Charade

by Lisa Marie Rice

  His head lifted. “You follow what I say. You jump when I say jump, you run when I say run. No questions asked.”

  Her heart leaped. It leaped in fear and hope. She was afraid of what they would have to do. But she wanted with every cell in her body to be near him. And a quivering, terrified but determined part of her wanted—fiercely—to help stop an atrocity.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “You stay with me at all times unless I tell you otherwise.”

  “Count on it.”

  He turned and caught her up in a hug so strong it hurt. She didn’t care. She hugged him right back.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Crazily, she felt a shudder go through him. Through this big, hard, tough man.

  “Neither do I,” she said, and he gave a little huff of a laugh, dropping his head to her shoulder for a moment.

  He pulled back and shook his head. “I don’t like it, I don’t—”

  His satphone’s screen lit up.

  “Jesus. It’s Robert.” Mark was breathing heavily, as if he’d just run a ten-mile race. His looked at the screen and tapped his earbud. “Go.”

  Harper couldn’t hear what was being said, heard only his part of the conversation and it was mainly yes and understood.

  But one thing he made clear. “Let’s do this now, tonight. And don’t let the police know. We don’t know if there’s a mole. If there is, you’ll lose the advantage of surprise and we’ll lose our lives. And by ‘we’, remember that there’s a person with me. A woman. If something happens to me, you find her and protect her with everything you’ve got, is that understood?”

  Robert said something that made Mark grunt.

  “Okay.” He checked his watch. Reflexively, Harper checked her own. It was a little past 6 p.m. Last night, she’d checked her watch at 6 p.m., getting ready for dinner with Mark, glancing out the window. Darkness had begun falling over the City of Light. They couldn’t see the outside world, but it was getting dark out there.

  Mark nodded, a sharp movement of his head. “So it’s a go for 3 a.m. Show me on a detailed map you text me where the drop will be. And we coordinate the attack. I’ll let you know when everyone is sedated. Your troops will have naloxone, correct?”

  Naloxone, she knew from having read a billion articles on the opioid crisis, counteracted opioid-based drugs.

  It was amazing how he was able to keep his deep voice quiet. She barely heard him yet she was only inches away.

  “Roger that. I also want comms, two sets, plus two sets of body armor, one for a very small person, two EH-20 gas masks or the equivalent, an MP5 with a belt of at least five magazines. A Glock 19, holster and ammo.” He listened, nodded. “Keep this in DGSE, and don’t let the police know. Your guys have to operate as a separate unit from the other LE forces. And dig deep into the police. If you look hard, you’ll find your mole. Get either the NSA or GCHQ in the UK to monitor calls with AI, sifting through code words. When you find him or them, isolate them. If the terrorists get wind of what we’re doing, it’ll be a massacre. Over and out.”

  He tapped his earbud. Then he switched over to the cellphone screen and turned the phone so she could see, too.

  It was dark in the room, the only illumination four spotlights in the four corners, lighting up the ceiling. Harper could barely make out the hostages huddled on the ground, darker shapes in the darkness. She could only imagine how horrible it must be, mothers trying to soothe their children while being terrified themselves. Men wondering how they could protect their families against armed terrorists. Not knowing if the end was near. Knowing they might die in the next minute.

  The leader was in one corner, talking to two of his men. The others were patrolling, but not in an organized way. They seemed to simply walk back and forth along the walls. Two were still posted at the entrance. Harper studied them carefully. They twitched and moved from booted foot to booted foot. One beat a tattoo against his submachine gun nervously. The other bopped his head to some beat only he could hear.

  “Are they high?” she asked Mark. It was the only thing she could think of. Either that or they were very highly strung.

  “Maybe. They’re sure not exercising discipline. Do you see the two against the west wall?”

  West wall…Harper oriented herself in her head. The wide angle was at times hard to interpret. But yes, now she identified the two he was talking about. They were walking up and down the room aimlessly.

