by Mary Buckham
An Italian man in uniform screamed after them. Another materialized before her, waving his hands, shouting commands. She plowed right into him, stumbled, righted herself and kept running.
A cloud of gravel dust swirled around her as squealing tires announced she was too late to stop Blade.
“Damn and double damn.” What now? She bent double, catching her wind, her hands on her knees.
What were her options? She glanced at Stone just as a burst of gunfire erupted.
Bullets screamed around them.
They both dove.
But it wasn’t quick enough. Not for Vaughn.
She plastered herself against the gravel driveway, chunks of sharp rocks biting into her hands and cheeks. She waited for her head to clear.
“Vaughn, you hear me?” Stone demanded. “You hit?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
Didn’t mean she was ready to get chatty.
She glanced at her right arm, sure it was a wall of flames, surprised to see only a thin trickle of blood oozing from a gash running just below her shoulder.
It didn’t even rate a bandage, as if she had one.
“You hurt?” he asked again.
“Only my pride.” She scrambled to her feet, using a tree to shelter her. One across from where Stone crouched. “You see anything?”
“No.”
“Think we can go ahead?”
“If we keep low.”
Now he told her. Not that crawling on her stomach would have avoided the last hail of bullets. But she wasn’t about to tell him she’d taken a hit. Not now, at least.
“Let’s go,” she mumbled, scrambling to her knees.
Panting breath and boot-shod feet pounded the ground behind her. Another moment and there would be no choice. They’d both be held as suspects until someone could vouch for her. And Blade would escape.
With a cat leap from the stone wall to the lower parking lot below, she angled toward the nearest vehicle. Her teeth ached from slamming the soles of her sandals onto the packed ground. Three yards forward and she found what she wanted.
A police motorcycle with keys dangling in the ignition. It flashed chrome and power beneath its sleek lines, small but nothing to laugh at. Just what the doctor ordered to catch a fleeing Blade.
She swung a leg across the leather seat, wrapped sweaty fingers around handle grips and scrambled to remember what a former boyfriend had taught her about kick-starting an unfamiliar bike.
Behind her, Stone cursed, then jumped on as a passenger.
“Sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
With a Hail Mary for lessons learned no matter what the situation, she sucked in a deep breath as she opened the throttle. The metal beast screamed out of the lot.
“Hang on,” she shouted to Stone, ignoring the throb in her arm, the effort it took to hold the handle, everything except catching Blade.
Wind whipped her hair and face as she drove like an Italian racecar driver, only faster as the bike swerved and righted beneath her awkward handling. Even with Stone behind her she earned catcalls and whistles from Italian males sauntering along the road. Up ahead, when the curves permitted, she caught glimpses of the car Blade had commandeered.
They were gaining on him.
The lake road was clogged with holiday travelers as Blade’s car zipped dangerously in and out of traffic, earning rude gestures from startled drivers and the blare of more than one car horn. If the Italians were like any other drivers, they’d be speed-dialing the nearest polizia station about the crazy woman flying like a witch on a metal broomstick, her hair swirling about her, her passenger no doubt green around the gills. If her luck held, they’d soon have company trailing their bike. But would it be soon enough?
Without warning, Blade’s brake lights glowed red as he took a hard left, away from the lake. The small car careened up a narrow alleyway, clipping a parked car.
She hugged the road behind him.
They flew past a sign indicating they’d reached the small town of Cernobbio. In past visits, Vaughn had loved its picturesque four-hundred-year-old houses and narrow cobbled streets. But now that she was on a bike, the paved stones jarred her jaw and slammed her neck back and forth like a bobble head. Stone’s head clipped hers a few times for good measure. She’d no doubt hear about her skills as a motorcyclist from him. If they lived.
Both vehicles climbed the rough road higher and higher into the old town. The street, with hulking buildings built side by side, grew narrow and dark. They reached the main piazza, one usually filled with strolling pedestrians and tourists, a logistics nightmare in a life-and-death race.
Then the Morris Minor disappeared, swallowed by a gap between buildings that should have squashed it.
Vaughn could only react and follow.
Stone cursed in three languages against her ear and gripped tighter.
Too late, she saw what she was up against. The bike slammed down a series of elongated steps, each drop pounding bone against bone. Civilians flattened themselves against stone buildings to avoid being hit. Oaths and curses followed their downward spiral.
If her jaw wasn’t gripped shut to keep it from coming unhinged, she’d have joined them.
Ahead, she caught sight of a flash of metal. Blade. She hadn’t lost him.
Then sunlight appeared. Open space.
The lake lay dead ahead.
A dark dot appeared high on the horizon, growing larger as the bike hopscotched along the road. Down. Down. Down.
The dot took shape. Bubble cockpit. Tail rudder. Whirring blade.
Helitourists sightseeing or—
The bike fishtailed. Vaughn screamed, whipping to the left as she scrambled to hold on to the narrow hand-grips, the engine revving beneath her.
For what seemed like an eternity, she hung suspended, more off the bike than on. Then it righted. She slammed forward. Once again on the seat. Not secure, but still there, Stone still with her.
