by Tara Janzen
“Run away,” she finally said, “is not in my vocabulary. I have been trained to fight, not retreat.”
“You were shot.” And that was pretty much his bottom line.
“Skinned. Kid gets shot. He gets shot all the time, and you don’t tell him to run away.”
“Kid is—” He stopped abruptly, seeing “quagmire” written all over anything he said.
“A man?”
“No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t my point.”
“So what is your point?”
Good question.
“My point is that Kid is, uh…not you.”
Geezus. Two stupid statements in less than three minutes. He was going for a record.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
Probably.
“And you’re too young to be involved in this or any other operation.” And that was the truth, and that was the end of it. He put the phone number in her hand, then reached for the Wall Street Journal stuck in the seatback in front of him and snapped it open.
“We send eighteen-year-olds into combat,” she said. “I’m twenty-one, and the nation’s capital is not a combat zone.”
“You’re not twenty-one.” How interesting, the DOW was up a few points.
“I will be tomorrow.”
And the NASDAQ was down. And twenty-one or not, he still wouldn’t want her anywhere near one of his missions. Christ. Look what had happened to him in Indonesia.
Or not.
It had all been a bit gruesome, even by his standards.
Letting the corner of the newspaper drop, he signaled the flight attendant.
“Scotch,” he said. “Two.” To start.
The sunglasses turned toward him again. “I’ve never seen you drink before a mission.”
She’d never seen him chained to a wall, either.
He turned the page and straightened the newspaper back out.
“I’ll be watching you tonight, to see how well you perform, how well you follow orders. Make no mistake, this is a test, a trial, and I am the one who will set the course of your career at SDF, or decide if you will even have a career on the team.” And that should have her eating out of the palm of his hand, snapping to attention every time he entered a room and asking “how high” every time he said “jump.” He knew how much SDF and Steele Street meant to her—the world and then some.
“You could watch me better if I was working next to you instead of sitting on my butt out in the car.”
The Standard & Poor’s Index was holding steady—like her capital A attitude and the pair of brass balls she had hidden under her skirt.
“Actually, I’ll work better if I know you’re sitting on your butt out in the car, watching the house.”
The Scotch arrived, and he wasted no time twisting the lid off the first bottle and pouring it over ice. Scotch on the rocks, that’s what he needed, not five feet eight inches of unadulterated insanity.
He had a brain. He needed to be using it, and by God, he was going to start right after he finished his drink.
“What the hell,” she said, sitting up straighter in her seat and whipping off her sunglasses, an unusual enough occurrence to rivet his attention. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” God, her eyes were blue, a pale, silvery blue, and they were narrowed on him like a laser, honed in on his drink—but not quite on the drink.
“That,” she said, and suddenly he knew exactly what “that” she meant.
He shifted his attention back to his hand and noted how far up his arm he’d let his shirt cuff ride, far enough to reveal the bruised, raw skin around his wrist and the line of stitches just above the bruises. The shackle on his right side had been a snug fit to begin with, then Negara’s goons had added a razor component to help get his attention.
It had definitely worked, almost down to the bone.
“Well, yes.” That.
He’d been more careful with his clothing last night and this morning, but there was something about the whole “countdown” aspect of his run-in with Hamzah Negara that was starting to push him to the edge. He had no business trying to steal anything tonight, let alone from a U.S. senator. It was asking for trouble and a permanent address change to Leavenworth.
“That’s where I, uh, got tangled up in a small accident in Jakarta, a car accident.”
“Liar.”
Often, he could have told her, and usually damn good at it, or at least better than he’d just been.
“The report is on file with the Jakarta police—a Land Rover and a Mercedes at the corner of Ananta and Lubis, last Wednesday about five P.M. You’re pretty good with that thing”—he gestured at her laptop—“go ahead and check it out.”
He went back to his newspaper, giving it a small snap, and hopefully signaling to her that the conversation was over.
He should have known better.
“Those contusions are more than three days old.”
Yes, they were.
“The Wednesday before three days ago. That last Wednesday.”
“Except your stitches aren’t ten days old.”
Right again.
He was obviously not on his game, so he ignored her, not bothering to look up from his paper.
“And your wrist has a distinctly mangled look.”
Distinctly.
“Overall, you look like hell.”
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
“I think we should talk about Sumba.”
“I don’t.” The Fidelity Fund was up.
“Okay. Then let’s talk about the commendation.” She reached down and pulled a single sheet of paper out of her backpack.
He gave it a brief, wary glance.
Impossible.
“You didn’t lift that off Superman.”
Yet there it seemed to be, the fax transmission, with all its gory details.
She closed her laptop and smoothed the paper out over the top of it. “I could have. Don’t doubt it for a second,” she said. “But in this instance, it wasn’t necessary. Hawkins gave it to me when you went upstairs to pack. He wants some answers. I agreed to get them.”
Jesus H. Christ.
“Let’s start with the word ‘escape,’ which I believe will explain what I’m seeing on your wrist a little better than the car accident theory.”
