Safe Passage

by Loreth Anne White

  She turned. Scott watched the sway of her ass as her long legs carried her to the door.

  She stopped, spun suddenly back to face him. “By the way, how’d you hurt your leg?”

  Images shot through his brain. The bullet smashing his knee. The terrorist group in the Thar. The suspicious disease he’d been investigating. Scorching heat. Pain. The hospital in Mumbai. His old life gone.

  “Skiing accident,” he said. “Torqued my knee.”

  “Oh.” She ran those exotic eyes over him slowly. “Well, you’ve got an exquisite cane. Don’t think I’ve seen wood like that before.”

  “Picked it up in Africa years ago. It’s mukwa wood, a gift from a Venda chief. Never thought I’d end up needing it in this way, though.”

  “I’m sorry.” She turned to go, hesitated, turned back. “Would you like to join us for the reception Saturday? We’re having the caterers set something small and simple up at my house for after the church ceremony. I really didn’t want anything fancy.”

  There was something about her demeanor that made him ask, “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “Jozsef wanted to have the wedding brought forward for a number of reasons. This was the best option at such short notice.”

  Scott’s curiosity piqued. “What short notice?”

  She laughed. “Now who’s giving the third degree? Good night, Scott McIntyre.”

  She slipped out into the dark and the house felt suddenly empty.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Skye Van Rijn,” Scott whispered to the black night that had swallowed her.

  Scott spent the rest of the night pouring over the dossier. Suddenly this mission wasn’t looking so lame. The bug doctor was not what she seemed. He sensed it in his gut. She was too quick with her reflexes, primed to react to physical threat in the way of no ordinary citizen.

  And behind her smooth, smoky voice, her bold, unflinching gaze, she was guarded, hiding something. He knew it. Scott had spent years reading slight gestures, nuances of movement. He’d lived with tribes who communicated by tuning in to nature. He’d survived only because he was constantly poised for the slightest hint of danger, the mere intuition of imminent attack. Scott had lived the life of both hunter and prey. And there was something about this woman that made him feel she knew exactly what it was to be both. But which was she now?

  And which was he?

  He flipped over a page in the dossier, new energy humming softly through his system. And he told himself it had nothing at all to do with female curves that invited sin.

  Skye pushed a button and her computer screen crackled softly to life. She scanned her e-mail before punching in her code and logging into the Kepplar lab system. She opened her work files, then rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t sleep, either. An edginess zinged through her veins. Maybe it was wedding jitters. But deep down she knew it was more than that. It was the man next door. He’d unnerved her. She didn’t like the knife strapped to his ankle, his gut reaction to surprise.

  She didn’t trust him.

  There was something wild about him. Something she recognized. Something that had slipped past her guard and made her ask him to her wedding reception.

  She stood, paced over to her window and stared out across her yard. The light was on in his kitchen.

  His shadow moved momentarily against the shade.

  She jerked back in reflex, told herself he couldn’t see her through his closed blinds. She edged forward, studied the shape of his silhouette as he moved around his kitchen.

  Scott McIntyre. She tested the name in a whisper over her tongue, found she liked the feel of it.

  He dressed like a writer in that knobbly wool sweater with leather patches at the elbows. His body, however, did not belong to a man who spent his life hunched in front of a computer terminal. She’d seen the way his jeans were faded in the most eye-catching places, how the worn fabric strained over the thick muscles of his thighs. She’d noted the power of his wrists, the latent strength in the shape of his broad shoulders, the arrogance in the line of his wide and defined jaw. A jaw that needed a shave. His face was rugged, rough, but with an air of intelligence, a hint of compassion.

  And his lips. They hadn’t escaped her notice, either. Sculpted. Almost harsh.

  She laughed at herself. Yeah, as if a writer had a certain kind of lips.

  Yet, as she watched the hulk of his shadow in the kitchen next door, she couldn’t pull her thoughts away from the hot image branded into her mind. He certainly looked as though he’d traveled recently. His skin was sunned a rich brown that contrasted startlingly with the deep jewel-green of his eyes. And his hair, thick and mahogany-brown with sun-bleached tips, needed a trim. But she liked the look of it. She liked the look of him. Wild. Dangerous.

