Secret Agent Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  She’d blown it, Marja thought. There was no sense in worrying her parents needlessly. “I’m not sure.”

  Tufted eyebrows joined together above gray-blue eyes. “Lying to me you were never good at,” he admonished. “It is the operating room with Ambassador Amman’s daughter, is it not?”

  Magda’s attention was focused on her youngest child. “Is she in danger?” she asked urgently.

  “She’s fine, Mama,” Natalya insisted, covertly giving Marja a dirty look. “It’s a great learning experience for her. Aaron Ecklund is an incredibly gifted neurosurgeon. This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”

  Coming between her parents, Marja slipped one of her arms through each of theirs as if to make plans for a picnic, not talk about a life-and-death surgery.

  “Everything is fine,” she assured them. “When are you two going to stop worrying?”

  Magda never hesitated. “When we are dead. Not a minute before.” And then she smiled, gently passing on the legendary “Mother’s Curse.” “Wait until you have children of your own, you will see.”

  “Children of her own.” Josef laughed, shaking his head. “We should only live that long.”

  But he was smiling as he said it and, for the moment, the tension in the room disappeared.

  It was over.

  The operation, the recovery, all over.

  Ninety minutes after surgery was completed and deemed an overwhelming success, tissues from the tumor being rushed into the lab for a biopsy, an unconscious Yasmin Amman, with her father in attendance, was wheeled out of recovery and up to her tower suite.

  And Kane was the one doing the wheeling—along with a nurse, the ambassador’s personal physician and two of the bodyguards. Counting Amman, it made for a more than full elevator.

  Kane looked down at Yasmin’s sleeping face. The ambassador’s daughter had survived the surgery, and so had the hospital, he thought.

  But he was not about to celebrate yet. There were still a multitude of hours left before the young woman could be checked out of the hospital and on her way home again. Once she was discharged and physically out of the building, his responsibilities were at an end. She would be someone else’s headache then. He had only been charged with dismantling any terrorist activity aimed at her—or the hospital—while she was staying at Patience Memorial.

  Kane took heart in the fact that Amman was anxious to fly his only daughter back home in his personal jet at the very first opportunity.

  Opportunity would be knocking in approximately three days.

  Modern science was incredible, Kane thought. There was a time when a simple tonsillectomy would have kept a patient confined to a hospital bed for a week. Now they all but catapulted you out of the hospital practically the second the anesthesia wore off.

  But that still left him three days in which to remain vigilant 24/7.

  There was a security guard posted before Yasmin’s room, standing watch over the empty suite in her absence. The man looked like a carbon copy of the two who had accompanied Yasmin up in the elevator. Someone should do something about the design, Kane thought, lightening up a little.

  It went without saying that no one was allowed into Yasmin’s room, even when she wasn’t there, without proper supervision.

  They certainly knew how to guard their own, Kane thought.

  He felt superfluous in his present role, but then he supposed that was a good thing. Better than the alternative, to be needed everywhere at once and run the risk of overlooking something. Something that might prove deadly.

  “Want to get that?” he asked the guard closest to him, nodding at the door. The hulking man pushed it open with the flat of his hamlike hand.

  Entering the room under the watchful gaze of not just one but all three bodyguards, Kane then proceeded to help transfer the unconscious young woman from the surgical gurney to her bed. She moaned, but mercifully continued sleeping.

  Kane went to physically adjust the rack holding Yasmin’s IV drip, only to be moved out of the way by the ambassador’s personal physician, a tall man with twice his share of hair and wide shoulders. The physician could have easily substituted for one of the bodyguards.

  “I will take care of that,” the doctor informed him in a voice that only had a slight trace of an accent.

  Kane obligingly backed away without a word. But he did watch the doctor make the adjustments—as did the two bodyguards in the room.

  All checks and balances, Kane thought. Nobody trusted anyone else and they weren’t out of the woods yet. Maybe they never would be, he thought, putting himself in the ambassador’s shoes. Death threats aimed at him and at his family were a way of life.

  Now that Yasmin was transferred and in her own bed, Kane pulled the sheet off the gurney, bundling it up. Pushing the gurney out the door again, under the brooding gaze of at least one of the bodyguards, he almost ran into another orderly.

  The latter was pushing a large laundry cart before him, collecting soiled linens from each of the suites. It was something that went on daily as nurses and orderlies stripped off yesterday’s bed linens and replaced them with fresh ones.

  The orderly looked at the wadded-up sheet on the gurney. “I’ll take that off your hands,” he offered, putting out his hand.

  “Knock yourself out,” Kane murmured, transferring the sheet to the other man. He quickly glanced at the orderly’s name tag. John. It rang no bells. Nice and anonymous, he couldn’t help thinking.

  Dumping this newest acquisition into the already filled laundry cart, John nodded at him and then struggled to make a U-turn. Yasmin’s suite was the last one on the floor.

  The cart wasn’t cooperating.

  “Need help?” Kane offered.

  John shook his head. “Nah, got it covered.” Each syllable he uttered was encrusted with a thick, Brooklynese accent.

