Delta Force Defender
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“I should report you.” She flicked her fingers at him. “What are you doing in DC? Why aren’t you on duty?”
Cam narrowed his eyes. She didn’t want to report him. Her voice had quavered, and she’d broken eye contact with him. If she’d turned those emails over so quickly, there shouldn’t be anything stopping her from turning him over—but she didn’t want to go there.
“I’m on leave. I’m not here on any official business, just my own.” He crumpled the cocktail napkin in his fist. “Look, I know Major Rex Denver, and I know he’s innocent of these charges.”
“He went AWOL.” She sniffed. “Running indicates guilt.”
“Not always.” He smoothed out the napkin and traced the creases with the tip of his finger. “Not if you think there’s a conspiracy against you and you’re going to be railroaded.”
“A conspiracy?” Her eyes widened and seemed to sparkle in the low light from the candle on the table.
“Here you go.” The waitress set down their drinks and spun away before Cam could tell her to close out the tab and that he didn’t need a mug.
He watched Martha over the bottle, as he tipped the beer down his throat. Maybe this night would be longer than he expected.
“We think someone is framing Denver, and it started with those emails.”
“We?”
“The Delta Force team that Major Denver commanded. We were all—” he put down the bottle harder than he’d planned “—dragged in for interrogation. Do you know what that’s like? You’re doing your job, doing the right thing, and bam. They’re lookin’ at you like you’re vermin.”
She nodded and took a big gulp from her wineglass. “I do know what that’s like. I turned over those emails and all of a sudden, I’m suspect. They’re checking out my communications, my files.”
Cam’s pulse ticked faster. That’s why Martha was none too anxious to report him. They’d grilled her, too.
“Exactly.” He touched the neck of his bottle to her glass and the pale liquid within shimmered and reflected in Martha’s eyes. Whiskey. Her eyes were the color of whiskey. And right now he was a little drunk just looking into them.
Cam cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. “I don’t trust them, any of them. All I know is Denver is not guilty of those crimes, and I’m gonna prove it.”
Martha took another sip of wine from her half-empty glass, her cheeks flushed like a rose stain on porcelain. “I’ll start at the beginning with the emails.”
“Did the CIA determine where they came from?” He scooted forward in his seat.
“I didn’t get all the details because why would they tell me anything? I’m just the one who discovered them and turned them over.” She cupped her glass in her two hands and rolled it between her palms. “They were looking at Dreadworm though, you know that hacking group?”
He nodded, not wanting to interrupt her flow. This stuff had been bothering her for a while, and he just became her receptacle—a very willing one.
“But I don’t know if they ever determined how my email inbox became the target, or at least they never told me. Dreadworm was just the messenger, anyway. The conduit for the message, if you will—and that message was that Major Rex Denver had been working with a terrorist group plotting against the United States.”
Cam slammed his fist on the table, the tips of his ears burning.
Martha held up her index finger. “But I noticed something strange about those emails.”
“Yeah, they were filled with lies.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but it didn’t seem as if the person who composed the emails was a native English speaker.”
Cam blinked his eyes and took another swig of beer. “Go on.”
“If it were a foreign entity who sent those messages, why? Why would they care to warn US Intelligence about an American serviceman?”
“Our allies would care.”
“Why wouldn’t our allies just use regular channels to communicate with our military or even the CIA? But an unfriendly entity might have every reason to plant those stories about Denver.”
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
“It’s more than just the emails.” Martha waved her hand at the passing waitress. “Another round, please.”
Cam cocked his head and took in Martha’s empty wineglass and flushed cheeks. She’d downed that pretty fast. Although even in low heels she stood taller than most men, she was as slim as a reed, and the booze seemed to have loosened her tongue and her attitude toward him. He’d take it.
“More than emails?” He wrapped both hands around his bottle.
She looked both ways in the crowded bar and hunched forward, wedging her chin in the palm of her hand. “I’m being followed.”
“The guy on the subway platform.”
“I don’t know.” She drew back from him...and her earlier pronouncement, and tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear. “Nobody has ever made physical contact with me before. That push could’ve killed me.”
