Cindy Dees: Hot Intent

Deep unease rippled down his spine, an unpleasant reminder of how dangerous a man his father was. What game was Peter playing at now?

His father was speaking again. “I hear you have accepted long-term employment with Doctors Unlimited.”

Alex looked around the park in panic. How in the world did his father know that? He’d only officially been assigned to the aid organization a few days ago, and he’d been in various CIA training facilities and out of sight before that.

Not that it should surprise him that there were moles inside the CIA. But still. It was alarming to receive incontrovertible proof of it. Was Doctors Unlimited itself penetrated? He’d thought that was what Peter had wanted him to do. Was getting inside D.U. a test, then? Any intel Alex passed on to his father would be vetted against intel from the other mole in the organization?

It was a neat way to trap him. Alex would have no choice but to pass on real information. Which would constitute treason. Which would make him dead meat if the U.S. government found out. Which meant Alex would have no choice but to throw in his hat with the FSB and accept his father’s protection and patronage.

Peter must be desperate if he was showing his cards this openly.

In the millisecond it took all of this to pass through his mind, the sun passed behind a cloud, casting the park in an abruptly dim and shadowed light. “Your intel is correct, Father. I did take a job with Doctors Unlimited.”

“You will get me that list of employee names and where the organization’s members are posted abroad, yes?”

He thought fast. Was it worth endangering the lives of dozens of doctors, nurses and translators to throw his old man off the scent? He answered smoothly, “Of course. Because of all my training, I haven’t had an opportunity to get the list. But D.U. is open for business in its repaired offices now. I should be able to get you the list quite easily.”

Who in D.U. was the mole? To whom did he dare talk about his dilemma? If he gave a false list of staffers and their postings to hot spots around the world—ostensibly to render medical aid and unofficially to observe and gather intelligence—his father would know him for the traitor to Mother Russia that he was. Not that the United States of America trusted him any farther than Uncle Sam could throw him.

But if he gave away the real list, his colleagues’ lives could be in terrible danger.

“I shall await the list with great eagerness, Alexei.”

He’d bet. The damned list potentially represented his first step down the slippery slope to treason. And the bastard couldn’t wait to push him the rest of the way down that hill.

He disconnected the phone call, careful not to show any physical or facial reaction to the call. Knowing his old man, Peter was watching him on a satellite this very minute for a reaction. Too tense to sit still for long, though, he stood and pushed the pram a lap around the paved path outlining the park. He nodded and smiled at a few mothers with strollers and an elderly man with a pair of hairy little dogs that looked like mops.

Leisurely, he headed back toward the condo.

As if they’d been monitoring his phone calls, a new call vibrated his phone on cue, this time his boss, André Fortinay. The man had put his life on the line for him, Katie and Dawn last year, and had supposedly been a big advocate of bringing Alex all the way into the CIA fold, but did he dare trust the man?

He took the call. “Hello, André. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Good. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Any chance you could come into the office in the next day or two? I’d like to talk over possible postings for you. We have too few doctors and too many crises around the globe where people are desperately in need of medical care.”

Not to mention he was a trauma surgeon who could handle the sorts of terrible combat wounds that few physicians were trained to treat. The same sorts of wounds he’d spent the past year learning how to inflict.

“What’s a good time for you, André?”

“Now, if you’re not busy.”

“I’ve got the baby with me.”

“Bring her along.”

“I can be there in, say, a half hour?”

“Perfect.”

Alex flagged down a cab and pulled up in front of the D.U. office—a restored mansion on embassy row—in more like twenty minutes. However, it took him nearly ten minutes to get past a phalanx of cooing secretaries and nurses with Dawn to André’s door. He left the baby and a bottle with the man’s secretary. She was in transports of ecstasy at getting to feed Dawn. He stepped inside Fortinay’s office and threw a harried look at his boss.

“Now you know why your old man used you as a cover,” André observed dryly. “Nobody can resist a cute baby.”

Alex scowled and dropped into the chair in front of his boss’s desk.

“Adapting to parenthood all right?” the man asked.

“Dawn’s great. Family life is...relaxing.” When he wasn’t quietly flipped out over whether or not any of it was real, that was.

“So. Let’s talk about what you’ll do and where you’ll go next.”

“That sounds like a plan. I’m not the type to sit around the house staring at my toes.” While he talked, Alex reached across Fortinay’s desk, picked up a pen and scrawled the words “White noise generator?” on a sticky pad.

Fortinay nodded and held up a finger. “I hear you. Inactivity makes me lose my mind in short order.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a gadget about the size of an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder and set it on his desk.

“All right. White noise in place. What’s up, Alex?”

“My father phoned me this morning.”

“Did he, now? The man’s not wasting any time calling in the favor he earned by saving your life.”

“He claimed it wasn’t him who gave the order not to kill me last year.”

Fortinay leaned back hard in his chair at that. “Is he still sticking with that line?”

“It didn’t come up today. But as far as I know, he’s standing by the assertion. Not that I’d know with him if it’s true or not. Best liar I’ve ever seen. No tells at all.”

“Duly noted—never play poker with the man. Or his son, the way I hear it.”

Alex shrugged. He’d made millions gambling at the tables in Vegas and Atlantic City. High-stakes poker had been one of his more profitable endeavors, in fact. It hadn’t all been about being a good liar, though. His eidetic memory and master’s degree in cryptography had helped.

“Your training reports are pretty impressive, Alex.”

“I had a head start on the other kids.”

“It’s more than that, and you know it. You have a gift for black ops.”

This wasn’t news to him, but it didn’t mean he had to like being told he was a natural monster.

“Why did your father call you, then?”

“He wants me to hand over a list of D.U. staffers and where they’re posted.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Tell me, André. Are you going to be my handler?”

The man studied him intently, weighing both him and the question. Alex mentally gave the man credit for catching the nuance behind the seemingly straightforward question. Alex was laying out the ground rules for their working relationship going forward. He didn’t want any fake niceties where they all pretended he was a good guy doing honorable deeds for altruistic reasons. They’d turned him into a killer, and that was how he wanted his boss to deal with him.

“I’ll be handling you for the most part,” André answered blandly.

Crap. So. They were going to pass him around from department to department within the agency to do their dirty work for them.