turned off the TV. Katie was still asleep, so he used the time to get on his laptop to see if any of the feelers he’d put out on Operation Cold Intent had come back to him yet.
Bingo. An encrypted email from C¥berE¥e, perhaps the top hacker he’d ever seen operate and his anonymous mentor since his first attempts to start hacking.
Alex ran their usual decryption protocol and got gibberish. He stared at the letters and symbols in surprise. He would suspect a failed message transmission were this not from C¥berE¥e. And then it hit him. He ran a secondary decryption protocol the hacker sometimes used.
Sure enough, a short message resolved itself on his screen. He stared at it in dismay.
Blondie and ThrεεWolvεs dead. Looks like murder. What the fuck did you get them into?
He knew the forces behind Cold Intent had killed Blondie. But they’d killed her boyfriend, too? Jesus. Who was doing this? And what in the hell was Cold Intent? Why was someone killing to cover its tracks?
He messaged C¥berE¥e back, asking if the guy had any idea what Blondie and her boyfriend were killed over. Hackers had lots of enemies if they were any good, right?
The reply made him feel ill. It said that Blondie must have been looking into something within the past few days that had triggered the real-world attack. No matter how he tried to rationalize it away, Alex couldn’t escape arriving at the same conclusion C¥berE¥e had. He was responsible for the hackers’ deaths. He sent an email back.
Any idea if someone got their files?
The reply was immediate.
An ABC agency was making a run at them. I snagged everything and wiped the drives before the Man could get in. Some interesting shit here. Who’s Cold Intent?
Aww, crap. He didn’t need dead hackers all over the planet on his account. Alex typed hard, as if he could transmit his emphatic warning through the keys themselves.
Be. Careful. They’ll kill you, too. And no, I don’t know who “they” are. You need to leave it alone.
C¥yberE¥e’s reply was succinct.
I’ll find ’em. You kill ’em.
He stared at the message speculatively. He’d long suspected that C¥berE¥e was some sort of intelligence agent or at least a former one. More than once, the hacker had sent Alex timely warnings about various government agencies being close to catching up with him and some of his more adventurous online activities as a teen.
What was fascinating about that short statement was that this guy seemed to think Alex was capable of killing someone. Hackers were criminals but rarely violent ones. Who was C¥berE¥e, really? Not that it mattered at the end of the day if the guy found Cold Intent for him. Slowly, one letter at a time, Alex typed his response.
Done.
“Whatcha doin?” Katie asked from right behind him.
Alex jumped about a foot straight up in the air.
“Wow. I managed to startle the great spy, Alex Peters?” she crowed. “I win!”
He scowled at her as he stood up, sweeping her into his arms. “We’ll see about that.”
She laughed as he carried her back to the bed. “You always have to win, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
For once, their lovemaking was simple and uncomplicated, just sex. No strings attached. No deep emotional conflicts. No struggles to push past emotional blocks or physical boundaries. It felt good to him, and he was fairly certain it felt good to her.
It was nearly an hour later, and Katie had unequivocally declared him the winner in all things...loudly and passionately...before he finally collapsed to the mattress beside her. His soul felt lighter, somehow.
And that was when fear came calling, deep in his gut. This time, she had blasted past his emotional defenses so easily and smoothly he hadn’t even realized she’d done it.
How she managed to take him out of his head and into a place of pure feeling and emotion, he had no idea. But he had no power to resist whatever it was she did to him. God knew, he wanted to. He hated the loss of control. His entire life was based around the concept of supreme self-discipline. Success rested upon it. Hell, survival rested upon it.
He died a little each time she broke through his mental defenses. But man, it was a good way to go. Seductive. Addictive as hell.
Still. He would give just about anything for her not to be here with him, back in harm’s way. He couldn’t fight them all—André, Peter and Katie herself—but his gut yelled at him that taking her to Cuba with him was a giant mistake.
“I’m hungry,” Katie announced.
He had to smile. She sounded like a little kid who’d just come in from the playground, breathless and happy. “Shower, then food?” he suggested.
She leaped out of bed, laughing over her shoulder. “Last one to the shower’s a rotten egg!”
How could anyone be so damned innocent? Particularly given that she was highly intelligent and by no means naive. And getting less naive by the day around him. She told him once that happiness was a choice. Was innocence a choice, as well? If so, he’d chosen long ago to forsake it. He climbed out of bed more temperately and invaded her shower.
He’d just finished dressing and she was still in the bathroom blow-drying her hair when his cell phone rang. André.
“Hey, boss. What’s up?”
“You’ve got a charter flight to Inagua in two hours. From there, a boat will take you to Baracoa. My contact will meet you at the rendezvous point on shore and take you to the base camp that’s being set up for you.”
Baracoa. He swore under his breath. Peter had been right, after all. A sane man would tell André the Baracoa meet-up was compromised. But Alex was inclined to go ahead and show up where Peter expected him to. Maybe he could spot whatever was going on that had both the CIA and FSB so interested in Cuba all of a sudden.
“Got it,” he replied to André’s more detailed instructions, which he memorized in lieu of writing them down to be found by anyone else.
“Have a safe trip, Alex.”
Yeah. Right. “Thanks.” He hung up before more sarcasm could leak into his voice.
He looked up and spied Katie standing in the bathroom doorway. “Showtime?” she asked.
An urge to lie nearly overcame him. To take her to the airport, put her on a plane and send her home. But not only had he promised never to lie to her, she could also sniff fibs a mile away. He sighed. “As soon as you’re ready to go, we’ll head out.”
Into what, he had no damned idea. But one thing he knew for sure. They were headed into something.
* * *
KATIE WATCHED THE twin prop airplane that had been their ride lift off into the sunny blue sky,
