Smokescreen

Ethan winced. He’d deserved the question. It forced him to pull out the one fact he knew would make her believe he could be trusted, even though it was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “Yes, Sean sent me. He also told me if it ever came to this I should tell you something no one but the two of you would know, something he promised you he’d never tell me.”

“Go on.”

Ethan really didn’t want to, but he had bigger fish frying than any past issues with her. “Mitchum, check your truck and pull security.”

“We’re wide open here. You sure you want to risk sitting still long enough for—”

“Just do it. Two minutes.”

Mitchum’s displeasure escaped in shades of blue as he climbed out and slammed the truck door so hard the entire vehicle rocked.

Ethan fired a silent reprimand through the window before he turned his attention to Ashley. Better to say it and get it over with than to drag it out. “Sean was about to deploy for the first time. He came to Fort Drum to see us and took you to that little steak house near post for dinner.”

“Stop.”

“He asked you to marry him. You said no. You got up and left him on one knee while the entire restaurant watched.”

There it was. The guilt grew stronger every time he felt just a little bit relieved she’d turned Sean down the first time.

“You didn’t tell him yes until later.”

“I said stop.” Ashley pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, burying her face. “He was never supposed to tell anybody. It was...”

When she didn’t finish, Ethan finished it for her. “Humiliating for both of you. I know.” As hard as any of the rest of it had been, now came the hardest part, the part she’d likely hate both him and Sean for until the day she died. “He knew telling me would prove he trusted me, and you should, too. You have to. That man didn’t just want to take you.” She had to understand the seriousness of her situation. “He’s part of a group that wants to use you as a pawn against Sean, to see if they can get him to talk and compromise an entire military operation.”

Ashley shook her head from side to side. “No.”

“Sean sent me because he knew you were in danger and I was the only one who could get to you in time.” He fought to keep his face impassive, to not let her see he was telling her half of the story. “He’s gotten into some hot water over in Afghanistan, and the bad guys are looking for any way to get to him. Including you. He doesn’t have any family, and you’re the closest thing he’s got. It didn’t take them long to track you down.” Not to mention, Sean and Ethan had inadvertently pointed them right to her. It was a bad idea from the start. Right now, he just needed her to trust him enough to get them both to safety. And if he told her everything up front, there was no telling what Ashley would do. She for sure wouldn’t trust him to get her out of this situation, and she’d probably never turn over the evidence she didn’t even know she held.

TWO

Bullets had been fired. At her.

The seat belt clicked as Ashley shoved it into place, but the sound was a thousand miles away. She hated this sensation, the feeling she was two paces behind, both participating in and watching a movie she couldn’t quite follow. It was the feeling that usually preceded a loss of control nothing could stop.

A few feet from his truck, Ethan and his partner were engaged in a heated, hand-waving discussion. Ethan seemed to be gaining the upper hand, his stance suggesting authority. It was a posture she’d seen more than once, his shoulders back, broad under the black fleece he wore, blue-jeaned legs just far enough apart to keep him from wavering. He’d filled out, grown not broader but definitely more solid, the line of his jaw sharper, more determined. He’d been dangerous enough before, but with this new maturity, he could devastate her if she let him.

With a final string of words Ashley was grateful she couldn’t hear, Mitchum stalked into the darkness, leaving Ethan by himself.

Ethan climbed into his truck and turned the key.

Ashley shouldn’t have agreed to go with him, should have insisted he take her to her car and give her her life back, but the implications of what had happened pressed in. The man at the airport had not only wanted her, he’d wanted to use her to hurt Sean. Ashley was a pawn to him, easily manipulated and eradicated if it furthered his agenda. She tugged her lips between her teeth, then thought better of it when pain pulsed through her skin.

She refused to wince. Somehow being insecure in the face of Ethan’s confidence seemed like the worst possible thing. And blowing up in a full panic attack in front of him? Not an option. Years ago he’d left her because she was weak.

