It was getting dark. She rubbed one arm and then the other. Whatever she was going to do, she had to make a decision quick. She’d crouch behind this bush all night if she thought John would suddenly show up in the morning, but that was unlikely. She couldn’t save him single-handedly, but neither could she leave him on the island, suffering God knew what fate.
Her options narrowed to one. She swore under her breath. She had to find a phone. Then she had to call her father.
Cali shifted on the hard plastic seat in the American consulate’s office. Her entire body was sore and screaming in protest from thirty-six hours without sleep. She tried her best to ignore it. She tightened her grip on the backpack and kept her eyes trained on the door. It had taken her most of the night to get off the mountain in the most roundabout way possible. She’d skirted two small villages, finally stumbling into the slightly more developed burg of Aurignac. She’d waited out the rest of the night hiding behind the building of a small, independently owned car-rental business. That morning she’d used traveler’s checks to rent a car. She’d weighed the risk of them being traced back to the company against using a bus. But she had no idea if such arrivals and departures were somehow being watched. When she discovered the rental place was so small that they filled out forms by hand and asked for a safety deposit up front, she opted for the car.
She’d made it into the capital city of Fort-de-France by midday and to the consulate’s office less than fifteen minutes after that. It was the only thing she’d known to do. She’d wanted a phone that she could use and a place to sit where no one was likely to bother her. She had spent a little time wondering if whoever was behind this had someone planted in the local government, but she had to draw the line on paranoia at some point. So, there she sat, waiting.
The door suddenly swung open and a man ducked under the frame and entered the room. He’d had to duck a lot of door frames, she thought absently, knowing her jaw had dropped open, but too weary to care about appearing rude.
He was the biggest man she’d ever seen. It took considerable control not to leap out of her seat and make a run for it. But the only escape route was currently blocked by him.
“Cali Stanfield?”
She stared at him. He was actually quite handsome when you got past his enormous size. Well over six feet and she swore almost as wide at the shoulders, he was an amazing spectacle. His arms were the size of her thighs. His hands could likely crush her skull with little or no effort. The only thing that kept her from making a run for it anyway was the affable, little-boy smile on his face. She’d heard of eyes that twinkled before, but she’d never seen any until now. He had bright white teeth, dimples that somehow made him look innocent, and shaggy brown hair that fell immediately back on his forehead after he raked it away. He looked like a giant, overgrown kid. Harmless. Sort of.
She nodded. “T. J. Delahaye?”
“Live and in the considerable flesh.”
He stepped forward and extended a hand the size of a small ham toward her. She half expected the floor to rumble under his weight, but he moved gracefully, with almost total silence. She was intimidated and oddly reassured at the same time. His callused hand engulfed hers but was surprisingly gentle. “You’re one of McShane’s team?” A man his size could be an entire team in his own right. Besides, who was going to tell him he couldn’t play?
He nodded. “You were lucky. I had just checked in with Spook Central when your father tracked down McShane’s work history. We’ve had a few shake-ups in management of late and we’re a bit shorthanded.”
“John told me.”
T. J. studied her for several nerve-racking seconds, then said, “I see.”
How in the world a man the size of a small mountain could pull off looking vulnerable, she had no idea. But discovering he was a man of surprising talents continued the process of reassuring her.
“Well, our temporary leader just filed a short list to expand the team. Until they are rounded up, I’m on leave.” He smiled. Cali felt the tension flow from her. The man had a smile as wide as the Mississippi and just as unstoppable. “What better place to spend my first vacation in eight years than the Caribbean?”
The tension returned. “I’m sorry. Really. I had no idea where else to turn. If there’s anyone else—”
“Hey, I’m here. I’m willing. Why not, huh?” His shrug was as casual as his smile.
She blamed lack of sleep for her reaction to his overly relaxed manner. “You seem awfully cavalier about this, considering one of your teammates is very probably fighting for his—” She broke off and looked away when her throat suddenly tightened. Her lapse in front of T. J. only served to increase her ire. She swung her head back toward him seconds later, not caring what he might hear in her voice. “Can you rescue him?”
“Won’t be the first time.” He stood in front of her, hands loosely tucked in the pockets of his pleated hiking shorts, one booted foot propped on its heel. His calves were roughly the size of Rhode Island, making her wonder, only half hysterically, if he stomped the enemy out.
“Ready whenever you are,” she said, feeling anything but.
“Uh-uh. I work alone, Miss Stanfield.”
She didn’t bother to correct him on the name. “Well, I can’t sit here waiting. I won’t.” She stood, still clutching the pack to her chest. “I don’t want to interfere, but he’s in this mess because of me.”
“I’m sure he won’t hold that against you.”
His affable smile was beginning to grate on her nerves. She’d trade it for McShane’s implacable mask in half a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. This isn’t the first time I’ve caused him trouble.” In fact, every contact she’d had with John McShane had usually involved her in hot water and him trying not to get boiled in the same pot. He’d been successful—until now. She noticed that her admission had sent T. J. on full alert. She immediately switched gears. “I won’t get in your way, Mr. Delahaye.”
“T. J.’ll do.”
