his hand knotting roughly in the hair at the nape of my neck.
The heat of his muscular body whipped me into a firestorm of lust,
igniting every nerve ending. His demanding mouth pressed my lips
open to pillage and take. No request for permission, no gentle
persuasion, only pure alpha-male dominance.

The challenge was
irresistible.

I kissed him back
hard, shoving my weight against him to pin him to the wall so I
could do a little pillaging of my own.

Kane growled and in an
instant our positions were reversed, the wall hard against my back,
his body hard against my front. A few moments later, he broke the
kiss to give me a predatory grin.

“I’ll look forward to
completing our unfinished business later,” he rumbled before
stepping back to leave me braced panting against the wall. His
thumb brushed lightly across my tingling lower lip. “Good luck with
your mission.”

Somehow I managed to
stumble out of the bunker, hoping I wasn’t being monitored by any
infrared cameras that would capture the telltale white-hot areas of
my body. The night air was mercifully frosty, and after a few
moments of deep breathing on the front step I regained enough
intellectual capacity to scan the sky and the area around my truck
for anything that looked like a goose.

Sufficiently
reassured, I climbed in, appreciating the cold truck seat under my
butt for perhaps the first time ever.

At my farm, I passed
the guards’ inspection and pulled into my garage. After some
awkward manoeuvring behind closed doors, I managed to get my dirt
bike up the ramp and into my truck. A few moments in the house gave
me time to stuff my helmet and leathers into a large duffel bag,
and I strode back to the garage looking as nonchalant as any woman
can with icy sweat trickling down her spine.

Half an hour later, I
pulled the truck onto a deserted crossing a mile south of the
location Sam had described.

Struggling into my
biking leathers, I discovered that several weeks of missed workouts
had left the leather pants uncomfortably tight. I blew out a sigh
and made a mental note to get back to my usual workout schedule as
soon as possible. If I survived.

Shit, maybe I
should’ve eaten some ice cream before I left. Just in case I didn’t
make it.

I gave my head a
vigorous shake, trying to dislodge the panicky thoughts floating
around inside it. Focus, dammit.

I tucked the trank gun
into my waist holster after anxiously checking the ammo loads. Only
five darts left. I should’ve asked Stemp for more. Too late
now.

My Glock still
snuggled in my ankle holster, its weight like a reassuring hug.
From hard-learned habit, I extracted it and ejected the magazine to
check it over. Fully loaded. Spare magazine in my pocket. I pushed
the magazine back into place and chambered up a round before
returning it to its holster.

I tucked my
bird-watching binoculars into the front of my jacket and zipped it
up over them, then ran trembling fingertips over my watch. Still in
one piece, concealing the tiny bit of technology that could save
me. Or kill me.

I sucked in a deep
breath and let it out slowly. What had I missed?

Everything else was in
my waist pouch, and I spent a moment in fervent hope that Kane was
right and Stemp wouldn’t use the tracker to interfere with my
mission.

When I caught myself
re-checking my mental list for the third time, I huffed out a sigh
and got out of the truck to wobble around to the tailgate on
shaking legs.

The clatter of my ramp
shattered the dark silence of the country. I wheeled my dirt bike
down and pushed the ramp back into the box of the truck, wincing at
the noise.

When I started the
motorcycle, its engine sounded louder than the roar of the
Hercules, and I almost chickened out right then and there.
Trembling astride the bike, I gave myself a stern talking-to.

The bike wasn’t that
loud. Honest. It was actually very quiet for a dirt bike. And its
knobby tires and high-slung suspension would carry me easily over
the lumpy, frosty fields for a quick getaway. I needed the bike.
This was the best solution.

My chest ached with
the pounding of my heart and the tension of my nervous shivering,
and I attempted a few yoga breaths without success.

Get on with it.

I yanked on my helmet
and kicked the bike into gear.

I idled slowly over
uneven clods of half-frozen dirt, heading for the windbreak that
showed as a dark smudge against the mottled white of half-melted
snow. Letting the dirt bike’s engine lug in third gear, I hoped its
muted grumble would be carried away from the farm by the brisk
headwind that chilled my knuckles through my gloves.

The bike bucked and
kicked sideways as the front tire glanced off a particularly large
unseen lump and I jerked it back under control, swearing quietly. I
fought the urge to stop and remove the cover I’d rigged over the
headlight. The duct-taped cardboard would make for quick removal if
I had to make a run for it, but I couldn’t afford to attract
attention as I approached.

At last the trees
loomed up like black skeletons in the moonlight, and I dismounted
and cut the engine to walk the bike the last few yards. Taking a
sight line against the lights of the building site, I leaned the
motorcycle against a tree and walked away with a short prayer that
I’d be able to find it in a hurry if necessary.

The bark of a dog from
the vicinity of the buildings made me huddle close to a tree,
wrapping an arm around its trunk to prevent my suddenly weak knees
from giving way.

Shit, shit, shit! Why
hadn’t I thought about dogs?

I succumbed to gravity
and crouched beside the tree, sucking in a few deep breaths in an
attempt to slow my thundering heart.

Okay, Plan B. I had a
trank gun. That bark had sounded like a pretty big dog. Surely the
trank would knock out a big dog without harming it permanently. My
shaking knees tried to drop me on my ass, but I used the tree to
pull myself upright instead.