She dug her nails into her thigh and tried to hang on, to keep her body and her mind from bolting out of control. It wasn’t easy with her pulse stuttering and a thin sheen of cold sweat coating her skin.

Even with Ethan’s knowledge of Sean’s first proposal, Ashley didn’t know what to think. She had no idea what Sean was involved in or what Ethan’s plans for her were.

Until Ethan proved his intentions, she wasn’t about to go along without more than a story that needed to stay in the past. “You’re speculating a lot. Maybe the man was trying to help me.” Not likely, since he’d made his threats quite clear, but if that was the case, there was no reason to panic. Maybe—please, Lord—this was all some giant mistake.

Ethan’s face hardened like cut stone, dark eyes steely under blond hair just long enough to have a wave in it. He checked for traffic and accelerated onto the highway. “Stop it. This is not a game.” The leather seat protested as Ethan pushed against it. “You and I both know what he wanted. He threatened you. He was no Good Samaritan.” The look he fired at her was one usually reserved for suspects under arrest. “Fine. Here it is. All of my cards, on the table, so you’ll know this is bigger than all of us.”

In that moment Ashley knew. She knew what she’d always suspected, knew there was more to his disappearance than her inability to cope with life. Her fingers balled. “You went into Intelligence.”

A frown creased Ethan’s cheek and he turned his attention to the road, almost as though it was too painful to look her in the eye. “I did. For a while.”

Yeah, he ought to be afraid to look at her. After serving as an MP, Ashley’s goals had curved toward Intelligence, gathering information on their enemies using her beloved computers. Ethan had been right there beside her, driving toward the same dream.

And Ethan had been there the day the dream blew away on the wind.

“That’s why you took off when I was recovering. When I got in, you were wait-listed.” The realization pounded tension across her forehead. “When I got shot, you took my spot.”

“They offered me the schooling and I took it before I fully realized what was going on. If I hadn’t gone in your place, someone else would have.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Sean filled me in on how you’d been doing. You got out of the army to help companies shore up their network security and infrastructures, using your contacts to hook people up with what they need to function in the twenty-first century.” His smile lost its sadness and grew smug. “Am I right?”

So he thought he knew so much. Oh, how she wanted to wipe the grin off his face. “You’re right, but how is this laying out all of your cards? Sounds more like you’re telling me what I already know. All you’re doing right now is proving you’re a stalker.”

The smile vanished. “Sean is working with me.”

Ashley fought to keep her face impassive, even as her eye twitched. She watched city fade into the darkness of the country through his side window. “Sean’s not with Intelligence.”

“No, but he’s involved in an ongoing operation.” Sinking against the seat, Ethan settled in as though he had a long story to tell. “And, even though you don’t know it, so are you.”

That wasn’t true. Of all people, Sean knew better. And Ethan should, too. “What do you want?” The words rode the edge of a blade, sharp and cold.

“Trust me.”

The simple request tugged at her the way Ethan alone could. But...no. He wanted her trust? After taking on the position she’d earned? After simply vanishing on the very day she’d decided to tell him she needed him in her life? She’d hurt Sean and embarrassed them both because she hadn’t been able to shake her feelings for Ethan, feelings he hadn’t returned.

She’d waited for him for hours, alone in her hospital room, and he’d never shown. Not that night or the next... Not ever again until today. He’d simply disappeared without even a phone call, making no further contact even when a complication from the gunshot had nearly taken her life.

Never. She’d never give him the chance to hurt her again.

Ashley held up one finger, then pinched her cheek between the thumb and index finger of her free hand, eyes welling with unshed tears. She searched Ethan’s profile a long time. The headlights of a passing car illuminated the hard set of his jaw. Hold it together, girl. Ethan might have almost gotten her killed and taken off on her when she’d needed him, but he’d never, ever lied. “Okay. I believe you, but you tell me what you know before I tell you anything. Those cards? Still not on the table.”

“Smart girl. Even if you’re using those smarts against me.”

No way was she going to glow at his praise. No. Way. He didn’t deserve it.

