“And Phillips? You’ll have to talk to him, too, won’t you? I wish you didn’t have to,” she admitted. “The man already thinks he has the upper hand, and doing me a favor will put me at his mercy.” Six months, she thought. She could put up with him for six months.
“I’ve already discussed it with him,” he answered.
She didn’t have a chance to ask another question. The guard had opened the door and was waiting for them to enter. Allison went to the sign-in counter and handed her laptop and her purse to the other guard on duty.
His smile was genuine when he greeted her. “It’s nice to see you again.”
He wasn’t wearing his identification, but she remembered his name. “How are you, Tom?”
He beamed. “You remembered me.”
“Of course.”
“I’m doing fine today,” he stammered. “How are you doing?”
“Good.”
“Are you ready?” Liam asked from behind her. As he took her elbow and steered her toward the elevator, he noticed Tom standing to watch them leave, no doubt to get a look at Allison’s legs. Granted, they were mighty fine legs, but Liam didn’t like the man ogling her.
As soon as the elevator doors closed, Liam said, “Stop flirting with the employees.”
She thought he was joking until she saw his frown. “Saying hello isn’t flirting.”
“And smiling.”
Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh my God, what was I thinking? I smiled and I said hello? Shame on me.”
He shook his head. “Okay, I might have overreacted.”
“Might have?”
She couldn’t say anything more because the doors opened and Agent Phillips stood there, waiting. He wasn’t much for greetings, she remembered, and it therefore didn’t faze her when he gave her a brusque nod.
She responded by smiling sweetly and saying, “How nice to see you again, Agent Phillips.”
She could have sworn he grunted. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she followed him into his office. Liam shut the door, and Phillips turned a chair around, pointing at it to get her to sit. She wondered if he had any idea how rude the gesture was.
“Liam and I are at cross-purposes here,” he began. “Liam thinks there might be someone leaking confidential information. He believes it could be someone in the CSA, and I’m just as certain that it isn’t.”
Liam interjected, “There have been too many instances that point to a leak. If it’s not a hacker, then it’s someone inside the agency who has access to the information.”
“I have employees here whose sole job is to search for hackers. That’s all they do all day long,” Phillips stressed with a hint of resentment that his competence was in question. “I also find it hard to believe that anyone inside the agency is sabotaging investigations. However, I’m willing to look, and that’s where you come in, Miss Trent. Liam has arranged that we forgo some of our typical protocols for new employees and let you get to work right away. I understand that you’ve agreed to give us your services for six months.”
Allison immediately turned to Liam. “Then Will is getting probation?”
Liam nodded.
Phillips didn’t allow time for explanations, resuming his remarks as though any deviation from the topic at hand was against the rules. “I would like to start you off in our basic system security analysis, but Liam has made this leak a priority because he has another case to get to and will be leaving us soon.”
She nodded to let him know she understood. He continued on with procedures she should follow, but Allison was having difficulty concentrating. The moment he’d mentioned that Liam would be leaving, an unfamiliar pang gripped her. She’d never felt anything like that before and couldn’t put a label on it—sadness, regret? She hardly knew Liam, and she was already aware that his work here was temporary. Why would the thought of him leaving upset her so?
Her attention again went back to Phillips, who was saying, “If anyone should ask, you’re looking for viruses. I would rather you didn’t interact with any of my employees. We take our jobs seriously, and we don’t have time for idle chitchat.”
“All right,” she said when he looked at her expectantly. What a grim work environment, she thought.
“Where do you want her to work?” Liam asked.
“The office next to the break room on this floor. I don’t want to hide her away, because that would raise questions. There’s no one else in there right now, and none of her work will appear on any of the big screens.” He turned to Allison and clarified. “This is a brand-new facility, and now that it’s officially open, we’re deciding to close down the Midwest or the West Coast units and we’re moving some of the employees here. Until the transition begins, you will have the room to yourself.”
That was why there were so many empty desks and such a large parking area, she thought.
“I’ll give you an access code so you can begin looking for a sign of a leak as soon as possible.”
“The leak you’re certain I won’t find.”
“Exactly so.”
Liam took her to the office she would be using. Like with so many other offices in the building, the side facing the hall was a wall of glass. There were three desks and a large screen on the far wall. No matter which desk she chose, she would have her back to the glass. She didn’t want people coming and going behind her, so she went to the desk across the room, pushed it until it was more at an angle with the glass, and sat down. People walking past would see her profile. After adjusting the monitor and her keyboard, she was ready to start.
Liam watched her get settled, and when he looked back over his shoulder, he noticed three men standing on the other side of the glass. Maybe they were just curious about the new recruit. Okay, that was an understatement. The pretty blue dress Allison was wearing wasn’t formfitting, but there was no hiding the fact that she had an incredible body. If she had been wearing a tarp, they’d still have noticed. The men scattered as soon as Liam gave them his full attention.
After going over the details of the suspected leaks, he handed her a folder that contained all the pertinent information she would need to get started on her search. He then told her he would check in on her in a couple of hours. As he headed for the door, he turned back and asked, “Is there anything I can get you?”
She didn’t answer him. She had already gone into her zone. Her fingers were flying over the keyboard, her eyes locked on her monitor.
With Liam out of the room, Allison was finally able to think. It was too difficult to focus with him next to her. Every nerve in her body reacted when he was near. She couldn’t seem to put on her mask of indifference and ignore him. She never should have kissed him. All she wanted to think about was kissing him again, and that just wasn’t at all normal. She certainly couldn’t concentrate on such matters as the security of a major government agency when he was standing so close.
Starting with the facts in the folder she had been given on the people who had received the sensitive information, she began to work her way backward. She concentrated on the four who seemed to be the most obvious leaks. All of the people had received information through e-mails. As she suspected, the origins of the e-mails were obscure, but she eventually found the source for each one of them. The problem was, each source led to another source, and then another, and another. She completely lost track of time as she tried to navigate the maze.
Liam looked in on her a couple of times, but she was so engrossed in what she was doing he didn’t disturb her. When he stopped by to ask her if she’d like to take a break for lunch, she didn’t look away from the monitor but stared straight ahead, her fingers still working the keyboard, and said, “No, thanks. I’ll catch something later.”
Hours later, as employees were filing past her office on their way home for the evening, Liam returned. “How’s it going?” he asked.
Her concentration broken, Allison looked up at him and shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this. There must be hundreds of proxies. Whoever sent these e-mails sure knows his stuff. Each e-mail is coming through a different route, but it’s pretty obvious to me it’s ultimately the same source.” She sat back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head to release the tension in her shoulders. “I’m not there yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” she assured him.