It was Emily.
Of course.
His insides turned into hard knots when he thought of her in the hands of … whom?
Or maybe this was all a big game, cooked up by Lacey to make her look less guilty. To make him believe she might have a reason for fleeing NSA custody.
He slammed the brakes, made a U-turn, and took off for Poplar Bluff going seventy.
“What are you doing?” Lacey yelled.
“Coming to my senses.”
“Turn this truck around right now.” Lacey’s voice held a sharp, low edge.
“No. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Jim Micah, you turn this truck around or you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Believe me, I already do.” Acid pooled in the back of his throat as he said it.
She sucked a quick breath.
Better angry and alive than dead. Well, maybe
, he thought. A live person could call him up, torment him with requests, a smile, a pleading voice. Then again, a dead person could haunt him with regrets.
At least putting Lacey in custody could give him time to figure out why his heart took a leap and tumble every time he looked at her and why he’d run to her aid in Missouri in the first place.
“I said turn the truck around.” The sound of her dangerously calm voice was accompanied by a sharp prick at the base of his neck, at his jugular.
He stiffened. “Is that my knife?”
She pushed hard; he felt heat. “I said turn it around.”
He kept driving. “Were you this cold-blooded when you killed John?”
“Jim Micah, if you care anything about John’s daughter, you’ll turn this truck around or at least stop it and let me out.” Her voice softened. “Please.”
He clenched his jaw but applied the brakes. The pickup skidded to a halt. Sudden silence saturated the truck, fractured only by the thunder of his heartbeat. He finally ground up words. “This is a bad idea, Lacey. You can’t run from the law. You know they’ll find you.”
“I’ll find Emily first.” She inched toward the door.
“Are you going to run all the way to Ashleyville in your bare feet?”
“I would have been closer ten minutes ago, if you hadn’t lied to me.”
He whirled, made a grab for her left hand. She hit him with her right, a chops-ringing blow for someone who had just dislocated her shoulder. Still, he didn’t even grunt as he hung on. “You attacked me with a
fork
?”
She launched herself back and kicked him hard in the chest. He gasped, let go. She was out the door and running across the weedy ditch before he caught his breath.
He hurtled out of the pickup. “Lacey, stop! Okay, you win!”
She ran down the road, unfazed. She never had been one to listen to him. Not that he’d spoken up much. No wonder she fled from him like he might be the grim reaper. He certainly hadn’t given her reason to think otherwise.
He stifled a word of fury, dived back into the truck, turned it around, and floored it. He cranked down his window. “Lacey. Fine. You win. I’ll take you to Ashleyville.”
She didn’t even look in his direction. She kept running, long strides that had to cut her feet. But her face was stoic. Seeing her tore a hole in his heart. Maybe her daughter really was in danger. “Please get in the truck and I’ll listen. I won’t turn you in.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.” He bit back a retort that suggested he wasn’t the liar, but suddenly his words, his posture felt … abusive. As if he’d been the one doing the hurting. “No, I’m not. I promise on my letter jacket that I’ll take you back to Ashleyville. If that’s what you want.”
She slowed, glanced in his direction. The sun hovered above the horizon, and in the dim light she looked tired. Wan. As if she’d just emerged from a long illness, a walk through the corridors of despair.
Well, he knew what that felt like. He stopped the pickup and got out. “Let me help you, okay?” Had he really said that with so much pleading in his voice? She too must have wondered, because she stared at him, those beautiful, intelligent eyes wide and desperate.
With a hard jolt, he realized that he meant it.
The thought froze him as she rounded the truck, opened his door, and dug around in his glove compartment. She surfaced with a Night Force folding knife. She held it up, her eyes fiery with warning, then climbed into the pickup and closed the door.
Sliding back in, Micah felt tentacles of dread coil around his chest. Something had happened, seriously happened, to Lacey’s very real daughter. Enough to make Lacey break a thousand laws and risk any hint of friendship that might have pulsed between them.
Lacey looked out the window. Amazing how little she’d changed, despite the seven years since he’d seen her up close, at least without blood on her hands and tears striping her face. Her red hair with highlights of gold now tangled past her shoulders, unruly as her character. She still had freckles, but they’d faded to a fine wisp along her nose and cheeks. She even bore the same wild, smart, even sassy demeanor.
