Intimate Details

by Dana Marton

  DANA MARTON

  INTIMATE DETAILS

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  With many thanks to Denise Zaza and Allison Lyons for

  taking a chance on the MISSION: REDEMPTION books.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “We have two weeks before we have a major terrorist attack on our hands,” Brant Law, the FBI agent who had organized the mission, said over the phone. “And we don’t know the location or what kind of weapon we are facing.”

  The mood at Savall, Ltd.’s office was somber, in stark contrast to the world outside their windows—Grand Cayman Island vacation paradise where tourists strolled the streets, letting go of the stress piled on by their corporate jobs back home, enjoying the island’s perfect climate and lighthearted atmosphere.

  None of them knew how quickly all that carefree mood could be erased. The small team inside the office, however, was well aware of it.

  “I think there’s a good chance the weapon might be on the island,” Gina Torno said, wanting to inject something positive. “We might be able to find it before it changes hands.”

  She was referring to some mystery private island in French Polynesia they knew next to nothing about.

  Joseph Towers, an enigmatic businessman, had sent the four women of Savall, Ltd. plane tickets to Acapulco. His yacht would pick them up there and take them the rest of the way—to discuss business, supposedly.

  They had reason to believe, though no confirmation, that Joseph Towers was an alias for Tsernyakov, one of the biggest illegal-weapons traders in the world, a man at the top of the FBI’s most-wanted list, hunted by every major law enforcement agency around the world.

  “How sure are we that Joseph Towers is our T?” T was their code name for Tsernyakov. They never referred to the man by name over the phone. “We don’t have time to go down the wrong path,” Anita Caballo said and began to pace.

  “Pretty sure,” Nick Tarasov, the commando guy who had trained them, spoke up.

  “The distance between pretty sure and sure is as big as between dead and almost dead,” David Moretti, the team’s lawyer who had orchestrated their release from Brighton FCI, remarked.

  “In my line of work, sometimes it’s smarter to rely on instincts than on supposed facts,” Nick shot back, the frustration in his voice unmistakable even over the phone.

  They were all tense, desperate to find a way to head off disaster.

  Brant, Nick and David were off-site, participating via teleconference, as always these days. They could no longer afford face-to-face contact with the all-woman team for fear that they might be watched.

  The time was near. They’d uncovered a date—November twenty-seventh—that had been confirmed by independent intelligence. The date and that some serious WMD was changing hands on the black market.

  “The island seems like a good place to conduct other business besides whatever he has in mind for us,” Carly Jones said, riffling through a stack of computer printouts. “Away from the eagle-eyed authorities.”

  “I’m receiving some new information here,” Brant cut in, and they could hear the clicking of his keyboard. “Okay, I’m e-mailing it to everyone.”

  “What is it?” Gina asked, thinking how lucky they were that they had gotten even this far, that they’d been able to make a reputation in money laundering and draw the attention of Philippe Cavanaugh, an associate of Tsernyakov’s, and through him the attention of the man himself.

  But the private island…If they went there, they would be in T’s territory, just the four women, without backup, surrounded by ruthless criminals. How long before their luck ran out? She looked around at the teammates she had come to care about over the past months. She had talked the talk and walked the walk since she’d gotten out of Brighton Federal Correctional Institute, but inside she was scared stiff that she would let her team down the way she had let her colleagues down in the PPD—Philadelphia Police Department. The way she’d let down her family and herself.

  “Photo of a possible new associate of T’s. The guy has been seen around T’s business interests in England. We don’t have a name, just a picture,” Brant was saying.

  “That’s more than what we have on Tsernyakov.” Samantha Hanley was bringing up her e-mail already. A new message blinked onto the top of the page as they watched.

  Sam opened the attachment. “I know him,” she said at the same time as Gina said, “Familiar.”

  “Who is it?” Nick asked.

  Sam drew a slow breath as she considered. “Hang on. Let me think.”

  “You know, I think you’re right. Those eyes. I know those eyes.” Anita leaned closer.

  Gina was trying to come up with a name as she focused on the green-blue wonders, which were sexy and cocky and intelligent. Much like the man—very James Bondish.

  And then it hit her.

  She strode to her desk, reached for the ripped-out magazine cover that Sam had tacked onto her wall weeks ago. It was him, although he looked slightly different on the surveillance photos, his hair windblown as he walked along some harbor. The guy she’d made some stupid remark about.

  “Your fiancé,” Anita exclaimed when Gina got back with the picture.

  Gina shot her a warning look. They’d been pestering her—in a lighter, girlish moment—about not believing in love at first sight. So she’d pointed at the cover of some stupid magazine and the gorgeous guy on it and said sure she did, he was the one. And regretted it ever since. The others, of course, wouldn’t let it die.

  “What fiancé?” Brant asked.

