by Linda Howard
Her stomach turned over. “I didn’t mean—”
“He did,” he said briefly.
They dodged down yet another street and found themselves in a part of town where the streets seemed to branch off each other like tangled spaghetti. Ahead of them a trio of men cut across an intersection, weapons drawn. One of the men spotted them and pointed. John pulled her down the nearest bisecting street.
“How many of them are there?” she panted.
“A lot.” He sounded grim. He angled back toward where they had seen the three men, hoping to come out behind them. They ran up a narrow, picturesque street, with flower boxes in the windows and old women selling a few wares on their doorsteps, from tatted lace shawls to homemade potpourri. One woman shrieked at the gun in John’s hand as he and Niema ran by. A sharp angle took them to the left, and a dead end. Niema whirled and started back, but John caught her arm and pulled her toward him.
She heard what he heard. The street behind them slowly fell silent as the old women grabbed up their wares and vanished into their houses. The sounds of traffic came from a distance, but here there was nothing.
Louis Ronsard strolled into view, a slight smile on his sculpted lips and a Glock-17 in his hand. The big pistol was leveled at Niema’s head.
John immediately moved at a right angle away from her. The gun didn’t waver from her head. “Stop right there,” Ronsard said, and John obeyed.
“My friends,” he said lightly, “you left without saying good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” John said, without expression. He made no move with the weapon in his hand, not with that big 9mm locked dead center on Niema’s forehead.
“Drop your weapon,” Ronsard said to John. His dark blue eyes were arctic. John obeyed, letting the pistol drop to the street. “You abused my hospitality. If the guard hadn’t surprised you, you would have gotten away with it. I never would have known you got into my computer. You did, didn’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t have been leaving my office at that time, you would still have been in there working.”
John shrugged. There was no point denying it. “I got what I went after. I copied everything; I know what you know.”
“To what point, my friend? Blackmail? Or did you want exclusive access to the RDX-a?”
It was Temple who answered. As Niema watched, John’s face altered ever so slightly, his eyes taking on a flat quality. “Whoever has the compound will make a lot of money in a very short time. Plus . . . I have some uses for it.”
“You could have bought whatever amount you needed.”
“And you would make the money.”
“So that’s what this is all about? Just money?”
“It’s always about money.”
“And her?” Ronsard indicated Niema. “I assume she’s your partner.”
“I don’t have partners.”
“Then she is . . . ?”
“She isn’t involved in this. Let her go,” John said softly.
In a heartbeat Ronsard had the gun off Niema and on John, his finger already on the trigger. “Don’t play me for a fool,” he said, his voice low and deadly.
Niema slipped her right hand up behind her back and gripped the pistol tucked in her waistband. Ronsard caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and started to turn, but she already had the pistol out and leveled at his head.
“Perhaps,” she murmured in her best Medina imitation, “you should be asking me the questions. Drop the pistol.”
“I don’t think so,” Ronsard said, still holding his weapon on John. “Are you willing to risk your lover’s life? He wasn’t willing to risk yours.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Just move over there beside him.”
Both men froze. John seemed to have stopped breathing, his face going white. Ronsard stared at her in astonishment, then began laughing mirthlessly. Niema didn’t dare take her eyes off Ronsard, but she was almost paralyzed herself by the risk she was taking. With John’s history, a wife he had killed rather than let her betray two men, for another lover to betray him would be devastating, so devastating that not even his superhuman control could hold. His reaction was crucial, because Ronsard had to believe it.
“My apologies, Monsieur Temple,” Ronsard said to John. “It appears we were both used.”
“Sorry, darling.” She gave John an insincere smile. “I have the disk. While you were sleeping last night, I sort of confiscated it.” He knew that was a lie. Not only had she not left the bed last night except to visit the head, getting the disk didn’t mean anything now that the information had already been sent to Langley. She looked back at Ronsard, to keep his attention on her instead of on John. “I would introduce myself, but it’s better if I don’t. I’d like to put a proposition to you, Louis—one that would benefit both of us.”
“In what way?”
She smiled again. “The CIA is very interested in . . . reaching an agreement with you. We don’t want to put you out of business. You could be very valuable to us, and vice versa. You have access to a lot of very interesting information—and we’re willing to pay you well for it.”
“So would other governments,” he said, his eyes still cold.
Niema kept an eye on John as well as Ronsard, willing him not to spoil the setup. “Not as much as we can. And there’s an added bonus.”
“Such as?”
“A heart.”
The softly spoken words fell into a silence that seemed complete. John started, then halted himself. Ronsard’s face twisted with hatred. “You dare,” he whispered. “You dare bargain with my daughter’s life?”
“I’m offering the services of the United States government in finding a heart for her. Those are services you can’t match, no matter how much money you have. Even a new heart might not save her, but at least she’ll have a chance to hold on until other cures can be found.”
He hung there, a father’s anguish on his face. “Done,” he said roughly, no haggling, no jockeying for position. His love for Laure was genuine and absolute. He would do anything, even sell his soul to the devil, to save her. Working with the CIA was nothing in comparison. He lowered his weapon and nodded toward John. “What about him?”
