Delta Force Defender. Carol Ericson

I don’t know if they ever determined how my email inbox became the target, or at least they never told me. Dreadworm was just the messenger, anyway. The conduit for the message, if you will—and that message was that Major Rex Denver had been working with a terrorist group plotting against the United States.”

      Cam slammed his fist on the table, the tips of his ears burning.

      Martha held up her index finger. “But I noticed something strange about those emails.”

      “Yeah, they were filled with lies.”

      “Well, I don’t know about that, but it didn’t seem as if the person who composed the emails was a native English speaker.”

      Cam blinked his eyes and took another swig of beer. “Go on.”

      “If it were a foreign entity who sent those messages, why? Why would they care to warn US Intelligence about an American serviceman?”

      “Our allies would care.”

      “Why wouldn’t our allies just use regular channels to communicate with our military or even the CIA? But an unfriendly entity might have every reason to plant those stories about Denver.”

      “You’ve been thinking about this.”

      “It’s more than just the emails.” Martha waved her hand at the passing waitress. “Another round, please.”

      Cam cocked his head and took in Martha’s empty wineglass and flushed cheeks. She’d downed that pretty fast. Although even in low heels she stood taller than most men, she was as slim as a reed, and the booze seemed to have loosened her tongue and her attitude toward him. He’d take it.

      “More than emails?” He wrapped both hands around his bottle.

      She looked both ways in the crowded bar and hunched forward, wedging her chin in the palm of her hand. “I’m being followed.”

      “The guy on the subway platform.”

      “I don’t know.” She drew back from him...and her earlier pronouncement, and tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear. “Nobody has ever made physical contact with me before. That push could’ve killed me.”

      The fear in her whiskey eyes plunged a knife in his gut. “Maybe it was just a warning, maybe a coincidence after all.”

      “You don’t believe that.”

      “How do you know you’re being followed?”

      “I can feel it, sense it.”

      He rolled his shoulders and thanked the waitress as she brought them their drinks. Maybe Martha was just paranoid. She’d been dwelling on those emails, and he didn’t blame her. They’d started a firestorm.

      “And then there’s the skull and crossbones.”

      He coughed and his beer fizzed in his nose. “You mentioned that before. Someone put a skull and crossbones on the emails?”

      “Not the original messages. Someone sent me an email, just this afternoon, with one of those animated gifs of a skull and crossbones—blinking eyes and chattering teeth.” She took a gulp from her new wineglass, and Cam placed his hand over her icy cold one.

      “Why is someone sending you threats? You obviously took the intended and hoped-for action. You turned over the emails and got Denver in a heap of trouble. Why the harassment?”

      “I—I do have an idea.”

      “I’m all ears.” He curled his fingers around her hand in encouragement. Why would anyone threaten Martha Drake, a by-the-book CIA translator worker bee who’d reacted exactly as the sender thought she would?

      “It might be because I copied all of the emails from my work computer to a flash drive, and now I have them at home.”

       Chapter Three

      Cam Sutton’s warm hand tightened around her fingers for a second. “Whoa. I bet the emailer wasn’t expecting you to do that. Why did you do that?”

      How could she explain it? She’d never done anything against the rules in her life. “I don’t know exactly. There was something about those emails that didn’t sit right with me.”

      “You said before that they might’ve been written by a foreigner.” Cam tapped his temple. “You’re a smart woman.”

      “I think it was the sentence structure and the word choice. Too formal or... I don’t know what.” She squared her shoulders and slipped her hand from Cam’s. “When I first reported the emails, I tried to tell my supervisor about my suspicions, but he brushed me off.”

      “I take it nobody at the CIA knows what you did with those emails?”

      “N-no.” She pulled her bottom teeth between her lips and traced the stem of her wineglass. Farah didn’t count, did she?

      “You seem unsure. Did you tell anyone you forwarded the messages to yourself at home?”

      “I didn’t tell anyone anything.”

      “If someone’s been following you and sending you poison-pen emails, somebody knows. Otherwise, they would’ve left you alone after verifying you’d turned over the messages.”

      “I don’t see how someone could know I have the emails.”

      He hunched forward, and his energy came off him in waves and engulfed her, sweeping her up in his world. “You seemed hesitant before. Do you think your supervisor might suspect you?”

      She snorted and took another swig of wine. “No way. If he did, he would’ve just reported me to security and gotten me fired...or worse. He wouldn’t be hiring people to shove me onto the train tracks.”

      “You’ve got a point.” He rubbed his hands together. “It has to be the party who sent the emails, the people who wanted to bring down Denver.”

      Her gaze dropped to his fingers drumming on the tabletop. “You’re glad someone’s after me.”

      “Wait. What?” He smacked his chest with the palm of his hand. “That’s dumb. I don’t want to see anyone hurt over this.”

      “No, but you tracked me down because I’m the one who initiated the fall of Major Denver, and you probably expected some CIA drone that you could bully and instead you’ve discovered a chink in the story, a new twist you weren’t expecting.”

      He cocked his head, and a lock of hair curled over his temple. He shoved it out of the way like a man accustomed to a military cut and whistled. “Are you sure you’re just a translator and not an analyst?”

      “Just a translator? I know four languages in addition to English.” She ticked off her fingers. “Russian, German, French and Spanish.”

      “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “You also have a big chip on your shoulder.”

      “I do not.” She crossed her arms, covering her shoulders with her hands. “I’m just sick of being underestimated.”

      “Clearly.” He leveled a finger at her. “And that’s why you stole those emails.”

      “Are you sure you’re just a Delta Force grunt and not military intelligence?” She held her breath.

      He opened his mouth, snapped it shut and hit the table with his fist. Then he laughed, and what a laugh he had. A few heads turned at the loud guffaw.

      “Shush.” She kicked his foot under the table.

      “Did those spies pick the wrong CIA drone to mess with or what?” He shook his head. “Why do you think they targeted you?”

      “Honestly? I think they picked me because I have a reputation