Invisible Recruit (Silhouette Bombshell)

by Mary Buckham

  Her sentiments exactly. Only not about wives—about husbands.

  Blade grinned, no doubt part of a male bonding thing. It was tempting to slap both of them.

  “Forgive me for dominating your wife’s time. It is inexcusable.”

  “Vaughn, dear.” Stone spoke again. “You forgot you were to meet me before the auction. Which I do believe should be starting any moment.”

  No, slapping was too easy. Way too painless.

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten the auction.”

  Keep it light. No matter what.

  She turned to Blade. “I’m excited about it.”

  “This is good. You shall be pleased.” His tone sounded like a patriarchal Russian czar, but at least he wasn’t asking pointed questions about Stone’s forceful entry. Or why.

  “Why don’t we proceed to the main hall now?” Blade gestured with his hand that they should lead the way.

  “In a moment.” Vaughn offered a very tight smile. “I need to talk to—to my husband, for just a moment.”

  Male glares were exchanged before Blade nodded, gave her a half bow and walked regally from the room.

  Vaughn waited until the door closed behind him before she stepped close enough to Stone so her whispered words could only be heard one-on-one.

  “Of all the stupid—”

  “Your transmitter went dead.” His words were grating.

  “I turned it off.”

  She read the shock in his eyes, then felt the force of his grip on her arm. “You what?”

  “Turned it off. It was a private conversation.”

  “There’s nothing private about this. Play reunion on your own time. He’s the target.”

  “No, he’s not.” Could she make him understand, or was she saying that more for her own benefit? “I was this close to finding out why he was auctioning whatever he’s auctioning.”

  “We’re not here for that.”

  He may not have been, but she couldn’t walk away from a friend in need.

  “I was getting the intel,” she said.

  “You were cozying up to a killer.”

  As if she hadn’t slept with one last night? She held her tongue, but Stone obviously registered her thoughts as he stepped closer, close enough to brush up against her.

  Her breath hitched as his words reached her.

  “Do not confuse last night with the mission.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  “Believe me, I haven’t.” She bit her upper lip. “It was a mistake and won’t happen again.” She was lying through her teeth.

  “Dream on, deb.”

  How had they gotten so far off track? They were not the mission—Blade, or, more importantly, whatever Blade was auctioning, was the mission. It was time to remember that.

  She shifted, snapping her mind back to the primary issue at hand and ignoring the promise in Stone’s eyes.

  “Blade said there would be two auctions. A primary one here, a secondary one with only the high bidders later.”

  “He say why?” Stone the agent was back. Thank heavens.

  “Security reasons.”

  “Not good.” He repeated her thoughts verbatim and she hadn’t even told him about her father’s people prowling about. “It most likely means the item being auctioned isn’t on the premises. Which makes sense.”

  “But why go to all the effort to get everyone here?” she asked.

  “Vetting the serious players.” He gave a wolf’s grin. “Very strategic. Also the top bidders, once they know the prize, will have to make payment arrangements, et cetera. They’ll have a better idea of how much and how soon they’ll need to pay for their new toy or toys. My guess is Blade will give them twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours to make final payment arrangements.”

  “That’s good news for us.” She was seeing where Stone was going with his analysis.

  He looked at her then, no longer man to woman but agent to agent. “We just got ourselves a larger window of opportunity.”

  “To what? We’ll already know what’s being auctioned. Isn’t that what we’re here for?”

  “Plans have changed, princess.”

  Again? That did not sound good. On the other hand, her adrenaline was already kicking in. She arched one eyebrow, a move her mother would have recognized.

  He answered, “That’s right. New objective is to neutralize or retrieve the said weapon.”

  “Neutralize? As in destroy?”

  “If necessary.”

  “And Blade?”

  He looked at her, really looked, his expression blank before he doled out carefully measured words. “The orders are the same.”

  “We’re to kill Blade.”

  “If necessary.”

  Chapter 18

  Vaughn and Stone met Blade in the large foyer of the hotel as guests mingled and jockeyed on their way toward the main hall where the auction was to be held. Several guards clustered near Blade, gesturing toward the drive leading to the hotel.

  Blade shot her a cautious, wary look before it was replaced with his normal charming expression. “Ah, you have arrived,” he said, a little too forcefully.

  As if there had been any doubt. Vaughn glanced out the hotel’s front windows, noticing three men flanking a fourth. A tourist, judging by the travel-rumpled khaki outfit he wore and the camera slung around his neck. Wind whipped around the men, kicking up dust and small pieces of debris.

  “Problem?” Stone asked, beating her to the punch.

  “Paparazzi.” Blade looked only at her.

  “Not my friends.” She raised her hands in mock surrender.

  Blade said nothing but inclined his head toward the reception room beyond him. “Shall we enter?”

  This time, she and Stone led.

  The hall was packed as she walked with Stone to the semicircular space open near the front. Every seat was filled; Blade waved her and Stone to two places in front. A wide set of windows beyond him showed the coming storm darkening the sky.

