Reach For the Spy (11 page)

We signed for our fobs
again and made our way back into the dungeon. Spider handed me the
tiny box, and I clutched it convulsively. “Can we tape it shut or
something?”

“Good plan.” He put a
couple of wraps of tape around it, and we both relaxed.

I looked around at the
cell-like walls and shuddered.

“Okay, signal me in a
couple of hours,” I told him, and stepped into the void.

A barred cage
immediately closed around me, and I let out a reflexive squeak of
terror before jerking my mind back under my conscious control. My
mountain top opened around me, and I breathed carefully.

“Aydan, what was that?”
Spider’s voice was tight with alarm.

“Sorry, it’s okay, my
mind just wandered for a second. I’m fine now.” I took a few more
breaths. I couldn’t smell the spruce anymore. Even in my sim, the
air smelled flat and stale.

I sighed, dissolved the
mountains, and went back to work.

I stepped out the
portal and swore violently and continuously, waiting for the pain
to subside. When I finally succeeded in focusing, Spider was
wide-eyed.

“Sorry,” I mumbled
insincerely. “I really should do something about this potty
mouth.”

“It’s okay. I’ve
learned a lot since I met you. I didn’t realize what a sheltered
life I’d led.”

I snorted. “Too bad you
never met my Uncle Roger. He could peel the paint off an aircraft
carrier at fifty paces. People’s ears were known to bleed when he
really got going.” I smiled in wistful memory. “He was such a nice
man.”

Spider laughed. “Only
you would say that in the same breath.”

I gave him a
half-hearted grin and heaved myself to my feet. “I’m out of here.
See you tomorrow.”

Outside, I sagged
against my car and tried to force my exhausted brain to make a
decision about supper. I’d eaten all the leftovers in the house,
and I just couldn’t face the thought of going home and cooking.

Pizza. Thank God for
Fiorenza’s fabulous takeout.

At home, I carried the
pizza up my hill and ate it straight from the box while I watched
the wind sweep in waves across the fields below. I sat for a long
time before I trailed into the house to get ready for bed.

I jerked awake, my
heart pounding. The insistent ring of the phone bored into my
brain. I fumbled a nerveless hand in the general direction of the
phone. My eyes wouldn’t focus on the call display, so I jabbed
blindly at the talk button.

“Wha...?”

There was silence on
the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Fuck!” I slammed the
phone down and collapsed back onto the bed, waiting for my heart to
regain its normal rhythm and squinting at the clock.

Two fifteen. Jesus.

Breathe away the
adrenaline. In. Out. Slow like ocean waves. Warm. Comfortable.

I levitated off the bed
with a yelp when the phone rang again. This time, I glared at the
call display without picking up. Private number. The clock read
four thirty-five.

I groaned and shoved
the pillow over my head while I waited out the rings so my
answering machine could pick up.

No message.

Seconds later, the
phone rang again. Private number.

I snatched up the
phone. “Listen, you cock-sucking son of a bitch, you’ve got the
wrong fucking number! Fuck off, already!”

Silence on the other
end.

With the last remnants
of my self-control, I resisted the urge to hurl the handset against
the wall and watch its little plastic guts spray out across the
room. I laid it gently back in the cradle and unplugged the
phone.

It took a long time to
get back to sleep.

In the morning, I
groaned at the sight of my haggard face in the mirror. I must have
managed several hours of sleep, but it sure as hell didn’t feel
like it. I plodded out to my car and snivelled my way into
Silverside.

The hand tremor seemed
to have spread. I wobbled down into the lab and fell into my
chair.

Spider regarded me with
worried eyes. “Aydan, you look awful. Sorry,” he added quickly. “I
didn’t mean you look awful, I just meant...”

“I look like shit. I
feel like shit. Hell, I feel worse than shit. I feel like shit
after a dog’s eaten it and then shit it out again. Some fucking
moron decided to phone me in the middle of the night. Twice. Two
hours apart. If I find out who it was, I’m going to rip his fucking
nuts off and feed them to him. On crackers.”

Spider blanched.

“Sorry.” I reached over
and patted him on the shoulder. “I didn’t mean to take that out on
you.”

