by Tara Janzen
“Unnecessary.”
“Fifty feet of five-fifty cord and ten feet of hundred-mile-per-hour tape—each.”
“Always handy, but in this instance, unnecessary,” he said firmly.
“Fragmentation grenades.”
Sweet freaking sonuvabitch.
“Fragmentation grenades,” he said calmly, trying not to imagine just exactly how much damage a well-thrown frag could do to the Whitfield ball room and the three hundred or so guests who would be in attendance.
Enough to get him the electric chair, he decided.
And Skeeter, too.
The look he was giving her must have said as much.
“I’ve got a feeling about tonight. That’s all,” she said, still standing stoically in front of her outrageous stacks of gear.
Yeah, he had a feeling, too, and it was spelled D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R—unless he kept a lid on things, unless he kept a lid on her, a screw-on, lock-top lid.
“Sidearms?” he asked. She’d confirmed the request on the plane. The guns had to be here some where in all this stuff.
“A Glock 21 for you and a Para-Ordnance LTC for me, both in .45 caliber.”
“Thank you.” That was all he needed, a loaded .45 and a spare magazine.
“Five magazines for the Glock. Thirteen rounds each.”
Okay, fine. Four extra magazines. He’d only be taking one with him.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” he said, “and shave, then we’ll head over to Whitfield’s and make sure everything is laid out the way it is on the plans we’ve been looking at all day. I don’t suppose you’ve got a pair of binoculars in there?” He gestured at the rucksacks.
She nodded. “Steiner Predator, 8×42.”
Of course she had binoculars, he thought. They’d be packed next to the kitchen sink.
THEY were the perfect Georgetown couple, Dylan thought two hours later, him in his button-down shirt and conservative dark suit, and her in fishnet and combat boots, looking stunningly beautiful.
He’d put his foot down about the ball cap. The damn thing was not to be seen again for as long as they were in Washington, no argument. So she’d put her hair up, piled it every which way on top of her head, and just let it fan out all over the place and trail down the sides of her face, with a few loose strands drifting down her back, all white blond and silky against white lace and hot pink. It made her look older, sophisticated, like she knew her way around.
It made her look old enough for anything, and everything about her looking old enough for anything put him on overload, every hip-rolling stride, every dangling tendril, every breath she took.
They’d had their late-afternoon lattes, and reconned Whitfield’s from the café’s streetside patio. Grant’s intel had been impeccable, as usual. The plan Dylan and Hawkins had put together should work without a hitch, would work without a hitch. There wasn’t room for failure. There wasn’t time.
Any time, for anything, least of all indecision.
He checked his watch. They had four hours before they planned to arrive at the party. A lot of anything could happen in four hours, especially if two people had finished their recon work, felt good about their plan, and were alone in a three-room suite at the Hotel Lafayette—naked.
He let his gaze drift over her. She’d stopped in front of a shop with bins of merchandise set up on the sidewalk. It was all very colorful, piles of small, embroidered purses with bits of mirror, leather wallets, belts, and scarves, all very high-end. One belt in particular had caught her eye. Black leather, of course, with silver conchas, it was exquisite, with a price tag to match.
He pulled out his wallet and peeled off two hundred and fifty dollars to pay the clerk.
“Happy birthday,” he said when Skeeter looked up at him, her eyebrow quirked in that slightly offkilter way.
Another woman might have demurred, put up a fuss, played coy. Not Skeeter Bang. She had enough of the street rat left in her to know a good deal when she was handed one.
“Thanks.” She grinned and looked down to buckle it over the chain-mail belt already hanging on her denim miniskirt. The buckle was a bit complicated, though, and after a few moments of watching her not quite get it right, he took the two ends of the belt and slipped them together himself.
Big mistake.
He had to stand way too close to get the job done. The backs of his fingers brushed against the soft, bare skin of her midriff, and she still had that sweet, sugar smell on her. It wasn’t cheap perfume. Cheap perfume made him sneeze. This made him crazy.
