by Karen Rock
“I’m here.” Ryan materialized from a copse of trees, shoved Pullman in the back of his idling car, and grabbed Erica by her upper arms. “You could have been killed.”
“But I got Pullman. You made the right call sending me in.”
He opened his mouth and shut it, then kissed her swiftly before hopping behind the wheel.
Twenty minutes later, she sat across a profusely sweating Pullman while Ryan paced the small, airless room in a remote CIA black site. “So tell me again why you’re at the al Saud compound?”
“I’m having some marital problems, and Fahad said I could stay at his house.”
Erica set her jaw and stared Pullman down. Don’t blink first. “What kind of problems?”
Pullman hung his head, then rolled his eyes up to meet hers. “I cheated on my wife, okay?”
No. Not okay. He was lying.
“Bullshit,” Ryan boomed, making Pullman jump. “Your wife’s still in Syria. How would she know?”
“Trust me, s-she knows.” Pullman’s voice rose. “She said one of her cousins was coming to take care of me.”
Erica’s gaze swerved to Ryan, who loomed behind Pullman. His shoulders rose then fell, and he shook his head. They’d seen no evidence of an affair while watching Pullman’s surveillance recordings.
“Why are you meeting with al-Nusra weapons suppliers?” Erica pressed.
Pullman jerked. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
She pulled out her cell. “Shall I play the video?”
“W-what?” Pullman’s head swiveled between Ryan and Erica. “You recorded me? How? When?”
“We know about your meetings,” Erica said flatly. “The one in the park. Then outside the restaurant… This is your last chance to come clean.”
“I’m innocent.” Pullman slammed his palms onto the table and lurched from his chair. “The meetings were to get information for Speaker Hatcher’s Amman bombing investigation. I was trying to turn them.”
Ryan planted a meaty fist on the table and leaned in menacingly. “So you’re a spy now?”
Pullman collapsed back in his seat. “N-no… I just…I thought if I got them onboard as witnesses, then maybe I’d get a raise.”
One side of Erica’s mouth twisted up. “Divorces are expensive for cheaters, huh?”
Pullman nodded and wiped the sweat slicking his upper lip.
“Why’d you go for the gun in Fahad’s bureau? Were you going to shoot me?”
“N-no. I saw your gun and panicked.”
“I don’t believe you. How ’bout you, Agent Arnell?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nope.”
“I’m telling the truth.” Pullman grabbed the half-empty water bottle before him and downed it in one long gulp.
“I might—just might—believe you,” Erica drawled, maintaining eye contact, adding a hint of sympathy in her gaze. “If you answer one simple question…. Truthfully…. No more of this ‘I don’t know’ bullshit. Where. Is. Fahad?”
Pullman glanced at the wall clock, then heaved out a sigh. “He’s a very private man.”
“Spare us the context,” Ryan barked. “Where is the emir?”
“Headed to his private jet,” Pullman admitted in a rush. Finally. Something sounding like the truth. “He drove off just before you arrived.”
All the air left Erica’s body in one, shattering rush. “Where’s he going?”
Pullman spread his hands wide. “He only said he’d be back soon and to hold down the fort.”
She reached over and patted his cheek. “Thanks. We’ll be back.”
Minutes later, she and Ryan careened down the highway to the private airport outside of Dallas, having entrusted Pullman to the FBI.
“Pullman’s lying.”
Ryan’s fingers clenched around the wheel. “No one says ‘hold down the fort’ but an American.”
“Plus, he recognized me as more than just a Dallas Heat dancer.” Erica fiddled with the vent’s stuck lever, then gave up and rolled down the window. “I’m not buying his, ‘I saw your gun and felt threatened BS’ excuse.”
“What spooked Fahad?”
“The apartment raid?”
Ryan yanked the car around a put-putting sedan, then swerved back across the solid yellow line. “But why flee and leave Pullman behind? He’s gone to the trouble of hiding him.”
Erica leaned her flushed face out the window. “Maybe he’s got a more important passenger. Someone he needs to get out of the country fast.”
