“Recruit me? Yeah,right.”
“No, seriously.” Sean leaned back slightly in his seat and looked at Bas fully. “It’s better for Alexei’s image inside his organization to show that he can make you kneel to him than to actually crush you. If he could acquire you as an asset, he could still get tech from you. Best case scenario, he could have lured you into working with him by offering youmoney.”
Bas snorted. He was confident he could buy and sell Alexei’s organization ten timesover.
“Okay, fair enough. Not a huge inducement for you,” Sean agreed. “So, second-best scenario, hethreatensyou and gets you to work with him thatway.”
Bas’s stomach shifted uncomfortably. “Threatens mehow?”
“Well, it could be with a media scandal about your dad, like Cortland suggested.” Sean shrugged. “Whispers about your father’s connection to SILA could cause some trouble for you - stock prices dropping, losing government contracts, that kind of thing. But Alexei can’t say too much without implicating himself. And your father’s death absolves him of most guilt in the court of public opinion.” His mouth twisted in sympathy. “And I think Alexei knowsthat.”
“So, what then?” Cortdemanded.
Sean rubbed a hand over his chin, scratching at the stubble. “Well, I suppose the best thing would be to threaten you some other way - a physical threat maybe? Breaking your kneecaps unless you comply? Because he knows you won’t risk involving the police, and once he gets you to do even one thing for him, he’ll own you the very same way he owned yourdad.”
Christ. The very idea made himsick.
“Senator Shaw has information on Alexei and SILA,” Bas reminded Sean. “Enough that they’ve backed off for a few weeksnow.”
“Yeah, but that information implicates Shaw, as well as Alexei. Will he use it to prevent a scandal for Seaver Tech?” Sean shook his head. “To save his kid’s life, sure. Maybe the guy has the stones to hang himself to save his kid. I know I would. But to keep Seaver Tech from going under?Nah.”
It made sense. Frankly, he was surprised Shaw had even pushed back against the Russians to save Cain. The guy wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy…orparticularlyloyal.
“So, if we think he’ll plan to beat me into working with him, maybe I need to get him to make a move? Come at me, try to force my hand, and trap him whenhe…”
“Wow, ready to jump right in!” Sean said. He downed the rest of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sadly, this isn’t a Lifetime movie, and the FBI doesn’t like to use civilians as bait unless it’s theonlyoption. Besides, Alexei’s likely had Plan B and Plan C in his pocket, ready to go. The very best thing you can do is stay vigilant, and don’t takechances.”
Chances, like Drew going out on a date. Bas felt his anger rise again, along with something else that made his stomach clench. Something pitifully likejealousy.
Was Drew really so excited about this Mark guy that he couldn’t cancel or at leastpostponehis love-fest while they were being hunted by a psychopathic Russiancriminal?
Bas ground his teeth together and breathed through his nose, remembering the sand dollar keychain he’d seen hanging from a hook in Drew’s cabinet that morning. Drewhadkept the damn thing, even after it broke, though he’d let Bas believe it was gone. Kept it, and put it back together almost seamlessly, so you could hardly see the crack. That had to mean something, didn’tit?
But if it did, why the hell was Drew out on thisdate?
Emotions were fucking impossible. No logic, no clarity, no way to forge a path through them. He could barely get a handle on his own feelings, let alone trying to suss out Drew’s. He needed to stick to the things he was goodat.
“Cook, I can help. I can try to access hissystem.”
“I thought you already did that, and there was no sensitive informationonline.”
“Well, yes, but I can try again. Maybe bribe someone to get me some login credentials. Or better yet, someone to gain me access to the offline server where the real goods arekept.”
“What?” Sean stopped himself, shaking his head. “Let me make sure I understand what you’re suggesting here before I go off. You want me to letyou, an untrained civilian who’s so well-known his face is plastered all over checkout stands from coast to coast, gain physical access to SILA’s headquarters and theirservers?”
Well, when he put itthatway…
“No way,” Sean continued firmly. His eyes pinned Sebastian in place. “You think he’s not monitoring you, waiting for you to do just that? No. If you want me to help you - and I want to help, Sebastian, I do - you need to let me handle thismyway. I don’t want you to do anything more strenuous online than updating your Facebook status. No hacking. No traces. Not even a Google search about this. Got it? I can operate with a certain amount of anonymity, look into shit and make it seem like the low-level kind of surveillance we’re always doing on organizations like SILA. But some anonymous hacker starts knocking shit around is going to look suspicious, and Alexei will know it wasyou.”
“What? Knocking shit around? You’re kidding me, right? I’d be in and out before they knew I was there. I did itbefore.”
“You wanna bet your life that your luck will hold? Your friends’ lives? Come on, Seaver. Work withme.”
Bas fumed. “I need an outlet, Cook. I need something to focus on. Let me help.”Before I have a nervous breakdown and do something stupid, like kidnap Drew from his date and hold him prisoner until we work out ourshit.
Maybenaked.
“The only help I need from you is contacting Margaret and asking her to send me information on every project your dad worked on - nothing his team handled, only the projects he spearheaded himself - for all the years he was in contact with Alexei. I’m pretty sure your dad would have wanted to be the only one with eyes on the projects he was sharing withSILA.”
