Packing Heat

by Penny McCall

  The place consisted of a huge, rambling old house that had probably been built for some famous Ohio personage a century or so ago. There were a couple smaller houses off to one side of the property, newer construction, and a building that looked like it had once been a barn or carriage house, but had been converted to a guesthouse. Juan had insisted they stay with him, and Cole, without consulting her, had agreed. Since they were supposed to be a couple, she had no choice but to go along.

  Besides, she had something she needed to do, something she’d put off as long as she could.

  She took out her government cell phone and speed-dialed a number she’d programmed in. The phone was traceable, but since she wasn’t undercover, it would also come up on caller ID. That was a requirement.

  “Agent Swift,” the person who answered the phone said with a Russian accent. “I expected your call yesterday.”

  “I couldn’t because—” Anything else she might have said was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream that trailed off into muffled sobbing.

  In the back of her mind there’d always been the possibility of turning back. She scrapped that notion right there and then.

  “This happens when you do not meet our demands.”

  “I need to talk to Richard.”

  “Nyet.”

  “I get proof of life or I’m out.”

  “You hear the screaming.”

  “That could have been you for all I know.”

  There were a few seconds of silence, then Richard came on the line, his voice shaking and weak. “Harmony? Is it really you?”

  “Yes, Richard.”

  “Oh, thank god,” he said, the words ending on a small sob. “I didn’t think anyone gave a damn about me—” He ended with another scream, then the kidnapper came back on the line.

  Harmony was struggling to pay attention, but all she could hear was Richard’s pain.

  “Agent Swift,” the kidnapper yelled, his Russian accent becoming thicker as he grew agitated.

  She swallowed, but she wasn’t in an emotional place where words were possible. The most she could force out was a sound that meant she was still there and still listening.

  “The money. You transfer it, yes?”

  “It’s not that easy,” she said, her voice getting stronger as she managed to tune out Richard’s soft moaning. “It’s not like I can just pull up the accounts and push a button. I have to hack in. It takes time.”

  “Your friend, he is running out of, how do you say it, exposable body parts.”

  “Expendable,” she said, stifling the urge to throw up.

  “I would hate for him to no longer be a man when he comes back to you. If he comes back.”

  “You’d better hope—”

  “Two days, same time, you call.” And he hung up.

  “I take it you weren’t ordering pizza.”

  Harmony swung around and there was Cole. She didn’t ask how long he’d been standing in the doorway. He’d clearly heard enough, and even if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t be hard to guess who she’d been talking to. Her hands were shaking, and when she scrubbed one over her face it came away wet.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, which was clearly a lie. She couldn’t chance the possibility Cole would try to comfort her. If he lent any sympathy, she’d fall apart.

  “Good,” he said, “nothing worse than a hysterical female.”

  She turned away, went to sit on the seat in the front bay window, pulling her legs up and hugging them to her chest.

  Cole came over and stopped in front of her, looking uncomfortable and fidgety. “Juan is expecting us to stay the night. They’re having a barbecue. The whole family is coming.”

  “Paying homage to the man who inspired the Esposito auto parts empire?”

  “Entertaining a friend.”

  “Then we eat barbecue. But tomorrow we head west, put some distance between us and Ohio. For the sake of your friend.”

  “You think we’re in danger here?”

  “No, it’s just a precaution.” Except for the fact that she’d had to use her government issue phone, which was traceable. She wouldn’t have worried about it, but those two FBI agents showing up at Lewisburg still troubled her.

  Cole didn’t say anything, taking his customary moment to deliberate.

  “Richard was working in Los Angeles,” Harmony said into the silence, not in the mood for any of his uncomfortable questions. “We have a long way to go, and I’d think you’d want this over with as quickly as I do.”

  “How do you know he is still alive?”

  Harmony looked out the window. “He’s alive. Trust me.” She’d never get the sound of those screams out of her head.

  chapter 9

  COLE SET THE LAPTOP TO CONTINUE RUNNING THE password generator, then took a stab at making himself presentable, which consisted of running water over his head since he didn’t have any clean clothes.

  He wasn’t really in a party mood. Sleep he could use, and maybe some time to process everything that had happened in the fifty-five hours since Harmony Swift had blasted into his life. They walked out of the guesthouse, Cole got a whiff of barbecue, and suddenly crowds of strangers and music that made his skull vibrate weren’t too much to endure if he could get his hands on a rack of spareribs.

  Three huge grills anchored one end of a large patio behind Juan’s house, manned by three Hispanic guys bickering goodnaturedly in two languages over who was the best griller. Every kind of barbecued meat imaginable came off the grills and was moved to a series of tables already loaded with bowls of fresh fruit, tortillas, and dozens of homemade Mexican dishes that defied identification but tasted like heaven.

  There was enough food to feed an army, and over the next few hours, one showed up. It started with Juan’s extended family—his wife and seven children, and a couple of abuelas, dressed in black and giving Cole the eye out of wrinkled faces. There were cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews of all shapes and sizes, most of whom seemed to live in the other two houses on the property.

