Reach For the Spy (27 page)

“Fine, then,” I
growled. “Let’s ask the questions. What were you doing Monday
night, Stemp? How did you know Kane was at the cafe? Did you happen
to pop in there for a while?”

Stemp leaned back in
his chair and surveyed me with his inscrutable eyes. “Actually, I
did,” he admitted finally.

“Because...” I
prodded.

“I was transacting some
business that I prefer not to do from home.”

“What sort of
business?”

“The sort of business
that doesn’t concern you.”

“Oh, really.”

“Really.”

I glared at him. “We’re
done here. I have work to do. And I need my team to help me do
it.”

“Very well.” Stemp
rose. “I will continue to investigate. Meanwhile, I suggest that
you trust nobody, and be prepared to use your new weapon. At any
time. Against anyone.” He gave Kane a hard stare and left the
room.

I kicked my chair back
and stalked around the table, fists clenched. “What a prick!” I
turned to face Spider and Kane. “I trust you guys more than anybody
in the world. He’s so full of shit!”

Kane rubbed a weary
hand over his face. “No. He’s not. There are only a handful of
people who know what you can do. You know all of them personally.
You’ve trusted all of them, until now. You’re wrong about one of
them. There’s no way to sugar-coat that.”

I did a quick mental
inventory of all the people I’d worked with. Kane was right. I
liked and trusted them all. I couldn’t believe one of them would
betray me.

Except John Smith.

“What about Smith?” I
asked. “Did you see him on Monday?”

Spider shook his head.
“I didn’t even see Stemp. I could have easily missed somebody else,
too. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Aydan,” Kane said
gently. “Just because you don’t get along with Smith doesn’t mean
he’s the mole. In cases like this, it often turns out to be the
person you trusted the most.”

I dropped back into the
chair and buried my face in my hands. “I hate this. And I don’t
believe I’m wrong about you guys. Or Germain. I’d stake my life on
you three. For what it’s worth.”

“Thanks, Aydan, that’s
good to hear,” Kane said, and Spider nodded agreement. Kane met my
eyes. “I hope you’re right.”

Back in my office, I
scanned Spider’s tired face. “How did it go last night?”

He rubbed his eyes, and
I could read the strain in his shoulders. “It went okay. I altered
your program so if that specific file shows up again, we’ll know.
But I couldn’t do anything to watch for any other files or
variations on that file because of the encryption. It’s actually
pretty useless.”

He met my eyes with a
worried gaze. “There are some more files in the listening program
this morning. You should look at them as soon as possible.”

The anxious knot in my
stomach clenched a little harder. “I’ll do that right now.”

I leaned back on the
couch and whisked into the virtual network. My heart beat a little
faster at the sight of the small stack of files. I was just
reaching for the first one with trembling hands when Kane stepped
into the virtual file room. I twitched at his sudden appearance, my
nerves strung tight.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m
going to work in here again. Let’s hope I don’t need a bucket this
time.”

“Let’s hope,” I agreed,
and opened the first file.

Much later, I laid down
the last document with a sigh of relief. “That’s it. So far, so
good.”

Kane looked up from his
virtual terminal, his face clearing. “That’s a relief.” He looked
at his watch. “You should take a break. It’s nearly noon.”

“Not quite yet. I have
an idea.” I dissolved into invisibility and was floating into the
network structure when Kane shouted my name.

I snapped back to the
file room, my heart pounding. “What?” I scanned wildly, but
couldn’t identify any threat.

Kane took a deep breath
and let it out slowly. “Don’t do that.”

“What? Don’t do what?
Jeez, you scared the piss out of me.”

“Don’t just vanish
without telling me what you’re going to do. Last time you did that,
you were gone for three hours and I had to carry you out in a
bucket.”

“Oh.” I sucked in a
deep breath of my own, trying to calm down. “Sorry. I’m going to
try to modify my little program. I’ll need to be invisible so I can
check the connections. I don’t think it’ll take long.”

“Give me your hand.
Just in case.”

“Okay.” I felt his hand
close around mine as I stretched my invisible virtual self into the
network.

It was easier than I
thought. Kane’s grip tightened spasmodically when I popped back
into existence beside him, grinning.