“What’s your perfume?” he asked. It wasn’t doughnut sugar, not after all day.
“Cookies.”
“Cookies?” He slipped the buckle tang into a hole.
“There’s a fragrance designer out of L.A. that Katya knows, and Cookies is his newest perfume,” she said.
Katya Hawkins, of course. Superman’s wife would know the newest designers and their newest perfumes.
He finished sliding the tail end of the belt through the restraining loop and should have let go of her then. He should have stepped back. Those were the reasonable things to do, but suddenly he wasn’t feeling very reasonable, and instead of moving away, he looked into those damned mirrored sunglasses of hers.
“It’s not on the, uh, market yet,” she said, suddenly sounding a little unsure, but not moving away any more than he was. “Kat got me a sample. She said it reminded her of me.”
No kidding—sugar, sweet, cookies, Skeeter. It reminded him of her, too.
“It’s very nice,” he managed.
This was it. The moment he’d been waiting for—seven months of waiting, seven months of wanting, seven months of running to avoid the inevitable. He was going to kiss her. Now. Before his time ran out. The sun was shining down. A soft wind was blowing, and the wall of heat they were generating between the two of them was damn near electrifying him. Take one step forward, that’s all he needed to do. He’d done it hundreds of times with dozens of women—taken the step, taken the kiss.
He took a breath, nearly moved his foot—but froze instead, his body held in place by the image flickering across the surface of her sunglasses.
Jesus!
Every instinct he had said, Turn! Face the enemy! Dylan didn’t flinch.
“What?” she asked, instantly on alert.
“Across the street. Ten o’clock,” he said, giving her the position of the man who’d walked across the mirrors of her sunglasses.
He saw the shift of her gaze behind the lenses.
“Seven, eight, ten people moving at ten o’clock. A family, two women, three men—Asians, mid-twenties to thirties, five feet five to eight, dark shirts, dark pants.”
Three. Fuck.
“Back of their hands. Tattoos?”
“Minivan, minivan…Sorry, boss, they’re gone.”
“Get back to the hotel.” He turned her around and gave her a little push—but she didn’t budge, at least not in the right direction. With an incredibly smooth move he hadn’t seen coming, she slipped out of his grip and was stepping off the curb, heading across the street.
He reached for her, missed, nearly had a heart attack, and lunged after her, but sonuvabitch, she was already on the move.
Christ. He’d seen her PT charts. If it came down to a foot race, he was frickin’ toast.
He started after her, dodging traffic. She wasn’t dodging anything. She was sliding, moving with the cars, making every break work for her, and leaving him in the dust. To anyone else watching, she was a leggy blonde crossing the street. He was the only one who would have noticed her hand slide into the leather tote she had bandoliered across her torso, the only one noticing how she’d read the traffic, calculated her moves, and implemented a flawless plan to gain a few seconds’ advantage.
Maybe the Asians were just Japanese tourists, or Bangkok Bobs visiting the U.S. capital. Because what were the chances, really, of them working for Hamzah Negara?
Slim to none to a
bsolutely no-fucking-way none.
It was just that, for a second there, he’d thought he’d recognized the guy he’d seen in her sunglasses. Of course, he was still a little jumpy about the whole awful ordeal on Sumba; so conceivably, the sight of any Asian man reversed in a pair of slightly dusty mirrored sunglasses would be enough to jump-start his adrenal gland.
Jesus, he thought, stepping back out of the way of a taxi. He needed a vacation, and if he lived past the weekend, he was going to take one, a really long one, the kind of vacation where all he needed was a toothbrush, a towel, and a lover—her.
CHAPTER
9
DAMMIT. She’d lost them.
Skeeter stopped at the corner and looked all four ways of the intersection. There were no Asians anywhere in sight.