  After that people started wandering in from the street in ones and twos, packing into the backyard and attacking the food tables like locusts. Couples danced to the music piped out from the house; kids ran around screaming and playing.

  The main connection seemed to be Hispanic, with a few other ethnic groups peppered in for diversity. As long as he stayed seated, Cole thought he blended okay. Harmony stood out like a sore thumb. She was whiter than anyone else there, blonder than anyone else there, and she was trying to outdo everyone as far as liquor intake went. Quite the undertaking considering the crowd involved and their fondness for tequila.

  She’d made a half-hearted visit to the food table when they’d arrived, and then she hit the bar. Repeatedly.

  Cole made an attempt to rein her in at first, but he couldn’t forget how shaky she’d been after that phone call. She said the kidnappers had let her know Swendahl was alive—alive and hurting. Cole bet they’d made it clear he was paying a price every time she kept them waiting. Maybe it was just hearing someone in pain that had turned her into a wreck, but Cole would have bet she had a personal involvement with the guy. And if she’d lied about that, what else had she lied about?

  He might have asked her, if he’d had the time to accomplish any of his own goals. But until he got the money or the proof he needed, he had to stay on the roller coaster with her. He just had to hope she wasn’t going to get him killed in the meanwhile.

  At least they were in a safe place. Harmony needed to escape reality for a little while, but as long as one of them was sober what was the harm? And sure, the ugliness would still be there when she sobered up, compounded by a wicked hangover, but he couldn’t deny her a moment of oblivion. He kept an eye on her, nursing a beer and keeping a clear head. He had things to forget, too, but he’d come to terms with his demons a long time ago.

  At the other end of the stone patio from the grills, a live band played in front o
f a wooden dance floor. People came and went; Harmony was apparently there to stay. She had a beer bottle in one hand, and she was moving to the music. Every now and then a man—or a woman—would dance with her for a bit, but mostly she was dancing by herself. She wasn’t the only one going solo. The floor was packed with people, some of whom had no partners, some who were dancing in a group. Harmony wasn’t all that unusual. But she stood out.

  Cole would have chalked it up to the blonde thing again, but it was more than that. Harmony was sexy, even on a normal day. Hell, even when she was involved in a car chase that ended with two FBI agents in a river, there was an energy about her that spoke directly to a man’s most basic urges. And when she was drunk and completely without inhibitions, well, if she’d been wearing a G-string and straddling a stripper pole, she couldn’t have stirred up a bunch of men more than she did wearing jeans and holding a bottle of beer.

  Cole decided it was time to get her out of there, before she started a riot. And then the police showed up. They weren’t in uniform, but they had cop written all over them, both of them walking in from the street like they were still sporting cop tool belts and shoulder radios. They wandered through the throng, hands loose at their sides, eyes missing nothing. One of them stopped and took a long look at Harmony, nudging his partner so they were both staring at her.

  “Shit,” Cole said under his breath. His first instinct was to drag her out of there. He stifled it. If the cops were looking for a couple with their description his best bet was to stay away from her. All he could do was sit there while the younger of the two police officers headed straight for Harmony. And began to dance with her.

  “You look like you saw a ghost, man,” Juan said.

  More like his life flashing before his eyes. “Sneaking up on me?”

  “You were busy watching the cops. Want to tell me again how you were paroled?”

  Cole didn’t say anything, still watching Harmony shake her booty with one of Cleveland’s finest, clearly oblivious to the whole low-profile program.

  “They didn’t come here on business,” Juan said. “They’re friends of mine. Some of my neighbors think I’m a detriment to the community.”

  “They’re probably right.”

  Juan grinned like he was reliving his glory days. “When there’s a complaint, these guys show up and make middle-class America feel like their tax dollars are well spent.”

  “You have cops for friends? You really have gone legit.”

  “Don’t mean I can’t tell when somebody ain’t being straight with me, and you’re not being straight with me, Doc.” Juan took a seat at a nearby table. Cole joined him.

  “You were convicted under the Patriot Act,” Juan continued. “The feds didn’t let you out seventeen years early.”

  “Not entirely true,” Cole said. “Harmony is a fed, and she got me out early because she needs me to help her with a case.”

  “Shit, man, didn’t you learn anything the first time around?” Juan shook his head, not believing one man could be that stupid twice in one lifetime. Juan knew Cole’s history.

  “It’s a chance to get out of jail for good.”

  “If you do what they want.”

  “You got it on the first try.”

  “I got some experience in these matters,” Juan said dryly.

  “On the positive side,” Cole said, gesturing to Harmony’s dance partner, “the Ohio cops don’t appear to be looking for us yet, and the feds don’t know where we are.” Just a couple of Russian enforcers Cole chose not to mention since they didn’t seem to be a threat to anyone. For the moment.

  “Fuck,” Juan said.

  “We’ll take off.”

  “Nah, like you said, the cops aren’t looking for you and the feds don’t have a clue. Spend the night.” He looked off in the general direction of the dance floor. “But I think the party’s over.”