  And there was something about his eyes that made her want to look into him. To find out more about him. Not only because she was intrigued, but because knowledge was strength.

  It could mean life over death.

  She yanked her drapes shut, turned to her computer, her mind ticking over. He said he was published. A futurist. She sat in front of her terminal. With a few quick clicks she logged into the Internet and pulled up a search engine.

  She punched in the letters of his name and a few keywords.

  Scott sipped his second mug of tea, flipped over another page in the dossier the Bellona Channel, the international nongovernment agency dedicated to researching and fighting bio crime and bio terrorism, had prepared on Dr. Skye Van Rijn.

  According to the file, Bellona’s Canadian headquarters had received an anonymous tip that Dr. Van Rijn, research and development scientist with Kepplar Biological Control Systems, had recently traveled from Kenya to Mexico where she’d crossed the border into the United States. Within weeks of her visit the first cases of Rift Valley Fever were being reported in Texas cattle. Devastating news. International borders had shut instantly, killed the American beef industry. The stock market reeled.

  And then came worse.

  Human infection.

  And panic.

  So far all the deceased were employees who had contracted the disease via slaughtering livestock at a Texas abattoir. RVF occurs naturally in Africa and is spread by one of three ways: mosquitoes, physical contact with the blood or secretions of infected animals, or inhalation of the airborne virus.

  But no one had yet managed to identify the source of the U.S. outbreak.

  Scott whistled softly through his teeth, set down his mug. Apart from an episode in Saudi Arabia and Yemen two years ago, there had never been a documented outbreak of RVF outside of Africa. Could this RVF strain have been brought in accidentally through commerce? Or had it been purposefully introduced? And if so, how? By contaminated animal products? Insects?

  His thoughts turned to Skye. Insects were her field. She certainly had the expertise. She had been in the area after a visit to Africa.

  But it was all so circumstantial.

  He stretched his leg out, removed his makeshift ice pack, massaged his knee gingerly. Honey stirred at his feet. He reached down, scratched absently behind her ear.

  Agro-terrorism, thought Scott, was easy to execute, low risk and often almost impossible to trace. It could instil mass panic, especially if there were human deaths, yet not generate the kind of backlash a direct civilian hit would. It was the kind of terrorism that had the additional value of being a powerful blackmail and extortion tool.

  It had the potential, he figured, for use by organized crime and terrorist groups to raise huge sums of money by manipulating the U.S. agriculture future commodities markets. An astute player could simply invest in competitor’s stock before carrying out an assault with pest or pathogen.

  Scott made a mental note to ask Rex to check into recent stock market trades. Bellona may have already done so but there was nothing in the dossier.

  Scott turned to the next page, his interest in Dr. Skye Van Rijn now thoroughly piqued—in more
ways than one.

  Bellona had combed through Skye’s background. Born in Amsterdam, she immigrated to Canada ten years ago at the age of twenty-two. The dossier contained copies of her immigration papers, birth certificate, social security number, driver’s license along with transcripts from the universities she’d attended and details of her scholarships.

  She now worked for Kepplar, designing and developing biological control measures for the agricultural and horticultural industries. Rex and his boys had been pretty thorough. Everything had checked out.

  She looked clean.

  But Bellona still wanted to keep an eye on her. It was part of the organization’s mandate to do so. And Skye Van Rijn was on record as having expressed controversial views on American imperialism, globalization and blow-back.

  Scott raked his hands through his hair.

  Maybe this gig wasn’t going to be too painful. Watching Dr. Skye Van Rijn’s wickedly sexy body, listening to that mysterious smoky voice…things could be worse.

  He rested his head back on the sofa. Honey shifted again at his feet. Scott found himself smiling. He was kind of enjoying the dog’s company. He prodded Honey with a toe, scratched her belly. “Well, dog, looks like the doctor’s got something to hide. And we’re gonna find it.” He drifted off into a dream of wild spaces and liquid warmth.

