THE MIDDLE SIN
Page 27
"Advised, hell," she countered glumly as the taxi sped them to Andrews. "I want in on it."
"Why don't we talk specifics after you hear what the Old Man has to say?"
"I've got a good idea what he's going to say. I also have a good idea I'm not going to enjoy hearing it."
She didn't.
Big and bristling in his blue uniform, the OSI commander pointed her to a seat with the stem of his pipe and started with the fact that she'd jetted off to Malta without consulting Special Agent Donovan. He then proceeded to excoriate his former employee for stirring the pot at the Cafe Corinthia, made a scathing reference to the two dead bodies, and finished with the small matter of an entire shipload of air force armaments disposed of in a single flash.
Cleo countered with the same polite, stubborn smile that had caused more than one of her air force supervisors to lose his hair along with his cool.
"That's better than having those munitions sold to the highest bidder on the black market. Which is what might well have happened if I hadn't uncovered a link between Trish Jackson, Adrian Moore and the Pitsenbarger, then jetted off to Malta to stir the pot."
"All right. I'll give you that. The link proved useful."
"Excuse me?"
His brows snapped together. "Don't push it, North. The air force is still missing one munitions ship."
"And the man who put the missile through its deckhouse," Jack put in smoothly. "Maybe when we find the radio operator, he'll lead us to Domino."
Barnes swung his scowl toward his agent. "Why do you think he'll know anything more than the other hired thugs who came aboard the ship in Malta?"
"Because he was already aboard."
Cleo leaned forward. She and Jack had used the long flight back to the States to compare specific details and spin out possibilities.
"The second engineer told us Radio Man joined the crew before the ship left the States, as a last-minute replacement. He also told us the man carried papers issued by the U.S. Merchant Marine Authority. They were probably forged or stolen, but along with those papers he had to have some working knowledge of radio operations to get the crew to accept him until his friends came aboard at Malta. He also seemed to be in charge of the hijacking operation."
Barnes set aside his pipe, all business now. "So what's the theory? This radio operator orchestrated the hijacking with the intent of brokering the goods through Domino?"
"Either that," Jack answered, "or he's Domino's trusted lieutenant. His man on the scene."
"There's another possibility," Cleo tacked on. "He could be Domino himself."
She wasn't sure where that idea had come from. Nothing about the giggly radio operator suggested a man of wealth and power…except for that nod he'd given Westerbeck. He'd clearly been in charge aboard the Pits.
The general grunted. "We don't throw out any possibilities at this point. You stand to make a billion or so off the sale of the world's most sophisticated armaments, you want to make sure you get delivery of those armaments. You have a name?"
"We have his physical description and the name listed on the crew manifest. We figured we'd start with those and see where they take us."
"We?"
"We," Jack repeated.
The pipe went back into the general's mouth with a clatter of clay on enamel. The brows came down again. His gaze sliced to Cleo.
"Am I to assume we're paying your usual consulting fees?"
The small matter of a sunken munitions ship still hung in the air. She figured she could afford to be magnanimous.
"This one's on the house."
Jack suggested Cleo accompany him when he went to claim his vehicle at Base Ops. That suggestion naturally led to another.
"I'm wasted. What do you say we head back to my place, order in, grab a shower and rack out for a few hours before starting the hunt for Radio Man?"
"Rack out, as in sleep?"
"That, too."
The offer was too tempting to resist. So was the urge to see Donovan's private lair. Cleo had never been to his Washington, D.C., condo. Their brief, cataclysmic affairs had occurred in more exotic locales like Honduras, Santa Fe and Malta. She wanted to view him in his native habitat.
It matched the man, she decided when he stood aside for her to enter the third-floor apartment overlooking the Potomac. Neat, minimal, no fuss, with only a few mementos to mark the place as home to a military officer. The cracked ceramic mug emblazoned with the OSI's logo. The AF sweatshirt tossed over an arm of the couch. A small, framed five-by-seven of Jack and the previous president, gathering dust and almost hidden behind a stack of Tom Clancys and John Grishams.
"There's beer in the fridge," he told her, sliding open the balcony doors to let the stuffiness out and the spring morning in.
Cleo scooped two longnecks out of the fridge. It was only a little past 10:00 a.m. Washington time, but cocktail hour in the eastern Med. Not that the time mattered. Her body clock was too screwed up at this point to know whether it was a.m., p.m. or FM.