The fear in her whiskey eyes plunged a knife in his gut. “Maybe it was just a warning, maybe a coincidence after all.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“How do you know you’re being followed?”
“I can feel it, sense it.”
He rolled his shoulders and thanked the waitress as she brought them their drinks. Maybe Martha was just paranoid. She’d been dwelling on those emails, and he didn’t blame her. They’d started a firestorm.
“And then there’s the skull and crossbones.”
He coughed and his beer fizzed in his nose. “You mentioned that before. Someone put a skull and crossbones on the emails?”
“Not the original messages. Someone sent me an email, just this afternoon, with one of those animated gifs of a skull and crossbones—blinking eyes and chattering teeth.” She took a gulp from her new wineglass, and Cam placed his hand over her icy cold one.
“Why is someone sending you threats? You obviously took the intended and hoped-for action. You turned over the emails and got Denver in a heap of trouble. Why the harassment?”
“I—I do have an idea.”
“I’m all ears.” He curled his fingers around her hand in encouragement. Why would anyone threaten Martha Drake, a by-the-book CIA translator worker bee who’d reacted exactly as the sender thought she would?
“It might be because I copied all of the emails from my work computer to a flash drive, and now I have them at home.”
Chapter Three
Cam Sutton’s warm hand tightened around her fingers for a second. “Whoa. I bet the emailer wasn’t expecting you to do that. Why did you do that?”
How could she explain it? She’d never done anything against the rules in her life. “I don’t know exactly. There was something about those emails that didn’t sit right with me.”
“You said before that they might’ve been written by a foreigner.” Cam tapped his temple. “You’re a smart woman.”
“I think it was the sentence structure and the word choice. Too formal or... I don’t know what.” She squared her shoulders and slipped her hand from Cam’s. “When I first reported the emails, I tried to tell my supervisor about my suspicions, but he brushed me off.”
“I take it nobody at the CIA knows what you did with those emails?”
“N-no.” She pulled her bottom teeth between her lips and traced the stem of her wineglass. Farah didn’t count, did she?
“You seem unsure. Did you tell anyone you forwarded the messages to yourself at home?”
“I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
“If someone’s been following you and sending you poison-pen emails, somebody knows. Otherwise, they would’ve left you alone after verifying you’d turned over the messages.”
“I don’t see how someone could know I have the emails.”
He hunched forward, and his energy came off him in waves and engulfed her, sweeping her up in his world. “You seemed hesitant before. Do you think your supervisor might suspect you?”
She snorted and took another swig of wine. “No way. If he did, he would’ve just reported me to security and gotten me fired...or worse. He wouldn’t be hiring people to shove me onto the train tracks.”
“You’ve got a point.” He rubbed his hands together. “It has to be the party who sent the emails, the people who wanted to bring down Denver.”
Her gaze dropped to his fingers drumming on the tabletop. “You’re glad someone’s after me.”
“Wait. What?” He smacked his chest with the palm of his hand. “That’s dumb. I don’t want to see anyone hurt over this.”
“No, but you tracked me down because I’m the one who initiated the fall of Major Denver, and you probably expected some CIA drone that you could bully and instead you’ve discovered a chink in the story, a new twist you weren’t expecting.”
He cocked his head, and a lock of hair curled over his temple. He shoved it out of the way like a man accustomed to a military cut and whistled. “Are you sure you’re just a translator and not an analyst?”
“Just a translator? I know four languages in addition to English.” She ticked off her fingers. “Russian, German, French and Spanish.”
“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “You also have a big chip on your shoulder.”
“I do not.” She crossed her arms, covering her shoulders with her hands. “I’m just sick of being underestimated.”
“Clearly.” He leveled a finger at her. “And that’s why you stole those emails.”
“Are you sure you’re just a Delta Force grunt and not military intelligence?” She held her breath.
He opened his mouth, snapped it shut and hit the table with his fist. Then he laughed, and what a laugh he had. A few heads turned at the loud guffaw.
“Shush.” She kicked his foot under the table.
