Читать книгу Smokescreen - Jodie Bailey - Страница 11

TWO

Bullets had been fired. At her.

The seat belt clicked as Ashley shoved it into place, but the sound was a thousand miles away. She hated this sensation, the feeling she was two paces behind, both participating in and watching a movie she couldn’t quite follow. It was the feeling that usually preceded a loss of control nothing could stop.

A few feet from his truck, Ethan and his partner were engaged in a heated, hand-waving discussion. Ethan seemed to be gaining the upper hand, his stance suggesting authority. It was a posture she’d seen more than once, his shoulders back, broad under the black fleece he wore, blue-jeaned legs just far enough apart to keep him from wavering. He’d filled out, grown not broader but definitely more solid, the line of his jaw sharper, more determined. He’d been dangerous enough before, but with this new maturity, he could devastate her if she let him.

With a final string of words Ashley was grateful she couldn’t hear, Mitchum stalked into the darkness, leaving Ethan by himself.

Ethan climbed into his truck and turned the key.

Ashley shouldn’t have agreed to go with him, should have insisted he take her to her car and give her her life back, but the implications of what had happened pressed in. The man at the airport had not only wanted her, he’d wanted to use her to hurt Sean. Ashley was a pawn to him, easily manipulated and eradicated if it furthered his agenda. She tugged her lips between her teeth, then thought better of it when pain pulsed through her skin.

She refused to wince. Somehow being insecure in the face of Ethan’s confidence seemed like the worst possible thing. And blowing up in a full panic attack in front of him? Not an option. Years ago he’d left her because she was weak.

She dug her nails into her thigh and tried to hang on, to keep her body and her mind from bolting out of control. It wasn’t easy with her pulse stuttering and a thin sheen of cold sweat coating her skin.

Even with Ethan’s knowledge of Sean’s first proposal, Ashley didn’t know what to think. She had no idea what Sean was involved in or what Ethan’s plans for her were.

Until Ethan proved his intentions, she wasn’t about to go along without more than a story that needed to stay in the past. “You’re speculating a lot. Maybe the man was trying to help me.” Not likely, since he’d made his threats quite clear, but if that was the case, there was no reason to panic. Maybe—please, Lord—this was all some giant mistake.

Ethan’s face hardened like cut stone, dark eyes steely under blond hair just long enough to have a wave in it. He checked for traffic and accelerated onto the highway. “Stop it. This is not a game.” The leather seat protested as Ethan pushed against it. “You and I both know what he wanted. He threatened you. He was no Good Samaritan.” The look he fired at her was one usually reserved for suspects under arrest. “Fine. Here it is. All of my cards, on the table, so you’ll know this is bigger than all of us.”

In that moment Ashley knew. She knew what she’d always suspected, knew there was more to his disappearance than her inability to cope with life. Her fingers balled. “You went into Intelligence.”

A frown creased Ethan’s cheek and he turned his attention to the road, almost as though it was too painful to look her in the eye. “I did. For a while.”

Yeah, he ought to be afraid to look at her. After serving as an MP, Ashley’s goals had curved toward Intelligence, gathering information on their enemies using her beloved computers. Ethan had been right there beside her, driving toward the same dream.

And Ethan had been there the day the dream blew away on the wind.

“That’s why you took off when I was recovering. When I got in, you were wait-listed.” The realization pounded tension across her forehead. “When I got shot, you took my spot.”

“They offered me the schooling and I took it before I fully realized what was going on. If I hadn’t gone in your place, someone else would have.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Sean filled me in on how you’d been doing. You got out of the army to help companies shore up their network security and infrastructures, using your contacts to hook people up with what they need to function in the twenty-first century.” His smile lost its sadness and grew smug. “Am I right?”

So he thought he knew so much. Oh, how she wanted to wipe the grin off his face. “You’re right, but how is this laying out all of your cards? Sounds more like you’re telling me what I already know. All you’re doing right now is proving you’re a stalker.”

The smile vanished. “Sean is working with me.”

Ashley fought to keep her face impassive, even as her eye twitched. She watched city fade into the darkness of the country through his side window. “Sean’s not with Intelligence.”

“No, but he’s involved in an ongoing operation.” Sinking against the seat, Ethan settled in as though he had a long story to tell. “And, even though you don’t know it, so are you.”

That wasn’t true. Of all people, Sean knew better. And Ethan should, too. “What do you want?” The words rode the edge of a blade, sharp and cold.

“Trust me.”