“Whatever,” she said, less than graciously. Lack of sleep, stress overload, and digesting the gritty remains of one too many cups of coffee had worn her control down to a frazzle. “Listen, I meant that. I won’t get in your way—”
“I know you won’t, because I have you booked on a private flight to the States in”—he checked his watch—“less than one hour. Your father will meet you at the other end along with another teammate of mine. Our temporary leader, in fact. You really must rate. Scottie is a bit busy these days to play chauffeur, even for an ambassador’s daughter.”
So she wasn’t to have even a moment’s reprieve. Tension balled up even further inside her. She’d known all the ramifications of calling her father. But knowing them and dealing with the reality of them were two different things.
With renewed effort to win this fight, she said, “I’m part of this situation. Hell, I am this situation. I won’t—can’t—sit idly by while more people risk their lives on my behalf. I need to be involved.” Her voice had risen and even she could hear the edge of hysteria in her demands.
T. J. laid a massive palm on her shoulder. The warmth of his hand was oddly reassuring. Still fuming, she at least stopped pacing.
“Trust me, you won’t be idle. Scottie is already setting up a command station back home. You’ll be putting in some long hard hours decoding that book and documenting the program your late husband wrote.”
His voice was a deep low rumble that vibrated throughout her body, as strangely soothing as his touch was gentling. If she wasn’t so preoccupied with the mess she was in, terrified at what was happening to John, she might have enjoyed talking with Agent Delahaye.
But even his overwhelming presence wasn’t enough to change her focus. She shook her head. “We know what we have. Documenting this program won’t keep whoever it is from coming after me.”
“Yes, but this way we’ll know exactly what kind of bait it is we’re offering.”
“Bait?” Cold dread
crawled through her, making the nausea worsen.
Still smiling, T. J. nodded almost happily. “Yep. Best way to find out who wants this so badly. Trap ’em, grill ’em, book ’em. End of problem.”
Cali straightened, stepping away from the natural shelter of T. J.’s towering body. “I’ll go back. I’ll work on the program.”
His smile spread to a grin. There was actually relief in his eyes. “Great. Let’s hit it.” Not wasting any time, he turned to the door. “Stay right behind—”
“On one condition.”
He turned slowly back to her, his expression wary rather than relieved. “Namely?”
“I deliver the bait.”
EIGHT
“Tell me you didn’t agree.” Speaking cost him. John swallowed a groan. Groaning hurt. It was a toss-up which throbbed worse, his face or his torso. But nothing short of death—which, if not for a certain blonde, he’d have wished for a hundred times over in the last two days—was going to keep him from grilling, and perhaps killing, his teammate.
“I didn’t see as I had much choice, McShane. Your lady is champion material in the stubborn and bull-headed division.” T. J. handed him another ice pack. “I can see why you two hit it off.”
John stared out the dusty window of the small airless truck he’d been bounced around and holed up in for the last hour. “She’s not my anything. Which is moot since I plan on killing her as soon as I get done with you.”
T. J.’s chuckle would have earned him a good right hook, if, at the moment, John had had a good right anything to deliver it with.
“How much farther to the damn plane? This island can’t be that big.”
“Five minutes. We’re taking the roundabout route. I don’t expect a thank-you or anything for saving your sorry hide.” He paused. “What’s left of it. You’re lucky I found you when I did, partner.”
“How’d you manage that anyway? Ask directions at the corner gas station?”
“Well, dragging your carcass through the brush left a nice wide trail for me to follow. They got a little cleaner after that, but there aren’t too many places to hide on this island. You know you could have helped me out a little.”
“Sorry, I was too unconscious to leave a trail of bread crumbs.”
“You woke up at some point.”
John massaged his ribs, hoping they were only bruised. “Yeah, hell of an alarm clock they use.”
“And you know we’re a little short of help right now. I couldn’t throw together a complete chase team.”
“Hell, Delahaye, you are a chase team.” He winced. Talking hurt. “I always wondered how a man your size moved so quietly. Even I didn’t hear you.”
T. J. shot him a wide grin. “Spy boots.”
John almost snorted, would have if he wasn’t reasonably certain he’d rip something open.
“You could have helped me out by getting a visual of at least one of your genial hosts.”
“Gee, I’m sorry, Delahaye. Must have been all the blood in my eyes at the time.” John tried like hell to curb his tongue and his temper. It wasn’t like him to let anything, even the beating of a lifetime, get to him.
T. J.’s “super-spy stuff is my life” attitude was the one John normally adopted during an assignment. Hell, it was how he normally really felt. His credo had been “If you gotta go, take the bad guys with you.” When you truly didn’t care if you lived or died, it wasn’t hard to be nonchalant about your work.
But now he did care if he lived. Or if he died.
“There were two of them. Neither one had any rank. Warm-ups for whoever was coming in after they loosened my mouth up a bit. They kept a hood on me while we ‘talked.’ Otherwise I was kept in that room you found me in. I take it you waited for them to step out?”
“Maybe they were out picking up Mr. Big himself, but yes, you were alone.” T. J. clucked his tongue. “Should know better than to leave their baby-sitting charge alone. Never know what trouble they can get into.” His smile faded. “I wish I’d had the manpower to send someone after them.”
