Jule Mcbride - Night Pleasures

The database included strategic plans for every national emergency from biomedical disaster to nuclear attack, and once more buyers were in place, they could finish unloading what they had to sell. “We’ve got to get Lone out of the picture,” she repeated. “And without drawing attention to everything he’s been working on for the past year.”

“All we need is a week, then we can leave the country.”

“Only a week,” she agreed.

He thought of their new identities, passports and disguises, then of the walled compound they’d purchased in Bali, with its private, white-sand beaches and crystal-clear cerulean waters. “We’ve worked too hard to let anyone get in our way now.”

“Can we get Edison Lone assigned to a case that would occupy his time? Just for a week?” she asked.

“If you’re sure he’s not gay, I’ve got a solution.”

She frowned as if conflicted. “The distraction’s female?”

He nodded. “Her name’s Selena Silverwood.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Of course you haven’t. She’s a secretary at IBI.”

“They’re assistants,” she reminded him, ever the diplomat.

He shrugged. “Whatever. The point is, she’s been bringing a highly personal erotic diary to work—”

“An erotic diary? To work?” She stared at him. “Why?”

“A New York house is publishing her erotic fantasies as a book titled Night Pleasures. Originally, it was a personal diary full of her private fantasies.”

“Fantasies?”

He nodded. “Involving a French courtesan’s sexual encounters with a mysterious marquis. The book’s being released next June, and the publishers have asked her to do some of her own editing. Anyway, because she was working on something other than IBI documents on IBI time, the diary came to the attention of our office. Naturally, we had to check her out.”

“Naturally.” She smiled. “Just in case she really was stealing information from IBI. And you found?”

“That Penthouse Letters has nothing on this girl.”

“Her fantasies are that hot?”

“Satan himself would beg for ice cubes.”

“So, you think this woman can turn Edison Lone’s head and keep him occupied for a week?”

He hedged. “Selena Silverwood’s not much to look at.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Edison Lone goes for pretty.”

“True. But there’s something he likes more than pretty.”

“Ah,” she guessed. “Codes that other cryptanalysts have failed to crack. Still, I’m not following you.”

He flashed a smile. “We’ll make a copy of Selena Silverwood’s erotic diary and tell him it’s in secret code. We’ll pretend CIIC thinks she’s using those steamy stories to smuggle sensitive information out of IBI.”

She shook her head. “Too far-fetched. C’mon, do you really think we can pass off a woman’s erotic fantasies as something she’s written in secret code?”

“Stranger things have happened in Washington.”

“True,” she admitted. “And if it worked, Selena Silverwood could fall under suspicion for stealing from IBI.”

“However briefly,” he replied. “But that’s perfect. We only need to occupy Edison Lone for a week. Just long enough that he can’t keep analyzing those classified ads—and start suspecting us.”

She looked unconvinced. “I don’t know. He’s too smart to fall for this, isn’t he?”

“Not if he’s sure the woman’s a traitor.”

Another slow smile curled her lips. “You’re right. His Achilles’ heel is definitely his patriotism. If he thinks CIIC’s involved, he might believe us. Besides, we don’t have much choice but to try this.” She sighed, switching the subject. “Do you know why I love you?”

“Because I’m brilliant and deviant?”

She nodded. “Yes. And because Edison Lone, as much as I’ve sometimes enjoyed his company, is becoming a thorn in my side. I knew you could get rid of him.”

“Lover,” he murmured, “a rose such as yourself should never have a thorn.”

THAT’S WHAT I LOVE about words, Edison Lone thought ruefully. Unlike women, they came with handbooks of rules and regulations. Dictionaries and grammar books told you how to deal with them. They were dependable. Reliable. Predictable. And because he hated to see words spliced and diced, as he so often did while cracking codes for the government, he was extremely careful when choosing his own. He uttered a long, succinct string of expletives.

His boss, Eleanor Luders, looked vaguely alarmed. “Excuse me?”

“C’mon,” he chided, appalled that anyone would require him to research a low-level assistant such as Selena Silverwood right now. “You don’t really need a professional code cracker for this job, do you?” His deliberate blue-eyed gaze panned the conference table, landing on Eleanor, a tall woman with white-blond, shoulder-length hair, wearing a practical gray suit; then on her boss, Newton Finch, a fifty-year-old ex-New Yorker who was wearing rumpled gray pinstripes; then finally on his boss, Carson Cumberland, who looked like a replica James Bond, the Pierce Brosnan version, also gray-clad. Combined, they seemed about as cheery as the rainy April sky over D.C., and judging from the grim smiles, silver didn’t line the clouds, either.

“Care to sit?” Eleanor asked, ignoring his question.

“Love to.” Instead of dropping his tall, broad-shouldered body into one of the plush chairs around the conference table, Edison continued, “Like I said, I found some suspicious personal ads in one of the free tabloids. The ads are for sexual bondage, but references to getting tied up—with whom, where and when—have convinced me that somebody’s using the ads to negotiate the sale of confidential information, maybe from IBI.”

Newton looked concerned. “Have any proof?”

“If I did, I’d have taken further action.”

Eleanor’s glance reminded him not to antagonize superiors. Glance of censure duly noted, thought Edison. Duly ignored. “I do have a hunch, though,” he added, deciding there was nothing he hated more than wasting American tax dollars haggling with the brass. “So, right now, investigating an assistant would be an inefficient use of my time. Look…” Softening his voice, he tried to sound diplomatic. “Forget Selena Silverwood. My time’s better spent analyzing the classifieds.”

The suddenly flirtatious spark in Eleanor’s liquid blue eyes made Edison regret sleeping with her seven years ago. Chalk it up to a Christmas office party when he’d been young, green and still getting his feet wet at IBI. He’d been wearing the proverbial lampshade on his head, and Eleanor, who’d been an administrator in another division, had looked like a million bucks. Edison never imagined he’d wind up transferred to her division years later, and now he counted himself lucky that she’d recently gotten married.

“You’ve always proved yourself unusually intuitive,” she purred, her marriage doing nothing to curb the seductive tone she used with Edison. “Early on, I learned to trust your instincts. They’re so…animal. Even the president was impressed by how you arrested that Venezuelan last week.”

“I’ve got a feeling a big deal’s about to go down,” Edison said, turning a deaf ear to her flattery. “Can’t you put Tom on this Selena Silverwood thing? Or Steve? Or Gary Hughes? Didn’t Hughes crack the codes that exposed all the new military installations in Syria?”

“Gary’s good,” admitted Eleanor. “But you’re better. And the president was impressed by the laptop case.”

More like the lapdog case. While retrieving data from laptop computers stolen from overseas dignitaries, Edison had caught a Venezuelan official smuggling out information about American spies. When the man and his wife were nabbed, Edison wound up with the wife’s dog.