Wild Encounter (19 page)

Witness Status - Delaney [upgraded]
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His whole body sagged as he scanned the message. His chief wanted more than just a written statement from Clare, they now wanted an in-person interrogation. At Vauxhall.

Which meant not only confronting her about the evidence they had, but persuading her to come back to London with him to be interviewed. Escorted back like a criminal. It meant they were on opposite sides again, and his conflict of interest had just gone from inadvisable to insupportable.

He had to treat her like she was any one of her WildLyfe colleagues. Like she was nothing to him. Bringing her in was orders.

Across camp, Clare worked with Mitch to prepare one of the sedated wild dogs for its medical exam. She’d stripped off her grimy hooded sweatshirt down to the spaghetti-strapped tank beneath it. He watched from the cover of his dark glasses as she bent toward him to pick up one corner of the Hessian blanket, and then straightened to gently move the dog to where the main activities of the day would begin.

He knew how she’d felt about being falsely accused back in college. Dragging her back to London for interrogation would humiliate her. And it would kill any chance of them being together. Ever.

Yet it was his job. And if he didn’t do it, Mac would.

And Clare would hate that even more.

He marched to the women’s tent and pushed Mac back through the flap just as she was emerging.

“This is necessary, Simon. It’s procedure.” Her calm was infuriating. He wanted to smash something.

“It’s bollocks. I can interview her here.” Here, where she wouldn’t feel like a criminal, trussed up and dragged to London.

“You slept with her, Simon.”

“And I declared it. They sent me anyway.”

“They sent you on the understanding that it was old history. And on the understanding that you would do your job.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“But it’s not old history,” she placed both fists on her hips and whispered. “Is it?”

His stomach lurched on the realization. “You reported me.”

It wasn’t a question. But the words clearly pained her. He wondered if it hurt as much as discovering your best friend turned you in.

“I did my job,” she asserted. “And it’s not all that controversial. You just need to ask her to come in to Vauxhall.”

He slammed his phone against the tent pole and McKenzie flinched.

“Do you trust me, Mac?”

Her eyes dropped. “Simon…”

“
Really
? We’ve been partners for eight years. My good judgment has saved your life in the past, but it’s not good enough now?”

“Your judgment isn’t usually so…” She struggled for the right word. “Compromised.”

He looked at her, incredulous.

“You’re in love with her, Simon.” Her lip practically curled on the word even in whisper. “She’s not just some random woman you slept with.”

He paced his fury in the small open space at the center of the women’s tent. That was not a statement he was prepared to even acknowledge.

“My being part of her kidnapping was a big enough hurdle for her to get past,” he said, appealing to Mac the woman. Mac the friend. “You think she’s going to want anything more to do with me if I bring her in to be grilled about something she’s tried desperately to forget?”

“This can’t be about that.” About
you
, she meant. “And it’s just for questioning.”

“Are you completely heartless, Mac?”

She actually blanched at that. Her lips thinned. “I recognize that you’re upset. But we have a job to do. If you can’t—”

“So I’m a coward as well as a betrayer? No thanks.” He ran his hand violently through his hair. “I’ll do it.”

Of all the things to be accused of… And of all the men to be doing the accusing. And there was no question she’d take it that way.

“This will hurt her, Mac.”

Long, strong fingers curled around his forearm.

“We do a lot of tough things, deVries. This is just one of them.”

Yeah right.
This wasn’t life-changing at all.

Chapter Fourteen

The blistering sun was high in the sky by the time Clare had assessed eleven of the adult dogs, fitted their new collars and given both pups a quick once-over. Closer to the transporter, six people worked in a production line, drenching the unconscious dogs in anti-parasite wash and delivering them to the main area where she conducted complete physical checks, aided by Tim. They only got one opportunity with these dogs, usually, so they pumped them full of preventative while they could. Antibiotics, vitamins, parasite medications.

Clare finally worked her way around to Jambi, her hands and clothes filthy. She took up a tech driver and began to loosen the screws holding his old red collar around his neck.

“Wait.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up in response to Simon’s bark. Still the Alpha, even with her team.

Clare smiled and kept working, removing the tech screws on the thick red tracking collar locked around Jambi’s freshly-drenched throat. Simon came right up behind her as she squatted next to the unconscious dog, her body reacting instantly to his closeness. She did her best to ignore the warm sensations. She worked on the final screw and the collar dropped free.

“I’ll need to take that. It’s evidence,” he murmured, calm and contained. Not leaching the same kind of frustrated attraction as she was.

Ever the professional.

She straightened, turned. All she wanted to do in the world was run her hands up that military chest and loop her hands behind his neck. Kiss him senseless. Audience be damned.

But she couldn’t.

They couldn’t.

And something about the cautious nothing in his eyes told her it would be foolish to try.