He let go and surveyed
my face. “I take it that went well.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then let’s get
out of here. You need lunch, and you can tell us about your
changes.”

“Sounds good.” I smiled
to myself as we walked to the portal. Regular meals had never been
a priority for Kane. I was touched that he would pay such careful
attention to my needs.

Then again, it was his
job. I stepped out of the portal and swore my way through the
pain.

When I straightened and
opened my eyes, Spider was watching me anxiously. I sighed and
cracked my neck. “Where’s Kane?”

“He just left to take
the key down to the secured area. He’ll meet us in the lobby.”

I massaged my forehead.
“I am such a massive pain in his ass. He must be ready to shoot me
himself just so he can go back to his regular job without being
saddled with a neurotic civilian.”

“You’re not neurotic.”
Spider smiled at me. “And this is his regular job.”

I hauled myself to my
feet and followed him to the door. “Not quite the excitement he’s
used to, though, I’m sure. Sitting around watching me stumble
through the network.”

“That’s been far too
exciting lately, if you ask me,” he said wryly. “Boredom is a nice
change for a guy like Kane.”

“I guess.”

Walking back from The
Melted Spoon, Kane turned to Spider. “Webb, will you get the key
for Aydan? I need to stop off at the cafe and check my email
again.”

“Sure.” Spider frowned.
“Your computer’s still down? Do you want me to have a look at
it?”

“No, I didn’t want to
bother you with it, so I took it to the repair shop. They said it
would be ready later today. Thanks, though.”

“No problem.”

Kane strode off toward
the cafe, and Spider and I continued on to Sirius. I sighed as we
retrieved our security fobs. “I’m so glad I don’t have to go
downstairs anymore.”

Spider smiled at me.
“I’m glad, too. I’ll go and get the key. See you upstairs.”

In my office, Spider
leaned forward eagerly. “I see some changes in your program. What
did you do?”

“Well, you said the
file was sent from the internet cafe, so I set up the program to
watch for anything else that comes from there and goes to Fuzzy
Bunny. If it catches anything, it’ll send you an email alert
flagged as urgent. At least that way we’ll know if our traitor
tries again.”

As I spoke, Spider’s
phone buzzed. He glanced absently at it, then did a double-take as
his eyes widened. “I just got an alert!”

“Shit!” I dove into the
network and folded space to get to the file room. Snatching up the
file that awaited me, I scanned it at light-speed before snapping,
“
Shit!
”

My virtual
consciousness rocketed down the tunnels, tracking the file.

Much later, I oozed
down the connection, returning to the Sirius servers. Slithering
back into existence in the virtual file room, I listlessly watched
Kane pace. After a few seconds, it occurred to me that it might be
helpful if I was visible.

With an effort, I
concentrated. I wasn’t quite fast enough. Kane altered direction
and attempted to stride right through me. I let out an involuntary
grunt at the impact, and we both sprawled on the virtual floor.

“Aydan?” His hands shot
out, feeling across the floor while he stared blindly right at
me.

“I’m here.”

He jerked back when his
searching hand landed on one of my invisible boobs. “Sorry.” A
flush crept up his neck. “I can’t see you. Take my hand.”

If I hadn’t been so
tired I might have had some fun with that, but I just wasn’t up to
it. I put my hand in his and he gripped it tightly. “Let’s go.”

“I just need to do one
more thing in my program first.”

“Aydan, you’re still
invisible.”

“I know. I’m too tired
to change. And I need to be invisible to work in my program
anyway.”

“Why? You don’t need to
hide in our network,” he argued. “Come on, you can do that
later.”

“I don’t know why it
works that way, but I have to be invisible. I can’t do it
otherwise. Just keep holding my hand. I’m not going far.”

“Aydan!”

I ignored him and
stretched lethargically into the network structure again, tweaking
my program. I worked slowly and carefully, afraid I’d make a
mistake out of sheer exhaustion. Finally, I backed away, barely
breathing. It was a delicate setup, but it should work.

I tried to snap back
into the file room, but it was more like the sluggish retraction of
an earthworm in cold ground. Minus the slime. My imagery mercifully
left that part out.

“Okay, I’m ready to
go,” I whispered.