Dammit. She reached up to pull her ball cap lower over her face—an automatic action—then remembered Dylan had made her take it off. She swore again under her breath. She felt naked without her cap, exposed, not that anyone around her seemed to be noticing the scar that angled across her forehead. No one in the café seemed to have noticed, either, which was probably something she needed to think about, but not now. Dylan was right behind her.
“The hotel is in the other direction,” he growled, taking hold of her arm.
He was absolutely right, but he didn’t sound any too happy about it.
Well, he could join the club. She wasn’t any too happy, either.
“We’re not going to do this,” she said, checking behind her one more time. Damn minivan caravan, cutting across her line of sight like that and making her lose the Asians.
“Not do what?”
She turned and faced him square on. “Not do the ‘you run and hide like a good little girl while I take on the bad boys’ routine.” As far as she was concerned, the whole damn mission had just taken a sharp turn into a PSD, Personal Security Detail, with Dylan being the Personal part and her being the Security Detail.
Back in front of the belt shop, she’d felt a flash of fear come off him, and nothing could have surprised her more. For three years, she’d been hearing the stories of Hart and Hawkins, and fear wasn’t part of them, ever. What she’d felt hadn’t taken any ESP, either. It had been in his eyes, in the sudden draining of color from his face. He’d been scared, which just begged the question—what in the hell had happened to him on Sumba? Besides, of course, getting drugged with God only knew what kind of chemical crap and being chained to a wall.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew what the bloody mess around his wrist meant. He’d been shackled, and those stitches weren’t there for decoration. He’d been cut, tortured.
“We’ll do any routine I order,” he said, either missing her point entirely or underestimating her, again.
“Okay,” she said, stepping closer to him, her hand still on the pistol inside her tote. “You’re right. We should be back at the hotel.” Anywhere but on this damn corner, out in the open. They’d walked all over Georgetown, especially the area around Whitfield’s mansion. It was tourist season, and they’d seen dozens of Asians—but these men had set something off in him, and that set her off.
She all but tripped the next taxi that came down the street, and in under twenty minutes had him back in their suite, under lock and key, with enough ammo between her and the door to hold off a small army.
“You’re not being very subtle,” he said when she went to the windows and pulled the drapes closed.
“I’m not trying to be.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard, Skeeter.”
“You were damned nervous for a moment back there on the street,” she said, putting it kindly.
“Damned scared,” he corrected her.
She stopped cold in the living room, set back on her heels. The last thing she’d ever expected from Dylan Hart was a confession of fear. It was just one step more likely than a confession of love.
“I’ve got your back, Dylan. I swear.” She wouldn’t let anything happen to him. At least not anything she could prevent. Yet she knew the possible worst of what could hurt him was completely out of her control—the damn drugs Negara had given him. She’d done some research while he’d been in the shower earlier, and nothing she’d learned had eased her mind. He was in danger just standing there.
“It’s not my back I’m worried about, babe, and it wasn’t me I was scared for back on the street.” He held her gaze for a long moment, long enough for her to get the message and know what was coming next. “You’re done, as of right now. You can stay here in this room tonight, or you can go home, but you’re not going to Whitfield’s, not even Whitfield’s driveway.”
Skeeter didn’t blink. She was a smart woman, smart enough to let him think what he wanted, but actually, she was going to Whitfield’s, all over Whitfield’s, any place and anywhere she thought she needed to be. What she wasn’t going to do was argue with him about it. Arguing would only complicate an already complicated situation.
“Jai Traon pirates have tattoos on the backs of their hands,” she said. “Their left hands.”
“I know.”
Of course he knew, and now he knew that she knew, too. Whatever he thought he’d seen, what he’d expected to see was Hamzah Negara’s men, dogging him.
“Do you want to tell me about Sumba?”
“No.” The word was concise, clear. “What I want is for you to stow this gear or, better yet, get Grant’s guys to come back and pick it up. What I want is to get a couple hours of sleep before I hit Whitfield’s tonight, and what I want is room service and a blood-rare steak before I go.”
