Chapter 26
The blackness pressed in on me while I navigated the hills and bends of the narrow highway, alternately dazzled by oncoming headlights and blinded in the darkness of their passing.
With only my worries for company, I had second-, third-, and fourth-guessed myself in the past half hour. By the time the gatehouse to Harchman’s estate glowed ahead, I was convinced that I should have played hardball with Riel and demanded information…
No, I should have had the analysts at Sirius trace both Kane’s and Hellhound’s calls…
No, I should have…
“Good evening, ma’am.” The gatehouse guard’s deferential voice interrupted my scattered thoughts.
I shook myself back to the situation at hand. “Um… hi. I’m Arlene Widdenback. Lawrence and Tawny invited me to their spa…?” I tried to sound confident, but the statement came out sounding like a question anyway.
“Yes, of course. Please drive up to the main turnaround and the concierge will meet you there.” He gave me a half-bow and gestured me forward as the gate swung open on silent hinges.
The winding drive up to the turnaround gave me more than enough time to review the many ways this could go wrong. My secret network key and the silicone fingerprints were safely tucked into my bra, but what if they searched my briefcase and looked too closely at the pen or USB sticks? And would they believe that the nasal filters were earplugs that I needed for sleep?
The concierge’s small shelter appeared in my headlights and I squared my shoulders. Too late to do anything about it now.
Heart pounding, I stepped out of my car and attempted nonchalance while I handed the keys to the valet. The concierge offered me the staff’s trademark half-bow and transferred my suitcase and laptop case to a baggage cart.
As he wheeled it toward his shelter, my nerves got the better of me.
“I’ll take those up to the guesthouse myself.” My voice came out slightly higher than normal. “I need to do a bit of work right away.”
The concierge paused, clearly scandalized by the thought of a guest carrying her own luggage. “They will be in your room before you get there,” he promised. “One moment, please…”
He ducked into his shelter while I silently berated myself for my faux pas. Way to look as though you’re carrying something suspicious, idiot. And taking my bags to my room by myself wouldn’t ensure their security anyway. I had to leave the room sometime, and of course Harchman and his staff would have passkeys. Damn.
The concierge emerged again, bearing a cardkey which he handed over with another half-bow. “You will be in Suite 108,” he informed me. “Please follow the blue lights in the path to your destination.”
He withdrew a small remote from his pocket and pressed the button, illuminating a trail of blue LEDs embedded in the low stone wall that flanked the walkway.
“You are welcome to retire for the evening if you wish,” he added. “But Mr. and Mrs. Harchman would be pleased to receive you for drinks in the salon if you are not too tired. Press this button…” He indicated the one on the remote marked with an ‘S’. “…to illuminate the path to the salon. Or, at any time, please feel free to press this larger button…” He indicated one with a pictogram of a bellhop. “…and one of our staff members will come to wherever you are and escort you personally.”
“That’s great, thank you,” I murmured, making a mental note to leave the thing in my room. Innocent civilian guests might be delighted by the novel technology, but I recognized it for what it was. If Harchman couldn’t see a guest on one of the many surveillance cameras, he could just track the fob. Ignoring the shiver that crept down my backbone, I summoned a smile for the concierge and left my bags to their fate.
I had only followed the twinkling blue LEDs a dozen or so paces when a wash of cold adrenaline nearly paralyzed me. Shit, I’d left the extra magazines for my Glock and trank pistol in my suitcase. They’d find them for sure…
Sucking in a breath, I forced my rigid muscles to keep moving. Settle down. I was Arlene Widdenback the arms dealer. They’d be suspicious if I didn’t have spare magazines in my suitcase.
But should I have even brought the classified trank pistol? If it fell into enemy hands…
Stifling a groan, I hurried toward the guesthouse. Why hadn’t I asked Stemp before I’d left? I had studied the protocol manuals until I knew them backward and forward, but protocol and field experience were two totally different things.
The doorman gave me yet another half-bow and smile as he opened the guesthouse door for me, and I stifled the urge to tell him to cut it out. All this deference was making me nervous.
Well, more nervous than I already was.
“Whatever,” I muttered, and headed for number 108.
When the door opened to my cardkey, I stepped into the room and froze, staring. The concierge had been as good as his word. My suitcase already rested on the luggage rack, my laptop case beside it.
