The Bride's Protector

by Gayle Wilson

  But then this wasn’t exactly a “normal” situation. Nothing about this one-night stopover in New York was normal. He was not here on an assignment. There was no mandate to carry out. No job which he would do, unquestioning, because he trusted the man who had assigned it.

  That man, Griffon Cabot, was dead—killed months ago in a terrorist attack in front of the gates of CIA headquarters at Langley. With his death, the team Cabot had slowly and painstakingly built during the last fifteen years would be dismantled by the same government that had suggested its creation.

  The External Security Team would be cut out of the intelligence community, as swiftly and efficiently destroyed as a malignancy under a surgeon’s scalpel. That was exactly what the current government saw the team to be—a dangerous cancer that must be eradicated.

  And that destruction would start, Hawk knew, with him. He had given them the perfect opportunity, of course, with his last mission. The assassination in Baghdad had not been sanctioned, and that made him a rogue. A very dangerous loose cannon, at least in the agency’s eyes.

  Not that he gave a damn. He knew that kill he had carried out would only be the excuse they used for their actions. Which he had known all along were inevitable. As soon as he learned Griff Cabot had been one of the victims of that massacre, Hawk had known it was over. For all of them. All the men who had worked for Griff through the years were finished with service, with love of country, with duty.

  All over but the shouting, Hawk thought cynically. He suspected he was in for more than his share of that. His lips flattened, and the pale blue eyes narrowed.

  Hawk, however, was no longer conscious of the image in the glass, no longer aware that it mirrored his movements. He was thinking instead, just as he had been since he’d arrived in the States last night. Thinking about what came next.

  He had known this day was also inevitable, and he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t been better prepared for it. Maybe not contemplating the future was simply part of his personality—the product of that same cold control that allowed him to put everything out of his head and focus solely on a job. The same control that allowed him to be the consummate weapon his government had forged him into.

  Because Hawk had been owned, trained and used by the United States government since he’d turned seventeen. That’s when, as an alternative to going to prison, a belligerent teenager named Lucas Hawkins had been offered an “opportunity” to join the military. He had been given that chance—one last chance—by a hard-assed Texas judge. Seeing the truth of that warning in the judge’s cold eyes, Hawk had accepted the invitation, smart enough even then to know the old bastard was right.

  It was in the Corps that he had found the family he’d never known. Found a real job. A sense of accomplishment. And the infinitely precious knowledge that he could do something of value. Something that could make him a person of worth.

  Eventually, somebody had recognized the potential of the shrewd and pragmatic mind that lay beneath his unpolished exterior. He had been moved into military intelligence, and then, finally, the identity of a soldier named Lucas Hawkins had merged into that of a CIA operative known only as Hawk.

  Now the government that had created him would cut him loose. With a pension for those years of service, if he was lucky. With the skills they had taught him. And with the other skills he had taught himself, he thought, thin lips twisting into the semblance of a smile. And none of those peculiar talents would translate well to the civilian world. Not unless he wanted to move to the other side of the equation, to cohabitate for a change with the bad guys. Where he could probably make a hell of a lot more money than he was making now, or ever had made, he conceded, his lips tilting fractionally at the corners again.

  But what he did had never been about money. At least not after he’d met Griff Cabot and become a member of his team. By that time Hawk knew all about the lure of esprit de corps and had believed himself sophisticated enough to avoid its entrapment. He had been wrong. Proven wrong by the caliber of man Cabot was. A man whose careful and considered offer of friendship had drawn the man who would be called Hawk like a hearth fire’s warmth on a long winter’s night.

  Now that friendship was over, and he was going to have to find something to do with the next forty years of his life. And for some inexplicable reason, all that was why he had ended up spending last night here. In Griff Cabot’s favorite New York hotel, where they put fresh flowers and exotic fruit in your room and chocolate on the pillow of your bed when they thoughtfully turned it down.

  A place he could definitely afford and a place where he just as definitely knew he didn’t belong. The problem was that Hawk hadn’t figured out yet exactly where he did belong.

  Chapter Two

  “My dear!” Malcolm Truett exclaimed. The Englishman’s pleasant voice, normally controlled, held a note of shock. He had stepped around the corner just as Tyler got off the elevator. His widened eyes took in her full bridal regalia before he asked, “Whatever are you doing here?”

  “Here” was another of those cultural differences, Tyler realized belatedly. Amir had rented two floors of this stately Manhattan hotel to house the members of the wedding party. The women occupied rooms on the floor above, including the suite where they had helped her dress this morning. The men of the party, including Amir, were housed on this one.

  In her hurry to talk to her fiancé before he went downstairs, Tyler hadn’t even thought about those restrictions. Or the reasons behind them. The implication was plain, however, in Truett’s eyes and in his voice. She shouldn’t be on this floor. It was off-limits. But those restrictions were part of the reason she had come.

  “I need to talk to Amir,” she said, smiling at his secretary, who had always been kind. “I want to catch him before he goes downstairs to meet his father. It’s very important.”