John was silent for a moment. He didn’t bother to mention that T. J. could have gone after the two goons and left him behind for later retrieval. In T. J.’s place, John would have done the same thing.
A small moan escaped him when T. J. hit a ditch. The moan made him wince. His mouth was more swollen tissue than functioning muscle at the moment. He didn’t have to brave it out in front of his teammate, but survival instincts didn’t kick in and back out that easily. Using much of whatever control he had left, he clamped down on the surge of pain and the resulting roll of nausea, and shifted to look at the man who had just single-handedly pulled him out of hell. “Thanks, T.”
T. J. glanced at him, held his gaze for a split second longer, then turned back to the road. “That green color looks good with all the red, black, and blue. It’ll be downright pretty when the yellow and purple kick in.”
John didn’t respond. He kept his gaze on his still-smiling teammate for another silent moment, then finally looked away. Ah, hell. T. J. knew. John had been compromised.
It wasn’t anything simple, or easily understood, like caving in to torture. His fall from grace resulted from something far more destructive and dangerous.
He’d been made vulnerable. His team knew it. But far worse, the enemy knew it. He’d been rendered useless. A liability was all he’d be now.
The very idea should have devastated him. His whole life had just been gutted like nothing more than the sputtering flame of a spent candle. Commitment to the team was all he’d had. Others had taken the time to cultivate at least a minimal private life between assignments, solo though their ventures were by necessity. Not John McShane. He thrived on his job. In fact, he’d taken on and successfully accomplished more missions than anyone else in the history of the Dirty Dozen. No one questioned his dedication. Nor did they understand his motives. No one had ever asked. Other than the original team leader, Seve Delgado, no one ever would. They’d each been handpicked by Del and that was enough.
They all had their reasons, and personal revelation was not necessary for them to work well as a cohesive unit. In fact, it was their unique ability to be completely insular that enabled them to work well together. They weren’t even vulnerable to each other. The perfect agent. The perfect team. And John McShane had been the best of the lot.
Until now. Now he was flawed. Fatally so.
Sore and raw in more places than he wasn’t, facing a life that held nothing, he could think of only one thing: Cali.
She’d survived. She’d saved his life. T. J. hadn’t said how she’d tracked him down, leaving that for her to explain if she chose to. She instilled loyalty very easily, it seemed. But he had a pretty good idea of what she’d done. This mission had Ambassador Stanfield’s fingerprints all over it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, or the sacrifice Cali had made by making that move. But by placing the call, she’d very likely saved herself as well. He’d do what he could to extricate her from Stanfield’s very long reach as soon as he could. Right after he made damn sure she gave up the idiotic idea of using herself as bait.
It was the least he could do for her. It was also all he could do for her. The team would handle matters now. From here on out, his role in this mission had ended, just as his role on the team had ended. It hit him that for the first time in his entire life he had no idea what his role was.
As T. J. pulled the truck onto a private airstrip where a small Cessna waited, John realized that what made him feel truly lost was that, for the second time in his life, he was going to have to walk out on Cali.
Cali heard the commotion in the living room and paused in her work. She took an absent sip of cold coffee, her staff of life for the past three days, and stared at the computer screen, largely ignoring the intrusion as she mentally ran through several complex calculations. It was T. J.’s rumbling bass that brought her to full alert. Scottie Giardi’s throaty but fully female voice followed.
Cali was out of the chair and to the door of her office—located on the second-floor bedroom of a small town house tucked away in a nondescript suburb in northern Virginia—in a heartbeat. No one would tell her anything about John, other than that T. J.’s mission had been successful. She’d all but begged her dad, Ms. Giardi, and both of the other men who had temporarily protected her, for information.
A rough, halting voice stopped her dead halfway down the staircase. McShane. And from the sounds of the discussion, he wasn’t too happy. She didn’t know whether to race down the stairs or to run back and hide in her office. She was compelled to do both. Her need to see for herself how he’d fared won out.
The conversation ceased when she hit the midpoint landing. Her head and heart had been racing too fast for her to make out the actual discussion, but she grasped the gist. McShane wanted her off the case after she’d cracked the rest of the virus program.
She paused to gather her control. From her position on the steep staircase, she could see three sets of feet. All of a sudden she wasn’t sure she wanted to see John. No one had said anything. But she sensed, knew, that he hadn’t fared well. He’d been held hostage for two days.
All toes shifted toward her.
“Cali? Come on down. Someone here wants to talk to you.” Scottie didn’t bother to disguise her sarcasm.
Time was up. This is what you wanted, right? A chance to see him one more time? To make sure he was okay. To tell him you were sorry for dragging him into your life again. Thank him.
Tell him good-bye.
Cali took two steps down. Beat-up hiking boots took two steps forward. John McShane came slowly into view. She took her time looking up. His legs looked fine. He hadn’t limped. At least not that she could tell. He wore a loose navy-and-white-striped polo shirt, untucked. She wondered what type of gun was hidden underneath. His arms were tanned, but before she could scan them for bruises or cuts, she made the mistake of looking up. She gasped despite her promise to herself not to react.
Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance Page 10
