Hot Intent

“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 intel.”

“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.