Chapter 29

 

Since Vlad’s visit this morning, this lab was indeed bearable. Definitely more than it had been when she left. Apparently presenting a huge warrior as your protector made an excellent deterrent to nasty people. This relieved her greatly.

The three jerks aside, she rather liked the older woman and the two new men. It was the younger woman she was leery of. Which was stupid because other than that cold look she thought she saw, the woman didn’t give off bad vibes.

No, that wasn’t true. She did. That’s why she wasn’t interested in getting chummy with her. The vibes from this woman, Anna, were like those of the women who had preceded her. Outwardly friendly, but the minute she was out of earshot, would trash her to their colleagues in a heartbeat.

Only this young woman seemed far more malignant than even the nasty women before her. There was something about her that she couldn’t trust.

Because of her observations, she spent a lot of time working on her projects, hurrying to finish. There was no way she intended to remain in this lab for five days. She couldn’t.

They’d have to check her into the mental health wing.

Charlene, the older woman, proved to be interesting and immune to the nasty chill in the lab. Anna, the younger woman, lingered with them and laughed and joked, and did nothing wrong. She was quiet and attentive. Shy even, but still not trustworthy.

The two other men in the lab she soon learned she could work with if need be. The younger one was definitely shy and awkward, so she treated him like a brother. The older man was funny and smart, and he was a joy to work with. If she had to remain in this lab, three of the new members would have made the job easier.

The jerks left her alone, thank goodness. She didn’t even have to threaten to sic Vlad on them.

She was well aware that Vlad would relish the opportunity. Although doubtful in the past, it did appear the jerks were smarter than she suspected.

One of them appeared to find Anna attractive and actually flirted with her. Anna kept her eyes down and appeared timid and a little gauche, so she fooled the jerk. The odd feelings convinced her to keep her distance, in a polite way.

Between the three jerks and Anna, she would choose the jerks. They were obvious and unpleasant, but not dangerous. She wasn’t so certain about Anna.

***

“This woman, Anna Barstow,” Beaumont said, pounding away on the keys later that afternoon.

“Yes?”

“She comes out clean.”

He noted that. “What about the other woman?”

“Charlene Morgan has a murky past, but it’s nothing serious. Looks like she went back to school a little later in life and has only been a lab tech for five years.”

That made him pause. “She doesn’t have a lot of lab experience?”

“Helena has more.”

He nodded as he stared at his computer. “What about Barstow?”

“It took her longer to finish her degree, probably because she did some traveling during her college years, but she’s got five years of lab experience as well.”

“That leaves the men.” He hit the button to print out the results. The other SEALs were throwing the names against some databases they had access to. None of them expected to come up with anything.

It was still necessary. Leave no stone unturned. Sometimes they were disgusted by what skittered from under that stone.

“I’ve got nothing on the two new guys.” Tigger finished typing then leaned back in his chair.

“Shouldn’t Ben be back by now?” Beaumont didn’t pause his typing.

“Not if he’s being thorough.”

They all smiled. Ben was quite thorough. He was out on patrol, watching and listening. They were taking turns doing this, around the clock.

“He’s missing out on some interesting stuff,” Tigger commented dryly and they all laughed but kept doggedly at their task.

“There’s got to be something.” He stretched his tight shoulders.

“I’m not having any luck finding the military traitor, either.” Beaumont rubbed the nape of his neck.

That startled him. “Nothing?”

Beaumont’s scowl should have melted his computer screen. “Nothing. It’s like this guy has ceased to exist.”

“Does he have to be a part of the military now?” He continued tapping keys.

“He used a military email address.” Tigger was busy clicking through screens. “If a person was good enough with a computer, they could use a military address.”

“They’re heavily encrypted in Rurikstan. It’d be hard to hack but possible.”

“Whoever the traitor is is at least smart enough to know that much.” Beaumont’s eyes remained on his screen.

“There’s another way to get a military address,” Tigger surmised. “Or at least another way to use one.”

“Use a family member’s?” That was utterly possible.

Tigger’s nod wasn’t reassuring. “This could be bad.”

“It’d be a lot easier to use someone’s address you know.” He hated the spewing possibilities.

“We’ll never be able to track down all the family members.” Tigger didn’t sound happy and rightfully so.

