Reach For the Spy (4 page)

“You can begin
immediately. You’ll have an office on this floor. Your top priority
is to decrypt the documents we seized from Harchman’s network last
week. A close second priority is to see if you can recreate the
virtual connections to Fuzzy Bunny’s network and provide the IP
addresses to Webb.”

He paused, and I could
tell he was struggling to make his next words non-confrontational.
“We would appreciate as much time as you could provide for
this.”

I gave him a short nod,
trying to stay focused on the importance of the work instead of my
personal animosity toward the man. “I’ll do my best. I have three
clients to see tomorrow, but I have most of the rest of the week
available.”

“Very well.” He stood.
“Webb will show you to your office and brief you on his efforts to
date. If you need anything, inform Kane, and he will make the
necessary arrangements.”

I gave him another
short nod, which he returned brusquely before striding from the
room.

Spider blew out a long
breath. “Yikes. That was like watching somebody blowing up a
balloon. I was starting to twitch, just waiting for the explosion.”
He turned to me. “You’re... You look really scary when you’re mad,”
he said hesitantly.

“I wasn’t mad,” I told
him. “This time.”

He gave a feeble
chuckle. “If I ever see you as mad as you were last week, I’m going
to hide under the table.”

I patted his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think I could ever get that mad at you. Let’s
go find that office.”

The three of us trooped
down the hallway a few doors, into a pleasantly bright room
containing a desk and chair, along with a small sofa and coffee
table. I peeked out the window and took stock of the room with
optimism. “This is nice. I can live with this. And I even get a
couch.”

Spider returned my
smile. “Yes, it’s good to have the couch when you’re going to be in
the brainwave-driven network for hours at a time. You stiffen up
pretty badly when you’re messing around in virtual reality without
moving your real body.”

“Good point,” I said.
“I never thought of that.”

“Well, let’s go in, and
I’ll point you to where the encrypted files are,” Spider said. “You
can have a quick peek, and then we can do some planning.”

I sank onto the couch.
“I’m so looking forward to doing this painlessly with a Sirius fob.
You have no idea how tired I am of using that network key and
getting my brain shredded every time I come out of the
network.”

Both men smiled down at
me. “I’m glad you don’t have to suffer any more, too,” Spider
assured me as he sat in the chair. “That was awful even to have to
watch.”

Kane pulled up a chair
for himself. “I’ll wait while you go in, and then we can do the
planning session when you come out.”

“Great.” I leaned back
and mentally stepped into the white void of the virtual reality
network, summoning up a simulation of corridors and doorways.

Spider popped into
existence beside me a second later. “The files are this way,” he
said, and we strode down the virtual hallway.

When we reached the
doorway to the file room, he courteously opened the door for me,
and I stepped through into the stacks of files.

“Holy crap, there’s a
lot in here,” I said. “It didn’t seem like this much when I saw it
at Harchman’s.”

Spider shrugged. “I
completely gutted their system. There’s probably a lot of
irrelevant stuff in here, but I couldn’t decrypt it to find out.
That’s your job. Lucky you.”

I sighed. “Yeah, lucky
me. Where should I start?”

“How about here?”
Spider picked up the nearest file and handed it to me.

I gave him a wry twist
of my lips. “Thanks, Einstein.” I flipped the file open and stared
at the contents.

My heart sank to my
toes. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Alarm flared in
his voice.

“I can’t read it.”

“
What?
” he
demanded. “But you could read everything at Harchman’s.”

“Well, I can’t read
this. Can you?” I showed him the file, and he shook his head,
consternation written on his face.

“Could the files have
been changed?” I asked.

“No. They’re exactly as
they were.”

“Is it a problem with
the network?”

“I doubt it. If there
was a problem with the network, you wouldn’t be able to access them
at all.”

I snapped the folder
shut and flung it back onto the pile. “Goddammit, now what? What
could it be?”

Spider stood silently
for a few moments before turning an apprehensive face toward me. “I
think I might know what the problem is.”

“What?” I demanded. I
looked more closely at his face. “Oh, shit, no. No. That would be
just too... No.”