Theory? God, she did have balls.
“Let’s not start with ‘escape,’” he said. Ever. Period.
“Okay,” she agreed after a long moment, her voice tight. “How about your capture?”
Clean, he could have told her. Professional. Off-limits.
He kept reading.
“Silence isn’t going to work here, sir. You have an obligation to me, as your partner tonight, to disclose any current circumstances that may affect our mission.”
The hell he did.
“If you’ve been hurt, and you obviously have, or are suffering from any mental or emotional trauma—”
“My current circumstances,” he said, cutting her off, “are strictly on a need-to-know basis.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, she crossed her legs and turned more fully toward him in her seat. “Look, sir, my butt is on the line here. Hawkins made that very clear to me before I left. Whatever ‘test’ you want to dish out tonight, I’m up for, one hundred percent, but if I don’t bring you back alive and in one piece, he’s going to fillet me with my own knife, the seven-inch one I carry on my tactical vest. In addition to the whole Lone Ranger act you’ve been playing since last winter, this”—she lifted the commendation—“has him on edge. So help me out here. Don’t make me have to get physical with you.”
He looked up, not believing what he’d heard.
Physical? What did she think she was going to do? Wrestle him down and torture the answers out of him? Not very damn likely.
“You’re out of line.”
“Mr. Hart…Dylan.” She leaned in closer, sliding her hand up the side of his neck and pretty muc
h freezing him to his seat, one of those hot freezes, where the sensation of touch, no matter where it was initiated, somehow ended up galvanizing your balls. Fuck.
He didn’t need this.
“I think you better stick with calling me ‘sir.’” And put on a parka, or something, anything to cover up all that hot-pink, white-lace, and soft-skin fashion statement she had working from the waist up.
Her fingers slid a little higher.
“This isn’t about lines, sir. This is about getting the job done. It’s about coming home safe. It’s about finding out exactly how much valorous action it took to get you a freaking commendation from the secretary of defense.” A smile curved her mouth, slowly, sweetly, and just as slowly, it dawned on him where her fingers were, how much pressure she was starting to exert, and how dangerous she might actually turn out to be.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said, his gaze narrowing on those silvery blue eyes, the ones with the devil dancing in them.
“Superman calls this the Vulcan Death Grip.” The pressure on his neck increased ever so slightly, and her smile broadened, still so deadly sweet.
“In Bangkok, it’s called the Butterfly Sting,” he said. “Unexpected, lethal.”
“Or merely temporarily paralyzing.”
“And I repeat—you wouldn’t dare.”
She gave him a lift of her eyebrows, except the one with the scar cutting through it only went partway, giving her a slightly quizzical expression, and in the odd way of things between them, it broke his heart, right then, right there.
Twenty stitches. That’s what it had taken to put her back together. She’d lost so much blood that night, Hawkins had given her a unit of his own in the ER.
Dylan let his gaze follow the path of the scar up to where it disappeared under a swath of platinum blond bangs.
He’d put her father in his sights once.
Okay, he’d done it twice.
But he hadn’t pulled the trigger either time. Anders Bang, a godforsaken, brutally twisted, alcoholic meth freak, was still alive on the streets of Denver, which was more than he deserved for breaking a whiskey bottle on his daughter’s face. It hadn’t been the first time her father had hurt her, but it had been the last. Hawkins had seen to it.
Dylan, of course, had been someplace else when it all happened. Christ. He was always someplace else.
Except today.
Today, he was sitting next to her, and she wanted something from him badly enough to threaten him.
“I’m the one who taught Hawkins the Butterfly Sting,” he said. “I’m also the one who taught him the countermove.”
“You’re not going to counter me,” she said, sounding awfully sure of herself.
With good reason, he had to admit.
“No. I’m not.” The countermove was a vicious strike, and the last thing in the world he wanted was to hurt her, ever, in any way.
“So you’re at my mercy.” The devilish light in her eyes tipped the corners of her mouth, and he started to get that whole “galvanized” feeling in his balls again.
Geezus. He really needed to deal with this.
“Yes,” he answered, lifting his hips off the seat enough to reach into his pocket. He had to give her something, and it might as well be something useful.
He pulled out the stainless steel case and popped it open, revealing the line of Syrettes nested inside.
Her smile instantly disappeared.
Removing her hand from his neck, she sat back in her seat.
“Superman isn’t going to like this,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. He didn’t like it, either, but that didn’t change the facts. “I ran into a few pharmaceuticals in Indonesia, or rather, they ran into me. There might be delayed reactions attached to a couple of them. What I’ll need from you, if I need anything, will be help with the yellow Syrette. If I go down, mainline it. Hit a vein.”
She reached out and touched the case, then pulled her hand back, her gaze locking on to his.
“You should be in a hospital.”
“I was, on the U.S.S. Jefferson.”
“And you left? With this hanging over your head?” she asked incredulously. “Why?”
You.
