Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Donna Kauffman

  Scottie’s patience wore visibly thin. “Well, McShane?”

  “I’ve been compromised beyond discovery by the opposing team. I’m no longer the best man for that job.”

  “Which is fine by me,” a fourth voice piped in. “I thought I’d made it clear that I don’t want you or any of your team hiding me away.”

  Three heads turned. Cali stood at the base of the stairs, arms folded.

  She spoke to everyone in the room, but her gaze was leveled directly at John. “I figured out what the Martinique connection is.” She held out a copy of the snapshot she’d sent to him with her original plea for help.

  John walked over and took the photo from her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Adrian. He took the picture.”

  “Eudora’s son.”

  Cali nodded. “It explains everything. It explains why Eudora was the messenger.”

  John studied the photo, then handed it back to her. “I know we talked about his coincidental departure from the island, but what does this prove?”

  She took the picture, then stepped back. John fought the urge to drag her closer.

  “It’s the only other thing about the photo I hadn’t thought of, analyzed. I’ve racked my brains on this. I kept trying to think of anything we might have talked about that day or about anything special that might have been captured on film, like a hiding place or something.”

  “What made you think of it now?”

  For the first time her gaze faltered a bit. “I, uh, hit a tough spot upstairs and … and found myself staring at it.” She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “It never occurred to me to think about who took the photo.”

  “How well did Nathan get to know him when you were there?”

  “That’s just it, as soon as I put it together, it all fell into place. Adrian was sort of a low-grade computer buff. The technology was brand-new back then but he had access to an 8088 and—” Cali broke off, her eyes wide with sudden excitement. She grabbed John’s arm. “He owned an old computer! With a five-and-a-quarter disk drive.”

  As if she’d just realized the connection, she dropped his arm abruptly and backed away another half step. He wanted to tell her she couldn’t run far enough away from him, that if he wanted to touch her, he would. On the heels of that thought came a more painful one. He wondered if he’d ever touch her—really touch her—again.

  “His family actually owns some other property on other islands, and he’d decided to keep track—”

  Her words brought him abruptly back to the topic at hand. “They own land on other islands?” John swore under his breath. “Didn’t you think that might be pertinent?”

  “I’m sorry,” she shot back, clearly frustrated with herself. “We never really talked about Adrian, and I didn’t remember it until just now. It was ten years ago, John. I was on my honeymoon! I’m sorry if I wasn’t paying close attention to everything going on around me, my focus was a bit narrow at the time.”

  John rubbed his palm down his face and blew out a quiet sigh. “Okay, okay. The question is, what exactly was his involvement then, and what is it now.”

  “If Adrian was contacted by someone in our government when this surfaced, then he’s not a good guy.”

  “Doesn’t look that way. But we still don’t know for certain. Do you remember anything of what he and Nathan talked about?”

  “Not really. He was just learning computers and was very excited about the technology. Nathan helped him set some stuff up on his system.”

  John swore. Loudly.

  “What? What did I—” This time she broke off and swore. “He put some of this data on Adrian’s hard drive.”

  John nodded. “Probably.”

  “But that was a decade ago, I doubt seriously Adrian still has that computer.”

  “Nathan didn’t know it would be a decade. He was trying any way he knew how to safeguard his information. He figured Adrian wouldn’t be at risk because he’d never find it, much less understand how to access it.”

  “But I would,” Cali whispered. “Maybe Adrian found it on his hard drive at some point over the years. But he would have had no way of knowing where it had come from. He might have become more computer literate—”

  “It’s possible he was more than just a dumb geek-in-training, even then.”

  Cali frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you actually sit in on any of their conversations?”

  “Well, of course I—” Then she thought about it. “Actually, come to think of it, he went down to Adrian’s one afternoon when I had gone into town to pick up some things from Quéval. In fact, the picture was taken just before I left.”

  “Was that the only time they talked?”

  She nodded. “For any length of time, yes. We ran into Adrian once or twice while we were there, but just to say hi.” Cali fell silent, running it all through in her mind. She looked up at John. “You think he was Nathan’s Blue Circle connection?”

  “I don’t think he was the man in charge of the program, but I do think he was the go-between, or one of them. If he owned that much real estate, then he was a good bet to recruit.”

  “Well, obviously Nathan didn’t put anything on his computer that they didn’t already have.”

  John nailed her with a steady look. “Or they had information for ten years that they couldn’t decrypt, and was therefore useless.”

  Cali swallowed. “So then I waltz in waving new information and ten-year-old bugs come crawling out of the woodwork.”

  Scottie stepped forward. “Good work, Cali.”

  Cali shifted her attention to the group’s leader. “Thank you. I want to be in on the information exchange.”

  “No way.”

  Both women looked at John. Scottie spoke first. “I happen to agree with you on that.”

  “Super-spy or not, I’m part of this team. Without me, you’d have no contact name and no program. I gave you the name. You want the program, then use me to deliver it.”

