Reach For the Spy (42 page)

“Spider, don’t.” The
harsh voice that came from my throat made him twitch, but he stood
his ground.

“It doesn’t matter
now,” he quavered. “It won’t make a difference anyway.” He turned
to face Stemp. “We were trying to trap you. Aydan was the bait, and
I was supposed to be hiding to video you when you kidnapped her.
She was pretending to do a memorial...” He swallowed hard and
turned an agonized face to me. “You knew he wasn’t dead. How could
you...?”

“Spider, I’m sorry!” My
voice tore my aching throat. “Stemp lied to me. I really thought he
was dead. I didn’t find out he wasn’t until yesterday, and...”

“I ordered her not to
tell,” Kane interrupted. “Direct order. No argument.”

“But... Why?” Spider
turned pleading eyes to Kane.

“Stop.” Stemp’s voice
cut through the conversation. “Why would I take her?”

“Because you’ve been
secretly working for Fuzzy Bunny,” Spider blurted out.

Stemp’s poker face
cracked into astonishment. “What? Are you crazy? What the hell
would make you think that?”

I took a step toward
him, and the armed men jerked their weapons up and backed outside
the cell. The glass door slid closed again.

“Oh, I don’t know.
Little things,” I grated. “Like kidnapping and drugging a federal
agent. And faking his death.”

“That was necessary.”
Stemp’s mask was in place again. “I couldn’t afford to waste time
once I realized we had a leak. I had circumstantial evidence that
pointed to Kane. When he didn’t make a move at the dump site, I had
to make a snap decision before he shot you. Holding him did two
things. It eliminated him as a suspect, and it left you in a
position where I could plausibly use you as bait again.” He eyed
me. “Except you beat me to it.”

“Do you have any idea
what you did to all the people who care about him?” I snarled. I
realized I’d surged toward the glass when the armed men on the
other side jerked their weapons up.

He shrugged. “It was
necessary,” he repeated. He turned to Kane. “How did you
escape?”

Kane’s expressionless
cop face was firmly in place, too. “You should have checked those
restraints more frequently.”

“What were you doing at
the park?”

“I’d made contact with
Aydan early Tuesday morning.” A faint flush climbed his neck, and I
guessed he was remembering exactly what that contact had been like.
I knew I was. “She told me her plan, and I was there as backup. It
would have worked if Germain hadn’t jumped me.”

“Yes, what were you
doing there?” Stemp inquired as he turned to Germain.

Germain glowered.
“Trying to protect Aydan. I thought she was out there all by
herself.” He shot me a look.

Guilt suffused me all
over again. “Carl, I’m so sorry I had to lie to you...” I
began.

He shook his head.
“It’s okay. You had to.”

I swung around to face
Stemp again. “So what the hell were you doing there?” I ground
out.

“Waiting to see who
Fuzzy Bunny’s operative was, of course,” he replied smoothly. “When
I saw your email, I couldn’t believe you’d been stupid enough to
set yourself up in such a vulnerable position, but I chalked it up
to you being a dumb civilian.”

He eyed me
sardonically. “Clearly, I misjudged you. Regardless, you’d solved a
problem for me. I’d been trying to figure out a way to use you as
bait again, and you set it up for me as neatly as could be. So I
took advantage of it.” He shrugged. “I had video surveillance
equipment set up, too.”

“If you needed a trap,
why didn’t you just ask me?” I demanded.

“Would you have done
it?”

I sighed. “Of course.
Well, before I found out you’d lied and kidnapped John,
anyway.”

“But what happened at
the park?” Spider broke in.

“I got there early as
we’d planned, and I was just starting to pretend to set things up
when I heard fighting.”

“That was when I jumped
Kane,” Germain said. “I’d never believed he was a traitor, but when
I saw him alive, I thought he’d faked his own death and he was
trying to abduct Aydan.”

“And I thought you were
attacking me because you were the traitor,” Kane put in. “Sorry,”
he added. “I didn’t believe you’d turn, either, until you showed up
there.”

“Why were you trying to
shoot Kane?” I snapped my gaze around to Stemp. “You knew he was
innocent.”

“I didn’t know that,
actually,” Stemp replied dispassionately. “A message to Fuzzy Bunny
was sent the morning that you went to the dump site. No further
messages were sent while I had Kane in custody. The day he escaped,
another message went to Fuzzy Bunny. Then he appeared in your trap.
What would you have thought in my place?”