  “A joke. Nothing. Never mind.” Gina glared at the three women who were grinning at her. “Anyway, the guy we’re looking for made the cover of some Chinese business magazine back in—” she searched for the pub date “—July.”

  “So what’s his name?”

  “We don’t know. It’s in Chinese,” Carly said.

  “What’s the magazine?”

  The women looked at each other. Anita was the one who spoke. “That’s in Chinese, too.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Brant grumbled. “Just fax the damn thing over.”

  Chapter One

  French Polynesia

  One week later

  Gina Torno padded barefoot toward the ocean, wearing nothing but a midnight-blue bikini, keeping an eye out for the motley staff that worked on their mysterious host’s private island. The rest of her team—Carly, Anita and Sam—were all busy conducting their own recon missions. They needed to cover ground quickly, which required splitting up.

  Two workmen were hammering something at the dock, wearing jeans and nothing else, swearing up a blue streak. The yacht that had brought the women in the night before from Acapulco was still there, as were two motorboats. The water was the most brilliant azure. Unlike Seven Mile Beach, which they had left behind on Grand Cayman, where tourists stirred up the sand.

  The contrast between the gorgeous, unspoiled environment and the evil-hearted man who owned it was startling. If their mysterious host was Tsernyakov. They’d been hunting for the man for months now, and he proved to be as elusive as the morning mist over the ocean.

  Was it possible they had him finally? Were they in time to stop a tragedy? Was he ev
en now on the island? They’d been told that Joseph Towers was delayed on the mainland on business. But if he were Tsernyakov, they could hardly expect him to play it straight. He could be anywhere. Even here, watching them.

  The staff studiously avoided any questions about him, always busy with one construction project or another. An early-season cyclone had brushed the island a few days ago and taken down some trees and rooftops.

  She came upon two men sitting on a pile of coconut palms that had been twisted out by the wind.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Hello.”

  They had been deep in conversation and went back to it once she passed them. Doctors from California, here on their own business—whatever that was. They’d been introduced last night when her team had arrived.

  Gina came to a fork in the path and continued in the direction of the utility building instead of the beach. She came around a handful of coconut palms that were still standing and got an unobstructed view of the structure. A Slavic-looking guy was replacing a broken window in the front.

  “Are you looking for someone?” He stopped what he was doing. Tall, blond and muscular, he sported the same island tan everybody else did. He had the same alert vigilance as the others, as if they—down to the last handyman—were all moonlighting on some security task force.

  She smiled the clueless-tourist smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen three women go this way? My friends. We just got here last night. This place is huge.” She looked around bewildered.

  “I’ve only been out here for a few minutes,” the guy said, focusing on her cleavage.

  “Thanks.” She smiled again and kept walking, having no idea what to do next or where the path led. She put one foot in front of the other until she was out of sight, then moved off into the jumble of flowering bushes and doubled back, ignoring the stones and sharp bark she had to walk over now that she was off the paved path. She watched the ground for anything that moved. God only knew what kinds of nasty creepy crawlers lived under the bushes on tropical islands. She would just as soon not meet any.

  She slowed, then stopped behind the last stand of taller vegetation. There was another guy in the back, up on the roof, dragging palm-frond thatching into place. Looked as though the wind had hit the building from that end and swirled the back of the roof.

  She squatted out of sight and waited.

  Her team’s first task upon arriving on the island was twofold: to map the place and to figure out where Tsernyakov was hiding if he was here, which meant they had to comb through every building. Once they had confirmation that he was on location, they would call in the cavalry. Then they would stay out of the way while the FBI did their job.

  The task seemed easy enough, except that, suspiciously, none of their cell phones seemed to work on the island. Until they figured something out, they were cut off from potential backup.

  She’d liked Grand Cayman, but this island gave her the creeps. There were too many people—supposedly support staff—who were always watching. And, sure, the beach looked idyllic—all pink sand and rustic bungalows—but when they’d come in last night, she’d looked out the cabin window a few times and seen different buildings on the other side of the island. Square and stocky, without windows, they’d looked like otherworldly bomb shelters in the moonlight.

  The roofer patted the palm fronds into place, then jumped to the ground and disappeared around the building. He left his tools, which meant he would be coming back. Gina stole up to the corner and peeked around it. Window guy was still there. She went to the other side. Bingo. Another broken window, about two feet by two feet. Large enough to fit through, perhaps. Looked as if most of the broken glass had been beaten out, but a few jagged edges still stuck out from the frame.

  She sneaked up to it and looked inside. The room, some sort of an office, seemed deserted. Chunks of glass lay on the windowsill. The window opened in, but the edge of a cabinet was in the way. There was enough room for the window to be opened to let in some fresh air if someone wished but not enough for her to squeeze through.

  Only one way to get inside.

  She backed up all the way to the bushes, glanced around, then ran for it. One, two, three. Hands pointed in front, she sailed through the air, tucked and rolled, came to a halt inches from the door. She felt a flash of relief that she hadn’t misjudged the distance. Someone would have heard if she’d crashed into the door pane.