Ethan didn’t wait for her to respond. “Seven months ago, Sean deployed to Afghanistan. Likely it was sooner than anyone expected.”

“He’s been gone so much the past few years, I was pretty shocked the army would send him again when he’d been home less than a year.”

“He asked.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, closed, opened again before she could find her voice. “Why?”

“On his last deployment, Sean got wind of some issues with the Field Ordering Officer, the guy in charge of the money going to contractors to build Forward Operating Bases and the like. He did a little digging and found discrepancies in the paperwork from some of the contractors. A group of locals and two companies in particular. Some of the discrepancies didn’t match between live documents and backup copies. Someone had hacked in and made changes, small ones scattered over a lot of entries. It added up to huge amounts of cash, virtually untraceable. He contacted me because he was unsure if his chain of command was involved.”

Ethan watched her closely from the corner of his eye, gauging what she knew.

Well, he could gauge all he wanted. All of this was news to her. Deeply troubling news in light of Sean’s mysterious messages. “Prove to me you’re helping him and not digging for information, thinking he’s involved with the bad guys.” Ashley knew how investigations worked, and she wouldn’t tip her hand until she was certain Sean wasn’t in danger.

“Nobody’s saying Sean’s in with the bad guys, but you know for us to be good at our jobs we have to keep every possibility in mind.”

“There’s no way.” She shifted slightly in the seat, streetlights playing dark and light across her hands.

“Anything is possible for anybody.” The truck engine hummed louder as Ethan changed lanes to take an exit that would lead them away from Syracuse and deeper into the North Country. Shadows in the cab grew darker as they left the city behind. “Money can turn even the strongest of minds.”

Something about the look on his face didn’t sit right with her. He couldn’t possibly think Sean could be bought. “So you’re telling me even you have a price?” She leaned closer, not quite bridging the gap between them. “How much would it take? Ten thousand? Half a million? At what point would you turn your back on the country you’ve sworn to defend? If everyone has a price, what’s yours?”

Red heat hit his skin as though she’d turned a flamethrower on him. Yeah. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

Her chuckle was low and harsh. “It’s insulting to you. And it would be just as insulting to Sean.” She tugged at the sleeve of her black jacket. “Watch how you toss your words, Kincaid. You run the risk of sounding incredibly arrogant.” In the face of her triumph, the threat of fear vanished. Control. Her very best friend. She held on to it like a life preserver.

“Tell me some small part of you doesn’t think that’s possible.” Ashley opened her mouth to speak, but Ethan carried on. “You’re the one who floated the idea when you didn’t know what I was going to say.”

“You weren’t going there?”

“I never said it wasn’t a theory, but he’s the one who brought the problem to our attention. Unless that’s a bluff to throw suspicion off of him, Sean’s innocent.” He switched gears without pausing. “My team believes what Sean uncovered is a small piece of something worse—an insurgent infiltration of our trusted contractors. That would give them access to bases, soldiers...”

Ashley was silent, watching the lines in the road, stomach churning. All of this was unthinkable but horribly plausible. “That would explain what happened to me just now. A well-connected group could have sleeper cells anywhere, and this attack wasn’t random. He specifically mentioned Sean.” She gasped. That message. Sean wouldn’t. He hadn’t.

“What?” Of course Ethan would pick up on her realization almost as fast as she had.

Ashley kept her mouth shut. If he wanted what she knew, he’d have to ask for it specifically.

Ethan checked the rearview mirror then glanced her way. “I’m guessing you figured it out. Sean sent you intel on a set of thumb drives. He asked you to pick up his mail, but there’s one package he cautioned you to leave in the box.”

Ashley nodded, muscles weakening. Ethan was telling the truth. “Sean’s stationed in Colorado, but he forwards all of his mail to a post-office box to make it easier for me to take care of his affairs. There’s one package he told me not to worry about. It was there the last time I checked the mail—a little over a week ago.” The message. The package. The program they’d developed together during her recovery. Whatever was on those thumb drives, it would require their shared work to decode it.

