The Bronzed Hawk

by Iris Johansen

  Nick glanced casually at the two well-dressed men in the booth that she’d indicated, and his face abruptly became totally expressionless. “They look just like any other well-to-do businessmen,” he said. “They’re not the jet-setter types that you’re looking for, Kelly.”

  Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Are you sure you don’t know who they are, Nick? I’m sure that I’ve seen both of them somewhere before. If I recognize them, then someone with a memory like yours surely would.”

  “I said that they weren’t who you were looking for,” he said impatiently, frowning. “Now drop it, Kelly.”

  She bristled in annoyance. “You’re being awfully evasive, Nick. Why won’t you—”

  “Nick, querido, how wonderful to see you again.” The woman’s voice was deep and sultry, and Kelly didn’t even have to turn around to see the woman who possessed it to know that her appearance would match it. She had heard that voice before, and quite recently at that.

  “Hello, Maria, this is a surprise,” Nick said coolly, looking over Kelly’s shoulder at the woman who had greeted him. “What brings you to Acapulco?”

  Maria drifted forward in a cloud of very potent Chanel No. 5 to lean over and kiss Nick lingeringly on the lips. “I’m visiting the Gomezes at their villa. Don’t you remember that I said I might come down in a week or so, querido?” She smiled at him, patently ignoring Kelly. “Acapulco is usually most amusing in this season, but I’ve been quite bored—until tonight.”

  Nick had said that she was obvious, Kelly thought gloomily, and she couldn’t conceive of a more blatant invitation than the one she was offering Nick at the moment. She was practically melting all over him, Kelly noticed disgustedly, and he certainly wasn’t resisting. Well, who would want to resist a dark, lush beauty like Maria Dominguez? In a white lamé halter gown slashed almost to her waist in front and baring her back to her very curvaceous derriere, she looked more like a Hollywood sex goddess than the wife of a government official. Even her face was sexy, with those sloe black eyes and a pouty mouth framed by that long, glossy, dark mane.

  Nick at last pulled his attention away and turned to Kelly. “Kelly, I’d like you to meet an old friend, Maria Dominguez,” he said, his lips twitching with amusement. “This is Kelly McKenna, Maria.”

  “Delighted,” Maria said lifelessly, not taking her gaze off O’Brien. Good Lord, the woman was practically eating him up with those hungry, dark eyes. “Are you going to dance with me, Nick?”

  Obvious, indeed. Nick didn’t appear to resent being pursued, however. He grinned tolerantly and said, “It would hardly be courteous to leave Kelly alone at the table, Maria.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Kelly muttered crossly, her envious eyes assessing the portion of Maria Dominguez’s anatomy that Nick had said he favored. She wasn’t about to sit here and watch the Latin woman attempt to seduce Nick. She jumped to her feet and grabbed her purse from the table. “I was just going to powder my nose anyway.” She flounced off in the general direction of the restroom. She distinctly heard Nick swearing under his breath, but she wasn’t about to return and be forced to watch Nick’s former mistress trying to work her sensual magic on him. She stayed in the restroom for a good fifteen minutes. She carefully redid her makeup, ran a comb through her hair, then spent the time sitting impatiently with her hands folded, waiting for the minutes to pass and fuming about the aggressive boldness of a certain South American woman.

  The sight that met her eyes when she finally left the powder room didn’t improve her temper. It took only one swift glance to determine that there was no one at the table and another to spot Nick and Maria on the dance floor. He obviously hadn’t seen fit to get rid of her, she thought moodily, watching Nick’s amused smile as he looked down into the woman’s vivacious face. She stood at the edge of the dance floor debating whether she should just leave the club and grab a taxi back to the hotel or meekly return to the table and wait for Nick to finish amusing himself with the luscious Maria. It didn’t take her long to come to a decision.

