by Linda Howard
“I can’t stay here,” she said, surging to her feet. “I’m going to my room. Louis—”
“I understand.” He rose too, his handsome face full of concern. “I can’t tell you want to do, my dear; the decision is yours. But make it with all the facts in your possession, and no matter what your answer is, I’ll always cherish your friendship.”
God, how could he be so nice in so many ways, and still be what he was? The puzzle of Louis Ronsard wasn’t any closer to being solved than it was the day she met him. But for all the vividness of his character, she was losing her focus on him, had been from the moment she saw him walking toward her with John beside him.
Blindly she groped for his hand, squeezing it hard. “Thank you,” she said, and fled.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
It was three A.M. when she saw the curtains by the balcony doors flutter. Niema was lying in the dark, unable to sleep, waiting for John to appear. She didn’t hear anything; there was only that small flutter to signal his arrival, then his black shape silhouetted against the faint light coming through the glass behind him.
She sat up and tugged her robe, the most substantial one she had, more tightly around her. The room was dark and he couldn’t see her any better than she could see him, but she felt she needed every bit of protection she could muster. He crossed the room with eerie stealth and accuracy, approaching the high four-poster bed. He leaned over and put his mouth against her ear. “Have you swept the room?”
“I checked it when I got here,” she whispered back. “I figured if the place was wired, it was part of the security system rather than a patch job. It’s clean.”
“Mine wasn’t.”
“Permanent or patched?”
“Permanent. He wants to keep tabs on whomever he puts in that room. Probably other guest rooms in this place are wired, too, and he decides who he wants to stay in them.”
The mattress dipped as he sat down on the side of the bed. She felt a brief flare of panic and fought it down. After all, there wouldn’t be any point in kissing her now, when there wasn’t anyone else around to see.
“Are you okay with what happened this evening?” he asked, an edge of concern in his voice. “You looked stunned. I thought you understood the plan.”
“I guess I didn’t quite get it,” she managed to say and fought to keep her tone even. “Everything’s okay, though; I can handle it.” His face was a pale blur in the darkness, but still, now that he was this close, she could pick out his features and feel the heat from his leg even through the bed clothes as his thigh pressed against her hip.
“As it turned out, that was the perfect reaction. Yon played it just right.”
Only she hadn’t been playing. She had managed to keep her presence of mind, but she hadn’t pretended anything. The power of her response to John had been real, and that was what was frightening. As long as he thought her distress was caused only by surprise, though, she didn’t feel as exposed.
“Everything’s okay,” she repeated, and in quiet desperation changed the subject. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“Ronsard and I will talk business. If I’m lucky, it’ll be in his office. If not, then I’ll have to find it some other way.”
“I can give you the general location. It’s in the west wing, ground floor. And he has a secretary, Cara Smith, so she may be in the office even if he isn’t.”
“Then we’ll have to keep track of both of them. I’ll figure out some way to keep them occupied. I’ll locate the office tomorrow, check out the security system, then we’ll go in tomorrow night. You plant the bug, I copy the files, and we’re out without anyone knowing.”
If everything went according to plan, that is. Anything could happen, as she had already learned far too well.
“I brought you a little present.” There was a faint rustle of clothing, then metal, warm from his body, was pressed into her hand. Automatically she closed her fingers around the grip of the pistol. “It’s a SIG .380 caliber, smaller than the one you practiced with, but that just means it’ll be easier to conceal.”
“I’ll tuck it in my bodice,” she said dryly, because the thing still weighed over a pound and was at least six and a half inches long. Until the pistol was in her hand, she hadn’t been aware of a nagging, low-level sense of alarm, but now she felt something inside her relaxing. She had never carried a weapon in her life, not even in Iran, because that would have given away her disguise; how had she become so rapidly accustomed to being armed?
He gave a low laugh. “That’s my girl.” There was warm approval in his voice. He patted her thigh. “I’ll see you in a few hours. What are you doing tomorrow? What time do you get up?”
“I’m going to sleep as late as I can.” Since she hadn’t slept any yet that night, she figured she would need all she could get. “I don’t have any plans beyond that, though.”
“Meet me for lunch, then.”
“Where?”
“The pool courtyard, one o’clock.”
“Any reason for that particular place?” There had to be; John never did anything without a reason.
“See you, get in a swim, let Ronsard see the scar on my shoulder as a little extra reassurance.”
“You don’t have a scar on your shoulder,” she said automatically, and wished she hadn’t, because it revealed how closely she had looked at him when he took off his shirt that day they had been working out.
“No, but Joseph Temple does.”
So he must have a fake scar, as part of his disguise. She remembered that he had looked different, too, when Ronsard introduced him, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what the differences were. “What else have you done? You’re not the same.”
“I changed my hairline a little, made my brows straighter, put thin rolls of cotton in my jaw to change the shape.”
“How long have you been building Joseph Temple’s cover?”
“Years. At first he was only a name on a file, but gradually I circulated him more, and added a few details of description, a photo that didn’t give away much. But it was enough to let Ronsard compare hairlines, and I imagine he has.”