“It’s okay,” he said
faintly.

Kane strode in and gave
my face a searching glance. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

He held my eyes for a
few seconds more. “Okay.” He handed me a red pen as he turned away
to sit down. “You dropped this on the way in.”

“Thanks.” I took it
from him, faking nonchalance. “I wondered where I’d lost that.” I
eyed him for a second. “I was just getting ready to go into the
network.”

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll
signal you in about an hour and a half, as usual.”

I shrugged and
concentrated on the network’s white void. I navigated the virtual
corridor without incident and buried myself in the files.

When the blip came, I
stepped out into the usual pain. Heat and pressure surrounded my
head while I groaned through clenched teeth. The pain subsided, but
the pressure continued as I pried my eyes open.

“You can let go now,” I
told Kane.

He removed his large
hands from around my head. “Just making sure you didn’t try to beat
your brains out again.”

“Nah. I only do that at
the end of the day.” I dragged myself to my feet. “Pit stop. Back
in five.”

The short walk down to
the bathroom helped me regain some circulation. When I got back to
the lab, I sank into the chair again. “Any special requests?”

“Same old, same old,”
Spider said wryly.

“Hmmph.” I slouched
down and closed my eyes.

This time, the cage
shrank quickly. Wild panic flashed through me as the heavy bars
crushed my chest and back. I struggled desperately against the
ropes that bound my hands, wailing without thought.

Thought.

I burst out onto the
mountain peak again, gasping.

“
Aydan!
” Spider
sounded almost as panicked as I felt.

“Fine. I’m fine.” I
breathed deeply. The long mountain vista had lost its depth. It
looked more like a painting on a wall. A close wall.

“Aydan, Kane says to
come out now.”

“No, I’m in here, I’ll
make it worthwhile.” I dissolved the mountains and picked up the
next file.

When the signalling
blip flashed through the sim, I dragged my gaze up from my tedious
reading. The file room was lined with iron bars. As I sucked in a
breath, they advanced slowly, eating up the space.

“Back off,” I muttered,
and banished them with an effort. I pushed through the virtual door
and headed for the portal.

“Okay, I’ll live,” I
grated. “You can let go now.”

Kane released me and
stooped to look into my face. “Lunch time. Let’s go.”

The three of us trekked
back upstairs. When the heavy door finally released, I took a
couple of rapid steps into the lobby, staring into middle distance
while my heart raced like a frightened gerbil.

I jerked and yelped
involuntarily when Kane’s face appeared in my field of view.
“Aydan?” he asked cautiously. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” I turned toward
the security booth, fumbling to unclip my security fob with cold,
quivering fingers.

I stepped gratefully
out into the blazing sun, squinting in the heat and brightness. My
legs twitched with the urge to run.

“Come on, we’ll take
the Expedition.” Kane’s voice broke into my reverie, and I tottered
behind him and Spider toward the parking lot.

We buckled in without
speaking, and Kane put the vehicle in motion. We’d driven for a
block or two when Kane gave a brisk nod. “Webb?”

Spider extracted a
small device from his pocket and waved it around the interior of
the SUV, then up and down close to me.

“Clear.”

I relaxed. “I’d love to
have one of those,” I told him.

“Take this one.” He
offered it to me.

“I can’t. Too hard to
explain if it was found.” I sighed and turned to Kane. “What’s
up?”

“I was going to ask you
the same thing. You were screaming last night. You almost blew the
audio on the bugs. What happened?”

“Nothing.” I squirmed
in embarrassment. “Shit. I was dreaming. That’s all. Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He
shot a glance over at me. “I got a frantic call from the analyst
who was monitoring. I called you, but of course I couldn’t say
anything. Your phone’s tapped, too, did I mention that?”

“I figured.” I put two
and two together. “Oh!” I felt a flush rising on my cheeks. “I’m
sorry I was so rude.”

He gave me a puzzled
frown. “You weren’t particularly, considering.”

“Then you’ve got an
amazingly high tolerance for rudeness.”

Spider gulped.
“Actually. That was probably me you were talking to. I made the
second call.”