  TEN

  Cali scowled and crossed her arms. She’d tried to cross her legs several times, but the front seat of the small gray sports coupe wouldn’t have accommodated a five-year old. She hadn’t spoken one word to McShane in over four hours, since he’d bundled her into this death trap of a car “for her own good.”

  Proving he was as smart as his reputation, McShane hadn’t spoken since then either. From the corner of her eye she could see his profile. She knew he was fuming. There was a measure of satisfaction in that, however small.

  She watched as he shifted gears and took out his frustrations on the country road spinning out in front of them. They’d passed the “Welcome to North Carolina” sign some ways back. She didn’t ask where they were headed. She could barely sit still with all the questions and furor churning inside her, but she would die before giving him the pleasure of telling her she was being kept in the dark about their destination “for her own good.”

  She ground her teeth and watched the sun begin to dip behind the mountains that loomed far ahead on the horizon. If the men who were after her could track her from California to Martinique to Virginia, she didn’t understand where exactly there was left to hide. A sigh slipped out before she could stop it.

  “Ah hell,” John muttered under his breath.

  An instant later she was forced to grab the dashboard when McShane suddenly swerved the car from the road, ducking down a narrow dirt track for another five yards, then all but yanking them to a stop behind a small stand of young pine trees. As soon as she got her bearings, she swung around, fearing she’d been so caught up in her silent indignation that she’d failed to notice a real threat. There was no one behind them.

  She spun on him. “What in the hell is wrong with you? You could have flipped this toy box and killed us both.”

  He said nothing. He rested his wrists on the wheel, staring straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard her. She couldn’t help but stare at him. Seventy-two hour
s had elapsed since Scottie had used the authority of her position to override both John and Cali and set up the plan the way she thought best.

  Cali had spent almost every one of those hours at the computer, fuming while she painstakingly crunched through each line of the rest of the program.

  She put everything she had into decrypting what was left. It took every scrap of knowledge she’d gained in her career, along with a healthy dose of luck and faith. There had been hundreds of times she’d wanted to make a call, contact experts in her specialized field who could help her decipher the more challenging aspects of the code Nathan had developed. But with the team unable to pinpoint the source of the threat, there was to be no outside contact. They couldn’t call in for additional help either.

  She’d caught one break when, the day after they’d taken her to the town house, her father had been forced to return to his post in the Middle East when unrest had broken out there. She was grateful for the reprieve despite the reason for it. His assignments had always been in the globe’s hot spots, so this was nothing new to her. And she knew that somehow he was being kept posted on every move she made, just as she knew that she’d have to deal with him about all of this sooner or later. Later was fine with her.

  Right now they needed to figure out exactly what they had in their possession so the team could better determine who would benefit from the knowledge most. Of course, considering what the virus program could do—the potential for wreaking havoc on the economics of the nations of the world was mind-boggling—it didn’t narrow the field much. Whoever wanted it would have to have the tools and resources to spread the virus on a massive scale. They needed to understand the virus program forward and back, inside and out.

  Which was about how she’d felt, going two ways at once, when she’d been hustled straight from the computer into the car.

  But she’d done it. She’d broken Nathan’s code. It was all there, a complete program.

  She’d asked herself one too many times during the last several hours what Nathan had been thinking even to develop such a thing. She was certain his reasons had to have been sound, but in the end, she’d had to back away from that debate all together. He was dead, so wondering why he’d done what he did brought only painful questions that would never be answered.

  She shut down these thoughts and focused on her driver. John looked much better than he had three days before. His bruises, while far more colorful, weren’t nearly as angry looking. He no longer winced at sudden movements, and whatever had caused the limp had only been visible when he’d tucked his long frame into the car.

  “Why did you choose this car anyway?” she asked, needing, wanting, to find an outlet for her frustration and fear. “If I’m uncomfortable, you must be cramping up big time. And a shiny little road machine isn’t something that blends in.”

  “Exactly.” He didn’t look at her.

  She pressed on. “Ah. Ever the strategist. Hide in plain sight.”

  “Actually, T. J. was responsible for the car.”

  “Such a kidder, T. J.”

  John slowly turned his head, pinning her with frustratingly unreadable eyes. Suddenly returning to their silent truce was intolerable.

  “Why did we agree to this, McShane? I know you aren’t any happier to be on baby-sitting detail than I am being baby-sat.”

  He slowly eased a breath out and leaned back in the seat. He shifted his gaze back to the windshield.

  When he didn’t speak, she said, “I know, I know. We didn’t have any choice.” He let his eyes slide shut. She tensed, not wanting him to retreat from her. She was loath to admit it at the moment, even to herself, but though she didn’t need him as her watchdog, she did need him. As a man. As a partner. As a friend. As the only one to whom she felt she could turn. He’d always been that man.

  The full impact of that revelation was too hot to handle at the moment. She rushed on, knowing she was babbling and not caring as long as it filled the silence, pushed back the building tension between them. “Scottie can be a real bulldog. I can see why she was chosen to take over. But with your team so undermanned, it makes no sense to send us out to traipse around the countryside when we could be helping.”

