Elliott crossed his leg and fiddled with the stiff crease in his trousers while blowing out a long breath. “Remy, take the jet, go to the castle, and bring back a dozen pieces of the Viking jewelry we have stored there. It’ll take about two hours to get there and two to return, so be quick while ye’re at the castle.”
“What pieces do you want me to pack?” Remy asked.
“David and I will look through the inventory and select items for the switch. Then we’ll send ye a list of item numbers.”
“What’s yer plan, Elliott?” David asked.
“Steal the torc and leave replacement pieces,” Elliott said.
“Remy, bring the gear bags from the plane. We’ll need NVGs, gloves, and a lock pick set,” Rick said. “We can’t depend on the ambient light in the museum.”
Kenzie walked over to the window and looked out over the man-made pond and the old forest behind it. “I don’t like this at all, Elliott. You can’t dismiss our bodyguards until we’re on the plane. So how are you going to get around them without putting us all in danger?”
Elliott set his whisky glass aside. “Tell Tavis the truth.”
Penny gasped. “And you think he’ll go along with your plan?”
Elliott leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Ye tell me, lass. What do ye think?”
“What do I think? Are you serious? Why are you asking me?” She jumped up and went to the open window next to Kenzie, breathing in the warm, fragrant air. Elliott was about to out her before she had a chance to explain Tavis’s brother to Rick.
When she turned around, Elliott didn’t answer. He only looked at her.
“What’s going on?” Rick asked.
Ignoring Rick’s demand for a moment, she mirrored Elliott’s expression right back at him. “Elliott, how in the hell do you know the things you do?”
“I know everything about everyone who comes into our orbit. So what do ye think?”
“What does Elliott know about you that I don’t?” Rick snapped with a frown.
A second slid off the clock, then another, drenching them all with tension. “Tavis’s older brother is Mark Stuart.” She smoothed her voice into perfect calm despite her rioting pulse. “He was my boyfriend at West Point.”
Rick pushed to his feet and strode over to her, his jaw flexing. “Don’t you think you should have told me?”
“When?” She glared at him, resenting his flash of temper. “I just realized it before we took Churchill for a scooter ride, and you know how that ended. Which brings us back to the here and now, and I certainly haven’t been in the frame of mind to recount a college romance.” She glared at Elliott. “You know we broke up after the colonel raped me, don’t you?”
Elliott’s quiet smile didn’t do much to calm her spastic thoughts. “Mark Stuart didn’t want the incident to interfere with yer advancement or his own. My question is, Wilhelmina—if Stuart hadn’t been a cadet at West Point, would his reaction have been the same?”
She crossed her arms and hugged herself. She’d already had a helluva a day, and now she was forced to relive that awful time in her life.
“He was concerned about my future. I thought he was afraid if I reported the colonel, it would impact him. I was wrong. If he’d been at any other school, his position would have been the same. But I don’t understand why you’re bringing it up now.”
Rick gave her an understanding chin lift before tugging her to him. “I’m sorry, babe. Let’s sit down again, and we’ll get through this together.”
She leaned on him while they returned to the sofa, where she curled up at his side again.
“I need to tell Tavis what we intend to do,” Elliott said, “and I want to know from ye what ye believe his reaction will be.”
“That’s a tough one.” Penny sighed, not wanting to go there, but knowing she had to. “If you tell him it’s connected to the colonel’s death, that it’s the only way to protect the family long-term, and that you intend to exchange the item you’re stealing with more valuable ones, he might buy in.”
“That’s my opinion as well,” Elliott said. “Does anybody disagree?”
“I’ve been impressed with his efficiency,” Rick said, “but would he sign on to committing a felony? I don’t think so.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Elliott picked up his cell phone and placed a call. “Please come to my room.” He disconnected, and within thirty seconds, there was a knock on the door. “Come in.”
Tavis entered and stood at attention, visually sweeping the room. “Yes, sir.”
“Relax, Tavis, and pull up a chair,” Elliott said. “There’s nothing wrong, but it’s time to bring ye into the fold.”
Tavis nodded, pulled up a chair, flipped it around, and straddled it, folding his forearms over the back. “I’m listening.”
“What I’m about to tell ye is highly confidential and can’t leave this room, not even to bring the people at Northbridge on board.”
“I can’t do that, sir. My supervisors will expect a full report.”
Elliott tapped his fingers on the table next to his chair, and after a moment, he stopped finger-tapping and gave the table a loud smack. “I’ll have to live with that, and if ye do share what I’m about to tell ye, I’ll ruin yer career.”
“I have a choice. Right? I can get up and leave?” Tavis asked, cracking his knuckles.
“Ye can. Then I’ll call Nat in here.”
Tavis cracked the knuckles on his other hand. “I’ll listen to your proposal. If I don’t like it, I’ll leave, and we’ll pretend it never took place.”
“Fair enough.” Elliott sipped his whisky. “Penny’s…incident…at the museum matched a vision David had two months ago. It involves the torc Penny found in the display case. We believe Colonel Bowes was tortured to reveal something he didn’t know—the location of that necklace.”