The helicopter blocked the evening dusk before her, silhouetted between buildings, the backdrop of the lake and sky behind it.
The road Blade had chosen headed straight for it. No detours. Just a low stone wall at the far end. A cliff leading to water beyond it.
He’d have no choice but to stop.
The chopper hung suspended in midair, hovering like a beast of prey at the mouth of a tunnel.
But Blade didn’t slow. Instead, he increased his speed.
She watched events unfold as if in slow motion.
The sound of his engine revving. Helicopter blades beating fast and furious while suspended. Waiting. Anticipating.
The flash of sunlight against the chrome of the car as it slammed into the wall and lifted off.
Upside down it twirled. Over and over on itself. A somersault of metal dark against the sky.
The copter shifted, rising on a current of air.
All was silent as Vaughn skidded her bike into an S and the engine died away.
Blade’s car hung before her. Then dropped. Shot out of the sky in a downward spiral. Disappearing from view.
She could say nothing. Do nothing.
She was off the bike, running to the jagged, gaping wall. Stone grabbed her arm. Her bad one. A scream escaped her.
Then the explosion.
It was over.
Chapter 25
Vaughn reached over from the bed, picking up her phone on the fourth ring, catching the name on caller ID. Her arm twinged with the effort.
“This had better be good, Alex.”
“Why?”
“I have a very hunky, very willing man warming my bed.”
“Good, so Stone’s there, too.”
Vaughn caught her laugh. “How did you—”
“Give us some credit.” She must have turned away from the phone as Vaughn heard her shouting, “You owe me fifty.”
“Whom are you talking to?” Vaughn asked.
“Kelly. She thought you’d hold out a little longer.”
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“You guys bet I’d get together with Stone?”
“Nah. We knew that’d be a given. We all bet on the when. I won.”
“Who are we?”
“Kelly, Mandy, myself and Jayleen.”
“Jayleen knows?”
“Anyone who’s been anywhere near you two, especially since Italy, would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know what’s going on.”
“So much for privacy in this group.”
“Get used to it, girlfriend. We’re spooks now. We don’t have any secrets from each other.”
Just like that, the laughter slid away.
Alex was wrong. They weren’t operatives. At least not Vaughn. It’d been a week since Lake Como. One full day to settle details with the Italian authorities. One day to settle details with the CIA, whose agents were in the helicopter. Five back in D.C.
Poor Blade.
She hadn’t wanted it to end as it had, even though they had yet to recover his body. He’d been a friend, a good one, once. And he’d left her a message, at the very end. A cryptic note attached to the codes discovered in his study safe: None of them know the real us, eh, Vaughn? Au revoir, for now.
How like him to think, even as commandos closed in on him, that they’d meet again.
She swallowed, focusing instead on what might have happened if her team and the CIA hadn’t hooked up to bring Blade down.
“You there, Vaughn?”
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
After Italy, she’d returned to her D.C. town house only to have Stone showing up thirty minutes later. It had seemed so right to step into his arms. No words spoken. No need to.
The last four days had been about recovery. And exploration. And forgetting, in each other’s arms, what neither spoke about. Blade gone. Vaughn’s new career in limbo. A lot more left unspoken than spoken.
“Good, you listening?” Alex continued. “Ling Mai wants to see you ASAP. And Stone, too.”
Why? She understood the Stone part; he was still a member of the team. But why would Ling Mai want to see her? To drop the final ax?
The mission had been declared a success. Not that the acknowledgement mattered. But while Ling Mai had offered congratulations, she had also chopped Vaughn off at the knees. Director Werner had made it clear. While the Agency and its new team of Invisible Recruits had proven their worth, one member had been requested to leave the team or suffer the consequences.
Ling Mai hadn’t translated Vaughn’s father’s words verbatim, but Vaughn had got the drift. If Vaughn stayed, the Agency could forfeit any future assignments working for or with the CIA.
Vaughn understood only too well how power and politics worked. Ling Mai did not need to pretty it up for her. Ling Mai had used phrases such as much-needed rest and time away for a period. Vaughn hadn’t waited around to hear the details.
So here she was, working at getting her thoughts around the hole in her world. What now? Back to her old life? Not likely, but no other options came to mind. Charity work, maybe. Wasn’t that what women from her social circle did to feel useful? No dirty hands or broken nails, but more fetes and receptions and arranging dinners and auctions.
Vaughn was going to be physically ill.
“Tell her we’ll be there in an hour.” Vaughn slowly hung up the phone, turning to see Stone leaning against the bedroom doorjamb.
Damn, he was one sexy man. Rumpled by what sleep they’d managed to get. Stubble darkening the angle of his rock-hewn jaw. His eyes hooded and enigmatic.
“Ling Mai?”
“Yeah.” Vaughn shrugged, willing some flexibility into her tensed neck and back. The good news was her stomach was calm. Maybe she was getting the hang of this lifestyle. Right before it disappeared forever.
Stone remained quiet on the drive to Maryland. Not that she blamed him. What was there to say? It’s been nice? See you at the grocery store sometime? People who made the choices they made didn’t have lives. Not real ones.
Stone had learned that a long time ago.
