Page 4 of Tempting Tessa

He felt her surety, her confidence in Jessie through the squeeze. She wanted it to be true, just like he did. Maybe between the two of them, they could will it into being. “She did have proof.”

“How can you be sure?”

He swung around on the barstool to face her, his knees bumping her leg. They were so close, their current living situation so intimate, yet he couldn’t take advantage of it. He wanted to kiss her, to taste the coffee on her tongue, to drag her back to the bedroom and do what he had wanted to do these past few nights—peel the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders, kiss her collarbone, cup her breasts. He wanted to kiss her until her lips were swollen. Do things to her that made her cry out his name.

But he couldn’t. Not only had she been Jessie’s friend, but she had no interest in him. Not like that. The warm appraisals of his body were to keep him off guard. To determine if she could trust him. She might have appreciated his male physique, but he knew underneath that it was just another game to her.

Where did her true loyalties lie? With her friend’s brother or with the swans and the CIA? Should he be suspicious of that phone call? Was someone going to show up here any minute to arrest him and take him back to the States?

“The USB,” he told her. “She did come to me, just not directly. I found it in my desk a few days after her funeral. She must’ve hidden it there before Vienna.”

“And you figured out what was on it. The information about Hagar.”

“I was digging into an investment firm in Russia and following a money trail I believed backed up my suspicions about his involvement in the impending EMP attacks. Attacks that Jessie knew about. She knew about the superconductors for the military’s computers being tampered with.”

EMP bombs—e-bombs—had been around for years, the US being one of the countries at the forefront of designing non-nuclear tools to destroy information systems. They’d created devices small enough to fit in a briefcase, making them feasible and practical.

The Defense Department’s reliance on satellites and commercial computer equipment to command military forces and operations worldwide was threatened. Much had been done to take precautions to offset such attacks.

Still, if what Tommy, via Jessie’s intel, had uncovered, the superconductors used in military computers having been tampered with would leave the bases fucked. America’s infrastructure, as well. It would bring on a type of apocalypse that could cause the collapse of many countries’ systems worldwide.

“Like you said, Jessie was logical,” Tommy continued. “She had proof, but she wanted all the players exposed so that when she handed this information to Flynn and the others, they had everything they needed to round up the entire ring. She knew that leaving even one of them free could still jeopardize our military and our country. He swung back to face the counter, toying with his coffee cup. “She traveled off the grid for two weeks, meeting with someone before Vienna. I’ve been chasing her steps ever since.”

“Where did she go?”

“Ilford, outside of London, then she went to Arizona.”

“I know where Ilford is. What’s there?”

“An energy company.”

“And Arizona?”

He rubbed his thumb up and down the side of the cup. “There are two computer companies outside of Tucson. Both commercial organizations.”

She must have heard the doubt in his tone. “But…?”

“MediSune is a cover for Cal Line, a secret branch dedicated to researching and developing supercomputers for the military. MediSune makes and sells computer systems to the public, but they focus on city and county governments. Their private branch is undocumented, and I have no idea how she uncovered the information, but probably through an informant inside the CIA or Department of Defense. They are the only ones who know about the site and would have that information.”

“That’s where it all started, the sabotage of the superconductors.”

He nodded. “That USB is heavily encrypted, and there were parts of it that I couldn’t even get to, but there was more involving a Russian shell company funding paramilitary groups and a man named Viktor. No last name. I believe it was an alias. The same alias popped up on some financial transactions linked to that Russian shell company.”

“Jessie was tracking the network behind the EMP plot, and she knew Hager was their lead guy. She probably figured he might know Viktor’s true identity.”

Tommy gestured at her phone. “That’s why she taunted him. You’re right to suspect it wasn’t simply defiance. Jessie wanted Hagar to slip up and confirm something—possibly Viktor’s identity or something else. I don’t know, but I need to retrace her footsteps. Follow her path to Ilford and Arizona.”

He left it sitting there—an invitation.

But it was more than that. He needed Tessa’s help.

She sat back, crossing her arms. “You’ve been on the run for weeks, and you’re still recovering from being shot.” Her gaze flicked to his bandaged side and back to his face. “Assassins, Russians, the CIA…they’re all after you, and now, you want to waltz into London and then fly to America to chase this Viktor fellow? Do you have a death wish?”

“You think I don’t know what the risks are?”

“I think you’re being foolish. The CIA has the thumb drive, and they’re decoding it. They’ll have all the info Jessie put on it in a matter of days, maybe a week or two, tops. Your quest is not only dangerous, it’s stupid. Go to Langley, talk to Flynn, and let the professionals handle it.”

He slammed a hand on the counter, causing the cups to jump. “Hagar’s dead, Tessa. I didn’t even get to pull the trigger. And the network that put all of this in motion has probably accelerated their timeline because of it. We may not have weeks, and the Agency moves like a crippled dinosaur. If I turn myself in, I’ll end up spending months being interrogated, and nothing will be accomplished.”

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