Page 4 of Vienna Bargain

“Find it.”

The RTW tech cleared his throat. “He’s correct, it’s not possible for us to—”

Alexander turned away, jaw clenched. He wanted to lash out at them, but if they both said it wasn’t possible, then that wouldn’t help.

If they couldn’t give him answers, Alena would.

Alexander strode out of the small office. Across the hall, the door of the temperature controlled server room was open, and two other employees were carefully checking all the connections.

Alexander strode down the hall, back towards the conference room.

Commander Fischer had removed his helmet and tactical vest, which were sitting in one of the conference chairs. When Alexander walked in, he looked up from a small computer open on the conference table.

Alena wasn’t there. Fischer’s men had cleared out a small storage closet—boxes of office supplies were now lining the hall—and taken Alena in there. A makeshift cell.

“Mr. Wagner,” Commander Fischer said.

Alexander didn’t have the time or mental space for pleasantries. “All information on the servers was copied using the—” Damn it he’d forgotten what they called it. “—that box.”

Commander Fischer nodded. “And based on what the information security specialists retrieved, it appears that data has already been passed on. She is most likely a professional.”

Professional what? Spy—that’s what he’d assumed, but Commander Fischer had gently noted that “spy” was a term primarily used in fiction.

She might be a professional hacker, or a private investigator. Most corporate espionage—unless there was a disgruntled employee in the mix—utilized outside people, or involved hiring high level personnel away from a competitor and asking them to bring proprietary information with them.

His company—his family legacy—controlled a huge percentage of the shipping and import/export in this part of Europe. They had waterway rights for the Danube that went back more than a century, knew nation tariff and tax laws sometimes better than the governments in question. They’d also rolled out state of the art hardware RFID tracking and accompanying software with user-side interfaces not long ago. The list of things his company had or knew that competitors would want was long and varied.

No matter what kind of professional Fischer was talking about, there was no way around the fact that Alena had played him.

He should stop thinking about her and call in his VPs. Based on what they knew so far, it seemed unlikely she was working for someone inside his organization, though he’d considered that. Wagner Global had contingencies and protocols for everything from terrorist attacks to pirates—which were a legitimate concern in this business.

Was there a protocol for the CEO being a gullible asshole?

“Who does she work for?” Alexander asked.

“I don’t know, but we do know who she is.” Fischer picked up a blue passport book. “She had this hidden on her person. The information matches up with facial recognition.”

Alexander accepted the American passport. Hidden on her person. That meant Fisher, or one of his men, had searched her. Put their hands on her. Alexander’s jaw clenched.

He opened the book, turning it to read the inside front cover.

The picture was undeniably her, thought the blank expression wasn’t one he’d seen on her face.

Magdalena Moreau. U.S. citizen. According to her date of birth she really was thirty-one, and had been born in the state of Georgia.

She hadn’t lied about where she was from, and her legal name was close to the name she’d given—Magdalena to Alena, Moreau to Moore.

He closed the book and tossed it back to Fischer. “There was an article in Forbes about her. Her photo, but the name was Alena Moore.”

“I’ll have someone look into it.”

“What else?” Alexander asked.

“What else…do we know?” Fischer was only momentarily confused by his succinct question. “There’s very little available information. So little that I suspect someone scrubbed her digital footprint, though the tech team would need to confirm that.”

Alexander nodded for Fischer to continue when he paused.

“We're reaching out to contacts who might be able to access U.S. records that we cannot, but for now we know that Magdalena Moreau is well traveled based on the stamps in the passport. Her occupation, and this is self-reported on her only social media site, is as a consultant.”

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