Hot Intent (Hqn) Page 3

  His father was speaking again. “I hear you have accepted long-term employment with Doctors Unlimited.”

  Alex looked around the park in panic. How in the world did his father know that? He’d only officially been assigned to the aid organization a few days ago, and he’d been in various CIA training facilities and out of sight before that.

  Not that it should surprise him that there were moles inside the CIA. But still. It was alarming to receive incontrovertible proof of it. Was Doctors Unlimited itself penetrated? He’d thought that was what Peter had wanted him to do. Was getting inside D.U. a test, then? Any intel Alex passed on to his father would be vetted against intel from the other mole in the organization?

  It was a neat way to trap him. Alex would have no choice but to pass on real information. Which would constitute treason. Which would make him dead meat if the U.S. government found out. Which meant Alex would have no choice but to throw in his hat with the FSB and accept his father’s protection and patronage.

  Peter must be desperate if he was showing his cards this openly.

  In the millisecond it took all of this to pass through his mind, the sun passed behind a cloud, casting the park in an abruptly dim and shadowed light. “Your intel is correct, Father. I did take a job with Doctors Unlimited.”

  “You will get me that list of employee names and where the organization’s members are posted abroad, yes?”

  He thought fast. Was it worth endangering the lives of dozens of doctors, nurses and translators to throw his old man off the scent? He answered smoothly, “Of course. Because of all my training, I haven’t had an opportunity to get the list. But D.U. is open for business in its repaired offices now. I should be able to get you the list quite easily.”

  Who in D.U. was the mole? To whom did he dare talk about his dilemma? If he gave a false list of staffers and their postings to hot spots around the world—ostensibly to render medical aid and unofficially to observe and gather intelligence—his father would know him for the traitor to Mother Russia that he was. Not that the United States of America trusted him any farther than Uncle Sam could throw him.

  But if he gave away the real list, his colleagues’ lives could be in terrible danger.

  “I shall await the list with great eagerness, Alexei.”

  He’d bet. The damned list potentially represented his first step down the slippery slope to treason. And the bastard couldn’t wait to push him the rest of the way down that hill.

  He disconnected the phone call, careful not to show any physical or facial reaction to the call. Knowing his old man, Peter was watching him on a satellite this very minute for a reaction. Too tense to sit still for long, though, he stood and pushed the pram a lap around the paved path outlining the park. He nodded and smiled at a few mothers with strollers and an elderly man with a pair of hairy little dogs that looked like mops.

  Leisurely, he headed back toward the condo.

  As if they’d been monitoring his phone calls, a new call vibrated his phone on cue, this time his boss, André Fortinay. The man had put his life on the line for him, Katie and Dawn last year, and had supposedly been a big advocate of bringing Alex all the way into the CIA fold, but did he dare trust the man?

  He took the call. “Hello, André. How are you today?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Good. What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Any chance you could come into the office in the next day or two? I’d like to talk over possible postings for you. We have too few doctors and too many crises around the globe where people are desperately in need of medical care.”

  Not to mention he was a trauma surgeon who could handle the sorts of terrible combat wounds that few physicians were trained to treat. The same sorts of wounds he’d spent the past year learning how to inflict.

  “What’s a good time for you, André?”

  “Now, if you’re not busy.”

  “I’ve got the baby with me.”

  “Bring her along.”

  “I can be there in, say, a half hour?”

  “Perfect.”

  Alex flagged down a cab and pulled up in front of the D.U. office—a restored mansion on embassy row—in more like twenty minutes. However, it took him nearly ten minutes to get past a phalanx of cooing secretaries and nurses with Dawn to André’s door. He left the baby and a bottle with the man’s secretary. She was in transports of ecstasy at getting to feed Dawn. He stepped inside Fortinay’s office and threw a harried look at his boss.

  “Now you know why your old man used you as a cover,” André observed dryly. “Nobody can resist a cute baby.”

  Alex scowled and dropped into the chair in front of his boss’s desk.

  “Adapting to parenthood all right?” the man asked.

  “Dawn’s great. Family life is...relaxing.” When he wasn’t quietly flipped out over whether or not any of it was real, that was.

  “So. Let’s talk about what you’ll do and where you’ll go next.”

  “That sounds like a plan. I’m not the type to sit around the house staring at my toes.” While he talked, Alex reached across Fortinay’s desk, picked up a pen and scrawled the words “White noise generator?” on a sticky pad.

  Fortinay nodded and held up a finger. “I hear you. Inactivity makes me lose my mind in short order.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a gadget about the size of an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder and set it on his desk.

  “All right. White noise in place. What’s up, Alex?”

  “My father phoned me this morning.”

  “Did he, now? The man’s not wasting any time calling in the favor he earned by saving your life.”

  “He claimed it wasn’t him who gave the order not to kill me last year.”

  Fortinay leaned back hard in his chair at that. “Is he still sticking with that line?”

  “It didn’t come up today. But as far as I know, he’s standing by the assertion. Not that I’d know with him if it’s true or not. Best liar I’ve ever seen. No tells at all.”

  “Duly noted—never play poker with the man. Or his son, the way I hear it.”

