by Misty Evans
Flynn nodded a reassurance. “I assumed as much. Lawson has never taken a life without necessity. I'm glad I sent him along to cover your backside. I didn't need a dead officer on my hands."
Her stomach kicked. She saw the truth in his eyes before he looked away. Tasted betrayal in her mouth. “You never believed I could pull this off, did you?"
Christian stepped forward. “Perhaps we should continue this discussion inside."
Flynn ignored him and stepped closer to Zara so the two of them were face-to-face. “I believe you are quite capable of nailing Dmitri's ass to the wall, but not without causing a whole lot of other"—he searched for the right word—"issues."
"Issues?” She fought to control the shaking inside her. “What issues?"
"Look, I was just as crazy and headstrong as you when I started out, but I was also lucky I didn't get my head blown off. You take chances that would make Green Berets piss their pants. That can be good or bad. I enlisted Vaughn to be your partner to keep you from doing something completely stupid in your quest to find Dmitri and getting yourself killed. I have plans for you."
She took a deep breath and a step back. Anger boiled inside her, but being Flynn's star pupil, she was very adept at keeping a lid on it. “Lawson's not here right now, but he'll be back soon."
"Where is he?” Annette asked.
"He's following up on a lead."
Frowning, Flynn glanced at his watch. “He was ordered to stay out of sight.” He shook his head in disgust. “He's the one I expected would follow orders."
Unlike me. Zara straightened her spine, her instinct to defend Lawson kicking in again. She knew Lawson would laugh at her for trying to protect him. “He may not always follow your orders, Director, but he does get the job done."
The corner of Flynn's mouth turned up. His previous irritation with her disappeared. “If I didn't know better, I'd think you had a soft spot for my contractor, Agent Morgan."
Annette cleared her throat and looked away. “I need Lawson's notebook computer. Is it in his room?"
Delude, distract, deceive. Without taking her focus from Flynn, Zara answered Annette, “He took it with him."
"How about tea?” Christian said from behind them. “I'll have Marie brew some right up and bring it to the drawing room."
Zara lowered her voice and glared at Flynn. “I don't have soft spots, Director."
* * * *
Betrayal was a virus that seeped into your blood, tainting it cell by cell. It was a jailor imprisoning your heart one bar at a time. Flynn had once told Zara she could only be truly betrayed by someone she loved.
He was right.
Two minutes before midnight, she sat alone in Christian's library, trying to keep her mind off her partner. He should have been back hours ago, but she'd already learned that Lawson didn't operate according to any set timetable. If he were on the trail of the terrorists, he wouldn't remember his promise to be back before dark. He wouldn't care she was sick with worry or angry as hell. He was working. End of story.
She would have been the same way, she told herself, if she were the one doing surveillance instead of sitting there doing nothing.
"Here it is, love.” Christian came in holding Lawson's laptop. “I was afraid that nasty Annette would sneak off and search his room. I hid it while Marie was serving tea just in case."
"Thanks,” Zara said.
She opened the computer on the desk and inserted a flash drive into the USB port while she waited for the opening screen to appear. When it did, it asked her for a password.
While she tried to be mad at Lawson for convincing her to stay behind, she was just plain mad at herself. That wouldn't stop her from punching him in the stomach when he walked in the door for making her worry. For leaving her behind to deal with Flynn.
PEGASUS, she typed in the box.
Access denied.
RESCUE.
Denied again.
Lawson wasn't a spy. He wasn't a computer tech. He wasn't transporting any top-secret information on his laptop. Surely he hadn't used an encrypted password or anything too difficult to break.
She continued to play around with combinations of words and numbers she'd gleaned from his personnel file. His birthdate. His social security number. Nine-eleven.
Nine-eleven. She sat forward and typed, DAVID911.
Bingo.
Director Flynn and Annette had briefed her on the Paris fallout before they left to return to the U.S. Embassy there. Because tensions between America and France were already so strained, Flynn had insisted Zara and Lawson call it quits on the mission and return to the States before the two of them ended up in a Paris jail. He was doing all he could to smooth things over, but with the French, there were no guarantees. Even though two of the people Lawson had killed were known members of the Italian Mafia and high on the FI's Most Wanted list, there were still questions that had to be answered, actions to be accounted for.
"I can't protect you here,” Flynn had told her. “Get back on U.S. soil so I can."
Zara didn't want his protection. She was close to finding Dmitri, and she'd argued with Flynn for over an hour about it. Unrelenting, he refused to give into her arguments. As soon as Lawson reappeared, they were to contact Flynn and he would have Annette personally accompany them back to the States.
Zara didn't know if Lawson would quit just because Flynn had told him to—he was a soldier and Flynn had picked him because he was good at following orders as well as tracking down missing people—but there was no way Zara was calling off the mission.
As the laptop downloaded Dmitri's and Vos Loo's files to the flash drive, she laid her head against the ornamental back of Christian's office chair. She would not quit looking for Dmitri even if Lawson did. Alexandrov Dmitri had to be stopped before he hurt more innocent people.
Even if it meant losing her job, she would do whatever it took to bring his illegal and immoral career to an end.
