by Bruhns, Nina
Not his business. Besides, they’d assigned her to Istanbul, so she must be able to look after herself. As long as she didn’t compromise his mission or need rescuing, Marc didn’t care what she looked like. He shrugged, dismissing the girl and the subject.
They weren’t here at the Dumani embassy decked out in penguin suits to pick up women. They had a job to do. And Quinn was a pro. He wouldn’t get distracted. If he did, he could do the foutre rescuing.
CIA had brought in STORM to help on this dash-and-grab for the deniability factor. Strategic Technical Operations and Rescue Missions Corporation—STORM Corps—was a nongovernmental spec ops outfit that hired out to private companies and individuals, mainly to recover and defend hostages and other assets. But they were often used to carry out sensitive or controversial covert ops in locations and situations where official government agencies couldn’t or wouldn’t go.
Such as this one.
Upstairs on the third floor of the Dumani embassy was a safe containing an envelope with new identity papers for Jallil Abu Bakr and Abbas Tawhid, the two men suspected of being the driving force behind al Sayika, one of the worst terrorist organizations to burst onto the international scene since al Qaeda. Last year alone, al Sayika cells had blown up the Dutch stock exchange, poisoned a Jordanian prince actively advocating for equal rights for women within Islam, and murdered a French National Police commander for clamping down on the race riots in the Paris banlieux. Just as fanatical as bin Laden, and far more sophisticated in his long-term planning, abu Bakr and Tawhid were up there on everyone’s Most Wanted list, right under their fuckbuddy.
Tonight Marc and Quinn were to get to the embassy safe, open it, and photo-digitize the duo’s documents without making a ripple. That last part was vital. No one could know the safe had been breached. abu Bakr was an enigma; no living Western agent had ever seen his face. Abbas Tawhid was a cruel, ruthless sociopath who had risen through the ranks through sheer brutality. His face was well known but the aliases he traveled under were not. Getting their hands on these identity papers would be huge. The information they contained would insure the two would be caught and al Sayika’s growing power in the terrorist world stopped before it gained any more momentum.
CIA Barbie—aka Darcy Zimmerman—was supposed to pass them the combination to the safe—obtained from an enterprising embassy cleaning lady who’d gotten the deal of a lifetime, compliments of the US taxpayers.
Marc wondered how Zimmerman had managed that coup, especially looking like she did. Frankly, he’d been expecting their contact to be a short, frumpy fortysomething old-maid type with no makeup and sensible shoes. But tall, golden blond and model-gorgeous Darcy Zimmerman broke the mold on all counts. The Company must be raising their standards.
Speak of the devil. Zimmerman was coming toward them on the arm of the Dumani agricultural attaché. She laughed at something the old roué said in her ear—he had to go practically on tiptoes—just as she spotted them.
“There you are!” she called with a cheerful wave, as if they’d actually met before. “I thought you two had left without me!”
Without missing a beat, she answered Quinn’s welcoming smile with one of her own and slid into his arms for a hug, kissing him on the cheeks, Euro style. “Darling, meet Sheikh Asood.” She introduced them, using code names they’d been given for the op.
She was smooth; Marc had to give her that.
And so was Quinn. One smarmy smile and he ended up as the boyfriend, le tayau. Not that Marc was particularly interested. Bon, she was beautiful, but definitely not his type. He preferred women who had nothing to do with the world he worked in. And unlike Quinn, he never mixed business and pleasure.
As they made meaningless chitchat with Asood, Marc studied what he could see of the embassy’s structure. He knew from blueprints supplied by STORM that the building was an old converted Ottoman palace. Complex mosaic dé cor adorned the carved stucco walls and high ceilings; intricate marble arches and gilded scrollwork were everywhere, the perfect backdrop to the luxurious furnishings, rugs, and tapestries. Pretty impressive stuff.