“Mr. Temple?” Niema shrugged as she lowered her own weapon. It was a risk, but one she felt she had to take to make this agreement work. “He’s . . . a bonus, so to speak. I wasn’t expecting to have his aid in the job, but since he was there, and so good at it, I let him do it.” She had to keep John’s cover, she thought. His identity as Joseph Temple couldn’t be questioned.
John bent down and scooped up his pistol. Niema couldn’t read his expression. His face was still pale, his eyes as dead as she had ever seen them. He started toward Ronsard.
“Temple!” she said sharply, just as a sound drew her attention to the right.
Two of Ronsard’s men came around the corner. Their gazes locked immediately on John; he was the prime target of their hunt. They saw the pistol in his hand, saw him moving toward Ronsard. Niema knew, in a nanosecond of stark vision, what was going to happen. She saw their weapons train on him. He was momentarily too focused on Ronsard to react as quickly as he normally would have.
She didn’t hear herself scream, a hoarse sound of rage and terror. She didn’t know she was moving, didn’t feel her hand holding the pistol as it began to rise. All she could hear was her heartbeat, slow and ponderous, as if it pumped molasses instead of blood. All she knew was—not again. She couldn’t watch him die. She couldn’t.
There was a distant roar. A blue haze of gun smoke. The stench of cordite burning her nostrils. The buck of the weapon in her hand as she fired, and kept firing. A crushing force hit her, knocked her down. She tried to stagger to her feet, but her legs wouldn’t work. She fired again.
Someone else was shooting, she thought. There was a deeper roar . . . wasn’t there? John. Yes, John was shooting. Good. He was still alive. . . .
The lights seemed to go out, though maybe not. She was
n’t certain. There was a lot of formless noise that gradually reshaped itself into words. Something was tugging at her, and it hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life, pain so sharp and all-consuming she almost couldn’t breathe.
“—damn you, don’t you die on me,” John was raging as he tore at her clothes. “Do you hear? Don’t you god damn die on me.”
John rarely swore, she thought, fighting through the pain; he must be really upset. What on earth had happened?
She was hurt. She remembered now, remembered that crushing blow that knocked her down. Something had hit her.
Shot. She’d been shot. So this was what it felt like. It was worse than she had ever imagined.
“Don’t die,” John was snarling as he pressed down hard on her side.
She wet her lips, and managed to say, “I might not, if you’ll hurry and get help.”
His head jerked around and he stared at her. His pupils were pinpoints of shock, his face white and strained. “Just hold on,” he said roughly. “I’ll stop the bleeding.” He looked beyond her, and his expression was savage. “You’d better use all the influence you have and get the best doctors in Europe, Ronsard,” he said in a low, guttural tone, “because if she dies, I’ll fillet you into fish bait.”
Washington, D.C., three weeks later
Niema carefully got out of bed and made her way over to the lone chair in the hospital room. Her legs were steadier, she was walking more every day now, though “more” in this case meant a few minutes longer, not any great distance. She had come to hate that bed, though, and was spending as much time as she could in the chair. Sitting in a chair made her feel less like an invalid.
The last IV drip had come out that morning. She was scheduled to be dismissed from the hospital the next day. She would complete her recovery at home; Frank Vinay had visited and said it had been arranged for her to have help at home until she was strong enough to manage by herself again.
Being home again would be nice, she thought. Excitement was one thing, but a woman needed peace and quiet when she was recovering from a gunshot wound. Too much of the past three weeks was a blur, at best, or a huge blank forever lost from her memory She vaguely remembered being in intensive care in some hospital in France. Louis Ronsard might have been there. He had held her hand once, she thought.
Then she had been flown from France to the States, back to D.C., and brought here. She didn’t remember the flight at all, but the nurses told her that was what had happened. She had gone to sleep in France and woke up in D.C. That was enough to disorient anyone.
Every time she surfaced it had been to incredible pain, but she had stopped taking any painkiller a week ago, when she was moved out of intensive care into a regular room. The first couple of days had been rough, but after that every day had been easier.
The last time she’d seen John was when she’d been lying in that narrow, deadend street in Nice. He’d had to disappear, of course. He couldn’t hang around, either as Joseph Temple or John Medina. She hadn’t asked Mr. Vinay about him, either. John would either show up, or he wouldn’t.
Only a small lamp was on in the room; after the bright lights of intensive care shining on her day and night, she wanted only dim lights now. She turned on the radio to an instrumental station and turned the volume low. Easing back in the chair, she closed her eyes and let her mind drift with the music.
She didn’t hear any strange noise or feel a draft from the door opening, but slowly she became aware of John’s presence. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, not at all surprised to find him standing in the shadows across the room.
“Finally,” she said, holding out her hand to him.
He came to her so silently he might have been drifting on smoke, his gaze moving hungrily over her, darkening with pain as he catalogued each pound she had lost. He cupped her face, rubbing his thumb over her bloodless cheek as he bent down and lightly pressed his mouth to hers. She put her hand on the back of his neck, something in her easing as she felt him warm and vital under her touch.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he said in a low, rough tone. “Frank kept me informed, but I—it wasn’t the same as being here.”