  Some time later, he woke with a jump.

  He blinked, momentarily disoriented. Then his brain identified the sound. An engine growling. Low and throaty. Next door. His eyes flicked to his watch: 3:00 a.m.

  He jerked to his feet, lunged to the window. His knee protested violently. White pain flashed through his skull. He swallowed it, forced his eyes to adjust to the dark shadows outside.

  He was just in time to see the sensuous shape of Skye Van Rijn, clad in black leather and straddled over a sleek motorcycle, purr down the driveway.

  Refracted yard light glinted like liquid on her black helmet. She kicked the mechanical beast into gear and growled down the pastoral street.

  “Honey!” he barked as he grabbed his jacket and keys. “She’s on the move!”

  Chapter 2

  Scott cut the engine, crawled silently to a stop in the peripheral shadows along the outside of the compound.

  He watched Skye park her gleaming bike under harsh sulphur lights that flooded the fenced parking lot of the Kepplar lab complex on the outskirts of Haven.

  Honey remained motionless at his side. Scott stroked the dog’s head, watched Skye remove her helmet, shake out a wave of dark hair. Even under the flat whiteness of industrial lights, her hair shimmered, alive with burnished highlights.

  He watched as she strode openly, confidently, up to the main entrance of the building, helmet tucked under her arm.

  He checked the glowing digits of his watch. Three-fifteen. What in hell was she doing here at this hour?

  A security guard stepped out from under the portico. Scott saw him exchange words with Skye. The guard nodded. His teeth glinted as his smile caught the lights. Skye laughed at something he said. She slotted what Scott imagined was a coded identity card into a panel. The building doors opened. They slid smoothly shut behind her. The guard retreated to his cubicle under the portico. All was still.

  Scott shifted his throbbing knee into a more comfortable position and settled back in his seat to wait. This surveillance business was crap.

  A movement caught his eye. He tensed. So did Honey. The dog peered intently out the window. Another vehicle. Silver Mercedes. It crawled down the road toward the fenced lab compound, turned into the gates, cruised quietly to the far end of the parking lot and came to a stop.

  Then nothing.

  Scott noted the plates, reached for his sat phone and punched in the code to activate the scrambler. The red LED indicator showed voice encryption had been initiated. His satellite communication was secure.

  “Logan,” Scott rasped into the piece.

  “Jeez, you have any idea what time it is, Agent?”

  “Desk life making you soft, buddy?”

  Rex ignored the gibe. “What’s up?”

  “I need a plate run.”

  “Couldn’t wait until morning?”

  “It is morning.”

  “Don’t tell me…you’re pissed with the job.”

  “The plate?”

  “Okay, okay,” he mumbled. “Let me find a pen here somewhere… All right, shoot. Oh, and next time, call Scooter direct.”

  Scott chuckled inwardly. This would teach his boss for making him report to him direct. “Sorry. Haven’t got Scooter’s home number.” He gave Rex the plate number, flipping the phone shut as the door to the Mercedes opened.

  A man stepped out. Dark, well over six feet, and tough-looking. He strode to the entrance. There was something threatening in his movements.

  Scott’s knee-jerk instinct was to get out and follow the guy into the building, to make sure Skye was okay. But he forced himself back against the truck seat. His brief was to watch. And she was a suspect.

  Not a victim.

  Skye hadn’t been able to shake the deep sense of unease that pulsed low in her core. Sleep had remained elusive. She’d tried. Tossed and turned. But her thoughts had scrambled over each other like wild, hungry, teething puppies.

  Work, she’d decided, was her only salvation. It was the only thing that kept her going forward. The only thing that made her forget the past.

  The only thing that dulled her latent fear.

  She placed the minute beetle carefully under the microscope, adjusted the focus. It was so tiny. So perfect. So very beautiful in its own way. If everything went according to plan, these little bugs would lead an army and conquer the enemy blight in its path. She adjusted the scope, bent closer.