  Blade strode to the center of the stage, as Vaughn slid onto a chair and not a moment too soon. She waited for her stomach to settle and her knees to stop quaking. It reminded her of her first piano recital, in Paris, at the embassy, with dignitaries from around the world politely eyeing her. Not a friendly face in the crowd. Then she’d thrown up twice before she wobbled to her seat, never so thankful as when she could turn her back on everyone and pretend they were not there.

  Today she didn’t have that option. She fiddled with her watch, hoping her team could pick up every word of the auction and that the storm brewing outside didn’t affect communication.

  “Gentlemen, and lady.” Blade looked directly at her and nodded. “Thank you for your interest. If you’ll look at your computer screens, we’ll begin the auction.”

  Someone had slid a slim computer onto her lap. Vaughn glanced at the blue screen, not knowing what would happen next.

  There was an air of hushed expectancy in the room. Vaughn felt the adrenaline rush one had before stepping out of a plane for the first parachute jump, the first bungee jump, the thrust of first sex.

  She glanced around, noting the beaded sweat on foreheads and the gazes focused intently on laptop screens; one man was rolling his prayer beads.

  Next to her, Stone, the consummate professional, remained calm. She wondered how many missions it would take for her to learn to be so detached. Then she smiled. A big assumption there—multiple missions. That wasn’t going to happen if she and Stone didn’t survive this one.

  Now, there was an interesting thought. She and Stone—not lovers, but partners. It seemed so natural, like breathing air. No longer adversaries, but partners.

  Blade cleared his throat and she glanced up.

  His voice washed over the crowd, very precise, very clear, with only a hint of his motherland.

  “You’ll see on your screens the specs for the single item up for bid today. But before you begin, I will let you know that only today’s
top five bidders will be allowed into the final bidding round.”

  Up the ante. Increase the tension. And the competition. Stone was right. A very strategic move.

  “A little background.” Blade’s tone surged with pride. “Less than ten years ago, Russia launched an experimental, modified communications satellite. Like so much else in the new Russian economy, one has become available for sale.”

  The unspoken term—spy satellite—whipped silently through the room.

  “This satellite is run by a plutonium core.”

  Even without a science degree, Vaughn understood the implications. Plutonium meant a nuclear weapon.

  The stakes had just escalated, big-time.

  What was Blade planning?

  “In addition to the preprogrammed controls, this particular satellite has advanced attitude control rockets.”

  “Sacre bleu,” a man whispered in the front row.

  She glanced his way, noting the way his eyes opened wide, how his chin trembled. Maybe she should have studied her physics harder. What did the addition of rockets mean?

  Blade answered as if her unspoken question had been asked aloud. “Which means that activation of these rockets will allow the satellite to be brought down on any specific location in the world.”

  Now she got it.

  “Washington, D.C. Jerusalem. Beijing. The possibilities are limited only by one’s imagination and nerve.”

  Instant death for anyone in its path.

  Her stomach plummeted. This was not her Blade. Her friend. The man who once saved her skin.

  This man was selling the possibility of annihilating millions of innocents in one direct attack.

  He couldn’t possibly…

  She glanced around the room, watching greed and power materialize before her eyes. The individual, group or country that controlled that satellite would be a force to be reckoned with.

  Blade smiled at her, as if translating her shocked silence for approval.

  How could he? How could she sit there and listen?

  Stone nudged her arm and she dropped her gaze. Not that anyone but a blind man would be unable to read the horror, the disgust ripping through her.

  Stone’s words came back to her. Neutralize and eliminate the weapon. Neutralize and eliminate Blade.

  There could be no reasonable explanation for what he was doing. This wasn’t father love driving him. This was something else. He’d been wrong when he’d spoken to her earlier; they were nothing alike. Nothing.

  Blade glanced around the room, raising one hand before continuing. “The one stipulation on the auction is that once the bidder has been given the attitude control and its codes, they will have thirty days to activate them. At the end of thirty days, the satellite has been preprogrammed to re-enter Earth’s orbit, harmlessly disintegrating in the process.”

  Thirty days. Was that good news or bad? It might be a window of opportunity to stop mass murder, but not if the control mechanism and codes passed out of Blade’s hands and into those of a terrorist organization before they were stopped. Was the team hearing this?

  Ling Mai must have foreseen this. But not the magnitude of the task. This wasn’t a stinger missile or even an extra-large order of the plastic explosive Semtex. This weapon could change the world forever.

  Blade, what are you doing?

  Blade raised his hands behind the podium and pointed to a digital reader board. “Bids, though not bidders, will be displayed automatically on the above board. Remember, only the top five bidders will be allowed to compete in the final auction with today’s last bid starting the next round. If we’re ready—” he looked around the crowd, smiled and nodded “—then we’ll start the bidding at one hundred million.”

  A buzz whipped around the room as fingers clicked on keyboards, and the red-eyed numbers on the reader board danced before her.

  Her own limbs froze, unable to move, unable to do anything but grip the laptop with trembling hands.

  “One hundred fifty million. Do I see more?”

  What if he succeeded? How many millions would die?

  Voices in several languages ebbed and flowed, growing louder, but not enough to drown out Blade’s voice.

