Smokescreen

by Iris Johansen

  2:35 P.M.

  “Quinn’s not back yet?” Gideon murmured to Novak as he crawled back from checking on the other men on the team. “It’s been almost an hour. I don’t like it. He stopped us four times before we got half a mile into the property to disarm land mines. I have an idea this whole jungle is one big time bomb.”

  “So does Quinn,” Novak said grimly. “That’s why he wanted to explore ahead to make sure that it would be minimally safe for us to go forward without blowing ourselves up. The sentries are the least of our worries.”

  “Well, they may not be the least of Quinn’s worries. I didn’t hear any explosions, but one of the sentries might have gotten him.” Then he shook his head. “No, Quinn’s too sharp. Forget I said that. I just want to get moving. So do the rest of your team, Novak.”

  “Do you think I don’t?” He paused, struggling with his own impatience. “Quinn knows what he’s doing.” He added, “I hope.”

  “That didn’t appear to be a sincere vote of confidence.” Joe Quinn was suddenly moving out of the palmetto bushes next to them. “But I can see why. I thought I’d be back before this.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I knew after a half hour that I wasn’t going to be able to bring any of the team much farther than this point. I’ve never seen an area so heavily seeded with land mines. Varak must be truly paranoid. I watched one of his sentries, who obviously had a defined path, and he was very careful about not going off that path. He probably didn’t know where all those land mines were either.”

  “And that surprises you?” Novak asked. “Varak would have been amused if one of his men was careless enough to get himself blown up.” He asked, “Where were you for the rest of that hour?”

  “Taking photos. Trying to determine sentry placement. I found the helicopter pad.” He looked at Novak. “And I located the main house and bunkhouses.”

  Novak tensed. “Varak?”

  “I didn’t see him. And that area is so heavily fortified, there’s no way we’d be able to get into his house or get a shot at Varak without being blown away ourselves.” His lips twisted. “I thought I’d better get back instead of staking him out. After all, you are heading this team.”

  “Not so that anyone would notice,” he said. “You said that the team wouldn’t be able to go any farther, but you managed to flit all around the damn encampment.”

  “I knew what I was doing. One man with experience. An entire team tramping through there would end up in pieces. The odds are someone would make a mistake.” He looked at Gideon. “And that young girl you were so concerned about would pay for it when Varak got spooked. Do you want that?”

  “No. But I do want Varak.” He turned to Novak. “What do we do?”

  Novak thought about it. Dammit, he couldn’t see any options at the moment. He muttered a curse, then said to Gideon, “Go back to the men and get them out of here and back to Robaku.” He whirled back to Quinn. “You said one man could do it. How about two? Can you take me back to that house so that I can verify that bastard is Nils Varak?”

  Quinn gazed thoughtfully at him. “Maybe. You want to stake him out?”

  “I want to see him move. And maybe there’s some way we can get in that house for DNA. If we can’t, I want to get a video to send to our lab for facial analysis and verification. They’d be able to determine if his basic facial structure would support that plastic surgery Zahra paid for. It’s not much, but I don’t want this all to be for nothing. Can you do it?”

  Quinn was thinking about it. “You do know that it gets dark very early in rain forests like these. Those tree canopies block out all light. You’d have only a limited amount of time to stake him out. We’d have maybe three or four hours.” He added grimly, “And it’s hard as hell to avoid those land mines when I can see. Even at dusk, it would be a risk. I can’t use a flashlight because of the sentries.”

  “Stop telling me about the problems. Will you do it?”

  “Shit,” Gideon said. “Novak!”

  “Answer me, Quinn.” Novak held his eyes. “Can you get me there?”

  Quinn suddenly smiled. “Sure, no problem. I know the way now. Providing you can follow in my steps without a single deviation. Not even an inch.” He added dryly, “That would be nearly impossible for you considering that you don’t like to go any way but your own.”

  “But not quite impossible,” he said curtly. “I’d have the comfort of knowing you’d be blown up before I would.” He turned away. “Let’s go, Quinn.”

