Look-Alike. Meredith Fletcher

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and Tuenis’s very believable honesty, he lived there alone.

      “What’s bothering you?” Elle asked. She spoke in Russian because it wasn’t a language Tuenis was reputed to know.

      For a moment, Sam continued on in silence. “Tonight didn’t go as I’d planned.”

      “You have the man you came to get.”

      “This should have been simple.”

      “It was,” Elle argued. How could her sister not think tonight’s activities were anything but simple?

      “We got into a gunfight in a sex shop.”

      “How would you have gone about getting our guest, then?” Elle asked.

      After a few steps, Sam admitted, “I don’t know.”

      “You said time was of the essence.”

      Reluctantly, Sam nodded. “It is. But I know a simple retrieval op shouldn’t be as high profile as this one has been.” She paused. “Obviously you have your own way of working, Elle, but it’s not my way. It’s not what I feel was warranted in this situation.”

      Elle stopped and stopped Tuenis as well. She held on to the man’s elbow possessively. Tuenis shrank away, as if afraid he was about to be ripped apart.

      “You’ve never been to Amsterdam before,” Elle accused. “You don’t know how things are done here.”

      Sam said nothing.

      Her sister’s silence infuriated Elle. How could she stand there so calmly and make no response? “Couldn’t your agency have sent someone more experienced in this area?”

      “I was asked to pick up Tuenis by Alexandra Forsythe and Allison Gracelyn,” Sam said.

      Elle matched the names from stories she’d shared with Sam. “They’re both from Athena Academy.”

      “Yes.” Sam sipped a breath.

      Trusting people was hard for Sam. Elle understood that. Though Sam had grown up in the more affluent American world, her life had been lacking in so many ways that Elle’s hadn’t been. Knowing that allowed Elle to be patient.

      “Something came up in an investigation they were conducting,” Sam said. “Several files involving blackmail schemes were all grouped together under a folder headed Spider.”

      A surge of excitement rattled through Elle. The SVR had its own Spider files involving blackmail and payoffs as well as political corruption.

      “Allison managed to track some of the Web activity back to a domain hosted and operated by Tuenis,” Sam went on. “I’m supposed to bring him in.”

      “Without CIA backing?” Elle shook her head. “How are you supposed to do that?”

      “Allison is working on that,” Sam replied. “If we hadn’t basically abducted Tuenis, I was hoping to talk him into accompanying me.”

      “Or getting into his hard drive and Web space,” Elle finished.

      “There’s something else, too,” Sam said.

      “What?” Elle wasn’t happy now. She was certain her mood matched her sister’s.

      “One of the files that Alex and Allison pulled had to do with our parents.”

      A wave of uncertainty and fear filled Elle. Their parents, their lives and their deaths, remained mysteries to her though she had looked at their files. Despite her attempts at acceptance and her adoptive father’s apologetic reassurances that she wouldn’t ever know what had happened to them, she still longed to know. “What about our parents?”

      “All the files were encrypted and coded,” Sam explained. “It takes time. Allison is working on breaking the encryption and code. She thought perhaps she would have it broken by the time I got back. As soon as she knows, she’ll tell me.” She caught herself and rephrased her answer. “Us.”

      Turning, Elle gazed at the houseboat only a short distance away. “You also want access to Tuenis’s records aboard the houseboat, then, right?”

      “Or to acquire access to them from his machine long enough to copy them,” Sam agreed.

      At that moment, the iPAQ in Elle’s jacket went off. She took the PDA from her jacket and consulted the flashing screen.

      “It’s a silent alarm,” Tuenis said. “I have it tied to the boat’s computer wifi. Someone has broken into the boat.”

      Elle made the decision. She pushed the iPAQ into Sam’s hands. “Let me borrow the pistol you commandeered.”

      Without hesitation, Sam handed the weapon to her. “Be careful,” Sam added.

      But Elle was already in motion, striding toward the houseboat.

      Chapter 5

      Pulling Tuenis into motion, Sam walked to a position beside a forty-foot yacht moored at the side of the canal. She immediately attracted the attention of the boat’s security officer, but he remained at the railing twenty feet away.

      For a moment, Sam saw Elle slinking through the shadows along the canal, then her sister was gone—vanished into the darkness provided by the boats tied to cleats. Party music—industrial, techno and old-fashioned rock and roll—thundered from the nearby boats and from clubs that dotted the area. Amsterdam was proving louder by night than by day.

      “Who are you people?” Tuenis asked.

      “Quiet,” Sam snapped. The thought of Elle encountering whoever was on the boat by herself didn’t rest easy. Maybe Elle had more experience with the city, but she wasn’t invincible.

      “Are you guys criminals or government?” Tuenis asked.

      Sam silenced the man with a sharp glance. “Another word,” she promised, “and I’ll tie you to an anchor and heave you into the canal.”

      Tuenis nodded weakly.

      Sam took her cell phone from her pocket. Chipped for international use, the phone also had a GPS locator. The global positioning satellite system accessed at least twelve of the twenty-four satellites in fixed orbit around Earth at any time.

      She punched in Riley McLane’s number and waited.

      Riley answered on the second ring. “Miss me?” he asked, and she could hear the mocking grin in his voice.

      “Yes.”

      “Look, I’ve been thinking,” Riley said, “I shouldn’t have gotten angry the way I did. I know that—”

      “I need help,” Sam interrupted.

      Riley paused.

      “At least, I may need help.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