On screen, Jake walked purposefully along the corridor. He had a cocky walk, with a spring in his step more befitting a twenty-five-year-old. It was self-confidence, Zoe realized. Jake Robinson walked the way he did because he trusted himself completely. He liked himself, too.
It was powerfully attractive.
It had been two whole days since she’d seen him last, and Zoe felt a sharp tug of longing. She missed him.
They’d been together every evening at the bar for two and a half weeks before that. During that time Zoe had smuggled to Jake the equipment he’d needed to enable the SEALs to tap into the CRO security cameras. And during that time, they’d established a very hot, very high-visibility romance.
Zoe had made it clear to all the patrons of Mel’s Bar that she was holding out for marriage. Despite the sparks she and Jake made on the dance floor, she publicly refused to bring him home with her. And Jake, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t ready for any kind of commitment.
It was kind of funny, actually. In truth, the man was Mr. Commitment. He would still be married to his first wife right now if she hadn’t died. And Zoe didn’t doubt for one nanosecond that he’d still be happily married.
Conversely she, Zoe, had never even imagined herself married. She’d never seen the need, considering that she’d never truly been in love. She’d always purposely sought out and let herself fall halfway in love with men she knew would never be right for her. Halfway in love was all she’d wanted, though. It was safe. She knew exactly what she’d get, knew she’d never be in too deep, never out of control.
She was doing the exact same thing with Jake, too. Even if she could convince him to make their relationship more physical, more intimate, she knew damn well it would never go beyond that. He still loved his wife, and he wasn’t looking to replace her.
Zoe could love Jake—just a little—and still be safe.
So she did. And she used her feelings to bring a certain authenticity to her role. No, she would not sleep with him, not until they were married. Well, okay, pretending that was a stretch. A long stretch.
And at times, when Jake held her in his arms on the dance floor, or when she kissed him goodbye each night, she thought the sheer irony would drive her completely insane. Here Jake always pretended that he wanted to spend the night with her, and Zoe always pushed him away.
She could think of only one thing she wanted more than to spend these long, cold autumn nights with Jake Robinson in her bed. She wanted to find the Trip X. But that was the only thing she wanted more.
Still she sent Jake back to the CRO fort each night. And each night she slept alone.
Each day, she locked herself in the team’s surveillance trailer, using the computers to access the CRO cameras, electronically searching for the missing canisters of Triple X.
She was exhausted, bleary-eyed and completely frustrated on many, many levels. She wasn’t going to find anything this way. She had to get in there, inside that electric fence. She needed to search with more than just her eyes, restricted by the lens of a camera.
She had to get inside Christopher Vincent’s private quarters, into those few rooms where there were no security cameras. The more she came into contact with Vincent, the more she was convinced that he was the type of man who’d get off on keeping a crate of deadly poison—enough to wipe out the capital city of this country—on the sideboard of his private dining room.
She’d had it. She’d played it Jake’s way for long enough. She was going to get inside the CRO walls whether he liked it or not.
On the video monitor, Jake turned a corner, and with a flick of his fingers, Bobby made him appear on a different screen. The enormous SEAL didn’t consult any list, didn’t look at the factory schematic. He just somehow knew the camera codes.
“You’ve already memorized both the layout of this part of the factory and the location of the cameras?” she asked.
“I’ve got the whole factory up here.” He tapped on his forehead. “I’m pretty good with maps.”
Pretty good?
“Morning, John,” Jake said in greeting to a man heading in the same direction. Bobby made another adjustment, and their conversation about the current dreary weather came in crisp and clear over the speakers, fading slightly as they moved away from one microphone, getting louder as they walked past another.
“Tell me about the audio signal,” Zoe said. “Do all the cameras have microphones, or is there a different miking system?”
“There’s a combination,” Wes told her. “The dedicated mikes are higher quality, but they’re also more expensive so there’re fewer of ‘em.”
“Is it possible to speak quietly enough so’s not to be heard?” Zoe asked. “I guess what I need to know is, once I’m in there, is there any way I’ll be able to talk to Jake without the mikes picking up our conversation?”
“Mid to high-range frequency overload will block low-volume conversation,” Bobby said. He typed in a new command, and on the right-hand screen, the CRO kitchen appeared. About a dozen women were in the big room, about half of them washing dishes. “See?”
“Run water,” Wes interpreted. “And speak softly. But don’t whisper. A whisper could cut through.”
Sure enough, in the kitchen, water was running from the faucet, and Zoe could only make out the words of the women who raised their voices significantly when they spoke.
“We also found a spot where the security cameras were set up a little carelessly,” Wes told her. He pointed to the floor plan again, and she stood to get a better look, stretching her legs. “Up here there’s access to the roof. There must’ve been some kind of recreation deck there at some time. And the entire northwest corner of that area is completely out of camera range. It overlooks the millstream—an added bonus, running water. Again, speak softly, and your conversation will be covered by the sound of the water. You won’t be overheard.”
Bobby turned in his chair to face her, his dark eyes very serious. “Zoe, are you sure you want to go in there?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but I’m not sure the admiral’s got this under control.”
“Admirals can lose touch,” Wes agreed. Since Bobby was so tall and broad and always with him, Wes always seemed short and wiry in comparison. But Zoe had to lift her chin to look at him as he straightened up. He had a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his T-shirt sleeve, revealing a stylized barbed-wire tattoo that ran completely around an extremely well-developed bicep. He may have been wiry compared to Bobby, but only compared to Bobby. Wes Skelly was no lightweight, that was for sure.
“Since when did you start smoking again?” she asked him.
“Since I’ve been nervous as hell about this op,” he countered. “Since we’ve been sitting here for weeks, relying only on Robinson, getting no closer to finding that Triple X crap.”
“Human beings slow down,” Bobby pointed out.
“After you hit a certain age, your reaction time really starts to suck,” Wes agreed.
“It’s a fact of life.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Wes said, “the admiral’s a good guy—”
“For an admiral—” added Bobby.
“And we know he used to be a SEAL—”
“A long time ago—”
Конец