Reese Clawson kept an office on the third floor of Harbor Petroleum’s headquarters. Her name was on the door. Her view was over the parking lot. She had a desk, an inbox, a computer she had never turned on, and a telephone she did not use. She locked the door and began the routine she always followed after being away, be it for a month or for lunch. She opened her purse and took out what appeared to be an iPhone. She swept the desk, the floor, the walls. Satisfied, she stowed away the bug detector and seated herself behind the desk.
Her purse was a slim shoulder rig, right down to the gold designer label. Which meant most security stations spent their time inspecting her and not the purse’s contents. There was no existing terrorist profile for a blonde in Valentino carrying a Ferragamo bag. If x-rayed, the contents showed just the standard female equipment. Compact, two phones, jeweled perfume holder, tablet. As Reese rarely showed up at Harbor Petroleum for more than a day at a time, everyone assumed she was some top executive’s live-in pet. The women on her floor avoided meeting her eyes as she passed. Such things used to hurt a lot more than they did nowadays. Reese had developed calluses down where they never showed.
She turned on her real phone, coded into the built-in scrambler, and listened to the series of pings confirming that the line was now secure. Instantly her phone rang. “Clawson.”
“I’ve been phoning you for hours.”
“I’m here now, Patel.”
“Somebody is tracking you.”
Patel Singh was the best techie Reese had ever worked with. But his verbal gyrations left her tired. “Strang’s in-house people?”
“Of course not. You think I’d be panicked over a company clone?”
“Patel.”
“What.”
“Lose the histrionics.”
“Well, he rattled me.”
Reese tended to sigh a lot when dealing with this man. “What do you have?”
“Somebody ran through the Harbor firewall like it was smoke. I mean it took him less than a minute.”
At a knock on her door, Reese said, “Hold one.” She hit the switch on the desk’s underside, and the door’s electronic lock clicked. Weldon Hawkins and their chief of security entered. Reese waited until the door was locked once more, then said to her phone, “But you checked and there’s nothing on me for them to find, right, Patel?”
Weldon slid into the seat opposite her. Trace, the security chief, took up station by the door. Weldon said, “Can Patel wait?”
Reese replied, “There’s been a breach.”
Trace came to full alert. “Of the Combine’s security, or here?”
“We’re not sure.” She hit the phone’s speaker button and set it on the desk. “Go ahead, Patel. We’re all listening.”
“I’ve gone all through Harbor Petroleum’s system. Their file on you is empty. That’s not the point.”
Weldon nodded agreement. “The breach has to be tied to Strang’s visit. Patel, who was the hacker?”
“That’s the next problem. I can’t find him. I lost him in Kuala Lumpur. The guy almost trapped me. His cutout was the Malay intelligence agency’s personnel system. I heard the alarm bells in California.”
“That all?”
“I wish. When your man Hazard left headquarters, he made two calls. One was to Glenda Gleeson. The star. The other was to a number in Alaska. A number that doesn’t exist anywhere.”
Trace said, “So Hazard walks outside, calls the source you used to confirm what we know about him. Then he contacts an outsider, somebody not on Strang’s payroll. And we get breached.”
Reese nodded agreement. “Patel, I’ll get back to you.” She cut the connection.
Weldon said, “Your cover’s blown.”
“Shredded, more like.” She recalled the way Charlie Hazard had watched her play with the seat between them and said, “I thought I had the guy hooked.”
“Maybe you can convince Hazard to ignore the evidence.”
“Doubtful. If he already has an outside tracker hunting us, something alerted him to our hidden agenda.”
Weldon shrugged. “So we up the ante. Offer him more money and anything else that might—”
The phone rang. Not her purse phone. The one on her desk. The one through the company switchboard.
Weldon said, “Answer it.”
Reese did so. “Clawson.”
The operator said, “Mr. Hawkins has an urgent call. I was told he might be with you.”
Reese said to her boss, “It’s for you.”
“Put it on the speaker.”
Reese punched the speaker button and said, “Go ahead.”
There were a series of clicks, then a voice demanded, “Am I through?”
“Strang here. I wanted to thank you for the meet.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“Absolutely. But it doesn’t include Hazard.”
“Those weren’t my terms, General.”
“Now, you listen up. You know as well as I do, these Ranger types are all cowboys. That’s why we have them. They’ll scale whatever wall stands between them and their target. But sooner or later the civilized polish wears off and you’re left with nothing but extreme risk. I hired Hazard to be an asset. He’s just crossed the line and become a liability. So he’s been deleted from my portfolio. I’ll bring in my best men and do the job right. That’s all you need to know.”
Weldon hesitated a fraction, then said, “Clawson will be in touch next week. We’ll let you know our decision.”
“Roger that. Strang out.”
Weldon hit the button and said, “Toss Strang enough crumbs to make sure he doesn’t squawk.”
Trace, still stationed by the door, said, “Hazard was Ranger?”
Reese did not need to check Charlie Hazard’s file to verify. “He did a month-long tour in Iraq. Less. His first trip up-country, he took a hit. When he got out of rehab he spent three years at Fort Benning and another two at FLETC.”
Trace looked worried. “Nobody said anything about the guy being Ranger.”
Weldon said, “What’s the issue here?”
“For one thing, it was a total waste of time, sending some no-brain bikers up against him.”
“We had an hour’s notice,” Reese replied. “We did the best we could. All they had to do was slow them down. They failed. We’re dealing with it. End of story.”
“Not if he connects us to the attack.”
“We had a firewall. Several. There’s no way he can uncover our involvement.”
“But you want me to take him out, right?”
“Absolutely,” Weldon replied. “He’s walked away from the offer. We can’t leave him out there to cause us trouble.”
“We don’t know that he will,” Reese said.
“We’ve been through all that. There’s no other reason for Gabriella’s team to have brought him in.”
Reese looked from one man to the other. Sometimes she felt their male aggression led from one absurdly belligerent action to another. But this time she sensed they were genuinely worried. “Hazard is just one man. And we still don’t have confirmation that he’s agreed to help Gabriella out. Why are we getting so worked up?”
“Because he’s Ranger,” Trace replied.
Weldon asked the security chief, “Can you still do the job?”
“You find Hazard for me. Fast as you can. We want to strike before he gets any confirmation we’re involved.” Trace frowned at the heat beyond the window and added, “I’ll need my entire team.”