Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Donna Kauffman

  “Do another sheet, Cali.” He handed her the page that followed the one she’d already done.

  She complied. He studied that one silently. “One more.”

  “What is it?”

  He handed her another sheet. “Do this one.”

  She huffed out an impatient sigh, but did as he asked, knowing he wouldn’t tell her anything until he was ready.

  After studying the third page for several long minutes, John laid down the magnifier and turned to her. “You’ll have to go over this. And we’ll need much more information. A lot more. Monsieur Quéval’s time and supplies won’t be nearly enough.”

  “Just tell me what you suspect.”

  “These pages are outline notes. Your husband created a virus program. The diskettes apparently contain the actual program work. All encrypted. I’m not sure if his code notes are here or not.”

  “Virus protection programs are incredibly sophisticated these days. A ten-year-old virus could hardly be a threat.”

  “This one is.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m not the computer wiz, that’s your job. So you’ll have to verify this for me.” He pulled her closer and handed her the magnifier.

  “For God’s sake, can’t you just tell me?”

  He turned her to the table. “See it for yourself, Cali.” He pointed halfway down the page. “Read that.”

  She bent over the table and peered through the lens. “You are the most insufferable …” The words died away on a sudden inhalation. “Oh my God. No.” She stood up, the magnifier hanging limply in her hand. “Nathan, what did you do?” she whispered.

  “He created a virus that can dismantle entire computer networks,” John said, confirming what she already knew. “And from what I can tell, it works with the detection codes so when a protection program kicks in, the virus is automatically activated.”

  Cali turned wide eyes to him as the bigger picture clicked into place. “And if it’s set up properly today, the sender could retrieve all the file names and access codes as the detection program scanned them.” She swore under her breath. “Imagine what someone with this could do to, say, a bank?”

  In a deceptively soft voice, John added, “Imagine what someone with this could do to, say, an entire government.”

  SIX

  Even in the red glow John saw Cali’s skin pale.

  “The bank alone was worth killing for.” Her eyes widened. She turned to him. “I’m a dead woman.”

  “No.”

  He’d almost shouted. He knew how intimidating he could be. Cali didn’t even blink. Her mind was spinning out on just what she’d gotten herself into.

  “I don’t have the actual program,” she said.

  He didn’t remind her of the diskettes that were in the package. “We do have Nathan’s notes. And if the first page is any indication, the entire history of the program up to his death is all contained in here.”

  She focused on him. He wished she hadn’t. There was resignation in her eyes. He wanted to shake her.

  “You’re a fighter, Cali. You made it this far—”

  “Yeah, with this stupid, wide-eyed notion of avenging Nathan. Instead I’m going to end up just like him. Dead.”

  “Knowledge is power, Cali. We can use this to our advantage. The same information that could kill you will be your ticket out.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “They tried to kill me without knowing how much I knew or what I had. I could destroy this notebook and they wouldn’t stop. I could turn it over to them and I would still be signing my death warrant. I know too much.”

  “What happened to your plan?”

  “Give it to the good guys, you mean? I don’t even know who they are anymore.” Her hands fell limply to her sides. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not up to saving the world as we know it.”

  It was a toss-up which he clenched tighter, his jaw or his hands. He wanted to protect her and at the same time her acquiescence irritated him. He’d bullied her out of giving in once before. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task again. He already cared too much. She’d look at him, all wounded and defiant at the same time, sticking her chin up but fully expecting to be punched. She’d suck him under again.

  “There are no good guys,” she said quietly. “This program is designed to destroy.” She lifted those damnable eyes to him, and he felt the undertow tugging at his feet. “I can’t give this to anyone, John. I’d never be able to live with myself.” She laughed, but the sound was hollow. “Not that this will be a concern for much longer.”

  He took her shoulders, pulling her upright until her chin bobbed just below his.

  “Listen to me, dammit.” His fingers tightened when her expression remained dead. “First off, there are good guys out there. I left a handful of them to traipse over here to rescue your backside.”

  A bit of fire crept back in. “Well please, by all means go back to them.” She tried to shrug away, but he held her fast.

  “Yeah, well, we all have better things to do than risk our butts for you, especially now.” That stoked the fire. Good. “But I can round up someone. We need to find out who wants this information. I doubt there is only one faction involved, or you would have been taken out already.”

  “If you think you are giving me any hope here, you are way off the mark, McShane. I may have taken your bullying ten years ago, but not this time.”

  She redoubled her efforts to pull away. He held on, shaking her gently. “Then don’t waste my time and yours by making me play bully again.”

  “You’re not playing, you are a bully.” She shot a meaningful look at his tight grip on her shoulders.

  He softened his hold, but not his expression. “I agreed to take this assignment on. I don’t fail, Cali.”

  She snorted, “Well, golly gee, we can’t have that. I’m sure if we just send that over in a note to the other side, they’ll withdraw. Let me go.”

  “Not until you get off this martyr shtick.”