  Alex shrugged. He’d made millions gambling at the tables in Vegas and Atlantic City. High-stakes poker had been one of his more profitable endeavors, in fact. It hadn’t all been about being a good liar, though. His eidetic memory and master’s degree in cryptography had helped.

  “Your training reports are pretty impressive, Alex.”

  “I had a head start on the other kids.”

  “It’s more than that, and you know it. You have a gift for black ops.”

  This wasn’t news to him, but it didn’t mean he had to like being told he was a natural monster.

  “Why did your father call you, then?”

  “He wants me to hand over a list of D.U. staffers and where they’re posted.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Tell me, André. Are you going to be my handler?”

  The man studied him intently, weighing both him and the question. Alex mentally gave the man credit for catching the nuance behind the seemingly straightforward question. Alex was laying out the ground rules for their working relationship going forward. He didn’t want any fake niceties where they all pretended he was a good guy doing honorable deeds for altruistic reasons. They’d turned him into a killer, and that was how he wanted his boss to deal with him.

  “I’ll be handling you for the most part,” André answered blandly.

  Crap. So. They were going to pass him around from department to department within the agency to do their dirty work for them.

  Alex supposed he ought to be grateful for the man’s honesty. In return, he took a deep breath and did a difficult thing. He extended tentative trust to his boss. “Peter indicated that he already has a mole inside Doctors Unlimited. Besides me.”

  André leaned forward hard, staring. “Who?”

  “No idea. But he’ll vet any information I pass him against this other mole’s in
tel.”

  “Sonofabitch.”

  The two men stared at each other in grim silence. Eventually Alex asked, “Have you picked up any new employees recently?”

  “You mean besides you and Katie?”

  “Could it be someone in the wider government umbrella?” Which was a delicate way of asking if D.U.’s handlers at the CIA were infiltrated. Doctors Unlimited, technically a nongovernment aid organization, covertly reported to the CIA what its staff observed overseas.

  “Possibly. I picked everyone for this outfit by hand. It’s my operation.”

  Alex frowned. “Has someone done deep background checks on your staff recently?” He added lightly, “Someone impartial?”

  André swore under his breath. “Who do I pick for the job? What if I pick the mole?”

  Alex understood the man’s dilemma. The hardest thing to do as a spy was to find someone, anyone, to trust. It was a world built upon lies within lies within lies.

  “Will you do it?” André asked abruptly.

  “You have no way of knowing if I’m a mole or not at this point. For all you know, I am working for my father.”

  “You’re a known risk. Everyone else here is now officially an unknown.”

  Alex blinked, startled. André had just put him on notice not to trust anyone else at D.U. “How do you want to handle the list for my father?”

  “Give me a day to review where everyone is placed right now. Based on where our assets are at the moment, we might be able to hand over a snapshot list.”

  Alex nodded. “Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll hack into your system and pull a copy of it.”

  “Our computer security’s pretty tight around here.”

  Alex just smiled gently.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a scary bastard?” André blurted.

  “Once or twice.” His first week in prison at the ripe old age of twenty-four, he’d all but killed three Russian-mob strongmen to make the point to the rest of the inmates that he was not to be messed with. For the remaining four years of his DUI incarceration—and more to the point, avoiding recruitment into the FSB by his father—not another soul had laid a finger on him. His father had been a proponent of shock-and-awe since long before it was an official strategy of war. Yes, indeed. Peter had taught his son well how to instill fear in those around him.

  Except for Katie. None of his tactics had ever worked on her. For some inexplicable reason, she insisted on loving him in spite of all his worst behavior. God, he hoped that never changed.

  It went without saying that his investigation of Doctors Unlimited would be entirely off-book. Which meant he needed to head home to begin his work. He collected Dawn and left, already planning his approach.

  When he opened the condo’s front door, loud, off-key singing emanated from the kitchen. He smiled indulgently. Katie had a lot of wonderful qualities, but perfect pitch was not one of them. “We’re home!” he called out.

  Katie rushed into the living room, most of her shirt dusted in flour. She planted a light kiss on Dawn’s cheek and a rather more carnal one on his mouth. “You’re just in time to taste-test the first edible batch of cookies. C’mon. I need your opinion. More chips or not?”

  “Ahh. So that’s the slightly burned smell coming from my kitchen.”

  “Be nice. Your oven runs hot and I had to figure out how to set the oven on the first pan of cookies.”

  Suppressing a burst of what he would label amusement if he allowed himself to feel such things, he trailed after her as she hurried back to the kitchen, all energy and laughter and golden hair. He took the proffered cookie, which turned out to be as warm and sweet and gooey as its creator.

  “I see what all the fuss is about. That’s tasty,” he admitted.

  “Have you never had a warm chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven before?” she demanded.

  “Never. My father and I didn’t cook.”

  “You poor, deprived man!”

  She stood on tiptoe to plant a chocolate-flavored kiss on his mouth. She smelled of vanilla and joy. What must it have been like to grow up in her family? A blade of jealousy sliced into his heart for an instant. “I have some work to do. If you could take the baby...”

