Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance (10 page)

The man touching her now was not remotely weak. However, she wasn’t so sure about the vulnerability.

It scared her to think he might need an occasional anchor too. It scared her to think he might need that from her. It terrified her to realize she wanted to give it to him. If he let her.

She lifted her hand and covered his. His skin was dry and warm, his steady pulse far too reassuring. “I do appreciate all you’re doing for me, John.” She dropped her hand and stepped away. Her smile was tremulous but real. “Ready whenever you are.”

John looked as if he were about to say something, but instead turned off the bright overhead then flipped on the red safelight.

She scanned the room, refamiliarizing herself with the process and equipment. It had been too long. “I’m not sure I remember enough.” She handed him the notebook.

He locked eyes with her, the red light enhancing
the sudden ferocity in his strangely transparent-looking gaze.

“This may not work,” he said. “If it doesn’t—”

“Then the pages could really be blanks. Let’s not think about—”

“You have to think about it, Cali. If there is no help here, grilling Eudora isn’t really a great alternative. The people after you are too well funded, too connected, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out how. We don’t have time. For all we know, they are on their way here right now. If we can’t decipher Nathan’s notes here on Martinique, then one or both of us will have to look elsewhere.”

The idea of him leaving her panicked her. “I go where you go.” She’d sounded more forceful than she’d liked, but if her sudden vehemence surprised him, he didn’t show it.

“Fine.” He turned his complete attention to the notebook. Subject closed. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved that he wouldn’t abandon her to take up the fight alone at the first sign of a problem, or annoyed that he’d so easily dismissed her concerns.

Shoving the whole mental merry-go-round aside, she stepped over to the trays, looking at the rows of chemicals. Bleach, stabilizers, potassium iodide wash, conditioner. The French labels translated fairly easily. Quéval was no amateur. To her surprise, she found the processes coming back to her as she went over all the equipment. “Like riding a bike.” She snagged some graduated beakers and went about setting everything up as best as she could, then stepped up behind
John and watched over his shoulder. He carefully flipped open the rings and slid out the first blank page.

She checked the temperature of the liquid, realizing as she did so that she had no idea if what was appropriate for processing film worked on invisible ink. “We can skip the first few steps since this isn’t film. Even so, the way we’re doing this is a bit unorthodox.”

“I’m not sure it matters.”

“We’re about to find out.” Satisfied as she could be, she took one sheet and slipped it into the first tray.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Be patient.” But she felt her own pulse rocketing faster. She willed her hands to be steady as she agitated the tray to keep the developer evenly distributed. She gently rapped the tray on the table to dislodge bubbles that were attaching to the surface.

“There’s something there!” She hadn’t really let herself believe it until that moment. She leaned over, squinting. Some of it was handwritten margin notes, but the bulk of it was typed. It all glowed an odd yellow, making it almost impossible to decipher in the red light.

She glanced around. Quéval kept an orderly darkroom. She located what she sought almost immediately. John had nudged into her spot.

“Here,” she said, handing him a small magnifier. “See if this helps.”

“Can you make any of it out?”

He was silent just long enough for her to wonder if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Yes. I can.”

His tone was flat and emotionless. Normal, in other words. And yet she stilled, a sense of dread creeping over her.

“Tell me, John. What is it?”

“Do another sheet, Cali.” He handed her the page that followed the one she’d already done.

She complied. He studied that one silently. “One more.”

“What is it?”

He handed her another sheet. “Do this one.”

She huffed out an impatient sigh, but did as he asked, knowing he wouldn’t tell her anything until he was ready.

After studying the third page for several long minutes, John laid down the magnifier and turned to her. “You’ll have to go over this. And we’ll need much more information. A lot more. Monsieur Quéval’s time and supplies won’t be nearly enough.”

“Just tell me what you suspect.”

“These pages are outline notes. Your husband created a virus program. The diskettes apparently contain the actual program work. All encrypted. I’m not sure if his code notes are here or not.”

“Virus protection programs are incredibly sophisticated these days. A ten-year-old virus could hardly be a threat.”

“This one is.”

“How so?”

“I’m not the computer wiz, that’s your job. So you’ll have to verify this for me.” He pulled her closer and handed her the magnifier.

“For God’s sake, can’t you just tell me?”

He turned her to the table. “See it for yourself, Cali.” He pointed halfway down the page. “Read that.”

She bent over the table and peered through the lens. “You are the most insufferable …” The words died away on a sudden inhalation. “Oh my God. No.” She stood up, the magnifier hanging limply in her hand. “Nathan, what did you do?” she whispered.

“He created a virus that can dismantle entire computer networks,” John said, confirming what she already knew. “And from what I can tell, it works with the detection codes so when a protection program kicks in, the virus is automatically activated.”

Cali turned wide eyes to him as the bigger picture clicked into place. “And if it’s set up properly today, the sender could retrieve all the file names and access codes as the detection program scanned them.” She swore under her breath. “Imagine what someone with this could do to, say, a bank?”

In a deceptively soft voice, John added, “Imagine what someone with this could do to, say, an entire government.”

SIX

Even in the red glow John saw Cali’s skin pale.

“The bank alone was worth killing for.” Her eyes widened. She turned to him. “I’m a dead woman.”

“No.”

He’d almost shouted. He knew how intimidating he could be. Cali didn’t even blink. Her mind was spinning out on just what she’d gotten herself into.

“I don’t have the actual program,” she said.

