Tempting Evil (Riley Jenson Guardian 3)

"Because he is only interested in revenge. We want to bring down the cartel's entire operation." He sat down on the chair nearest the com-unit, and interlaced his fingers. "We had our first breakthrough about six weeks ago. You remember the letter Misha left you on his death?"

It was hard to forget, given the circumstances under which he'd died. A tremor ran through me. God, I still had nightmares about those watery spiders, and Misha being eaten alive from the inside. I licked my lips, and said, "He gave us the name of the fifth clone - Claudia Jones. But he didn't know the alias she worked under at the Directorate."

"We've since discovered she doesn't actually work for us - though she does visit several times a month."

The glint in his green eyes suggested amusement, but for the life of me, I couldn't see why. I mean, there were thousands of people who visited the Directorate every month, all of them for legitimate reasons.

"She's not one of Alan Brown's whores, is she?" Rhoan said, a note of incredulity in his voice.

"Yes."

I glanced at my brother. "How the hell did you jump to that conclusion?"

He just grinned and tapped the side of his head. "Brains, dear girl. Brains."

I snorted softly. "I wasn't aware that's where you kept your brains."

"Enough." Jack touched a button on the keyboard, and the com-screen sprang to life. On it was a picture white haired, white skinned woman. She was extremely pretty and yet oddly ethereal, and there was an unearthly sense of power in her luminous blue eyes. "This is Claudia Jones."

"She looks like I did - well, except tor the eyes." I looked across at Liander. "When you made me up for the raid into Brown's office."

He nodded. "She seemed to be one of his regulars, so we thought it would be less suspicious if you looked like her."

"Of course, we weren't to know that she was Gautier's contact." Jack pressed another button, and the woman's picture gave way to porno - Brown fucking Jones in his office. As far as lovers went, the man had no finesse whatsoever - just got it out, shoved it in, and pumped away. Which was probably why he had to rely on prostitutes to relieve his sexual needs.

Jack froze the picture at the point of Brown getting his rocks off, and pointed to the screen. The image shimmered slightly as he touched it, then settled. "If you look at this hand, you'll notice her fingers have slipped under the desk. If I enhance the picture - " He did so, until the woman's hand dominated the screen. "You'll notice the silvery dot on the top of her index finger."

"And that is?"

"A microdot," Rhoan said. "Latest in storage media, and incredibly resilient."

Jack nodded. "The desk has a small hole drilled into it. The disk was placed into a container fitted into the hole."

"So Gautier just strolled in afterward and collected the container?" I asked, even as Jack dropped the close-up and sped up the film.

Brown did the dirty with the woman several more times, then both of them left. Nothing happened for a while, then Gautier wandered in, checking the office and walking past the desk in the process. He collected the container from the desk in a smooth, slick movement that would have been easy to miss, then left.

"So when Gautier sprung me and Quinn in Brown's office, he was actually going to collect a drop-off?"

"We think so."

"What made you suspect this was happening?" Liander asked. He was sitting on the arm of the sofa, behind Rhoan's chair.

"The fact that we could find no moles in the Directorate other than Gautier." He hesitated. "The only A.D. hiding secrets was Alan Brown, so we took the risk of reading him. You know he's being blackmailed?"

I nodded. Rhoan had told me that much ages ago.

"Gautier's behind it. Every Directorate decision is being relayed through Gautier to Deshon Starr. That madman knows what we're going to do before we even implement it."

"Which is why his cartel has managed to stay two steps ahead of the Directorate for so long."

Jack nodded again. "Of course, we then had to find out how Gautier was passing the information, which meant watching his every move, not only within the Directorate, but on missions as well. Four nights after the incident we just watched, Gautier strolled into Brown's office, this time before Brown arrived with Jones, and even though he wasn't actually on watch that night. That's when we finally realized what was going on."

"And she retrieved the disk?"

"Yes. And undoubtedly passed on a detailed report of all the going-ons in the Directorate for the coming week."

"So how is Brown getting the information to Gautier? He couldn't risk being seen with him at the Directorate."