Desperado

by Diana Palmer

  She smiled. “Haven’t I always?” she teased.

  He drew his fingers back. “That’s a can of worms I’m not opening tonight,” he teased. “Sleep well. Lock everything.”

  “You bet, boss!” she said brightly.

  “Oh, doesn’t that sound sweet and submissive?” he drawled. “If I didn’t know you better, I might even believe it.”

  She curtsied.

  He made a face and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

  12

  The next day, Cord and Maggie lounged around the villa, with Cord still in his disguise. Meanwhile Bojo went into the city with Cousin Ahmed for a tour of the city—but actually to do some undercover work for the mission. Both men were gone until very late.

  When Bojo returned, he went immediately into “Jorge’s” room, where Cord was lying down, Rodrigo was moving clothes from a closet to a chair and Ahmed’s determined little male servant hovered with no apparent excuse.

  “Ahmed asked me to send you to him,” Bojo told the small man, with a smile. “We are going out for the evening, and he wishes you to help him select his clothing.”

  “Sí, señor,” the little man replied, but he cast a suspicious glance at the newcomer before he closed the door.

  Immediately when he left, Cord sat up in bed and snapped a nod at Bojo, who pulled a small electronic device from his pocket in the slit at the hip of the djellaba, and began sweeping the room.

  Their worst suspicions were confirmed when the detector found two bugs, one in a table drawer beside the bed, the other in the bathroom. Both were left in place, so as not to alert the person who had placed them.

  Cord grimaced, furious. Bojo shrugged, curious as to how to proceed with a third unknown person “in” the room with them.

  Rodrigo put down the jacket he was holding and began making hand gestures. Cord’s eyes brightened. He grinned. He nodded, and replied to the gestures. Bojo was puzzled. Later, Cord would explain that Rodrigo was adept at Plains Indian sign talk, and had taught Cord once on a surveillance mission. They liked to use it to confound other mercs in their group. But now, it became a very handy tool.

  With it, Cord told Rodrigo in simple terms that he and Maggie were going to break into the offices of Global Enterprises that night while, apparently, in a fancy restaurant with Ahmed. Rodrigo and Bojo would cover for them. Rodrigo was to get out his night gear, in a hidden compartment of his suitcase, and a matching one he’d brought for Maggie. He was to get Maggie in here on some pretext so that she could don it. He was also to sweep Maggie’s rooms for bugs, not missing the one he’d told her to place beside her bed disguised as a button.

  That done, Rodrigo began speaking in lazy Spanish about the coming evening affair and what would “Jorge” like to wear. Bojo just shook his head.

  Maggie was surprised when Rodrigo requested her presence in “Cousin Jorge’s” room, but she went without asking any questions. Once the door was closed behind them, she found Cord in a skin-close black outfit of pants and long-sleeved turtleneck silk shirt, with a shoulder-holster containing the same .45 caliber automatic weapon he’d been teaching her to shoot.

  He wasn’t smiling, and he didn’t look loverlike. He was taciturn and formidable-looking. Maggie got a glimpse of the man he must be when he was on a mission, and it chilled her almost as much as the sight of the gun. He wasn’t an obviously muscular man, but in those garments, every powerful inch of him was lovingly outlined. She caught her breath at the expanse of muscle and the sheer animal magnetism that he radiated. She knew the warm strength of him intimately, knew the inexhaustible endurance of that body, and had to fight blushes as she stared at him.

  He moved forward with quick, economical steps and drew her out of view of the window to a walk-in closet. He handed her an outfit that matched his and nodded, pushing her into the closet and closing the door behind her.

  Dressing in the confines, while the men spoke of commonplace things outside the closet, was amusing and she had to try not to laugh. When she was enclosed in black silk, she opened the door and walked into the room, pulling her hair out of the neck of the shirt absently. The silence got her attention. She looked up to find three pairs of exceptionally masculine eyes helplessly drawn to her figure. Cord was almost vibrating with the exquisite desire she kindled in him. Bojo and Rodrigo were just as entranced and staring like fiends.