“So you were going to
shoot me to get me out of your line of fire.”

“Yes. I thought your
judgement was... biased... when it came to Kane. I realized
afterward that you had known in advance he was alive and you had
expected him to be there. That changed things.”

“So why are we in the
cell and you’re outside?” Kane grated.

“I had a contingency
plan in place.” Stemp nodded to the armed men. “They brought us
back here to sleep off our tranks. Too bad the tear gas got them,
or they could have nailed Connor right there.”

“That’s what the shots
were.” Comprehension finally filtered through to me. “You were
tranked. All of you. He lobbed the tear gas so nobody could see,
and then it was like shooting fish in a barrel. He needed you alive
so he could shuffle off the blame and continue working as a double
agent.”

Spider had been
following the exchange open-mouthed, his head swivelling back and
forth. “What happened to you?” I asked.

“Mike and I were gaming
over at the cafe. We needed some props, so he drove me home to get
them. Then I woke up in the hospital.”

“He drugged you and set
your house on fire,” I said gently. “He was Fuzzy Bunny’s
agent.”

“But...” He gazed
helplessly at me. “Linda told me at the hospital that my house
burned down.” He gulped. “Completely. My new house.” His voice
quavered, and I reached to hold his hand. “Why would he do that?”
he asked.

“Spider, Connor was
setting you up.”

“Yes,” Stemp agreed.
“Smith intercepted a plain-text message to Fuzzy Bunny that was
sent from your laptop yesterday evening, saying that you had
captured the asset.”

“He planned to make it
look as though you’d abducted me and then been killed in a fire,” I
told Spider. “He tricked me into going over to your house by
telling me that you’d collapsed. He lit the fire to force me to
leave you.”

“But you wouldn’t.”
Spider squeezed my hand. “Linda told me the firefighters said you
dragged me out. You wouldn’t let go even when you couldn’t go any
further.”

I smiled at him. “Of
course I wouldn’t leave you.”

A snort from the other
side of the glass interrupted us. “This is all very touching,”
Stemp said. “May we get back to the point, please? Dr. Roth said
you killed him and left the body to burn in the house.”

I felt Spider’s jerk of
shock.

“Yes, that’s true,” I
said quietly. “I’m sorry, Spider.”

Stemp gave a brisk nod.
“Well done.” He surveyed me. “I presume you lost your weapon in the
fire? You didn’t have it on you at the hospital.”

“I dropped it when I
was dragging Spider.”

He reached for the
keypad again, and the door slid open. “I’ll arrange for a
replacement. You can pick it up by end of day. Kane, Germain, you
can retrieve your weapons from the storage locker. You’re all free
to go. Get back to work.”

He turned and walked
away, trailed by the three guards.

We all stood frozen. My
brain steadfastly refused to comprehend what had just happened.

“That’s... that’s it?”
Spider’s eyes were wide. “Just like that?”

Kane’s lips quirked up
in a humourless smile. “That’s how Stemp operates. Instant action.
He was an excellent field agent.”

I opened my mouth but
nothing came out. It seemed as though I should be doing a dance of
joy, but no emotion penetrated the shock. I had been wrong about
Stemp. I had been wrong about Connor. So desperately, dangerously
wrong. I’d come so close to losing these three men who meant so
much to me.

I hugged them fiercely,
each in turn. When I stepped back, I returned their smiles and
turned to Kane. “We have to go to the hotel.”

Spider blushed, and
Germain’s eyebrows went up.

“Why?” Kane asked
warily.

“Because Hellhound’s
there. You’ve got a reunion to go to.”

In the hotel lobby, I
stopped Kane. “Just give me a few minutes to tell him. It’ll be a
hell of a shock.”

He nodded and sat in
one of the lobby chairs while I made my way up to Hellhound’s
room.

I tapped on the door
and waited. There was no response, and I pressed my ear to the door
to hear soft snoring. I knocked a little harder, and was rewarded a
few seconds later when the door opened to reveal Hellhound’s bleary
face.

His brow furrowed and
he scrubbed a hand over his beard. “Hi, darlin’. What’re ya doin’
here?” He shook his head and blinked sleepily. “Come on in.”