Sitting next to her, looking at her, being close enough to breathe her in, the answer was suddenly so stark and clear in his head. With time running out and the future looking so goddamn unreliable, he’d left the Jefferson for only one reason—to get home to her.
To see her again.
Fuck. He was in so far over his head here. She didn’t make sense, in any way, in any part of his life, but it was no accident she was on the plane to Washington, D.C., with him. For all his bitching and moaning and the crap he’d dished out last night, he wouldn’t have left Denver without her—not on a bet. No way. He hadn’t come halfway around the world to spend what might be the last two days of his life without her. He could have stayed in Indonesia for that.
So here he was, running at about half speed, his head a little fucked up, his nerves shredding, dragging her with him into what should be a cakewalk but, given the way his luck had been running lately, probably wasn’t going to be.
“Did you requisition a sidearm for each of us before we left?” he asked, putting the case back in his pocket and ignoring her question. Wanting to be with her, taking her with him, and keeping her by his side did not require a full-out confession of his ulterior motives. They were together. It was enough. He’d save the declaration of undying love until the last—if it came to that.
“Yes,” she said after a long moment, during which he could tell she was deciding just how far to push him. Fortunately, she chose the not-very-far route, at least for now. “I personally called in an equipment list to General Grant’s office. Our gear will be at the hotel when we get there, along with a car.”
“Good.” He went back to his newspaper.
“What is the red Syrette for?” she asked after another long moment of silence.
“Increase in temperature and hallucinations.”
“And the blue?”
“Decrease in temperature and losing my lunch.” He gave her a quick glance.
She had her fingers steepled in front of her face and was staring straight ahead, thinking. He could almost hear the wheels turning inside her head—and that wasn’t such a bad thing.
She was a very smart girl—brilliant, actually. If the heist at Whitfield’s didn’t go well, for any reason, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have a smart girl on his side, figuring things out.
“It’s not like you to get caught,” she said after a minute, so quietly he wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or not.
Regardless, she was right. In seventeen years of nonstop, out-and-out thievery, he’d only been caught three times. The bust for grand theft auto, at sixteen, had been an inside job, with a guy they’d picked up as a stringer turning them in to the cops. His arrest in Moscow six years later had been a bit more complicated, a setup where he’d fallen for the bait, a choreographed attempt by the CIA to get to his boss, a man even General Grant knew only as White Rook.
And ten days ago had been his third strike.
After months of planning and six weeks in Indonesia to actually put together and pull off the job, he’d been caught with his foot halfway out of the country, on his way to the airport in Jakarta.
Negara’s timing couldn’t have been better. His associates couldn’t have been more professional or the execution of the kidnapping smoother. Dylan had been snatched off the street like a cherry girl hooker.
“Who knew where you were?” she asked, and yeah, he knew what she was getting at. He’d thought it himself a thousand times, but hadn’t been able to come up with anyone who could have set him up—not yet. Broadening his investigation along those avenues was at the top of his list, right after Godwin, right after thirty-six more hours of waiting to see if he was going to have a chance to broaden anything—like his relationship with her.
“Grant, Hawkins, Bill Davies, and probably you,” he said, casting her another glance. Bill Davies was the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, and Grant’s liaison at the Pentagon.
Pale blue eyes met his without a flicker of guilt. “I get paid to know where you are, where all of you are, but even I didn’t have access to your itinerary in Indonesia.”
“Nobody did. I flew low, under the radar all the way.”
“What about the secretary of defense?”
“The mission came from him, but like every mission we take, the method and means of accomplishing it were left to us. The less he knows, the happier he is.”
“Us?” she asked skeptically.
“Me,” he admitted.
“So are you getting sloppy?”
It was a legitimate question, and he’d asked himself the same thing dozens of times over the last ten days. Every time, he’d come up with the same answer.
“No.” He hadn’t left a trail—physical, paper, or in cyberspace. His covers were bulletproof. Dylan Hart hadn’t stepped foot in Indonesia for over five years. John Barr, a banker from Philadelphia, had been there doing business with the Indonesian government and been snatched off the street.
“Then we have a break in SDF’s security, in the chain of command,” she said.
“It’s a damn short chain, and we’ve already listed everyone on it.”
She just looked at him, tapping her fingers together.
“There’s another list,” she finally said.
Yeah. He knew it.
“The Everybody Who Wants to Wax My Ass list.”
She nodded.
“That one’s a bit longer,” he said.
“No kidding.” She flipped up the top of her computer. “Should I open a new document? Or are we going to need a spreadsheet?”
A grin curved his mouth, the first one in over a week.
“Spreadsheet.”
CHAPTER
7
FROM THE living room of an expansive Tudor-style house in Prince William County, Virginia, twenty miles outside Washington, D.C., Tony Royce looked out over a small lake and the green expanse of the heavily wooded grounds beyond. Not so much as a finger twitch betrayed his impatience. He was calm, steady, his anger curbed on a tight leash. He was a pro, a seasoned veteran of twenty years of CIA operations, and hell would have to freeze over twice before he’d let Hamzah Negara rattle his cage.