  She was turning to make her way through the crowd toward the front entrance when she caught sight of the two businessmen whom she and Nick had been discussing before his former mistress had arrived. She stopped, a puzzled frown clouding her face. Despite what Nick had said, she was sure she’d seen both men somewhere before. Now that she was only a few yards from the booth where they were sitting, she was even more convinced that she was right. Particularly the large bearded one in the gray pin-striped suit. That hawk nose and bushy black brows were characteristics that could scarcely be forgotten, once seen. Well, she couldn’t stand around undecided, gawking at them all evening. She’d just have to take a few shots of them and study the prints later.

  She reached into her purse and brought out her Leica before tucking the purse under her arm and winding her way determinedly toward the men in the booth. She paused a few yards away and lifted the camera from where it had been hidden in the flowing panels of her chiffon skirt and focused it swiftly.

  “Say cheese, gentlemen,” she said clearly, then shot the picture as they both looked up startled. “Thank you,” she caroled cheerfully and walked swiftly away.

  She had gone only a few paces when two burly men in dark suits suddenly erupted from a nearby table and stepped in front of her menacingly. Kelly’s eyes widened in alarm as she took in the truly intimidating bulk of the men and the fierce scowls on their faces. As an experienced journalist, she was quite familiar with the genus bodyguard and these specimens were easily recognizable. She felt a thrill of satisfaction surge through her as she realized that she must have hit pay dirt after all. Unknowns didn’t hire professional bodyguards to protect them. Now all she had to do was get the film safely out of the reach of these goons and find out just who she’d unearthed.

  That task might be more difficult than it sounded, she thought warily, as the enormous baldheaded guard circled behind her, while the smaller but equally husky man stepped toward her aggressively. He held out his hand commandingly. “La cámara, por favor.”

  “No way, buster,” she said sweetly, smiling at him serenely. “Haven’t you ever heard of the freedom of the press?”

  It seemed that neither of them had, for she felt the baldheaded man’s arms suddenly envelop her from behind. She kicked back at his shin with all her force, and he gave an agonized grunt and instinctively loosened his hold. She took the offensive. Turning with lightning swiftness, she grabbed his arm, stepping into a judo move she’d been taught and flipped him to the floor. But she’d had to put her bag and camera on a table to make the throw and the smaller man was scrambling eagerly to get the Leica. She kicked out at his face as he reached for the camera, and he fell backward with a surprised bellow of pain.

  Kelly snatched up her bag and camera and took off at a dead run across the dance floor, dodging recklessly among the startled couples. She had almost reached the ring of tables encircling the dance floor when she felt herself literally scooped off her feet from behind and held kicking and struggling at least two feet from the floor. It must be the baldheaded one, Kelly thought frantically, the smaller man wasn’t big enough to hold her dangling like a rag doll. Darn it, she couldn’t get any leverage to do any real damage, and in another minute the other one would be here to grab the camera while she was being held helpless. She drew back her elbow to try a blow to her captor’s solar plexus, when she heard him give a low grunt that was more like a sigh. His arms relaxed with startling suddenness, releasing her. Unprepared for the move, she stumbled but regained her balance in an instant.

  “Come on,” Nick said sharply, his hand grasping her elbow. “Let’s get the hell out of here before you get us both murdered.” He was almost running, and after one hurried glance at his grim expression, she decided to ask questions later and keep pace with him.

  She couldn’t resist one fleeting look behind her, however, and she almost stopped in her tracks when she saw her baldheaded captor lying unconscious on the dance floor,
surrounded by a crowd of shocked and chattering people. She caught a brief glimpse of the hawk-nosed object of her photo moving rapidly toward them across the room, and then they were out of the club and running toward Nick’s rented black Ferrari. By the time the bearded man erupted explosively from the entrance of the disco club, followed closely by his short, burly bodyguard, Nick and Kelly were already pulling out of the parking lot.

  EIGHT

  KELLY LOOKED BACK over her shoulder and waved cheerfully at the two furious men who were glaring at them. Then she turned around and settled herself comfortably in the plush gray velvet bucket seat. “They appeared to be a trifle annoyed with me, didn’t they?” she asked lightly. “Do you think they’ll try to follow us by car?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Nick said, between his teeth. His eyes were fixed straight ahead as he negotiated the traffic, and his knuckles as he grasped the steering wheel were white with tension. “It depends on how badly they want that film in your camera.”