  “I’m simply being a realist.”

  “We’re wasting time, Cali.”

  “We already know what we’ve got.”

  “We only know enough to get us killed. But you can only get so dead. We need as much info as we can get. I want to scan through and see if the program itself is written down anywhere. If what’s been done is on the diskettes you have, you’ll have to get into them and see if you can find out as much as possible without triggering the damn thing.”

  “Where do you propose we do this?”

  “We should try to decipher as much of the written work as we can. Our next step is getting out of here and getting somewhere safe.”

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “Both of us, Cali. Like I said, this definitely constitutes calling in my team.” He tapped on the open page of the binder. “We have proof now. Or at least we will.”

  “John, I don’t know if we should contact anyone—”

  “It’s okay. We don’t know all the players or their agendas, but I do know my team. They only have one agenda.”

  “But they still answer to someone. And that someone might have an agenda.”

  “As it happens, that isn’t the case.”

  Cali paused, then said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She was getting far too good at reading him. Or he was getting far too sloppy in allowing her to. “Nothing that makes a difference right now. But if you trust me, you can trust them.”

  “So do we decipher it? Leave the island? To go back to the States? And what about the photo? Nathan had it in there for a reason. We haven’t found anything more here.”

  “I don’t think we need to. Because of the separate security boxes, I doubt Nathan intended for you ever to get hold of the entire thing. Maybe the photo was a lead, somehow. But we have it now. We discovered what the program is for, that’s all we need.”

  “There is one thing we don’t have.”

  “Which is?”

 
; “A playing roster of the good guys and bad guys. Maybe that is what we were supposed to find here.”

  “True, but we don’t have time to waste trying to acquire one. My instincts are screaming at me to get us both off this island.”

  “What’s the success rate of your instincts?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say one hundred percent. But he was staring at the one person who’d lowered his average. Where Cali was concerned, John questioned everything, especially his instincts. “Enough that I’m here to help you now.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, McShane. Your instincts say to go into hiding. Mine say there is something here, something that will help us.”

  John stepped closer. “Whatever that something is won’t help us if we’re dead. And we’re not hiding. If it helps you put it in perspective, we aren’t just getting out of sight. While my guys work to put together that playing roster, you are going to spend some time in front of a computer screen trying to figure out exactly how this virus works. And, if you can, how to circumvent it. That will be our trump card.”

  “You do think they’re on the way, then. You think Eudora tipped them off to my whereabouts when I took the package?”

  “Eudora has always known your whereabouts. I think she is just a messenger, possibly an innocent one.”

  “Eudora is no fool. No way would she do anyone a favor without knowing exactly what was going on.” She waved a hand. “Besides, even if Eudora was just an innocent messenger, why give that package to me? Certainly if they’d intercepted this from Grand Cayman, they knew what they had. They could have found someone in their employ to decode it.”

  “They couldn’t before, when you gave them the notes and disk from the first deposit box, assuming that’s what they really were. They must have decided to send it on and let you do all the hard work for them.” John straightened and gathered up the binder. “We need to get out of here, Cali. Now.”

  Cali tried not to react to the sudden urgency in his tone. She felt as if she’d ridden the world’s steepest roller coaster at warp speed. Her analytical mind was begging for time to sort through all the information she’d dumped into it. She also didn’t realize until that moment that she’d veered from terror over the certainty that she was going to die, to hope that a way out of this mess was possible after all. And even if they couldn’t find a way out, there was no loss in believing there was one until the last moment.

  What else did she have to hold on to?

  She looked at John. She had John—he was the source of her hope.

  “Okay. What do we do? Where do we go?”

  He was sliding the binder in her backpack, but he paused to look at her. “Did you just agree to do something without an argument?”

  “I’m sure I’ll make up for it later.” There was a hint of something underneath his gibe. It sounded far too much like concern. Hope she needed, strength she needed. Concern and tenderness from John she didn’t need right now. It made her want to surrender what control she had to him, give herself entirely over to his very reliable, more than capable hands. It made her feel weak.

  And weakness was the one thing she definitely could not risk. Not now. Not ever.

  She turned away and went about cleaning up. She carefully disposed of the used chemicals and returned everything to its place.

  Even her plans for a distracting attempt at friendship were beginning to look like a fool’s endeavor. She was coming to understand that any relationship with John McShane would not be done in half measures.

  Once the sheet was passably dry, she protected it in a cover, then went to the door, flipped off the safelight, and turned the regular light back on. The sudden brightness made her squeeze her eyes shut. “What are we going to tell Quéval?”

  From a point way inside her personal space, he said, “Nothing.”

  She slowly opened her eyes. He was standing right in front of her. He reached for her. She braced herself for his touch, not having enough time to raise her defenses after her little internal assessment of her relationship with John.

  It never came. Instead his hand went past her to the light switch. She automatically groped behind her for the doorknob as the small room was plunged into complete darkness.

