Vienna Betrayal - Lila Dubois Page 0,51

brain, and got to work.

As she’d expected for someone of Alexander’s status, he had servants who had taken care of her things the way a five-star hotel would. Her suitcase had been opened, clothes hung up, and the various bags and totes set out on top of the vanity.

The lovely room felt formal and a bit stiff, with high quality furnishings in muted colors, the only personality coming from the Arabesque wallpaper.

Alena unzipped her dress, and reached into the closet, trading evening wear for black leggings and a long-sleeved tunic style t-shirt with pockets, also in black. The outfit screamed “athleisure” and could be passed off as her sleepwear, if needed.

She buckled on her passport belt, with passport and credit card, both of which had her real name on them, safely inside.

She’d done the hard part—she was here, and that had been the biggest challenge of this whole job. The security at Wagner Global’s headquarters was too good. The next best option had been to get into this building, but security during parties and events hosted here was tight, and she needed some private time in order to get what she needed.

She’d considered trying to get a job as a member of the household staff, but everyone who was hired to work here, or even brought in for a day to assess a piece of art or provide some other service was heavily vetted.

The only one who could walk somebody inside, no questions asked, was Alexander himself.

After aggressively brushing her hair to get rid of any loose strands, she piled it up in a messy, casual-looking but secure bun, which would hopefully keep her all black outfit firmly in the “comfortable lounge clothes/sleepwear” category. A braid and beanie to make sure she didn’t leave behind even a single hair would have been better, but those would tip her whole look into the “cat burglar” category.

Next she opened one of her toiletry bags and took out several tampons. She pressed on the end of the stick and instead of an oblong of cotton, a small black device, about the size of a thumb drive, popped out.

Slowly she freed her tools from their various camouflages. Most important was her robotic laparoscope, which she assembled after disentangling pieces from inside a curling iron and several other tampons. The button camera was, of course, inside her travel sewing kit. White fingerprint powder had replaced the baby powder in the travel-sized bottle. The data cable was packed in with her laptop, and really didn’t need anything to disguise it. The item she’d worried about the most was still there. A small drill dressed up like a hair dryer.

Finally she reached for a large makeup palette which was slightly deeper than a standard palette, but not so thick as to be suspicious. The weight of it, however…

She opened the palette, which looked normal, with twenty pans of color in a nice assortment of shimmer and matte.

Alena wiggled her nails into a seam on each side, and popped off the interior top. The eyeshadow pans were decoys, only as deep as a credit card, leaving just enough hidden interior space for the most important piece of equipment.

Carefully, she pulled out the state-of-the-art hardware protocol analyzer. The heavy black rectangle was the thickness of a new notepad, but powerful enough for what she needed.

Sliding all the bits and pieces into her pockets, and tucking the HPA between the passport belt and her skin, Alena checked her watch.

Originally, she’d just been hoping to manipulate him into inviting her to spend the night at his house, which was not as outrageous as it sounded. He often hosted individuals of sufficient wealth and power who didn’t want to stay in a hotel, and executives from various Warner Global partner companies.

There had never been a flight to Iceland. She’d picked that as a destination while in the sub dressing room, after a quick scan of the news. There was always somewhere in the world that was canceling flights for one reason or another. All she had to do was find out what location was suffering today, then act shocked when she found out that her plans would have to be canceled.

The fact that he’d been the one to tell her about the volcano had been a wonderful stroke of luck.

Thinking about Alexander made her heart hurt, so she double-checked her emotional compartmentalization and opened the door of her room.

She’d spent a lot of time and nearly eighty thousand dollars in bribes to