Stranded with a Spy

by Merline Lovelace

  Better to handle the situation herself, utilizing one of the more effective moves she’d learned in the self-defense class she’d taken when she first got to D.C. Before the heel of her hand could connect with the bridge of the beefy tourist’s nose, however, he jerked backward. A startled Mallory watched him lift off his feet. A second later, he landed butt-first in the stone horse trough.

  “What the hell…?”

  Cursing, he struggled to lever himself out of the narrow trough. The man who’d put him there planted a hand on his head, pushing him down and under.

  As her attacker gurgled and flailed his arms and legs, Mallory’s surprise gave way to fierce delight. The dunking went on a little too long, however. She was about to issue a curt order not to drown the bastard when the man holding him under relented.

  The jerk who’d accosted her came up sputtering and ready to fight. When he shook the water from his eyes and got a good look at the individual looming above him, however, he plopped back down into the water.

  “Smart move,” his chastiser said in a voice as deep as it was cool and steady. “I suggest you listen next time a lady says no.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

  When the stranger straightened and stepped out of the shadows, Mallory registered short-cropped brown hair, wide shoulders and a well-cut sports jacket paired with an open-necked shirt. Then she saw the scars puckering one side of his neck and swallowed a gulp. No wonder the loudmouthed tourist had planted his butt back into the water.

  “You okay?” the newcomer asked.

  “I’m fine.” Rattled by the incident and pissed at having the first day of her precious vacation tainted by the ugliness she’d come here to escape, Mallory’s response was somewhat less than gracious. “Thanks.”

  Her tone implied she could have handled the situation herself. She reinforced that impression by sweeping past both men. The one still standing said nothing, but the waterlogged tourist made the mistake of muttering aloud, “Bitch.”

  The vicious epithet was followed by a yelp and another splash. Mallory didn’t slow or bother to look around. For all she cared, the scarred stranger could drown the moron.

  Chapter 3

  Mallory had never climbed so many steps in her life!

  The stairs leading to the abbey were carved into the granite. In some places they climbed straight up. In others, they followed a zigzag pattern that shortened the rise but doubled the distance required to travel. She stopped several times along the way to shake the kinks out of her calves and was huffing long before she reached the small terrace that faced the abbey’s magnificent vaulted doors.

  If the steep climb and the wind whipping off the Bay of St. Malo hadn’t stolen Mallory’s breath, the view would have done the trick. Waiting for her heart to stop hammering, she leaned her elbows on the terrace wall. Far below, mud-brown flats stretched all the way to the sea. A storm was forming far out on the bay. Thunderclouds had piled up, forming a dramatic vista and no doubt accounting for the wind that whipped Mallory’s hair.

  She was surprised to see people walking across the flats. Signs posted all around Mont St. Michel warned about the dangers of quicksand. They also posted the time of the incoming tide.

  Frowning, Mallory glanced at her watch. She’d wasted too much time in the village. She’d have to hurry her tour of the abbey to get back down to the parking lot before the water nipped at the rental’s tires.

  Adjusting her sunglasses, she eased into the stream of tourists entering the cathedral. She’d already decided not to join one of the guided tours that took visitors through the adjacent Benedictine monastery. After the nasty incident in the village, she was in no mood for the company of others. Instead, she slipped through the cathedral’s massive doors and was immediately swallowed by the vastness of its nave.

  Like most European churches, this one was laid out in the shape of a cross. The long main transept ended in a curved apse that faced to the east and the rising sun that symbolized Christ. The shorter, north-south transept bisected the main vestibule at the choir and led to richly decorated chapels.

  Three tiers of soaring granite arches, all intricately carved and decorated, supported the vaulted ceiling high above Mallory’s head. Unlike so many other European cathedrals, however, this one was filled with light. Gloriously white and shimmering, it poured in through the tiered windows and added a luminescent sheen to the gray granite walls.

