Seduced by the Operative

by Merline Lovelace

  “Prague? Why?”

  “I’ve been trying to track down an old document that describes dreams such as the ones Stacy’s been having. We haven’t found the document itself, but we have located the priest who wrote it. He’s now a cardinal and holds the title of Archbishop of Prague, although age and ill health may dictate his retirement from that post any day.”

  “Can you not just call or e-mail him to request a copy?”

  “I tried that. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a copy in his possession. The priest who serves as his executive assistant indicated his eminence would be willing to speak with me about it—if I caught him on one of his good days.”

  A sliver of moon drifted through the trees lining the street. Their footsteps echoed on the pavement. Flicking an ash from the tip of his pencil-thin cigar, Luis took Claire’s arm to guide her over a patch of cobblestones laid in the eighteenth century.

  They’d just reached the stairs leading up to Claire’s front door when a figure dressed in black lunged out of the shadows.

  Chapter 4

  Claire’s years as a field operative had honed her reflexes to a razor’s edge. Luis’s were every bit as quick, but their attacker had the advantage of surprise. Before either of them could do more than twist toward the source of the threat, he had a fist in Claire’s hair and a knife to her jugular.

  “Don’t do it!” he snarled at Luis. “I’ll cut her throat!”

  Luis caught himself in mid-lunge. By sheer force of will, he aborted the counterassault.

  All his training and years of experience coalesced into this moment, this instant. In the space of a single heartbeat, he assessed the situation.

  It didn’t take longer than that instant to know the subcompact Glock strapped to his ankle was useless. Every defense expert in the world emphasized that a knife to the throat was the most dangerous and difficult attack to defeat. Conventional wisdom said to go along with the attacker, placate him, do nothing to provoke him into slashing his blade from right to left.

  Luis had no choice but to follow that route. One flick of the mugger’s wrist, one misstep on Luis’s part, and Claire would bleed to death before his eyes.

  “What do you want?” he bit out, forcing himself to catalog the few features visible through the mugger’s black ski mask.

  “What do think I want? Empty your pockets. Put everything in your woman’s purse. Throw it to him, bitch. Now!”

  With her head tilted back at an awkward angle, Claire shrugged off her shoulder bag and made a clumsy toss. Luis caught it and dropped his billfold inside.

  “That gold watch, too.”

  His Rolex joined his wallet.

  “Stretch out your arm and pass the purse back to your woman.”

  Her throat exposed to the gleaming blade, Claire retrieved the shoulder bag.

  This was the decision point. She knew it. Luis knew it. Their eyes locked in an instant of raw communication. If all the mugger intended was robbery, he’d grab the purse, shove Claire at Luis and take off. Or try to.

  If he didn’t…

  Claire’s eyes telegraphed an unmistakable signal. She’d planned her move. The knowledge stopped Luis’s heart dead in his chest.

  For another half second, the issue hung in the balance. Then the mugger bent his head and whispered something in her ear.

  That was the moment, the slight distraction, Claire had been waiting for. In a move so swift it caught her attacker by complete surprise, she thrust her chin to the side and wedged it between her throat and the hand holding the knife. In the same instant, she shot her fist through the narrow angle opened by the wedge. The thrust widened the opening and gave her just enough space to duck under his arm.

  Her elbow locked in his, she twisted down, around and up again. Speed and momentum gave her the leverage to yank him with her, bending him almost double in the process.

  Luis moved with equal speed. In one swift chop, he brought the edge of his hand slicing down. He’d delivered the same blow countless times before. This time, the target turned his head at precisely the wrong instant.

  Instead of slamming into the back of his neck, the lethal karate chop crushed his windpipe. The mugger gave a low, strangled gurgle and crumpled. Twitching and gagging, he clawed at his throat.

  Claire tried to aid him. Cursing, she dropped to her knees and rolled him over, but there was nothing she could do for him. Even before he flopped onto his back, his eyes had rolled up in his head and his hands had dropped to his side.

  “He’s dead,” she confirmed after searching for a pulse.

  She was her cool, controlled self. Luis’s adrenaline still pumped like a fire hose. He didn’t feel a shred of remorse or guilt. Any thug who held a knife to a woman’s throat deserved what he got. Particularly his woman’s throat.

  Hunkering down, he pulled off the ski mask. He expected to find a young street tough under the knit mask, but the face that stared blankly up at the night sky belonged to a man in his mid to late thirties.

  Frowning, Luis draped a forearm across his knee. The smooth-shaven face and close-cropped hair didn’t fit the typical thug. Nor did the clothes. Pleated black slacks, black turtleneck, black gloves. This was no mugger taking a target of opportunity. This was a planned hit.

  When Luis pushed to his feet, Claire keyed 911 on her cell phone. She relayed her name, location and the nature of the emergency. She also confirmed she and her companion were unharmed, but their attacker was dead.

  “What did this one whisper to you?” Luis asked when she hung up.

  She hooked a loose strand behind her ear, her brow knitting. “He said this time was a warning. That’d I’d better back off.”

  “Back off? From what?”