Closing the fridge, she popped the tops on the bottles and followed Jack into his office. Like the kitchen and living room, it was strictly no frills. The modular desk sported a combination phone/fax/copier and a sleek laptop she suspected was plugged into every law-enforcement database in the free world. Circulars, memos and hand-scribbled notes crowded the bulletin board set at convenient eye level above the laptop. The chair was sturdy, ergonomic and Donovan-size. Definitely a working office, she thought, handing him his beer.
"Here's to a successful hunt," he said, clinking his bottle against hers.
"I'll drink to that. And to… Hey! Is that me?"
She leaned over the desk to get a better look at a glossy magazine ad almost hidden under a list of OSI contact numbers.
That was her. Much younger and much barer.
Best she recalled, she'd earned two hundred dollars for modeling those French-seamed bikini briefs. Major bucks at the time. Enough to keep her in Big Macs and pizza during the summer session between her sophomore and junior years at the University of Texas, anyway.
Turning, she tipped Jack a wicked grin. "I didn't think copies of that ad was still floating around."
"They pop up every now and again."
Smugly pleased that he'd pinned her to his bulletin board, Cleo amused herself by checking out his bookshelves while he punched the button on his answering machine.
"You have seventeen new messages," the recorder chirped.
Cleo listened with half an ear as the messages played. Two were official, requesting return calls. One was from a tailor saying the pants he'd left to be hemmed were ready for pickup. Then came a string of calls from a woman Cleo guessed immediately was Donova
n's ex-wife.
"Jack? It's me. I need to talk to you."
"It's Kate. Call me."
"Where are you this time, Jack? Africa? Singapore? I need to talk to you. Call me when you get this message."
Her next messages came at rapid intervals and showed increasing signs of anger and desperation. They'd been recorded late yesterday afternoon, while Cleo and Jack were still bobbing in a lifeboat.
"I can't do this alone. Please, call me."
"Dammit, why aren't you ever there when I need you?"
"Where the fuck are you?"
"Jack, please. I can't reach my counselor. I have to talk to someone."
That one ended on a dry, racking sob that clutched at Cleo's heart. She could only imagine what it did to the man staring down at the answering machine, a muscle working in the side of his jaw.
The next call included a background buzz of conversation and the unmistakable clink of glasses.
"This is your fault, you bastard. You're never-" a boozy hiccup burped over the line "-when I need you."
The last was recorded early this morning. Cold and merciless, it instructed Jack to ignore the previous messages. She'd survived the night, no thanks to him.
Jack hit the Erase button.
Cleo ached for him. She was a trained investigator. She'd seen the depths the human spirit could sink to. She knew, as well, how often those broken or depraved spirits dragged others down with them. The fact that Donovan hadn't resorted to an unlisted number to avoid his ex-wife's calls told her he had yet to climb out of the pit.
"Sorry you had to hear that," he said, his jaw still tight. "What do you want to eat?"
"Jack…"
"We can order Thai. The restaurant around the corner delivers. Or Chinese."
"She's wrong to blame you for her problems with alcohol. Surely her counselors have told you that."
"Yeah, they've told me. Problem is, they're wrong."
His eyes were emptier that she ever remembered seeing them. And infinitely more weary.
"Kate has it right, Cleo. I wasn't there when she needed me. Two miscarriages. The day she was awarded her masters. The time she stepped on a wasp's nest, took more than fifty stings all over her body and went into shock. I think I was on temporary duty in Iceland that time. Correction. That was the Azores. What do you want to eat?"
Okay. All right. He didn't want to talk, she wouldn't push.
"Thai sounds good."
26
Cleo took charge of ordering dinner. Her teenage years in Bangkok had given her a taste for sour, spicy and hot. She took pity on Jack's less-sophisticated palate, though, and added crispy fried noodles, green papaya salad and kai yang chicken to the curried fish cakes and tarn sung beef.
The order was delivered twenty minutes later, barely enough time for Cleo to shower away the effects of the flight home and purloin a freshly laundered shirt from Jack's closet. Rolling up the sleeves, she let the tails flap against her bare thighs as she joined him in the living room.
He'd changed into sweats, too hungry to take a turn in the shower. They ate sitting cross-legged on the floor, right from the containers. Jack insisted on trying the beef despite Cleo's cautions. The first bite probably scorched his mouth all the way down to his tonsils. The second left his taste buds permanently scarred, or so he stuttered before she stuffed a taro ball soaked in coconut cream between his lips to douse the flames.
"I warned you."
The glutinous mass muffled his answer. It didn't sound friendly, though.