“Carnivore.” It wasn’t a judgment, it was a fact.
“In every way.” He held her gaze for another second before nodding at all the gear. “Make it so, Skeeter.”
She watched him turn and walk away. He didn’t completely close the door to his bedroom, which she knew was more for her benefit than his. Although, who he thought could possibly get into their suite with her on guard was beyond her. Nobody was getting in—and the equipment she’d requisitioned wasn’t going anywhere.
Make it so?
She was going to make it so, all right.
Pulling out her cell phone, she speed-dialed General Grant’s assistant.
“Red Dog” came a perky voice on the other end.
“Red Dog, it’s Skeeter. Where’s the Mercedes I ordered this morning?”
“I’ll be pulling into the hotel’s parking garage in about fifteen minutes.”
“Good. Come to the room when you get here. We’ve got gear to load up.”
“Roger that.”
She hung up the phone. That’s what Skeeter loved about Red Dog. The woman didn’t need to roll out a mile of red tape in order to cut to the chase. Since Red Dog had been assigned to Grant’s staff a month ago, the whole organization had been running a lot smoother.
The way Skeeter was going to make sure things ran smooth tonight, and there was nothing better to smooth out any rough edges that might crop up than a suppressed .45 semiautomatic pistol, or an HK UMP45, in case any of those rough edges had Jai Traon tattoos on them. She wasn’t taking chances, and she wasn’t traveling light.
She looked around at the gear and made a command decision: It was all going with her.
But Dylan was right. There was a lot of it, and after another minute of standing there looking at the weapons she’d chosen, and not doubting for a second the instincts that had made her order so much gear in the first place, she made another command decision: She needed backup, somebody besides the guy she was protecting, somebody she wouldn’t have to set aside her weapon for in the middle of a gunfight so she could mainline him a yellow Syrette.
Yeah, that’s the guy she needed, and she knew right where to find him.
CHAPTER
10
KID CHAOS Chronopolous was a genius. So was Skeeter Bang, and their brilliance didn’t show to a better advantage anywhere in Steele Street than up on the eighth-floor firing range.
> Travis James finished reloading the spare magazines for his Glock 21 and keyed a shooting drill into the computer.
A lot of the folks at SDF would disagree with him, citing instead the awesome race-quality tune-ups Skeeter did on the brute-powered muscle cars in Steele Street’s garages, or her uncanny clairvoyance that Hawkins swore she used to anticipate the lead on a moving target. Kid, they would say, was one of the most elite snipers to ever come out of the U.S. Marine Corps, an institution known for breeding and birthing some of the greatest snipers the world had ever known, like the legendary Carlos Hathcock—and they’d be right.
But for Travis’s money, one of the coolest benefits of all that technical, mechanical hoodoo voodoo and marksmanship skill was the firing range on the eighth floor and the computer program Skeeter and Kid had designed to run it.
He loaded a magazine into the Glock, chambered a round, then released the magazine and topped it off with another cartridge before loading it back into the pistol. With the spare magazines on his belt and the Glock in his holster, he was ready to go. Forty shots for ten targets, some stationary, some moving, and he was going to blow the hell out of all of them in record time.
Yeah, it was good to be home, especially in one piece, even if one of those pieces was being held together with ten stitches. He and Creed had gotten fucked in Colombia. Two of their guys had been wounded, one seriously, and both he and Creed could just as easily have been whacked. The mission had been to hook up with a patrol from the Colombian Marine Corps and go with them to set up some highly classified surveillance equipment at an airstrip hidden in the jungle on the Colombian/Venezuelan border. Creed had cut his teeth on similar missions. Travis had been with him on the last two. But this time they’d walked into an ambush. A band of Colombian rebels had been waiting for them, and there was nothing the narco-terrorists would have loved better than to have caught a couple of gringos in with the Colombian Marines.
Well, none of the narco-bastards were going to catch anything ever again.
Creed had been ruthless.
