Maverick

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Claire.” He showed his teeth. “You were supposed to be dead.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Bowen. Now, it’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, but I’ll have to ask you to turn in a circle.”

  He bent his head and slowly turned on his heel.

  Nothing about Bowen was accidental. The clothes were fairly tight and lightweight. Nothing weighed down his trouser pockets, front or back. There was no way he could be carrying a gun.

  He could have a knife in a sheath along his back, or a garrotting wire in his belt, but neither could be easily accessed. And it wasn’t Bowen’s style. He had other people to get their hands dirty for him.

  “Fair is fair.” His blue eyes blazed. “Now you turn around.”

  Claire hated turning her back to him, but she did it, slowly, sure that the loose white shirt hid the miniaturized vidcam. And it also hid the tell-tale movements of her left breast over her thudding heart.

  She was boiling with emotions—fear and anxiety, of course. But the top layer was rage, white hot and fierce, though nothing showed on her face.

  This man had killed Marie, was killing sick people every day. None of it meant anything to him. Marie and the patients in the New Dawn Foundation’s hospitals and clinics were merely pawns to be moved about on a chessboard so he could get what he wanted.

  Money and power.

  It always came down to that.

  But pitted against him were four men and one woman who weren’t in the iron grip of lust for power and money, and they were going to bring him down. Oh, yes. Particularly since she also had two aces up her sleeve.

  Her earpiece had clicked four times. Dan and his men had found Bowen’s men, taken them out and were now in position.

  She’d fought with Dan for hours over this. Dan didn’t want a showdown in Makongo, where Bowen could call on Mbutu.

  She knew Bowen. He wouldn’t want Mbutu anywhere near this. But he would have his guard down, knowing he was on friendly territory and knowing Claire was alone, in a country that was essentially his.

  She looked around. Dan and his men were nowhere to be seen. She didn’t know where they were hiding, but she had no doubt they were there, weapons at the ready.

  The ancient lobby was deserted. Claire had had a quiet talk with the manager, saying that she was to meet with Mr. Bowen McKenzie himself and that Mr. McKenzie wanted privacy.

  The manager had nearly tripped over his own feet to get out of her way. There were no guests, no one at the front desk, no bellhops.

  The lobby looked like a hotel would after the end of the world. Beaten down, abandoned. It had once had lush palms in huge enamelled vases, so thick they had mimicked the jungle outside.

  Now the palms were desiccated, thin brown leaves pointing to the ground, making a chittering noise whenever anyone walked by.

  “Open your purse,” Bowen said and she did. She even emptied it for him on the marble-topped table, her effects making a light clatter as they fell out.

  He poked a long finger through them—leather cosmetics bag, satphone, pocket diary he thumbed through, keys. He picked the keys up with a lazy smile.

  “Yes, I know,” Claire said in a low voice. “It doesn’t open up anything now except for a heap of ashes.”

  He checked her satphone, weighing it in his palm.

  “It’s off,” she assured him.

  “Okay. Let’s sit down.”

  They sat, by unspoken mutual agreement keeping their hands on the table.

  He was checking her over and she knew he wasn’t seeing the Claire he thought he would. The Claire of her medical reports—crushed, grieving, unstable.

  She kept her eyes steady on his, and he finally blinked.

  No, not the old Claire.

  She watched him digest that.

  Finally, Bowen looked away a second, then brought his gaze back to hers. He leaned back in his chair, body language clear. He was communicating that he was relaxed, that he didn’t have anything to fear.

  Boy, was he wrong.

  “Where’s your jarhead boyfriend?”

  She turned her face utterly blank. “Who?”

  “The Marine. Weston.”

  She gave a small frown, then smoothed her face out. “Oh, him. I wanted some information about the bombing, but he was in the Embassy building the whole time. He didn’t have any information at all.”

  Bowen’s mouth lifted in a cruel smile. “Got scared off by my men, did he?”

  Claire bowed her head, scrutinizing the marble table-top. “Yes,” she whispered. “It was too much for him.”

  “You should choose who you fuck better, my dear. You should have chosen me.”

  She kept staring at the tabletop so he wouldn’t see the revulsion that went through her at the thought of touching Bowen.

  “He just couldn’t take it.” She talked to her clasped hands, voice low and sad. “I had some questions to ask him. You attacked twice and he decided that answering my questions wasn’t too good for his health.”