Ryan shot her a swift, sideways glance. “You think…”
“A private jet means he doesn’t have to worry about stringent security clearance. He can take off with someone hidden on board. Even Al Monitor.” Her throat clamped around the hated name.
The car bucked forward as Ryan pushed it past fifty-five. “What’s the relationship between them?”
Erica rubbed her temples. So many unanswered questions. Clearly Fahad was involved in the plot and, by association, with Al Monitor. If Pullman was telling the truth, then the leader of one of the deadliest terrorist organizations might slip through their fingers if they didn’t hurry.
Again.
Once they reached the airport’s parking area, she and Ryan bolted from the car and raced toward a tarmac and grass space surrounded by a chain link fence. Ryan waved his credentials at a TSA agent who pointed them to the hangar where Fahad stored his private jet. An engine throbbed in the distance. Exhaust fumes stung Erica’s nose. Gasping for air, they pulled up short just as a small plane taxied from the building and hooked a left onto the runway.
“Stop!” Erica screamed, waving her arms at the forward-facing pilot. The aircraft accelerated away, engines thrumming. “Stop or I’ll—”
“No!” Ryan yanked her Glock down as the jet tore off into the sky. “We’re too late.”
“What do we do?” Erica turned in circles, wishing she could spin the world back on its axis and rewind time, Superman style, so she could have stopped Fahad…and possibly caught Al Monitor.
Ryan’s narrowed eyes tracked the plane, then swung back to her. “We go to the consulate party as planned and see who shows up…. If nothing else, we’ll drown our sorrows in champagne.”
“I think I’d rather just drown,” she groaned.
“And make me pay for the tux I rented when I jump in to save you?” He chucked her lightly under the chin.
She made a face. “Do I look like some damsel in distress who’d need saving?”
Except the other night, when Jamal kidnapped her…
Ryan had saved her then…and in other, more personal ways, too. Ways she was only beginning to understand.
“That’s my girl.” Ryan curled a strong arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Come on, Red, let’s roll.”
Chapter 14
Ryan whisked Erica around the Saudi Consulate’s dance floor an hour past midnight, one eye assessing the crowd for threats, the rest of his senses trained on his gorgeous partner. Through open floor-to-ceiling windows, moonlight flooded the candlelit room and rippled down the red waves framing her beautiful face.
She was stunning.
Literally.
When she’d emerged from her bedroom in a white sheath dress baring one silken shoulder and a slit revealing a firm, shapely thigh, she’d struck him dumb. His limbs froze, and his blood stilled. He stifled a groan as her leg brushed his and fought the urge to run his hand up it and caress her. He wanted to hear her sigh under his touch, hear his name part her lips in a breathless whisper as he brought her pleasure, feel those legs wrapped around him as he drove them both over the edge….
Later, he’d peel off her dress and touch every inch of her.
He caught himself smiling as he guided her around one of the couples packing the space. The kind of wide, goofy grin a guy g
ets when the cute girl in sixth period agrees to go out with him. A happy smile, brimming with possibilities and promise for the future. Or, at least, one unforgettable night at a swank party followed by hours devoted to Erica’s pleasure.
On a raised dais, a jazz quartet played “Stardust,” and he hummed the romantic tune under his breath. For the first time in years, he’d lost himself in music. It’d been his refuge once, a safe place where he’d crawled in between the notes and vented forbidden feelings. It’d transported him, just like Erica. What was the saying? When words fail, music speaks? He needed to find a way to express himself before their mission ended and he returned overseas.
Her body swayed nimbly against his, her breath warm on his cheek, her orange-blossom scent tickling his nose. He tightened his grip on her small waist. Images of Erica flashed in his mind’s eye. Exotic and lush, twirling fearlessly overhead in silks. Girl-next-door pretty and Rottweiler-intent on a stakeout. A sensual tornado as a belly dancer. Cool sophistication in a black pantsuit and a razor-edged wig. Deadly and intense wielding a gun during their shootout. Fresh and approachable at his father’s ceremony and, later, naked in his arms, skin flushed, eyes glazed as she shook from her orgasm. One he’d given her.