The good news was because of the palace’s age and historical value, very little renovation had taken place inside—including even the most rudimentary security features. No cameras, alarms, or motion detectors. The bad news was, guards had been liberally sprinkled around the main stair-cases. It would be tricky getting past them.
“Shall we visit the buffet?” Zimmerman suggested, looping her wrists around each of their elbows after Asood saw which way the wind blew and moved on.
“I’m Quinn, by the way,” Bobby Lee said, pulling her closer to his side than was strictly necessary.
She smiled up at him. “Yeah. I know. You guys ready for this?”
“You’ve got the combination?” Marc asked, trying to move things along as they casually strolled from the salon toward the opulent dining room. They had to wade through three smaller rooms crushed with people to reach it. He instinctively scanned faces and body language, looking for anything suspicious. So far, so good.
“Just follow my lead,” she said.
They grabbed plates and selected a few morsels from the overflowing buffet table, slowly making their way down the line. She obviously had a plan, so he and Quinn just went along, ready for anything. Marc already had a plan, but what was he going to do about it, stamp his foot and demand his was better? Besides, maybe his wasn’t better. Semper Gumby.
“How do you like Istanbul so far?” he asked Zimmerman, to fill the silence. Ah, merde. She and Quinn were already making goo-goo eyes at each other over the hors de oeuvres. Marc barely resisted rolling his own. Get a room. Please. After the op.
“Amazing place,” she answered, still looking at Quinn. “Gorgeous city.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” Quinn asked. “Being a young woman alone and all. Dangerous place, Istanbul.”
She gave him a dazzling smile. “Worried about me?”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen.”
Not until he got her back to his hotel room, anyway.
Bon Dieu.
She reached up and touched Quinn’s chin with a finger. “Hell, no fun in that.”
Marc was just about to clear his throat and suggest getting back to business when she winked at him and suddenly melted back through an arched opening he recalled seeing on the blueprints. Hidden by a beaded screen, it blended in perfectly with the line of marble arches marching along the back wall of the room. But this one opened discretely into a darkened hallway leading to the kitchens in the back.
She’d timed her exit to exactly when the guard was looking the other way, distracted by a serving spoon clattering onto the marble floor like a firecracker. A setup?
Well, damn. Not bad. Marc slipped through after her, followed by Quinn.
She deposited her plate on a cart sitting in the shadows and they quickly did the same. She beckoned, hurrying down the hall until they reached a narrow flight of stairs.
“This is the servants’ staircase,” she whispered. “It goes all the way up. You know where the safe is hidden, right?” She glanced between the two of them, her gaze finally landing on Marc.
“Third floor. Second office, east wing,” he recited.
“Exactly. Here.” From a low hall table drawer she produced a red-patterned kaffiyeh scarf of the type worn by the Saudi-aligned Arabs, along with the distinctive bronze knotted agal of the Dumani security guards to hold it in place. “You’ll blend in better than Quinn,” she said.
Considering Quinn had short, golden-blond hair and striking blue eyes reminiscent of an Alaskan Husky in the dead of winter, and Marc was typical Cajun dark, yeah, you think?
“I’m also lead on this one,” he informed her dryly.
“Pretend you’re a guard,” she said, ignoring the gentle barb. “You speak Arabic, right?”
He nodded. “Some.”
“Good. However, there’s been a complication.”
“The stairs between the second and third floors were varnished today,” she said. “They’re still wet.”
Which meant he’d leave permanent footprints. Yeah, mal pris. Not good.
“What?” Quinn exploded under his breath, his face clouding with anger. “Why didn’t you tell us this in the—”
“It’ll still work,” she insisted to Marc. “You’ll just have to come around to the front staircase and sneak past the guards to get to the other wing. There’s an old harim staircase that leads up to the third floor.”
They already knew that, but had dismissed it as unnecessarily dangerous. The staircase spilled out into the ambassador’s private quarters rather than the hallway. Foutre.