With or without Lawson's help.
Or Flynn's permission.
No retreat. No surrender.
From the start of her career, Zara had known the reason she excelled at operations. It wasn't something that could be measured by the Myers-Briggs personality test or labeled by personnel on her résumé. It had nothing to do with skills like language proficiency or accuracy with small arms.
The thing that made Zara good at her job was an intangible, mysterious and dangerous commodity. It was the one thing Conrad Flynn recognized in her that others didn't, why he'd selected her from a dozen equally qualified candidates to be one of his army. It was the same commodity terrorists, criminals and even saints and disciples traded on a daily basis.
The will to betray.
Because she had studied it, taken it into her body as well as her mind and absorbed its properties, she knew betrayal like she knew her own skin. She'd breathed it, cried it and fought it, until finally accepting it as a part of life. Her life.
When the flashdrive light went off, Zara removed it and slid it inside her bra. She clicked on Lawson's email files and scanned the subject headings. Only one caught her eye. Ding Dongs and Dom. Like most of the emails, it was from Del.
She'd figured out Lawson had read her classified personnel file. She'd read his, too, thanks to Annette. However, at the moment, the additional deceit sat like a brick in her stomach. She picked up the new cell phone Flynn had given her and IM'd Del.
I've composed an email to DO re Ding Dongs and Dom security breach. Suggest you turn in your resignation before I hit send.
She gave him a few minutes, knowing he might be away from his desk getting a fresh Diet Coke or attending a meeting.
A reply came faster than she expected.
Down on knees, begging forgiveness. Please don't send. What can I do to counter? Provide you with equal file?
Del knew how the game was played. What he didn't know was the classified file he sent Lawson was a dummy. Flynn had created it. Ninety-nine percent of it was accura
te. The only thing missing was Zara's specialized training.
Just tell me why Commander wanted it.
The pause was lengthy, and she grew impatient. My finger is hovering over the send key.
Okay, okay. Official reason—he didn't trust you.
That was no surprise. Zara typed back, Unofficial reason?
Del's response was quick this time. He's a man.
The answer almost seemed cryptic but Zara knew better. All men seemed to want the same thing from her. He wanted to sleep with me?
A beautiful, sexy intelligence officer ... don't we all?
Del's stab at humor left Zara cold. She logged off and set the phone down with shaking fingers.
"What is it?” Christian asked from the other side of the desk. “What did you find out?"
The only person who can truly betray you is someone you love. “Nothing,” she told him as she shut the laptop.
Flynn had sent Lawson along to babysit her. Lawson had lied to her and had planned to seduce her all along. The distracting happiness she'd experienced earlier in the day vanished as if it had never existed. Without any effort, her mind slid into a dark, familiar place.
She would prove to everyone she was capable of stopping a terrorist all by herself.
"What are you going to do?” Christian asked as she rose from his chair and slipped her cell phone into her back pocket.
She didn't bother picking up the laptop. “I'm going to bed."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lawson reached for Zara even before he came fully awake. She wasn't there.
The whole time he'd been staking out Dmitri, he'd been thinking about her. About her husky laughter and her liberal politics and the way her muscles moved under her skin when she made love to him. About the way her eyes lit up when she was mad. About the way she curled into him when she slept.
By the time he'd finally made it back to Villa Bernier, he'd morphed into a man possessed. He hadn't been able to get her out of his head the whole time he was away and the only thing he wanted when he drove through Christian's gated entrance was to hear her say his name right before he took her to his bed and ravished her.
But she hadn't been waiting up for him and she wasn't in his bed. He'd taken the steps to the Tower Room two at a time, irrational fear making his stomach churn.
When he found her sleeping between the sheets of her own bed, relief brought him up short. He'd stripped down to his underwear and climbed in next to her, his first thought to wake her and satisfy the need building inside of him all day. But she was sleeping so good he didn't have the heart to disturb her. Exhausted from his own day, he pulled her against his body and was content just to close his eyes and listen to her breathe as he too drifted off to sleep.
Rolling over, he looked around the room through the gray morning light. She sat in the shadow of the miniature chest of drawers, her back to the wall.
"What are you doing over there?” he asked softly.
"Deciding whether or not to cut your balls off."
Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He knew she wouldn't be happy with him this morning. “I'm sorry I didn't get back sooner last night, but I found Dmitri. Annette was right. He's camped thirty-six miles southeast of here, across the Rhône in a big estate like this one. Looks like he and Vos Loo are in business already. A truck carrying a shipment of what I think was munitions pulled in around seven o'clock last night. Two hours later, it left again, heading toward Geneva."
He shifted, stretching his arms and yawning. He was so damned tired. When he got back to the States he was going to sleep for twenty-four hours straight. “I'll send the pictures I took of the estate and the truck to Del. We'll see what he digs up for us and then we'll do surveillance tonight. I want pictures of Dmitri and all his friends before I sic Flynn on them."
Zara didn't say anything, just sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. Lawson slid off the bed and walked the two steps over to her. The marble tiles were cool under his feet. Bending down, he put his face close to hers, but she wouldn't look at him as she fiddled with her gold bracelet.