“But he’ll have a photo of you now,” she said. “You know he will. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He stood up. “Temple won’t exist after he leaves here.”
What was it like, she wondered, to build identities as if they were changes of clothing, putting them on for just a little while and then discarding them? Did he leave pieces of himself behind? Somehow lose just a little bit more of who he really was each time he became someone else?
As he moved toward the balcony, she thought of something. “How did you get up here?”
“I didn’t. I got down. I came from the roof.” With those words he slipped through the doors and disappeared.
Niema got up and locked the balcony doors, then returned to bed. She was so tired she ached, but despite her plans to sleep late she wasn’t certain she could sleep at all. The next twenty-four hours were crucial, the reason she had agreed to this elaborate charade. She had to keep her mind on the job, and not on John. After this was over and she was back home, and he was gone from her life again, then she would let herself think about him because then it wouldn’t matter—he would be gone.
Cara Smith always enjoyed Louis’s house parties. She loved dressing up, loved the glitter and sophistication and sheer luxury. It was like something out of a fairy tale, watching men in tuxedos whirl women in jewels around a polished ballroom floor. Because she was so tall she seldom wore high heels, but for these posh occasions she put on three-inch pumps, which lifted her way over most people’s heads, and eye-to-eye with Louis himself. Her legs looked as if they were six feet long, an illusion she heightened by wearing dresses that were slit up the side and exposed long, narrow strips of flesh when she walked.
But that was for night. During the day she still worked at keeping Louis’s corresp
ondence up to date, paying bills—it always surprised her that billionaires had bills, but she guessed some things were impossible to escape. She also had to handle the phones, and notify Louis of any business that cropped up, any problems that needed handling. But her hours were abbreviated, and for the most part she played with the guests. She swam, played tennis and billiards, and listened to gossip. She never failed to be amazed by the intimate details and government secrets people blabbed at parties, especially to tall, leggy blondes, as if she wasn’t expected to have a brain in her head—which was, of course, why Louis let her play instead of work. She’d learned a lot of interesting stuff during these house parties.
She was fascinated by that Temple man. Few males compared with Louis in terms of elegance and sophistication. But he did. And he looked so damned cool and contained—he was a very still man, his few gestures controlled and minimal, with little expression on his face. With that kind of control over his body, she bet he could last for hours in bed. She thought of being the woman on the receiving end of all that control and went all shivery.
On the other hand, Cara was astute about which men were attracted to her, and Temple wasn’t. She and a bunch of other people, including Louis, had seen him in the garden putting the move on the Jamieson woman. She had wondered how Louis would handle that, considering he had shown more attention to Mrs. Jamieson than to any other woman she could remember, but Louis was Louis—one woman didn’t mean that much to him. She knew for a fact he hadn’t slept alone last night, while Mrs. Jamieson had chickened out and left the party early, to hide out in her room. Boy, if she’d been in Mrs. Jamieson’s place, she wouldn’t have chickened out. She’d have grabbed that man by the bow tie and ridden him for all he was worth.
But she had her eye on another guy, as a consolation prize. He was rich, he wasn’t bad looking, and he did something in the French defense department, or whatever they called it. He’d have lots of interesting things to tell her. From the way his wife hung on to him, he had something of interest in his pants, too. She had seen him eyeing her, so she figured he’d find a way to escape from the little woman for a while.
She couldn’t wait. She hadn’t had sex in—well, she couldn’t remember exactly how long, but she knew it was too long. Damn Hossam and his jealousy! She’d been trying to wean him away, let him down gently, but he just wouldn’t go away. She hadn’t slept with him, but in the interest of keeping things calm she hadn’t slept with anyone else, either. She didn’t want to stir up trouble among the guys in Louis’s security guard, because Louis wouldn’t thank her for it.
She played a game of tennis at nine, and Mr. Defense Department showed up, sans wifey. Cara flirted outrageously with him, until she noticed a tall, mustachioed man, wearing a suit and sunglasses, watching them from the west patio. Hossam. Damn it, if she took him to her room now, which was really the only safe place to take him, Hossam would know and was likely to cause trouble. Louis would be majorly pissed if one of his guests was killed by her jealous ex-lover.
Fuming, she finished the game, then excused herself and stalked across the wide expanse of lawn to the west patio. She swished her racket angrily through the air, wishing it was connecting with Hossam’s head. Why, he was stalking her. She had tried to be nice and not rub his nose in the fact that she was tired of him, but nice hadn’t gotten her anywhere. It was time for some plain speaking.
He stood with his arms folded over his chest, stolidly watching as she steamed up to him. He was a big man, about six-five; she had enjoyed his size, because he wasn’t big just in height, but now she wished he was normal sized so she could knock him on his ass.
“Stop it,” she hissed, standing toe to toe with him and glaring up into his sunglasses. “It’s over. Don’t you get it? Over! O-v-e-r. Kaput. Finished. I would say it in Egyptian but I don’t know the damn word. I had a good time but now I’m moving on—”
“Arabic.” His voice was a deep rumble, reverberating in that big chest.
“What?”
