Spy High (17 page)

I switched to thermal-only and frowned.
Orderly rows of human-shaped glows were arrayed in front of the
spotlighted figure. Okay, so it was a speaker addressing an
assembly. But at one AM?

I rubbed my forehead where the headset
was beginning to dig in. Maybe they had some counterpart to the
unreasonable Earth Spirit that demanded attention at all hours of
the day and night.

But their assembly was far more orderly
than our haphazard gatherings. Rank and file were in perfect
alignment and if I squinted and used my imagination the orientation
of the glows looked like soldiers at parade rest.

I transferred my attention to the rest
of the encampment, but thermal imaging revealed only a few hot
spots stationed inside and around the main tent.

As I watched, the assembled company
began to scatter at a leisurely pace. The movement reminded me of
the way the Earth Spirit gatherings ended, with people drifting
away in twos and threes. A steady flow trickled toward the main
tent and a couple of other destinations that were probably
latrines.

Gradually the activity settled down,
the glows distributing themselves and becoming stationary as if
retiring to their tents. Only a few stragglers remained…

Sudden interest straightened my spine.
One of the glows had split off from the main encampment. As I
watched, it crept across the landscape, giving the other glows a
wide berth and heading toward the river.

Toward the commune.

I flipped to night vision, squinting in
an attempt to locate the bridge. It was too dark to get a clear
view at that distance, but I was pretty sure the glow was in the
right vicinity.

I blew out a breath and switched back
to thermal.

By now the intruder was definitely on
commune land. Tension strung my muscles as the glow approached the
far-flung heat signature of Moonbeam and Karma’s tent, but it
didn’t turn in that direction.

Instead, it moved purposefully
onward.

Toward my tent.

Sucking in a breath, I switched to
combined vision. The intruder’s glow wasn’t on the paleness of the
gravel path. Instead, it followed a parallel course. Sneaking along
in the undergrowth, just as I had done.

Shit, had Ratboy decided to pay me a
little visit and settle the score?

I watched, barely breathing even though
he couldn’t possibly hear me at that distance.

He slowed as he approached my tent and
I imagined him creeping through the undergrowth, careful not to
wake me. Then he stopped beside my tent.

Perched on the very edge of the bench,
I stared until my eyes watered. What was he doing?

At last he moved, avoiding the gravel
path as before. Then he went into Orion’s tent.

What the hell was Ratboy doing in
there? Was he looking for something to pilfer?

The heat signature moved around the
tent for a few minutes, then settled into immobility.

I leaned slowly back on the bench,
letting out a breath. That wasn’t Ratboy. It was Orion, going to
bed. I should have realized it right away by his lack of hesitation
entering the tent.

So Orion had been lurking outside my
tent again.

And consorting with the renters, even
though he’d claimed to know nothing about them.

Before I could ponder the ramifications
of that, the distant scuff of footsteps on gravel made me spin,
then shield my eyes from the combined glare of heat and light.

Somebody was coming with a
flashlight.

Lifting my headset for a brief unaided
glance, I saw only a few slivers of light glimmering through the
trees. Whoever it was, they wouldn’t have seen me yet. I
repositioned the headset and hurried as quietly as possible into
woods, cutting down the slope at a diagonal.

Looking back, I could see the light
moving through the trees but couldn’t make out its bearer. The
bright spot stopped near the bench and the beam darted about for a
few moments before going still. I eased behind the concealment of a
big cedar and peeked out to see Skidmark backlit by the flashlight
he’d laid on the bench. As I watched, he unzipped his pants and
assumed a wide-legged stance.

Really didn’t need to watch that.

I ducked back behind the tree before
turning to creep step by step down the hill, placing my feet with
care and keeping to the heaviest cover I could find.

When I neared our tents at last I took
a parallel course to our gravelled path. The heat signature inside
Orion’s tent stayed motionless, and as I ghosted closer I heard a
faint snore.

Easing out a breath, I crept into my
tent and secured the flap behind me. Then I removed the headset
from my aching head and fell onto my cot. My mind buzzed with
adrenaline and unanswered questions.