  Quinn nodded. “By all means. I was pissed off about having to stop and come back to you anyway.” He moved back into the palmetto bushes. “Stay close, Novak. I’m going to be moving very fast.”

  * * *

  Robaku

  5:50 P.M.

  “What do you mean they went back into that jungle?” Jill stared at Gideon in horror. “Gideon. Why did you just leave them there?”

  “I had orders, dammit,” Gideon said. “I couldn’t go with them, but I could get the team safely back. That’s what I did.”

  “Since when did you ever obey orders,” Jill’s voice was shaking. “You do what you like.”

  “Not when it comes down to sacrificing thirty-two men by not obeying two men who have a hell of a lot more experience than I do.”

  “No, you’d rather sacrifice—”

  “Easy, Jill,” Eve said. “It’s not his fault. Would you like to go up against Novak or Joe?”

  “Yes, I’d like to knock their heads together.” But she realized Eve was right. It was just the shock that had caused her to attack Gideon. Shock and sickening fear. But she had to control it. Eve was just as frightened as she was, and she mustn’t make it worse for her. She forced herself to nod at Gideon. “You did what you could. I’m just scared.”

  “Me too.” He made a face. “I nearly flipped when Novak wanted to go back with Quinn to stake out Varak. I would have done anything I could to stop them. I was worried about Quinn’s being a wild card, but Novak was just as bad today.”

  “Or just as good,” Eve said quietly. “They’re both professionals, and they wanted to get the job done. What can we do to help them, Gideon?”

  He shook his head. “Not much of anything. Just wait. I left two men on the road that borders the property to send me word if anything…unusual occurred.”

  “You mean if one of those land mines blew up,” Jill said.

  Gideon nodded. “That was what Quinn was worried about. I told you that he told Novak he wanted to get out of that jungle before it got dark.”

  “Yes, you did.” Eve was looking out the window at the fading light. “It should be dark soon.”

  Gideon didn’t say anything.

  Jill’s gaze flew to his face. “Gideon?”

  “Not in that rain forest,” he said. “It’s probably been pitch-dark for the last thirty minutes.”

  She inhaled sharply. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  Gideon said quickly, “You know they’ll call as soon as they get to a safe area.”

  “Whenever that is,” Eve said numbly. She straightened her shoulders. “Yes, Joe will call me as soon as he can. I know that.”

  “Of course you do. Let’s go outside and get some air.” Jill strode toward the door and opened it for Eve. “Like you said, they’re both professionals.”

  She watched Eve go out the door before she turned to Gideon. “How bad was it out there?”

  “Deadly. What you’d expect from Varak,” he said soberly. “It’s set up to be a killing field, between the land mines and the multiple snipers. If the team had gone in, the chances are we’d have never come out. Novak knew that, but he was desperate.”

  “So he took the chance himself.” Her lips twisted. “And he’ll do it again.” She started out the door toward Eve. “If Varak didn’t kill them both this time.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “We’ll have to see if Eve gets that call.”

  * * *

&n
bsp; The call didn’t come until almost an hour later.

  Jill’s heart jumped, and she whirled to face Eve.

  Eve nodded and quickly checked the ID. “Joe.”

  Relief so great it made Jill dizzy. “Thank God.”

  Eve answered the phone. “You’re an idiot, Joe,” she said huskily. “Are you both all right?” She nodded at Jill at his answer. “You don’t deserve it. When will you be here so that I can tell you in person?” A moment later she hung up the phone. “Another forty-five minutes. They didn’t leave the stakeout until it was almost fully dark, and it took them longer to get back through the jungle.”

  “I would think it would. Was the risk worth it? Did they get what they needed?”

  Eve made a face. “Joe said partially successful. But partially is never enough for Joe.”

  “Nor for Novak.” Jill tried to keep her voice steady. “I’ll go inside and tell Gideon that they evidently didn’t get blown up. Coming?”

