PRIVATE LIES
Amy Eastlake
Published by BooksForABuck.com at Smashwords
Copyright
2000/2006 Amy Eastlake
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Chapter 1
The minute he walked in the door, Heather Webb fell in love.
His suit fit him so perfectly that it had to be custom tailored. The white shirt still sparkled with newness, and small gold coins that Heather recognized as bearing the portrait of Maximilian of Mexico graced the cuff-links.
Even his shoes spoke of wealth.
If a man this obviously rich had to come to a run-down private detective agency without even calling ahead for an appointment, he was desperate--and she wouldn't let him walk out of here without a fight. A client like this could finance the agency for a month.
She slurped a swallow from her coffee mug then waved the mug toward a chair somehow managing not to send coffee everywhere. "Won't you sit down?"
He straddled the chair. "Are you the boss?"
The visitor's distrustful blue eyes personified danger and control. That didn't surprise her. In her experience, people didn't get rich without stepping on some toes.
His voice was deep and sexy, but in a carefully manipulated way, as if he had taken voice lessons to develop just that rasp of sensuality. He certainly didn't fit the normal government-worker model that most of Washington D.C.'s privileged copied in their efforts not to seem too elite.
"I'm Heather Webb."
He ignored her implicit invitation to introduce himself. "I understand you do computer break-ins."
She didn't want to scare him off, but suddenly he seemed just a little too perfect. "I run a general purpose private detective agency," Heather explained. "One of our services is computer security audits."
She'd put the ball back in his court and let him define himself through his words and actions. One of the best things about her job was that it gave her an excuse to be nosy.
"I'm looking for someone who can find out whether the computers at a company I'm interested in are secure."
She sighed. "We don't do third party work." In her circumstances she couldn't afford to take the risk, no matter how much money he might offer.
She should have known that having Mr. Rich Guy walk into her office was too good to be true. Especially a rich guy who looked like he'd be cool and collected in the middle of the Sahara desert. Despite Washington D.C.'s brutal August humidity, Mr. Rich-guy appeared completely comfortable in his wool suit and perfectly knotted silk tie.
The man looked at her curiously.
"I'm Jack Eastland," he told her.
"Ah. Jack Eastland," she answered as if everything were suddenly clear. She didn't exactly hang around in D.C.'s high society, but you can't live in Washington without picking up some sense of who is doing what. His name meant exactly nothing to her.
His eyes widened slightly and she had the feeling that he had just run her through a cat scan and investigated every secret cranny of her being. The sensation was a little frightening, but it wasn't altogether unpleasant.
He was built better than most businessmen she had known. In fact, he probably had to have his suits custom made, since his broad shoulders would burst through anything he could buy off the rack. He was a little old to be a professional athlete, probably somewhere in his mid-thirties, but he moved with a grace that spoke of power and economy of motion.
He cleared his throat. "What makes you think I'm asking for a third-party search?"
"There must be some sort of convention going on," she told him. "Five minutes before you arrived, someone called asking for me to break into a major computer center.
Yesterday I got three calls. Everyone must want to find out what their competitors are doing. I don't blame them, but I can't help them. I don't do that kind of work."
"Aren't you walking away from a lot of business?"
She shook her head ruefully. "It's not worth losing my license over." More to the point, she couldn't afford to get her parents messed up in an investigation. Of course she wouldn't tell Mr. Eastland, or whatever his real name was, that.
"Well, Heather ..." he paused, "May I call you Heather?"
She smiled. "Of course." He could call her Fido if he wanted, as long as he paid his bills.
"Fine," he told her. "I'll get to the point. I've recently picked up a company. Since then, my competitors have been eating me alive. Before I go on a rampage and make accusations about an inside job, I want to make sure that my competition isn't stealing my secrets off my own computer.
What you said about what's going on out there makes me even more certain that I need to look into this. Somehow I'm not convinced everyone shares your morals."
He reached into his suit pocket.
Heather fought her instinctive urge to reach for the automatic in her desk. Instead she set a false smile on her face. When his hand emerged with a gold business card box, she let out her breath in a whoosh.
The card was printed on stiff linen stock paper that felt like money, only thicker. Jack Eastland, CEO, Wildfire Enterprises, the card read.
Everything appeared too easy. In her experience, companies the size of Wildfire, one of D.C.'s biggest private companies, didn't send their CEOs out to hire detectives. Still, why shouldn't things be easy for once? All summer, business had been so bad she'd stooped to serving summonses for a couple of the law firms she worked with. A major computer security audit deal could be the break that made her company. Her parents' work in computer security was pretty well known in hacker circles, but a high-publicity job would give her the chance to expand the agency.
"You understand I'll have to check on this?" she asked him.
Jack Eastland looked like he could be a CEO, or anything else he put his mind to. Then again, she'd met con men who could assume the same air of power and arrogance.
"Of course," he said smoothly. "I hope you understand that I am in something of a hurry."
A year and a half in business for herself had trained Heather to go for the jugular. "I'll put together a complete proposal. In addition to the computer audit, I recommend that you hire my agency to handle on-site surveillance. I can practically guarantee that you'll have holes in your computer security. That doesn't mean that's where your leaks are coming from."
"I'm only interested in the computers," he answered.
His quick rejection of her suggestion piqued her curiosity. Clearly money wasn't the issue. In her wildest dreams, she wouldn't charge enough to make a company of Wildfire's size notice. So why was he dead set on ignoring her advice?
"It's your money," she told him. "You want me to do only half the job, I'll do half the job."
"Fine." Eastland gave her a smile that showed a row of perfect teeth set against a deeply tanned face.
She almost choked at his smile. No man had a right to look that good. Maybe he really was an actor. She'd certainly stand in line to watch him.
Abruptly he ended his smile and nodded.
