Packing Heat

by Penny McCall

  The woman in the front seat was definitely three-dimensional and, sure, screwing her brains out was an ever-present urge lurking in the back of his mind . . . Okay, it wasn’t his brain at a constant simmer. But he wasn’t about to let her screw him back—in anything but the literal sense. He’d trusted the Bureau once. He wasn’t making that mistake again, even when the Bureau came packaged in hair the color of ripe wheat; wide, innocent blue eyes; and a curvy little body covered in smooth, tanned skin . . .

  “You have a name?” he asked, dragging his eyes off her body so he could put his brain back on the situation.

  “Agent Swift.”

  “Is that an oxymoron?”

  “It’s a name,” she said, the deadpan tone of her voice exactly matching the deadpan expression on her face.

  She looked pretty ridiculous when she put on that blank, vaguely threatening FBI mask, like Betty Boop with a chip on her shoulder. Probably wouldn’t help his cause to point that out.

  She did a U-turn, taking them back the way they’d come, causing him a moment of panic when Robert F. Miller Drive made the swing back toward Lewisburg USP. Maybe she’d changed her mind, he thought, maybe putting two of her own in the drink had pushed her back to sanity and she was returning him to prison—stone, steel, and horny lifers—after a taste of freedom. His breath came short, and he broke out in a cold sweat. And he blamed Agent Swift.

  She steered the Explorer off-road, but it took him a minute to fight down the image of his hands around her throat. He’d never been a violent man, but if it took violence to stay out of jail, he’d find a way to live with the regret. She kept heading steadily away from Lewisburg, though. And Cole kept his hands, cuffs and all, to himself. One of the first things he’d learned in jail was that anything could be turned into a weapon.

  After a few minutes she left the relative smoothness of the harvested fields, turning into the same line of trees verging the same creek where she’d left the other two feds several miles downstream. The terrain worsened as they went. Cole put his shoulders against one door, his feet against the other. It cut down on the bruising, and kept him out of sight of the rearview mirror.

  The leaves had just begun to turn with the onset of cooler weather, but they weren’t falling yet. Agent Swift parked the Explorer under the thickest canopy she could find, and Cole shoved himself upright before she turned around.

  “Worried about helicopters?” he asked her.

  “There won’t be any helicopters. Not right away at least. The FBI won’t expect us to hang around a few miles from the prison, and they won’t invite local law enforcement to go after one of their own, not as long as they think they can bring us in themselves. We’ve got some time.”

  WHATEVER CONCLUSIONS COLE HAD DRAWN FROM THE packaging, the mind inside that blond head wasn’t too shabby. But then, she was FBI, and they only recruited the best. It would be a mistake to underestimate her. Or take anything she said at face value.

  “Why me?” he asked, beginning where he always began to solve a problem—by gathering the facts.

  “I need you to do some computer work.”

  “The geeks at the Bureau can’t handle it?”

  “They won’t handle it,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

  Something the feds wouldn’t dirty their hands with? No thanks. Except . . . She’d pushed his curiosity button. It was the one quirk of his personality even a stretch in the federal pen couldn’t bastardize.

  “Part of my sentence was zero access to computers,” he said. “I haven’t touched so much as a calculator in ten years.”

  “Bull,” she said, her back against the driver’s side door so she could watch his face. “Prison doesn’t prevent crime. As soon as the inmates with the power found out why you were incarcerated, the first thing they did was get you access to a computer. In there you were probably a god.”

  “There is no god in there.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Very dramatic. You have a brilliant career as a soap opera actor ahead of you.”

  “I’m probably not going to survive you.”

  “At least you’ll die a free man.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m only staying free as long as the two agents chasing us don’t catch up.”

  “They won’t.”

  He snorted. “Between you and those other guys, my money is on them.”

  “Those guys?” She huffed out a breath, insulted. There were at least a dozen ways they could have stopped her from forcing their car into that river. The guy behind the wheel was probably an agent-in-training. Send a novice to catch a novice. After today, they wouldn’t underestimate her that way again.

  “Just sinking in, huh?”

  “I got you out of there, didn’t I? I had all the proper paperwork with the proper signatures. And they were real signatures, not forgeries.”

  “A cake with a file in it probably would have worked better.”

  She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You could at least say thank you.”

  Jesus, he was stranded with Emily Post. She’d broken him out of federal prison, perpetrated vehicular assault on two federal agents, and she was focusing on his lack of manners? She had no idea who they were really up against, and she worked for them. She was clueless or optimistic—and he’d take the former over the latter any day. Clueless could be educated. Optimism took years in jail to cure. Or death.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  She gave him a look. Probably didn’t like the tone of his voice.

  “Let’s get a couple things straight,” he said, using the same tone of voice. “You dragged me out of my life—”

  “Your nice, comfy life in jail?”

  “I was making the best of a bad situation,” he said, clenching his jaw over the whiny note of defense in his voice. Damn federal agents, he thought, they did it to him every time.

  “You have no idea what’s at stake,” she said.

