No One Lives Twice (A Lexi Carmichael Mystery) (37 page)

“His name is Slash,” I said. “Slash, meet Basia.”

“Slash?” she repeated. “Is that your real name?”

Smoothly sidestepping the question, Slash reached out and took her hand in his. “Basia Kowalski,” he said in his deep sexy voice. “We meet at last. You’re as enchanting as I expected. The pleasure is all mine.”

He pressed his lips to her hand and I heard Basia inhale a sharp breath. When Slash looked away, she raised an eyebrow and fanned herself.

Elvis stepped forward and thrust out his hand. “You saved my life, dude,” he said to Slash. “I owe you.”

Slash shook his head. “Actually, it is in the reverse. It is I who am indebted and I’m not a man who forgets his debts. You and your brother are not only brilliant but courageous, as well. We wouldn’t have been able to break into Acheron without you. I sincerely hope that we shall have many more opportunities to work together.”

Just then a medic walked up to Elvis. “I’d like to look at your leg, sir,” he said, leading Elvis to a nearby bench as Agent Russo returned.

“All right, we’ll deal,” he said and tossed a cell phone to Basia. “But first call Miss Taszynski and confirm she’ll agree to the plan.”

Basia smiled sweetly. “Thanks, but I’ll get the message to her in my own way and
after
I have the deal in writing, recorded
and
double-checked by my lawyer.”

“Nice touch,” I said admiringly.

Russo actually looked worried. “Well, there are some additional details we’ll need to hammer out,” he started and the two of them began talking. Basia could take it from here, and I really needed to sit down, so I walked a few steps to a bench and collapsed.

Slash joined me, moving a long knife out of his way so he could sit comfortably. He didn’t speak to me, just sat there looking sexy, dangerous and oddly amused.

“So, just who are you anyway?” I finally asked. “You do a hell of a lot of dangerous stuff for a computer hacker slash national treasure.”

“Actually, I am starting to think that perhaps you wish to usurp my position,” he said with a hint of a smile. “You pretty much single-handedly plotted an operation that eliminated two of the world’s most dangerous terrorists and shut down a human reproductive cloning site.”

“I had a lot of help, you know. And nice try at avoiding my question. Who are you, really? You don’t look or act like any computer hacker I’ve ever known.”

He chuckled. “Consider me a man of the new millennium.”

“Nice image. When did you figure out what I was trying to do?”

“When you tipped off Bouker. We were watching him and knew the only way he would have figured out you were headed for Sweden was that he’d gotten a tip from the inside. But
we
knew you were headed for Sweden long before you disappeared. You knew that, though, didn’t you,
cara?
You planned a gathering of all the interested parties—quite an intriguing idea. We had to scramble to change our operational plans once we finally figured out what you had in mind.”

“Yes,” I said simply. “I knew you’d come and bring the posse. The twins and I also guessed you’d probably use me as bait for luring Al-Naddi to the gathering.”

Slash shook his head in disbelief. “It was a bold move for a woman like you—untrained and untested. You took us by surprise in many ways,
cara.
We never thought you’d purposely lose your FBI tail and run. We also hadn’t counted on Harry Jorrell following you and nearly kidnapping you out from under our noses. Luckily Shaughnessy was on assignment tailing Jorrell and managed to salvage what could have been an operational catastrophe.”

I felt my insides tighten at the mention of Finn’s name. His deception still hurt like a fresh wound and I didn’t have the strength to face it now.

“So Jorrell didn’t work for you,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“No, he worked for CGM just like Shaughnessy told you. They wanted to find Judyta as much as we did. And you were their only lead, as well.”

“Did you know it was Jorrell who tried to kill me in front of the disco club?”

Slash nodded. “We figured. Better dead than leading us to Judyta.”

I sighed. “Great. I supposed it helped that Finn conveniently kept you informed as to my whereabouts until I put him out of play at the hotel. What were his orders?”

“He was to watch your back. Protect you from exactly what just happened.” Slash touched my shoulder gently. “That was my job until you bolted. I’m glad you were not hurt worse,
cara.
Shaughnessy was foolish to let his guard down. You should have trusted me. Unlike him, I would have never allowed anyone to harm you.”