What the hell had Orion been doing over
on the renters’ property? Was this the first time he’d gone over,
his curiosity sparked by my questions? Or had he been visiting
regularly, taking part along with Ratboy in some activity he didn’t
want to admit to me? It sure looked that way.

Damn, I had to figure out a way to get
that tracer onto his Earth Spirit bracelet.

But how?

Seducing him would get me close to him,
but then what was I going to do? Ask him to hold out his wrist and
close his eyes?

And if we were rolling around in the
throes of passion, real or faked, it was going to be damn hard to
hide the tracer on my own body in the first place and then transfer
it without him noticing. Not to mention I couldn’t carry my gun if
I was planning to get naked.

I needed to somehow get him to hold
still and close his eyes. And keep him from noticing that I was
fumbling at his wrist.

My mind lit with a brief but delicious
vision of a naked Orion, blindfolded while I tied his wrists to the
bed. I shook myself back to reality. Not exactly plausible for a
woman who’d been ‘not ready for sex’ to suddenly morph into a
sultry dominatrix.

Though it would be fun…

Jeez, cut it out.

I tried to force my tired mind to
focus, but it was no use. Maybe tomorrow I’d come up with some
brilliant plan.

I hauled myself upright and bent to
unlace my hiking boots.

Boots.

I straightened slowly, the idea curving
my lips into a grin.

Like everybody else, he wore his hiking
boots every day. As far as I knew he only had one pair.

My heart rate accelerated. Now was a
perfect time. It was the middle of the night, and he’d been up
late. He should be sound asleep.

And maybe, if I was really lucky, he
might have left his boots close to the tent flap. I eyed my own
tent speculatively. At least fifteen feet across. That was a lot of
floor area to cover, and belly-crawling around Orion’s tent looking
for boots in the dark didn’t appeal to me in the least. That’d be
an interesting conversation if he woke up: ‘What are you doing in
my tent?’ ‘Um, sleep-crawling…?’

But maybe I wouldn’t have to search in
person.

My energy renewed, I fired up my laptop
and plugged the webcam’s remote port into it. Easing the tiny
wireless camera out my tent flap, I panned over to Orion’s tent,
watching the view on my laptop. The resolution wasn’t as good as my
night-vision headset, but it didn’t need to be. I only needed to be
able to identify boots.

Next step: a camera boom.

A quick survey of my tent turned up
nothing as long and thin as I needed. Blowing out a breath of
annoyance, I donned the night-vision headset again and slipped out
of my tent to head for the pond. A couple of slender branches of
red dogwood fell to my knife, and I stripped off the leaves and
twigs before retreating to my tent once more.

One last thing.

My sigh turned into a yawn, fatigue
coiling into an aching ball between my shoulder blades. If only I
could leave this until tomorrow night. But I didn’t dare postpone
it.

Extracting the tiny tracer device and
its handheld tracking unit, I powered up the tracking unit and
nodded weary satisfaction at the blinking red dot that overlaid its
origin coordinates.

Fine; at least it was working.

I lashed the webcam to the tip of one
of the dogwood branches with a short length of dental floss before
gathering up my gear. Then I tucked the night-vision headset into
my pocket and headed for my tent flap.

Showtime.

Creeping toward Orion’s tent, my hands
quivered with exhaustion and nerves. The glow of my laptop’s screen
lit the night around me. God, please let Orion be a heavy sleeper.
If I got caught, this would be just as hard to explain as crawling
around in his tent.

But at least I wouldn’t get caught
wearing the night-vision headset. I’d look like a sleazy pathetic
voyeur, but not a spy.

I grimaced in the darkness. You know
you’re making the wrong life choices when your most fervent desire
is to look like a pathetic sleazebag.

Lowering myself to a crouch outside his
tent flap I eased my dogwood camera boom toward the opening.
Inside, his snores continued in a gentle rhythm, and I tried to
calm myself by matching my breathing to it.

One more inch…

The webcam slid under the tent flap and
I surveyed my computer screen. Shit, I was looking at the floor.
Carefully rotating the dogwood, I tried to get my bearings as the
interior of Orion’s tent panned by in grainy green and black.