  Guidebook in hand, Mallory took in the richness of the altar and choir before exploring the side chapels. The musky scent of incense lingered in the alcoves and mixed with the smoke from hundreds of flickering votives. She stood for long moments before a bank of votives dominated by a stained-glass window depicting Saint Michael slaying a dragon.

  Part of her ached to drop a franc in the slot, light a candle and pray for the strength to forgive Congressman Kent and everyone in the media who’d slandered her. The rest of her was still too bruised and hurt. She wasn’t ready to forgive or forget, and she figured God would recognize a fake prayer quick enough.

  Sighing, Mallory followed the signs pointing to the stairs that wound down to the crypts. There were two of these subterranean chambers, one under the north transept, one under the south. The first was big and ornate and contained the sarcophagi of previous bishops and abbots. The second was much smaller and plainer. Barrel-vaulted and constructed with Romanesque simplicity, it had the dank smell of centuries long past.

  There, in the south crypt dedicated to Saint Martin, Mallory founded a semblance of the serenity that had eluded her upstairs. It was so quiet in the crypt, and so empty. The only objects in the round-roofed chamber were a plain altar topped by a wrought-iron cross and a narrow wooden prayer bench set alongside one wall.

  Mallory eased onto the bench and leaned her shoulders against the granite wall. A chill seeped through her navy blazer, but she barely noticed it.

  Why couldn’t she forgive and forget? Why had she let Congressman Kent destroy her pride along with her reputation?

  Her friend, Dillon Porter, had tried to warn her. In his serious, no-nonsense way, Kent’s senior staffer had reminded his coworker how Jennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky had become the butt of so many vicious jokes. Yet Mallory had plowed ahead, convinced she had right on her side.

  Yeah, sure.

  With another long sigh, she tilted her head against the granite and closed her eyes. Maybe if she just sat here a while, the utter calm of this place would leach into her troubled soul.

  What the hell was she doing?

  Cutter lounged against a stone pillar, pretending interest in a brochure he’d picked up at the entrance to the abbey. The brochure happened to be in Japanese, a fact that had escaped his attention until he’d been forced to hide behind the damned thing for going on twenty minutes now.

  Was she waiting for someone? The Russian? The obnoxious tourist?

  Or had the woman fallen asleep? Sure looked like it from where Cutter stood.

  Her head rested against the granite wall. Her lashes feathered her cheek. The arms she’d hooked around her waist had loosened and sagged into her lap.

  She’d stirred, blinking owlishly when the muted sound of an announcement drifted down the stairs. They were too deep in the bowels of the church to distinguish the words, and she was too lethargic to do more than turn her head toward the distant sound. Moments later, her lids had dropped and she was breathing deeply again. This time a small smile played at the corners of her lips.

  Sweet dreams, Dawes?

  Thinking about all the goodies you’ll buy when and if you sell the data you stole?

  Frowning, Cutter shot a quick look at his watch. The warning signs posted around the island were vivid in his head when the cell phone in his pocket began to vibrate. This motion had a different pattern from that of the GPS tracker attached to the disk in Dawes’s suitcase.

  That was Mike Callahan signaling him. He must have IDed the fleshy tourist. Keeping the entrance to the small crypt in
sight, Cutter retreated into the dim recesses of the subterranean vault and screwed the phone’s earpiece into his ear. A click of the receive button brought Callahan’s face up on the screen.

  “What have you got?”

  His voice carried no more than a few feet in the dank, gloomy stillness. Callahan’s came through the earpiece clearly.

  “Your friend is Robert Walters.”

  A photo of the paunchy tourist replaced Mike’s face. This shot showed him in a business suit, smiling for the camera as he gestured toward a warehouse with a sign announcing Walters Products.

  “Age,” Hawkeye reported succinctly, “fifty-three. Born, Sterling, Indiana. One hitch in the Navy. Made three trips to the altar, the same number to divorce court. Owns a siding-and-storm-door installation company in Indiana. He and two buddies are on a tour of the Normandy beaches, sponsored by their local American Legion.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the profile of someone with ties to an international thug like the Russian.”