Heather felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. That wonderful, warm, confiding, smile had been a fraud, an act. If he wasn't an actor, he should be. And not just because he was pretty to look at.
He stood and looked to the door. "When can I expect the report?"
"I have no idea."
That got his attention. His eyes snapped back to her. "Exactly what is that supposed to mean?"
"I already told you, I've got to check you out. Once I do, I'll put together a proposal. I'll estimate how much time and how much money the job is likely to cost."
"Let me rephrase my question, then. When can I expect the proposal?"
Heather picked up her desk calendar and examined it closely.
As she'd suspected, her August schedule remained distressingly similar to September and July--nearly blank. "Why don't you come by tomorrow afternoon. I'll be able to give you an estimate then."
Eastland pulled a thin book from his suit jacket pocket and examined it closely. "I can get free between two and two-thirty."
"That should be plenty of time."
He nodded curtly. "I'll see you then."
Heather stood and held out her hand. A handshake wasn't a legal tie, but it tended to put people on more personal terms. The last thing she needed was for him to take his business elsewhere, especially since she was going to the trouble of putting together a proposal. Customers didn't seem to understand that a proposal is half the job.
Jack's hand swallowed hers.
At his touch, a tiny thrill went through her body, almost like static electricity, except it couldn't have been that since she felt certain Jack Eastland would never allow human things like static electricity into his life.
He tightened his grip enough to let her feel his controlled power, then released.
"If I have any questions--" she started.
"You have my card. I'll instruct my secretary to page me without asking you anything."
"That should do it. See you at two."
Heather watched as he turned and strode toward the door.
Something about him didn't quite fit. Sure, rich businessmen were dangerous. But Jack Eastland looked dangerous in a more active way than any simple executive should. He looked more like a man who'd take an enemy and break him in half than he did a capitalist out to exploit workers and customers.
Although he stood over six feet tall, Jack didn't move awkwardly. In fact, he somehow managed to step without a sound on the squeaky step she'd spent so much time installing outside her office.
She revised her initial thoughts about the man. He might be bringing in some valuable business, but she wondered what his business would end up costing her.
* * * *
Jack checked off Heather Webb's name from his list and grabbed a taxi. He had time to visit another agency before lunch. With luck, he could finish this grunt work this week and get back to his real job.
With her honey-blonde hair, hazel eyes, and legs that didn't know where to stop, Heather had been nice to look at. Unfortunately, she also seemed to see too much. He wasn't certain she'd bought much of his story.
Still, she'd agreed to prepare a proposal--after she checked him out. He wasn't worried about her checkup. In his line of work, fail-safe paper trails were automatic.
He wondered how much Heather would try to gouge him for. Since he had no intention of actually buying anything, that wasn't much of an issue. Before she could put together a proposal, she'd have to do enough research to tell him what he needed to know.
Jack checked his notes on the next agency. This one was supposed to be even slimier than Heather's.
"Where too?" the driver demanded. His distinct Russian accent made him almost incomprehensible.
"Nineteenth and M," Jack answered, absently slipping into Russian to match the driver's accent.
The driver gave him a sharp look and floored the engine. He probably thought Jack was KGB, set to reactivate him.
* * * *
Heather took a yogurt from her office refrigerator and returned to her desk. Everything seemed to check, but it bothered her.
Jack Eastland was too perfect--a rich man who just walked in off the street to offer her a legitimate job.
Private detectives don't stay in business without learning to suspect everyone, especially anyone desperate enough to want to hire a detective.
She wiped her forehead and checked her desk clock. In an hour of intensive computer digging, Eastland came up clean.
His recently deceased father had supposedly left him more money than he knew what to do with, although the father had lived in a modest Texas suburb and left almost no computer record at all. With the new-found wealth, Eastland had bought a couple of companies. Wildfire was his latest and largest acquisition.
More interesting than what she found on Eastland was what she didn't find. After a normal high school and college career, he had almost dropped off the computer trace.
That might mean he was just careful. Or it might point at organized crime. His low profile father with all the money pointed at the same thing. Despite what her parents thought, Heather didn't consider all businessmen the equivalent of the Mafia. Capitalism might be theft, as they claimed, but it was thievery without broken kneecaps and midnight executions.
The mob often took over and cleaned out mid-sized companies. If they had taken over Wildfire, they would put in an apparently clean front man. Eastland looked dangerous enough to lead a gang and tough enough to stay in control.
He'd be a perfect choice.
The job he'd hired her to do made some sense. In today's world, the mob would want to make sure their computers were leak free. The whole world knew how the FBI loved breaking into Mafia books and fingering the men with the money.
An organized-crime involvement could explain Eastland's unwillingness to let her extend the investigation to the rest of the company. He knew what she'd find. Still, wouldn't the Mafia have their own computer investigators?
The floorboard outside her office creaked and she looked up.
"Darling, we've finished the Andreson audit." Heather's mother, Karen, peered at her through Coke-bottle-thick glasses and handed over a neatly typeset report.
When she'd gone into business as a private investigator, Heather had been concerned about having her parents as employees. Things had worked out wonderfully. Karen and Pete had worked incredibly hard and asked for almost nothing. She knew she was prejudiced, but she had never managed to reconcile her feelings for them with the notion that they were most-wanted criminals.
"Anything special?" she asked. Andreson had been another bluebird, like Wildfire. They hadn't been able to pay much, but it gave her parents something to do and at least contributed to the outrageous rent she had to pay for her office and the two apartments overhead.
"You'd think that people would at least close up a few of the holes in their systems," her mother said with a sigh. "I guess this one is a little unusual because of the Middle-Eastern connection."
"What's that?" All she needed was the licensing bureau breathing down her neck about some international reporting requirement.
