The Spy Is Cast by Diane Henders Page A

touch
with the woman?”
    “No. I only met her
once. She came to Daniel’s funeral. But I… check up on them every
now and then. I think of them as Daniel’s family.” He shrugged.
“Mine, by extension, I guess. I just like to know that life goes
on.”
    “Whether you want it
to or not,” I agreed quietly. “I guess I understand why you went
into law enforcement after you left the army.”
    He shrugged again,
nodding. “Let’s have a look at these drawings.”
    He spread them out on
the counter that separated the kitchen from the open living space.
I picked up my sketches and carried them over to compare.
    “Can I write on
these?” I asked.
    “Yes. They’re
copies.”
    We perched on stools
and started to mark up the drawings. I worked on the main house,
while Kane filled in details on the rest of the buildings, noting
security cameras, lines of sight, and positions of security
staff.
    Finally, I looked up
with a sigh, rubbing the back of my aching neck. “That’s all I can
remember. Now I need to sketch out the server room and security
monitoring centre.”
    Kane looked over my
annotations. “This is excellent. You’ve done this before, haven’t
you?”
    I nodded absently,
blocking in the layout of the server room on a separate piece of
paper. Kane’s quiet immobility made me glance up to meet his intent
gaze. Realizing what he’d really been asking, I backtracked
hurriedly. “I used to do tons of site measures when I was drafting.
After a while, observing this kind of detail just becomes second
nature.”
    He nodded slowly.
“Just a civilian.”
    “Yep. Well, and it
didn’t hurt that Harchman apparently thinks with his dick. And he’s
sadly under-endowed. He walked me right into the server room.”
    Kane frowned. “Why
would he do that? Fuzzy Bunny runs a tight ship. They’re not known
for working with stupid people. That’s why they’re so
successful.”
    “No idea. Maybe it’s
not Fuzzy Bunny’s network at all. But look at this.” I showed him
my sketches. “The server room is biometrically keyed to his
thumbprint. Here’s the entire security console layout. Oh, and he
runs guards and dogs through that forested area that surrounds the
grounds.”
    I grimaced and added,
“Too bad you can’t get fingerprints from fabric. You could march
right through the security scanner into the server room if you
could lift some of the many full sets of prints he left on my
ass.”
    Kane’s face darkened.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
    “No worries,” I
assured him. “A bit of groping doesn’t upset me much anymore. In
fact, it was a hell of a relief once I figured out that’s all he
was after.”
    His brows drew
together in comprehension. “I guess it would be, under the
circumstances.”
    I frowned down at the
plans again. “Let me walk you through this so we can call it a
night. I want to get these damn clothes and fake nails and makeup
off. And you must still be seriously jet-lagged.”
    We went over the
plans, and Kane asked detailed questions that helped jog my memory.
By the time we were finished, he’d managed to get more information
out of me than I even knew I’d observed. Finally, he straightened
with a grunt, massaging his forehead. “Okay. I think I’ve got the
full picture now. Time to quit.”
    I glanced at my watch.
“Yikes, it’s after two.” I studied his exhausted face, the lines
carved deep again by fatigue. “Where’s the phone book? I’ll just
call a cab so you can go straight to bed.”
    He shook his head.
“No, I’ll take you back to the hotel. When you’re doing undercover
work, it’s the details that count.”
    “I don’t see that it
makes much difference. So maybe the date didn’t go well. We had a
fight and I took a cab home.”
    “Remember how I said
earlier I was secure in my manhood?” He gave me a tired grin. “I do
have some pride. My ego would appreciate it if you would at least
pretend the date went well.”
    I laughed.