The simple request tugged at her the way Ethan alone could. But...no. He wanted her trust? After taking on the position she’d earned? After simply vanishing on the very day she’d decided to tell him she needed him in her life? She’d hurt Sean and embarrassed them both because she hadn’t been able to shake her feelings for Ethan, feelings he hadn’t returned.

She’d waited for him for hours, alone in her hospital room, and he’d never shown. Not that night or the next... Not ever again until today. He’d simply disappeared without even a phone call, making no further contact even when a complication from the gunshot had nearly taken her life.

Never. She’d never give him the chance to hurt her again.

Ashley held up one finger, then pinched her cheek between the thumb and index finger of her free hand, eyes welling with unshed tears. She searched Ethan’s profile a long time. The headlights of a passing car illuminated the hard set of his jaw. Hold it together, girl. Ethan might have almost gotten her killed and taken off on her when she’d needed him, but he’d never, ever lied. “Okay. I believe you, but you tell me what you know before I tell you anything. Those cards? Still not on the table.”

“Smart girl. Even if you’re using those smarts against me.”

No way was she going to glow at his praise. No. Way. He didn’t deserve it.

Ethan didn’t wait for her to respond. “Seven months ago, Sean deployed to Afghanistan. Likely it was sooner than anyone expected.”

“He’s been gone so much the past few years, I was pretty shocked the army would send him again when he’d been home less than a year.”

“He asked.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, closed, opened again before she could find her voice. “Why?”

“On his last deployment, Sean got wind of some issues with the Field Ordering Officer, the guy in charge of the money going to contractors to build Forward Operating Bases and the like. He did a little digging and found discrepancies in the paperwork from some of the contractors. A group of locals and two companies in particular. Some of the discrepancies didn’t match between live documents and backup copies. Someone had hacked in and made changes, small ones scattered over a lot of entries. It added up to huge amounts of cash, virtually untraceable. He contacted me because he was unsure if his chain of command was involved.”

Ethan watched her closely from the corner of his eye, gauging what she knew.

Well, he could gauge all he wanted. All of this was news to her. Deeply troubling news in light of Sean’s mysterious messages. “Prove to me you’re helping him and not digging for information, thinking he’s involved with the bad guys.” Ashley knew how investigations worked, and she wouldn’t tip her hand until she was certain Sean wasn’t in danger.

“Nobody’s saying Sean’s in with the bad guys, but you know for us to be good at our jobs we have to keep every possibility in mind.”

“There’s no way.” She shifted slightly in the seat, streetlights playing dark and light across her hands.

“Anything is possible for anybody.” The truck engine hummed louder as Ethan changed lanes to take an exit that would lead them away from Syracuse and deeper into the North Country. Shadows in the cab grew darker as they left the city behind. “Money can turn even the strongest of minds.”

Something about the look on his face didn’t sit right with her. He couldn’t possibly think Sean could be bought. “So you’re telling me even you have a price?” She leaned closer, not quite bridging the gap between them. “How much would it take? Ten thousand? Half a million? At what point would you turn your back on the country you’ve sworn to defend? If everyone has a price, what’s yours?”

Red heat hit his skin as though she’d turned a flamethrower on him. Yeah. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

Her chuckle was low and harsh. “It’s insulting to you. And it would be just as insulting to Sean.” She tugged at the sleeve of her black jacket. “Watch how you toss your words, Kincaid. You run the risk of sounding incredibly arrogant.” In the face of her triumph, the threat of fear vanished. Control. Her very best friend. She held on to it like a life preserver.

“Tell me some small part of you doesn’t think that’s possible.” Ashley opened her mouth to speak, but Ethan carried on. “You’re the one who floated the idea when you didn’t know what I was going to say.”

“You weren’t going there?”

“I never said it wasn’t a theory, but he’s the one who brought the problem to our attention. Unless that’s a bluff to throw suspicion off of him, Sean’s innocent.” He switched gears without pausing. “My team believes what Sean uncovered is a small piece of something worse—an insurgent infiltration of our trusted contractors. That would give them access to bases, soldiers...”

Ashley was silent, watching the lines in the road, stomach churning. All of this was unthinkable but horribly plausible. “That would explain what happened to me just now. A well-connected group could have sleeper cells anywhere, and this attack wasn’t random. He specifically mentioned Sean.” She gasped. That message. Sean wouldn’t. He hadn’t.

“What?” Of course Ethan would pick up on her realization almost as fast as she had.

Ashley kept her mouth shut. If he wanted what she knew, he’d have to ask for it specifically.

