The Spy Is Cast (34 page)

I hesitated. “Well, I
went through the sim records.”

Kane’s brows snapped
together suspiciously. “But…”

I gave him an innocent
look, and he frowned at me. “I know there’s a but,” he said. “Spit
it out.”

I sighed. “I had to
make an executive decision. Spider and I missed a critical flaw in
our logic.”

“Which was…?” Kane
prodded.

“I was able to create
the sim within the sim so I could look at the records without
updating their timestamps. But…” I glanced at his face, and
addressed the tabletop instead. “The problem is, the process of
creating a sim creates a new data record. So I had to leave it
running while I viewed the existing records, and then I went in and
deleted the record afterward.”

“So you essentially
advertised there was an invisible someone using the network.”

His voice was utterly
flat, and the small hairs stood up instinctively on the back of my
neck.

“It was a calculated
risk. The only way anybody would notice would be if they happened
to look at the data directory at exactly the time I was in there
viewing the sim. That was a pretty short window of
opportunity.”

I looked up to meet
his eyes. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“No,” Kane said
dangerously. “The right thing to do would have been for you to
follow orders
, and not take unnecessary risks. Get out of
the network immediately and report the flaw in the plan. Revise the
plan if necessary. Or scrap it entirely.”

My temper rose in
response to his inflection, and I squashed it with all my might. I
matched his flat tone. “I didn’t realize our conversation
constituted an
order
. And it’s a little late to second-guess
me now. It’s done. I got the information. Do you want it or
not?”

Oops. That came out a
little more aggressively than I’d intended.

Kane fixed me with a
hard stare.

I was in no mood to
appreciate intimidation tactics. I felt my chin jerk down in
instant rage.

Germain cleared his
throat. “What did you find out?” he asked.

I reluctantly broke
eye contact with Kane and turned to Germain. “They asked Arthur
Ketchum the same questions as they asked Kane. Who he was working
for, how he got access to the network, where he’d hidden the key. I
don’t know why they thought Ketchum was their intruder. I guess
we’ll never know.”

“Were those the only
questions they were asking?” Kane inquired.

When I turned back to
him, he had his expressionless cop face in place, cool and
detached. I tried to decide if that was good or bad as I
answered.

“That’s all they asked
Ketchum. It turned out Richard Willis had a connection after
all.”

Kane and Germain both
jerked forward. “What?” Kane snapped.

“He ran a little
computer business on the side, and Harchman had hired him to
program the bimbos for the sims. When there was a breach in the
network, he was their logical suspect because he’d been working
with their systems. And he had a guilty conscience because he had
been secretly sharing the porn videos from the sims on the
internet. He didn’t know anything about the brainwave-driven
network, though. Or if he did, he died hiding the fact. But I doubt
it. He would have told them anything…” I swallowed the sickening
memory.

Kane sat back slowly.
“I’ll pass that on to Webb and get him to look into Willis’s side
business. What about the third captive?”

Germain stiffened.
“What third captive?”

I crossed my arms over
my chest and sat back in the seat to hide my shudder. “There’s
another captive. In there right now, being tortured.” I turned to
Kane. “We have to get him out. We can’t just sit here.”

“We’ll get him,” Kane
said firmly. “As soon as you’re finished telling us what you found,
I’ll call Stemp.”

I gulped a breath of
relief and sat up straighter. “This prisoner is different. I think
he might be a secret agent or something.”

Kane and Germain
exchanged a hard glance, and a muscle jumped in Kane’s jaw. “What
makes you say that?”

“The others cried and
screamed and begged. He said nothing. Nothing, no matter what…” A
vision of the price he’d paid for his silence made my throat close
up, and I sat in silence for a moment. When I could trust my voice
again, I continued.

“And they were asking
him different questions. Something about an arms deal. It sounded
like some weapons had gone missing in a shipment and they suspected
he’d had something to do with it.”

“You need to find him
in the database as soon as possible,” Kane said. “Anything
else?”

“Yes. I also
discovered some interesting documents after I’d finished with the
sims. I was just starting to read them when I got kicked out.”