  Cord swatted the other two men with the tie he was just putting into place over the vested black suit he’d donned. They grinned sheepishly and made excuses about dressing, so they could leave.

  Maggie grinned at Cord. He didn’t grin back. His gaze was somber. He was wearing the white wig.

  “Por favor, niña,” he said in an imitation of Jorge’s deep voice, for the benefit of the eavesdroppers. “Could you help me with my tie? Do excuse me, but I must listen to the news. An old man’s whim!” he added amusedly, and turned up the radio.

  “Of course, Cousin Jorge,” she said, and drew close as the radio boomed in Spanish.

  “I’ll do this,” Cord said into her ear. “You’ll need to put your dress over that. Good thing you like long sleeves and skirts.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” she teased as she went back to the closet and dug out the dress she’d worn into the room. She pulled it over her head and fastened it, careful to tuck away any revealing traces of the suit under it. She glanced at Cord, whose tie was now immaculately done up, and he surveyed her narrowly and nodded.

  “We must not stay out too long,” he continued in his disguise. “I grow fatigued easily. And I fear that in a day or so, we must go home. Cord will be missing us. I do not like leaving him alone in his condition.”

  “It amazes me that he didn’t mind being left while we came here,” she added, in her role.

  “He knew, as I did, that you would love a glimpse of the real Tangier, the one the tourists never see,” he replied with a soft chuckle.

  “I am enjoying it,” she agreed with a pursing of her lips.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “As am I,” he said softly.

  The knock on the door made them start. Cord called for the person outside to come in, and the little servant entered, his black eyes everywhere as he carried a black mantilla to Maggie and placed it in her hands.

  “Señor Ahmed thought you might need this, against the chill of evening,” he told her. “Can I be of service, señor?” he added to “Jorge.”

  “No, my son,” Cord replied with a polite smile. “As you see, my young friend has sorted out the tie!”

  “Sí,” the little man replied. “You go to a late supper, yes?”

  Cord yawned. “Not so late,” he replied with a chuckle.

  “Of course! Que tienen un buen noche,” the servant added, with a bow, and left them.

  Cord drew Maggie close to whisper in her ear, “He’s thrilled. He wants time to go through our luggage!”

  “More luck to him, if he can find anything!” She giggled.

  He tweaked her hair. “Go comb your curly locks and come down to the living room.”

  “On my way,” she agreed.

  The brief ride in the car gave them no time to talk, because the driver listened carefully, though not blatantly, to every word they spoke.

  But once inside the restaurant, in the foyer where Bojo quickly and unobtrusively checked for bugs and found none, they could speak freely.

  “Just after we order,” Cord told Ahmed and Bojo, “Maggie will ask me to escort her into the garden to see the flowers and the fountain, which are famous, while we wait for the food to be prepared. We will order a special dish of mutton which takes at least forty-five minutes to prepare. That gives us a window to get to Global Enterprises, only a block away, and use Bojo’s information to get in.”

  “What about the safe?” Bojo asked.

  Cord only grinned. “If I can’t open a safe, I’m in the wrong business.”

  “Sorry,” Bojo murmured.

  “There will be security guards,” Cord add
ed. “But one of them was replaced this morning because the regular man had colic.” He contrived to look innocent of helping the man acquire it. “He’s on our payroll and will divert the other guards.” He glanced down at Maggie. “I wanted you along because you’re slender enough to fit inside an air-conditioning duct that leads down into the office. We can’t walk through the front door. And there are steel doors front and back, bolted, not electronically locked, that separate the front hall and the kitchen from the rest of the house.”

  Now she understood her role, and she grinned. “Bojo’s thin, too,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, but his presence would be missed. Yours won’t. Who would suspect you of being a secret agent?” he teased gently.

  Her eyes sparkled. “Good point.”

