by Dana Marton
She had great lips, full and ruby-red, glistening with juice at the moment. Lips like that should be required to carry a license.
“I don’t see how this can be big business.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t see it catching on.”
He reined in his wayward thoughts and focused on her words. “It has already. It’s the latest all-natural miracle dietary supplement, if you believe the ads.”
She reached for the nearest branch. “Worth a try, isn’t it? I’ve been so—” she hesitated “—tied up in the last couple of years I haven’t had a chance to try many new things or keep up with what’s going on.”
He could only imagine. Being a cop wasn’t a relaxed, nine-to-five type of position.
They filled up whatever empty space they could find in their backpacks before moving on.
“Forgot. I’ve got a bag of peanuts, as well. Would you like some?” He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and dragged the bag out.
She accepted a handful, and they snacked on those for a while.
“Last nut.” He emptied the bag into her hand, then crushed the empty bag into his pocket as he turned to the path.
“Hardly,” she said to his back.
He grinned but didn’t turn.
The next bunker was half a mile in the direction of the beach. It turned out to be pretty much the same as the first. Same security, same content. The escape tunnel was walled off with cement bricks and mortar.
Another twenty-minute hike took them to the third bunker, another gray, square building, a little higher up the hillside. It turned out to be just like the first two, inside and out. He was beginning to give up hope that they would find anything relevant.
The sun was high in the sky by the time they reached the smallest bunker, the most difficult of the four to get near as it was built on a dangerously steep incline. They practically had to pull and push each other up, and that got him splendidly close to Gina and her many charms. Which reminded him that, although he was acting out a serious boyhood fantasy playing the role of some superspy, he was first and foremost a man, and his manly fantasies looked a lot like the woman dangling from a protruding tree root above him.
Normally when he’d been this close to a woman and they had touched each other this much, he expected some sort of satisfaction at the end for the both of them. Gina Torno, however, was nothing but a source of frustration. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t even aware of him as a man.
He was a confirmed bachelor, not a confirmed monk. What was wrong with her, dammit?
She slipped a good foot, bringing her temptingly round behind inches from his face. He bit back a groan.
“Allow me to help.” He grabbed her boots and gave her some leverage, pushed her up by her feet.
She rolled onto the slight plateau by the bunker’s opening, extended her arm down to him and helped him up.
“Can’t see much being up here.” Her breathing was a bit more labored than usual, her face flushed, her eyes shining from the exertion.
For a second he forgot all about the bunker and just stared at her as she lay on her back, trying to catch her breath. Maybe he looked too long.
“Hurt yourself?” she asked with some concern.
“No. Fine.” He stood before he made a bloody fool of himself, hoping she hadn’t seen the naked desire in his eyes.
What was wrong with him? He should be one hundred percent focused on the mission. He’d never had any trouble separating fun from business before. He turned his back on Gina with purpose and focused his attention on the bunker.
The door was just as old and rusty as the ones before, sporting the same sort of lock. He got his tool kit out and got started. It went easier this time; he’d had practice with the other three. Since this bunker was smaller than the rest, the antechamber was tighter, which he’d pretty much expected, a space no more than six or seven square feet. The secondary door, however, did provide a surprise.
“What’s this?” Gina asked.
“Reinforced steel. And a lovely security upgrade.” He stared at the entry keypad. “Something special is in there, isn’t it? Question is, do we want to know what?”
He didn’t have to spell it out. The virus could be behind the door.
“Best-case scenario.” She looked nervous but nodded.
“It’d be brilliant, wouldn’t it?” If the virus hadn’t been handed over to the terrorists yet and if they had the exact location of it, there was a good chance for stopping the whole disaster.
“I was given the antiserum for smallpox a few weeks ago.” Though the new strain was supposed to be vaccine-resistant, so that could provide little or no protection. Still. “I’ll go first. You stay here and wait until I figure out what’s inside.”
“If we can get in.” She nodded toward the keypad.
“There’s that. You think Samantha could do it?” Maybe they could sneak her up here somehow, get her away from the bay with a clever excuse.
GINA WATCHED AS HE took stock of the lock, examining it from every angle. Could Sam do better?
“I don’t know. She’s had some experience with locks but not fancy ones like this. But then she got extra training.” She shrugged, wishing that the rest of her team were here.
Sam had been a child of the streets in her teenage years and had gotten into plenty of trouble with the law. But she had done petty-crime stuff mostly, stealing food to stay alive. Maybe it was wrong, but even as an ex-cop Gina had trouble judging her for that. Now Sam was a valued member of the team. It was thrilling, actually, to watch the woman she was becoming. They had changed in the past few months, all four of them.
He was hooking up his watch to the keypad and pushing the tiny buttons on the side of the timepiece. Numbers scrolled down the LCD display. One minute passed, then another.
“How long is it going to take?” She looked outside at the sun that was high in the sky.
“No idea.”
Not too encouraging.
“So if you need to get in touch with your people, how do you do it? Sneak a call from one of Tsernyakov’s phones?”