  “I didn’t wait to hear. I knew I had to take advantage of that instant of distraction to counter his attack.”

  “Which was beyond foolish, Claire!”

  The emotions Luis had held so savagely in check during the attack broke free.

  “If this one came to issue a warning, he did not intend to kill you! You should have waited, let him make his next move. You must know how dangerous that countermove was.”

  “Yes,” she replied with a lift of one delicately arched brow, “I do.”

  “Madre de dios!”

  Luis had to remind himself she was a trained agent. He’d witnessed her skills in the field. But to see that blade beneath her chin…To know one flick of the wrist, one slice…He never wanted to feel such terror again.

  The distant wail of sirens broke into his chaotic thoughts. Within moments, he and Claire were involved in the complicated business of death.

  The first responders were uniformed police officers. They were followed in short order by a crime scene unit, two homicide detectives and representatives from the county medical examiner’s office.

  Luis’s diplomatic status added another layer to the process. The responding officers barely suppressed a groan at the prospect of the paperwork connected to an incident involving a credentialed ambassador. The evidence pointed so clearly to self-defense, however, that the homicide detectives who assessed the scene merely took his statement and said they’d get in touch with him if they needed further information. What interested them more was the deceased’s whispered warning to Claire and the fact that he carried no ID of any kind.

  “The guy was a pro,” the lead detective mused as the body was loaded into the meat wagon. “Sounds like robbery was a secondary motive for the attack. You say he didn’t indicate what he wanted you to back away from, Dr. Cantwell?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “You working a case or a client that might have someone worried enough to hire a pro to come after you?”

  “I have more than thirty clients in varying stages of therapy. Twice that number who come for periodic follow-up. A good number are dealing with severely dysfunctional domestic or work situations.”

  Like the case she’d worked just today, she related grimly. The husband who put
his wife in the hospital was an ex-cop.

  “We’ll check him out,” Detective Waterman promised. “And anyone else in your case files you think might have reason to warn you off. In the meantime, we’ll see if the coroner can ID this character.”

  It was almost midnight by the time the crime scene unit wrapped up and the detectives finished interviewing the neighbors who’d emerged from adjoining town houses in response to the sirens and lights. Most were shocked by such a violent crime right on their doorsteps, and no one had seen or heard anything prior to the attack.

  Claire had used the interval to relay a report of the incident to OMEGA control and assure them both she and Luis were unharmed. She was beginning to feel a delayed response to the vicious attack, though, when she and Luis finally entered the serene, undisturbed sanctuary of her home.

  She didn’t communicate her sudden flutter of nerves to Luis. She didn’t have to. He’d been in enough dangerous situations to anticipate the aftereffect. One glance at her face in the bright lights of her foyer produced a terse announcement.

  “I will stay tonight.”

  He didn’t frame it as a request. Normally, a flat dictum like that would have triggered a cool response. Tonight, Claire readily acquiesced.

  “I can’t think of any more effective post-traumatic therapy for either of us than to proceed upstairs immediately and savor the hot, rich sweetness of life.”

  Amusement flickered in his dark eyes. “That, mi corazón, is the best excuse for taking you to bed I’ve heard yet.”

  They savored the sweetness twice.

  Once with Claire straddling Luis’s hips and her palms planted on the hard, muscled planes of his chest. And again the next morning, when sunbeams sifted through the plantation shutters and bathed the bedroom in soft light. Boneless and satiated, Claire lolled amid the tangled sheets while Luis showered.

  Although neither of them had so much as mentioned boundaries, she knew in her heart they’d stretched them last night. Her hair rustled on the pillow as she turned her head.

  Her gaze lingered on the photo beside the bed for long moments. They’d been so young, she and Dave. So happy. A familiar ache started just under her ribs.

  Claire stared at the photo for several more moments before tossing aside the top sheet. She took Luis’s shirt off the bedpost and slid her arms into the fine-spun cotton. The shirttails brushed her naked thighs as she lifted the heavy crystal fame.

  She would always have the memories. Nothing could erase them or the love she and Dave had shared. But it wasn’t fair to Luis to keep a reminder of that love here, where it was the first thing he saw when he rolled out of her bed. Not if he and Claire were going to take their relationship to the next level.

  She thought about what that level should entail as she went downstairs to make coffee. Barefoot and still wearing only Luis’s shirt, she carried two mugs back upstairs. She’d worked out a set of satisfactory parameters in her mind by the time Luis emerged from the shower.

  He had a towel wrapped low on his hips and used another to dry his hair. Ruefully, Claire wondered when the hell she’d regressed to the point that the mere sight of a bronzed, muscled torso and a killer smile could get her wet.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, as she handed him one of the mugs. “No reason for your whiskers to keep dulling my razor. Why don’t you bring a shaving kit to leave here.” She skimmed a hand down the wrinkled cotton. “Some shirts, too.”

  He made no attempt to disguise his reaction. The fierce satisfaction that flickered in his dark eyes prompted her to issue a caution.

  “I’m not inviting you to move in, Luis. I’m merely suggesting we redraw the boundaries.”