“Um, speaking of Finn, he’s back at the hotel in a sort of compromising situation.”

“Not anymore. Might I say, the handcuffs were a naughty touch.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “I presume that means he got loose.”

“As soon as you lost your surveillance teams here, we sent someone to the hotel to check on Shaughnessy. That’s when we found him handcuffed to the bed, red-faced and quite angry with you.”

I felt a savage bit of satisfaction. “Did the NSA recruit him to contact me?”

Slash shook his head. “He’d been recruited by MI-6 long before you came on to the scene. In fact, we had no idea MI-6 had any interest in the cloning operation until Shaughnessy contacted you and we started digging. MI-6 had to reveal his cover to us. Your introduction to Shaughnessy actually brought our two agencies together.”

“So I was the unwitting bridge between MI-6 and the NSA?”

“Don’t be angry,
cara.
We couldn’t fill you in on everything and have you play the part so convincingly.”

Bitter resentment rose in my throat. “What part? Oh, you mean the unsuspecting, expendable, bait part?”

His tone softened. “It wasn’t like that. I was there to protect and guide you. Besides I never thought you’d strike out on your own, nor be so surprisingly good at it.”

A nice thought, but they’d still used me and it seriously ticked me off. “Did you know about the DNA switch before we broke into the Acheron file?”

“No. We still hadn’t figured out the connection between the hit on the bodyguards and the cloning operation. I told you the truth. More importantly, I couldn’t break the encryption on the Acheron file quickly enough. Then, as if it were a gift from heaven, I received the invitation from the twins.”

I looked over at Elvis. “Elvis could have been killed,” I said, my heart aching. “Because of me.”

Slash shook his head. “No. That responsibility would have been mine. I never expected him to follow you here.”

“Me, neither.”

“You seem to inspire an impassioned devotion in those whom you meet,” he murmured. “Myself included.”

“So that’s why you decided to lie, deceive and kiss the hell out of me.” It was like a knife to the heart, and I didn’t want to believe it. His kiss had been so full of passion and heat, I’d been sure it had meant something to him. I shook my head. “Thanks, but that’s not the kind of devotion I want.”

“That kiss has nothing to do with this,” he growled.

“It had
everything
to do with this. From this moment on, I don’t ever,
ever
want you to mention that incident again.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but I held up a hand. “Never,” I insisted.

He sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I know you are angry with me now,
cara,
” he said. “But I am a determined man. I
will
find a way to make it up to you.”

Gently he took my good hand and lifted it to his lips. The warmth of his mouth against my skin made me jolt and I quickly snatched my hand away.

“You saved Elvis’s life,” I replied. “That’s enough for me. Let’s just call it even.”

Slash shook his head. “As I told Elvis before you, I am a man who honors his debts. We’re not finished yet,
cara,
and we both know it.”

I didn’t have the strength to argue, so I just sat back on the bench and watched the scene around me. Medics, soldiers, Swedish policemen and others walked about, talking on cell phones, taking photographs, and moving bodies into black bags and carting them away. It seemed surreal to be watching it all unfold in front of me.

“Jeez, people cloning terrorists,” I said wearily. “What has the world come to?”

“I’m sorry,
cara.
Some days this business can be more than just unpleasant.”

Still hurt by his and Finn’s deception, I didn’t answer and instead looked over at Basia and Agent Russo who were arguing fiercely. I had no doubt Basia would come out ahead, national security notwithstanding. She was smart and when her protective instincts kicked in, she was indomitable. I shifted and a hot pain sliced into my ribs. My wrist throbbed, my nose hurt like hell and the adrenaline of the past hour had started to fade, making my injuries all the more painful.

Just then a young man knelt in front of me and identified himself as a medic. “Are you injured, ma’am?” he asked.

His calling me “ma’am” was enough to make me experience severe emotional distress, but I just sighed. “My wrist, my nose and possibly my ribs.”

“If you’ll come with me, I’ll take a look at them.”

Slash helped me to my feet. He put an arm lightly around my shoulder and said, “You’ve proven yourself a valuable asset. Would you believe me if I told you that you could probably name your heart’s desire? A promotion in the NSA’s InfoSec Department? A move to covert operations?”

I turned to look at him. “Seriously? Whatever I want?”

