may not get to meet Dr. Stryker tonight. If he’s in the virtual surgery lab, we won’t disturb him.”
They passed empty offices, furnished cubicles with computer workstations, and a door labeled Restroom And Showers that thankfully was not walled with glass.
“I thought he was anxious for me to get started reinforcing the firewall,” she said.
Just past the restroom was a longer, solid glass wall. She saw a dim glow through the glass, although the glare of the brighter hall lights kept her from seeing inside the room clearly. She had the impression of chrome and steel.
Mintz stopped at the door. He nodded, his gaze on something or someone beyond the glass.
Natasha shaded her eyes and squinted. The room was an exercise room—a very well-equipped exercise room.
And as she watched, a very well-equipped man stepped off a treadmill and grabbed a towel.
A few seconds later, the man stepped through the glass door and walked toward her with loose-limbed grace. He wore a gray T-shirt and gray exercise pants. The T-shirt was dark with sweat, and hugged the planes of his chest and shoulders. Its tail hung loose, hinting at a flat, ridged belly. The pants fit snugly over his lean hips and long legs.
His biceps flexed as he toweled his face and hair, then slung the towel around his neck.
Natasha gaped at him. Who was he? Not Stryker, surely. This guy did not look like a famous neurosurgeon. Maybe he was the young bioengineer she’d been told was building the interface implant—Jerry Campbell.
Mintz stepped aside as he approached.
When Natasha pulled her gaze away from his sweaty, sexy body and met his gaze, the lines around his red-rimmed blue eyes and the exhaustion on his face came into focus.
This was no kid. But, who—
His sharp blue eyes burned into hers.
“Dylan Stryker, this is Special Agent Natasha Rudolph,” Mintz said.
“Ah, yes. NSA said you’d be here by this evening,” Stryker said wryly, lifting one brow.
It was him. “Well, NSA and the FBI tend to respond more favorably to requests than demands.”
“I don’t have time to wait for the bureaucracy to process a request.”
His gaze flickered down her body and back up. Then he held out his hand. “So you’re the best hacker-buster in the known universe.”
She stared at the elegantly long, blunt-tipped fingers and neatly trimmed nails. His hands were the only thing about him that fit the information she’d been given. They looked like surgeon’s hands.
The only recent photos of him were long-range, grainy tabloid shots. From them she’d gotten the impression of a thin, hatchet-faced, obsessed scientist.
Boy was she wrong!
“Hacker-buster?” She shook her head. “No. Computer expert.” Her voice was steadier than her insides.
This was Dylan Stryker. Her head spun as lurid headlines filled her vision.
HORROR IN THE HAMPTONS.
Mad Doctor Hides Hideously Maimed Son In Airless Underground Dungeon.
It was typical tabloid fare and it made her shudder each time she thought about it, made her dread meeting Stryker’s child, whom Decker had told her was paralyzed. How could anyone keep a child in this place? Underground dungeon—underground lab. Close enough.
“Dr. Stryker.” She took his extended hand, and his intensity hit her like the back draft from a fire. Shock and awareness skittered along her spine. His grasp was firm and brief, leaving her palm feeling singed by his touch.
“So, Agent Rudolph, are you really the best?” His voice held a challenge.
“Yes, I am,” she said without hesitation.
His straight mouth tilted slightly at one corner. “Good. Perfect.”
He nodded, dislodging a trickle of sweat that slid down over his temple and down his jawbone.
He glanced at his watch, used the towel on his damp hair again, then turned to Mintz. “Get her settled and put her to work. What about equipment?”
“Brought it with her. Where do you want her?”
“In the office across from the virtual surgery lab.” He pointed farther down the hall. Then he looked at her. “How much equipment do you have?”
“I’d rather have an office upstairs—” Natasha started, but Mintz was listing her equipment for Stryker. Neither one of them paid any attention to her.
“Is there anything else you need, Agent Rudolph?”
Windows. Lots of windows. “Any chance I could work upstairs somewhere?”
“No. Out of the question.” Stryker eyed her suspiciously. “Are you sure you can handle this job?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, thankful her voice was still steady. She had a job to do. And that meant forgetting that there were truckloads of dirt and an entire mansion over her head. Her career was on the line. She had to succeed—windows or no windows.
“I assume I can start right away.” The quicker she got started, the quicker she could expose the hacker and get out of this hole in the ground.
“Alfred’ll take care of anything you need,” Stryker said with a wave of his hand.
As he turned away, his gaze met hers in a fleeting, intense glance that seared her to the bone. His clear blue eyes burned as brightly as an oxygen flame, warming her cheeks and stirring a cauldron of unexpected emotions within her.
He might be tired and unkempt, underfed and distracted, but Dylan Stryker exuded an air of command and—she searched for the right word…masculinity…that hummed through her like the ring of a perfectly pitched tuning fork. She blinked and dropped her gaze.
“Thanks, Alfred.” Stryker headed back to his lab.
Natasha felt stunned. According to his file, Stryker was thirty-three, and already known worldwide for his breakthroughs with computer-assisted mobility in nerve-damaged patients.
Natasha had studied everything the FBI had on him, including clippings from the tabloids. He’d been thirty when his wife was killed three years before.
It has long been rumored that Stryker’s infant son did not die in the mysterious car crash that killed his wife….
Natasha stared at Stryker’s broad shoulders and lean hips until she realized Mintz had left her behind again. She hurried to catch up. He used his thumbprint and keyed in digits from a pass code generator. The door clicked open to reveal a small foyer banked with elevators.
“Where