But she was a quick study.
It wasn’t until they walked up the rock steps to the main house that his shoulder brushed hers. A clumsy move for a man like Stone, one that had her stopping.
“She won’t eat you.” His gaze scanned hers.
“Easy for you to say.”
Stone moved as if he were going to speak, but another voice interrupted.
“There you are,” Alex hailed, exiting from a Jeep Wrangler, with Kelly, Mandy and Jayleen hot on her heels.
Vaughn closed her eyes. She so didn’t want this. Getting the final boot was bad enough. In front of the women she’d come to think of as friends, as partners, was so much worse.
“Come on, Vaughn, it’s only been a few days. Okay, a week, but you’re not going to shut us out that easily.”
Alex and Kelly walked up beside her. Jayleen and Mandy hung back. Wise women, those two, who either sensed where Vaughn was at or had enough instincts to walk warily around a wounded beast.
“Go away.” There, she’d said it openly, no longer sugarcoated.
“No can do.” Kelly sounded so chipper, you’d have thought she was some camp counselor cheering on her young charges. “We worked too hard to track you down.” The blonde turned to Jayleen. “You owe me a twenty. I was right.”
Against her better judgment, Vaughn asked, “Right about what?”
“Right about you moping,” Jayleen shot back.
“I’m not moping.”
“Sure looks like it to me.” The black woman glanced toward Stone. “Poor little rich girl got her feelings bent out of shape so she gets to be a victim.”
Oh, that was priceless. Vaughn clenched her jaw, anger and hurt bubbling soul-deep. “You don’t have a bloody clue what you’re talking about.”
“Ladies.” Kelly stepped between the two women, always the peacemaker. “What I think Jayleen’s trying to say is we were worried about you.”
Fat chance. Vaughn glared at Jayleen, who glared right back, then grinned, taking the wind right out of Vaughn’s sails.
“Go away, guys. I’m late for meeting Ling Mai.”
“Then we’ll be here when you’re done.” Alex glanced at the others, then back at Vaughn. “And do not sneak out the back door. We have super-secret techno things to find you with.”
“Yeah,” Jayleen drawled. “And sometimes they work.”
Lord, she was going to miss these women. And if she didn’t leave now, she’d turn into a blubbering mess.
“You ready?” Stone asked.
She nodded and followed him inside, careening into his back when he stopped again before he was supposed to.
“What?” she asked, glancing at the empty foyer.
“You’re not alone, princess.”
Great, just when she thought she had a handle on her emotions, he had to go and yank the rug out from under her.
But Ling Mai was waiting. First things first.
“Good.” She rolled her neck, trying for a casual tone. “I’ll remember two heads can get chopped off as easily as one.”
“Another pillow to embroider?”
He remembered. She couldn’t help the smile. Especially as his actually reached his eyes.
So this whole fiasco hadn’t been a complete waste. Some good had come of it.
A security guard stepped from behind the director’s door. “Agent Stone, Ling Mai would like you to wait in the green room.”
Stone gave her a salute before he headed down the hallway.
Vaughn used her debutante training as she followed the guard. Shoulders straight, head up, smile in place. She might be going down in a hail of misery, but she’d go in true deb style.
The guard nodded to Ling Mai’s private office.
Vaughn tightened her smile. Another nanosecond and it would crack. She stepped inside the office.
“Vaughn.”
Ling Mai was her normal regal self behind her desk. Calm. Poised. Looking as serene as the Ch
inese goddess Kuan Yin.
Vaughn inhaled deeply. The best defense was a good offense. Another pillow cover. “For the record,” she said, “Stone and the others acted on my directions. Any irregularities in procedure are my sole responsibility.”
“Is that so?”
How could three words sound so bland?
“Yes.”
“Then you are not giving your fellow agents much credit.” Ling Mai stood, walked around the desk and motioned for Vaughn to sit. “Nor yourself.”
What was she saying? And why couldn’t she say it straight out?
“Before you and I talk, there is someone else here to see you.”
Since only one person knew she was here, only one person could be waiting. Her father. Vaughn bit back a groan, but Ling Mai was watching her closely.
“I’m sorry,” Vaughn offered.
“For?”
“For bringing my personal life into the Agency. For causing you and the team problems.”
“That is what we deal with every day, Vaughn. Problems. It is our specialty.”
“But he has no right to threaten you.”
“Do I appear threatened?”
“No. But then you never do.”
Ling Mai laughed. “We shall talk later. But before I leave, let me assure you that, if you had let me continue the other day, I could have reassured you that I do not take kindly to blackmail.”
She left before Vaughn could find any words.
Her father entered the room, no less forceful than before. But something was different. What, she couldn’t put her finger on, but something.
She waited, refusing to rise from the chair though the need to pace was great.
“Father.”
“Vaughn.”
Well, that was pleasant.
Her father crossed to the desk but remained standing. He cleared his throat before speaking. “They have not yet found Golumokoff’s body. The lake is particularly deep there.”
“Have they located his car?”
“Yes. And the control was in it. But no sign yet of Golumokoff.”
She had been there. No way could anyone have survived that crash. No way.