Come on, Jane Bond, do
your stuff.

I pulled out the
binoculars and focused on the building site. Peering into the
darkness, I realized how under-prepared I really was. Night-vision
binoculars would’ve been nice. Hell, a Special Forces backup
would’ve been nice.

I shook off my
burgeoning sense of inadequacy and concentrated on what I was
seeing.

Sam hadn’t been
completely accurate when he’d called it a barn. It was actually a
long low steel-clad building, more like an industrial warehouse
than a barn. Nearest to me, the end of the building had a
truck-sized overhead door with a man-door beside it. The side was a
long expanse of unbroken steel cladding with a cluster of windows
near the front.

I pressed a little
closer to my tree when a man with a German Shepherd dog rounded the
corner of the building and patrolled down the side. Thank heaven I
was downwind, at least for the moment.

From where I stood, I
could see three cars and a half-ton parked in front of the
building. A small house stood a few hundred yards away, its windows
dark. I trained my binoculars on the shadowy barn windows, but I
couldn’t make out any details inside.

The guard and dog
disappeared around the corner of the building, and I forced my
reluctant feet into action. After creeping in a careful half-circle
to scope out as much of the building as possible while staying
downwind of the dog, I decided on a plan at last. The guard seemed
to be making predictable laps around the building. As soon as he
went around the corner, I’d zip over and try the door at the rear
of the building.

I swallowed a hard
lump of fear. There was no window in the door. I had no way of
knowing what was on the other side. I could be stepping right into
a group of people.

But going around to
the front door would be insanity. The front of the building was
brightly lit, and if it was like most industrial buildings, the
windows at the front probably meant offices and occupied areas. The
back should just be a loading bay.

I hoped.

Go.

I propelled my shaking
legs into a dash for the back of the building, ignoring the
yammering of the craven internal voice that assured me I’d never be
able to get in, I’d get caught for sure, and I had very little time
left to live.

It was only a hundred
yards or so, but by the time I grabbed the door handle I was
gasping as if I’d run a marathon. My pulse hammered a tattoo behind
my eyes. I tried to open the latch quietly, but it didn’t
budge.

Shooting a panicked
glance at the corner where the guard would reappear, I clamped down
on the handle hard enough to shoot pain through my hand.

Nothing.

Goddammit, of course
they’d keep the fucking door locked. They were spies, for shit’s
sake. I stood frozen in panicked indecision.

If I was Kane, I’d
have my handy-dandy lockpicks in my back pocket, and I’d know how
to use them. If I was any kind of movie-type spy at all, I’d have a
laser pen capable of cutting through six-inch steel in seconds. Or
I’d jiggle a credit card in the crack of the door and it would
magically open. Or…

Jesus, idiot, get the
hell back to the trees and-

A booming bark was the
only warning I got. The sweat congealed on my body as I spun to
meet the security guard coming from the wrong fucking direction,
the sneaky bastard.

My trank gun was
already in my hand, my finger convulsing on the trigger. The guard
collapsed without a sound. As if in slow motion, I watched the
dog’s leash slipping through his lax fingers.

Too slowly, my gun
moved to aim at the dog, already airborne with toothy jaws gaping.
Too slowly, the trigger moved under my finger.

I had exactly enough
time to register the tiny flat sound of the trank gun’s report
before a German Shepherd missile slammed into my chest.

I struggled back to
consciousness, groaning at the crushing pain. Something hairy and
foul-tasting filled my mouth and I jerked back, gasping and
spitting. The icy surface beneath me sucked every vestige of warmth
from my back.

My dark surroundings
spun for a moment. When the world righted itself, I realized I was
lying next to the door at the back of the building. I spat out dog
hair and shoved the dog’s inert body off me, easing the pain where
its weight had crushed my binoculars against my chest. The guard
still lay where he’d fallen.

Slow comprehension
dawned. A few months ago Kane had explained how the trank guns
worked, and I stifled a hysterical giggle when I realized I’d fired
from such close range I’d been caught in the burst of short-acting
aerosolized anaesthetic released at the dart’s impact.

Lucky the
longer-acting trank inside the dart had found its mark, or I’d have
been counting tooth marks in my hide. I struggled to my feet and
staggered back into the windbreak on shaking legs.

Huddling next to my
faithful tree, my mind careened from one possibility to the next. I
had three trank darts left. I didn’t know how long I’d been
unconscious, but I probably only had about ten minutes or so before
the guard woke up. I could trank him and the dog again, but sooner
or later somebody would come looking for them.

I had to get into the
damn building now, dammit!

…Or did I?

No way. That would be
too easy…

Without much hope, I
slithered down to sit on the ground, leaning against the tree trunk
just in case, and reached for the familiar void of virtual
reality.

My pessimism was
confirmed when nothing happened. Of course they’d have the network
contained inside the building with shielding. I blew out a
trembling sigh, hauled myself to my feet, and brushed the snow off
my butt. Only one option left.

And it sucked
shit.

As I went by the
sleeping guard, I used up another precious trank dart to make sure
he’d stay quiet for at least another twenty minutes.

Two darts left, and
two magazines of real, lethal bullets for my Glock. I hoped I
wouldn’t have to use them.

Hurrying along the
side of the building, I hugged the wall, panting shallowly through
my mouth. This was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done, but
I didn’t have any choices left.