Quinn looked ready to strangle her. “And how the fuck is he supposed get by the guards without being—”
“He’ll look like one of them. And you and I will create a diversion,” she said impatiently, then turned back to Marc. “Just be in position and ready to roll in five, okay?”
It sounded crazy. But crazy had worked before.
“What the hell.” He grabbed the kaffiyeh from her and wound it expertly around his head and shoulders. What was the worst that could happen? Firing squad at dawn? No big deal. Standard occupational hazard.
“Safe combination?” he asked.
She rattled it off and he committed it to memory. To his surprise, she reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, too. “Good luck.” Then she was off, hurrying back toward the dining room.
Quinn shook his head, obviously not pleased. “Still time to call it off, buddy. Or switch back to our own plan.”
“No worries, boug. But that diversion? Make it a good one. Anything goes wrong, see you back at the rendezvous point.”
“Sure. Right after I kill that chick.”
GRINDING his teeth, Robert Lee Quinn strode double-time after the CIA babe. This thing had clusterfuck written all over it.
Well, what did he expect from the Company? And here he’d had visions of trying to establish closer relations between their two organizations. . . . Much closer.
He snorted silently and followed her back through the beaded screen into the dining room. Darcy Zimmerman was hot as a Tuscaloosa afternoon in July, but if her lack of seasoning and preparedness got his friend killed—
Bobby Lee had worked with the Cajun Lafayette off and on over his six years at STORM, and liked him a lot. Marc was the kind of man who expected the best from people and usually got it. Like now, for instance. What planet did he live on to think this plan could actually work?
The long strands of beads clicked closed behind Bobby Lee and to his momentary surprise, Darcy Zimmerman greeted him with an “accidental” brush of her lush body as they rejoined the buffet line. He had to white-knuckle the plate in his hands so he didn’t drop it. The under-the-lashes look she gave him was pure, unadulterated walking sex. She’d even managed to mess up her hair so it looked like he’d had his fingers in it just seconds ago.
Well, okay, then.
He readjusted his thinking. This part of her plan worked just fine for him, at least.
He’d caught on immediately, of course. They’d just slipped back from a steamy tryst in the hallway, which explained their sudden emergence from an off-limits area. The guard by the archway was shocked to see them. But at that sizzling look from Zimmerman, he gave them a salacious grin and let it go. Bobby Lee waggled his eyebrows.
Just call him Stud Lee.
His plate suddenly disappeared from his hands, and he found himself being steered through the crowd toward the front foyer with just enough casualness not to attract attention. But that full body contact had already gotten his unwavering attention.
And God, that dress.
The floor-length gown she wore was a true work of art. Blue like the Prophet’s paradise, slinky like pearls running through your fingers, and without straps or any visible means of staying up, it hugged her curves like a man begging for more. And just about any man in the place would be begging for more, given half a chance. Including him. Hell, especially him. His breath was virtually backed up in his lungs waiting for her drapey blue bodice to come sliding down off her breasts. Her very amazing breasts. Full, ripe breasts that were pert and high and just the right size. Breasts a man could lose himself in completely.
Maybe CIA wasn’t so stupid after all. Talk about Mata Hari potential.
And okay, this diversion thing might work. It could happen.
They got to the foyer and he tore his eyes off her long enough to do a quick survey. The evening was still early, but a few departing diplomats and their companions milled around to depart, waiting for limos to be fetched by chauffeurs.
He checked out the room itself. Despite having no furniture and no function beyond serving as the main entrance to the old palace, the massive octagonal gold-and-marble foyer was bigger than the whole stinkin’ house Bobby Lee had grown up in. Which admittedly wasn’t tough, since that had been a two-room backwoods shanty. Unlike that bad memory, this space was all done up fancier than a whore’s wedding cake with a series of deep, fussy alcoves around the perimeter that contained giant potted palm trees and aromatic flowering shrubs. The place smelled like jasmine and oranges.
Or was that Darcy Zimmerman?