  Kelly affectionately caressed the Leica on her lap. “They seemed to want it very badly, indeed.” She chuckled. “By the way, what on earth did you do to that baldheaded joker to put him out of commission so efficiently?”

  “I applied pressure on the cortex nerve in his neck,” he said tersely. “A light pressure causes unconsciousness, more can kill a man.”

  The coldness of the statement shook Kelly for a minute, but she rallied swiftly. “You do have the most interesting facts stored in that computer brain of yours,” she said teasingly. She was on a curious high, her blood pumping that exhilarating adrenaline, but it seemed that Nick was not sharing her excitement. She stole a glance sidewise at his grim, set expression and repressed a slight shiver. No, Nick was definitely upset, and that was completely out of character. She frowned in puzzlement. She knew enough about Nick’s background to know that under normal circumstances he would have thoroughly enjoyed this brouhaha. Why was he so uptight tonight? “That must be a very handy thing to know. You must teach it to me sometime.”

  “It wouldn’t have done you much good tonight,” he said bitterly. “Your friend who looked like a sumo wrestler could have broken your back like a matchstick if he’d chosen. Or hadn’t that occurred to you?”

  It hadn’t, as a matter of fact, and she was not about to dwell on it now that the danger was past. “He did rather look like a sumo wrestler, didn’t he?” she asked. “My first impression was the Incredible Hulk, but your description comes much closer.” Her eyes darkened thoughtfully. “They certainly got upset over one little photograph. I’ll have to have this developed as soon as I get back to the hotel and see if I can find out who they are.”

  Nick swore and shot her a sidewise glance that was definitely menacing. “Are you telling me you deliberately caused that riot back there, and you didn’t even know whose picture you were taking?”

  “I knew that they were VIPs,” she defended. “I just didn’t know who they were.” She frowned crossly. “And I didn’t deliberately start the trouble at the disco. It just happened. How did I know that they were going to react so violently to having their picture taken?”

  “ ‘It just happened,’ ” he mimicked caustically. “Disasters like that seem to happen to you with suspicious regularity. You rush in where angels fear to tread, and then you’re surprised when a land mine blows up under your feet!”

  “I was just doing my job,” she said hotly. “I’m a reporter, damn it! I know very well there’s a story behind that beard if I can just tag a name to it.”

  “The name is Sheikh Abdul Khadir,” Nick said tersely, “and the other man is Colonel Ramon Cordero.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened in surprise. “You knew all the time!” she accused indignantly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d do exactly what you did,” he growled. “Once you’d sniffed a story of that potential, you wouldn’t have given up no matter how dangerous the ramifications were. Khadir is OPEC’s moneyman and principal troubleshooter. He was bound to have a few toughs on hand for protection and persuasion.”

  “And who is Ramon Cordero?” Kelly asked.

  “A very influential figure in the Mexican military establishment, as well as a man who has his fingers in quite a few choice government pies.”

  “Oil reserves,” Kelly said flatly. “And some very lucrative wheeling and dealing for Colonel Cordero.” She bit her lip in concentration. “Just how powerful is the military faction in Mexico?”

  “Very. And growing stronger all the time. In an economic chaos, a military junta headed by Ramon Cordero might just topple the government.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Kelly whispered delightedly, her eyes glowing with excitement. “I can’t wait to get this picture to Mac. He’ll be over the moon!”

  “And you’ll be about six feet underground,” Nick said grimly. “You might mention that when you tell him what a brilliant investigative reporter you are.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” she protested. “There wasn’t that—”

  “Shut up, damn it!” he interrupted harshly. He drew a deep breath and said slowly between his teeth, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little perturbed with you, Kelly. It wouldn’t even be too far off the mark to say that I’m furious. So if you want to get back to the hotel in one piece, I suggest that you refrain from opening your mouth and making any more idiotic statements.”