  “Didn’t to me, either,” Hawkeye agreed, “until I dug into his financials and discovered our boy Walters is six months behind in alimony to wife number two and wife number three. He also owes a cool hundred thou to his bookie. Seems he has a weakness for the ponies.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah, it is. I’m working authorization to run his cell, home and business phones. Will get back to you as soon as…Hang on!”

  The terse admonition came at precisely the same instant the instrument in Cutter’s hand began to vibrate to a different pattern. Smothering a curse, he recognized the signal before Mike’s voice cut back through his earpiece.

  “We’ve got movement on the disk, Slash.”

  “Yeah, I’m receiving the signal.”

  “Is the target back at her vehicle?”

  “No.”

  She hadn’t moved, dammit! Not so much as an inch. She still dozed on that bench. Or pretended to. The perfect decoy.

  Swearing viciously under his breath, Cutter took the stairs from the crypt two at a time. Tourists sent him startled looks as he raced through the cathedral, his footsteps echoing on the granite blocks.

  Dodging a group of Chinese visitors, he burst through the abbey doors onto the small terrace. The western side looked to the sea. The south edge, he saw when he pushed through a gawking, pointing crowd, looked down over the causeway and what used to be the overflow parking lot.

  The sand flats on either side of the causeway were empty now except for a single tour bus with its wheels awash in seawater…and Dawes’s rented Peugeot, floating on the tide. As Cutter watched, tight-jawed, the little car bobbed farther and farther from the causeway.

  Loudspeakers blared, slicing through the tourists’ excited babble. An urgent message was broadcast first in French, then English, then in Japanese.

  “Attention! Attention! The driver of Tour Bus Number Fifty-Seven must return to his vehicle immediately! The storm at sea has created a severe riptide. Your bus will soon be afloat.”

  So that was the muffled announcement that had failed to penetrate to the subterranean crypts! The off-shore winds had churned up a vicious riptide and sent it rushing in, well ahead of the posted times for normal high water.

  Drivers alerted by the announcements had managed to clear most of the vehicles parked on the sand. Only two hadn’t been rescued—the heavy tour bus with gray-green water now swirling up to its fender skirts and Mallory Dawes’s lightweight Peugeot, at present floating on the outgoing current.

  “Omigod!”

  The shriek came from directly behind Cutter. He edged to the side to make room for the woman who elbowed her way through the crowd.

  “That’s my car!”

  Her dismay spiraled into panic. Cupping her hands to her mouth, Dawes screamed at the ant-like figures on the causeway far below.

  “Hey! You down there! That’s my car floating away! Do something!”

  Even she could see it was too late for anyone to save the little car. The fast-moving tide had already carried the vehicle a good half mile and it was starting to take on water. As she watched, horrified, the little car tipped to one side, rolled over and went wheels up. Like a puppy begging to have its stomach tickled, it floated a few more yards before slowly sinking into the sea.

  Utter silence gripped the crowd. Cutter could swear he almost heard the gurgle of the bubbles that rose to the surface as the mini disappeared.

  Sympathetic clucking noises from several of the Japanese tourists broke the stillness. Their tour guide approached a shell-shocked Dawes.

  “Your car, yes?”

  “Yes,” she whispered raggedly.

  “You must tell them, at the visitors’ center.”

  Dawes couldn’t tear her gaze from the gray-green water. She kept staring at the spot where the Peugeot had disappeared. One white-knuckled hand gripped the other, as if she were praying that the statue of Saint Michael perched on the steeple above her head would command the seas to part and the car to miraculously reappear.

  “You must tell them,” the tour guide insisted. “At the visitors’ center.”

  Cutter’s mind had been racing since he’d first spotted the bobbing vehicle. Whatever else Dawes might have intended to do with the data disk, his gut told him this little drama hadn’t figured into her plan. It hadn’t figured into his, either, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity that had just been handed to him on a big, golden platter.

  “This hasn’t been your day, has it?”