“Not to mention friends or employees who have access,” Beaumont added.

“There are also people who work for the military who aren’t active but have an address.” He made some notes to ask Aleksi.

Beaumont took a sip of his cooling coffee. “And then there are all the retired military people.”

“That’s every male in Rurikstan.”

“Oh yeah, this isn’t a volunteer basis.” Tigger took a sip of coffee, made a face of utter distaste, then promptly set the mug down.

He rose and strode to the coffee pot. He could make more and then it might be fresh for when Ben returned from his sneak and peek. A small hunt through the cabinet he hung on the wall also revealed a box of doughnuts.

While the coffee brewed, he returned to his computer.

“Are you looking at the three creeps, Welly?” Tigger slid his mug to the end of the desk.

“Yeah. For all the good it’s doing me. There’s nothing here other than some miscellaneous reports about improper conduct.”

Beaumont muttered over in his corner.

“What are you working on?” Tigger turned to Beaumont.

“Still trying to find a path back to this traitor.”

“How many paths have you tried?”

“All of them.” Beaumont’s frustrated tone told them all they needed to know.

“You’re the best man for this job,” Tigger said.

“Hopefully this means Helena is likely safe.” He took a measure of comfort from that. Yet that antsy, unsettled feeling he woke up with hadn’t dissipated. If anything, it was coalescing into something nastier.

The coffee maker stopped brewing so he rose from his desk, which he was starting to think of as the enemy, and stalked to the pot. He tossed the remains of his cold brew, did the same with his colleague’s sludge, and then passed the doughnuts around.

They munched for a few minutes, and all too soon he returned to his computer.

Ben breezed in ten minutes later. Just as all their frustration levels were rising again. Their leader helped himself to the coffee and doughnuts before giving them a sit rep and listening to theirs.

“No luck on the traitor search, and nothing on these people Helena works with.” Ben bit into his doughnut and chewed before he turned to him. “That’s good on the people Helena works with. At least you can relax.”

“Yeah.” But the edgy feeling bade him not to. He kept stoically at his search, helping Beaumont after he finished pinging people against their databases. When it was time to pick up Helena, he was grateful for the break.

The other guys all rose with him and stretched for real. When he sent them a look of inquiry, Ben explained. “We’ll have your back. We can all do with a stretch and a break.”

He nodded as he hefted the car keys.

“Let’s go.”

The team disappeared once he crawled into the car and fired up the engine.

He figured he wouldn’t see them again until he returned to their control room. Beaumont was scheduled to do the next watch, but guessed he’d finish the surveillance with Ben and Tigger first.

Once he pulled into a parking space he sat for a moment and assessed the area before exiting the car. He continued taking in information as he crossed the parking lot to the side door. He hadn’t spent much time here in his life, but he still knew the layout.

In three minutes, he was outside the door to Helena’s lab. He wanted to get another feel for the lab and the people working there. A quick scout of the outside revealed nothing so he entered, taking note of every space around the lab, and exit and entrance points. A quick scan told him it would be easy to enter this space virtually undetected.

He sent that message to the team, because it was cause for concern. Then, after he finished his survey of the area, entered Helena’s lab. She didn’t see him at first, because she was working at a huge hood in the furtherest corner of the room. But everyone else was in sight. Or mostly. One of the jerks worked in a glassed in area to the right and slightly down the hallway.

The hallway led to an office area crammed with desks. He kept his body language casual as he seated himself at Helena’s lab bench, but took in everything. The overall atmosphere in the lab upped his sense of impending doom.

There was something not quite right here.

Helena finished what she was doing and soon cleaned up the sterile hood. It was when she turned to walk away from the hood that he noted she didn’t seem surprised to see him.

She smiled, and it warmed him. He’d like to bask in that warmth all day, but he kept alert because the feeling of non-wellbeing increased.

As though he hadn’t a care in the world, he watched her stroll across the lab toward him. She stopped at various places to store the items she carried. When she reached him, he read in her eyes that she wanted to kiss him but refrained.

“Is it four o’clock already?”

“Nearly so.” He smiled at her.

Without appearing to do so, he detected menace from someone on the other side of the bench. He wasn’t obvious about it, but performed a thorough scan of that sector followed by the entire room.

