Page 35 of France Face-Off
He crossed to where Alex sat in front of the laptop, her heart beating hard inside her chest.
“It opened,” she whispered, the enormity of what had just happened threatening to overwhelm her.
“What’s in it?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
He stared at the screen for a few moments. “It looks like some kind of computer programming language.”
“That doesn’t help me much.”
“All the more reason to get it to someone who knows what it is,” Dane said.
“I need to hand it over to the CIA.” She looked up into Dane’s eyes. “Do you trust this boss of yours?”
“She didn’t ask me to assassinate anyone, which is a good thing. And so far, she seems to care about the fate of the world. I can ask her to get you to the States to hand it over to the folks at Langley in Virginia. They’ll have the expertise to decipher the code. How did you get it to come up? Did you remember a password that worked?”
She shook her head. “I think the computer took my picture. The next thing I knew, the file opened.”
Dane nodded. “Biometrics. I bet it used facial recognition. Your parents must have used a photo of you to lock the file. Only you could open it.”
“Then I have to deliver this flash drive in person,” she said. “Otherwise, they won’t be able to access it, or they’d have to spend a lot of time finding a workaround.”
“If you’re sure you want to hand it over, I’ll get in touch with my boss and see if she can set up the transfer at Langley.”
Alex stared at the gibberish on the screen. “This is what they wanted.”
“Or wanted to keep anyone else from getting their hands on,” Dane suggested.
She nodded. “I wonder what the code does.”
“When you hand it over to the CIA, you might not ever know.”
She sighed. “Unless I teach myself this computer language, I’ll never know anyway.” Alex squared her shoulders. “If you think you can trust her, see if she’ll set it up. And, Dane,” she paused, “I’ll hand it over on one condition.”
He frowned. “What condition?”
“That I’m allowed to go free.”
“Why wouldn’t you be allowed to go free?”
She turned toward him. “You and your boss know what I’ve done. In the States, that’s considered murder.”
“Only if someone presses charges. I doubt seriously anyone will press charges for the murder of mercenaries in a foreign country.”
“Still, I want it in writing that they’ll expunge my record. I don’t want to have it hanging over my head for the rest of my life.”
Dane nodded. “I’ll let the boss know.” He held out his hand. “Now, we need to get some sleep.”
She closed the file, ejected the flash drive, carried it to the nightstand on her side of the bed and laid it on the wooden surface. “That little device got my parents killed.” Alex climbed into the bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
“No,” Dane said as he got in on the other side, “the person who wanted that device got your parents killed.”
She turned to face him, moving the pillows aside. “Have you ever wanted a reset of your life? To take yourself back to a time when there seemed to be nothing wrong with your world?”
He gave half a smile. “Yes and no. Things happen for a reason. If I hadn’t made my mark and been booted out of the Navy, I never would have met you.”
“And if my parents hadn’t been murdered, I don’t know where I’d be now.” She stared across at him. “I wouldn’t be lying next to a stranger, wishing I had the nerve to kiss him.”
