“Have you checked in to the office at all?”
She shook her head. “I figure someone there has to be selling information. I walked into a trap. And they knew where I lived. And they knew about the safe house in the Quarter. That could only have come from the NCIS office. The computers are regularly gone over by the techs, so I doubt if someone could have found me through all the security that way.”
“And someone took a shot at her,” Nicolas added..
“Call them now,” Kaden advised. “Talk only to Henderson. Tell him you think there’s a rat and that’s why Calhoun was taken to a safe location and is under guard. Tell him you want to bring the data in, but you don’t trust anyone. He’ll set up a meeting to do the exchange, and we’ll be there to protect you.”
She shook her head. “It’s too risky. He could get killed.”
“You don’t think he’s the traitor?”
“Not for a minute. I don’t have a single doubt about him. Have you ever met him?” Dahlia’s voice was fierce. “He loves his country. He’s served it all his life. He would never, under any circumstances betray it or his men. He has a code of honor he lives by and he’s as solid as they come.”
“You like him.”
“I’ve grown to respect him.” She glanced apologetically at Nicolas. “He talked me into working for the NCIS when I was just a kid. I’m not going to use him as bait to bring out the traitor. Besides, he’ll expect the data, and I don’t have it yet.”
“What did you just say?” Nicolas’s voice was very quiet and sent a shiver of alarm down her spine.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Contents – Prev | Next
Dahlia shrugged her shoulders, striving to appear nonchalant. “That data still has to be recovered.”
There was a small silence. The GhostWalkers exchanged long looks. “I thought you’d already recovered the research,” Nicolas said. “Why would these people be coming after you if they still had it?”
“Well, they don’t have it. Halfway into the mission, I realized it was a setup. I knew they were dangling bait, false bait—I’d read the original data the professors had before they were murdered. A few days earlier, when I was scouting the building, I thought I recognized one of the men on the same floor where I’d been told the data was. It nagged at me that I’d seen him before somewhere, but I couldn’t place him. I’d already broken in and had accessed the computer and I skimmed the report and realized it was a fake. That triggered my memory of the man. He’d been a student at the university, just walking by in the hall outside of one of the professor’s offices. He had glanced inside the door, and that attracted my attention. He didn’t turn his head in any obvious way, but I knew he was looking in. People just don’t do that ordinarily, so he stuck in my mind.”
Gator rubbed his head. “I’m confused, Dahlia. You spotted this same man in the building where you were scouting to break in?”
She nodded. “But I didn’t place him. It’s been a year since I was at the university taking a look at the documents.”
Sam laughed. “Don’t apologize. Most people wouldn’t have noticed him, let alone recognized him a year later.”
“Well, it would have been a lot safer had I recognized him immediately. Instead, it took me skimming the document and realizing it was a false one as well. For a minute I thought maybe the company had been sold false data, but then I remembered where I’d seen him, and I realized the data was flagged and I’d be having company any minute.”
She glanced at Nicolas. Waves of dark energy swarmed around her. “You’re getting upset. I’m alive and safe, and it wasn’t all that difficult to get out of there. The biggest problem was the research data. I didn’t want them to be able to move it. I was fairly certain they didn’t have much warning so they couldn’t have buried it all that deep. Most people think in terms of protecting a computer, but a really good hacker can get through most computers given the time. I figured they didn’t put anything on the computers just because of that. And if I was right, that meant there was only the one copy. And if there was only one copy, they had it locked up tight.”