  “They should be methodical. One pacing the perimeter, one with a weapon aimed at the hostages at all times. They’re using up a lot of nervous energy. Give them three days and they’ll be useless—exhausted and worked up, both. But we can’t give them three days. Either they’ll start shooting or the police will attempt a raid and the terrorists will be given advance notice. Either way, everyone will be dead at the end of it and probably the Louvre blown up. Including us.”

  She shivered and Mark put his arm around her shoulders. “That’s not going to happen. And that’s why we have to move tonight.”

  “At 3 a.m., when the body’s defenses are weakest.” She looked up at him.

  Mark’s eyes sharpened in the dim light. “That’s right. How did you know that? Have you had counterterrorist training?”

  “Not quite, but I do read a lot of thrillers. No, my grandfather passed away after a long battle with cancer at three in the morning. I was by his bedside. We were taking turns. I was holding his hand and something woke me up. I saw him take a deep breath and not breathe it out again. The doctor said that’s when many sick and elderly people pass away. The body is at its lowest ebb.”

  He leaned over and kissed her hair. She felt it. Felt his big shoulder brush hers, felt his breath ruffle her hair, felt the light kiss, as if even her hair were attuned to him.

  She closed her eyes and leaned into him for the kiss, drawing in a deep breath full of the scent of his skin. Her grandfather’s last breath was still sharp in her memory as she’d watched life depart his ancient, desiccated body. She’d loved him, had tried to hold on to him, but he’d gone. She’d watched it, life leaving him.

  Life hadn’t left the body of the man beside her. Oh no. He was crackling with life, every inch of him.

  And so was she.

  In the midst of terrible danger, crazed lunatics parading with machine guns right outside this wall, hunkered down in a stone building that had been wired with explosives, she’d never felt so alive. Right down to her fingertips and toes. Every cell of her body hummed. Danger was so close, that thin veil that separates life from death almost visible, and yet she savored every single thing. Mark’s closeness and strength like a bastion. The breath in her lungs, the shadows in the harsh light, the heat from Mark’s body.

  “So.” Mark moved his head and spoke directly in her ear. She broke out in goose bumps. “When are you quitting your job and telling the boss from hell to go fu—jump in a lake. Next week, I hope.”

  She turned her head swiftly, meeting him nose to nose. “I’m so looking forward to telling him to fuck off.”

  Mark smiled, kissed her lightly on the lips. He tapped her chin. “Any woman who wants to leave relative safety to go out with me is not a woman who plays it safe. That’s also not a woman who will put up with being mistreated. You’re Wonder Woman.”

  Harper smiled. She liked the image of herself as Wonder Woman, marvelously brave. The fact was that she didn’t want to be left alone in this dark, dusty space, waiting for Mark to come back. She’d rather face danger with him than tremble alone in the dark.

  But she’d take his image of her—strong and unafraid. Felt good.

  Mark nudged her with his shoulder. “So? What are your plans?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” Harper had some painful memories of talking about her work with dates. Not many men were interested in design.

  His face sobered. He ran the back of his forefinger down her cheek. “Yes, absolutely. I want to hear what you do, what your plans are.
I want to hear about people who care about beauty and art. I particularly want to hear this when there are terrorist thugs just feet away who have killed hundreds, maybe thousands of innocents and who want to blow up one of humanity’s finest creations. I want to hear about people who can’t even contemplate that kind of atrocity.”

  Even in the dim light, his eyes shone. They were locked on hers. All that formidable male energy was focused on her and it felt like being under a spotlight. He meant every word he said.

  “Okay.” Harper blew out a breath. Up till now she and her partners had treated their plans like nuclear secrets. Not even her parents knew everything. But that was in normal times. Normality had been blown out of the water and anyway, this was Mark. Either they were going to die tonight or if they lived, he was going to be part of her life.

  Still, she hesitated, just a moment.

  “Hard, huh?” Her head swiveled in surprise. He was smiling gently. “It’s hard sometimes talking about the private stuff. I’m a vault,” he added gently, lifting three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  The man was scarily perceptive.