  “Both of us would be more hindrance than help to her. Her intuition was sharper than I’d credited her for.”

  He’d spoken in a low, even voice that startled her into momentary silence. There was no question he’d meant every word he’d said.

  “If you agree with her decision, then why are you acting like someone spit in your cornflakes?”

  “Because she was right.”

  Cali opened her mouth, then shut it again. She tried to sort it out but quickly gave up. Her brain felt like scrambled eggs from staring at too many strings of numbers and symbols, and her emotions would look about the same if they could be drafted into code.

  She forced herself to relax back into the leather bucket seat, purposely easing some of the tension she’d summoned up to replace the strength and control she no longer had. “You really think you would have hurt the mission?”

  He opened his eyes and shifted his head to look at her. There was an emotion in his eyes, but she had no clue what it was.

  “I know I would have,” he stated flatly. He lifted his hand from the wheel when she would have spoken. He placed it loosely on the gearshift, focusing on the white pattern etched in the surface of the knob as if it held the answers to some ancient secret. His shift of focus, that he spoke without looking at her, told her a lot about his state of mind. Rarely if ever did John McShane not meet a task head-on, no matter how difficult.

  “Why?” she asked, pushing, knowing this time she wouldn’t stop. It would all come out now. “Because of me?” Her voice lowered, softened. “Because I’d have jeopardized your role in this with my inexperience?”

  “Yes, because of you.” He traced the gearshift pattern again, then finally dragged his gaze to hers. “But not because of your inability to help. What you’ve done in this whole thing has been nothing short of amazing. You’ve earned the respect of all of us, and that’s not something to take lightly.”

  His praise filled her with warmth, but she stayed focused on the other, unexplained part. “Then why—”

  “Because of my inability to put the job first.” He shifted, sitting up and looking straight at her. “Because my judgment was governed by my feelings for you and not what was best for the team or for getting the job done. Scottie knew that if push came to shove, I’d sacrifice the damn program and everything else just to keep you safe.”

  “But wh—”

  He let go of the shift knob and took her hand, turning her palm against his. She watched him slowly weave his fingers through hers. When the warmth of his palm and wrist touched hers, she instinctively, instantly, tightened her grip until she felt their pulses mingle and race on.

  This time it was she who slowly dragged her gaze up to his, both frightened and excited at what she might find in those gray depths.

  Her fingers convulsively clutched and loosened at the stark emotion she found there, bared to the soul for her to see. She would have pulled away, the instinct to somehow fortify her barriers stronger than the need to meld her strength with his, but he was faster, held her fingers firmly within his grasp.

  He looked down at their entwined fingers, then pulled them up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. His eyes closed and he rested his mouth against the back of her hand. She felt more than heard him swear softly.

  She cupped his head with her other hand, ruffled her fingers into his hair. And waited. She’d pushed, she’d prodded, she’d bullied. Maybe it was time to back off and let him find his own way.

  A few seconds went by. It seemed like hours. Then he lifted his head and tugged on her hand, simultaneously reaching behind him with his other one and opening his door.

  “I need to get out of here. Walk with me?”

  In that moment she’d have laid down her life for him. He already had for her.
“Yes.”

  He let go of her hand for as long as it took them to climb out of the car. He met her at the trunk and, to her great relief, took her hand again as he led her down the dirt track, farther away from the main road.

  After several silent moments she asked, “Do you know where we are?”

  “Other than what state we’re in and what highway we’re on, I haven’t a clue.”

  He sounded somewhat pleased about that. Cali felt her mouth curve into a smile and let the feeling in. She forced herself not to fill in the silence, instead focusing on the sounds of the birds and the breeze rustling through the trees and tall grasses. It was still early fall and the air was quite warm but fresh. There were few clouds in the sky. Her smile grew pensive as her thoughts and senses zeroed in on the man walking beside her.

  No, she thought, there were plenty of clouds. They were all inside John McShane. She slowly shifted closer to him as they continued to walk.

  Their pace was slow but steady. The countryside rolled out over a wide grassy field that didn’t seem to end until it hit the mountains in the distance. She glanced over at John. His profile wasn’t as harsh, but he was far from relaxed. The tension and strain were still evident in the pinched skin around his eyes and tightness at the corners of his mouth. And there was no escaping the bruises and scrapes that marred his beautiful face.

  “Why do you do it?” She hadn’t meant to speak, had truly meant to let him set the pace. But she couldn’t help it. She had no idea what John wanted from her, needed from her, but pretending to be something she wasn’t wouldn’t help either of them. “What makes you go out there and put your life on the line?”

  He let the question hang in the warm breeze for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer her. Then he said quite simply, “Because I can. Because I’m good at it.” He didn’t look at her, but his fingers tightened a bit. “Because, as unfortunate as it is, there’s a need for people like me to do this.” He paused, then added, “And it’s the only way I’ve found I can let myself be needed.”