Closer Encounters

She didn’t detect any hurt in his crooked grin. Only a self-deprecating chagrin.

“I take it the divorce didn’t damage your relationship with your wife’s father.”

“Just the opposite. Charlie was as relieved as Joyce when we split. He saw how upset she got when I had to pull sea duty.”

Upset wasn’t quite the right word for it, Drew thought wryly. His high-strung, temperamental wife had pitched a world-class fit every time he’d had to pack his sea bag. Short of going AWOL, all Drew could do was promise to leave the navy when his hitch was up.

Joyce had decided to leave him instead. Drew had never admitted it to anyone, but he’d been every bit as relieved as his father-in-law when she’d filed for divorce.

“Charlie and I always got along well,” he said with a shrug. “So well he asked me to join him in his business when I left the navy.”

Their partnership had proved far more enduring and satisfying than his marriage. Drew had already been recruited by OMEGA and needed a base of operations that would allow him to come and go at will. Charlie had been happy to turn over most of the traveling to classic car conventions and searches for rare parts to his partner.

Drew knew Charlie suspected his business partner did more than shop for parts during those travels, but the old man had never asked about the extended absences. The fact that Drew had helped grow Classic Motors, Inc. into a nationwide chain of highly profitable shops might have had something to do with Charlie’s reticence.

“What about you?” he asked, getting back to the business that had sent him on this particular trip. “What do you do?”

“I worked as a budget analyst for a defense contractor in Puget Sound until recently.”

He waited, wondering if she’d admit she’d been fired. When she didn’t, he applied the screws.

“Why did you leave?”

“It was, uh, time to look for something better.” With a show of nonchalance, she nodded to the sleek white yacht. “Who knows, maybe I’ll land something that pays enough to afford one of those.”

“Yeah,” he drawled, “who knows?”

Drew had spent almost six years as an undercover operative. In that time he’d taken down his share of drug dealers, black marketers and other scum who trafficked in human misery. He’d learned the hard way that greed had some ugly faces. Real ugly. Even the so-called religious fanatics who blew themselves up or bombed abortion clinics in the name of God were motivated by a sadistic hunger for dominance and power.

In Drew’s considered opinion, the bastards who sold their country’s secrets were among the worst of the lot. Their avarice put the lives of countless innocent citizens at risk. He had no evidence Tracy Brandt intended to sell classified information. He still hadn’t ascertained what, if any, information about the USS Kallister and its cargo she may have acquired.

But he would, he vowed. He would.

Infusing his voice with a sympathy he was far from feeling, he tightened the screws a little more.

“It’s tough to be out of work, but you can’t let it get to you. Or make you do something crazy.”

“Crazy?”

“Like up there,” he said, jerking his chin toward the round casino building now lit up like a beacon. “On that balcony.”

Her jaw dropped. Goggle-eyed, she gaped at him for several seconds. “You think…? You think I intended to jump?”

“Kind of looked that way from where I was standing.”

“I had no intention of jumping!” Indignation put spots of red in her cheeks and lit sparks in her green eyes. “I told you, it was the music…. It made feel me dizzy and disoriented.”

“Right. The music.”

Her flushed deepened to a rosy brick. “Or, as I said, I might just have been hungry. We’ve taken care of that problem, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll jump off the pier and you’ll have to dive in after me.”

“No need to get riled. I was just trying to help.”

“Yes, well…Thanks.” Her feathers thoroughly ruffled, she swung off the bench, scooped up her plastic basket and tossed it in the trash. “And thanks for dinner. I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of yours.”

“I’m done,” Drew replied, swinging a leg over the bench. “I’ll walk back to the inn with you.”

“I’m not going back to the inn. Not just yet. Have a nice time on Catalina, Mr. McDowell.”

Drew trailed her to an Internet café tucked between two souvenir shops. Ignoring the coffee bar, she made a beeline for a computer and inserted a credit card. Mere moments later she was hunched over the screen and clicking away on the keyboard.

Keeping her in his line of sight, Drew chose an isolated bench well away from the glow of shop windows and extracted his cell phone. It was one of those ultrathin, ultraexpensive models that could do everything but flush the toilet. Drew figured the wizards who worked for Lightning’s wife, Mackenzie Blair, had probably packed it with enough souped-up circuitry to do that, too, if necessary.

Lounging on the bench like a patient tourist waiting for his souvenir-hunting spouse, he pressed a quick-dial button and was instantly connected via secure satellite to OMEGA headquarters. Standard protocol required Drew to be identified via voiceprint and code name before his controller responded. A recent case worked by a fellow operative, Jordan Colby, had added an iris scan to the process.

“This is Riever,” he said, aiming the phone’s built-in camera at his right eye.

Drew waited for another second or two until Denise Kowalski got the green light indicating the caller’s iris scan and voiceprint matched those on file for Drew McDowell.

“I read you.” Her image appeared on the phone’s screen. “How’s it going?”

“So far, so good. I’m in place and have established contact with the target. Matter of fact, we just had dinner together.”

The former Secret Service agent raised a sandy eyebrow. “That’s fast work, Riever, even for you.”

“The pace picked up in a hurry right after I got here.”

Keeping an eye on the dark head bent over the computer, he relayed the events of the afternoon and evening.

“She insists she wasn’t going to jump, but it’s hard to take the word of someone who hears voices. Check her medical records for me, will you? See if there’s anything else going on in her head besides singing.”

“Will do.”

“We also need to get linked into the Chocolate Cyberchip Café. She’s in there now, plugging away.”

“Already done. That’s the same site she used yesterday to make all those queries about the Kallister. Hang loose while I check with comm to see if they’re picking up her signals.”

Denise was back a few moments later.

“Comm has her. She’s tapped into one of those online music sites. Have a listen.”

Drew heard the slide of a trombone followed by a few bars of a reedy sax. Then a female crooned into his ear. Her voice was low and throaty and seductive, like a golden ribbon spooling out onto black satin sheets. Drew almost got hard just listening to her.

“Who the heck is that?”

“Comm says the singer is Trixie Halston. The song is one she recorded in the early forties. ‘I’ll Walk Alone.’ Hmm, the target is playing the same song over again. Wonder why she’s so fascinated with it?”

“Good question. See what you can find out about the singer.” A sudden movement had Drew signing off. “The target’s moving. I’ll contact you later.”