  “Were you a Boy Scout?” Somehow, he didn’t look like someone who’d been a scout. She imagined him as worldly as he was now, even as a boy. Like an old soul.

  “No.” The smile vanished. “But I know how to keep secrets.”

  He probably did. “Well, it’s not a question of national security or anything. There are four of us—me, two young architects and a graphic artist. We’re going to publish a large design magazine quarterly. The paper magazine will have high production values and we’re hoping they will become collectors’ items. We did a one-off test last year and it sold out in a week. Then the e-edition will have added content, podcasts, interviews, things like that. We’ve all sunk our life savings, such as they are, into the project and we’re all going to resign from our day jobs next month.”

  “Good.” Mark’s mouth tightened. “Leave that jerk of a boss as soon as you can. I don’t have many female employees, but when they travel, you can be sure there’s a car and a driver waiting for them. No question.”

  He sounded so genuinely appalled that her boss begrudged her even taxi money. Harper remembered telling a date that she’d arrived in LA late at night in a torrential rainfall—what they called a river in the sky—and had to wait an hour for a bus, and he wasn’t even listening. He’d responded by talking about an upcoming promotion. There hadn’t been a second date.

  “I think he’ll be unhappy he chased me off.”

  “Losing you?” Mark picked up her hand, kissed the back of it. “Guy’s gotta be insane.”

  “We’ve even got a company headquarters. My grandparents left me a big house on Chestnut Hill with a detached groundskeeper’s house, which is perfect for us. The house is in disrepair and I don’t have the money to fix it up, but the adjacent place is in decent shape. We’re putting in a T3 line, turning one room into a cooled server room, redoing the electricity. It’ll be perfect.”

  “It’ll be a huge success.” His voice sounded certain, the tone that of someone saying the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

  Harper smiled. “That’s the idea. The first issue of the magazine will be devoted to the design of Game of Thrones. The costumes, the arms and armor, the sets. It’ll be visually stunning.”

  Mark gave a little jolt and turned, eyes slightly widened. “Game of Thrones? Jesus, my favorite show. I’m obsessed with it. Save a copy of the first issue for me.”

  “Will do.” Her heart warmed. She was a huge fan of GoT herself and the idea of dedicating the entire first issue to the design of the series had been hers. Now her partners were totally on board, wildly enthusiastic. “What’s your favorite part?”

  “Jaime’s hand,” he answered promptly.

  “Jaime Lannister’s hand?”

  “Mmm. I had a teammate who lost a hand to an IED. That’s an—”

  “Improvised Explosive Device,” she said quietly. She made a point of following the endless wars. Brave men and women were fighting for her, the least she could do was to understand their sacrifices.

  “Yeah. Anyway, they gave him a miracle hand to replace it. An average man’s grip is about 100 pounds but Greg’s biomechanical hand’s grip is over 300. Then he went and had a smith make a hand to fit over it that was just like Jaime Lannister’s hand, and had it painted gold. Wears it when he goes to parties. His wife, well…she’s a little bossy, and when he wears it he calls himself the Hand of the Queen.” Mark’s eyes gleamed.

  Harper snickered. “I like him already.”

  “You’ll meet him.” Mark squeezed her hand. “When we get back home, we’ll have dinner with him and his wife. You’ll like her, too. Reya’s very…lively. A lot of fun.”

  A hard hand gripped her heart and squeezed. Oh, how she hoped she could meet this Greg and his firecracker of a wife. Go out to dinner with them and have a good time. Go on dating the most fascinating man she’d ever met. See where this hot thing they had led.

  They might never get that chance. Tonight could be their last night on this earth.

  “Don’t think like that,” Mark said. He reached over and smoothed out the wrinkles between her eyebrows. “It doesn’t go anywhere good. We’re going to get out of this alive and we’re going out to dinner with Greg and Reya sometime next week. Maybe the Barbary Coast. Would you like that?”