He shook his head without taking his eyes off his work. “I go fishing.”
She waited for explanation and when none was forthcoming she said, “Oh, the phone fish. Of course. Used them in the past. Hard to catch.”
He looked over at her and grinned before returning his attention to the watch again. “The nearest island, Hariumat, is only about fifty nautical miles from here. I go into harbor and stop for lunch at a local restaurant. My connection keeps a secure mobile phone hidden for me in the restroom.”
She wondered if Brant’s commando team, which was supposed to be on standby, was waiting for contact on the same island. Their mysterious host had not revealed the exact location when he’d invited them, but the yacht they’d boarded had been followed via satellite. That way the commando team charged with seizing Tsernyakov and the weapon would know where they were and could take up positions nearby, waiting for communications from the four-woman team.
Waiting in vain, since communications from the island were strictly controlled.
“You think when we get back from fixing the satellite you could take me fishing?”
The watch beeped. He stopped fiddling with the buttons and turned toward her with a cocky smile. “Another date so soon? It’s becoming a serious relationship, isn’t it? Well, Americans do move fast. I’ve been warned.”
“In your dreams, Spencer.”
But he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as he pushed the door open.
Her smile faded. “We’re in.” Her voice was on the squeaky side.
He nodded, growing somber, too. “You wait here.”
She moved into position so she could at least see inside. A tunnel started just behind the door; she could see nothing beyond the first bend.
“I was hoping we might find some biohazard suits. Would make me feel more comfortable.” Not to mention being a clear sign that they were in t
he right place. “Take my camera,” she said.
He drew up an eyebrow as she took off her ring. “Aim the gemstone, then push here.”
“Brilliant.” He nodded and jammed it onto his pinkie finger. It only went up to the second knuckle.
“Be careful,” she called after him.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss our next date for anything,” he said with a slow grin just before he disappeared around the bend.
THE TUNNEL SYSTEM was a bloody maze, side corridors leading off now and then abruptly. He investigated each, only to end up staring at a land collapse or a walled-off dead end after having wasted precious minutes. His compass came in handy. It wasn’t the sort of place anyone would enjoy being lost in.
Cal strode forward, taken by surprise when a glint of light caught his eye. A moment passed before he realized it was his own torch reflected in the stainless steel door that closed off the way. It had a simple key lock. Whoever had thought up security probably figured nobody would get this far.
He popped the lock and looked around a conspicuously empty room. Were they too late? Was this where the virus had been? Had the handover happened already?
A round steel door with odd spokes at the back of the room, the kind you’d see in bank robbery movies in the walk-in safes, caught his attention. He stared at it for a moment and blinked. His watch wasn’t going to do much with that.
He walked up to it anyway and took a number of pictures. Might come in handy yet. They needed to ask for outside help with this one. Did his cousin keep his emergency cash here?
A soft buzzing filtered through from inside the safe. He stilled. What was that? It seemed like some kind of machinery. A generator? For what?
Refrigeration. The answer popped into his mind and sped his heart rate.
If he was right, it could mean only one thing: the virus was on the island and at this moment within arm’s reach.
They had to get the commando team here before that changed.
Chapter Five
“Yes, sir,” his secretary said. “I will notify them right away.”
Tsernyakov didn’t like the look in the man’s eyes.
“I will change the date of our meeting as many times as I feel necessary until I’m sure that there is no way our security has been compromised.” Not that he owed his secretary an explanation, nor the School Board—the terrorist organization that was his buyer for the virus. They’d probably been giving his secretary hell over the frequent changes in parameters in the last week or so.
He was getting antsy, feeling on the edge. It had been a long while since he’d worried about anything like this. Not that it wasn’t understandable. Never before had he had this much at stake.
“Certainly, sir. Anything else, sir?”
He shook his head and waited until the door closed behind the man before phoning Mark on the island.
“Everything okay?” He listened to the status report on the postcyclone repairs. There were a million things going on and he had to keep on top of it all. “How about the satellite?”
“Cal is fixing it as we speak.”
His cousin had turned out to be a useful man all around. He preferred to keep his family out of his business, but in this case it looked as if he had made the right decision. Cal was smart, a quick learner and not overly scrupulous. “The guests are enjoying themselves so far?”
“I don’t think the doctors want the positions.” Mark sounded apologetic.
As he should. It was his job to take care of that piece of the project.
“I’ll talk to them when I get there. I still don’t know when I can get away from here.” He kept his comings and goings a secret even from his most trusted men—the reason he had been able to avoid a number of assassination attempts and police raids in the past. “How about the women from Savall?” He had plenty of work for them once he got to the island. He needed to move money around and he wanted to be able to keep a close eye on the transactions. Their luck. As long as they pleased him they would be saved.
“They ask about you.”
A certain amount of curiosity was only natural. “I’ll be there soon.”