“Did those spies pick the wrong CIA drone to mess with or what?” He shook his head. “Why do you think they targeted you?”
“Honestly? I think they picked me because I have a reputation for following the rules. Everyone at work knows that.”
“That’s kinda scary.”
“What? Following rules? You’re in the military. You must do a lot of that.”
“Not the rule-following, but the fact that the people who sent the emails knew that about you.” He rubbed his knuckles across the sandy-blond stubble on his chin. “Inside job? Some kind of bug?”
“A few minutes ago you called them spies. Do you think this is some foreign entity or worse, a foreign country?”
“I don’t know.” He tapped her wineglass. “Are you done? I want to see those emails.”
“You mean, at my place?” Her heart fluttered. It was one thing talking to this hunky military guy in public, but bring him back to her town house?
“You still don’t trust me?” He slumped in his seat and finished off his beer. “What can I do to remedy that?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you...exactly. I’m just not comfortable bringing strangers to my place.”
He rattled off her address and winked. “I already know where you live, Martha.”
“This is all really creepy. How long have you been following me around DC? Maybe my feeling of being tailed was coming from you.”
“I swear, I just started following you from the Langley bus stop today.”
“How do you even know about the Langley bus stop?”
“I have friends in high places.”
She rolled her eyes. “Obviously not if you’re dogging a lowly translator.”
“I mean it.” He grabbed her hands. “I want to see those emails. I know Denver. I’d be able to detect any falsehoods in those messages. I mean it’s all false, but I might be able to see something in the emails, some clue.”
An edge of desperation had entered his voice, and the easygoing frat boy had morphed into this earnest man with the serious blue eyes, desperate to clear his commanding officer’s name.
Despite herself, she felt a twinge of pity and then steeled herself against the emotion. Her father had always employed the same tone when trying to wheedle compassion from her.
She blinked as Cam tugged on a lock of her hair. “C’mon, Martha. I saved you from an oncoming train. If you don’t want me in your personal space, you can bring your computer out to someplace neutral, if you have a laptop.”
She inhaled the fresh, outdoorsy scent coming off him and counted the freckles on his nose. Cam already was in her personal space, and she didn’t mind one bit.
“All right. I’ll take you back to my town house.”
Cam waved at the waitress for the bill, and as soon as she plucked it from her apron, he snatched it from her fingers. “I’ll get this.”
Martha didn’t even hesitate as she pulled a five and a ten from her wallet and flicked them onto the table. “That’s too much like paying for information. I’ll get my own wine.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cam raising his eyebrows at her, but she ignored him and stashed her wallet back in her purse. “Is it all there?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tucked his bills and hers beneath the candle on the table, along with the check. “Walking distance?”
“You know my address.” She folded her arms, regretting her decision already.
“I know your address, not the area, but I figured you were close if you got off at the Metro stop.” He pushed back from his chair and stepped to the side to let her go first.
As she shuffled past him, she noted his height again. At five foot ten, she hit eye level with most men, but her nose practically brushed the chin of this one.
When they reached the sidewalk, Cam hunched into his jacket and flipped up the collar against the wind. “It’s not gonna snow, is it?”
“I hope not.” She peered at the light gray sky and pulled on her gloves. “That would be pretty unusual for November.”
They walked along the busy Georgetown sidewalk, occasionally bumping shoulders, which oddly reassured her, although she couldn’t figure out why. Cam had the type of solid build that screamed strength and fitness. Physically, he could have his way with anyone, even a tall woman like her.
She hunched her shoulders and stuffed an errant strand of hair back under her hat. Dream on, Martha. Cam was the type of guy who’d wheedled homework assignments out of her. Just like in college, she had something he wanted—just not her body.
She stopped in front of the town house she owned but shared with a roommate, and grabbed the iron handrail. “I’m right here.”
“Door right onto the street.”
“Yeah? So what?” She fished her key from the side pocket of her purse, and for the first time in a while hoped her roommate, Casey, was on the other side of that door.
“Not that safe.”
“If you haven’t noticed, this is a nice area.”
He looked up and down the street. “Lots of foot traffic though.”