His cot was against the opposite wall.
He slept shirtless, his chiselled features relaxed, one muscular
arm tucked under his head, the other draped across his chest. I
tore my gaze away from the smooth curves of his biceps and
continued to scan.

Dammit, where were his boots?

When I finally spotted them, I nearly
let out a cry of triumph. Right next to the tent flap. Thank heaven
for tidy bad guys.

Manoeuvring the camera carefully, I
studied the boots. I’d love to tuck the locator under the insole.
But that would mean I’d have to actually reach in and grab a boot.
They were close to the tent flap, but not that close.

And I’d have to open the tent flap to
pull one out. I didn’t know about Orion, but I knew for damn sure
that if it was me I’d wake instantly at the sound of rustling
canvas.

I eased out a breath. Dammit.

Some more covert camera work revealed
no safe place to stick my little tracing device on the outside of
the boots. If he was tramping through heavy undergrowth, it would
get wiped off.

My right leg cramped suddenly and I
stretched my mouth wide in a silent scream, rising as quietly as
possible out of my crouch to stretch the offending muscle.

Goddammit, I was frozen to the bone and
every muscle in my body ached with tension. Time to finish up and
get out.

Wincing, I hunkered down again and
manipulated my camera one more time. At last an idea penetrated my
exhausted brain. Those boots had nice padded tongues. And he’d left
them loosened but still laced up. He’d never notice my tiny tracer
tucked between the tongue and the eyelets.

Withdrawing my camera, I used the light
of the laptop screen to illuminate my work while I split the end of
my second dogwood stick and wedged the tiny tracer into it.

The tracer immediately began to ease
out under the pressure of the moist wood. I pressed it back in
again, watching and counting the seconds.

Ten seconds. I had ten seconds before
it popped out of the stick, to be lost forever in the gaps between
Orion’s floorboards. And not only that, but I had to place it
one-handed while I guided the camera with the other hand. Great.
Fabulous.

I clenched my teeth and slid the camera
back into the tent, then did a trial run with the empty stick.

Yes, it was possible. But by no means
easy.

A sudden cessation of snoring and the
rustle of Orion’s sleeping bag froze my heart in my chest.

Paralyzed, I crouched helplessly
outside Orion’s tent, clutching my sticks and waiting to be
discovered. Running was out of the question. If I made the
slightest sound he’d get up to see what it was. I didn’t even dare
rotate my webcam to see what was happening.

Please, please, don’t let him open his
eyes and see the glow of my laptop outside his tent flap…

Eternity passed.

When the thumping in my ears reached
deafening levels and my vision began to fade, I drew a breath at
last.

Still no sound from inside the
tent.

The cramp returned, twisting my leg
muscles into a screaming knot.

At last the glorious sound of a snore
ended my torment. Stifling whimpers, I carefully withdrew my sticks
before rising to stretch out my leg, massaging the knot and hoping
the sound of my hands rubbing denim wouldn’t wake Orion.

He snored on reassuringly, and I
steeled myself.

One chance.

Don’t screw it up.

I inserted the camera stick again with
shaking hands, laying it on the ground while I pulled the backing
off the tracer’s adhesive. Then I drew a deep breath and exhaled
slowly. Just like shooting in a tournament. Master the
adrenaline…

A couple more breaths slowed my pulse
and steadied my hands.

Inhale. Exhale half-way.

I watched my hands tuck the tracer into
its little notch and insert the stick smoothly into the tent flap.
A quick peek with the camera, a little dip of the stick, and the
tracer dropped into the crease beside the boot’s tongue.

Staring at my monitor, I angled the
camera this way and that, but I couldn’t spot the tracer inside the
boot. Either I’d succeeded in sticking it where I wanted it or it
had fallen all the way into the boot. No way to tell.

At least if it had fallen into the
boot, he likely wouldn’t realize what it was. A small irritating
pebble; a quick shake of his boot before he put it on; and that
would be the end of my tracer. If I was really lucky I might be
able to salvage it from the floor of his tent after he left and try
again.