“Oh, Spider, I’m sorry!
I was just so tired, and I thought it was a crank call.”

“It’s okay,” he assured
me hesitantly. “So what you said this morning in the lab...”

“No, no, I’m sorry! If
I’d known it was you, I never would have said that.”

“Said what?” Kane
asked.

“I said if I caught the
fucking moron who’d phoned me, I was going to rip his nuts off and
feed them to him,” I told him sheepishly.

“On crackers,” Spider
added with obvious dismay.

Kane burst out
laughing. After a few seconds, Spider and I joined in, and I
laughed until tears came. Finally, I clutched my aching stomach.
“That bit about the crackers really got to you, didn’t it,” I
wheezed.

“Yeah,” Spider gasped.
“Please don’t ever say that to me again.”

“I promise.”

Kane sobered as we
parked in front of Fiorenza’s. “I’m sorry it has to be this way,
Aydan, but we’ll have to respond the same way if you keep screaming
at night. We need to make sure you’re all right. That means that
you have to answer the phone and say something.”

I sighed. “It’s okay.
If I’m screaming, you’ll be doing me a favour by waking me up
anyway. I’ll try not to be so obscene in the future.”

Back in the lab after
lunch, I breathed deeply in my chair while I clutched the network
key.

“Just stay focused,”
Kane encouraged.

I nodded and stepped
carefully into the void. It wavered, ghostly bars drifting toward
me, but I marched forward and they parted along my path. I made my
way to the file room and grabbed the next file.

Letters and numbers
swam on the page in random combinations. I shook my head and peered
at it, willing it to settle down. The text stabilized, but it was
still incomprehensible. I frowned and laid the paper down, rubbing
my eyes. Then I slapped my cheeks gently and tried again.

“Aydan? What’s wrong?”
Spider inquired through the network interface.

“I’m not sure. Hold
on.” I squinted at the page again. The groups of numbers and
letters remained adamantly cryptic. My tired brain seized on the
joke, and I giggled before I could stop myself. Cryptic. No
shit.

“Aydan...?”

“Hang on.” I laid aside
the troublesome file and picked up the one I’d finished before
lunch. It was still clear and understandable. I grabbed the next
one off the pile. Equally easy to decipher.

“What the hell?” I
muttered, and picked up the page again. Still random letters and
numbers.

“Okay, this is weird,”
I told them. “This one is just a bunch of random letters and
numbers. I’m not sure whether I can’t decrypt it, or whether it’s
really just numbers and letters.”

“Just a second,” Spider
said. There was a short pause before he continued, “Kane says to
get started and give us what you’re seeing. It might mean something
to us.”

“Okay.”

I frowned at the
document and started to transcribe. It was laborious work as I
double-checked each line, getting lost and starting over again in
frustration. I finished the first page and sat back with a groan.
“What do you think?”

“Hold on again.”

I squeezed my eyes shut
and rolled my shoulders. When I opened my eyes again, the sim
wavered and vibrated around me. Something moved in my peripheral
vision and I whipped my head around, but nothing was there.

I groaned and rubbed my
eyes. A surreptitious movement to my left made me jerk around
again, staring at the wall of the file room. A wraith-like body
slipped through the wall away from me, its skeletal limbs rippling
the surface of the wall like water.

I blinked and stared as
more apparitions began to drift through the room. One swooped at my
head, and I ducked.

They gained form and
substance. They had teeth...

“Aydan.”

I started, and the file
room solidified around me. I shook my head. Jeez. I must be more
tired than I realized.

“Aydan!”

“Sorry, what?” I
refocused on the task at hand.

“Aydan, this is gold!
Keep going!”

“Okay.” I bent to my
task.

My eyes burned. A small
flame licked across the page, and I snatched my hand away before
realizing I’d created the fire out of my own metaphor. I sighed and
visualized cool water.

I swore and put down
the dripping document to shake myself like a dog.

“Aydan? Is everything
okay? What was that?”

“Fine. I’m just getting
tired, I guess.” A tire rolled toward me, and I snickered in spite
of myself. Puns. The lowest form of humour.

“Maybe you’d better
come out now.”