  “Yeah.” She barely got the word out through a tight throat. “Yes, I’d like that. I read the reviews. Sounds like a fabulous place.”

  “It is.”

  The Barbary Coast was a fairly new restaurant with Arabic décor and delicious Moroccan food. She’d been wanting to go for a while now but saving up for the project had been her priority.

  And oh…to go with Mark and with his friends, who sounded like so much fun, people of substance, people of spirit. A man and a woman who hadn’t let the loss of a hand get them down.

  Oh God, she wanted that, so much! She wanted that lighthearted dinner at a great restaurant. She wanted a lot of evenings with Mark, getting to know him better, though she had a pretty good impression of what the core of him was like. The past twenty-four hours had been like being in a pressure cooker, but it had also shown her that he was good and brave. A real man.

  And hot.

  Because the sex they’d had was life itself and she wanted more of that, too.

  She wanted to move forward right now with the magazine. Why wait? She’d waited way too long already. Her usual cautious approach to life…she had a good job, why give it up; the economic situation was uncertain; most start-ups failed in the first year…

  What nonsense.

  Life was meant to be lived to the fullest. You had to throw yourself forward, arms wide out. Life was so sweet, so rich, full of pleasures and, yes, pain. Pain meant you were alive.

  Harper had so much and hadn’t realized it. She loved her parents, she loved her friends, she loved design. She’d met a man she could love. Maybe…maybe already did love.

  It could all be gone in an instant—tonight, in fact. Things could go wrong. The plan Mark had come up with, though a good one, could go crashing in a thousand ways. They could end up dead so easily, shot through the heart or the head by those monsters.

  There was a thin veil between life and death and they were up against it.

  Somehow Mark picked up on the thoughts racing through her head.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said, arm tight around her shoulders. His strength and warmth seeped into her bones. “Let’s set a date for the Barbary Coast. When are you flying back?”

  She was startled. When was she flying back? What kind of a question was that? She might die tonight!

  He smiled gently down at her and again, she had the feeling he was reading her mind.

  “So?” He bent, kissed her forehead. “We’re both busy people and we have to make plans. When’s your flight back?”

  “Tue-Tuesday,” she stammered. “The tenth. And you?
When are you flying back?”

  “Tuesday,” he said, matter of fact. “The tenth. Or whenever you fly back.”

  “What about your business?”

  “I can take care of my business before Tuesday.”

  “And what is your business in Paris?”

  Harper held her breath. She knew what Mark was definitely not. A plumbing supplies importer. But what was he—exactly? What was he in Paris for?

  It was hard to tell in such faint light but that might actually be a slight smile she saw on Mark’s face. “Not a hit, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  Harper’s breath whooshed out of her chest in relief and that definitely became a smile on his face.

  “I’m a security expert, not a door-kicker or an assassin. I’m here to advise the director of Paribas Bank on their vault security.”

  Harper’s eyes widened. Paribas was a big bank with vast resources. They could ask any consultant in the world for advice. If they’d chosen Mark—who was not French—then he must be one of the best in the world at what he did.

  He hadn’t given off that air at all, of being a world-renowned expert in his field. That was very clever of him, she realized. Keeping below the radar for the public at large.

  “Can you still meet your commitments?” she asked, then realized that she’d bought into Mark’s world view. They were going to get out of this mess alive, he was going to his meeting, they’d fly back to Boston together and have dinner next week at the Barbary Coast.

  Felt good.

  “Sure. Just like you’re going to found your magazine. It’s going to be a huge success, too.”

  “Thanks,” she said softly. It was just what she needed—a morale boost.

  “No, I don’t want your thanks.” Mark’s face tightened, the harsh light deepening the grooves around his mouth, accentuating those high, hard cheekbones. A thousand years ago, he’d have been a chieftain rallying the troops before a battle and the light would have been a bonfire. “I want you to understand that we’re getting out of this alive, that we’re having dinner next week with Greg and his wife, and that you’re leaving that crappy job as soon as you can.”