Her mother waved her hand vaguely. "It turns out that Andreson is owned by one of the countries over there." Then she brightened. "They've got a dedicated satellite link back to the headquarters and it's almost completely wide open. And the company has got to have government connections because you can go everywhere once you get there."
If Heather gave her mother a chance, she'd rattle for hours about her computers. For all Heather had told Jack Eastland about being a general purpose agency, her parents' computer skills meant that computer audits formed the bulk of their business. More importantly, the work let her parents do something they loved while contributing to the agency.
Heather preferred the part of the job hackers called social engineering. This hands-on side of computer security involved basic PI work--investigating, garbalogy, and tricking people into revealing what they didn't know they knew. Given her druthers, she let her parents handle the computer end and spend her time snooping.
"I'm glad you've finished that audit," Heather told her mother. "I need your help with a proposal for a company called Wildfire."
Her mother's eyes widened and she collapsed into Heather's office chair. She shook her head firmly. "Don't touch it."
Karen had as much business sense as a pussycat, and she knew it. She had never before given Heather advice on how to run her company.
"I thought there might be a mob connection," Heather suggested. "Still, I can't put a finger on anything." She looked her mother in the eyes. "What do you know about it? We could really use the money."
"I don't know if things are changed, but Wildfire was founded back in the eighties as a front to fund the Contras," Karen said.
Heather sagged in her chair. That could mean the Mafia, whom the CIA sometimes used as a cover. It could mean the CIA itself. And the CIA was far worse than a Mafia connection. If the government was on to her now, she might have to give up everything she had worked for and head back to the road.
Could Jack Eastland's interest have any connection to the audit her mother had just finished? Middle Eastern contacts, Contras, CIA. Odd that it should all turn up in her office at the same time. And that phone call she'd gotten just before Jack showed up--from a man with a faintly threatening voice and an exotic accent. Work as a private investigator had taught Heather to distrust coincidence.
Still, Heather left vast conspiracy theories to her parents.
"That Contra stuff was years ago," she said. "Our prospective client recently bought Wildfire. Surely they've gone legit."
Karen shook her head. "Possibly," she said. She didn't look like she believed it. Absently, she got up, stood in front of Heather's computer, and started tapping on the keyboard.
Heather pushed back her chair and observed. She never failed to learn something when she watched her mother work. While she couldn't even begin to imitate the Zen-like oneness her mother achieved with the computer, she certainly could learn a few of the basic tricks Karen used instinctively.
Rather than attempt the Wildfire system, her mother found a floating bulletin board where hackers hang out, and scrolled through the archives.
"Bern Nylands tried a hack on them about two months ago," she finally announced.
"And?"
"And he dropped out of sight about a week later. Nobody's heard from him since."
"I hardly think the government is going to hold someone incommunicado for two months because they try to break into a CIA company," Heather remonstrated. "Besides, hackers are always disappearing. Weren't you telling me yesterday that half the hackers you know have dropped out of sight? Surely they weren't all stupid enough to try to break into the CIA."
Her mother crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You don't have to tell me I'm paranoid, sweetheart. My paranoia has kept us alive for a couple of decades on the run. Maybe I'm being overly cautious. Still, something about this just doesn't feel right." She paused and patted Heather on the shoulder. "Do we really need the money?"
"Not that bad." Whether Wildfire was involved with Mafia money as she'd first suspected, or with the CIA, she couldn't afford to expose her parents to the risk.
"Why don't you join us for dinner?" Karen asked her.
One drawback to living in the apartment adjacent to her parents, Heather thought for perhaps the thousandth time, was that it gave them far too much insight into exactly how free her free time was.
"No thanks, Mom. I've got some calls to make."
Dunning clients wasn't the most glamorous part of her job, but Heather was good at it. After turning down Wildfire, she'd have to be damn good if they were going to pay the rent next month.
"All right. Let me know when we get our next job." Her mother left the Andreson report on Heather's desk and headed back toward her apartment.
Heather waited until her mother had left, then dialed Jack Eastland's number. The ring sounded funny, as if coming from a satellite link rather than from an office down the street. While she waited for an answer, she yielded to her impulse and tapped her PC into the reverse listing phone directory, checking the number to see if it matched up with Wildfire.
It came back as unlisted. If it was a private line or an answering service, that could make sense. Still, it troubled her. Companies normally sought business, they didn't hide from it.
Finally a woman answered, repeating back the number Heather had dialed with no elaboration.
"I'd like to leave a message for Mr. Eastland," Heather explained.
"One minute."
The sharp click told her she'd been put on hold. Not exactly the type of response she'd expect from a CEO's secretary. But this was lunch hour. Maybe she'd gotten the reception desk.
"Ms. Webb, Mr. Eastland can meet you immediately. He's at the Columbia House coffee shop right now."
"How did you know who I--" the dial tone told her she'd been cut off.
Weird. She was certain she'd dialed the code to block Caller ID--it was an automatic gesture, like looking both ways before crossing the street, or making sure she knew where the back exit was before sitting down to eat. She must have dialed it. So how did Wildfire know who she was?
Money or no, she was feeling better about her decision to drop this job.
On impulse she typed out a bill for the time she'd wasted on Eastland's project. Maybe she shouldn't charge him for a proposal. Then again, she certainly wasn't in the business of giving out free samples.
* * * *
"Glad you were quick," Eastland greeted her. He'd already claimed the farthest booth from the door and taken the seat that allowed him to see anyone coming in. A couple of open cream packages on the table near his half-filled coffee cup made it clear he hadn't just arrived.
The slight bulge under his left arm hadn't been there that morning or she would have tossed him from her office without any discussion. It was there now.
No way would Heather take the seat across from a man with a gun. Especially a man who insisted on sitting where he could watch the entrances.
