Free Under the Wire: Bad Boys Undercover by Helenkay Dimon Page A

wasn’t the type to seek accolades and the job didn’t allow for it, but the covert end for a hero still sucked. She wanted him to be recognized but knew it would never happen.
    “Is it usually this quiet around here?” The deep male voice bounced around her office. Caleb Layne looked from one corner to the other, not trying to hide the fact that he was taking in the position of every paper clip and notebook.
    “Actually, never.” She gestured to the guard hovering in her doorway to leave. After a brief hesitation he did, closing the door behind him.
    Once alone with her guest, she focused all her attention on him. That was no hardship. She might be engaged to an administrator in the Alliance but her eyesight worked just fine.
    The phrase “tall, dark, and handsome” might have been invented to describe Caleb. He was a guy with a bit of a reputation. Outside of these walls, the public saw him as a technology genius who went from creating apps that made life easier, to building a gaming company that supplied the world with an endless stream of postapocalyptic role-playing activities.
    Impressive but a bit ruthless, and inside these wallsa valuable asset. He excelled at creating what he called “pathways to further communication” but others would see as hacking or even potentially espionage. He could access systems that no one should be able to break. Closed systems. Top secret, lives-depend-on-no-one-knowing-this systems.
    Which is why Tasha hired him to make sure the Alliance’s system remained secure. The last time someone penetrated their internal communication it touched off a manhunt that led to many deaths, including Harlan’s. That would not happen again. Not on her watch.
    Caleb smiled as his gaze hesitated on the file open on her desk. “Is the world on fire and the rest of us don’t know about it?”
    Thirty, with coal black hair and something in his facial features that hinted at his Asian heritage. She couldn’t quite nail that part down, but he did look just like his sister. Tasha just wished she could fully trust the man to tell her the truth rather than try to play her.
    “Probably.” She closed the unimportant file, letting him think he might have seen something when he hadn’t. He was a man drawn to solving problems, so she liked to keep him motivated by giving him some. But she hadn’t called this meeting. “I’m guessing that’s not why you’re here. You’re not one to panic, and I sensed worry in your voice when you called.”
    His confident smile slipped a little but regained its full wattage before he leaned back in his chair. Itcreaked under his trim runner’s build. “Thanks for seeing me.”
    “You’ve done work for us. Tell me how we can repay the favor.”
    “This isn’t just for me. It’s for you, too.”
    That sounded bad. Like she’d missed something, and she did not miss things. “You’ve lost me.”
    “I can’t reach Cara.” Caleb stared down at his hands for a second before meeting Tasha’s gaze again. “To be completely accurate, the science expedition she’s on has gone dark.”
    His word choice didn’t make much sense. It was a little too dramatic for Caleb’s usual choices, so Tasha treaded carefully. “Where?”
    “Ural Mountains.”
    She forced her body to remain still. At times the world felt as if it were on fire, with regional outbreaks of violence, and nations threatening other nations. For the first time in a long time, the Urals made the list of potential problem areas. Sixteen hundred miles stretching up to the Arctic, some of it home to small cities and towns. Much of it desolate and hard to investigate, and that didn’t even take into account the difficulty in dealing with the country’s leadership.
    She leaned back, matching her relaxed position to Caleb’s even though she knew they were both playing games here. “What kind of expedition is this?”
    “The undercover type.”
    She mentally flipped through every briefing file and