She looked up from turning the key in the lock. “I’m a very careful person.”
“And yet, here I am.”
She opened the door and blocked it with her body. “Are you telling me not to trust you? Because I can change my mind right here and now.”
Casey yelled from the inside. “Close the door. You’re letting in the cold air.”
“My roommate. Protection.” Martha jerked her thumb over her shoulder.
“Good thinking.” He rubbed his gloved hands together. “Now can we go in? It is cold out here.”
Martha pushed into the room, and Cam followed on her heels.
“I was just on my way...” Casey tripped to a stop in her high heels when she swung around and almost collided with Cam. “Well, hello there.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Casey, Cam. Cam, Casey, my roommate.”
Casey stuck out her hand and wiggled her fingers, her long painted nails catching the light and glinting like she was casting a spell. “Nice to meet you. You’re the first guy Martha’s ever brought home.”
The heat washed up Martha’s face, and she ground her teeth together. “It’s not like that. He’s not a guy.”
Casey fluttered her long—fake—eyelashes as she gave Cam the once-over. “You could’ve fooled me.”
“I think what Martha means—” he hooked his arm around Martha’s neck in a total buddy move and pulled her close “—is we’re just friends.”
“Of course you are.” Casey turned toward the kitchen, giving Cam a view of her derriere in her tight dress. “Do you want a beer?”
“I thought you were going out?” Martha ducked out of Cam’s hold and shed her coat.
“Just showing a little hospitality.”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s my guest. I can get him a beer if he wants one.”
“I’m good.” Cam held out one hand as if refereeing an MMA fight. “We don’t want to hold you up, Casey. Nice meeting you.”
Her roommate’s pretty face fell, and Martha couldn’t help the little spark of satisfaction that flared in her belly. “Have fun, Casey.”
“Nice meeting you, Cam.” She swept up her coat from the back of a chair. “Hope to see you again sometime.”
The door slammed behind Casey in a gust of perfume and hairspray.
Cam cocked an eyebrow at her. “Not a good friend, I take it?”
“Not a friend at all, and she’s a horrible roommate—messy, noisy, brings guys back here all the time.”
“And you mean guys.”
“Yeah. She’s a real pain.”
“Move.”
“It’s my place.”
Cam’s gaze flicked around the town house, still sporting the expensive furnishings Mom had favored and she couldn’t afford to replace. “Government’s paying some solid wages.”
“Anyway, I can’t just move.” She had no intention of getting into her personal finances—or her notorious background—with Cam.
“Kick her out.”
“She signed a lease.”
“How long?”
“Four more months. I think she’s gearing up to move out anyway.”
“I’m sure you’re counting the days.” He clapped his hands once and she jumped. “The emails?”
“Do you want a beer? Or something else?”
“Just some water.” He tipped his head at the door. “She doesn’t know about the messages, does she?”
“Casey?” Martha snorted. “No. She wouldn’t care, anyway. She’s in DC to sleep around and maybe snag a book deal, and she has a good start on both.”
“Who knew the capital was such a cesspool.”
“I hope you’re kidding.” She strode into the kitchen and reached for a glass. As ice dispensed from the fridge, Cam joined her in the kitchen, making the space feel claustrophobic.
“I am kidding, and I’m convinced someone, somewhere in this cesspool has it out for Major Denver.” He took the glass from her hand, his fingers brushing hers and giving her a jolt.
Leaning her hip against the kitchen counter, she tucked the hand behind her back. “Why would they have it out for him? Why frame him? By all accounts, he’s a good soldier.”
“The best and maybe that’s why.” He gulped down the water. “Maybe he stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have.”
“Again, that could point to a foreign entity.”
“I agree, especially after what you told me about the emails, which are...”
“On my laptop.” She brushed past him. “In my bedroom”
Leaving him in the kitchen, she jogged upstairs and pulled the door closed on Casey’s messy room. She ducked into her own room, swept her laptop from the desk and tucked it under her arm. By the time she got downstairs, Cam had settled on the sofa in the living room, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
She sat next to him and opened her computer. “I put them in a folder on my hard drive.”