  “Check your watches.” He gave the minutes, the seconds, and then the signal to synchronize them.

  By that time, the waiter was ready to seat them. They followed him to a table near the double doors that led into the garden, and Maggie saw a colorful bill of large-denomination Moroccan paper money slipped from Bojo’s hand into the waiter’s. It was a very convenient location.

  They talked conversationally of Morocco and its dispute with Spain over illegal Moroccan immigrants trickling across the Straits of Gibraltar onto the Iberian Peninsula.

  “Another example of slave traffickers at work,” Ahmed said quietly. “They agree, for a price, to smuggle illegal immigrants over the Straits, and not just to relocate. Many of them are young women, children, used in prostitution. There is also a link to Amsterdam, to the district where more trafficking goes on. Our government, in conjunction with the other countries, has tried to stop it, but we have been unsuccessful.”

  “Money and power make formidable adversaries,” Cord replied. “I’ve seen it in plenty of other places, especially in Africa.”

  “Where some friends of ours were involved with Gruber, to their cost,” Bojo added darkly. “Colleagues died in a fire-fight when Gruber sold them out to the government forces.”

  “He’ll pay for it,” Cord promised darkly. “And for his other sins. He isn’t walking away again.”

  “D’accord,” Bojo agreed curtly in French.

  The waiter came and they ordered the exquisite mutton dish, exclaiming to Maggie its perfection. When the waiter left, “Jorge” offered Maggie a walk in the gardens, at the same time apologizing for his advanced age making him a barely acceptable escort for such a lovely young woman.

  She laughed and took his arm, and they strolled out through the French doors into the garden.

  Cord drew her along to the thick growth of olive trees and suddenly whisked her through a wrought-iron gate and into a hidden alcove. He ripped off his tie in the dim light from the restaurant.

  “We’ll leave our evening clothes here. Can you run in those shoes?” he added, nodding toward her feet.

  “They’re almost flat heels, and rubber-soled,” she assured him. “I can keep up.”

  “Good girl. Ready?” He pulled the .45 from his holster, checked it, cocked it, put on the safety, and replaced it. That was when she noticed the thin leather sheath under his other arm on a holster. It contained a knife.

  She didn’t dare react to these tools of the trade, but she hoped against hope that she wasn’t going to be in the middle of a firefight. She hoped she had enough courage not to let Cord down. She didn’t know for sure. Nobody did, until they were in the situation.

  He darted down a side street with Maggie right behind him, keeping to the shadows. The offices of Global Enterprises were only a quick walk from the restaurant, a two-story adobe building that wasn’t modern or pretentious. It was rather like some of the shops in the grand socco, the bazaar, that Maggie had seen when she went on the walking city tour with Gretchen.

  “It doesn’t look imposing,” Maggie whispered at Cord’s back.

  “Neither does a black widow spider, at first glance,” he replied. “Careful now. No talking.”

  “Okay.”

  He led the way, stealthily, to the back of the building. There was a surprising array of electronics at the door, which he bypassed with a small device. But beyond that door was a steel door, with more locks. Cord led her around it and into a small kitchen, deserted now.

  He got a chair and unfastened a grated duct, obviously a modern air-conditioning conduit. He put it down carefully, stopping to listen.

  He pulled Maggie to him. “You go that way, to the next grating,” he told her, pulling out a hastily drawn diagram and showing it to her. “You have to be careful not to make noise. You saw me take this grate off. It’s just a matter of pushing, it’s not secured with screws. But don’t let it drop! Then you’re going to have to hold on to the ceiling and let yourself down, so that you can come to this door—” he indicated the closed and locked door at the end of the kitchen “—and unbolt it for me. Think you can do it?”

  “I can do it,” she assured him. “I haven’t spent all those years working out for nothing.” Her heart was racing. She looked up at him. “There are men with guns somewhere in here, aren’t there, Cord?” she asked huskily.