“Egyptians speak Arabic. There’s no such thing as an Egyptian language.”
“Well, thank you for the lesson.” She poked him in the chest. “Stop following me, stop spying on me—just stop. I don’t want to cause trouble for you but I will if I have to, do you understand.”
“I want only to be with you.”
Gawd, she thought in despair. “Your head must be made of wood! I don’t want to be with you! I’ve seen all your tricks, and now I want a new magician. Don’t bother me again.”
She pushed past him and went inside. She managed to smile at the people she passed on the way to her room, which was on the third floor facing the driveway, but inside she was furious. If Hossam messed up the best job she’d ever had, she would wring his thick neck with her bare hands. Men were enough to make a woman think of joining a convent, she thought, fuming. Maybe she didn’t need another lover right now; maybe what she really needed was her head examined because she was even thinking about it.
If she saw Hossam so much as looking at her again, she’d tell Louis. Enough was more than enough.
Without appearing to, John studied the security system as Ronsard unlocked and opened the door to his office. The lock operated on a numeric code that translated to different tones, like a telephone. Ronsard was careful to keep his body between John and the control panel, so he couldn’t see the numbers. John didn’t even try to see them; he half-turned away, studying the hallway, noting the blinking eye of the camera that was mounted at the far end of the hall. Making sure his motion was hidden from the camera, he slipped his hand inside his jacket and triggered a powerful miniature recorder that picked up the small beep of the tones as Ronsard punched in the code.
“We won’t be disturbed here,” Ronsard said. “Please be seated. Would you like something to drink? Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Call him paranoid, but he was real careful about taking anything to eat or drink from someone else. A buffet was fine, if everyone else was eating, but when he was on a job he was always in control of his intake. If he had to set a drink down, he didn’t pick it back up. It was a simple rule, but an effective one.
He looked around. There was a computer on Ronsard’s large, antique desk, but no phone line going to it, which meant it was secure. If there were any files Ronsard didn’t want compromised, they would be on that computer. Another unit sat on a Louis XIV desk across the room, and this one was hooked to a phone line, a printer, a scanner, the works.
Also on Ronsard’s desk was a small monitor with an elaborate control attached to it, and from where he was sitting John could see just enough of the screen to tell it was surveillance of the hallway outside, so Ronsard knew in advance who was coming toward his office. There was probably a central surveillance control room somewhere in this massive building, but whether or not the entire building was under watch was something he’d have to find out. It could be that, like the listening devices, only certain rooms were involved. This part of the estate was, after all, Ronsard’s private living quarters, and he probably wouldn’t want his employees watching him.
“Who’s making the compound?” he asked, deciding to at least ask. Sometimes people just blurted out what he wanted to know.
Ronsard smiled at him. “I have an agreement with the . . . ah, developers. They don’t use anyone else to distribute the compound, and I don’t tell anyone who they are. Once it’s known, you understand, then they’ll be under siege. Opportunists would try to get the formula, perhaps resorting to kidnap and torture in the process; the government might try to shut them down, but would at least take over the manufacturing. That’s the way governments are, isn’t it?” He sat down behind his desk. “I had thought they were dealing behind my back. Both you and Ernst Morrell were asking about the compound; what else could I think? But you’ve relieved my mind.”
“I’m glad.”
The total lack of expression in John’s voice brought a smile to the arms dealer’s face. “So I see. Well, Mr
. Temple, shall we complete our business? I have guests, and you’ll want to continue your pursuit of Mrs. Jamieson. Tell me—what would you do with a wife, assuming you succeed?”
John’s eyes sharpened. “Keep her safe.”
“Ah. Can you do that, though?” He indicated the computers in the office, specifically the fast, powerful one on his secretary’s desk. “Computers have made the world very small. Eventually, one will be able to find out anything about anyone. It’s almost possible now. You won’t be able to disappear the way you do now.”
“Information can be falsified or erased. If I need a social security number or a credit card, I use someone else’s.”
“Yes, but what about her? She can’t disappear, you know. She has family, friends; she has a home, a routine, and a social security number, and those credit cards you disdain. I know the lady well enough to promise you she would balk at using a stolen credit card.”
Still warning him away from Niema, John realized, inwardly amused. “If she doesn’t want what I can give her, all she has to do is say no. Kidnapping somebody is too chancey; it draws a lot of attention.”
“Something you want to avoid,” Ronsard agreed. “But if she did go with you—what would you do?”
John regarded him silently, refusing to be drawn on the question. It was a nonissue, of course, but Ronsard didn’t know that. Let him think that Temple was the most secretive bastard he’d ever met, and let it go at that.
He stonewalled every attempt Ronsard made to talk about Niema, though he was actually beginning to like the guy. There was something both absurd and touching about someone as ruthless as Louis Ronsard displaying this kind of concern for a friend. Niema had gotten to him too, John thought, just the way she had Hadi and Sayyed, and himself, in Iran. The situation was almost funny. He should have been able to express an interest in Niema, with her reciprocating, and that would have been that: a burgeoning affair. Instead Niema was rattled, Ronsard was protective, and he was having to pursue a reluctant target.