  The comment jerked Dawes’s head around. She’d whipped off the sunglasses she’d used as a shield up to now, so this was Cutter’s first glimpse of her eyes. Caramel-brown and flecked with gold, they were flooded with dismay…until they dropped to the puckered skin below his chin. Then the emotions Cutter had seen too many times to count clicked across her face. Curiosity came first, followed quickly by embarrassment at being caught staring.

  Apparently Dawes was made of tougher stuff than most. Either that, or she understood how it felt to be gaped at. She didn’t color up and quickly look away. Instead, her gaze lifted to his.

  “No,” she admitted, raising a hand to hold back her wind-whipped hair, “it hasn’t.”

  Cutter had grimaced when Field Dress had saddled him with this bland businessman’s cover but decided it would work like a charm in this situation.

  “Maybe I can help. I have some contacts who know this area.”

  Like Nick Jensen, aka Lightning, who’d grown up in the back alleys of Cannes before being brought to the States and adopted by one of OMEGA’s top agents. Any strings Mike Callahan couldn’t pull through official channels, Nick could through his own.

  Mallory struggled to hold back her hair and the hot tears stinging her eyes. Any other woman in her situation would have jumped at the offer. Any woman, that is, who hadn’t been savaged by the media and made into a walking bull’s-eye for predatory males.

  Granted, this one had already come to her aid once. Yet those cool gray eyes and powerful shoulders didn’t exactly put him in the tame category. Then there were those scars…

  “Do you always go around rescuing women?”

  The question came out sounding more suspicious and hostile than Mallory had intended. He answered with a raised brow and a shrug.

  “Only those who seem to need it. Obviously, you don’t. My mistake.” With a nod, he turned away. “Good luck salvaging your car.”

  God! That mess with Congressman Kent had turned her into a real bitch! Disgusted with herself,

  Mallory stopped him with a brusque apology.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just…Well…”

  She decided he didn’t need to know the sordid details behind her recent distrust of all things male.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I, uh, appreciate the way you handled that jerk down in the village and I’d welcome any help retrieving my car. My suitcase is in the trunk. And my passport,” she remembered on a new wave of dismay.
“And all my traveler’s checks!”

  Stunned all over again, Mallory spun around to stare at the spot where her rental had disappeared. The sea now completely covered the mud flats. Except for the causeway, the island was cut off from the mainland.

  As it had been for hundreds of years, when pilgrims had dared the treacherous sands to buy indulgence for their sins. Mallory was in no condition to appreciate the irony.

  “Do you think…?”

  Gulping, she tried to swallow her panic. All she had with her was a single credit card and the few francs tucked in the purse slung over her shoulder. Like a fool, she hadn’t even carried her receipt for the traveler’s checks on her person. The past weeks had shaken her to her core, it was true, but that was no excuse for sheer stupidity!

  “Do you think they can get my car back? Or at least retrieve my passport and traveler’s checks?”

  “Maybe. Depends on how strong the riptide is and how far it carries the vehicle.”

  She whirled again, grabbing at the fragile hope he’d offered until he gently shattered that.

  “I suspect you aren’t the first tourist to lose a car to the tides, so I’m guessing there are probably a number of salvage companies in the area. It’ll take time to mount that kind of an operation, though, and some big bucks. You’d better check with the rental company to see what their insurance covers.”

  Mallory’s stomach took another dive. She’d barely glanced at the half dozen or so insurance clauses she’d initialed when she’d rented the Peugeot. Now phrases like negligence, collateral damage, and criminal acts popped into her head.

  Surely the rental company couldn’t hold her responsible for the loss! Okay, there were signs posted all over Mont St. Michel. And yes, she’d heard the muffled sounds of what might have been a warning announcement.

  But…But…

  Mallory forced her mind to stop spinning in empty circles. She wasn’t completely irresponsible. Nor was she helpless. She’d worked for the Commerce Department for several years before accepting the offer from Congressman Kent to join his staff. She understood bureaucracy, knew she had to get the wheels turning. Buttoning down her panic, she constructed a mental list.