“What was in the
documents?”

“I’d barely gotten
started, but it looked like some financial records. There were
names and amounts. I’m wondering if it’s Fuzzy Bunny’s payroll
records. So to speak.”

Kane raised a
thoughtful eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“We have to do
something,” I burst out. “Call Stemp. We have to shut them
down.”

He nodded and reached
for his phone.

I sat tensely while
Kane talked. He finished his report, and the rhythm of the dialogue
changed while he answered Stemp’s questions. I noticed he didn’t
accord Stemp the ‘Sir’ he had given General Briggs. I wondered
absently if it was just a military rank thing.

As the conversation
progressed, Kane’s responses became terse. His already massive
shoulders seemed to swell, and his clear grey eyes darkened to
iron.

At last, the plastic
case of the cellphone emitted a small crackle as his forearm
muscles bunched, and he spoke in a hard voice. “No, I can’t agree.
We can gain valuable intel by questioning their current prisoner
ourselves, and Aydan has already ascertained that there are useful
documents in the network. If we move in now, we can save a life and
seize the documents-”

Pause.

“…No, not yet,” he
growled. “…no, she wasn’t absolutely sure.”

Pause.

“He already tried,
with no success…” His scowl darkened. “That will take too much
time.”

The phone creaked
another protest under his grip. “Yes, understood,” he ground out. A
flush climbed his neck, and a sharp snap signalled the surrender of
the plastic under his fist. “Yes.
Sir
.”

Kane pressed the
disconnect button, his face rigid. He turned away to place the
phone on the counter, and Germain and I exchanged a glance as we
silently watched the rise and fall of his shoulders while he took a
deep breath. When he turned back to us again, his face was
impassive, his posture deceptively relaxed. Only the frosty grey of
his eyes betrayed his emotions.

“That didn’t sound
like it went well,” I ventured.

“It’s not the way I’d
handle it,” Kane said evenly, “But we have our orders. You need to
identify the prisoner and the torturer, and anybody else you saw in
the network. You should get started on the database right away.
Webb will try to hack into Harchman’s network to retrieve the
documents you discovered.”

“But…” I crushed my
urge to yell and pound the table. “Spider already tried to get into
the network. He couldn’t.” I kept my tone calm and reasonable. “And
there’s no telling how long it will take me to find these people in
the database, if I can find them at all.”

Calm and reason fled
despite my best efforts. “Goddammit, Stemp hasn’t got a fucking
clue what’s happening to that poor guy! What the hell is his
problem? Who the hell does he think he is, playing God…”

I snapped my mouth
shut at Germain’s touch on my arm. He glanced at the rippling
muscles in Kane’s jaw before turning to me. “Aydan, let it go.
Let’s just do the best we can here.”

“Stemp won’t let us do
the best we can! How long is he going to wait? We already know
Spider can’t get into the network!”

I fell silent as a
thought hit me. “But I can,” I added.

“No, you can’t,” Kane
said flatly.

I eyed him. “You know
I can.” When he said nothing, I went on. “You have orders not to
take down the operation, right?”

“Right.” His face gave
away nothing.

“I have orders to find
out who those people are, right?”

“Right.”

“Do we have specific
orders not to go back into the network?”

“No,” Kane said
reluctantly. “But Aydan, I do have specific orders to safeguard you
with my life. And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t put you back into
danger. It’s not an option.”

I lunged to my feet,
unable to sit still any longer. “John, dammit, two innocent men are
dead because of me. You were tortured because of me. This is all my
fault.” I faced him, resisting the urge to stand on my tiptoes to
meet him eye-to-eye. “I can stop this whole fucking mess. Let me do
it!”

He frowned. “Aydan,
none of this is your fault. Those things happened because those
people are criminals, not because of anything you did.”

“They never would have
known there was a network breach if I’d figured out how to be
invisible sooner. I should have thought it through before we went
in the first time. This is all my fault.”

“You didn’t have time
to think it through,” he argued. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s
Stemp’s. Don’t beat yourself up over what you can’t change.”