She sat beside him, pressing her shoulder lightly against his right arm. She'd been around guns enough to want to know if he started to move suddenly.
Unfortunately, she also found herself in contact with a hard mass of muscle. Eastland's scent didn't match the polished finish of his suit. Rather than an expensive cologne, he smelled like soap and man. It made him seem more human, somehow. Sexy, too.
What was she thinking about? She was about to turn down a job from a guy with a gun and she was suddenly fantasizing about his body next to hers. She plopped his case folder in front of him and called out for a decaf. She didn't need a caffeine high now.
"I thought we were going to meet tomorrow. What's the emergency?" Eastland asked.
"And I thought you were seriously interested in doing business with the Webb Agency. Which of us got fooled more, do you think?"
Did she only imagine that his muscled arm tightened against her side, twitching with his desire to pull his gun to seize control of a suddenly more dangerous situation?
"I think a computer security audit for Wildfire is a fairly serious piece of business, Heather," he answered.
"I've prepared a bill for the work I've done so far, Mr. Eastland," she replied, keeping it professional. "Do you want to read my report or have me summarize it for you?"
"I wasn't under the impression that I had a bill coming."
"You've got a lot of things coming if you think you can just walk into a place with a line like you pulled on me."
He looked positively mystified.
For a moment, she wondered if her mother could have been mistaken.
"Can you give me a summary of what you found, please?" he asked.
The moment dissipated. If he was really who he pretended to be, he'd get up and walk away now.
"Certainly," she told him. "Since you get the bill, you get the report as well. I've made the bill out to Jack Eastland but feel free to change it to whatever name you think fits."
She shifted slightly so her thigh touched his. She wanted to pick up on any body language he sent.
He didn't even flinch at her innuendo. "That's my name."
"Whatever." She picked up the report and flipped through it.
"Before I started, I did some background work to determine whether you were actually the owner of Wildfire. Then I did some preliminary work to measure the scope of the problem."
"I'm certain you found everything in order."
"Almost incredibly so. It's surprising, sometimes, how much work it is to piece together information that should be on file but somehow isn't. In your case, of course, the opposite was true."
"I take it you're going somewhere with this?"
"Your background is too clean, too perfect."
"You're refusing a job and giving me a bill because the computer did a good job reporting on me." He looked incredulous, but his tight muscles didn't match his light tone.
"That's one way to look at it."
His blue eyes took on an icy look. "Would you care to explain?"
"I didn't find anything unusual through college. Excellent grades through a joint economics and political sciences degree from MIT. After that, employment by a number of shadow companies."
"Hardly shadow companies. They were small companies that gave me a chance to make something of myself."
"Still, it is interesting that all of them quietly failed, isn't it?"
"I can hardly be blamed for that."
He sounded so reasonable she knew he was lying. "What I'm getting at, Mr. Eastland, is that I don't do work for organized crime and I don't do work for secret government agencies."
"What's that--"
"Don't mess with me, Eastland. I brought my bill and frankly, I'd like you to pay it now. In cash."
Jack shook his head. He had anticipated on having a bill thrown in his face. That was a standard gambit. He hadn't expected Heather to unravel his Agency-supplied cover story. Wildfire had been run as a legitimate business for years. If Heather could see through the program this quickly, she either had inside information, or she had instincts the Agency needed.
"I'm not with the Mafia," he told her.
"I don't care what you call it. I taped our meeting this morning. On the way here I dropped the videos in the mail to myself. If I'm still alive when they arrive, I'll reuse them. If something happens to me now, the police will find them. You might be able to work a cover-up, but I think it'll cost you more inconvenience than killing me would be worth."
"Aren't we getting just a little melodramatic?"
"I don't know, Mr. Eastland. Can you think of any reason I should think myself safe sitting with a stranger who lies about who he is and whose hand keeps twitching toward the gun he has in his pocket?"
He wanted to assure her that she was in no danger, but he couldn't make himself mouth the lie. "Let's take a look at the bill."
She reached for the folder. "I'm just getting out the bill," she explained in response to his unconsciously shifting his hand toward his shoulder holster.
"Go ahead," he told her as if nothing had happened. He hadn't realized he could be read so easily. No wonder she was sitting so close to him. It sure as hell wasn't because she wanted to be near him. Zero for two on reading Heather Webb, so far.
She flipped open the folder and slid a yellow receipt to him.
"Three hundred dollars?" he read. That made him zero for three.
"Two hours of research time, on line charges from the databases, and this meeting," she told him. "I round up."
When she'd told him about the videos, he had anticipated something closer to thirty thousand dollars. Then he could ask for her help on the real job as a way to earn the higher fee. Heather's low-ball charge didn't fit his expectations. Still, she was his best suspect right now. He'd just have to up the pressure.
"I don't have that much money on me."
"I'm sure a man in your position has an automatic teller card in his wallet. What do you say we go for a walk?"
"You haven't touched your coffee."
She reached, slowly, into her front jacket pocket and pulled out a couple of singles, leaving them on the table. "I guess I'm not thirsty."
"Lead me to the nearest teller machine." He'd think of something while they walked.
Superficially, Heather came off as hard and brittle. He wondered what would happen if he pushed. Would she crack, or would her hard crust flake off and reveal steel underneath? He toyed with the idea of pulling her into the Agency for questioning but rejected it. He had to continue with the plan, even if it made him feel like a heel.
"This way." She stood and started toward the exit.
Jack cursed, tossed down a five for his own coffee, and hurried after her. His expense report would be all fouled up and he had no one to blame but himself. Top secret or not, the Agency was typical government when it came to money. It had no problem taking it, but pulling money out of it, without dozens of detailed receipts, could be a royal pain.
Heather stopped in front of a branch of Washington D.C.'s biggest bank. "Three hundred seven dollars and nineteen cents," she reminded him.