“Name your heart’s desire.”

“What I really want is for Agent Russo to hold up his end of the bargain with Judyta. No funny stuff. Can you promise me he’ll do that?”

Slash smiled. “Right now,
cara,
I’d promise you the world. I will personally oversee the bargain. You have my word on it. Trust me?”

He leaned over to kiss me, but I turned my head and his lips brushed my hair instead. He sighed and I turned my face toward his. I hadn’t expected him to look so sad. Sighing, I reached up and touched his cheek. “For once, Slash, I think I actually do.”

The good old American sun streamed through my window as I woke. It was nice to be home again in safe, boring Jessup, Maryland and not have to worry about things like thugs, psychos and terrorists singling me out for target practice.

I got out of bed, showered and dressed in jean shorts, a white blouse and sandals. I rewrapped the soft new bandage around my sprained wrist like the doctor had shown me, glad to see the swelling had subsided. My nose was broken, though, and I had two shiners and a strip of white tape across the purple bridge to show for it.

Although I’d been back in the States for just under a week, I slept most of the time, with small waking periods to surf the net, eat and watch the news on television. I also visited several times with my frantic parents, my brothers, the twins and Jan. This morning I planned to take a trip to the mall and pick up a few thank-you presents for Jan, Jamie and the twins. Friends don’t forget about friends. Especially those who come through in desperate times of need.

The sudden absence of sexy and daring men in my life was a bigger letdown than I’d expected. Now that all the danger and life-threatening moments were over I was back to being plain, old, ordinary me. The excitement I’d experienced during the past week seemed to have been little more than a temporary fantasy, heightened by the ever-present threat of death. Perhaps without the drama and danger clouding their vision, I wasn’t that appealing to men.

At least I still had my job at the NSA. Despite what I considered a near-disastrous debacle in Stockholm, Slash had been right about the higher-ups considering my actions favorably. Director Thompson of the NSA had personally sent a flower arrangement to congratulate me. My boss had called three times and left messages telling me to take as much time off as I needed. Even more bizarre, I’d been told that the president would call me today at three-thirty sharp. I had inquired just which president we were talking about, but his secretary apparently thought I was joking and got a good laugh out of it.

I knew full well it was a tactic to smooth over the fact that the NSA, FBI, CIA and assorted other agencies had somewhat bungled the job and they wanted to ensure my everlasting goodwill and cooperation in regards to the operation.

Whatever.

There was no getting around the fact that my life had been changed irrevocably. What had once been a stable, boring and mathematically predictable existence had been altered forever. It scared the beejeebies out of me because I’d had a taste of exotic field work and now it was in my blood. What would that mean to my future?

During my debrief on the plane back to the States, I was told that my involvement in Operation Rebirth, and that of the NSA, MI-6 and other assorted U.S. government agencies, was to be considered top secret. No details of the operation were to be released to the media. The NSA Office of Public Affairs would handle any related inquiries.

Basically it was a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, which meant I had to keep my mouth shut around my journalist brother. On the up side, it wasn’t national news so I didn’t have to contend with television crews camped out in front of my apartment or media requests for interviews.

The press still had a field day exposing CGM and Bright Horizons for the cloning debacle. My big brother was at the forefront. His front-page article for the
Richmond Gazette
broke the story and it had been picked up by all the national and international media outlets. Although I’d been sworn to secrecy on the terrorist connection and would never be able to fill Rock in on that particular angle, I figured the cloning scandal alone would win him a slew of prestigious prizes and perhaps that coveted job at
The Washington Post
.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t see a thing in the paper, in the news or on the internet about the terrorist shoot-out on Djurgarden Island and I wondered how the FBI and Homeland Security would eventually handle announcing the deaths of the terrorist leaders Samir Al-Naddi and Alessia D’Agostino to the world.

I strolled into the kitchen and ate a banana for breakfast before downing some ibuprofen and heading out to my car. I stopped cold when I saw Finn Shaughnessy in the parking lot, sitting in a black Corvette convertible and drinking coffee from a Dunkin’ Donuts cup. He was dressed in a baby-blue T-shirt stretched tight against his chest, jeans and dark shades. My mouth started to salivate and I wasn’t sure if it was because of Finn, the donuts or the coffee.