Grinning, Cleo forked up the last of the fish cake. The curry was potent enough to send air hissing through her nostrils. She refused to think what it did to her breath.
It took a few minutes for the bau loi phauk to work its magic. Gradually, Jack's eyes stopped watering and the purple receded from his cheeks. He also lost most of that tight, closed look he'd worn since listening to those damned phone messages.
Cleo was determined to erase the rest. Sincerely hoping she never came face-to-face with the former Mrs. Donovan, she laid aside her fork.
"You think the tarn sung was hot? Wait till you taste the special dessert I have for you."
Wariness narrowed his eyes. When she popped the top button on her borrowed shirt, though, suspicion gave way to instant joy.
With a choke of laughter, Cleo popped another button. "God, Donovan, you are so easy."
She'd make this sweet and slow, she decided. So sweet he'd forget the guilt his ex had carved into his heart. So slow, he wouldn't have the strength afterward for anything but the sleep she knew his body craved.
That was the plan, anyway. It pretty well fell apart when he hooked a hand around her wrist, gave it a tug and tumbled her onto her back.
"Let's consider this round two."
The sharp, stinging nip at the base of her throat told her Jack was in the mood for a tussle. That was fine with Cleo. Sliding her hand inside his sweats, she threaded her fingers through his groin hair and wrapped them around him.
She loved the feel of him. Smooth and hot and hard, like suede over steel. Loved the way he never bothered to hold back his hunger for her. It was right there, surging from greed to need with the tight bunch of his muscles.
She used her hands and tongue and teeth. He used all of those and his knee. It got wedged between her thighs somewhere between their tongue-swallowing contest and the tumbling, limb-tangling roll that left her smushed against the coffee table. Skin slicked against skin as he eased her up so he could feast on her breasts. The friction both above and below her waist soon had Cleo writhing. She tried to give as good as she got. She honestly tried. But when he contorted enough to substitute his mouth for his knee, she lost any semblance of control.
Gasping, she spread her legs. His tongue flicked and probed and pleasured and tortured. She could feel the gathering pressure. Feel the tight spasms spreading in concentric circles. Groaning, she tried to hold back, to prolong the pleasure. It was like trying to hold back the flames that had consumed the deckhouse. She detonated with at least a million or so short tons of explosive force.
It took a while to gather the strength to raise one eyelid. "Okay, Donovan. Round two is yours."
Jack un-contorted. "Not yet."
In one smooth move, he had her under him. With another, he rammed home.
Jack transferred Cleo to the bed just before the carpet left a permanent imprint on her bare butt. By then she was a half grunt away from total unconsciousness. She flopped onto the mattress, buried her face in the pillow and blanked out like the lights in the Pitsenbarger's cargo hold.
Jack stretched out beside her, but his body wouldn't give in to the exhaustion weighing him down. Neither would his mind. The best he could manage was a couple of short catnaps. In between, the same thought kept surfacing.
Cleo wasn't Kate.
His intellect got it. His body sure as hell got it. All he had to do was look at her to see the differences, for God's sake!
She sprawled across the sheets, hogging more than her share of the mattress. Her dark hair feathered across the lower portion of her face, the ends lifting with each breath. Her skin was sleek and smooth and tanned in patterns unique to a woman who spent as much time outdoors as in. She was issuing an occasional puffy snort, the kind she always vehemently denied making, punctuated by a sporadic mumble or twitch that indicated her mind was still at work although her body slept.
That was Cleo. All energy. All stubborn determination. All hot, sexy female.
But the dark corner of Jack's soul still scored by guilt and regret countered every rational message he tried to send it.
So she wasn't clingy and insecure? So she had a full, demanding life that didn't include him? If this thing between them went where it seemed to be heading, there'd come a time when she'd want more than a quick tussle between the sheets or backup during an op.
The very real possibility that he'd be on the other side of the world when she needed a shoulder to cry on or someone to rant at punched a hole in Jack's gut. It also had him thinking harder about his options.
He could leave the air force. God knew the irritations outweighed the excitement at times. But only at times.
Under the petty annoyances and everyday hassles lurked the absolute certainty he was part of something important. Jack never talked about it. None of the men and women he worked with did. It was too schmaltzy, too cliched. Too red, white and blue.
It was there, though, buried deep inside the ever-present awareness that he played his own small role in the defense of his country. That was why he'd gone into Afghanistan with the first on-the-ground OSI cadre. Why he now plowed through case files at headquarters, when he craved the action and excitement of the field. Why he…