"Right. He punched in the numbers with one hand, using the other to cover up the code he entered.
The money spit out in neatly ironed twenty dollar bills.
She didn't bother to count the stack of bills he handed her, but passed him the change.
"I think our association is now complete, Mr. Eastland. Tell me which way you're heading and I'll go some other direction."
Chapter 2
Jack wasn't about to let Heather Webb walk out of his investigation, or out of his life, quite so easily. He grabbed her arm.
"I think three hundred dollars should buy me a little more consulting services." Jack didn't know what he'd hooked, but it was moving too much to be just an old tire. He wanted to play it in and have a closer look.
"I've already told you that our association is complete, Mr. Eastland."
"Hey, are you working for me or not?"
"Not."
"Fine. Then call me Jack." In the Agency, younger agents had started calling him Mister. The token of respect went with a veiled, or sometimes not very veiled, inference that he should take a desk job and stay away from real work. At thirty-seven, he didn't feel ready for the retirement the agency seemed to have slotted him for. Admittedly, trekking around Washington was a far cry from Afghanistan. Still, anything was better than a desk at Langley.
Heather gave him an icy smile. "I'd feel better calling you gone."
Of all of the detectives that either he or his partner had visited, only Heather had cracked even the first layer of complexity. The others might be able to knock over guys with faked injuries, but they sure couldn't work with a computer.
He decided to play on her sympathies. "What you've told me is making me more worried than I was when we started this. If my company is being used by the Mafia or some spy organization, I think I have a right to know. You may be the only person who can help me."
"Mr. Eastland, get it through your head. I don't want to help you."
"I'll pay double your normal rate." He put on his anxious look.
"Go find yourself another sucker."
"Look, something is going on. Everyone who knows about computers seems to have vanished. Yours is the only company I can find that can do a halfway decent audit. No one else I talked to has even been able to find anything out of the ordinary. If the CIA or Mafia has taken over my company, I want to know for sure. Maybe I can get my money back."
"Mr. Eastland, you have exactly one minutes to vanish completely. After that, I'm going to call the police."
Damn, she was a touch cookie. "Hey, I just need some help."
"I don't know what you need, but I know I'm not it." Her voice softened just a little. He hadn't lost all his skill. Not yet.
"Maybe you're not," he said. "So far, you're the closest thing I've found. I'll tell you what. I understand you don't want to get into trouble. Maybe you could just sort of hint at what I should do."
Her face twisted with obvious indecision. Pretty clearly she knew how to break into the Wildfire system. Pretty clearly too, she was more afraid of him than hungry for his money. Did her reluctance hide a guilty secret?
"Are you a science fiction fan, Mr. Eastland?"
Something in her voice told him he had won. He let a little confusion show in his face. "I guess I read a little. Why?"
"Do you remember reading about the 'old gods'?"
He shook his head, more to clear it than in negation. "I'm not sure."
"Think about it and try to remember. If you do, you may be able to find help. If not, you're on your own."
"Now just a minute. Don't give me some hokey religion stuff. I've put everything I've ever had into this venture. You've got to help me."
"I've already said too much. Let me go, Mr. Eastland."
To his surprise he realized that he still held her arm. What had gotten into him? He wasn't above using physical force to get his way, of course. A decade and a half in the Agency had cured him of civilian scruples. But he was holding Heather like she belonged to him, like she was a romantic interest, not at all like a threat to his country.
"Try to think about what I've asked." He let just the least amount of panic enter his voice.
At her eyes' answering gleam, he knew he had hit the right button. To his surprise, though, she shook her head.
"Trust the old gods, Mr. Eastland."
* * * *
Heather balled the stack of twenty-dollar bills Jack Eastland had given her in her fist and hurried back through the darkening streets of Washington's Capitol Hill. While the area housed plenty of gentrified homes, with darkness, a different civilization hit the streets: a culture of cocaine, prostitution, and blatant power. Too like the government that ran the city during the day, she thought.
She shouldn't have told Jack about the old gods. Still, would it matter? Even if he was familiar with the Internet, would he think to look for reference to the old gods far off the web, where the out-of-fashion, older technologies still reigned?
It had taken all of her will power to turn him down. Something about this man spoke to her. To her female side rather than to the detective. When he'd touched her, taken her arm, she had felt an irrational urge to throw caution to the winds and kiss him. As it was, she'd put herself and her parents in danger, but she hadn't been able to help herself. Unlikely though it might be, what if he was what he said and had bought an old spy front from the CIA? Unloading that kind of baggage on a small businessman was exactly the type of trick the government would play.
She'd warn her parents. They would find some way to verify whether Eastland was a victim or part of the problem.
The unmistakable snick of a switchblade clicking into place stopped her in her tracks.
"Hey, babe. Looking for a little action?"
She spun slowly, then took a step back as a tall man stepped from a darkened stoop and stood in front of her. He tossed his knife into the air, then caught it.
The sound of another pair of footsteps halted her retreat. "Looks like you scored pretty good, honey," the new arrival commented.
Damn. Her fist wasn't big enough to hide the money.
"I don't want any trouble," she said.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you hustled in Charles's turf," the man behind her said. His deceptively soft voice sounded like death.
She chanced a look behind her and wished she hadn't. The man had the telltale defined muscle of a recent prison release and two ten-year tattoos, indicating that he had spent twenty of his thirty or so years of life in jail.
"I'm not a hooker."
"Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, right Charlie?" the man in front of her said, laughing at his own attempt at humor.
She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and waited. They hadn't asked for her the money; she didn't figure that they would settle for robbing her.
The man before her flipped his knife again. A big smile crossed his face as he caught the knife, point down, on the palm of his hand. "Beautiful pain," he whispered.