  Kane merely nodded, turning his gurney toward the elevator. He needed to get rid of the gurney and either find an excuse to come back, or hang around discreetly. He preferred the former.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the orderly proceed on to the next room, another suite, although not quite as large as the one Yasmin and her entourage occupied. This time, rather than remain outside, since there were no guards posted, John disappeared into the suite, pushing the laundry cart in front of him.

  He was out again almost immediately, more linens piled up in his cart. Instead of struggling with it, he easily pushed the cart toward the elevator.

  Something didn’t feel right.

  Maybe it was his need to keep active, Kane thought. Or maybe it was his way of dealing with last night—or not dealing with it. But something was out of order in the universe and right now it centered around the laundry cart.

  He watched the orderly’s progress down the hall and to the elevator. The suite next to Yasmin’s had been his last stop.

  Was it his imagination, or was the cart rolling better now than it had been when John had attempted to make it turn around?

  And if it was rolling better now, why?

  Crossing to the elevator, he nodded at John, one orderly to another in the midst of strangers. “Lots of excitement today, huh?”

  John stared straight ahead at the stainless-steel doors. “Yeah.”

  Striking up conversations was not his forte, but he did his best. “They just hired you?” he asked. “You don’t look familiar.”

  John shrugged. “Last Monday,” he mumbled. “They got me doing laundry.”

  “I see that. Hey,” he suddenly cried, splaying his fingers out around his neck. “It’s missing,” he said as if talking to himself. Then his eyes darted toward the laundry cart. “You think it fell in there?”

  “What fell in there?” John asked defensively.

  “My cross. I had it on when I stripped the gurney. Maybe it got caught in the sheet and I tossed it in there.” Kane peered into the cart. “My wife’ll kill me if I lose it.”

  Not waiting for permission, he began moving the d
irty laundry around, digging his way toward the bottom of the cart like a man in search of something.

  But there was nothing in the cart except for dirty linens and damp hand towels.

  “Must’ve lost it somewhere else,” the orderly told him just as the elevator arrived and opened its doors.

  Kane stepped back, not getting on. He nodded behind him. “Maybe I’ll look around, see if it fell off in the suite.”

  “Yeah, try that,” John agreed as the doors closed.

  Kane turned around to find Marja standing right behind him. The expression on her face was one of devastation. And disappointment.

  Chapter 14

  “Your wife?” Marja cried in disbelief.

  Oh, dear God, she’d slept with a married man. Worse, she’d let herself have feelings for a married man. Feelings? Hell, she was in love with the bastard. The realization shook her down to her very toes. How could he have lied like that to her?

  “You have a wife?” she demanded.

  “No,” Kane said tersely. He didn’t have time for this now.

  He looked toward the last room the orderly with the cart had gone into. Kane couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

  Why had the cart wheels been squeezing and groaning one minute, then whizzing along the next? Since he hadn’t found anything in the cart, there was only one explanation. The orderly had left something in the last suite. Something fairly heavy.

  He was ignoring her. She damn well wasn’t going to let him. She’d come up here, looking for him and he was going to explain himself even if she had to squeeze it out of him.

  “But I heard you say to the orderly—”

  Again he cut her off. “Long story. I’ll explain later.”

  “You’ll explain now,” she told him, her voice deadly still.

  She didn’t usually take stands or draw lines in the sand with the men she dated. She hadn’t cared enough for that. Sharing their company was all free and easy. Nothing really serious.

  But from the moment she’d set eyes on Kane, she’d known this was going to be different. That this man was different. Good different or bad different, she wasn’t sure—although it seemed to be tilting toward the latter at the moment—but this man mattered.

  This man, even as she tried to deny it, was going to hurt her if she let him.

  If?

  She’d already let him. And it already hurt.

  Kane made no answer. Instead he crossed toward the suite that was right next to Ambassador Amman’s daughter’s room.

  Not about to be left behind like an old toy, Marja followed quickly in his wake.

  “Are you even listening to me?” she demanded.

  He stopped abruptly and turned toward her. “Whose room is this?”

  “Obviously not.” She answered her own question. She thought for a second to answer his. “It’s Amin Sayid’s room.” There was recognition in Kane’s eyes. The man read the newspaper, she thought sarcastically, her feelings still smarting. “He’s the head of an international banking firm, domiciled in Saudi Arabia, currently friendly toward the U.S. I forget the name of the bank.” She blew out an impatient breath.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

  It hit Kane like a streak of lightning. They’d been wrong, he realized. The target wasn’t the ambassador’s daughter. It was this man, the banking CEO. It had to be. It was all beginning to make sense. The chatter about the daughter had been to throw them off. The terrorists were going to make the CEO pay for allowing his company to do business with an enemy nation.

  “What are you doing?” Marja demanded.

  Kane didn’t answer. Instead he pushed open the door to Sayid’s suite and walked into the room, quickly scanning the length and breadth of it. There was no one there except for the patient.

  The banking magnate, small, fragile-looking and as far away from appearing to be a dynamic man as possible, was asleep. There was an IV drip attached to his arm. Monitors beside him were hooked up to his chest, bearing witness to the fact that his vital signs, although weak, were all stable.

  There was a chart at the edge of his bed, but Kane had no time for reading. Instead he looked to Marja for answers. “What’s he in for?”