She looped her arm through his and tilted her head a fraction toward the centerpiece of the foyer, the grand staircase that ascended like a gilded stairway to heaven. The one Lafayette would have to get across at the second floor landing—past three armed guards—and reach the other side unseen before continuing up the harim stairs to the floor where the safe was located. Those guards looked big, mean, and no-nonsense, dressed in traditional Arab garb, complete with flashing scimitars hanging at their sides. Oh, yeah, and AK-47s.
This could get ugly.
“All right. Now what?” he asked under his breath, speaking into Zimmerman’s cloud of golden hair.
He was six-four but he didn’t even have to bend over. Man, she was tall in those heels. And she smelled damn good, he couldn’t help but notice as she tipped up her face up to answer. Not jasmine and oranges, but some exotic blend of—
“You carrying a condom in any of those pockets?” she murmured, taking hold of his tux lapels and easing into him like a lover. Her fingers started to trail south.
Whoa. Hold on, there. What? “Um—” What the fuck did she just say?
Not that he wasn’t all over it.
“Just in case you want to forget about the op and go back to my place,” she added with an amused wink.
He felt his lips curve up. Very funny, ha-ha. Okay, she’d focused his wandering attention. But she obviously had no idea she was playing with fire here.
Far be it for him to warn her. Where there was smoke, fire wasn’t far behind. And the woman was insanely smokin’ hot.
Distraction? He’d give her a stinkin’ distraction.
He put his hands on her waist and leisurely ran them over her hips and down onto her ass. Like her lover might. He held her gaze as he gathered her in his arms and ground her into him. Yeah, him. Center to center. Right where he was dying to have her.
The room’s chatter suddenly dropped to whispers—some giggling, some disapproving—and he knew without a doubt that every person in the foyer was watching them.
He tilted his head down again, murmuring, “There’s no ‘just in case’ about it, sugar. Later, you’re all mine.”
Her eyes widened, as though his calling her bluff caught her slightly off guard. Hardly surprising. She was a real firecracker. Probably most men she’d encountered out in the world either wilted like a linen suit in all that heat, or turned tail and ran screaming from her kind of strength and audacity.
Him, it just turned on all the more. He liked a woman to be his equal. Which she most assuredly was.
Ignoring everything and everyone around them, he leaned down and languidly trailed hot breath over her cheek, down to her lips. She gasped softly as he covered them with his. And kissed her. Like he had every intention of following through on his threat, but right then and there.
This was highly inappropriate behavior for an embassy party, especially with a Muslim country as host. He figured that outrageous kiss would earn him a resounding slap on the cheek. As part of the diversion, of course.
But somewhere along the line his bold strategy backfired. Because she kissed him back. Like she had every intention of taking him up on that little dare.
Christ on a fuckin’ cracker.
From the second his tongue touched hers he was hard as the marble columns that surrounded them. Sweet mercy, she tasted good.
But he couldn’t. Not here. Not now. The guards, he reminded himself. Distract them, not himself.
He grasped her head in his hands and managed a glance upward at the second floor landing as he changed the angle of the kiss. At least it was working. The three Dumanis were stunned by the sight of a beautiful woman’s very public kiss with a man obviously not her husband.
Bobby Lee caught a glimpse of Marc taking a careful step out from the shadows of the east wing hallway.
This was it.
He needed to be absolutely sure those guards would stay distracted, shocked motionless, so absorbed by what he and Zimmerman were doing that Marc could glide past their backs in perfect safety.
And that was the only reason he spun her around and walked her backwards one deliberate step at a time, kissing her to within an inch of her life. Honestly it was.
He aimed for the short wall between two of those fancy archways, and kept going until her backside hit mosaic tile. Which finally roused her. She jerked out of his arms, took a second to regroup, then shoved him away with an embarrassed giggle, playing the enamored junior embassy staffer belatedly trying to salvage her job. “Darling, stop! People are staring!”
But her eyes said, “Just wait till I get you alone, boy.”
Real, or part of the charade?