"Shut up, Bert," the man behind told him.
Where the heck are the cops when you need them? They certainly seemed to have enough time to continue chasing her parents decades past their mistake.
"I think I get to cut you," Bert said. He breathed heavily, almost licking his lips over the word 'cut.'
Heather inhaled deeply, suddenly aware of exactly how welcome Washington's hot, sticky air could be when she might be breathing her last of it. "How about I just leave my money here on the ground and walk away? You get what you want. No one gets hurt. No need to worry about it."
"But we're not worried," Charlie told her. "And don't worry about getting cut some. Johns like it."
The annoying rumble of a motorcycle kept her from concentrating, getting into the zone her self-defense instructors had worked with her to achieve. This had turned out to be an outrageously bad day.
The motorcycle noise got closer and Bert slipped his knife into a coat pocket. "Don't try anything stupid, girly-girl," he warned.
It would take him only a second to free the knife again, but that second might make all the difference.
With an abrupt shout, she threw the wad of twenty-dollar bills into the air and took off running.
The motorcycle's roar changed tone as its driver shifted gears.
She glanced behind her. Charlie didn't bother asking her to stop. He deliberately pulled a gun from his belt and leveled it in her direction.
Then, suddenly, his gun skittered off and his hand flopped to the side as the motorcycle driver rode by him. In an instant, Heather found herself in midair as the driver scooped her up and tossed her, sidesaddle, behind him on the extended seat of a Harley Davidson.
Despite the mirrored helmet and black leather jacket, she thought she recognized the cut of those tailored trousers and the male scent. Jack Eastland.
"What did you do to him?" she asked, shouting to make herself heard over the engine noise.
"You mean that man who was fixing to shoot at you?"
"Who else?"
Jack pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. "I thought I heard something so I picked up a chunk of concrete out of a pothole. He looked like he needed it more than I did."
Her stomach churned. If she had been more careful, no one would have been hurt. Now she had Charlie's injury on her conscience. "You didn't have to hurt him. I was doing fine."
"You were getting yourself killed."
"They wouldn't have killed me. They thought I was a prostitute hustling their turf. If I'd just hidden that stack of money you gave me they would have left me alone."
He grunted at her. "I didn't kill him."
Jack must think she was nuts. People just didn't seem to get it--that violence simply demeans both the victim and aggressor.
Jack pushed up his visor and twisted until he could see her face. This wasn't going according to plan. In the movies, women always throw their arms around their brave rescuers and reward them with kisses. Heather didn't look like she was going to reward him with anything.
Except maybe a fit of temper. She looked genuinely pissed.
"Violence never solves anything, you know," she instructed him.
He ignored the condescending attitude. Violence in Cambodia had solved plenty for him. Like having to grow up with a living father. "Actually, violence solves a whole lot of things. That man with the gun didn't look like he was joking and he didn't look like he was going to stop with a couple of cuts. He would have permanently solved my problem of whether I could change your mind about taking on my case."
"It would have taken a miracle for him to hit me with that Saturday Night Special he packed," she told him. "And that's assuming that the gun fired rather than blowing up in his hand."
It had been a piece of junk. Still, Jack had enough experience to know how easy it was to kill.
"I've never known anyone fast enough to outrun a bullet." The gunman had looked like he knew what he was doing. He'd even used the classic police stance. "Next time I'll let them shoot you."
"I'm sorry. Of course I'm grateful for you rescuing me from my own stupidity."
"Don't take responsibility for other people's evil, Heather," he told her. "You have a right to walk where you want to."
"Where have you lived all your life? The Vatican? Here in Washington, you learn to cope."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He waited a moment, hoping his silence would tempt her to say more.
She seemed to have no problem with the lull in the conversation.
"Do you want me to take you back to your office, or is it time for you to go home now?" he finally asked.
"You don't have to take me home. I can walk."
He grinned at her. "I saw what happened last time you went for a walk. If you won't let me drive you, I'll ride along next to you to make sure you're safe."
She nodded. "I live in the apartment just above my office. You can take me back there."
He started the motorcycle and Heather adjusted herself behind him, straddling the seat rather than riding it sidesaddle.
"Do you have an extra helmet?"
He opened the storage box and handed her his spare. Obviously she had ridden before. She looked quite comfortable sitting behind him, her thighs gently pressing against his hips.
Jack was anything but comfortable. Heather's skirt was cut at least four inches above the knees of her incredibly long legs. And that was before she had hiked it up to sit on the motorcycle seat. He fought the almost irresistible urge to stroke those long muscles defined in her legs. Damn.
How could he be attracted to this woman? So far, all of the evidence they'd gathered, starting with their missing informant's brief message, pointed directly at her. That she'd found out about Wildfire so quickly proved she had the technical ability to serve as the contact between Middle-Eastern terrorists and computer hackers.
So why did he want to take her in his arms and tell her he'd protect her from the bad men of the big city? The one man he couldn't protect her from was himself. When it came to being bad, those two guys threatening Heather were pikers compared to Jack Eastland.
"Ready," she told him.
He pulled his Harley back from the gutter. Pulling his mind out of its own gutter wasn't quite so easy.
"It was brave of you to come after me." Heather pulled herself forward and spoke directly into his ear so he could hear her. Her breasts burned him through all the protection his leather jacket provided. He knew it was impossible to sense the warm caress of her breath through his helmet. Impossible, but he still felt it.
"Right," he answered.
"It's just that I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in violence, no matter what."
"Believe in it, honey. It's all around."
"That's not what I meant."
He didn't say anything else during the short ride, preferring instead to concentrate on ignoring how perfectly Heather's body fit against his as he cornered a little too fast.
Her three-story town home looked exactly like every other building on the Capitol Hill street. About half of them were apartments. The other half had offices on the first floor and living areas above.