“I still can’t see
you.” Kane’s grip tightened. He skimmed his other hand up my arm to
find my shoulders and lifted me to my feet. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” I
focused the last of my concentration, and managed a ghostly image
of myself.

“That’s better.” I read
the relief on his face. “Let’s go.”

I concentrated on
putting one foot in front of the other and was dully surprised when
we stood in front of the portal. Kane gave me a gentle push, and I
stepped through into my aching head.

As the pain subsided, I
slowly unwrapped my arms from over my head and uncurled. Thank God
for the couch. I sprawled with my face mashed into the cushions for
a few seconds, trying to gather the energy to sit up.

“Aydan?” Spider asked.
“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I mumbled into
the upholstery.

Kane’s turn. “Can you
sit up?”

“Probably.” I sighed
deeply. Motes of dust shot into my airways, and I immediately
convulsed in a fit of coughing. I tumbled off the sofa onto my
knees and clamped my hands around my throbbing head while I hacked
and gasped.

At last, I wiped the
tears from my eyes and squinted up at the two worried faces above
me. “Strategic error,” I croaked. “Do not inhale the couch.” I
dragged myself back up and propped myself in the corner of the
sofa. “Jesus, has this thing ever been vacuumed?”

“I don’t know,” Spider
said uncertainly. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy.”

“What happened?” Kane
demanded.

“I inhaled some
dust...”

“No. In the
network.”

“Oh.” I made an attempt
to round up some organized thought. “My program caught another file
outbound from the internet cafe. It was another report on me.
Apparently our guy decided to try again. So I had to go and find it
and get rid of it in Fuzzy Bunny’s network.”

“Did you get it in
time?”

“Yes. And then I went
in and altered my program. It’s still watching for any traffic
between Fuzzy Bunny and the internet cafe, but now it’ll hijack the
file and bring it here. I set it up so the program will grab the
file just before it arrives at its destination. That way, it’ll
look to the sender as though it went through. Unless somebody does
a detailed trace on it.”

“Good.” Kane sat back
in his chair, his shoulders easing.

Spider pulled out his
phone. “Let’s see if Germain saw anything.”

“What do you mean?”
Kane asked.

“As soon as Aydan
disappeared in the sim, I called Germain to go over to the internet
cafe and see who was there. See if we could catch our guy in the
act.”

Kane leaned forward
abruptly. “And?”

“And, I’ll call him and
see.” Spider dialled. “Hi. Any luck?” His brow slowly furrowed.
“Oh. Okay. Well, thanks.”

Kane’s eyes bored into
Spider. “Well?”

“Well, it took him
about ten minutes to get over there after I called him,” Spider
said slowly. “There were several people working at the terminals.
Nobody he recognized as a Sirius employee. I guess he didn’t see
you. But Stemp was leaving just as Germain got there.”

“No, Germain wouldn’t
have seen me,” Kane agreed. “I just went in, checked my email, and
came straight over here.” He opened his notebook and started to
sketch. I recognized the layout of the internet cafe.

“When I came in, these
terminals were occupied.” He marked off several of the seats.
“Stemp was there when I came in. He sat here.” He wrote ‘Stemp’ on
one of the seats.

“These ones, I didn’t
recognize the people, so they weren’t high-level Sirius employees.”
He jotted a quick physical description beside each seat. Once
again, I marvelled at his ability to observe without appearing to
pay attention. No wonder he was the top agent in the service.

“Here, here, here, and
here, were people in costume.” He glanced at Spider. “Some of your
World of Warcraft buddies, I expect. An elf here and here.” He
added their descriptions.

“Oh, sounds like Red
Eakins and Tim Moorcroft,” Spider put in.

“Okay.” Kane added the
names. “These other two wore rubber masks, the kind that cover
their entire heads.”

“What did they look
like?” Spider asked.

Kane lifted a shoulder.
“I don’t know what your characters are called. Trolls, maybe. Ugly,
wrinkled, kind of pig-like.”

“There are about six
guys that I know who’d wear a mask like that for their characters.
Don’t worry, it’ll be easy to figure out who was there. I can just
check the game record,” Spider reassured him. “But nobody who works
for Sirius has time to play during the day. The only guys who play
during the day do shift-work or whatever.”