Ethan checked the rearview mirror then glanced her way. “I’m guessing you figured it out. Sean sent you intel on a set of thumb drives. He asked you to pick up his mail, but there’s one package he cautioned you to leave in the box.”

Ashley nodded, muscles weakening. Ethan was telling the truth. “Sean’s stationed in Colorado, but he forwards all of his mail to a post-office box to make it easier for me to take care of his affairs. There’s one package he told me not to worry about. It was there the last time I checked the mail—a little over a week ago.” The message. The package. The program they’d developed together during her recovery. Whatever was on those thumb drives, it would require their shared work to decode it.

She needed to get to her apartment. Sean’s life was in danger and their program might be the one thing that could save him. “You have to take me home. Without the software Sean and I developed, those drives are worthless.”

“You tell me where it’s stored and Mitch will retrieve it.”

“Absolutely not.” Her trust in Ethan was thin enough, but there was no way she was going to hand the height of her life’s work over to anyone other than him. The stakes were too high. That program, when fully realized, would fund her future and Sean’s, as well.

“I’m getting you to safety. I’ve got a place where—”

Ashley’s head shook so quickly, strands of hair clung to her eyelashes. She swept them to the side and focused on the moment. If she kept moving, kept planning, she’d forget the entire situation was spiraling. “You have to take me to my apartment.”

“It’s dangerous. Sean said they hacked his computer, read his emails. They knew you were on that flight, which clearly means they’ve studied you enough to know where you live.”

“Clearly I have to go home. The program we developed... I didn’t store it on my hard drive.” The very same laptop the man at the airport had taken when he’d grabbed her bag. “It’s not stored in the cloud. Encryption software like we developed is valuable, an easy target if word gets out that it exists before we’re ready to shop it around. There are only two copies. The first one’s hidden in my apartment and the other is in a safe-deposit box, but the keys to that are at my place, too.

“Sean’s smart, and I’ll guarantee you he rewrote the encryption process on his computer overseas without creating a way to decrypt it on the same machine.” Not to mention, they needed to find the key for decrypting what he’d sent, but that was a discussion they could have after Ethan drove her to her apartment. “If somebody’s onto Sean and that package in his mailbox holds encrypted data, then you have nothing without what’s stored at my place.”

Ethan reached for his phone, stopped and banged his fist against the steering wheel. “This is where I wish I had more backup.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just me and Mitchum. I’ve got contact with my chain of command, but it’s limited to nonclassified communications and emergencies until we’re ready to move in. Believe it or not, this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, and me contacting them with where you are could land us in deeper danger.”

“Why just the two of you?” She’d assumed there was abundant help. If this was about to become a three-person team made up of Ethan, his pal Mitchum and her...

“Sean’s involved because we sent one man in already and he...was unsuccessful. Everything points to someone working on the inside. We don’t know how high this goes or who is helping who, so after what happened with our first guy overseas, my team has been whittled down to Mitchum and me with Sean assisting, keeping our information close until we can build this case.

“What we’re looking at is a well-funded group with some serious hacking ability. They’ve been able to manipulate secure computers. They’ve deleted files we were using to build evidence against them, accessed encrypted emails and planted some pretty nasty viruses on our secure servers, all while staying one step ahead of us. We’ve gone dark. Sean got involved because we knew we could trust him to be our boots on the ground as an established infantryman who already knew what was going on. He asked me if he could forward those drives to you for safekeeping if anything happened. I had reservations, but...” He flicked a glance her way and back to the road. “Neither of us ever thought something would happen to blow his cover and land you in danger on top of it.”

“What’s on those drives?”

“All of our evidence against them. They’ll want those drives to destroy them, Sean to find out what we know and what we’re planning, and you because they have no idea how deeply you’re involved.”

“So they’re after me not only to get to Sean, but because they think I have his intel.” Ashley’s fingernails dug into her palms. Danger. The last place she ever wanted to be again. That was why she loved her computers. They were safe. Nobody ever found a gun aimed at them because they built a tougher firewall. “We have to get the software.”

“You’re right. But you’re in danger as long as these guys are out there.” He eased over to the side of the road to turn around as his phone beeped. He pulled the device from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then gripped it tighter.

“What?” Ashley’s voice strained as she leaned closer, fingers trembling at the hardness in his eyes.

“It’s Sean.” His voice was matter-of-fact, but the expression on his face chilled the air in the cab. “Shortly after Sean contacted you, there was a breach on his FOB by insurgents posing as Afghan police.”

Ashley’s chest jolted with pain, the adrenaline aching in her veins. “And...?”

A muscle twitched in Ethan’s cheek. “They took Sean.”