Not that he was noticing. He forced his gaze to the road but not before he caught sight of her feet. Cracked, with a trickle of blood on her left heel.
He shouldn’t be surprised. Before the incident in Kazakhstan, he’d heard rumors, his ears pricked for any whisper of her, and knew she’d earned her keep as an asset in the post—cold war games. John and Lacey had made a striking duo … John with his charisma and boldness, Lacey with her creativity and courage.
Okay, yes, Micah had fought the beast of jealousy on more than a few occasions. But he’d beat it to a pulp and won. At least he’d thought so.
“We can’t go all the way into Ashleyville,” she said. “It would be best if you got off at the Mars Hollow exit. The road runs northeast, and it’ll hook up with Stony Bend. Take that to County 38—”
“I know.” He shot a glance at her. “I still live here, you know.”
“You should let me off at Mahoney’s Grill. I know a shortcut—”
“What’s this all about?” Micah exited the highway, onto County Road 320. Gravel picked at the truck. Leaves ground under his wheels, the litter of a recent storm. He cracked his window, letting in the smell of loam and field. He needed the fresh air to stay awake.
“I can’t tell you.” She still hadn’t turned his direction and instead spoke to the windshield.
“Does it have to do with John and his death?”
He saw her flinch and suddenly he felt like a jerk. His harsh accusation rose in his memory, his voice hot:
“How could you, Lacey? You killed your husband. What kind of traitor are you?”
He let silence throb between them, wishing he could somehow ease the scars.
“I can’t talk about it.”
He blew out a hot breath of frustration. “You want to get off at Mahoney’s?” He hit the brakes and they skidded to a stop sideways in the road. “Well, guess what? We don’t move another inch until you tell me what’s going on.”
She faced him and the look in her eyes made him wince.
Regret. He glanced at the knife she held open in her lap. But she made no move to raise it. Her voice dropped to a strained whisper. “I can’t. Please believe me when I say that I’m only trying to keep you safe.”
He blinked at her. “Safe? I’m a big boy, remember?” He suddenly noticed that she was shivering. She should be, dressed in short-sleeved, paper-thin scrubs. He pulled off his jacket and, even as she protested, draped it over her shoulders. They needed to get her different clothes as well as shoes.
“Yeah, I remember.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have called you. I should have known better.” Except she reached up and pulled the jacket just a little tighter over her pale arms. “I was just … desperate. I didn’t know where Emily was—”
“And now you do?”
She looked away, her jaw tight.
“Has she been kidnapped?”
She swallowed and closed her eyes.
“Lacey!” He wanted to shake her. He grabbed the steering wheel in both hands and touched his head to it, relishing the coolness against his forehead. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. The NSA is hunting you. And you can bet they’ll have a posse at the farm. You’ll never get in there undetected. And how are you going to help Emily if you’re in maximum security?
“Listen, I have a friend. A senator. He’s a good man, and he’ll listen to you. Let’s call him. I’ll bet he can get the NSA to back off or at least let you have some maneuver room—”
“It’s all about Ex-6.” Sighing, she twisted her fingers in her lap. “It’s a quantum encryption program I’ve been working on for the past few years.”
“Quantum encryption?” The theory had been batted about for years, and some of the best professors and research facilities in the nation had their hottest minds trying to decipher it. Quantum physics took the on-off binary code used in standard encryption and multiplied it by exponent 6. A code that was created by quantum encryption was virtually unbreakable by today’s code crackers. But it also meant that quantum decryption could crack today’s algorithmic codes in a mere blink.
How could Lacey … well, she had graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a PhD in physics and mathematics and could do advanced calculus in her head. Moreover, she’d mentored with the best tech minds in the company before launching out onto the field with John. Still …
“It’s the next level of encryption.” Her voice had dropped, and she glanced out the windshield, then back to her hands, always away from his gaze. “The current encryption systems are based on very advanced algorithms and symmetric key encryptions. Basically, when a message is transmitted, it is encrypted with a symmetric key, in code, that unlocks the secret code in which the message is written. To open the message, the recipient must use the key code.
