To Catch A Spy

A spy is pursued through the streets of Malta to get a briefcase full of top-secret documents to the US Embassy but dies before he can reveal who was chasing him. Things go from bad to worse when those documents are stolen from embassy vault a few weeks later, much to the horror of the ambassador, FIONA. Travel writer CHLOE DAY and her colleagues - editor and former boyfriend TOM, photographer SARA, and digital expert DMITRY - arrive in Malta on a press junket just after the robbery and check into the Hotel Optima, located directly across the street from the embassy. Late on the first night at the hotel, Chloe hears an argument in another room through an air vent, then sees a body fall from the balcony above hers. By the time the police arrive, they find no evidence of the crime and she can't convince anyone it happened - not even the roguish FBI agent she met earlier, AARON MAXWELL, who is there with his partner LUKE to investigate the embassy robbery, which they think may be the work of a rogue spy code-named Cypher. When she finds out the person who was staying in the room above hers was an old friend from college, ELIAS, Chloe takes it upon herself to investigate the murder she can't prove even happened, developing a list of suspects including uptight manager BREE, snooty front desk clerk PETER, room service waiter ISAAC, and housekeeper RIANNE. By sneaking into rooms and computers she isn't supposed to be in, Chloe helps Aaron find a long-forgotten tunnel that runs from the embassy to the basement of the hotel. There, they discover the body of Chloe's friend, but she takes no satisfaction in finally being able to say she wasright. Although Aaron warns her to stay out of it, Chloe isn't willing to let it drop and digs deeper and gets herself into more than a little trouble when someone chases her through the streets of Mdina. She barely escapes with her life, which instead of scaring her off, makes her even more determined to find out who killed Elias. A lucky break leads her to the top-secret documents in room-service waiter Isaac's locker at the hotel. But the mystery is not solved.Isaac is also a spy, sent to track Cypher, and was keeping the documents safe until his target's identity was revealed. By putting together more pieces of the puzzle, Aaron and Luke discover that Fiona was an unwilling accomplice in therobbery, having fallen victim to a blackmail scheme from Cypher. Convinced that the rogue spy is long gone, everyone packs their bags to head home but just before getting on the airplane, Chloe figures out one more key piece to the puzzleand rushes back to the hotel where she is confronted by the true culprits. front desk agent Peter and housekeeper Rianne, the latter of whom is actually Cypher. The plot is revealed. Cypher recruited both Elias and Peter to get them touse the tunnel and the information she blackmailed out of the ambassador to steal the documents. Alerted to the theft, a lockdown of the area around the embassy prevented them from getting the documents out of the hotel, so they left themthere to retrieve the next night. Rianne went to Elias' room to get the documents, but he said they were missing (because spy Isaac had taken them), a fight broke out, and Rianne pushed Elias off the balcony, then had Peter help her cover it up. Rianne kills Peter to tie up loose ends and is about to do the same to Chloe, but she manages to escape and a scary pursuit through the hotel ends with Rianne in handcuffs and the mystery solved.