  “Of course.” She scooped Dawn out of his arms. “What kind of work?”

  “The kind I can’t talk about.”

  Her bright blue eyes clouded over, but to her credit, she didn’t pry. He’d explained to her that he was accustomed to secrecy and that she couldn’t expect him to share every aspect of his life with her all the time. But he felt bad as he retreated to his office. What the hell was she doing to him? Since when did he want to spill every detail of his existence with anyone?

  Furthermore, since when did he have feelings toward any other human being? His father had taught him well that feelings were the greatest weakness any spy could fall prey to. God knew, the past year of CIA training had only reinforced that message.

  He’d thought he’d purged all deep feelings from his heart in that CIA training facility. But apparently not. Dammit. He had to find a way to isolate and contain these warm feelings he was having toward Katie.

  Setting aside the problem of Katie McCloud, he locked himself in his office and got to work.

  Mentally shaking his head, he broke into D.U.’s personnel files with a few casual keystrokes. Actually, it wasn’t that easy. He’d worked for months in jail developing and perfecting the decryption algorithm he used today.

  He printed a hard copy of the entire employee roster of Doctors Unlimited and went to work. Financials were the easiest place to spot a turned spy. Mounting debt, illicit spending on a personal vice, an illness in the family—all the symptoms of a spy vulnerable to bribery or coercion—showed up most readily on bank statements. So, that was where he concentrated his search. He figured André would have done a thorough job vetting his people’s distant past and extended families, so he skipped looking at personal histories for now.

  But after an entire afternoon of work and nearly a dozen of Katie’s irresistible cookies, nobody was leaping out at him as a candidate to be his father’s mole. Frowning, he went for a stroll around the terrace garden that had been his father’s pride and joy. He had to admit, Peter had a good eye for texture and color. The contrast of the stark cacti with softer, greener plant material was striking.

  Contrast.

  Maybe he’d been looking for the wrong thing. He’d been looking for a big change in someone’s spending habits. Instead, maybe he ought to be looking for a long-term pattern of expenditures that, in comparison to other D.U. employees, contrasted with the other people’s in the organization.

  He went back to his computer to run a position-by-position spending comparison on D.U.’s staff. But that, too, turned up nothing.

  Katie brought him a salad at some point and he ate it absently. Food had been optional often in the past year and was not something that held his attention anymore.

  It grew dark outside, and he continued to poke and prod at the D.U. staff. But no matter how he examined them, nobody stood out as a mole. Which meant one of two things. Either there was no mole and his father was bluffing, or the mole was very, very good. He strongly suspected the latter was the case.

  He leaned back frowning. If he were infiltrating Doctors Unlimited, how would he go about it? The aid organization placed physicians and nurses around the world in dangerous hot spots where regular aid organizations refused to send their people. The staff of D.U. was dedicated, passionate and a little crazy. Money wouldn’t be high on their personal priority lists. Ideals would be, though.

  He ran a quick search of political affiliations. And that was when he got a hit. Dmitri Churzov. D.U.’s I.T. guy—responsible not only for its in-house computers, but also the all-important interface with the CIA’s computers—had been flagged by the FBI for attending several Communist Party rallies in college. Alex winced. God, it was so cliché. The kid even had a Russian name.

&nbs
p; He frowned. In point of fact, the guy was a little too cliché. His father was emphatically not the type to recruit so obvious a target. Were he Peter, Dmitri would be the one guy he would not recruit to work for the FSB.

  Decisively, Alex crossed Dmitri off his list of suspects. Who, then? The problem with an organization like Doctors Unlimited was that it used its legitimate work to passively collect intelligence on the side. André reported what his people observed. Nothing more. It wasn’t like anyone at D.U. besides André would know about, let alone get involved with, any high-profile, active ops. Why would anybody bother to infiltrate such a low-level group? Especially with a live mole who would be expensive to recruit and compensate, and who would be high maintenance to run?

  André had allowed that the mole could be someone who merely interacted with D.U. at CIA headquarters. Maybe that was where his father’s mole was placed.

  The agency’s computers would be significantly more difficult for Alex to hack than the D.U. system, particularly if he didn’t want to cause all sorts of alarms to go off and a black ops team to show up at his door. But it was by no means impossible.

  Rather than make a direct attack, he instead went after André’s home computer. It took him nearly an hour, but eventually he lifted most of his boss’s passwords from his other accounts. Armed with those, Alex attempted a straight-up log-in to the CIA’s system as if he were André himself.

  Tsk. Tsk. The same password that logged the guy into his daughter’s school grades got Alex into the CIA mainframe.

  He unashamedly browsed his boss’s correspondence with his CIA superiors. If he’d once had any sense of ethics and morals about privacy, they’d been stripped out of him this past year.

  It was mostly desultory reports and the occasional debrief on a concluded overseas mission by one of the D.U. medical teams. Even the intelligence reports were predictable, though. Troop emplacements, supply routes, casualty numbers, the usual stuff. But then a phrase jumped out at him.

  Cold Intent. Major intelligence and military operations were given two-word names, a random adjective/noun combination. Some of them became well-known: Rolling Thunder. Desert Storm.