When I stepped
painlessly through the virtual portal and returned my consciousness
to my physical body, Kane smiled at me. “I think that’s the first
time I’ve ever seen you come out of the network without
suffering.”

I glowered. “Don’t rub
it in.”

“What’s wrong?” Tension
stiffened his shoulders as he leaned forward, frowning. “What is
it?”

Spider answered for me.
“Aydan can’t read the files. I don’t know why. I’m afraid... I
think she might have to use the network key after all.”

“Dammit!” Kane’s fist
clenched by his side. “You can’t read anything at all?”

“Nothing. It’s just
gibberish.”

“Dammit!”

I felt the same grim
lines on my face as I saw on theirs. I sighed. “Let’s go and get
the bad news.”

I dragged myself off
the sofa and trailed down the hallway. They fell in behind me, and
we made the trip back down to the lobby in dispirited silence.

I approached the heavy
steel-framed door reluctantly and bent close to the small aperture
for the retinal scan. The featureless door unlatched with a muffled
click and I stepped into the cramped chamber beyond it, followed by
Kane and Webb.

As the door closed and
latched behind us, I stepped a single pace forward to the door at
the other side and let it scan me, too. Then I compulsively counted
down the thirty-second time delay, trying not to pay attention to
the way the walls and ceiling seemed to shrink toward me. Both men
stepped away to give me space, but it didn’t help much. The room
was only a few feet square. No one spoke.

When the latch
released, I snatched the door open with a barely-suppressed gasp.
As always, the enclosed concrete stairwell made my heart rate spike
in momentary panic.

I walked down the
stairs purposefully, trying to hide my shaking legs. At the bottom,
I pulled the door open and stepped into the glassed-in corridor of
the secured lab area.

The white walls and
glass and the constant flow of cool, fresh air helped reassure me.
I took several deep breaths, deliberately pushing away the
knowledge that I was locked underground.

Both Kane and Webb were
watching me and I avoided their eyes while we walked down the
hallway to Spider’s lab.

He unlocked the door
with his prox card and retinal scan, and we all filed into the
room.

“Pull up a chair,” he
said tightly as he unlocked the compartment at the back of his desk
drawer.

Kane and I both sat,
and I scowled at the tiny circuitry inside the small box Spider
handed me. Then I snapped the box closed and removed my security
fob, looking from one frowning face to the other.

“Well, this isn’t going
to get any better for putting it off.” I held the box in my hand
and stepped into the network void.

This time, both Spider
and Kane appeared beside me. Our walk down the virtual hallway had
the feeling of a march to execution. Or at least it did to me. I
was too absorbed in my own misery to care what the other two were
thinking.

When we reached the
file room, I hovered unhappily beside the stack of files. Both men
watched me, their faces sombre. I sighed and reached for the file
I’d opened earlier.

“Son of a fucking
bitch.”

“What?” they demanded
in ragged unison.

I sank to the floor and
held my head in my hands. “I can read it just fine.”

I rocked back and forth
a couple of times and jerked a couple of handfuls of hair. “What
the hell did I ever do to the gods to make them this
vindictive?”

Spider knelt beside me.
“Aydan, I’m so sorry!” He reached for my hand and squeezed it.
“This totally sucks!”

I looked into his
troubled face and gave myself a mental shake. He was so
tender-hearted, he was probably more upset about this than I was.
My whining wasn’t going to make things any better for me, but it
was going to make him even unhappier.

I squared my shoulders
and got up. “Never mind, Spider. Life goes on. And anyway, it’s not
like I’m going to be going in and out frequently. A couple of shots
of pain a day won’t kill me.”

“But what if you get
kicked out of the network again,” he said fearfully as he stood,
too. “That was... horrible.”

I shrugged, hiding my
own dread. “I can’t see why that would happen. And you’ve still got
the signalling device, haven’t you? So you can signal me to come
out whenever you need to.”

He nodded, obviously
unconvinced.

“Well, that’s about as
good as it’s going to get, then. Let’s go break the news to Stemp.”
I turned and headed for the virtual portal.