He wanted a bold, messy, passionate woman who grabbed life by the throat and didn’t let go. A woman who thought fast under pressure, shot like a sniper, and played the lousiest version of “Chopsticks” he’d ever heard to make his dying father smile. A woman who gave life one hundred and fifty percent.
He wanted Erica.
She was a chameleon, an unconquerable soul, a complex woman with multiple sides, and he loved each one.
Loved?
He stumbled slightly, and Erica’s brilliant blue gaze flew to his. “Did you see something?”
He shook his head, struck mute as the ramification of his feelings sunk in.
She cocked her head. “What’s wrong?”
I’m in love with you.
“Just thinking about Fahad,” he deflected. A white lie to give him time to process.
He couldn’t love Erica, or shouldn’t, not when he wasn’t able to offer her the relationship she deserved, at least…not yet. He was trying to open up, but soon he’d return to Syria, immersed in his job instead of the feelings he’d only begun to access.
Also, he was about to lose his father. How much loss could his heart handle? He suspected he’d shut down rather than let himself miss her while also grieving his dad. In the end, he’d hurt Erica, something he vowed never to do again.
Erica’s fingers clutched his tuxedo-clad shoulders. “I can’t believe we just missed Fahad’s plane. If Pullman hadn’t wasted our time…”
“We’ll catch the emir,” he assured her, “and maybe Al Monitor, when they land.” According to the flight plan, two passengers, one Fahad and another named Abdul al Saud, a “cousin” who matched Al Monitor’s description, were bound for Riyadh. Ryan pulled Erica closer and tucked her head beneath his chin. “My team’s in place and waiting. They should be touching down any minute.”
“Don’t you wish you could be there? Be the one to grab Khalid and say, ‘Not so fast, buddy-boy.’”
He chuckled and smoothed a hand down the silk of her hair. “Not my exact word choice, but yeah, I’d give my left nut to cuff him. He’s led us on a long, deadly chase.”
Her body trembled, and he guessed she pictured the Amman embassy’s blood-soaked ruin like he did. “I just want to kill him.”
“Is that all?” he teased, knowing she was serious. His beautiful assassin.
“For starters.”
His heart swelled as he glided closer to the open windows to scope out the grounds again. With the C-4 explosive in their possession and Fahad and possibly Khalid fleeing the country, cautious optimism over having thwarted tonight’s attack took hold. The CIA would locate the emir and determine why his prints were at the Jabhat al-Nusra hideout. For now, he could steal a few private moments with Erica while he had the chance. Though it never paid to relax. Or assume.
Speaking of which… “Do you still have eyes on the Speaker?”
Erica peeked over his shoulder. “Yeah. He’s talking to the Saudi ambassador. Do they know agents are waiting to detain the emir?”
Ryan steered them to a billowing curtain and let the cool, dark air wash over them. “As far as they know, he’s only a witness we need to question.”
Erica closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the star-studded sky. “Will his family cooperate?”
“They’ve agreed to the questioning.”
Her long lashes rose. “Doesn’t sound like they’re hiding anything.”
Ryan shrugged. “If Al Monitor steps off Fahad’s plane, no further questions needed.”
Eric nodded slowly. “Then again, maybe the emir went home on impulse, maybe Pullman is just Fahad’s houseguest, and maybe Pullman only talked to the weapons dealers to further his career….”
Ryan rubbed her bare arms. “You buying any of that?”
“Hell no.” She sighed and laughed. He loved how pretty her lips looked when she smiled. “We’ve still got Fahad’s fingerprint at the terrorists’ apartment. But it’s not adding up. Something’s about to happen. I know it.” She titled her head, looking at him. “Haven’t you ever felt that way? Just knew in your gut that you were right about something?”
God, yes.
He felt the thrust of the answer, quick and firm, like he’d walked smack into a wall. Her. She felt right. She’d slammed into his life again like a bolt of lightning, and the world hadn’t been level since. “If you believe it, then I believe it.”
A glow backlit her eyes. “Thanks for that.”
“For what?”
She ducked her head, and when she spoke, he had to strain to hear her. “Having faith in me.”