  “Idiotic! Nothing I’ve said or done tonight has been idiotic, and it’s—”

  “Kelly!” The name was not loudly spoken, but it contained enough sheer menace to cut off her speech.

  “Oh, very well.” She gave him a disgruntled glance. “But don’t think that I don’t intend to continue this discussion once we get back to the suite.”

  He gave her a look so cold that it sent shivers down her spine. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said with dangerous softness.

  There was a frigid silence between them until the front door of the suite closed behind them. Nick flicked on the overhead light and strode directly to the bar at the far end of the room. He poured himself a double brandy and consumed half of it in one swallow before glancing at Kelly standing in the center of the room.

  “I won’t ask you if you want a drink,” he said as he came around the bar and half sat, half leaned against a white velvet, padded bar stool. “You’ve had quite an intoxicating night already, haven’t you, Kelly?”

  “You’re being completely ridiculous. I refuse to stand here like a naughty child being chastised by a stern parent for merely doing my job.” Her hand tightened around the camera she was still clutching in her hand. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take this film out and get it ready to forward to Mac.”

  Nick’s lips tightened, his face grim. “I won’t excuse you,” he said flatly, then took another swallow of his brandy. “You’re not going anywhere until we have this out.” He frowned impatiently. “You needn’t worry about your precious film. You nearly paid too high a price for it for me to let anything happen to it. We’ll run it to the airport tomorrow and send it out special counter-to-counter into your editor’s eager hands. Now, put that camera away and sit down.”

  Kelly thought for a moment of defying him, but there was something intimidating about Nick at the moment. She moved with insolent leisureliness to the white velvet couch and placed the Leica on an end table before dropping down onto the couch. She waved her hand in mocking obeisance. “As my lord commands.”

  “Very amusing. You’ll forgive me if I found your performance less than entertaining tonight. I never did care for black comedy.”

  Kelly slipped out of her emerald sandals and tucked her feet beneath her. “Aren’t you overreacting? After all, there was no real damage done. I took a picture, and there was a little awkwardness, but no one was hurt. You’ve been involved in far worse scrapes in your career, Nick.”

  “I’m not five-foot-nothing, and I don’t weigh in at less than half of my chosen antagonist,” he said sharply. “Why
in the hell didn’t you just give them the film? Did it ever occur to you that Arab men don’t take kindly to being physically humiliated by a woman? I saw that baldheaded bruiser’s face, and he was killing mad. You were lucky he didn’t take you apart with his bare hands.”

  “I had no idea that he was an Arab, and I was doing pretty well until he grabbed me from behind,” Kelly bristled indignantly. “You needn’t treat me like I’m some sort of fragile flower just because you helped me out of a spot. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have gotten out of it on my own. I’ve been taking care of myself for quite a few years without your intervention, Nick O’Brien!”

  “It’s a wonder that you’ve managed to survive so long if tonight was an example of your damn suicidal impulsiveness.” His expression was stormy as he finished his drink in one swallow and crashed the empty glass on the bar. “Do you know how I felt when I saw you up against those two goons and knew that either one of them could put you in the hospital before I could reach you through the crowd?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have noticed. If I remember, you appeared to be very occupied with Señora Dominguez before any of the rhubarb started. How did you manage to tear yourself away from the sexy señora?”

  “You know that I don’t give a damn about Maria. I only used her to try to distract your attention from Khadir.”

  “That’s scarcely complimentary to either of us,” Kelly retorted fiercely, ignoring the surge of relief that rippled through her at the realization that Nick had not been as dazzled by his former mistress as she had believed. “Your little South American chili pepper may not mind your attempting to manipulate her, but I certainly do. I’ll run my life and my career to suit myself, and I’ll be damned if I’ll tolerate your interference. What if I tried to tell you how to do your job? You can bet that you’d toss my advice back into my face so fast that it would make my head swim.”