It was a cheap shot,
but I was desperate. I knew which button to push. I looked him
square in the eye. “Look who’s talking.”

We locked eyes for a
few seconds, and then he sighed and ran a hand over his face. “We
can’t risk going back to that access point.”

“Why not?” I
demanded.

“Because they’ll have
realized there’s a gap in their camera perimeter now,” he explained
patiently. “The guards will have reported where they found us. We
can’t go back.”

“Shit.”

We sat in silence for
a while. “We really need to see what’s in those documents,” I said
at last. “If it’s a roll call of Fuzzy Bunny’s associates, it could
give Stemp everything he needs to shut the whole operation
down.”

“Yes, but I think
we’re out of luck,” Kane said. “We have no other potential access
points left. We can’t get you close enough to the network. And even
if we did, it’s too risky if you’re going to get kicked out of the
network randomly.” He gave me a wry twist of his lips. “You attract
too much attention when that happens.”

“Couldn’t you just sit
on me and keep a hand over my mouth or something?”

He blew out a
frustrated breath. “Aydan, I could barely get the watch off your
wrist. I had to kneel on your arm.”

“Oh.” I examined my
left arm. “I wondered what those bruises were from.”

“Short of tying you up
and gagging you, there’s no way. And even then, I wouldn’t count on
it.”

“Hmph.” I crossed my
arms and sank my chin on my chest while I slouched in the corner of
the dinette bench, thinking. There had to be a way to get inside
the perimeter again.

I sat up slowly. “I
have an idea.”

Germain’s eyes
crinkled. “I could smell the smoke.”

Kane leaned back to
watch me cautiously. “What?”

“If Harchman isn’t a
threat, I could call him. Tell him it was a big misunderstanding. I
could tell him…” I thought for a second. “I could tell him you
escaped from the police and called me at the house and threatened
me, and I panicked and ran away.” I grimaced. “I’m pretty sure
he’ll give me another chance.”

“Another chance to do
what, exactly?” Kane asked slowly.

“I could tell him I’m
afraid to go home. Ask him to let me stay at the guest house. That
would get me inside the perimeter…”

“Absolutely not,” Kane
said.

“But…”

“Aydan, just because
Harchman likely isn’t working with Fuzzy Bunny, that doesn’t make
it safe. They’re still there, and we don’t know who’s involved.
You’d have to dodge both unknown enemies, and Harchman. I would
hesitate to put a trained agent into a situation like that. It’s
just too dangerous for you.”

“Okay, but pretend for
a minute that I am a trained agent,” I argued. “Would that change
anything?”

I realized I’d let my
mouth get me in trouble again when I met intent gazes from both
men. “I’m not,” I added hastily. “But if I was… Is it a bad plan
altogether, or just a bad plan for me?”

“This is a pointless
discussion,” Kane said expressionlessly. “It’s a bad plan for you,
and it’s not going to happen.”

I subsided before I
could dig myself in any deeper. I kicked my heel lightly against
the bench while I thought. “Okay, what about this, then,” I said
slowly.

“What if… we found
some pretext to go onto the grounds. Furnace inspection, gas
company, carpet cleaning, I don’t know, whatever. Nobody has seen
Carl before. He could drive a service vehicle in and leave it
parked in the lot while he pretended to do whatever he was there
for. If it was a truck or van, I could hide in the back and browse
through the network to my heart’s content from the parking lot.
Nobody would be any the wiser.”

Germain frowned.
“Unless you got kicked out of the network again. Then it would be
hard to explain why I had a screaming woman locked in my truck. And
you’d be identified instantly.”

I sighed. “So tie me
up and gag me.”

“Aydan,” Kane said
gently. “That’s insane. You’re claustrophobic.”

“I’d go into the
network right away. I wouldn’t even know I was tied up.”

“And you wouldn’t know
if you were discovered, either. It would be totally irresponsible
for us to put you in that situation with nobody to guard you.”

“So guard me. You can
hide in the truck, too, with the signalling device.”