She needed to get to her apartment. Sean’s life was in danger and their program might be the one thing that could save him. “You have to take me home. Without the software Sean and I developed, those drives are worthless.”

“You tell me where it’s stored and Mitch will retrieve it.”

“Absolutely not.” Her trust in Ethan was thin enough, but there was no way she was going to hand the height of her life’s work over to anyone other than him. The stakes were too high. That program, when fully realized, would fund her future and Sean’s, as well.

“I’m getting you to safety. I’ve got a place where—”

Ashley’s head shook so quickly, strands of hair clung to her eyelashes. She swept them to the side and focused on the moment. If she kept moving, kept planning, she’d forget the entire situation was spiraling. “You have to take me to my apartment.”

“It’s dangerous. Sean said they hacked his computer, read his emails. They knew you were on that flight, which clearly means they’ve studied you enough to know where you live.”

“Clearly I have to go home. The program we developed... I didn’t store it on my hard drive.” The very same laptop the man at the airport had taken when he’d grabbed her bag. “It’s not stored in the cloud. Encryption software like we developed is valuable, an easy target if word gets out that it exists before we’re ready to shop it around. There are only two copies. The first one’s hidden in my apartment and the other is in a safe-deposit box, but the keys to that are at my place, too.

“Sean’s smart, and I’ll guarantee you he rewrote the encryption process on his computer overseas without creating a way to decrypt it on the same machine.” Not to mention, they needed to find the key for decrypting what he’d sent, but that was a discussion they could have after Ethan drove her to her apartment. “If somebody’s onto Sean and that package in his mailbox holds encrypted data, then you have nothing without what’s stored at my place.”

Ethan reached for his phone, stopped and banged his fist against the steering wheel. “This is where I wish I had more backup.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just me and Mitchum. I’ve got contact with my chain of command, but it’s limited to nonclassified communications and emergencies until we’re ready to move in. Believe it or not, this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, and me contacting them with where you are could land us in deeper danger.”

“Why just the two of you?” She’d assumed there was abundant help. If this was about to become a three-person team made up of Ethan, his pal Mitchum and her...

“Sean’s involved because we sent one man in already and he...was unsuccessful. Everything points to someone working on the inside. We don’t know how high this goes or who is helping who, so after what happened with our first guy overseas, my team has been whittled down to Mitchum and me with Sean assisting, keeping our information close until we can build this case.

“What we’re looking at is a well-funded group with some serious hacking ability. They’ve been able to manipulate secure computers. They’ve deleted files we were using to build evidence against them, accessed encrypted emails and planted some pretty nasty viruses on our secure servers, all while staying one step ahead of us. We’ve gone dark. Sean got involved because we knew we could trust him to be our boots on the ground as an established infantryman who already knew what was going on. He asked me if he could forward those drives to you for safekeeping if anything happened. I had reservations, but...” He flicked a glance her way and back to the road. “Neither of us ever thought something would happen to blow his cover and land you in danger on top of it.”

“What’s on those drives?”

“All of our evidence against them. They’ll want those drives to destroy them, Sean to find out what we know and what we’re planning, and you because they have no idea how deeply you’re involved.”

“So they’re after me not only to get to Sean, but because they think I have his intel.” Ashley’s fingernails dug into her palms. Danger. The last place she ever wanted to be again. That was why she loved her computers. They were safe. Nobody ever found a gun aimed at them because they built a tougher firewall. “We have to get the software.”

“You’re right. But you’re in danger as long as these guys are out there.” He eased over to the side of the road to turn around as his phone beeped. He pulled the device from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then gripped it tighter.

“What?” Ashley’s voice strained as she leaned closer, fingers trembling at the hardness in his eyes.

“It’s Sean.” His voice was matter-of-fact, but the expression on his face chilled the air in the cab. “Shortly after Sean contacted you, there was a breach on his FOB by insurgents posing as Afghan police.”

Ashley’s chest jolted with pain, the adrenaline aching in her veins. “And...?”