  “He just had an operation, too.” Ordinarily she wouldn’t have known, but Kady had mentioned she wanted to sit in on the operation and observe. “A shunt in his heart. Why are you asking these questions?” Moving around her, Kane handled the IV tube. “And what are you doing?” she demanded. He had no business handling the IV.

  Damn if he could tell if anything was wrong, he thought in frustration. He had no choice but to get her to help him. “Can you see if there’s anything wrong with the IV?”

  He wasn’t making any sense. “Why should there be anything wrong with the IV?”

  “Please,” he insisted. “Just check it out.”

  Muttering a few choice words under her breath, Marja gave the IV line a quick once-over to see if it was correctly hooked up, that there was no danger of an air bubble getting in the line and terminating the man’s life.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  When he made no answer, Marja pulled out her cell phone to call Security. She yanked too hard. It slipped out of her hand and fell on the floor. Hitting the carpet, it bounced sideways, landing just under the bed. No longer quite sure what Kane was capable of, she quickly scrambled to pick up the phone and make her call.

  On her knees, Marja reached under the bed for the phone. And then froze. “What is this?”

  Kane had just checked the closet and was about to open the bathroom door when he heard her. She’d found something. Hurrying back to the bed, Kane dropped to his knees.

  He saw what she saw.

  Except that he knew what it was.

  “Damn.” He swallowed a more colorful curse. There wasn’t time to vent. He had no idea how much time they had. His heart felt like lead in his chest. “Get out of here,” he ordered.

  Marja looked at him from beneath the other side of the bed. “What?”

  “You heard me!” He rose to his feet and hurried around the bed to her side. “Get out of here!” Grabbing her by the arm, he began to pull her to her feet, but she yanked free of his hold and stubbornly remained on her knees. “Call Security and tell them to evacuate the floor. And get this guy on another bed!”

  Her mouth instantly went dry. Still on her knees, she sank back on her heels and looked up at him. This was all beginning to sound surreal. “Who are you?” she repeated.

  “Somebody who knows a C-4 bomb when he sees one.” This time he grabbed her by the shoulders and succeeded in pulling her up to her feet. “Give Security a description of the orderly who just left with the laundry cart. Tell them to find him and hold him. A lot of lives may depend on it.”

  Definitely surreal. She forced herself to focus. “You think he did this?”

  “I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “But he’s involved somehow. Now go!”

  She didn’t budge. She wasn’t about to leave him here if there was a bomb in the room. “Why aren’t you coming with me?”

  The answer was very simple. “Because somebody’s got to take this thing apart.”

  Her eyes widened with horror. “But what if it takes you apart?”

  “Don’t argue,” he ordered.

  “And don’t move.”

  The last order came from the small, wiry man emerging out of the bathroom. He was smiling, displaying a row of dazzling white teeth. His smile was as cold as the steel of the gun that he held aimed at Kane.

  “No one is going anywhere,” he said with finality.

  “Unless I say so. Now, get over by the wall. Slowly.” The man in orderly scrubs waved his gun, indicating where he wanted Kane to go.

  In all the excitement, Marja had sunk down to her knees again. Kane looked at her, concerned. If she wasn’t in the room, no doubt he would have tried to wrench the weapon away from the other man. But she was her
e and the gun could very easily discharge and hit her. He couldn’t take that chance.

  So he did as he was told, backing up as he waited for the proper moment to try to take the man down.

  Dark, steely eyes shifted toward Marja. “Get up!” the orderly commanded, all traces of the cold smile vanishing.

  Marja shook her head. She did her best to look disoriented. Feigning fear was not as difficult.

  “I can’t. I feel dizzy,” she cried. “My knees are weak.”

  The dark-haired orderly loomed over her, his eyes narrowing into hate-filled slits. “Pathetic weakling. Our women have more courage.”

  Marja didn’t say a word. Instead she fell forward, appearing to faint. Kane cursed and took a step forward to help her.

  The terrorist cocked his gun. “Stay where you are,” he warned. And then he screamed in pain.

  Marja had driven a syringe into his ankle.

  The distraction was all Kane needed. Grabbing the terrorist from behind, Kane wrapped his arm around the man’s throat, applying enough pressure on his windpipe to cause him to pass out.

  When Kane looked toward Marja, he grinned. There was admiration in his eyes. “Not bad for a civilian,” he commented.

  Civilian. Which meant what? Who was this man? she wondered for the umpteenth time.

  On her feet, Marja quickly called hospital security, identified herself and rattled off all the instructions Kane had given her.

  Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, she slipped the phone back into her pocket. She knew they weren’t out of the woods by a very long shot. She watched as Kane quickly tied up the other man. She was willing to bet he hadn’t learned how to make knots like that in the Boy Scouts.

  The international banking CEO continued sleeping in his bed, oblivious to the drama going on around him.

  Marja looked toward the bed, her heart still hammering wildly. “Why aren’t you trying to disarm the bomb?” she asked, amazed at how calm she sounded asking the surreal question.

  Finished tying up the orderly, Kane removed the cell phone clipped to the waistband of the man’s scrubs. “Not until you get out of here.”