“Glad to see you got free of the handcuffs,” I said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.

He tipped his cup to me in a salute. “It wasn’t easy. In fact, if you must know, it was bloody humiliating. I let my guard down around you and it was a mistake.”

“A mistake you won’t ever have to worry about making again.” I eyed the Corvette. “New car?”

“It’s a rental until I can retrieve mine from the airport in Toronto.”

“Oh, and don’t forget to retrieve the guns from the locker in Buffalo,” I reminded him. “I’d imagine MI-6 doesn’t look too fondly on agents who lose their weapons.”

Finn sighed and then leaned over and opened the passenger side door. “Contrary to popular belief, not everything I said to you was a lie. Get in, Lexi. I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” I said tightly.

“Please, I want to talk to you and you haven’t been taking my calls.”

“Why should I? The operation is over. We’ve been debriefed and are now free to go our separate ways.”

He reached into the car and held up another cup of coffee and a chocolate-covered donut with sprinkles. “I bought it for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. Do you really think you can coerce me with a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut?”

“How about two donuts?” he said, holding up another one.

I eyed the donuts and then the coffee and hated myself because I felt my resolve vanish in a swirl of chocolate glaze.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to listen,” I said, climbing into the car and sitting down. Finn handed me a napkin and one of the donuts.

“I like the new look.” He gestured toward my two shiners.

I bit into the donut. “At least I don’t need to wear mascara to make my eyes pop. Now you’ve got my full attention, so say whatever you want to say and make it snappy.”

He let out a breath. “All right. You were right to trust your instincts about me. I wasn’t telling you the entire story about my involvement in the case. But it’s not as sinister as you think.”

“I’m thinking pretty sinister.”

He sighed. “I was already working at CGM when MI-6 recruited me through my father. As you may have guessed, he’s rather well connected. MI-6 had become suspicious of a double hit in Genoa several months earlier and believed it was somehow connected to Al-Naddi’s terrorist group. He had a pretty active cell in Italy and MI-6 didn’t like the look of the murders. But what in the hell was the group doing killing the bodyguards of a member of the Saudi royal family? MI-6 started sniffing around and found out Al-Asan was in Italy to visit the Bright Horizons clinic. When they started investigating Bright Horizons they became suspicious of how the company managed to so quickly pull itself out of imminent bankruptcy.”

“And you figured in how?”

“MI-6 smelled something rotten and wanted someone on the inside to check it out for them. When they told me CGM was possibly involved in reproductive human cloning, I was pretty damn shocked.”

I took a sip of my coffee and closed my eyes. It was heaven in a cup. “Pretty brazen of MI-6 to just spill the beans like that,” I said. “What if you were in on the whole thing?”

Finn shrugged. “They took a risk, yes. But it paid off for them. I wasn’t involved.”

“I see. So just like that, you graciously agreed to spy on CGM.”

“Hell, no!” Finn exploded. “Do you think I even believed it at first? I was offended, dazed. Human cloning at the company where I worked? It was bloody unthinkable. I had no reason to suspect it was true, and besides, it’s not like I implicitly trust what MI-6 says. I am Irish after all.”

“But you didn’t tell your bosses at CGM of MI-6’s suspicions.”

“Not right away. I decided to poke around, just for my own peace of mind. My colleague Harold Small had been acting strangely, so I befriended him to see if he’d tell me anything of interest. He never did reveal anything, but in the end, he left me the smoking gun in his safety deposit box.”

“The contract. So why didn’t you run with it to MI-6?”

“Because I couldn’t read it. It could have been harmless and I would have looked like a bloody idiot. I needed it translated. I ended up being in hot water for not taking it to agency translators to start with, but I wasn’t a trained agent, so what could they do?”

“You gave the contract to Basia.”

“Yes. She’d done translation work for the firm before, so it seemed a natural choice. But a few days later when she disappeared along with the contract, I knew something was very wrong.”

“That’s when I entered the picture.”

“Yes. I was desperate to find her. I hoped at the very least you could give me a lead on her whereabouts.”