“I understood.” She tried to stroke away the new lines that bracketed his mouth.
“When you go home tomorrow, I’ll be there.”
“Someone is staying with me—”
“I know. I’m the someone.” He crouched down in front of her and folded her hand in his.
“Good. You can help me get back on my feet. The physical therapists here won’t let me do as much as I need to be doing.”
“If you think I’m going to do anything more than let you sleep and eat, you’re way off base.”
“Really? I thought you’d have incentive to get me up to my fighting weight again.”
“Why’s that?”
“So you can show me the rest of your tricks.” She grinned at him. “I can’t wait. I’ve been lying here for the past week wondering what they are.”
The tension in his face relaxed as a smile touched his mouth. “It’ll be a while before you’re in shape for any of that.”
“Depends on how fast you get me into shape, doesn’t it?”
“We’re going to take it nice and easy. A ruptured liver isn’t something you get over in a day or two.” She was also missing part of her spleen, and the bullet had shattered two ribs. On the other hand, John was still alive, and that was the most important thing. He’d have been shot down in front of her if she hadn’t drawn their attention.
“What were you doing?” she asked, drawing back and frowning at him as she was finally able to ask the question that had been nagging at her since she’d regained consciousness. “Why were you going for Ronsard like that?”
“The bastard held a gun to your head,” he said simply. “And I lost control. I do that a lot where you’re concerned.”
“This can’t keep happening.”
“I’ll try to do better.” The tone was dry now—very dry.
“The deal I made with Ronsard—I haven’t talked to Mr. Vinay about it. Will it hold?”
“Hold? They’re ecstatic.”
“The whole thing seemed like a good idea at the time. All he wants is money to take care of Laure; he doesn’t care where it comes from or how he gets it.” She paused. “Can you find her a heart?”
“We’re trying. The odds are against it, but we’re trying.” He sighed. “And if we find her a heart, that means a healthier child somewhere won’t have that chance.”
“With the information Ronsard can provide, a lot of other lives will be saved, though.”
They were both silent, the ethical considerations weighing heavy on each side of the argument. Where one stood, she suspected, depended on whether or not one’s child was involved. She understood Ronsard’s single-minded devotion to his daughter; someone else whose child was waiting on a heart wouldn’t be at all understanding.
She put her hands on the arms of the chair and slowly pushed herself to a standing position. John stood also, his face anxious, his hands outstretched to catch her as if she were a toddler taking her first steps. She grinned up at him. “I’m not that fragile.”
“You are to me,” he said, and remembered terror swept over his face. “Damn you, no more heroics, do you hear me?”
“Leave them to you, is that it?”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Leave them to me.”
“I can’t.” She put her arms around him, resting her head on his chest. “Heroes are few and far between. When you find one, you gotta take care of him.” How fortunate she had been, she thought, to have loved and been loved by two such men as Dallas and John—extraordinary men by any standard.
Slowly his hands stroked up her back, his touch light so he wouldn’t accidentally hurt her. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Niema turned her lips against his chest, breathing in the hot male scent of his skin. She had lost the thread of conv
ersation as soon as he touched her. “What’s that?”
“When you find a hero, you gotta take care of her.” He tilted her chin up with his hand. “Partners?”
A slow, delighted grin spread over her face, dispelling the aura of fragility. “Partners,” she said, and they shook hands on the deal.
POCKET STAR BOOKS
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KILL AND TELL
LINDA HOWARD
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Turn the page for a preview of
Kill and Tell. . . .
Karen felt the heat as soon as she stepped from the jet into the extended accordion of the jetway. The air was heavy with humidity, and sweat popped out on her forehead as she lugged her carry-on bag up the slight slope. She had dressed in a short-sleeved summer suit that felt too cool while she was on the plane, but now she was sweltering. Her legs were baking inside her panty hose, and sweat trickled down her back.
Detective Chastain had been right about the airlines; she had made one call, spoken to a sympathetic, calmly efficient reservations agent, and found herself scurrying in order to get packed and to the airport in time to catch the flight. She hadn’t had time to eat before getting on the plane, and her stomach had clenched in revolt at the thought of eating the turkey sandwich served during the flight. She disliked turkey anyway; there was no way she could eat it with her stomach tied in knots and her head throbbing with tension.
The headache was still with her. It throbbed in time with every step she took as she followed the signs to the baggage claim area. She had never felt the way she felt now, not even when her mother died. Her grief then had been sharp, overwhelming. She didn’t know what she felt now. If it was grief, then it was a different variety. She felt numbed, distant, oddly fragile, as if she had crystallized inside and the least bump would shatter her.
The weight of the bag pulled at her arm, making her shoulder ache. The air felt clammy even inside the terminal, as if the humidity seeped through the walls. She realized she hadn’t called ahead to reserve a room. She stood in front of the baggage carousel, watching it whirl around with everyone’s bags except hers, and wondered if she had the energy to move from the spot.