I slipped in the door
and closed it behind me. He pulled me into a kiss. “Still pretty
early, darlin’. Ya comin’ to bed?” He began to tow me in that
direction.

“Not right now.”

His eyes sharpened at
my tone. “Aydan, what is it?”

“I have some news. I
think you’d better sit down.”

He scanned my face as
he sank onto the bed. His hand tightened on mine and sick
expectation filled his eyes. “Tell me.”

“It’s good news,” I
hastened to reassure him.

“Then why’m I sittin’
down?” he demanded. “Jesus, Aydan, ya ain’t pregnant are ya?”

I recoiled. “Christ,
no! Bite your tongue, man!”

He slumped in
relief.

“That can’t happen,” I
added. “I’ve been fixed. We’re safe even if a condom fails.”

“Good.” He took a deep
breath. “Jesus. Then spit it out, darlin’.”

“John’s alive.”

He searched my face and
pulled me gently down to sit beside him. “Aydan, ya saw him die,
remember? Remember we talked about this at the hospital?”

“No!” I took his
frowning face in my hands. “I mean, yes, I remember we talked about
it, but I was wrong. They lied to us. They lied to us all. He’s
alive. He’s downstairs.”

His face went slack. I
gave him a little shake. “He’s alive.”

A knock at the door
made me jump. “I’ll get it.” I left him sitting silently on the bed
and opened the door a crack.

Kane stood in the
hallway. “Is he here?”

At the sound of his
voice, I was rocked by a bellow from behind me.

Kane grinned and
stepped into the room as Hellhound lunged. “Ya fuckin’ asshole! I
oughta kick your fuckin’ ass! Ya goddam sneaky spyin’ sonuvabitch!”
He seized Kane in a rough embrace and pounded him on the back.

I slipped out the door
to the sound of Kane’s laughter. “Jeez, put some pants on! I don’t
want to get hugged by some naked ugly bastard...”

I left them to what
would undoubtedly be the first of many joyful reunions for Kane. I
had business elsewhere.

I strode into Stemp’s
office without knocking and closed the door behind me. He glanced
up, unsurprised, as I sat without invitation.

“I’ve been expecting
you,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it.” I
met his snake-like eyes. “Because you’ve managed to hurt quite a
number of the people I care about. And I promised that you’d pay. I
keep my promises.”

He leaned back in his
chair, the faintest smile playing about his lips. “Let’s cut the
crap. We both know you won’t do anything to threaten national
security. We both know you’ll keep on doing the decryptions and
putting your life on the line no matter what. We both know you
can’t harm me. So drop the empty threats.”

All the pain he’d
caused, dismissed with a shrug. Just collateral damage.

Rage poured through my
blood, burning like strong liquor. I channelled it, shaped it,
narrowed it into a white-hot beam of pure hatred.

I held my voice steady
with a supreme effort. “You’re right, of course.” I sounded almost
conversational. “I can’t hurt you physically, and I’ll keep on
doing the right thing for the country. But I think you need to
understand the kind of pain you’ve caused.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” I leaned back in
my chair, too. “How’s Katya?”

He was good. If I
hadn’t known to watch for it, I would have missed the tiny flicker
of his eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone named Katya.”

“You didn’t get to talk
to her this morning, did you?”

There was definitely a
flicker that time. He stretched nonchalantly and linked his hands
behind his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you
finished?”

“That’s a nice
apartment she’s got in Sofia, over on Dianabad. Nice and close to
her work at the university.”

He shifted in his chair
but said nothing.

I shrugged. “I thought
you might be interested to know what would happen to her if Fuzzy
Bunny found out about your relationship. But I guess you don’t know
who I’m talking about.” I made as if to rise.

“Sit.” Suddenly I was
looking into the barrel of his gun. God, he was fast. I hadn’t even
seen him draw.

I leaned back again.
Slowly and carefully.

“Let’s cut the crap.” I
spat his words back at him. “We both know you won’t shoot me.”

“What have you done to
Katya?” He was holding on to his imperturbable mask, but I could
see it crumbling.

“Don’t you wish you’d
talked to her this morning? I thought you should know how it feels
to discover that someone you care about is gone forever. No chance
to hold them one last time. No chance to say goodbye.”