“It already has my fingerprints on it.” Hers and a dozen others. Though they probably had computer programs to isolate the bad guy prints from the good guy prints.

He shook his head. “I’m not interested in fingerprints.”

His words got her attention as much as his cool tone. She frowned. Then what evidence had he come for? Over at the examination table she studied the collar closely while Tim and Luka weighed the big male. Simon supervised closely as she ran her fingers over the battered leather. It was fairly worn after two-and-a-half-years, but it was structurally intact. The transmitter was likely untouched inside the metal casing on the back of the collar.

Suddenly, Simon was right behind her again, looking over her shoulder, his words measured, but his breath hot and present.

“What are these for?” He ran his forefinger over the series of raised metal studs on the leather of the collar where it would cover the dog’s throat. His arm brushed hers. “Identification?”

Her skin thrilled at his closeness. She wanted to keep her arm pressed up against his. To feel his skin on hers. But Agent Amazon wasn’t far away, watching them with way too much interest. Clare tamped down her body’s reaction, made herself ignore the heat he generated within her. To take his cue and play it cool.

She touched the collar instead. “Anti-garroting. Poachers use snares that tighten as the dog struggles. The collar studs help reinforce the dog’s windpipe and spine. Save its life.”

Simon shook his head and said. “Do you think they know? On any level at all?”

Clare looked sideways at him. His gaze was intense and full of meaning. If only she had a clue what he was talking about. Her expression must have betrayed her uncertainty.

“That we’re trying to help them,” he explained. “Despite all evidence to the contrary. Do you think they’d trust us enough to believe in us? That we have their best interests at heart? That we’d never hurt them?”

“Trust is an anthropomorphic concept,” she said carefully. “They believe in their experiences, nothing else. Once burned, forever shy.”

His eyes flattened. She pushed the dirty red collar into his hands and gave him a challenging look. “I don’t suppose your government’s planning on replacing that? They’re one thousand dollars each.”

His smile had never been so empty. “I don’t like your chances. British Intelligence doesn’t pay for anything, on principle.”

“Never mind.” She started to walk away, puzzled. He was acting strange. Like old Simon. Veiled and cryptic. “We have new ones.”

“Don’t you want to see what’s in it?” he called after her.

She stopped in her tracks. Turned back. “I know what’s in it.”

His eyes narrowed. “Really?”

“I’ve seen inside the collars before.”

“Not like this, you haven’t.”

What was with his sudden too-cool-for-school act? It reminded her of undercover Simon. She didn’t like it. He pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and slipped them on with practiced ease. McKenzie stepped up closer behind him.

He took up a tiny screwdriver from the table and released the back plate of the collar, where she knew the tracking mechanism sat. Levering a tiny chip out of its housing with his field knife, Simon held it up to her, between latex forefinger and thumb, watching her face closely.

“Okay. Our tracking device. So what…?” she said.

“If this is your tracking device. What’s
this
one for?” He pointed to a second chip, identical, still inside the collar. McKenzie photographed the chip in his hand.

With a frown, Clare stepped in closer to see what he was referring to. His eyes followed her every move. “What on earth…?”

She’d inspected and tested every last one of the tracker chips personally before the first convoy had set off six months ago—as was her habit. Africa was a long way from the U.S. to pop home for a spare if one didn’t work. And how could a second chip even have fit inside? She reached for the collar to examine the compact housing up close.

Simon stepped in closer and said, simply, “Don’t touch.”

She peered into the opening, her fingers tucked behind her back, and her breath caught. “My God. There’s a second slot! Hidden below the first.”

His keen eyes studied her, as did his partner’s. Neither looked surprised at his find.

“The chips are stacked.” She furrowed her brows. “What is this?”

“Unlike your transmitter chip, this one’s a miniature storage device. This chip contains vital encrypted data stolen from some of the biggest banks in the world.”

What?
Clare’s head spun as she did the mental math. “But… That’s… Why is it in one of our collars?”

“Not just one collar. There were seven sets of information stashed on fourteen chips, all built exactly the same.” Simon told her as McKenzie made notes on the adhesive peel of a large clear bag.

“Fourteen…” It hit her like a punch to the heart. “Fourteen collars. On fourteen dogs…”

He nodded, still studying her like she was about to tell him the winning numbers to tomorrow’s million dollar lottery. “That’s right. What can you tell me about that?”

She stared at him, mouth agape. Of all the possible reasons for those bad guys to hijack that transport truck—to hijack her—this was not one she ever could have imagined. “Documents? You were smuggling
documents
? I went through a week of pure hell for freaking
paperwork
?”

“They.”

“Pardon me?”

“
They
were smuggling, Clare, not me. I’m a good guy, remember?”