An electric buzz shivered through Penny.
Elliott continued. “We believe the colonel was a member of a secret organization intent on total world domination. With the torc in their possession, they’d be that much closer to accomplishing their goal. We need it, not to control the world, but to protect it, and we’re prepared to break into the museum tonight to steal it.”
Tavis shot to his feet. “Sorry, sir. I can’t be a party to that, nor can my team.”
“Sit down, Tavis,” David said. “Remy is leaving as soon as we finish this meeting to fly to Scotland. Once there, he’ll pack up several pieces from our private collection of previously unknown 900 AD Viking jewelry and coins. We’ll leave them in exchange for the torc. What we leave behind will be worth a hundred times more than the value of the necklace, and historically more relevant. The exchange will be a huge benefit to the museum.”
“How do you plan to get in?” Tavis asked.
“Bypass the security, open the door, walk in, make the exchange, and leave. Five minutes max,” David said.
“Impossible.”
David picked up a bottle of whisky and walked around, refilling glasses. Then he set an empty one in front of Tavis and filled it. “Making the impossible possible is my expertise.”
Tavis looked at his watch. “Looks like I’m off duty.” He tossed back the drink and held it out for a refill. “If I agree to help you, what do you want from me?”
“If we tried to sneak out, we wouldn’t get very far. We could fire yer asses and send ye home, but we need ye to protect us. So I propose ye drive us close to the museum, drop us off, and wait far enough away that ye can have deniability, but close enough to pick us up within seconds.”
“What am I supposed to tell my team?”
“That ye’ve been told to stand down for a couple of hours,” Elliott said.
“They won’t like that.”
“Neither do I, but it’s necessary to protect ye and yer team.”
“Why do you want this necklace, or torc, whatever it is? Why not use one of yours?”
“If we could, we would,” D
avid said. “After we get the torc, we have to leave immediately for Jarlshof at the southern tip of the Shetland Islands, and we’ll need ye and yer team to go with us.”
“And do what?”
“Stand guard,” Elliott said. “We won’t be at the Jarlshof site for long. Maybe five minutes. Maybe an hour.”
“Then what?”
David held out the whisky bottle to refill Tavis’s glass. “Yer job is over.”
Tavis held it up for a refill, then set it aside. He glanced around the room, then steepled his fingers and tapped them against his forehead. “So you want us to drive you to the museum, drop you off, and drive away while you commit a felony.”
“That’s about the sum of it,” David said.
“If the necklace is so valuable to you, why not negotiate with the museum to purchase it?”
“Not enough time, and it’s too dangerous for the museum. Now that we’ve found it, others will too,” David said. “But they won’t sneak in. They’ll take hostages, kill people, whatever they have to do.”
“What’s so special about it that people will kill to possess it?”
“We don’t understand it all. We only know we have to put this and two other pieces together again and keep them out of the wrong hands,” Elliott said.
There was a slight flicker in Tavis’s eyes. If Penny hadn’t been watching him instead of Elliott, she would have missed it. She was surprised he reacted to news of the torc and not to the horrific picture of the colonel.
“What will happen when you get it?” he asked.
“We don’t know. We only know we have to do it. We hope more will become clear once we get to Jarlshof,” David said.
“There’s a lot you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” Tavis asked.
“It’s a need-to-know, lad. Until we’ve finished this job, it’s safer if ye don’t know any more than that,” David said.
Tavis shook his head. “Not good enough.”
Elliott stood, dug into his pockets, and pulled out the topaz brooch and the pendant. “Two months ago—”
Penny jumped up, waving at Elliott. “No, no, let me tell it, Boss.”
Penny pulled out a chair next to Tavis. “Two months ago, I bought the brooch Elliott’s holding at an estate sale in New Orleans. When I returned to my hotel room, I was examining it when it popped open and revealed an inscription written in a strange language that I know now is Gaelic.
“I sounded out the words and was engulfed in a fog that stank of peat. I won’t go into all the details, but when I came out of the fog, I was on Barataria, the island community of the pirate Jean Lafitte, in the year 1814. Rick, Remy, Pete, and his wife came after me, and we all ended up on General Jackson’s staff and fought in the Battle of New Orleans.”
Tavis straightened and said, “Which is where you found PM.”
“Exactly,” Penny said.
“So, you have another brooch that the rest of you used to go back for Ranger.”
“That’s right,” Elliott said.
“Why are you trusting me with this? Do you plan to kill us all when it’s over?”
“No, lad. I don’t work that way. But I’m prepared to offer ye a job as a VP of Global Security with benefits ye won’t find anywhere else. Ye’ll find the work challenging, ye’ll make more money than ye can make at any other job, and ye’ll join a large, extended family that will always have yer back.”
“Sounds like an interesting offer,” Tavis said.
Remy laughed. “You should have heard the offer he made me two years ago. I’d just come back from a deployment and answered an ad for a bodyguard and EMT. I’ve made nine trips back in time. Now that David, Rick, and Pete are getting older, we need younger guys in the clan. We’re all impressed with you.”
“Can I think about it?” Tavis asked.
