Page 77 of Hot Intent

His eyes were wary. Guarded. Hetotallyknew more about Alex’s mother than he was telling her. She would bet the womanwas a CIA operative. Yep, she was right about Claudia Kane or else her uncle was the tooth fairy.

“Was she a sparrow? Was she sent to Moscow to seduce Roman, or was that an unplanned side excursion in her mission?”

“You know I can’t answer that, Katie.”

But his gaze had flickered down and to the left evasively. She’d guessed correctly. Claudia had been a sparrow—an agent who used sex to compromise targets and to gather intelligence via pillow talk.

Charlie lifted his gaze, spearing her with an intense stare. “I’m telling you. Leave it alone. You have no idea who or what you’re messing with.”

She frowned, staring back questioningly. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just warned her off of more than just Alex’s mother. He’d warned her off of all of it. Anything and everything to do with Alex Peters.

He gathered his hat and newspaper. “You’ll send me those pictures, yes?’

That was an abrupt shift of topic. “Yes. Of course,” she mumbled.

As another customer walked into the café, he said in a normal speaking voice, “We must do this more often. It’s delightful to catch up with you like this, Katie-kins.” He startled her by leaning down to kiss her cheek affectionately.

“Be careful or people will think you’re having an affair with a younger woman,” she muttered.

He chuckled, put on his hat, and turned to leave.

She stayed a few more minutes, finishing her coffee so it didn’t look like they’d just come in here for an information trade. One more bit of tradecraft she’d picked up from Alex.

The man in the corner of the café with his nose buried in the business news glanced up briefly as Katie finally left the café and hurried away. He pulled out his cell phone and placed a phone call.

“Tell Reggie he missed last night.” And knowing the sniper, the guy was going to plenty steamed about it, too.

The voice on the other end betrayed no hint of dismay, or any emotion at all, for that matter. “That’s a shame. Where’s the target, now?”

“Moving east from here. On foot.”

“Roger. I’ll acquire the target momentarily. No need to follow.”

“Great,” the man replied brightly. Frankly, he was surprised he wasn’t receiving orders to follow the girl and clean up Reggie’s mistake.

“Come in, now. We need to revise the strategy. I’ll meet you in the usual place after the bird lands in her nest.”

“Ya think?” he retorted jokingly. “Okay, I’m outta here. I’ll see you a bit.” He picked up his gym bag. A metallic clank and its unusual weight were the only hint as to its lethal contents.

16

Alex was furious. He’d risked his damn neck to save Katie and she’d pulled a runner on him? Her note notwithstanding, he had no faith she would return.

He was so done with her. He was done with all of them and their damned head games. His computer beeped to indicate incoming e-mail, and he opened the first one of two that caught his attention. It was a file from Blondie. She must have sent it before she died. It had a gigantic attachment. Had she sent him…

…he opened the e-mail that went with it eagerly.

Cold Intent is some serious shit, dude. I think you need this hacking algorithm more than I do. You’re gonna have to dig all the way to the bottom of the CIA cesspool to find what you’re looking for. I got too scared at what I was finding to keep going and backed out. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to finish this research project on your own. You win the bet. Dammit.

Swearing under his breath, he opened the second message, from C¥berE¥e, and decrypted it impatiently.

It was short.

You want me to sit on what you sent me? Are you shitting me? It’s not dynamite. It’s a fucking nuclear bomb.

He sat down to type and encrypt his reply.

Our deal remains in place. If you don’t hear from me for a week, send everything I sent you to every major newspaper on the planet. I’m sorry to drag you into this, but I needed somewhere fast and secure to send the data. I only need you to sit on it a few more days, until I don’t need a dead man’s switch any more. Then you can destroy it all.

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