  A sound at the far end of the darkened lab crashed into her thoughts.

  She jerked back, knocking a petri dish off the counter. It clattered to the floor, the sound disproportionately loud in the deserted laboratory.

  Skye peered into the night shadows.

  Her heart thumped a steady beat against her chest wall. Nothing. No movement.

  She chided herself, turned back to her beetle. The Kepplar labs were perfectly safe. Even at night. Still, more than ten years down the road and she hadn’t stopped looking over her shoulder. She was still seeing ghosts in shadows. Hearing sounds in the night. Afraid he’d find her.

  Then she heard it again.

  She froze. “Who’s there?” She could hear the brittle edge of panic in her own voice.

  Neon light flooded the lab, exploded into her brain.

  She blinked against the brightness.

  Jozsef stood beside the light switch, a wide grin on his face. “What you doing working in the dark at this ungodly hour, Dr. Van Rijn?”

  Skye sucked her breath in slowly, trying to steady her popping nerves. “Good grief, Jozsef, you startled me. What in heaven are you doing here? When did you get back?”

  He walked forward, arms behind him. “I thought I’d find you at home. I didn’t. So I came looking here.”

  “You could’ve tried my cell.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.” He grinned broadly. “What are you working on so late…or should I say so early?”

  “My beetles,” she snapped defensively, anger edging out fear.

  “The ones for the whitefly epidemic?”

  “Jozsef, how did you get in?”

  He laughed, held up an access card.

  “That’s mine. That’s my spare.” She reached for it.

  Jozsef held it playfully out of reach. “You left it at my place, sweetheart.”

  “I thought I’d misplaced it. Besides, you still had to get by security.”

  “When’s that ever stopped me.” He smiled warmly, slipping the card into his back pocket.

  Skye frowned.

  “C’mon, Skye.” He lifted a hand, brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek. “Marshall Kane gave me the all-clear with security. They know I’m with you.”
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  She hesitated, suddenly strangely unsure of the man in front of her. The man she was going to marry. “I bet Marshall didn’t think you’d be trying to get in here after hours.”

  Jozsef shrugged. “Enough of this already. You’re way too jumpy.” He stepped closer. “Besides, I got a surprise for you. Guess.” His words were warm against her ear.

  Skye forced a smile. “What?”

  “I said guess.”

  She sighed. “A rose?”

  “Nope.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Come on, Doctor, I’m a little more original than that. You got one more guess.”

  “I give up. Look, we should go. You really shouldn’t be in here—”

  Jozsef Danko raised a finger to her lips. “Shh.” He winked. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” With his other hand he brought a small box out from behind his back. It was a deep burgundy-red. He set it on the lab counter, a smile playing around his dark eyes. “Open it, Doctor.”

  The light in the man’s eyes was infectious. Skye relented. She peeled off her latex gloves, picked up the box and lifted the lid. Nestled in shiny black satin was a tiny gold bug with glittering emerald eyes. It hung from a gold chain.

  She looked up at Jozsef. “You get it in Europe?”

  “It’s a little token to celebrate the completion of your big project.”

  “I’m not finished yet. They’ll only be ready for release in another two weeks.”

  “Yes. But the bulk of your work is done, not so?”

  “I guess.” She lifted the chain and pendant from the box. “It’s so unusual. Where’d you find it?”

  “I had it made. Here, I’ll put it on for you.”

  Skye lifted her hair, bent her head forward as Jozsef fastened the clasp behind her neck.

  She turned to face him. “What you think?”

  “Take a look in the mirror.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “There is, in the washroom. Go on. Humor me. I’ll wait here.”

  Skye made her way to the bathroom, pushed open the door. She stared at her reflection under the harsh washroom lights. It was certainly a perfectly proportioned little bug. And knowing Jozsef, the gold of the carapace nestled at the hollow of her throat was as real as the glittering emerald eyes of the beetle. It really was perfect. But it wasn’t her. It didn’t go with her coloring. She preferred silver.