I took another sip of coffee and stared out the front windshield. Mrs. Wolansky was walking her dog like she did every morning precisely at nine o’clock. She saw me sitting in the convertible and waved cheerfully. I waved back, but not so cheerfully. In a way, a part of me mourned for the days when I’d lived my life in blissful ignorance of stomach-churning realities like human cloning, terrorist shoot-outs and people using me for their own gain.

“So, when did you tell MI-6 about Basia and the missing contract?”

“After you gave me the CD. I passed it on to MI-6 to make sure what was on it. They analyzed it and realized at once it was the work of the NSA. MI-6 immediately contacted the agency and was told an operation was already in progress.”

“Gee, why am I always the last to know these things?”

“Well, they figured the NSA was working you blind. In a way, I was working blind, too. I had very little information to go on. After all, I wasn’t a real agent, just a recruited one. I didn’t know how Al-Naddi’s group figured and I certainly had no idea that young women were being murdered.”

“They let us muddle along together.”

“Yes, and in a way, we played right into their hands. They needed you to get the cooperation of the Zimmerman twins to come up with a bloody brilliant hack to get into CGM’s files, and me on the inside to plant it.”

It still hurt to hear that, especially because I had not only allowed myself to be used, but the twins, too. “And once that was accomplished, they decided it would be helpful to use me as terrorist bait.”

Finn ran his fingers through his hair. “It looks that way now, doesn’t it? Truthfully, they’re just bloody happy that they got what they wanted, which was to shut down the cloning operation and nab Al-Naddi and his lieutenant. Then, as an added bonus, we also came out of this alive somehow. Hurrah for the home team and all that.”

“If this was such a delicate matter, why did they let you handle me?” I asked. “Why didn’t they pass me off to a more experienced agent? Or did you tell them you’re good at handling women?” I hadn’t intended to say that, but I had, and now it lay between us.

He literally winced. “Ouch. I guess I deserved that. By no means was I their first choice, Lexi. But events were moving quickly and they thought I could manage you because we seemed to be in this together. We
were
in it together. But just in case, the Americans said they had another man on the inside to guide you. You never mentioned anyone else, though, unless it was one of the Zimmerman twins.”

“It wasn’t,” I said glumly. It was Slash. They’d surrounded me, an ordinary, predictable, not-so-pretty math major, with handsome, dashing men, hoping I’d fall for at least one of them and spill my guts. In fact, I’d fallen for both of them, and in the end neither had been trustworthy. I guess it was a lesson well learned.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. “You saved me from Harry Jorrell. Was that a set-up, too? To get me to trust you more?”

“No bloody way!” he exclaimed. “If you must know, that fiasco took me ten years closer to my grave. Your surveillance was left to the FBI, who thought you were an easy mark. Only they mucked it up royally. Everyone underestimated you, including me. No one considered you’d risk your job at the NSA to try to rescue Basia alone. It was truly a stroke of luck that I happened to be watching Jorrell. It was doubly good fortune the bloke had a heart attack before he could kill us or I had to shoot him.”

“How did the NSA or MI-6 eventually make the connection between Al-Naddi and CGM?” The NSA had been stingy with details and I hoped to get more information out of Finn.

“The CIA was pretty sure the hit in Genoa was the work of Al-Naddi’s followers. But they wasted a lot of time trying to connect Al-Naddi to Al-Asan and the Saudi royal family.”

“When the only connection was that Al-Naddi switched his DNA with that of Al-Asan to get himself some clones free of charge,” I mused. “Macabre, but pretty ingenious.”

“Bloody disgusting, in my opinion.”

“Yeah, in mine, too.” Having lost my appetite, I set the chocolate donut aside and wiped my mouth with a napkin.

“The break came when the young women supposedly impregnated by Al-Asan started showing up dead,” Finn continued. “One of the hits was on a young British citizen, Sarah Cunningham, who was one of Al-Asan’s volunteers for what she thought was a surrogate pregnancy. Her murder and that of the other women were professional hits, but it was puzzling because MI-6 was convinced those murders were
not
the work of Al-Naddi’s followers. That’s when they started to take a completely different look at the events.”

“It was Bouker and his Yemeni agents conducting the hits,” I said. “They somehow found out about the cloning and that Al-Naddi had switched DNA samples with Al-Asan. More than likely, they have their own plant among Al-Naddi’s followers. Then they started eliminating the young women one by one.”