I braced myself before
stepping out of the network and back into my physical body. It
didn’t help.

Pain lanced through my
head and for Spider’s sake, I managed not to cry out. I clenched my
teeth on my reflexive profanity and took a few hissing breaths,
holding my head and rocking until the pain subsided.

“I really fucking hate
that,” I muttered as I straightened up again. I tucked the tiny box
into my pocket and turned to the other two. “Let’s go.”

“Um,” Spider said. “We
can’t.”

“What? Why not?” I
demanded, coldness slithering down my spine.

“Well,
we
can,”
he amended. “But we can’t take the key with us. It has to stay down
here in the secured facility. Stemp’s orders.”

“And Briggs’s orders,
too,” Kane added. “Everyone is in agreement on this. It’s too much
of a risk to take it out of here unless it’s absolutely
necessary.”

I took a deep,
steadying breath. Then another.

“You mean.” I stopped
and cleared my throat to keep my voice from squeaking. “You mean,
I’m going to have to work down here?”

My voice came out
shrill despite my efforts and Kane responded instantly, his voice
deep and soothing. “Not necessarily. Don’t worry, Aydan. Let’s go
upstairs and talk to Stemp. We’ll see what we can work out.”

I took another couple
of deep breaths and jerkily placed the box in Spider’s hand. “I’m
going up now. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.” I grabbed my
security fob and walked out, suppressing the urge to flee
pell-mell.

By the time the
time-delayed door opened into the lobby my heart was pounding, and
I controlled the need to flail my arms frantically in the open
space. I paced around the lobby, willing myself into yoga belly
breathing. Slow and steady. In. Out. Like ocean waves. I
surreptitiously wiped my sweaty palms on my pants.

By the time Webb and
Kane reappeared, I’d regained a semblance of calm. Nobody said
anything while we made our way up to Stemp’s office on the second
floor.

Kane tapped on the door
and stuck his head inside at Stemp’s terse, “Yes.”

“We have a
complication,” Kane said.

“Already?” Stemp’s
normally expressionless voice sounded strained. “Come in, then.
What is it?”

We stepped into his
office and stood side by side like pupils summoned before the
principal. I tried not to fidget while something small and
frightened skittered in my stomach.

Kane stood at parade
rest and addressed Stemp. “The Sirius security fob works to get
Aydan into the network, but when she gets there, she can’t decrypt
the files.”

Stemp turned a
skeptical gaze on me. “Really.”

My temper flared, and
Kane shot me a warning glance. This time I heeded him and
controlled my anger with an effort of will.

“We’ve solved the
problem, though,” I said. “I can read the files if I use the
network key to access the network.”

“I see.” Stemp turned
his impassive face to Spider. “Explanation.”

Spider twitched his
shoulders nervously. “I don’t know for sure. My initial guess would
be that the brainwave modulator that’s built into the Sirius fobs
alters Aydan’s natural brainwave pattern in a way that prevents her
from decrypting the files. The network key doesn’t have a
modulator, so she can do what she needs to do.”

Stemp made an impatient
gesture. “Why are you bringing this to me? You’ve already solved
the problem. Get to work.”

“We need your
permission to bring the network key aboveground,” Kane said.

“Absolutely not.”

Kane took a breath and
spoke steadily. His shuttered cop face and deliberately relaxed
posture made his words seem conversational. “Aydan is
claustrophobic. She has severe difficulty being in the secured
facility for any significant length of time. She needs to work up
here.”

“I repeat, absolutely
not,” Stemp snapped. “The risk is too great. If anything happens to
that network key, we lose everything.”

He turned to me, and I
caught the almost-imperceptible glint of triumph in his snake-like
eyes. “You will have to learn to tolerate working in the secured
facility.”

I forced my rigid body
to turn and walk out of Stemp’s office. Fury suffused me, but I
kept my hands loose and relaxed my shoulders while I walked down
the hall and into the pleasant office that had been mine for a few
short minutes. I lowered myself onto the sofa and stared into
middle distance.