With a little work, a cell could set up a fairly secure environment in a place like this. Between connected roofs, backyards overgrown with large trees, and passages cut between supposedly separate buildings, the whole thing could provide dozens of escape routes. With Washington's cosmopolitan population and the weird hours of politics, no one would think twice about late night departures and a few visitors.
He told himself not to watch as she slid off the bike.
Good plan. Poor execution. At least he still wore his helmet. Its mirrored visor just might keep her from getting a sunburn from the heat of his gaze.
"See you around," he told her as she dug a key from what he guessed must be a purse and unlocked her door.
"You think so, huh?" She tossed him his spare helmet.
He stood, staring at the door, for a long time before climbing back on his bike and heading south.
* * * *
The Agency never slept. No matter what the hour, eager kids picked right out of college could be found bent over their computer workstations or gathered around the coffee pot.
When he'd joined, computers did payroll and cryptography. Back then, agents would parachute behind the Iron Curtain to meet with freedom fighters, hand off missiles to Mujahidin, and spend money on those who would sell their country's secrets. Since he'd been back in the states, Jack had spent six months in computer training just to catch up with kids right out of school. Still, after Afghanistan and Nicaragua, the requirements for his type of agent had diminished. And there were always younger, faster, harder agents pressing to take his spot.
Barney, his partner, was talking to a redhead Jack hadn't noticed before. Barney pulled himself away when he saw Jack walk in.
"Mona tells me that all the bells went off after you hired the PI on Capitol Hill."
Barney had adopted the disguise of a typical bureaucrat: rumpled suit, shirt coming untucked, and a copy of the Wall Street Journal hanging out of a back pocket. Jack wasn't fooled. The two had fought their way across two hundred miles of Afghan mountain a couple of years before; Barney hadn't missed a day in the gym since.
"She blew our cover story and stopped," Jack told him. "I thought Wildfire was supposed to be frigid."
Barney shrugged. "That's what the kids told me. Anyway, she got further than anyone else. The detectives I visited were complete duds. They just wanted to get in their cars and go talk to people."
"Sort of like us in the old days?" Jack said.
"Hey, don't get sentimental on me. Who wants to crawl around getting shot at when we can sit around with a cup of coffee and play computer games?"
"At least when we were getting shot at, we were the only people in danger."
"Yeah, yeah. I sat through training too," Barney said. "I know what these terrorists are supposed to be trying. So did you learn anything we can use?"
Jack didn't think Barney needed to know how good Heather's body had felt nestled up against him on his motorcycle. "She says she's a pacifist."
"Freedom of religion, I always say. We haven't had trouble with that bunch since Viet Nam."
"Very funny. Oh, I almost forgot. She said something about the old gods."
Barney looked at him as if he had gone completely nuts. "Old gods? What's that, a Georgetown bar?"
"I don't think so. I think it's something related to computers."
"We'll see." Barney stepped into an empty cubicle and launched a web search engine. "The usual two thousand," he finally said. "Nothing that jumps out though."
"She seemed to think these old gods were important."
"Well if they're not on the web, they don't have much to do with computers."
Jack hadn't noticed the redhead's approach, but the agent Barney had been talking to when he arrived broke into their conversation. "Did someone say old gods?"
"What? Is this an echo?" Jack shot back.
"It's in Science Fiction. The old gods are dark and evil and don't like people much."
"That's a big help, Mona," Barney observed. "I'll stop by the library and check up on them. I'm a little behind on my pulp fiction."
"I could be wrong," Mona continued, ignoring his sarcasm, "but think about it from the computer angle. What is old and unfriendly?"
"DOS?" Jack ventured.
"I was thinking more in networking. Everyone is running the web, of course, but that doesn't mean the old tools aren't still out there. Why don't you try Veronica?"
"Why do I feel like I'm being talked down to by my teenage daughter?" Barney asked. "If Veronica has need-to-know, I'll talk to her."
Mona giggled, reminding Jack that he really was almost a generation older than the younger agents. With what he had lived through, he felt even older.
"You know," she said. "It's like in Archie and Veronica. Comics, get it? Veronica one of the old tools from before the web. There's still a lot of stuff out there. Lots of the old hackers think that the web is too obvious to be cool. Like reading Cliff Notes rather than James Joyce or something."
"James Joyce?" Jack murmured to Barney when Mona swung her pert bottom around the corner. He hoped it wouldn't be too long before he could look at a woman and not compare her to Heather.
Barney followed his gaze. "No you don't. I saw her first."
It wouldn't do to tell Barney that he didn't date fellow agents. And Barney simply wouldn't believe him if he told the man that Mona's obvious physical charms didn't move him. He and Barney had spent, or rather misspent, too much of their twenties together for either to admit that the other had grown up.
Veronica turned out to be a list.
"So what do we look for?" Barney complained.
"Let's stick with the old gods," Jack suggested.
Veronica led them to a Gopher list which in turn pointed them to an ftp site.
"I think we took a wrong path somewhere," Barney said. "We're in University of Iceland of all places. They really do have old gods there."
"Iceland converted centuries ago," Jack answered. "I may not know my computers but I know that. Keep looking."
"Yeah, sure. Just what I need, an update on the Norse pantheon."
"I don't think Heather would have sent me out for a religion lesson."
Barney pulled off his glasses and gave Jack a stare. "Heather, is it?"
"Ms. Webb, I mean."
"Oh, sure. You always had a way with the women, didn't you?"
Irrationally, Barney's smirk bothered Jack. The man was right, after all. Jack had split his twenties between seducing attractive Soviet agents and infiltrating Irish and German terrorist organizations.
"Since Ms. Webb figured out there was an agency angle, I went for the 'I've got to know what I've gotten into' dodge."