  Juan got to his feet and made his way through the crowd to the dance floor. Cole watched him shake the hand of the spectator cop. By the time that cop got the attention of his partner, Cole had circled around the dance floor. The moment Harmony was alone he swooped in and towed her away, ignoring the protests of the male gallery. A glance over his shoulder told him the cops had missed the getaway, and Harmony was stumbling along behind him, laughing and looking happy. She tripped over a rough patch of grass and fell on her ass. Her hand pulled free of Cole’s and she stayed there, giggling uncontrollably. Cole caught her under the armpits and hauled her to her feet, slinging his arm around her waist and half carrying her toward the guesthouse.

  “You’re pretty,” she said, smiling blearily up into his face and draping herself over him so that when Cole pushed the door to the guesthouse open he had to put his hands on her waist and walk her backward into the darkness.

  It wasn’t bad enough that he could feel her body against his from breasts to knees, she had to nuzzle his neck, too. Then her hands got in the act, running over his back and down to his butt, and she added a moan, her warm breath washing over his skin.

  Cole put her at arm’s length, ignoring her pout. It would be the easiest thing in the world to take what she was offering. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even remember it in the morning. Except he had philosophical objections to taking advantage of her that way. And if they were going to have sex, she was damned well going to remember it.

  “Time for bed,” he said, giving her a light shove toward the end of the room that was set up as a sleeping area.

  She went, still pouting. Cole turned his back, hoping to hell she didn’t come after him again, but knowing if he watched her undress he’d go after her, and their relationship would get way too complicated. He couldn’t help himself, though. He looked across the room and saw Harmony, facedown on the bed, snoring softly, and something inside him shifted. Something that scared the hell out of him.

  He was on his feet and heading for the door before he thought about it, and when he did think, his feet kept right on moving. He could find a computer somewhere, he said to himself; he could do exactly what he wanted without having to worry about Harmony’s mission. And then he’d have the FBI after him for real, not to mention Juan would get jacked up because no one would believe he hadn’t helped.

  Cole stopped with his hand on the doorknob, looking back at Harmony and rethinking his options. All she wanted him to do was hack into the FBI and commit a little larceny, right? And serving Harmony’s ends meant serving his own. And if he was being strictly honest with himself, he had to admit that that look on Harmony’s face when she’d called the kidnappers had something to do with his decision. He knew how it felt to be an innocent victim, and to be helpless to do anything about it.

  A faint beep from the table where he’d left the laptop cemented his decision, especially when he crossed the room and discovered that the password generator had finally gotten past the FBI’s first line of security.

  He was working his way past the second line of defense when he was kicked out. He went back in, and was kicked out almost immediately. A system that plugged its own holes. Revolutionary. And familiar. Because he’d created it. Every programmer left himself a back door, so he typed in a series of commands and hit enter. Nothing happened.

  Cole took to his feet, but it was no use. Anger blasted through him, wave after wave until he was shaking with it, red crowding the edges of his vision.

  They’d stolen his system. He’d known that before he started, but coming up against his own handiwork and being repelled by it . . . He paced across the room and back, hands fisted so hard they ached, struggling against the urge to smash something. He’d never really believed they could get his software up and running. But they had. And they were using it against him.

  It felt like being fucked over again, like finding out his best friend had scored him a face-to-face with his old man, a guy named Victor Treacher, who just happened to work in computer security at the FBI. Cole had been so high just to get the opportunity to pitch his new security sof
tware he’d have handed over a kidney, no questions asked, if Treacher had requested it. Hacking into the FBI’s system to prove they needed to upgrade their security had seemed an entirely reasonable request. Until he was arrested under the new Patriot Act.

  When he’d tried to defend his actions, he’d discovered that every scrap of hard copy and every file on his computer had disappeared, leaving him with an interesting story but no proof that he’d ever created revolutionary new security software. And that wasn’t the worst of it. His best friend had set him up, stolen his future in every way possible. And there hadn’t been anything Cole could do about it. Until now.

  SURPRISINGLY, COLE MANAGED TO SLEEP AFTER ALL that. Apparently anger was exhausting. He’d shut down the laptop and passed out sometime after midnight. He woke up to the sound of bedclothes rustling, and unfolded himself from the too-short couch, rubbing at the crick in his neck.

  Harmony stirred in the bed again, but he kept his eyes to himself. No point adding a snapshot of her, all warm and drowsy and sexy, to the picture album in his head. Unfortunately he got a sound bite instead.

  “Cole?” she whispered, her voice husky, the question ending on a little moan as she stretched. “Are you up?”

  “Yeah, I’m up.” In every way possible.

  “What time is it?”

  “Time to get moving.”

  She sat up and stretched; she must have pulled her jeans off sometime during the night, and the sight of her in just a T-shirt and panties brought on the familiar rush of heat and need. He welcomed it this time because it blunted the frustration. “Great party last night,” she said, already wide awake and sounding chipper.

  “I’m surprised you remember any of it. You had a lot to drink.”

  “Did I?” She shrugged and went into the bathroom, oblivious to her lack of meaningful coverage and humming something that would have been played by a mariachi band.