“How the hell…?” I said aloud, then clamped my mouth shut with a paranoid glance around the room.
Sidling into a travertine-paved bathroom that could have easily accommodated a medium-sized dance troupe, I studied the cavernous space. Would they have cameras and bugs in here?
Choosing the toilet enclosure as the area least likely to be under video surveillance, I slipped in and activated my bug detector.
Its light glowed steady green.
I gaped at it.
No way. They had to be listening, or watching me, or both.
I gave the device a little shake but its all-clear indication didn’t waver.
Hissing a breath between my teeth as I sank onto the toilet seat, I glared at the bug detector. It couldn’t be malfunctioning; I’d just gotten it from Stores. So either I wasn’t under surveillance at all, or else they’d figured out some non-electronic method of watching or listening.
Maybe a one-way glass panel?
I stood again and approached the giant ornately-framed mirror. A wary-looking middle-aged woman stared back at me.
Then her anxious expression dissolved and our shoulders relaxed simultaneously. It couldn’t be a one-way glass panel. The living area of the suite was on the other side.
“Okay, fine; it’s not that,” I muttered, and exited the bathroom to stand considering the mystery of my magically-transported luggage. I hadn’t wasted any time getting here. I knew the route and I’d walked briskly. No staff member had passed me with a luggage cart.
So they must have a service tunnel between the concierge’s shelter and the guesthouse, allowing them to zip directly between buildings instead of following the meandering arcs of the above-ground pathways. And there were probably service tunnels between the other buildings, too.
Note to self: Don’t try outpacing any of the staff between buildings. And remember that someone might pop out of a concealed corridor at any time. Great, just great.
I sank into one of the luxuriously upholstered armchairs, frowning at the ceiling while I paged through my memory of the floor plans. There hadn’t been any tunnels on those drawings. Damn. How the hell was I going to avoid all the surveillance cameras and subterranean staff while I sneaked over to the server room?
I was nowhere near solving that problem when my cell phone rang. The call display showed Riel’s number, and I braced myself and accepted the call.
“Allô, Arlene,” he said in his usual pleasant tones. “The ‘Archmans ‘ave invited us to meet them for drinks in the salon. Would you honour us with your presence?”
Wishing I could just hide in this well-appointed room and let them play their games without me, I forced an equally pleasant tone. “Thank you, I’ll join you shortly. I just need a few minutes to freshen up.”
“Ah, good, then I will see you soon. Au revoir.”
My ‘freshening-up’ consisted of standing in front of the bathroom mirror and exhorting myself to suck it up and show some backbone. The lecture didn’t increase my courage any, but at least it left me irritated enough to slip easily into Arlene Widdenback’s hardass persona.
Checking my ankle holsters, I smoothed my slacks over my Glock on the right and the trank pistol on my left. Then I extracted the spare trank magazine from my suitcase and tucked it into the large handbag that held my waist pouch. The innocent-looking gold pen followed.
If someone searched me and confiscated my weapons, so be it; but at least I’d done my best to safeguard the classified technology.
I blew out a quivering breath and departed.
The walk up to the main house felt like a march to the gallows. My feet dragged while possibility after possibility played out in my mind, each more frightening than the last.
Shaking my head to dispel the mental image of stepping through the salon door into a storm of automatic weapon fire, I concentrated on the most probable outcome.
I had already scoped out the salon at the party so there was nothing new to be learned there. Harchman would either be revoltingly chummy or peevish and uncooperative. Tawny would play the bubblehead, and I’d have to remind myself not to be fooled by her act. Riel would be his usual charming and evasive self, and Labelle would be as slimy as ever. I’d accomplish absolutely nothing except to raise my own blood pressure.
And that was the best-case scenario…
I hesitated outside the salon door trying not to think about automatic weapons, then stepped inside.
The little cluster of people around the bar looked lost in the huge room. Tawny wore yet another skintight dress and too much makeup, Harchman was overdressed in an obviously expensive suit, and Riel and Labelle looked suave and sophisticated in slacks and casual blazers. But I barely registered them as my gaze locked onto the one person I wouldn’t have expected in a million years, my breath catching in shock.
Kane.