  He lifted a hand and bushed a knuckle down her cheek. “I know what you’re suggesting, querida. But you should know that these boundaries involve more than living arrangements. I want you to let me into your heart as well.”

  “I have,” she said quietly. “I care for you. Deeply. You know that. And I know you care for me. We wouldn’t have lasted this long if the feeling wasn’t mutual.”

  “Care for? Is that how you described your feelings for David?” His glance went to the nightstand. “Did he…?”

  He stopped. Narrowed his eyes. Swept the room.

  “The photograph.” His glance cut back to Claire. “You’ve put it away?”

  “I moved it to the living room, where I won’t see it every day. Nor will you.”

  It wasn’t the unrestrained passion Luis wanted from her, but it was a step in the right direction. A significant step. The rest would come, he vowed, and soon. He had a foot in the door now. Literally and figuratively.

  “I will bring a shaving kit and a change of clothes next time I come. Now let’s have breakfast, yes? You rouse many appetites, Claire.”

  Her cell phone rang as she extracted a copper skillet from the rack above the stove.

  She’d traded Luis’s shirt for her celery-green caftan and had dragged a quick brush through her hair but hadn’t progressed to the underwear or makeup stage yet. With a slither of silk, she dug her cell phone from her pocket and checked caller ID.

  “Sorry, Luis. It’s my answering service. I need to take it.”

  “Of course. While you do, I’ll get the newspaper.”

  “Dr. Cantwell.”

  Frowning, Claire listened while her answering service relayed several messages from concerned clients. Apparently, they’d seen a report of the attack on the early-morning news. After requesting the service to assure all callers she’d sustained no injury, she disconnected.

  “Apparently, we made the morning news,” she told Luis as he walked in with the Post.

  “Indeed we did.”

  Flipping the paper around, he displayed their photos printed side by side in the lower quadrant of the front page.

  Claire shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Even by Washington standards, a fatal incident involving a prominent psychologist and the Cartozan ambassador to the United States warrants at least passing interest. Does the story say anything about the identity of the attacker?”

  He skimmed the lead-in and flipped to page 10C. “Either the police have not ID’ed him yet or they’re withholding the identity pending notification of next of kin. I’ll call Detective Waterman later and find out what he knows.”

  Claire’s phone buzzed again while she stood behind Luis’s chair, reading the story over his shoulder.

  “Please hold for the president,” an operator requested.

  John Andrews came on the line a moment later. “I got word early this morning about the attack, Dr. Cantwell. They said you weren’t hurt, but I wanted to make sure you’re not suffering any aftereffects.”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  “And Colonel Esteban? How is he this morning?”

  She didn’t ask how the president of the United States knew the colonel was sitting across the breakfast table from her.

  They hadn’t kept their relationship a secret. More to the point, she didn’t doubt someone in the White House had already called the Cartozan embassy and discovered the ambassador had not returned to his residence last night.

  “He’s also well,” she replied, and mouthed “the president” in answer to Luis’s lifted brow.

  “I’ve got to get congress to move on the sweeping anti-crime legislation I sent to the Hill my second month in office,” Andrews said grimly. “The NRA has been lobbying behind the scenes to keep it buried in the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. Hope you don’t mind if I use you and the colonel as examples of why we as a nation have to implement drastic measures to regain control of our streets.”

  “I certainly don’t mind. I’m sure Luis won’t, either. Would you like to speak to him about it?”

  “Tell him I’ll have my people pass the request through official channels, along with my personal apologies that a member of the diplomatic corps was assaulted in our nation’s capital. That’ll put addi
tional pressure on the subcommittee to get off their collective behinds.”

  “Glad we could be of service,” Claire said dryly. “On another subject, what kind of night did Stacy have?”

  “Not good.” Frustration and worry colored the president’s reply. “The nightmare hit about five a.m. I’d already heard about the mugging, so I told Tom Fogarty not to call you.”

  Claire blew out a slow breath. She was rapidly running out of options. Judging by the ragged edge to the president’s voice, so was he.

  “I think I’d better fly to Prague and talk to the archbishop,” she told him. “Hopefully, he can help me get to the root cause of these nightmares.”

  “I’ll instruct Tom to set up transportation. When do you want to leave?”

  “This afternoon. I’ll need the rest of the morning to clear my schedule.”

  And brief Lightning. Her boss at OMEGA needed to know the situation was rapidly escalating to crisis status.

  “Any time after noon would be fine.”

  “Tom will contact you to confirm the arrangements. And Claire…?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Please tell Stacy I’ll do my damnedest to find some answers over there.”

  Before she could hang up, her cell phone signaled another call. The code that flashed across caller ID indicated it originated from OMEGA control.

  If it was anyone but Luis sitting across the table, she would have excused herself to take both this call and the last. But he’d worked a number of ops with OMEGA agents, Claire included. He knew the organization and their charter almost as well as she did.

  “This is Cyrene.”

  “Rigger here, Cyrene. Lightning asked if you could swing by sometime today.”

  “I was planning to stop in this morning. I need to give him an update on the Andrews situation. I also need to mission prep.”