  “Five hundred ten million. Five hundred ten million to hold the world hostage.”

  She leaned forward in her chair, a voyeur at the feeding frenzy around her. Helpless to do anything but wait. Bile gagged her.

  “Eight hundred million.”

  Blade turned toward her, but she kept her gaze straight ahead, not trusting him to see anything but shock and horror in her expression.

  “Three billion.”

  “Three billion once.”

  Blade’s face was lit from a fire within, his voice ablaze.

  “Three billion twice.”

  “Three billion three times.” Strained silence. “The auction is closed.”

  She rose, hearing the mayhem around her, a riot of sound and voices swelling, tensions teetering on razor edges. Her knees trembled, but she had to move, to get away. It wasn’t fear propelling her, but the gut-deep knowledge that any second she was going to be sick.

  Who was she to think she was ready to play hardball in this world? God, what a joke. She’d thought she was jaded, but this, this left her reeling. Ling Mai was wrong; Vaughn didn’t belong here. Vaughn was wrong, too; she was so not cut out for this role.

  “Pull it together,” Stone whispered at her side.

  Like a physical slap she heard her mother’s voice.

  Behave yourself, Vaughn. This reception is important.

  You know how to greet the representative from Senegal, or Myanmar, or Burundi, Vaughn. Don’t embarrass us.

  You’ve been taught the right way, Vaughn. And don’t forget it.

  In the space between overwhelming horror and her body crying out to flee, she turned, her mother’s smile in place, her training leading when all else failed.

  She was not invisible, she was Vaughn Monroe Werner. Daughter of an ex-ambassador. Trained to function properly regardless of personal emotions. Schooled in correct behavior. Bastion of the public persona.

  She had been chosen for this mission for a reason. And the reason wasn’t to run when the going got rough. Stone’s training might have taught her how to physically survive, but her upbringing was needed now.

  Her gaze settled on Blade, even though she was all too aware of Stone standing to her left, his gaze no doubt searching for more signs of implosion from her.

  Blade still stood in the center of the room, his grin growing larger, his chest rising and falling as if finishing a fast race. He glanced over at her and she nodded. Let him translate that any way he wanted.

  Millions could die and he gloated.

  Vaughn was thankful she’d eaten nothing so far that day; her stomach would not have been able to hold it.

  And then Blade was beside her, his voice very Russian, his hand outstretched to grasp her own. “Well, Vaughn, what do you think?”

  That you’ve lost it. Are certifiably insane. That there had to be an explanation to reconcile this man with her image of the Blade she knew, or once had known.

  She waved her free hand, buying precious seconds to erase all censure from her voice. “I think you’ve surprised me.”

  His expression tightened, as did his grip. “I told you we’ve changed, both you and me. We’ve grown up, no?”

  “We have changed.” But not this much. Or was her Blade only a facade? Just as she had been. Playing by the rules of one’s peers, hiding one’s true self. But Blade a mass murderer?

  Fortunately she wasn’t required to say more as he turned toward Stone.

  “Mister Stone.” Blade’s voice was neutral, nothing like the exaltation of seconds ago. His hand dropped from Vaughn’s. “Congratulations.”

  She glanced between the two men’s predatory grins. It was a little like being the only guppy in a bowl of hungry piranhas.

  Blade’s voice sounded very Russian as he res
ponded to her confusion. “Your husband has won. He is one of our five finalists.”

  “You’re right, darling.” Stone wrapped one arm around Vaughn’s waist. “These auctions are fun. And so stimulating.”

  If she hadn’t been raised by a diplomat and his wife, wasn’t in a public venue and undercover, she’d have thrown her hands up and walked away.

  In a heartbeat.

  Fortunately that option was taken away when one of the winning bidders approached Blade.

  The Russian turned to speak to the man as Vaughn gathered her shattered composure.

  Now what? Stone had won. At least one of them had kept their cool long enough to find a way into the final auction, and it hadn’t been her.

  “Vaughn?”

  She wasn’t even aware Blade had returned to her side and was talking to her until he nudged her arm.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked, a frown darkening his expression.

  What could possibly be wrong? A bomb capable of killing millions about to be passed into the hands of killers. A friend she no longer recognized. A direct order to stop the unstoppable but with no idea how.

  And to think that only a few months ago, her biggest worries involved choosing which outfit to wear to a celebrity event.

  “No, nothing’s wrong.” She gave what she hoped was a convincing smile; it was hard to tell with her facial muscles frozen. “I was just wondering, what happens now?” She glanced around those still milling in the room. “What if one of the unlucky bidders decides to take things into his own hands by kidnapping you to get the control and codes?”

  Blade laughed. “There is no worry. The control is not at the hotel and without it, the codes mean nothing.”

  One issue clarified. A move on Blade could not be made until she and Stone located the control device. Her guess was that if something did happen to Blade, another could step in, retrieve the device and proceed to sell it to the highest bidder at a later date. There might even be a second set of the codes as a backup.

  “What now, then?” she asked in all sincerity.

  “I have a private jet waiting to take all the winners to the location of the final auction. No one will know the destination until we are in the air.”