throughout her years as a reporter Shannon had discovered people believed lies more than truths. They just seemed to want to.
“Are you working for the government?” Drago asked.
“No.”
“Because the Web sites I tracked the black ICE back to felt like federal government sniffers to me.”
That was surprising. Shannon didn’t know why the federal government would have been feeding her the information she’d been getting lately. Or before, for that matter.
“I don’t work for the government,” Shannon insisted. “I don’t even know what black ICE is.”
“Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.”
“How much do you think someone like me would know about stuff like that?” Shannon pulled her best frightened blonde look. Considering she was suspended and nearly choking to death, she figured she was inspired.
Her mind raced. She knew a physical confrontation with Drago was going to end badly. She was a foot shorter than he was and weighed about half of what he did. The room contained crates and cases of liquor. The single low-wattage bulb in the ceiling barely chased the night out of the room.
There was no help there, and nothing within reach that she could use as a club.
“I’ve seen you on television,” Drago said. “I’ve seen you lie and wheedle your way into stories that other reporters couldn’t get.”
Despite being strung up against the wall, Shannon took momentary pride in her accomplishments. Getting recognized for something she’d done felt good. It always had.
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” Drago went on. He smiled, but there was no humor or warmth in the effort. “From the start I figured you were out to cross me up. But I bought into that blond hair and doe-brown eyes.” He leaned down, a long way down, and sniffed her hair.
Shannon cringed and couldn’t help closing her eyes. She hated being manhandled. It had never happened before, but she’d talked to rape and domestic-abuse victims enough to know that she was feeling the same thing they’d gone through. She resisted the urge to scream only because she thought if she did, he might kill her outright to shut her up.
“You sold me, baby,” Drago whispered into her ear. “Hook, line and sinker. You had me with that teary-eyed look—”
Shannon didn’t use that one often anymore, but she knew it almost guaranteed instant game, set and match when she did. She just didn’t like appearing weak.
“And the way you told me you needed help to find a cyber-stalker.”
Well, that was almost true.
“Who did you find?” Shannon had to struggle to keep from hiccupping in fear. The need to know what Drago had discovered almost leeched away the power her fear had over her.
“Have I told you this is a really bad part of the city?” Rafe Santorini lay back in the uncomfortable seat of the Ford Taurus he’d picked up to use for the night’s surveillance. At six feet two inches tall, he couldn’t quite get comfortable in the seat. His bad knee still ached and the gun on his right side kept digging into his hip.
“Yes,” Allison Gracelyn replied. “Several times.”
“Maybe I just haven’t gotten through to you how bad this section is.”
“I’m looking at it now.”
That caught Rafe’s attention. Challenged, he stared around the neighborhood. Since Allison was somewhere at her desk, currently—or so she said—in Fort Meade, Maryland, he knew she had to have some means of electronic surveillance.
Unless she was using satellite coverage. Knowing Allison as he did, Rafe wouldn’t have put it past her, but he knew she was wanting to keep this op on the down-low. Whatever business he’d bought into, it was personal to her.
Allison was one of the best ELINT and SIGNIT people he’d ever worked with. Electronic Intelligence and Signals Intelligence were two huge fields in espionage. Usually a person didn’t overlap in the job. Allison did.
“Tired of playing Where’s Waldo?” Allison asked.
Rafe knew she’d caught him looking. “If I didn’t have to watch the bar so closely, I’d find it.”
“There’s a drugstore on the northwest corner,” Allison said.
Rafe squinted against the darkness and didn’t look right at the drugstore. Peripheral vision was stronger and clearer at night than direct line of sight. He spotted the familiar rectangular bulk of the camera bolted to the second-floor corner of the building.
“Are you getting my good side?” Rafe asked.
“No. You’re sitting on it.”
Despite the long hours spent following his target around for the last few days, Rafe had to laugh. He’d met Allison in the flesh twice, but he’d worked with her a couple dozen times over the last five years. He’d been a field agent with the National Security Agency. Allison was tech support—on steroids. There didn’t seem to be any computer system she couldn’t hack or information packet she couldn’t sniff out. She wasn’t known for her humor, but—on occasion—he’d seen it.
Rafe turned his attention back to the seedy bar and rolled his watch over to have a look. It was 11:28 p.m. His target had gone inside—
“Seventeen minutes ago,” Allison said. Her voice was quiet and controlled coming through the earwig he wore in his left ear.
It was creepy how she did that, but Allison was a queen at multitasking. Agents Rafe had talked to had been blown away by how she could enhance an op and build in rabbit holes when things went south.
“Seventeen minutes is a long time,” Rafe said.
“If you’re holding your breath, maybe.”
“Vincent Drago isn’t a nice guy.”
“I know. That’s why I asked you to look into this when I found out he was involved.”
Maybe it would help if you would tell me a little more about what’s going on, Rafe thought. But he knew she wouldn’t. Agents learned to be careful with the knowledge they had. Information was currency of the realm for a spy, and they never spent it casually, even at home.
In the handful of years that Rafe had worked with Allison, three of them spent before he’d ever gotten a face-to-face with her, she’d never asked for anything. She didn’t seem like the type. Her phone call to the rental house in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he’d been recuperating for the past eight months, had been totally unexpected.
The fact that she was so grudging with the information had hooked him further. He’d known better, but he’d trusted Allison.
And you needed to get out of there, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. That oceanside rental was becoming as much a prison as the other place.
For a moment Rafe didn’t