“Right now, we use a combination of private and public keys—one key is embedded in the code and its information is sent to the recipient. The other key is embedded in the recipient’s computer. For example, when you go to an online source, you download the key codes for the information you hope to unlock. And you have to have the right password to download the codes. The system is fairly secure—against the average hacker. But the NSA isn’t afraid of average hackers.”
“They’re worried about terrorists intercepting our messages and using them to steal industrial secrets.” Micah had heard about this in various briefings. The idea that a terrorist group could gain key codes and infiltrate public utilities—water, power, air travel—had the government working overtime on encryption techniques.
“Yes. But every code can be broken if there’s enough time. More important is knowing whether a message or system has been compromised or tampered with. How do we know someone is listening? We need not only a fail-proof system, which is nearly impossible to create, but also a way to detect if it has been tapped.”
Lacey looked animated, vibrant, the hours of exhaustion erased from her face. “I was able to use the basic principle of quantum physics to create hardware and software to protect our current encryption systems.”
Micah’s face tightened into a frown as he processed her words.
She took a deep breath and continued. “Quantum encryption uses photons—particles of light—to transfer data between computers. I figured out a way to take our current algorithm encryption, attach photon interference hardware, and then create white noise in the transmission. Basically, we can make static in our transmissions so the messages we send are unbreakable because the information can’t be parceled out. Like a massive party line, only the static and myriad conversations come from one source.
“I also developed a program to filter out the white noise and decrypt the message. But the most important part isn’t the encryption or decryptions. It’s the fact that if a would-be eavesdropper taps the line or diverts the transmission, the signal is contaminated. We know we’ve been compromised.” She took another breath, and grief filled her face. “And maybe lives are saved.”
“So what you’re saying is that you figured out a way to transmit encrypted information and then detect if it has been tampered with?”
“Yes. And I created a corresponding decryption program that can unravel the information.”
“So you made a modern-day enigma machine.”
“It has its glitches, and it’s not wireless, but … yeah.” She managed a slight smile.
Micah gaped at her, processing the information in slow microbytes. “When my unit was in Afghanistan, we were sent a message from HQ, coordinates for a group of suspected al Qaeda terrorists. It was one of my last missions.” He remembered Conner listening on the radio then, heard the static over the line. “The message lost its integrity, but we had the go-ahead and decided to run the op.” He ran a finger over his dashboard. “We were ambushed en route. They knew our every tiptoe.”
Lacey closed her eyes and shook her head, as if the story had strummed her deepest fears. “That’s why Ex-6 is so valuable. With the war on terror expanding, we need a way to communicate safely. You can see it’s important that the wrong people don’t get ahold of it.”
She looked at him finally, and tears hung from her lashes. “Ex-6 is why Emily’s life is in danger. And why you have to let me go. No one else is going to die because of me.”
Those words felt like a line drive right to his chest.
It’s all my fault.
He blinked at her. “This is about John.”
She gave him a hard look. “No. It’s about Emily. And it’s about my getting her back, no matter what happens to me. And it’s about your dropping me off outside town so I can get a decent pair of shoes and some jeans before I try and get the only copy of Ex-6 out of hiding.”
“From your father’s vault in his office in the barn.” He raised one eyebrow when she shot a frown at him. “Of course I know, Lacey. Remember you hid John’s collection of Elvis records there when he left for West Point? I was with you.”
He saw memory streak behind her gaze, and for a moment, the small smile she gave him whisked him back in time to the bittersweet smell of hay, the whinny of horses, the laughter of that Saturday afternoon, the sweet taste of anticipation. He’d felt slightly guilty that he’d spent the morning enjoying her friendship to the extent he had. He’d been entrusted to watchdog her for his buddy, not fall head-over-heels for her smile. Lacey had grown up to pure woman in the two years Micah had been away at basic training and special ops school, and when she met him at the bus for that weekend, the sight of her in a cotton tank top, Guess? jeans, riding boots, and her hair a long, curly mane had nearly knocked the breath right out of him.