He didn’t remind her of the diskettes that were in the package. “We do have Nathan’s notes. And if the first page is any indication, the entire history of the program up to his death is all contained in here.”

She focused on him. He wished she hadn’t. There was resignation in her eyes. He wanted to shake her.

“You’re a fighter, Cali. You made it this far—”

“Yeah, with this stupid, wide-eyed notion of avenging Nathan. Instead I’m going to end up just like him. Dead.”

“Knowledge is power, Cali. We can use this to our advantage. The same information that could kill you will be your ticket out.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “They tried to kill me without knowing how much I knew or what I had. I could destroy this notebook and they wouldn’t stop. I could turn it over to them and I would still be signing my death warrant. I know too much.”

“What happened to your plan?”

“Give it to the good guys, you mean? I don’t even know who they are anymore.” Her hands fell limply to her sides. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not up to saving the world as we know it.”

It was a toss-up which he clenched tighter, his jaw or his hands. He wanted to protect her and at the same time her acquiescence irritated him. He’d bullied her out of giving in once before. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task again. He already cared too much. She’d look at him, all wounded and defiant at the same time, sticking her chin up but fully expecting to be punched. She’d suck him under again.

“There are no good guys,” she said quietly. “This program is designed to destroy.” She lifted those damnable eyes to him, and he felt the undertow tugging at his feet. “I can’t give this to anyone, John. I’d never be able to live with myself.” She laughed, but the sound was hollow. “Not that this will be a concern for much longer.”

He took her shoulders, pulling her upright until her chin bobbed just below his.

“Listen to me, dammit.” His fingers tightened
when her expression remained dead. “First off, there are good guys out there. I left a handful of them to traipse over here to rescue your backside.”

A bit of fire crept back in. “Well please, by all means go back to them.” She tried to shrug away, but he held her fast.

“Yeah, well, we all have better things to do than risk our butts for you, especially now.” That stoked the fire. Good. “But I can round up someone. We need to find out who wants this information. I doubt there is only one faction involved, or you would have been taken out already.”

“If you think you are giving me any hope here, you are way off the mark, McShane. I may have taken your bullying ten years ago, but not this time.”

She redoubled her efforts to pull away. He held on, shaking her gently. “Then don’t waste my time and yours by making me play bully again.”

“You’re not playing, you are a bully.” She shot a meaningful look at his tight grip on her shoulders.

He softened his hold, but not his expression. “I agreed to take this assignment on. I don’t fail, Cali.”

She snorted, “Well, golly gee, we can’t have that. I’m sure if we just send that over in a note to the other side, they’ll withdraw. Let me go.”

“Not until you get off this martyr shtick.”

“I’m simply being a realist.”

“We’re wasting time, Cali.”

“We already know what we’ve got.”

“We only know enough to get us killed. But you can only get so dead. We need as much info as we can
get. I want to scan through and see if the program itself is written down anywhere. If what’s been done is on the diskettes you have, you’ll have to get into them and see if you can find out as much as possible without triggering the damn thing.”

“Where do you propose we do this?”

“We should try to decipher as much of the written work as we can. Our next step is getting out of here and getting somewhere safe.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“Both of us, Cali. Like I said, this definitely constitutes calling in my team.” He tapped on the open page of the binder. “We have proof now. Or at least we will.”

“John, I don’t know if we should contact anyone—”

“It’s okay. We don’t know all the players or their agendas, but I do know my team. They only have one agenda.”

“But they still answer to someone. And that someone might have an agenda.”

“As it happens, that isn’t the case.”

Cali paused, then said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

She was getting far too good at reading him. Or he was getting far too sloppy in allowing her to. “Nothing that makes a difference right now. But if you trust me, you can trust them.”

“So do we decipher it? Leave the island? To go back to the States? And what about the photo? Nathan
had it in there for a reason. We haven’t found anything more here.”

“I don’t think we need to. Because of the separate security boxes, I doubt Nathan intended for you ever to get hold of the entire thing. Maybe the photo was a lead, somehow. But we have it now. We discovered what the program is for, that’s all we need.”

“There is one thing we don’t have.”

“Which is?”

“A playing roster of the good guys and bad guys. Maybe that is what we were supposed to find here.”

“True, but we don’t have time to waste trying to acquire one. My instincts are screaming at me to get us both off this island.”

“What’s the success rate of your instincts?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say one hundred percent. But he was staring at the one person who’d lowered his average. Where Cali was concerned, John questioned everything, especially his instincts. “Enough that I’m here to help you now.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, McShane. Your instincts say to go into hiding. Mine say there is something here, something that will help us.”

John stepped closer. “Whatever that something is won’t help us if we’re dead. And we’re not hiding. If it helps you put it in perspective, we aren’t just getting out of sight. While my guys work to put together that playing roster, you are going to spend some time in front of a computer screen trying to figure out exactly how this virus works. And, if you can, how to circumvent it. That will be our trump card.”

“You do think they’re on the way, then. You think Eudora tipped them off to my whereabouts when I took the package?”

“Eudora has always known your whereabouts. I think she is just a messenger, possibly an innocent one.”

“Eudora is no fool. No way would she do anyone a favor without knowing exactly what was going on.” She waved a hand. “Besides, even if Eudora was just an innocent messenger, why give that package to me? Certainly if they’d intercepted this from Grand Cayman, they knew what they had. They could have found someone in their employ to decode it.”