“I’ll never doubt you again,” he said fervently, then tipped up her chin until their gazes tangled.
Because I love you.
The urge to say it swelled his throat. She was open and free with her feelings, telling him last night she was falling for him, and his tongue had twisted itself in knots, unable to speak his heart. “Let’s talk to the Speaker,” he said instead.
They caught up to Richard Hatcher just as the Saudi ambassador sauntered away.
“Good evening, Speaker Hatcher.” Erica extended a hand, and the Speaker shook it politely before offering his to Ryan.
“Heard you located Greg.” Speaker Hatcher stared across the room, like he was seeking answers from some search engine in his mind. “I’m not convinced he’s part of any plot.”
Ryan shoved his clenching hands in his pockets. Jesus. Civilians were naïve. “What makes you sure, sir?”
“His lawyer allowed me to speak to him.” The Speaker’s gaze sawed between Ryan and Erica. “Seems he’d been talking to the weapons traffickers with respect to my investigation.”
A deep frown pierced Erica’s beautiful face. “Why not tell you before?”
“Piss-poor judgment.” Speaker Hatcher’s half-laugh contained zero humor. “He didn’t want to raise expectations until he was certain they’d cooperate.”
“Did he say why he left work abruptly to hide out at the al Saud estate?” Ryan asked.
Hatcher nodded, his mouth a thin line. “He didn’t want me knowing about his affair. Seems he and another of my aides are intimately involved, and he wanted to shield her from office gossip. The night of the emir’s birthday party, Greg confessed his troubles and Fahad offered him sanctuary to get everything sorted out.”
Erica’s nose scrunched, as if she smelled something bad. “And your aide can confirm this?”
“She already has with authorities.”
Ryan modulated his tone, careful to keep his confusion from his voice. Pullman’s story seemed to fit neatly into place. Too neatly. “Did Fahad
talk to you before flying home?”
“No. But the emir’s unpredictable.” Speaker Hatcher plucked a glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. “I don’t know him as well as his uncle, Hamed, but given his reputation, last-minute travel isn’t out of character.”
A beat of silence descended as Ryan waited for Speaker Hatcher’s logical assessment to ease his knotted stomach. It didn’t. “Fahad had another person aboard. Abdul al Saud. Ever heard of him?”
The Speaker stopped drinking mid-sip and lowered his glass. “They’re quite a big family. Could be a distant cousin. Why?”
“A man matching Khalid Muhammad al-Harbi’s description traveled with Fahad under that name,” Ryan informed him.
The Speaker blanched. “Al Monitor?”
Erica nodded and plucked the shaking champagne glass from the Speaker’s hand. “Would you have any idea why they’re associating?”
Hatcher grabbed the table edge beside him and leaned on it. “None. In fact, his family wants to bring Al Monitor to justice themselves after al-Nusra blew up a third drilling well in just the past four years.”
“Sorry to interrupt.” An elegantly coiffed woman in her late forties joined them. She placed a manicured hand on the Speaker’s arm. “Dear, our car’s ready.”
After introducing Ryan and Erica to his wife, Hatcher brushed her cheek with a kiss. “I’ll join you in a minute, sweetheart.”
Once she strolled out of earshot, Hatcher asked, “Do the al Sauds know?”
“Enough for now,” Ryan replied, cagey. “They’re cooperating with us.”
The Speaker’s hard jaw relaxed. “Is there anything else I can answer for you…? Don’t want to keep my lady waiting.”
Ryan met Erica’s eyes and read the “no” in them. “We’re set, thank you, sir. We’ll apprise you of new developments.”
“Much appreciated. Y’all have a good night now.” The Speaker ambled away.
Erica slipped her arm in Ryan’s. “So…what’s next?”
“We’re finished here at least.” They traipsed out into the cool darkness and paused at the top of the white stone stairs leading to the street. Luxury black Town Cars lined up along its curb for exiting partygoers. “If there was a plot to target Speaker Hatcher at the party, looks like we foiled it by driving the cell from their hideout and retrieving their explosive.”