Both women and one of the new men occupied that quadrant. The three idiots were on the other side, one of them still working in the glassed room off the hall. That left the other new man who was seated at the computer behind him. He hated sitting in the middle of a room like this, with someone behind him.

As soon as Helena approached, he backed up until his back was to the wall, the door to his left. Everyone was in clear view now. The new man at the computer was closest, although he could be on Helena in seconds.

“I have to record what I’ve done today.” Helena indicated a notebook on the bench.

He nodded. “Take your time.” He meant that literally. It was a prime opportunity to observe everyone.

He started with the man at the computer. He was the younger one, and seemed intent on the computer screen. The young man was busy writing something because his fingers flew across the keys and it wasn’t gibberish on the screen. To him it was, but the scientific words displaying across the glowing screen probably made sense to other scientists.

Still keeping the man in his periphery, he settled on the younger woman whose bench was right across from Helena. He pretended to keep watch on Helena, which wasn’t much of a pretense. But he also watched Anna Barstow.

Although he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, something about her bothered him. He tugged out his phone and pretending to check it, sent the SEALs a message about her. Without any sound or flash, he took several photos which he then sent.

Wishing he could also take a snapshot of the ominous atmosphere in this lab, he assimilated the information all around him. This was supposed to be a safer place for Helena, his mother, and Jorge than the palace. That’s why his team and Aleksi wanted them here until they finished securing the palace. Now he wasn’t so certain.

Helena leaned over her bench and wrote furiously. She rose a few times to retrieve pages from the printer nearby.

She snipped edges and taped the pages into her lab notebook, with the air of one who has done this multiple times. Then she made notes and wrote for a while. The older man and woman were also busy doing the exact same thing.

The younger woman… maybe that’s what bothered him. She wasn’t doing anything although on the surface she appeared busy. In the time he’d been here, she had flipped through her lab notebook, then another book. Written some things down on a notepad, rearranged some items on her bench, then wiped the bench down. Not once did her eyes stray to the clock on the wall across the lab.

The man who’d been working in the glassed-in room finished up there, because he wiped down the bench, then shut out the light and turned left to saunter down the hall. He disappeared into the office area. One of the other idiots soon followed him, carrying several pages and a lab notebook. The head jerk was seated at a bench behind Helena’s, not far from the computer. There were several books spread out around him and he worked steadily at whatever he was doing.

No one talked, and other than Barstow, everyone stayed busy. With one last piece of tape, Helena secured the final page then recorded some additional notes, dated the page, added her name and lab number then closed the book.

“I’m finished,” she announced. She rose to gather a few things, remove her lab coat, and then momentarily disappeared down the hallway to the office before she returned carrying her purse. The older woman followed her out of the office. Barstow remained seated. She watched the proceedings, but appeared not to.

His eyes narrowed, he continued his own surveillance. Again, nothing was outright wrong, but he didn’t like how she pretended to be busy while apparently keeping track of everyone.

Helena stopped in front of him and smiled again. His heart stalled before he took her hand and waited while she said goodnight.

Then he swept her out of the lab and took his first real breath since entering the space. They didn’t speak as he hurried her down the stairs and out of the hospital, across the parking lot, and into the car. After she hooked her seatbelt, he asked, “How do you stand being in that lab all day?”

“I know it’s only for a week.” Helena shrugged and he stared, because there was no other option.

“You’re beautiful.” Because he couldn’t help himself he leaned forward to capture her lips with his. She tasted as delicious as he remembered.

“Where did that come from?”

“What?”

“That comment.”

He stared into the face he intended to see for the rest of his life. “Because you are definitely the most beautiful woman on earth.”

“Thank you, but go look at Karis.”

After firing up the engine he headed out of the parking lot. “No, thank you.”

“She’s the most beautiful woman on earth.”

His lips curled up at the adamant tone in her voice. “She’s beautiful, yes. But you’re more so.”

Her lips curled up then. “You’re biased.”

“Maybe.” He knew what he knew and this woman was it for him. Ever since that momentous occasion when he looked at her and saw not Helena Dubrinsky, but Helena Dubrinsky. That day he had tasted fate and knew she was his.

Since she appeared a bit uncomfortable with the conversation, he changed the subject.

“What’s up with that woman, the one across the bench from you?”