  “Now, this is a darkroom.” Her nervous laugh fell into the silence.

  “I thought you had the door.”

  “I do.” And an overactive imagination too. She found the knob and started to turn. His hand fell unerringly on her shoulder. She stilled.

  “Cali—” His voice was rougher. Or maybe it just vibrated differently in the dark. He paused, then made a small sound, as if he was clearing his throat. Her own throat tightened.

  “What?” She barely squeezed the word out.

  “I, uh …”

  John McShane, stuttering? She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or flattered. In reality, she was both. “What’s wrong, McShane?” Using his last name didn’t establish the critical distance she needed to feel from him right at that moment. She wasn’t sure anything would have.

  “You really are handling this—all of this—well.”

  She exhaled, certain that wasn’t what he’d been about to say, but nonetheless relieved that he had. “Thanks,” she tossed off. She twisted the knob again.

  “Nathan would be proud of you, Cali.”

  Her hand slid off the knob. She made some noise in her throat that was supposed to sound like a reply, but it was all tangled up in the emotions rising inside her at the sincerity in his quietly spoken words.

  “Thank you, John,” she finally managed.

  She felt his hand on her shoulder like a brand. His fingers tightened for a moment, then the pressure was gone. The warmth from his palm dissipated too quickly. She wanted to grab at his hand, put it back on her body. Better yet, how easy it would be to turn a fraction and press her entire length against his long, hard, warm frame. Security, strength, compassion. She knew he possessed all three. But that wasn’t what was making her skin tingle in anticipation, wasn’t what was making her pulse race or her palms moist.

  Perhaps it was simply the turmoil that caused her to think about him as more than a skilled aide. But she quickly realized her attraction to one John McShane, super-secret spy, went beyond his job description or her need for his services in that capacity.

  “We’d better get back to the bungalow.”

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. He was big and close, his body angled to hers in a way that made her feel protected.

  She turned. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

  “Cali—”

  He broke off. She didn’t rush to fill the silence. Instead she let it expand, deepen, until it, along with the darkness, enveloped them both like a cocoon.

  He gently cupped her shoulders. She couldn’t repress the shiver his touch sent racing over her. The coolness was a delicious counterpoint to the sudden coil of heat expanding inside her.

  “John.” Her voice was throaty and rough. She didn’t back away this time. It made her feel as if she was vibrating from the inside out.

  His hand drifted from her shoulder to her neck. She turned her cheek into his palm as his hand slid higher.

  He stepped in closer. She let him.

  Somewhere inside her head a little voice was screaming caution, telling her she didn’t need to get further involved with him.

  But every other cell in her body was screaming that this was exactly what she needed. It was sure as hell what she wanted.

  He rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. Her long sigh was low and broken, ending on a soft moan. “John.”

  “Cali.” Her name was a warm, fresh breath across her lips. She parted them.

  She’d expected his lips to be firm, the kiss to be hard and formidable, like the man. So she was completely undone by the soft, wet feel of his lips, the gentle way his mouth cushioned hers, giving more than taking.

  “Oh,” she sighed, easing more fully into his kiss, wanting more of the un
expected, yet sweet succor she’d found there.

  He let her deepen the kiss, his lips parting to take her mouth more fully. He allowed her a slow, thorough exploration of his mouth, letting the kiss slowly build steam. Then he took the same liberty. She marveled at his almost painstaking patience. He made love to her mouth as if it were her entire body. And, in fact, her entire body was reacting. His control steadily eroded hers, until the pressure of the contained steam between them was of volcanic proportions.

  She pressed her hands to his chest, feeling the evidence of what his control was costing him. His heart was pounding every bit as hard as hers. He lifted his mouth slightly on a long sigh. She felt it all the way to her suddenly wobbly knees. She slid her hands to his shoulders, holding on for support. His grip tightened too.

  “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

  His whispered words filtered slowly into the haze that was her brain. There was something there, she thought almost dazedly, something that sounded almost confessional.

  Further thought was abruptly interrupted by a short rap at the door. John jerked back as if he’d been branded. Cali had no time to think.

  “You almost done in there?” It was Quéval.

  “Yes. Be out in a second.”

  There was no missing the relief in his voice. That stung. Neither reaction made sense at the moment.

  “Cali, I—”

  The confusion and the sudden yank back to reality served to jump-start her control. She straightened her back and put a small but crucial bit of space between them.

  “Don’t.” She looked into the shadow that was his face. There was nothing there to guide her. “Just let it go, okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer, knowing McShane did whatever he damn well pleased. She wasn’t remotely up to the task of finding out what pleased him at the moment. She turned and opened the door to find Quéval all but pressed up against it. It made her wonder how long he’d been there.

  Funneling irritation over the rush of emotions inside her toward Quéval was an easy out. She wasn’t too proud to take it.

  “I’m sorry, did you knock again?” she said with saccharine sweetness. “Thank you so much for your lab.”