"Yeah. I'll bet--oh, boy. Look at this!" Barney tapped on the computer screen with his finger, calling attention to a hidden directory.
"Old God's Lair," Jack read out loud. "Sounds promising. Can we download the files?"
"They don't call me 'the master' for nothing," Barney replied.
Master or not, ten minutes later, Barney looked stuck. Jack took the opportunity to grab coffee for the two of them, throwing a dollar in the collection jar.
"This shouldn't be so hard." Without even looking around, Barney held out his hand for coffee as Jack reentered his cubicle.
Jack grabbed a nearby workstation and logged onto the Icelandic computer. Maybe he could help.
Unlike the rest of the site which contained a combination of English, Danish, and Icelandic files, the hidden 'Old Gods' directory was all in English. Even without names like 'govthacks.archive,' the directory felt like an intrusion rather than a purposeful part of the site. He tried a download.
"I've done that twenty times," Barney told him.
"So what's the security?"
"Typical password protection. We should be able to figure a way around it."
"I think you're working too hard. Whoever put 'Old Gods' out there meant for it to be hacked."
"So you're saying I'm incompetent?"
"Do me a favor."
"What's that?"
"Find out the word for 'guest' in Icelandic."
Barney smacked himself on the forehead. "Of course, it's directory protection, not file protection. I spend so much time working secure systems that I forget how stupid most computers are." He pushed Jack's hands out of the way and typed in a strange looking hodgepodge of letters and symbols.
A progress bar made its way across the screen as Barney's workstation sucked in all of the files.
Barney gulped down his coffee and passed Jack the empty cup. "More."
When Jack returned, Barney took the cup. "Wish I had a little something stronger to put in this."
"What have you found?"
"This has got to be the most complete hack of government installations I've ever seen," Barney said. "Should we notify the University?"
Jack wondered exactly what channels Heather had used to find this place. Was this really what she'd meant for him to find? It didn't make sense that she would tell him about it if she really was working with the terrorists. On the other hand, she knew too much to be a civilian.
"Sure," Jack replied. "We'll put it through channels."
Barney smirked. "Might as well follow the rules, huh?"
Both men knew that the Agency would take months to decide whether such a communication could risk the security of the United States. By that time, their intrusion would be untraceable, even to the hackers who maintained the site.
Jack glanced through the files Barney had collected. "Remind me not to go into the witness relocation program," he breathed a few minutes later.
"Why's that?"
"It's totally compromised. Look at this."
"Jeez, you're right," Barney answered. "I think maybe we should turn your girlfriend over to the FBI."
Chapter 3
"Heather, are you up?"
Heather opened her eyes and looked out the window. Still dark.
"Too early," she grumbled. Still, she reached for her robe. Her parents did everything they could to give her privacy. Her mother wouldn't be here if it weren't important.
"We don't have much time."
That brought Heather fully awake. The only thing her parents had was time. Since she'd bought the detective agency five years before, along with the old townhouse that housed it, they had rarely left their apartment on the floor above hers. Despite plastic surgery and the best fake IDs that computer hacking can provide, they retained the habits of a three decades as fugitives, living solitary lives and making contact with as few people as possible.
"What are you talking about?"
"The Old Gods site got hacked last night."
Relief swept over Heather. "Don't worry about it. I hinted to one of my clients that he should look there."
"It didn't just get searched. It got violated."
"You put it out there in plain view, mother. You meant for people to find it." Despite everything she could do, her parents remained true to the anti-government philosophies they'd adopted during college. True to the legacy of the Pentagon papers of an earlier era, they maintained a continually floating database of ways to hack information from various government sites.
Her mother shook her head slowly. "It isn't so simple, Heather. We've never had trouble with the CIA before."
Heather's heart lurched, stopped, then pounded along as if she had run an Olympic sprint. "Are you sure?"
"We're sure," her father answered.
She hadn't noticed him come in, but her parents remained inseparable despite the difficulties that it had created during their years spent in safe houses and on the road.
Heather switched on her bedside lamp and gestured to her parents to sit down.
When they complied, she finished tying her robe and pushed the button on her bedside coffee maker advancing its timer by two hours. Already she felt the beginning of a beautiful headache.
"The CIA isn't allowed to do any domestic work," she reminded them.
Despite the grim look on her father's face, he graced that comment with a short laugh. "And the tooth fairy only leaves uncirculated coins. You know as well as we do that the CIA does what it thinks it has to and worries about the rules later."
"God how I wish you two had never gotten involved in that bombing."
"We were just college kids," her mother reminded her. "You have no idea what it was like in the sixties. We really thought we were on the verge of the revolution, that we'd bring on a utopian society."
"But bombing." Heather had learned her pacifism at her mother's knees. She had never been able to reconcile her parents' devotion to the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King with the crime that had sent them into hiding for three decades.
"We thought it was a fake," her father explained. "A warning against setting up a chemical weapons research institute on campus. We set up the electronics that monitored any intrusion while the others planted the supposed bomb."
Heather realized that she had avoided discussing this part of her parents' past despite the fact that it had totally redirected their lives. She had known that they were on the FBI most wanted list almost since she was old enough to talk, but she'd never learned the details of their crime.
"That was so long ago, I'm sure that no one is tracking you down over it."
"If they find us, they'll make the connection. It turns out that the chemical weapons project was funded by the CIA."
"So what are you going to do?"
Her father cleared his throat awkwardly. "I know it leaves you in a hard spot, Heather. Unfortunately we've left you in hard spots all of your life. But we've got to leave. Maybe we'll head for Canada for a while."
Heather shivered. They had spent two years in Moncton, New Brunswick when she was in her pre-teens and she still remembered the way the snow drifts would pile up so they could leave their rented house from the second story windows.