  Eve shook her head. “I’ll wait out here. I’m too edgy to be cooped up right now.”

  “And you want to see Joe the minute he walks down that path.”

  “You might say that,” she said lightly. She leaned back against the wall. “Though I do intend to be very stern with him.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Jill opened the door and went into the museum.

  Gideon immediately looked up. “Eve heard?”

  Jill nodded. “Both okay. They’ll be here in about forty-five minutes. You’ll probably hear from Novak soon.”

  Gideon gave a low whistle. “I’ll call the airport and let the team know.”

  “Do that.” She was silent a moment. “They didn’t get everything they needed. They’ll probably go back, won’t they?”

  He hesitated. “It depends on how successful they were.”

  “The only results they’d consider successful enough to stop them from going after Varak would be if they’d managed to kill him or had gotten some scrap of DNA material that would prove his identity. Neither of those things was likely to happen according to Joe. Right?”

  “That’s what he said,” Gideon said warily.

  “Then no way should they run the risk of going after him again,” she said flatly. “We need to leave him alone and try another direction.”

  “It’s Varak, Jill,” he said gently. “He’s out there waiting for us to scoop him up.”

  “It’s the wrong thing to do. I sat here all day, going over everything that has happened since I got that first message from Hadfeld, until the moment you showed up with the location of that compound from Dalai. It’s like a story with huge gaps missing, but nothing I thought of or tried to put together made going after Varak in that jungle the right thing to do.” She held up her hand as he started to protest. “And I’m not going to argue with you. I know where you’re coming from. I’ll talk to you later.” She turned and headed for the door. “Will you stay here with Eve until Joe and Novak get here? I’m tired, and I think I’ll go down to Hajif’s hut and rest for a while.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t want to wait until they get here?”

  She shook her head. “So I can hear about how they avoided the killing fields? Maybe later. Right now, it doesn’t appeal to me. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.” She headed down the hill toward the village.

  She needed to be alone. She didn’t know what her attitude would be when she saw Novak again. The day had been fraught with tension and worry and attempts to forget that he might not be coming back. That first moment when she had realized he was safe had been dizzy and shocking and put her on an emotional roller coaster. What they had between them was only sex and passion and the strange bond of fascination that had formed these past months, she told herself. Last night, she had been swept away, and today had been so emotional that she couldn’t regain her equilibrium. It was better if she took a step back until she was more cool and able to analyze her responses.

  And there was no way that would have been true if she’d been there when he’d walked into the museum tonight. No, she needed to go to see Hajif and Leta, have a light meal, then go to bed.

  She would deal with Novak tomorrow.

  * * *

  Her phone rang three hours later.

  She tensed, then rolled over on her sleeping mat and reached for it.

  Novak.

  Bite the bullet. He wouldn’t stop calling until she answered. “Hello, Novak.”

  “Get out of there and come to me. I need to see you.”

  “I’m already in bed.”

  “I don’t care. Come to me, or I’ll come and get you. You don’t want Hajif and Leta to be upset.” He cut the connection.

  No, she didn’t want Hajif to be drawn into this. She rolled off the mat and threw on her clothes. A moment later, she’d stalked out of Hajif’s hut. She saw Novak in the doorway of his hut, framed against the lantern light behind him, and strode toward him. “What do you want, Novak? That was completely rude, and I don’t appreciate you—”

  “Shut up.” He pulled her into the hut and jerked her into his arms. “I’m having a very bad day.” He kissed her. “And I didn’t need to have you hiding out and avoiding me at the end of it. Particularly after Gideon was telling me how weird and stiff you were being.” He kissed her again. “That’s not going to happen. If you don’t want to screw me, that’s your decision, but you’re going to be with me. I need you.” He pushed her down on the blankets. “Do you want a drink? I could use one right now. A glass of wine?”

  “How polite.” She sat up, trying to get her breath. What had started out as anger was transforming into that same electricity she had felt last night. Her breasts were swelling, her lower body tingling, readying. “And you can’t force me to be here. What’s wrong with you, dammit?”