She sagged back against the table, shaking. He didn’t
feel
all that good right at this moment. “When you released the dogs I thought you must have been smuggling conflict diamonds or something?” she stammered. “You just wanted the collars?”

“They.”

She waved an impatient hand. “Whatever.”

“The encrypted data required all seven chips to even begin reassembling the documents. Each dataset was copied onto two chips, figuring at least one of them would get through. Built in redundancy. A chip for each dog.”

She snapped her open mouth closed. “Clever.”

Simon fitted the cover back on the housing, tightened it and laid it back on the examination table. McKenzie photographed that, too. “That’s why they could afford to leave this one on the big dog,” he said. “They already had its double.”

Clare cringed to think about what Zimbabwe and the others might have done to a snarling Jambi to get this last collar if there hadn’t been a duplicate.

Fourteen of the data chips would have fit in the palm of one hand. “They could have walked them across the Zimbabwean border sewn into a hem. Put them in a water bottle and floated them down the Zambezi, for crying out loud. Why the dogs?”

His eyes darkened. “It was never about the Zimbabwean border, Clare. Our intel suggests the collars were supposed to be retrieved in London before you brought them to Africa two-and-a-half years ago.”

That’s how long these old collars had been on the pack. She’d fixed each one on, herself.

His eyes on her were like lasers. “The chips were smuggled in the collars in order to clear one of the most stringent customs processes in the world…. Britain’s.”

“British customs?” His words whooshed around her brain before draining, along with all her blood, from her face. “Are you saying the chips were in the collars before they left the U.S.?” But that meant…

Her heart began to hammer.

No!

“These collars are so uncommon,” Simon rushed on, “most border security wouldn’t recognize the presence of an additional chip on an x-ray or even a physical search. You didn’t notice, and you know them inside and out. Plus they come with additional quarantine security given their purpose and final destination. That made them the perfect screen.” He stepped back as McKenzie bagged the collar in the large pouch marked
evidence
. He dropped the loose chip in a smaller one, sealed it and wrote on the front of that himself, then palmed it briefly before tucking it into his inside pocket.

No, no, no…

“But, they could just as easily have been in a digital camera or a thumb drive,” she pointed out.

He peeled off the gloves. “Too easy to intercept. It wasn’t just SIS working to secure the data. Terrorists and other criminal organizations would love to get their hands on those records. Not to mention the Governments of the other affected countries. We’re talking about access to billions of dollars. The ability to trigger domino collapse in several major western economies.”

The implication churned in her stomach.

“Can you tell me why they didn’t get the collars in London?” he asked.

In her periphery, McKenzie put pen to notepad. Clare turned her confusion to Simon and thought back two and a half years. The volcanic ash plume that shut down half of Europe’s airports. “My flight got re-routed to Spain. I ended up flying straight on to Jo’burg from there.”

She’d only been heading for London at Artie’s insistence, for some pre-project public relations. The re-route just wasn’t that big a deal.

“And whoever they had on the payroll at Heathrow was useless to them with you and the collars in the air over the Mediterranean.” He spoke to her, though his eyes flicked to his partner. She scribbled something down. “There’s no way they would have been able to mobilize a team in Africa before you fitted the collars to the dogs and released them. Someone somewhere decided the data was safer on the necks of a pack of wild dogs than somewhere their rivals would possibly access it.”

Rivals?
Her mind boggled at the enormity of what she was hearing. There’d been multiple bad-guys after her dogs? Suddenly, that hijacking and week of captivity didn’t seem so bad. It was a wonder she and the dogs had survived at all.

“But two years…?” That’s how long it took WildLyfe to negotiate the translocation and release with the African authorities even with Artie pushing them to move faster. And pushing.

“Major crime is patient. There was no way they were going to be able to locate the pack and recover the chips without the help of the people who put them out there in the first place. A very small environmental outfit for which data security, actually any meaningful security at all—” he grimaced “—was not a major consideration.”

WildLyfe.

I’m here investigating the case…

Her stomach turned. She pushed away from the table, icy suspicion taking hold. “Our help? What exactly are you trying to say?”

He handed McKenzie the large evidence bag and looked at Clare. Hard. “Someone in your organization is involved.”

Her eyes flicked urgently around the clearing at her team members. Their faces registered a chaotic mix of emotions—mainly anger and outrage. Mitch looked ready to kill Simon. Tim’s frown folded down low over his eyes. Even Musai had gone very still.

“No. You’re wrong,” she insisted. There was absolutely no way. Here, she was their leader. If she didn’t speak up for them who would?

“I wish we were, Clare. It’s a simple process of elimination. Someone from WildLyfe is behind this, and my job is to find that person.”

So his job wasn’t to keep them safe. Or keep her alive. Or to love her until she was old and gray. It was to investigate them all.