He touched her cheek. “What's wrong, Z?"
She pulled away from his hand. “Director Flynn was here last night."
Lawson dropped his hand and rested his forearms on his bent knees. “Here? At the Villa?"
"He ordered us to quit the assignment and return to America. He says we'll end up in a French prison and then he'll have to wash his hands of us."
Lawson mulled the situation over in his mind. He understood the orders and Flynn's concern. He also understood what that meant to Zara. “I'll talk to Flynn. See if I can get him to give us a few more days."
"And if he doesn't?"
"I'll figure something out."
She was quiet for a moment, staring out the window. “I need to know something from you."
The tone of her voice, her delivery, made the spot between Lawson's shoulder blades twinge. “All right."
"At the airport you told me Director Flynn had the utmost confidence in me."
Lawson thought back to the airport discussion. “When Flynn recruited me to be your partner, he insisted you are one of his best field operatives."
"He recruited you to be my partner because he wanted you to babysit me. This is a test to see if I can do my job without doing something stupid like the farmhouse incident.” She took a deep breath and toyed with the bracelet again. “What I want to know is what did Flynn promise you to get you to take this job?"
Lawson rocked back on his heels. “Do you really think I would take you on as a partner if I didn't believe you were key to the success of this mission?"
She studied him as if she were trying to read his mind. “Honestly, Lawson, I don't know what to believe. I have no doubt you could have handled this assignment just fine without me. You're like a one-man army. On the other hand, after all that's happened between us, I want to believe you at least wanted me for a partner, and I don't mean in bed."
For years while his comrades trained for combat search-and-destroy missions, Lawson and a handful of others trained for search-and-rescue missions. From the time he'd entered the Navy, it was the only thing he ever wanted to do. Help others.
Now when he looked into Zara's eyes, he realized she had the same need. She wanted to know she was helping him, helping the CIA and the United States, stop a couple of no-good terrorists.
It was something he admired, and so he told her the truth. “Flynn didn't promise me anything to get me to take this job. He said it could open some doors for me down the road, but I only took that to mean if I completed the mission successfully, he would send me on similar missions again. I never took it as a bribe to be your partner, and I don't believe Flynn meant it that way. Besides, I'm the one who's in trouble on this mission, Z. I'm the one who's got the French crawling up Flynn's backside. You saved me this round."
She stayed silent. He was missing something, he just didn't know what. “You put me on the right track looking for Vos Loo instead of Dmitri,” he said. “You told me not to trust the woman I believed was Yvette and you were right. You found the getaway car and you had the sense to bring us here to Villa Bernier.” He reached his hand out and touched her fingers with his own. “You're smart and gutsy and a damn fine operative."
The room lightened while she considered him and his words. “I'm ignoring Flynn's orders for now too, but I'm warning you. Regardless of whether he gives us a few more days of grace or not, you get in my way or try to stop me and I'll cut your balls off."
She was serious and Lawson knew it. The wild, reckless, pampered rich girl playing at spy was gone. In her place, a pissed-off woman.
"I'll remember that."
Taking a chance, he ran his thumb over the top of her hand and forced himself to ask the question he knew he should avoid but couldn't. “Regrets about our night together?"
Zara didn
't hesitate. Didn't even blink. “No."
Thank you, Jesus. Standing up, he pulled her to her feet. The satin of her nightgown brushed against his chest and belly as he wrapped her in his arms.
His morning erection hardened a little more as he held her against his chest. “Let's go back to bed."
Her body stiffened and she pushed against his chest, shaking her head. “You go back to bed. I'm ... dancing this morning."
He glanced at his watch, still on his wrist. “It isn't even six a.m. yet. Dance later."
Tiny lines bracketed her lips as she frowned. “I need to clear my head."
She pivoted away and opened a drawer in the dresser, grabbing some clothes. Throwing them on the bed, she turned her back to him and removed her nightgown.
He stood by the bed, appreciating the view of her naked body but irritated she was leaving. Watching her clipped movements as she pulled on a black leotard and matching leg warmers, he realized she may not have regretted having sex with him, but she was still unsure how she felt about being his partner.
She twisted her hair, clipped it to her head and grabbed a pair of ballet shoes out of the armoire. “I'll be in the studio. Come get me when you're ready to work."
She left him standing in the middle of the room. No parting smile. No goodbye, I'll-see-you-later kiss. Yep, she was still mad.
Rubbing his eyes, he flopped back on the bed and threw the pastel comforter down to the end. The best thing for him to do was let her go. Let her work through her emotions about their relationship. He could get some much-needed sleep and then they could talk again later.
He closed his eyes and threw his arm over his face to block the light now coming in the window. After five minutes, he rolled over onto his stomach, beating his fists into the pillow to rearrange it. The scent of Zara's hair engulfed him.
Swearing, he purposely made his brain think of boring stuff ... complex fractions, running a mental exercise of packing a parachute properly. Finally, he dozed off, but even in sleep, she tormented him. In his dream she was running away from him, looking over her shoulder with that determined expression on her face before she was swallowed up in a group of people. He called to her, screamed her name, as he tried to plow through the crowd, but she was lost to him.