He looked around his office as he hung up. The space was close to bare. The hum of an industrialsize shredder came from beyond the door. His secretary and a couple of clerks were making sure everything was cleaned up. He would leave no incriminating evidence behind. He wanted to personally make sure of that before he left.
His sixth sense was prickling. Had he forgotten something? Was his subconscious picking up on an odd clue or odd behavior from someone around him? He thought over the events of the week so far, but nothing jumped out. Maybe he was simply getting tired from all the rush that was leading up to the big day.
Too many details required his personal attention on this job. He was running himself ragged and he didn’t like the feeling but was unwilling to delegate more, unwilling to trust others who could betray him later. All the crucial aspects of the job he held in his own hands, the only way to be sure.
He thought of Alexandra. It wouldn’t be much longer now. Soon he would get his much-deserved break.
IT HAD TAKEN THEM several hours to make it from the bunkers to the satellite tower, part of which time Cal had spent by telling her about his discovery in the last bunker. Her mind kept returning to that. Was it really possible that they’d found the virus?
“No. That one.” Cal pointed, hanging on to the metal structure with one hand. The height didn’t seem to bother him.
Gina, on the other hand, hated to let go of her handhold but did it anyway to pass him the tool he was asking for. She didn’t mind the dangling; she hated the dizzying distance that separated her from the ground.
When she had both hands firmly on the metal bars again, she glanced toward the helipad one more time and the two choppers that sat on the ground about halfway between the tower and the bay, toward the east side of the island. The place seemed abandoned from up here. She could see the road that Cal had talked about, the one that could handle a pickup truck. It wound its way not far from the path that came up to the tower, ending at the helipad. They probably used it to transport the supplies they flew in. All good, important information she needed to pass on to Brant Law as soon as she managed to make a connection.
“So tomorrow morning we go out fishing, then you take me to lunch. We’ll both call in the information we have and try talking our respective connections into working with each other,” she said, rehashing their plan, thinking it over one more time to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
“And hope they will.”
Their goal seemed so close. They were in the hold-your-breath-and-hope-nothing-else-happens stage of the operation. “Why wouldn’t they?”
He tightened the screw. “Tsernyakov is a pretty big trophy.”
Cal thought rivalry was going to be a problem? “There’s too much at stake for them to mess this up over who gets credit.”
“I hope.” He kept his attention on what he was doing, talking without looking at her. “Copper wire.”
“How do you know all this?” He really was pretty impressive in a number of ways, a self-reliant kind of guy, which she appreciated.
“I was up here with Sergey last week. Same problem. I watched him fix it. They need a new setup, but until it comes in they have to keep patching this one.”
“You seem to be good at this kind of stuff.”
“I like tinkering.”
She took the screwdriver from him and put it away in the tool case. Dropping something was to be avoided at all costs. They’d have to climb all the way down to retrieve it, then back up. If they could find it in the thick vegetation around the tower’s feet. Since trees had been cut around the structure, enough sunshine reached down to support a host of shrubs and climbers.
“My father did, too.” He had been always working on something, fixing various appliances for people on their block in his free time.
“Was your father a c
op?”
“My mother,” she said, and he glanced at her with surprise in his eyes.
Granted, being a police officer wasn’t a common occupation for a traditional Italian-American housewife, especially in her mother’s generation. But her mother wasn’t exactly an average woman. She could break up a pub fight, put away a score of drunkards, then come home and whip up lasagna like it was nobody’s business, help her girls with their homework and clean house before she went to bed. Of course, the older girls helped out a lot, too. “My father was a fireman.”
“My father was in the jewelry business. Mum stayed home. She was on a lot of committees—Immigrant Assistance League and all that. She’s retired now for the most. Hold here.”
She gripped the steel support he was trying to push into place. She didn’t know any jewelers; people like that didn’t live in her neighborhood. She watched Cal and that smooth air he possessed. They’d sure come from different backgrounds. And yet she felt pretty comfortable around him. He seemed like a down-to-earth, easygoing guy now that he wasn’t trying to intimidate her. “Done?”
“Almost.”
She angled her wrist so she could see her watch. Five o’clock. They needed to hurry so they could get back to the beach before dark. She wondered if the girls had been able to turn up anything new while she’d been gone. She was eager to tell them of her discoveries. As much as they’d protested her going up the mountain with Cal, they were going to like the results.
“View’s brilliant from up here, isn’t it?” He smiled at her as he lowered himself to the same level where she was.
She bit back a groan. She hadn’t dared to look more than was absolutely necessary. She’d been keeping her attention strictly on the tower, on her next step, on what they were doing, on Cal and the easy conversation between them, with occasional peeks at the helipad. They were on top of a tower on top of a mountain. “Given the choice, I wouldn’t come up here for sightseeing.”
He came over to her and put his arms around her from behind, turning her toward the east. Now he made her nervous. She tried not to look as awkward as she felt. But after a few moments she got used to his nearness and leaned against the support of his body. And for the first time she felt safe enough to really look out over the rain forest that spread at their feet.