  His face was hard. “Yes,” he said. “If you don’t want the risk…”

  She put her fingers over his hard mouth. “I’m only afraid for you, not for myself. I’ve done martial arts, and not too long ago. I can climb, and I can jump. I know how to do this.”

  “I know that,” he said tautly. “But somehow it was easier when I was just planning it.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down. Here goes.”

  She stood in the chair, caught the upper edges of the duct, and pulled herself up with painstaking effort. She was months away from her training, but she was strong and athletic. As an afterthought, she took off her shoes, and dropped them carefully down to Cord. She gave him a thumbs-up, got her bearings, and began to crawl stealthily, aware that time was limited and they might not have enough.

  It was dark and cold in the duct. She hoped that the guards wouldn’t notice the change in pitch of the air stream with her body inhibiting it. She moved quickly in the direction on the map, pausing to look for the grates.

  Her heart stopped when she found not one, but two of them, each in a different direction. Now what?

  Cord, waiting in the kitchen with his .45 automatic now in his hand, was listening for movement anywhere around him. There was a flash of light through the window and he ducked down, moving the chair aside, so that no evidence of tampering was visible. It was one of the outside guards, and not the small one he’d hired to replace the regular guard. The man outside wasn’t on his payroll.

  The man moved close to the window and aimed the light in again, as if he suspected something. Cord plastered himself against the wall and waited, praying that Maggie wouldn’t choose right now to open that kitchen door. If she did, the light would reflect the movement, and they’d be in a shooting battle with nothing accomplished.

  His heart raced and his tall body tensed. He took the safety off the pistol and delved into a special pouch on the bottom of his holster for the silencer he always carried. If worst came to worst, he’d drop the man right through the window. If he came into the room, it would be quieter. Either way, he couldn’t risk discovery, not when he was this close to bringing down Gruber’s evil empire.

  Back in the duct, Maggie was making quick decisions. She closed her eyes and worked to remember the map Cord had shown her. Her hands trembled as she fought fear and confusion. Then she remembered. The corridor split, but the kitchen door was to her immediate left. That meant the duct on her left was the correct one!

  She slid to it and began carefully to push at one corner of the metal while catching the grate firmly with her free hand to prevent it from falling and alerting someone.

  It was new, fortunately, so it gave easily, loosening itself from its hinges obligingly. She caught it with both hands and gingerly drew it up into the duct with her, placing it carefully to the side but with an
edge easily reachable from someone below in case it had to be placed back after they were through.

  Heart pounding, blood racing, she caught the edges of the opening and slowly, carefully, lowered herself from it. It was about a three-foot drop to the linoleum floor, but she did it as lightly as a cat. She stopped, waiting, listening for sounds. She didn’t hear anything, except for a faint noise from the kitchen. Surely that was Cord.

  She padded quickly to the kitchen door and worked the bolt quietly, drawing it back until the door was easily opened.

  But just as she started to turn the doorknob, she felt something, a flash of intuition, almost as if someone had called her name quickly, in warning. She frowned, wondering if she were being fanciful. But she hesitated.

  In the kitchen, Cord had both hands on the butt of the .45 and had tensed to turn and throw a shot out the window the second it became necessary. The guard was standing there, fixed securely in place, talking to someone on a mobile phone. His voice was too muffled to understand, but Cord feared discovery.

  Shooting the guard was going to solve nothing if he’d relayed the news of their presence to a third party. He cursed under his breath, furious at the unexpected complication.

  And there was now a worse one. He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head in time to see, just for an instant, the turning of the doorknob that led out of the kitchen into the rest of the house.

  He ground his lips together. If Maggie walked into the room, she would be shot immediately by the guard, who was standing just outside the window. He had to save her, at whatever cost. If only he could warn her to stay where she was, not to proceed…!

  At the window, the guard hesitated, spoke into the phone once again, made a short reply, and suddenly the light was gone. Bushes outside made a crackling sound as the man retreated to the pavement with lazy steps and looked around the driveway with the flashlight before continuing on his way.