  “Don’t I? I wound up in jail because of the FBI, but at least they asked nice last time.”

  “I know it looks bad, but you have to trust me.”

  He rattled the handcuffs.

  She sighed, patience strained. “All right, I hijacked you, and you’re cuffed in the back of my vehicle, but I had to make sure you would stick around long enough to hear me out.”

  “My ears are working fine. So’s my bullshit meter.”

  She thunked her head back against the driver’s side window but she didn’t take her eyes off him. “Some new information has come to light regarding your case.” It was a lie, hopefully the only one she’d have to tell. And she was only telling it because he’d backed her into a corner. Honesty was always the best policy; too many lies and you were stumbling over them and getting yourself into trouble. Besides, Cole Hackett was no stooge.

  “What kind of information?”

  “The kind that will get you a new trial.”

  Riiiight, and he was the King of England. “Let me guess, you’re going to give me that information. After I help you.”

  “Well, you’d have no incentive otherwise,” she said with a perky little smile.

  Cole hated perky. He hated the way her blue eyes sparkled, and he hated the cheerful, glass-half-full way she was looking at him. What the hell was there to be optimistic about? He couldn’t even enjoy his brief stint of freedom because he didn’t believe it would last. Any moment the feds would show up and cart him back to Lewisburg, and hell, would that be so bad?

  He’d come to terms with the fact that he was going to lose more than a third of his life. The best third. He’d even managed to make the best of a terrible existence. Now, along came the FBI again, making promises and expecting him to smile and nod and tell them what a fine idea it was. Like hell.

  “I’m not that naïve kid the Bureau fucked over eight years ago,” he said. “I’m not even a law-abiding citizen anymore, and I don’t give a shit about national security.”

  And that, he realized, was a kind of free
dom only someone staring down a twenty-five-year sentence could understand. There were options available to the man he was now that the kid he’d been never would have considered.

  “There’s no harm in hearing me out,” she said.

  Cole scrubbed a hand over his face and gave in to his curiosity. “So what’s the story this time?”

  “I can’t tell you until you agree to help me. It’s classified.”

  “It’s not sanctioned, either. Let’s start there.”

  “There are all kinds of sanctioning.”

  “What kind is this?”

  “Fine,” she huffed out, “it’s not sanctioned. I’ll do everything I said I would, just as soon as you agree to some ground rules.”

  “How about you give me the key to the handcuffs, I get out of this vehicle, and while you’re trying to figure out your next move, I’ll get so lost you’ll never find me again. All I need is a computer and an Internet connection.”

  She turned forward and reached for the ignition. “I’ll take you back before I let you es—”

  Cole flipped his hands over her seat, laying the short handcuff chain across her windpipe. “It’ll be hard to stop me when you’re dead.”

  chapter 2

  “YOUR HANDS WERE CUFFED BEHIND YOU.”

  “Now they’re not,” Cole said.

  “You’re a pretty flexible guy.”

  “The key.”

  She took a careful breath, no doubt considering her options. Cole put a little pressure on the chain.

  “It’s in the glove compartment,” she wheezed out immediately. The look in her eyes wasn’t so cooperative.

  He eased off, enough for her to reach over . . . and pull out a gun, probably a .38. He had to guess at the caliber since she’d pointed it at him over her shoulder and all he could see was that little black hole in the end of the barrel. A .38 was what most women used . . . and that really wasn’t the point here, he reminded himself, dragging his gaze off the gun.

  Her eyes met his in the rearview, not so wide and innocent anymore, and when she wasn’t trying to look like an agent, she actually did. Cool, determined, dangerous—Okay, the gun was dangerous, as long as he didn’t take the package into consideration, because when he put Goldilocks and the gun in the same picture, he had a hard time taking the whole thing seriously. Then again, her hand wasn’t shaking.

  “Not much chance I can miss you at this range,” she said, “even struggling to breathe.”

  “Go ahead, shoot me. If you think you can lift a couple hundred pounds of deadweight off your neck.”

  “Where’s the good in both of us being dead?”

  “One less fed on the planet.”

  “That’s a stupid trade-off, and you don’t strike me as a stupid man.”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  But the pressure eased off. It didn’t disappear, but Harmony could see she was on the right track. Rule Number One in hostage negotiation: Keep the subject talking. Probably would have been easier if she weren’t the hostage, but you didn’t get to pick your crises, that was what made being an agent such a rush.

  “I’m offering you a chance to get your life back,” she said.

  “Spook bullshit. Last time it cost me eight years. This time around I’ll probably end up dead.”

  Harmony bit back her impatience. She hadn’t counted on this much resistance.

  “Give me the gun,” he said, “and I’ll let you go.”

  Rule Number Two: Let the subject think he’s in charge. The hell with that, she wasn’t giving him the gun. She cocked it instead.

  He tightened the chain.

  She kept her eyes level on his, ignoring the gray at the edges as she popped the clip, turned the gun butt first, and handed it to him.