Elliott looked hard at Tavis. “Remy is leaving now. I’ll ask for yer decision as soon as he returns.”
“You’re asking me to break the law.”
Elliott shook his head. “No, lad. I’m asking ye to look the other way while we break the law. And if it all goes to shite, ye and yer team can go straight to the airport and fly yer asses home. Before we get out of the vehicles tonight, I’ll wire money to yer company to cover yer per diem and a bonus for ye and yer team.”
“It sounds like it’s a no-lose for us.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Elliott said.
Tavis stood, turned the chair back around, and pushed it against the table. “I’ll tell Mac to bring a vehicle to the front entrance to transport Cajun to the airport and accompany him to Scotland and back. You’ll have my answer within four hours.”
Tavis left the room, leaving the clan blowing out relieved breaths.
“What do you think he’ll do?” Rick asked.
Penny held out her glass for a refill, and David poured her a shot. “He’s on board.”
“How can you tell?” Rick asked.
She chugged back her drink. “Babe, I knew his brother. Not as well as I know you, but I knew him, and when he made tough decisions, he got a certain look in his eyes, and Tavis just got that same look.”
“What was it?”
“I can’t describe it. I only know it when I see it.”
“So ye’re saying he’s on board?” Elliott asked.
“Yeah, he’s on board. And there’s something else, Elliott.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I can’t explain this, either, but just don’t be surprised at how this turns out.”
76
Gothenburg, Sweden—Rick
Rick and Penny were spooning on the king-size bed in their suite watching a movie with subtitles when Rick’s phone beeped.
He checked it and groaned. “It’s from Remy. He’s back, and Elliott wants us to meet in his room.”
Penny rolled up and sat on the edge of the bed, stretching. “It seems like this adventure has been going on for years, not weeks.”
He pulled her back down on the bed and kissed her. “That sounds like you’re tired of me already.”
She kissed him back. “Was that what I sounded like an hour ago when you teased those orgasms out of me?”
He rolled over on top of her, and his arousal slid between her legs as her thudding heart hammered against his chest. She gasped when he pressed forward, and her slick flesh yielded to him.
“You weren’t tired of me then. ‘More Rick. I need more!’” he sang out in a falsetto voice.
She smacked his arm. “Stop teasing me.”
He growled, but just as he thrust into her, his damn phone beeped again.
“Your phone—”
He captured her lips before she could get out what he already knew. It was time to roll, and whoever was messaging him—Elliott or David or Remy—wouldn’t leave him alone until he answered.
He groaned as he pulled out of her. Then he rolled over onto his back, threw his arm over his face, and breathed in and out to lower his heart rate. Penny handed him the phone, and he read the message from David—
Now, not after…
Rick dropped the phone on the bed. “Sorry, babe. We’ll have to pick up where we left off later.”
She pushed to her feet and reached for her bra and panties. “I think I can last that long.”
He watched her dress, planning how he would undress her later, drawing it out, teasing her until she came, screaming his name. He cleared his throat and tried to clear his mind too, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was when she climaxed.
“Get your mind off sex and on the mission, m-kay?”
“How do you know I’m not thinking about the mission?”
“Because you’re drooling.”
“I am not.” He lightly swatted her ass before snatching a pair of briefs and camo pants out of his duffel. “We’re agreed on the plan, right?”
She slipped on a gray West Point Black Knights T-shirt. “Nope. I didn’t agree. I just agre
ed not to argue if your plan is accepted.”
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s the right decision. They’ll all see that it makes sense.”
Penny finished dressing and headed toward the door. “I’m ready to go back to Napa, get to work, and start planning our wedding.”
“Which one?” He asked, pulling a black Nike T-shirt over his head. “The immediate family in the church in Napa, or the full monty at the plantation?”
“Both,” she said. “But a church wedding without inviting all the clan will never work. As soon as Elliott hears about it, he’ll expect an invitation. If he gets one, we might as well open the door and say, ‘Everybody come on in.’ That would upset Rhona, and I’d never do that to her.”
“What’s the solution?”
“It’s important to you that we get married in the church. We’ll have to talk to your priest when we get back to Napa,” Penny said. “Maybe we can have a small wedding with only our witnesses.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “How about Pete and Soph?”
“That works for me. Then Connor can be my best man at our second wedding. If we do that, then we should schedule the one in Napa before they head back to Italy.”
They strolled down the hall, holding hands and talking, pretending they had all night to enjoy being together. Instead, they were heading into a tense planning meeting for their heist of the ancient torc from the Gothenburg Museum.
Before they entered Elliott’s suite, Rick pulled her into his arms and kissed her one more time. No matter how often he held her, kissed her, or made love to her, it always felt like the first time.
“We’re together on this, right?” he asked.
She blew out a long breath. “I don’t like it, but I won’t disagree with you.”
“I might need your assistance. If I give you an eyebrow hike, you’ll need to jump in and convince Elliott that our plan is the best one.”
“Wait a minute. I said I’m not happy about your plan, but I won’t openly oppose you. And now, at the last minute, you want me to help you convince Elliott. How’d that happen?”
The Topaz Brooch Page 86