  Coach Wilson would have been proud. Her mother had insisted that all eight of her girls did something after school. Most of her sisters went for music and ballet. Maria played chess. Gina’s thing had been gymnastics. She hadn’t had the patience for chess and wasn’t the type for a pink tutu. She was good at athletics, however. She’d even made it to a few state championships. Who knew those skills would come in handy this many years later?

  She looked down to where pain burned in her side and found a six-inch scrape beading with blood. Could have been worse. If she had misjudged the height, she could have been gutted. She grabbed a piece of blank paper from the table and spit on it, then went to the window and wiped the drop of blood from the glass. She dabbed at her side, too, although it didn’t seem necessary. The scratch was fairly superficial and had stopped bleeding already.

  She balled the paper and tossed it into the bushes where she’d been hiding a minute ago. She would get it on her way out.

  “I don’t know what the rush is. He ain’t barely spends time here anyway,” someone mumbled outside the office door.

  She ducked behind a filing cabinet, knowing it would only protect her if whoever was out there didn’t take more than two steps inside the room.

  “What do you care? It’s the job—we do it, we get paid,” another man responded.

  He sounded like the window guy. Was the other one the roofer?

  “I don’t like the island.” The voice was hoarse and scratchy, as if he had a few decades of heavy smoking in his past.

  “What’s not to like?”

  “The gang of pirates, for one,” the roofer rasped.

  “They don’t come here.”

  “But you can see the lights of their ships as they pass the island at night. Givin’ me nightmares.”

  “They have an agreement with the boss.”

  “Don’t think the bastards wouldn’t cut our throats first chance they got.”

  “Worry about the roof. We have to be finished and out of here in half an hour.”

  “Almost done.”

  “That fast?”

  “Five more minutes. Need a hand?”

  “Sure,” the window guy said.

  “Wanna have another beer?” Judging from the voice, they were walking away.

  “When we finish.” That was the last bit of conversation she caught.

  A few minutes later, the guy was back to shuffling on the roof again. She moved toward the office door and tried the handle. Locked. What if she couldn’t get out through there? She definitely couldn’t skip out the window. The roofer would see her from above. She didn’t have much time. In a few minutes the men would begin working on the broken window behind her. They would likely enter the office to do that. If she wasn’t out of here by then, she’d certainly be discovered.

  She was determined not to be the one who messed up the mission. She was the only one on the team with a background in law enforcement. More so than the others, she should know what she was doing. More so than the others, she deserved to be in this mess. Anita, Carly and Sam shouldn’t have been in prison in the first place.

  Anita had been framed; Carly’s only crime was being too intelligent for the rest of the world to know what to do with her; Sam was the product of the system that had let her down.

  Her own incarceration, however, Gina thought, was fully justified. She had taken a life. And it didn’t matter that she had served time to pay for that. In her own mind, it would be a long way before she was forgiven.

  Maybe if the mission succeeded. If she saved all those l
ives at risk. Maybe that would balance the scales.

  She took a few pictures with her camera ring as she shuffled through the papers on the desk—a bunch of bills, lists of building materials and supplies. None of it looked superimportant, but she didn’t have time to analyze the data right now. Once she was back with the others, they could talk it over and see if they could come up with some connections, unearth some clues.

  She tried the drawers, but they were locked, as were the file cabinets. She didn’t dare turn on the computer. It was likely password-protected anyway. And the men might be here before the log-in screen ever came up.

  Talking of the devil, there they were already.

  “Nasty,” the roofer said.

  She squatted on the other side of the file cabinet to make sure she wouldn’t be seen from the outside and prayed for a miracle.

  “Want me to break out the rest of the glass?”

  “Hang on. I’m going to take out the whole frame. Don’t want to make a mess inside,” the window guy told him.

  Twenty minutes later, her knees throbbed from squatting motionless and her feet had fallen asleep, her mind numb from the crude conversation filtering in from outside. The topics centered on sex and booze, more information than she’d ever wanted to know about the special skills of some of the women who worked in the main building. And the men still weren’t done with the repairs. How long did it take to change glass in a frame, anyway?

  “Never saw this many guests on the island at one time,” the window guy remarked.

  “They could’a waited while we fixed the damn place. It stands empty months on end, and now that it’s a mess, everybody’s gotta be here. Maybe the boss’s sellin’. Thought about that?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” came the annoyed response.

  “He’s gettin’ it all fixed up, addin’ a lot of stuff, too. And now he has all these people here. Maybe he’ll sell off some of the houses.”

  Something popped.

  “All right. I have to do the rest from the inside. Hold on to this and don’t let it move.”

  No, no, no. Gina glanced around, desperate. The man couldn’t come in. There was no place to hide in the small office. And even if there were, she couldn’t move at all; the roofer guy outside the window would see her.