A muscle twitched in Ethan’s cheek. “They took Sean.”

THREE

Sean. Targeted. Taken by insurgents.

Ashley’s bravado wore thin. Winning the battle to go to her apartment had dampened the fear and given her a sense of control, but as they raced through Syracuse in the dark, the temporary sense of power didn’t last.

In just a few hours she’d gone from a network security consultant checking a friend’s mail to a hunted woman on the run with a man she’d hoped never to see again. This didn’t happen outside of Jason Bourne movies.

Ethan dropped one hand from the wheel and let it fall between them on the console. “You okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

“That was one mighty big sigh you just let out over there.” He sniffed. “Listen. It’s bound to not be easy right now, but we’ll figure out who’s behind all of this and find Sean. We have the benefit of knowing this wasn’t random. We have leads. It might take some time, but we’ll get it done.”

Something about the renewed confidence in his voice soothed Ashley. It washed over her in the soft darkness and made her believe he was right—it would all be okay. Eventually. She settled into the corner against the door, pulling the seat belt tighter in case anyone found them on the street and tried to take them out.

But nothing could keep the silence from pressing in. She wished there was something to talk about, but shock and weariness kept her mind focused on the monsters that could be lurking outside her home. Even that was better than letting her mind wonder if Sean was alive.

Her home. Her safe place. It would probably never be that again. Especially considering... “Have you been to my apartment before? Pulling surveillance on me?”

Ethan didn’t answer, but the fact he hadn’t asked for directions to her place spoke louder than words. The lights of his truck played across the front parking lot and he turned them off before they got to the side street of the building where her apartment was housed. He pulled into a space around a curve several buildings away from hers and cut the engine. “If you tell me where it is, I can go get it.”

And leave her here alone, a sitting duck for anyone who happened to spot her? No, thank you. Her best option was to go with him and face whatever giants might be lurking in her living room. “It’s too hard to explain, and you’ll need a screwdriver.”

His eyebrow arched, the shadow of the streetlights making him look like a supervillain in an old cartoon. All he needed was a mustache to twirl. It would have made her laugh under different circumstances.

Ashley reached for the door handle but a short grunt stopped her. Ethan flipped a switch by the steering wheel and popped his door open cautiously. When the interior lights stayed dark, he tipped her a nod and met her at the front of the truck, hand at his hip under his jacket.

Ashley’s eyes drifted closed as she wavered on her feet. She hadn’t considered he’d be armed. His reflexive movement as they faced danger spoke more than words. Even though they’d escaped the airport, she was still in a situation requiring weapons. She’d grown up around guns, been trained to use them, and still the irrational, stupid fear won every time. The memory of pain and stolen dreams overwhelmed her common sense.

Pulling in a deep breath, she released it slowly. Be strong. Focus on where you are right now. Ethan could never know how much the past still haunted her nightmares.

As much as she feared the gun at Ethan’s side, she edged closer. Right now, he was the one safe thing in her life. Ironic, considering his propensity for leaving when it suited him. Considering how her heart started to beat double-time when she’d realized he was her rescuer, it was best if she remembered that. Focus on the soft feel of the air... On the smell of smoke from someone’s fireplace... Anything other than guns and Ethan.

They slipped across the parking lot to the back, where a few feet of small yard stood between them and the protective wall that buffered the sounds from the road behind the building.

Ashley followed Ethan into the breezeway and up to the exterior stairs to the second level, stopping short when he did. The door to her apartment stood open slightly, the wood around the lock splintered. The intruders hadn’t even tried to hide their entrance. Far from fear, hot fury surged. It took a lot of chutzpah to bust into someone’s home without even caring if the whole apartment complex knew about it.

Motioning for her to follow, Ethan held a finger to his lips then slipped up the short breezeway to the stairs leading to the third floor. He ushered her underneath the open cement-and-metal structure. “Wait here.”

Ashley wanted to protest, but she knew better. Arguing would waste valuable time and he’d never let her go anyway. She stood tense against the wall, trying to make herself small.