Page 34 of Protecting You

If she was going to talk to the man, she needed to think of him as Charles Sanders, British entrepreneur, not Dariush Ghazi, international terrorist and murderer.

She turned to find Callan, once again, right behind her.

“We need to make some decisions before you answer that.”

She wanted to get the conversation over with, but Callan, for all his silence and stuffing his mouth with food, clearly had more to say.

Carrying the ringing phone, she scooted past Callan—the man had no sense of personal space—and returned to the table.

“I talked to my boss this morning.” He sat across from her. “He’s not happy with me. He didn’t say so outright, but he implied that Ghazi wasn’t the only one at your dinner last night who was being watched.”

The phone finally stopped ringing. “Someone else was there? One of Ghazi’s people, or…?” Too late, she realized what he meant. “Me? They’re watching me? Your people?”

“Not the Agency, Alyssa. I assume FBI, but Malcolm didn’t spell it out.”

“But why?—?”

“Your client is a terrorist. You’re a hacker. They can’t assume you’re innocent or unaware. My boss wants you to use your connection with Ghazi to get information. He implied that if you don’t, it’ll look bad for you.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You haven’tknowinglydone anything wrong.”

She thought back over the information she’d gotten for Charles Sanders. Maybe it wastechnicallyillegal, but it wasn’t as if she’d get caught. And after the fact, there was no way to prove she’d done it.

Maybe no way for your run-of-the-mill law enforcement agencies, but the NSA, the CIA, the FBI…

They could figure it out.

But how was she supposed to do her job if she couldn’t occasionally access private systems?

Yeah, that excuse was really going to fly.

What a pickle she’d gotten herself into. Even when she tried to do the right thing, she managed to mess it up.

Dad was right about her. She was a useless, worthless fool.

Callan was watching her, eyes narrowed as if he were trying to read her thoughts.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t think Ghazi is going to let you back out of your relationship.”

“Relationship? It’s not?—”

“Bad choice of words.” He lifted his hand to silence her. “The point is, I don’t think it’s going to work. For one thing, Malcolm doesn’t want you to pass the name along.”

“Why? Who is this guy?”

“I don’t think he knows. Maybe Michael and his team will have more information for us. The point is, you’re going to have to tell Ghazi you haven’t gotten it yet, and eventually that you can’t get it.”

“He’s not going to like that.” She pushed back in her chair.

Why, why, why had she started working with him?

She needed the money to keep her business alive, but it wasn’t as if she were starving. She’d rather have a failed business than…than all of this.

She’d done her homework on Charles Sanders, same as she did her homework on all her clients. Sometimes people had good reasons for hiding, and she wasn’t about to expose somebody who’d risked life and limb to get away from an abusive spouse or a vengeful criminal.

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