  Truett’s eyes studied her face. Their irises were almost exactly the same shade as his gray brows, now arched in surprise. His lips pursed slightly, as if in thought, before he spoke.

  “Then I’m very sorry, my dear. You’ve just missed him, I’m afraid. I saw him leave his room not two minutes ago and get into the lift.” His gaze darted toward the door of what she assumed to be Amir’s suite, almost directly across the hall, and then came back to her.

  Tyler hadn’t thought Amir would have had time to change. It had been less than fifteen minutes since he’d left her upstairs. Maybe his father had arrived early or maybe something had come up concerning the arrangements in the hotel’s grand ballroom, which was to be used for the ceremony. Whatever had happened, Tyler was bitterly disappointed to have missed him. She had steeled herself, determined to make her fiancé listen. And instead...

  “Are you sure?” she asked, hearing the elevator doors begin to close behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to check that the train of her gown wasn’t in their way. But that had been a foolish question, she realized, when her gaze returned to Malcolm Truett’s face. Amir’s secretary always knew everything. If he said he had seen Amir go downstairs, then she could be certain he had.

  “Oh, quite sure,” he said emphatically. “We even spoke. There were a few things Amir wanted me to take care of. Not two minutes ago, I promise you. And then he went downstairs.”

  He reached past her and punched the Down button for the elevator, apparently in response to the urgency of his errands. His eyes came back to her, again assessing her features.

  “If there is something I may do, Ms. Stewart, I should be delighted to be of assistance. If this is an emergency...” Discreetly, the Englishman let the question trail.

  An emergency? Was it enough of an emergency to interrupt Amir’s reunion with his father? Or was it simply a resurgence of the anxiety she had lived with for weeks?

  The anxiety that everyone, including Amir, had assured her would disappear from her life forever as soon as she whispered those vows. Which she was supposed to do in less than an hour.

  “It’s not an emergency,” she
admitted.

  “Then may I suggest you really must return to your suite? The sheikh will be arriving at any moment. He may come up with Amir, since there is some time before the ceremony. I’m sure you don’t want to chance having to meet him for the first time in this hallway. That might be somewhat awkward, I should think.”

  Truett’s eyes held hers, willing her to agree. Just as Amir’s always did. “However,” he added, apparently not finding the expected acquiescence there, “I shall be sure to tell Amir that you wish to speak to him. In private, of course. Will that do?”

  He had already made his diagnosis. The same one she had considered. Prewedding jitters. His prescription seemed to be simply keep the bride calm until Amir could work his magic. And get her out of the middle of the hall before the sheikh saw her.

  Maybe he was right. Perhaps that would be best. When Malcolm gave him that message, Amir would come to her room. They would have some privacy, and she could pour out all the concerns and questions he hadn’t listened to before. And demand some answers. Before it was too late. Because otherwise...

  The thought was shocking. It was not the one that had sent her here. And at this stage, it was almost unthinkable. Almost, she repeated mentally. But was it more unthinkable than the other?

  “Maybe that would be best,” she agreed softly, still coming to terms with the realization that in less than an hour her choices would be far more limited than they were right now.

  “I’m sure it will be,” Truett said kindly. He reached behind her and this time impatiently punched both the elevator direction indicators. One for her, to go back up to her room, and apparently the other for him, to attend to Amir’s errands.

  “I think I should take the stairs,” she suggested, “rather than wait here.”

  That would make an accidental meeting with Amir and his father, which Truett had implied might be imminent, less likely. As much as she needed to talk to her fiancé, this wasn’t where she wanted to do it. Nor did she want to embarrass him by being where she wasn’t supposed to be. That might make Amir too angry to listen to anything she had to say.

  “Quite right, my dear,” Truett said, his relief almost palpable. “And very wise, I might add. I can have someone escort you to your room. I’m very much afraid that I must be engaged elsewhere, but I’m sure there’s someone here who...”

  Truett’s voice faded as he glanced back at the row of doors that stretched along the hall. There had been no traffic in the hallway since their conversation had begun. The whole floor seemed remarkably quiet. Almost empty.

  But then, Tyler realized, it might very well be empty. She had no idea how many people Amir had brought with him. Most of these rooms could be unoccupied, as they were on the floor above.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of finding my way upstairs.” There must have been more of a bite in the words than she was aware of—an unintended backlash of her frustration over missing Amir—because Truett apologized at once.

  “Of course you are, my dear. My offer was simply a matter of courtesy, I assure you.” He reached out and stabbed the buttons once more. Apparently he was dealing with his own set of frustrations.

  “Well, I’m sure you have more important things to attend to,” she said.

  “More important than the bride herself? I think not,” he said gallantly, “but Amir was, I’m afraid, very insistent that I handle these matters myself. But you’re right about the stairs. Everyone seems to have chosen this moment to engage the lifts.”

  Even the al-Ahmads weren’t rich or powerful enough to commandeer all the elevators, as much as they might have liked to, Tyler thought, as she started down the hall toward the exit sign. It was not until she was halfway there that she realized she couldn’t get back into her own room. Not unless she wanted to go downstairs to the lobby for a key. In her agitation, she hadn’t remembered to pick hers up before she left her room.

