LITMIR.BIZ

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We could use that against him, couldn’t we?”

      “Edison Lone? Gay?” She nearly choked. “The man possesses so much testosterone he’s probably taking supplements.”

      “I said secretly.”

      “Everybody knows he likes women.”

      The words rankled. “You know that?”

      “I’m just offering common knowledge about the man.”

      He sighed heavily, well acquainted with Edison Lone’s considerably thick dossier. Six foot one, thirty-five years old and blessed with jet-black hair and blue eyes, Lone had once upon a time been a foster child who’d exhibited such unusual aptitude in school that he’d wound up getting a first-rate education privately subsidized by benefactors. Off the record, Edison Lone was reputed to be one of those enviably rare, lucky men who drew women to him like an MRI magnet.

      The man sighed again. He’d really hoped Edison Lone might be gay. But even he’d heard the female gossip around Washington about Lone being a wizard under the bedsheets.

      Her husky voice broke into his reverie. “He’s convinced someone’s using the classified ads to make contacts and sell information from IBI, so he could find out it’s us. This morning, he said he might take his suspicions to CIIC.”

      “If CIIC investigates, we’re toast. Did you try to talk him out of it?”

      She nodded affirmatively.

      They’d probably talked alone, he thought, in one of those high-tech conference rooms laid out with imported coffee and a fancy silver service. In addition to the stab of jealousy and the threat of being exposed as a traitor by Edison Lone, he decided the mind-boggling acronyms in Washington were enough to make a man’s head hurt. IBI were the initials for the Internal Bureau of Information, the organization that employed Edison Lone. CIIC, the Center for International Informational Control, was the watchdog organization that kept its eye on IBI.

      “We’d better do something soon,” she said. “Otherwise he’ll realize we’re selling information from IBI’s database.”

      The database included strategic plans for every national emergency from biomedical disaster to nuclear attack, and once more buyers were in place, they could finish unloading what they had to sell. “We’ve got to get Lone out of the picture,” she repeated. “And without drawing attention to everything he’s been working on for the past year.”

      “All we need is a week, then we can leave the country.”

      “Only a week,” she agreed.

      He thought of their new identities, passports and disguises, then of the walled compound they’d purchased in Bali, with its private, white-sand beaches and crystal-clear cerulean waters. “We’ve worked too hard to let anyone get in our way now.”

      “Can we get Edison Lone assigned to a case that would occupy his time? Just for a week?” she asked.

      “If you’re sure he’s not gay, I’ve got a solution.”

      She frowned as if conflicted. “The distraction’s female?”

      He nodded. “Her name’s Selena Silverwood.”

      “Never heard of her.”

      “Of course you haven’t. She’s a secretary at IBI.”

      “They’re assistants,” she reminded him, ever the diplomat.

      He shrugged. “Whatever. The point is, she’s been bringing a highly personal erotic diary to work—”

      “An erotic diary? To work?” She stared at him. “Why?”

      “A New York house is publishing her erotic fantasies as a book titled Night Pleasures. Originally, it was a personal diary full of her private fantasies.”

      “Fantasies?”

      He nodded. “Involving a French courtesan’s sexual encounters with a mysterious marquis. The book’s being released next June, and the publishers have asked her to do some of her own editing. Anyway, because she was working on something other than IBI documents on IBI time, the diary came to the attention of our office. Naturally, we had to check her out.”

      “Naturally.” She smiled. “Just in case she really was stealing information from IBI. And you found?”

      “That Penthouse Letters has nothing on this girl.”

      “Her fantasies are that hot?”

      “Satan himself would beg for ice cubes.”

      “So, you think this woman can turn Edison Lone’s head and keep him occupied for a week?”

      He hedged. “Selena Silverwood’s not much to look at.”

      She sighed in exasperation. “Edison Lone goes for pretty.”

      “True. But there’s something he likes more than pretty.”

      “Ah,” she guessed. “Codes that other cryptanalysts have failed to crack. Still, I’m not following you.”

      He flashed a smile. “We’ll make a copy of Selena Silverwood’s erotic diary and tell him it’s in secret code. We’ll pretend CIIC thinks she’s using those steamy stories to smuggle sensitive information out of IBI.”

      She shook her head. “Too far-fetched. C’mon, do you really think we can pass off a woman’s erotic fantasies as something she’s written in secret code?”

      “Stranger things have happened in Washington.”

      “True,” she admitted. “And if it worked, Selena Silverwood could fall under suspicion for stealing from IBI.”

      “However briefly,” he replied. “But that’s perfect. We only need to occupy Edison Lone for a week. Just long enough that he can’t keep analyzing those classified ads—and start suspecting us.”

      She looked unconvinced. “I don’t know. He’s too smart to fall for this, isn’t he?”

      “Not if he’s sure the woman’s a traitor.”

      Another slow smile curled her lips. “You’re right. His Achilles’ heel is definitely his patriotism. If he thinks CIIC’s involved, he might believe us. Besides, we don’t have much choice but to try this.” She sighed, switching the subject. “Do you know why I love you?”

      “Because I’m brilliant and deviant?”

      She nodded. “Yes. And because Edison Lone, as much as I’ve sometimes enjoyed his company, is becoming a thorn in my side. I knew you could get rid of him.”

      “Lover,” he murmured, “a rose such as yourself should never have a thorn.”

      1

      THAT’S WHAT I LOVE about words, Edison Lone thought ruefully. Unlike women, they came with handbooks of rules and regulations. Dictionaries and grammar books told you how to deal with them. They were dependable. Reliable. Predictable. And because he hated to see words spliced and diced, as he so often did while cracking codes for the government, he was extremely careful when choosing his own. He uttered a long, succinct string of expletives.

      His boss, Eleanor Luders, looked vaguely alarmed. “Excuse me?”

      “C’mon,” he chided, appalled that anyone would require him to research a low-level assistant such as Selena Silverwood right now. “You don’t really need a professional code cracker for this job, do you?” His deliberate blue-eyed gaze panned the conference table, landing on Eleanor, a tall woman with white-blond, shoulder-length hair, wearing a practical gray suit; then on her boss, Newton Finch, a fifty-year-old ex-New Yorker who was wearing rumpled gray pinstripes; then finally on his boss, Carson Cumberland, who looked like a replica James Bond, the Pierce Brosnan version, also gray-clad.

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