  “Unlock the doors.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “What? Didn’t hear the magic word? Please unlock the doors or I’ll strangle you,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Please don’t argue with me or I’ll strangle you. Please let me go. Or I’ll strangle you.”

  Harmony rolled her eyes, but she got the point. He had her by the throat, literally. She hit the door locks, the chain disappeared, and he was gone, fast and quiet.

  Rule Number Three: If you have a shot, take it. She very calmly pulled up her skirt to get her clutch piece from the thigh holster, stepped out of the car, sighted down the barrel straight at his back, adjusted her aim slightly, and squeezed off a round.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around.

  “I won’t miss next time.”

  “If you kill me—”

  “I’ll shoot you. I never said I would kill you.”

  “Just as long as I’m able to type?”

  She popped up an eyebrow.

  “You’re in over your head, little girl,” he said. “Go back to D.C.”

  “And tell them what? I broke a criminal out of prison and then chickened out?”

  “Is your pride worth your life?”

  “This isn’t about pride. And it’s not about my life.”

  “How about my life then?”

  “They weren’t shooting at us,” she said, then clamped her jaw shut over the shrill edge to her voice. The adrenaline was wearing off, and she was having second thoughts, and third, and fourth. It didn’t help that Cole Hackett was being an all-around pain in the neck. “Your life won’t be in danger,” she said to him, “so what are you afraid of? Carpal tunnel?”

  “It’s not fear; it’s history. Considering my track record with the FBI, your assurances aren’t exactly reassuring.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got the gun.”

  Cole’s shoulders slumped. He stomped back to the Explorer, for the first time resembling that kid in his mug shot. But he wasn’t a kid, and along with the baby fat he’d lost every ounce of naïveté and hope. Because of the FBI, which, being a federal agent, put her in a rather awkward position. The only way she’d get him to cooperate was to give him the choice.

  She lowered the gun and turned away from him, reaching into the top of her dress to retrieve the handcuff key. When she turned back he was so close she all but ran into him. She took a step or two back, not because she was afraid he’d overpower her. It was the look in his eyes.

  “If I’d known where it was, I’d have gone after it myself,” he said. “My hands were right there.”

  She lifted the key into his field of vision—right about breast level—then closed her hand around it before he could take it from her. “You were close enough to ‘go for it,’ ” she pointed out, “because you were threatening to kill me.”

  “And I could have.” His hand closed around hers. “But I didn’t.”

  She jerked her hand free, but she wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the punch her system took from skin-to-skin contact with him. And so what if there was a bit of a buzz when she touched him? It was circumstance—circumstance and adrenaline. She’d wanted a field assignment forever. The excitement and danger of the day’s events, and the high of making their escape was still bouncing around inside her, looking for an outlet. Next time she’d be ready for it.

  Judging by the look in Cole’s eyes he thought she was “ready for it” now. She chose to ignore the smirk.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said to him. “You hear me out, and if you decide to take off, I won’t stop you.”

  “Where’s the catch?”

  “No catch, except you’ll be on the run.”

  “I’m on the run now. So are you.”

  “I can deal with the choices I’ve made. It’ll be easier with your help, and the Bureau will be grateful—”

  “Like the last time? They were so grateful they sent me on vacation. For twenty-five to life.”

  “You had a fair trial—”

  “Fair!” Cole threw his hands up, cuffs and all, stomping a few feet away before whirling around to scowl at her, looking irritated, harassed, dangerously handsome . . . Minus
the handsome part, she amended. Not noticing the muscles, either.

  “The FBI fucked me over,” he said, helping her out by looking just dangerous. “There’s no point trying to convince you when you’re part of the system.”

  He held out his hands, one of them palm up, and Harmony saw success flying away.

  She didn’t give him the key. “You’re a federal fugitive. How long do you think you’ll stay free?”

  “I don’t know, let’s ask the guys on the Wanted posters in the post office.”

  “So you’re going to turn into the Unabomber? Build a shack in the mountains? How’s that going to get you back your life?”

  “If I wanted my life back, I’d turn myself in and come clean.”

  “I saw your face when we walked out of jail. We both know you’re not going to do that.”

  “I’ll get a new life.”

  Great, now she’d pissed him off even more, enough that she had no trouble remembering he’d spent eight years in criminal boot camp. If he didn’t get a new life when all this was over—a life that didn’t include jail time—he’d blame her. Who was she kidding? She was FBI; he already blamed her.

  “Take the front,” she said.

  “Because you trust me, or because you want to keep an eye on me?”

  “I don’t trust you any more than you trust me.” But she handed him the key.

  He unlocked the cuffs, rubbing his wrists. “It doesn’t matter if you trust me. You need me.”

  “We need each other,” Harmony said, retrieving the handcuffs from where he’d dropped then in the weeds.

  He angled himself into the front seat. His body language was unreceptive at best.

  “You can get a new life,” Harmony said, climbing into the driver’s side, “but you want more than that.”

  “Stop telling me what I want.”

  “Freedom,” she said anyway. “And being a fugitive isn’t freedom, not for you.”

  “You don’t know me as well as you think.”