  She turned and saw that Truett was almost under the exit sign at the opposite end of the corridor. She hurried down the long hall, calling his name. He turned as soon as he heard her, but when she reached him, she read annoyance in his features.

  “I don’t have my key,” she explained, a little out of breath. “If you’re on your way to the lobby, could you have them send someone up to let me into my room?”

  Again there was a fraction of a second’s hesitation, and the muscles in the face of Amir’s secretary seemed to tighten. He’s probably thinking that he doesn’t have time for this, Tyler thought. No time to deal with whatever feminine nonsense had sent her down here—where she wasn’t supposed to be. After all, Truett had important things to take care of. Things Amir had asked him to handle.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to the lobby,” he said.

  This time his tone was almost petulant. She was interfering with whatever duties he was supposed to be carrying out, and it was annoying the hell out of him.

  “Wherever you are going,” she said patiently, “could you possibly call the desk when you get there and ask them to send someone to let me into my room? I’ll meet them there.”

  The gray eyes assessed her again. Then his fingers, thin and white, fished into the pocket of his formal striped vest and retrieved a plastic key. “This is a passkey,” he said, explaining as if she were a child. “You may give it to whomever Amir sends to bring you downstairs for the ceremony. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Ms. Stewart, I am afraid I really must go.”

  “Of course,” she said, taking the key. Malcolm was the one who had made the arrangements with the hotel, for all these rooms, empty or otherwise. She supposed it shouldn’t be surprising the hotel would have provided him with a passkey, which probably only worked for the rooms on these two floors.

  Without waiting for her response, Amir’s secretary turned and continued his journey to the stairs. He didn’t look back at her, not even when he opened the door and disappeared through it.

  Tyler shook her head. She was no closer to a resolution of her situation than she had been before. Coming down here had been a wild-goose chase, she thought angrily, beginning to retrace her steps to the opposite end of the hall, deliberately rejecting the exit Malcolm had taken. Considering Truett’s attitude, she wondered if he would even give Amir her message.

  Prewedding jitters. Even she had bought into that explanation, but now she knew that what was troubling her was something more. This encounter with Amir’s secretary had reinforced what she had known, deep inside, since the beginning of this. Maybe her sense of foreboding had been a remnant of those survival skills she had learned years ago.

  Skills Tommie Sue had learned, she amended, which had served her well. Except with Paul, whom she had trusted. Lesson number one, she thought. The dangers of trusting someone else to look out for her best interests.

  As she walked by it, she glanced up at the door Truett’s eyes had indicated was Amir’s suite. And then her steps slowed until she came to a complete stop a few feet beyond it. She looked at the passkey in her hand, her mind racing.

  She might not have another chance. Truett might not give Amir her message. Or her fiancé might not come in response, even if he received it. Then there wouldn’t be a moment alone with him to sort through these growing fears and to ask her questions. Not before it was too late. Not before they came for her, to take her down to the ballroom.

  Before they came for her? she thought. Why had those words rung so strongly in her head? They sounded as if she were a prisoner of some kind. Which she certainly didn’t intend to be.

  She turned back to the door of Amir’s suite. Without giving herself time to think about all the reasons why waiting in his room to confront her fiancé might not be a good idea, including his and his father’s displeasure, she pushed the passkey into the slot and watched the light blink accommodatingly. She pressed down the handle and pushed the door inward.

  As it opened, her eyes seemed to focus like a camera lens on the unexpected scene before her. The
re were three men in the huge room she had expected to find empty, two of them dressed in the traditional thoabs Amir’s bodyguards wore. They were standing just outside the open doors that led out onto the room’s narrow terrace, which overlooked the street below.

  Security, she thought, already in place for the sheikh’s arrival. She didn’t even realize why she had made that assumption until she heard the crack of a rifle. The sound was strangely muffled, but still she knew what it was. After all, she also had the evidence of her eyes.

  She must have made some response. The robed men turned, their eyes tracking in surprise to the opening door. And then, having watched long enough to be satisfied with the effects of the shot he had just fired, the one in Western dress, the one with the rifle, finally turned toward her as well, their eyes meeting across the vastness of the suite.

  Everyone seemed frozen in place for the two or three seconds it took for the heavy door to begin to close. Tyler had time to see one of the robed men start across the room. And to see the rifle the stranger held tracking away from whatever its target had been below and toward her before the door banged shut, separating her from the scene.

  Since the rifle had begun to swing toward her, the primitive part of her brain had been directing Tyler to get away from the door. At the same time, it had been supplying to her bloodstream the flood of adrenaline that would make escape possible. Just as she moved, instinctive survival skills taking control, she heard the elevator bell behind her.

  One of the cars Malcolm Truett had called for while they’d been talking had finally arrived. Gathering the organza skirt up in both hands, despite the passkey still clutched unthinkingly in her right, Tyler ran toward the possibility that bell represented. When she rounded the corner, the doors of an elevator, thankfully the one nearest the hall, were standing open.