“Where’s the flash drive? You copied them to a flash drive when you stole them, right?”
She tapped the keyboard harder than she intended. “I didn’t steal them. They were addressed to me.”
“Addressed to your CIA address, but I’m not judging. Hey, I’m glad you did steal...take them, but where’s the original flash drive?”
“It’s in a safe in the office.”
Raising his eyes to the ceiling, Cam asked, “This place has an office, too?”
“Yes.” She zipped her lip and double-clicked on the folder holding the emails. “Is that secure enough for you?”
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to have the messages in two places. You’re doubling the opportunity for someone to take them.”
“Why would anyone else want them? The CIA already has them.” She pointed to her screen. “This is the first of the three emails I received.”
Cam moved in closer and his warm breath bathed her cheek as he read the email aloud, slowly. “‘Look at Major Rex Denver, Army Delta Force, and track his actions and communications. You will understand his behavior as treason. He has many contacts in region.’”
“Sounds stilted, doesn’t it?”
“Wow.” Cam slumped back and kicked one foot on top of her coffee table. “That’s enough to raise suspicion and get you investigated? Good thing nobody ever sent the CIA information about my activities.”
“There are two more emails with more details.” Her hand hovered over the keyboard. “Your activities?”
“Not treasonous. I’m just saying stuff happens in the field, and it’s better for everyone if it stays in the field.” His hand dropped to her head, and he messed up her hair with his fingers. “Don’t worry. I’m not doing anything to compromise national security—and neither was Major Denver.”
She jerked away from him with a scowl, smoothing her wavy hair back into place. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry. I have a younger sister, and I’m accustomed to teasing her.” He tapped the keyboard. “Next email.”
She huffed out a breath as she opened the second email. Great. The hottest guy she’d run into in months thought of her as a little sister. Typical.
Tipping the display toward him, she drew back and watched his profile as he digested the next message, his lips moving silently as he read it, his finger following the words. He must’ve read it a few times, as it took him a while to peel his eyes from the display. When he did, his jaw hardened and his eye twitched.
For all his carefree, easygoing ways, Cam really did care about Denver, and a strong desire to help him clear his commanding officer washed over her. She hated seeing anyone unfairly accused, and she’d had a feeling about these bogus emails ever since they landed in her inbox.
“Worse, huh?” She reached across him and opened the final email.
Cam took his time reading this one, as well, and when he finished, he punched the pillow next to him. “This is such garbage. All the CIA had to do was ask anyone who’s ever served with the major. Even now nobody in the field believes Denver was conspiring with terrorists.”
“Why’d he take off? Why didn’t he just face the music and prove his innocence?”
“It’s not supposed to work that way, is it? As a suspect, you don’t have to prove anything. It’s up to the prosecution to come up with the evidence to convict you. I’m guessing Denver recognized a setup when he saw one and figured the fix was in. There’s no fighting against that when evidence is fabricated.”
“He should’ve trusted the system.” She jutted her chin.
“Really?” He bumped her knee with his own. “Like you did? C’mon, even someone like you knows there are times when the system breaks down and you have to take matters into your own hands.”
“Even someone like me.” She drummed her fingers on the edge of the laptop.
He cleared his throat. “You know, someone who likes to follow the rules...which is usually a good idea. I’m not knocking it.”
“No offense taken. I have my reasons.” She shoved the computer from her lap to the coffee table. “I’m just wondering how someone knew to target me.”
“The CIA must’ve investigated the source of the emails. Let me guess. Fake IP address?”
“Yes, which they wrote off as coming from Dreadworm.”
“So the sender got a bunch of CIA email addresses from Dreadworm, picked one at random and sent out these lies about Denver? I don’t believe that for a minute, do you?”
“No, I think I was specifically targeted, but I don’t know why I’m being harassed now. I did what the sender expected and wanted me to do.” She shoved at her laptop with the toe of her boot.
“Because somehow they know you still have the emails, and they don’t like that.” He sat forward and dragged the computer to the edge of the coffee table. “You’re not quite the good little soldier they anticipated.”