  “Wine,” he answered himself. “You like wine.” He poured a merlot from a bottle into a glass. He poured himself a whiskey and sat down cross-legged in front of her. He handed her the goblet. “No force. I merely made a suggestion.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He grinned. “Okay, I wanted to catch your attention.”

  “I almost decked you.”

  “And I wanted a little sympathy after a hard day.”

  “Not the way to get it. And since when have you ever come to anyone after something goes wrong? I’ve never seen anyone so self-sufficient.”

  “It’s a new era.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “Maybe I’ve never found anyone with whom I wanted to share my very rare failures. Or maybe I just wanted to see you sitting here and know that there was someone I cared about whom Varak hadn’t been able to touch. Anyway, I was frustrated as hell when you weren’t there when I got back to that museum. I needed you.”

  He had said that before, and suddenly Jill’s impatience was dwindling before it disappeared entirely. It would take a lot for a self-assured man like Novak to admit to needing anyone. “Gideon said that it was bad out there.” She took a sip of her wine. “A setup for a killing field.” She added with sudden fierceness, “So why did you go back with Quinn and try to get yourself slaughtered? Varak’s killed close to six hundred thousand people in that war, and he clearly built that compound as a trap. You knew it, and you still talked Joe Quinn into staking out that house.”

  “I didn’t have to talk very hard. Quinn wanted him as much as I did. I only had to let him control how he got me through that land-mine tangle. Quinn likes control.”

  “And you don’t?” She shook her head in frustration. “The two of you together are a complete disaster.”

  “Actually, I found we worked very well together today.”

  “And that could be an even bigger disaster.” She drew a deep breath. “Would you like to tell me why you waited until after dark to start trying to get back out of that jungle when Quinn told you how dangerous it would be?”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. Quinn had the route pretty well memorized, including land-mine placement. And we had no choice. We
didn’t get even a glimpse of Varak until almost twilight. I was afraid we might have to give it up for the day.” His lips twisted. “But then Varak’s true nature came to the rescue. He evidently hadn’t had his quota of blood recently. He had one of his soldiers dragged to that dirt yard before the front porch to be punished for some infraction at the attack on the U.N. headquarters. At least that was the excuse. I think he probably just wanted his men to witness how all-powerful he was.” He paused. “He used a machete. He took a long time. I had no problem getting the videos.”

  Jill felt sick. “You said that you’d know him just by the way he moved. Was it really Varak?”

  He nodded. “I’d swear to it. But that wouldn’t be enough, of course. Not now that Zahra has convinced everyone that Varak’s skull was destroyed at the U.N. headquarters. Probably the videos won’t be enough either, but we can send them through our photo techno unit at Langley to establish what he could have looked like before surgery. But we’ll have to go back and break into that house in the compound and get a DNA specimen so that I can get the director to let me stage a raid powerful enough to bring Varak down.”

  “That means you’re determined to go back there,” Jill said tightly.

  “It’s our only option if we want to grab the bastard before he decides to leave the country. We’re lucky to get the chance.”

  “I don’t believe there’s any luck connected to Varak unless it’s bad luck. He definitely couldn’t be recognized?”

  He shook his head. “His face has been changed, his hair is sandy-blond, not black. The only thing that’s the same is that muscular, powerful body and the way he walks. The arrogant bastard strides around as if he owns the world…”

  Muscular and powerful…As arrogant as if he owned the world.

  Jill went still. “His hair is dyed blond now? I only remember Dalai telling Gideon that he’d had plastic surgery.”

  “Very good plastic surgery. But his hair is kind of dirty blond now.”

  Fair hair. Suddenly, her chest was tight, and she was having trouble breathing. It couldn’t be the same man, could it? Varak wouldn’t take the risk of exposing himself just to inflict that act of terror on her. And she hadn’t been able to see what shade her attacker’s hair was in the darkness, only that it was light, fair. But she had felt the straw-like texture beneath her fingers when she’d been fighting him.