  Dan was listening in on every word. She hoped he wasn’t having a stroke right about now.

  She lifted her head to look at Bowen, putting weariness and vulnerability on her face. They stared at each other in silence.

  “I want you to know,” he said finally, when it was clear that she wasn’t going to speak first, “that I’m in Laka for business. I was planning on coming anyway, when I got your ridiculous SMS. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but out of a sense of duty, because you were injured in the line of duty and we were, after all, colleagues, I agreed to meet you here.” He ostentatiously checked his ultra-thin Philippe Patek watch. “And I can give you about ten minutes, so shoot.”

  Unfortunate terminology, because that was precisely what Claire wanted to do. Shoot him right through his black, treacherous heart. It surprised her how much she wanted that.

  She wanted payback. For Marie. For Dan. For the thousands of cancer-stricken Makongans who died with tap water in their veins instead of chemotherapy. For her father. For her lost year.

  “Then I’ll be quick,” she answered. “It’s taken me a year to go after you, but I want you to know that I know exactly what you did on the 25th of November last year.”

  He leaned forward aggressively. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. On the 25th, I was in Algiers, having talks. And anyway, you don’t remember anything. Everyone knows you have amnesia.”

  Nobody except her doctors knew she had amnesia. Only someone who’d checked her medical files would know that.

  Claire leaned forward slightly, too, as if to echo him, but actually to center his image in the vidcam. “You most definitely were not in Algiers, you were in Laka. You took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday and the cover of a supposed rebel uprising to bomb your own Embassy. You thought the Embassy was deserted, but I was there, Bowen. Marie Diur came to get me to show me what you were doing. And what I saw was you directing the theft of a truck from the compound—"

  Bowen slapped the table with his hand. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of! Why would I rob a truck for God’s sake?”

  “Because it had at least ten million dollars’ worth of medicine and medical equipment in it,” Claire answered quietly. “You stole the truck and replaced it with a truck full of explosives so powerful the explosion dug a crater twelve feet deep. Recognize these?”

  She threw the two packets of medicine she’d taken from Aba onto the table.

  Bowen looked, but didn’t touch them.

  “I don’t know if this was your original plan or if you decided that stealing ten million dollars wasn’t enough, but you’ve been raking in money all year off counterfeit drugs. And that’s going to stop. Right now, right this minute, two hundred randomly chosen specimens of every drug distributed by the New Hope Foundation is being tested by labs in England. And you know what? I’ll bet they’ll find that two out of three is a fake. So what is the New Hope Foundation
going to say to that, hmm? Do your rich-guy sponsors know you’re raking off two thirds of the money?”

  He’d turned beet red, then white with rage. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, holding her tightly, digging hard with his fingers.

  A red dot appeared on his right shoulder. Claire shook her head. Not yet.

  “You little bitch!” His voice was low, enraged. Spittle flew when he talked. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. I have money behind me, money and power like you can’t dream of. And I’m going to crush you. Who’s going to believe you? Poor Claire. Poor, addled Claire, who was so messed up by the explosion. Who lost her memory. Who’s going to believe you instead of me?”

  He let go of her with a harsh laugh. Poor Claire against Bowen McKenzie. In his mind, there was no contest there. He’d been shaken for a second, but now he was back in control.

  Time for him to lose it.

  “Do you want to know what I saw, Bowen? That afternoon? And I’m willing to swear to in court? I saw you direct the truck full of medicine and equipment out of the Embassy compound and I saw you direct a truck full of explosives in. Do you know what that makes you, Bowen? A terrorist, that’s what. And guilty of treason. The needle isn’t good enough for you. But you know what else?” She leaned forward again, tactics forgotten. She was white-hot with fury now and wasn’t measuring her words. “That’s not the worst thing you did, horrible as that was. The most horrible thing was you seeing Marie and directing one of your soldiers to shoot her through the head. You didn’t even hesitate, you son of a bitch. You saw her and you ordered her put down like you’d put down a dog.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a smirk.

  Claire balled her fists to keep from hitting him. As far as she was concerned, there was no difference between Bowen and any murderous third-world tyrant. Both were willing to kill, as casually as you’d swat a fly, to get what they wanted. The evil loose in the world wasn’t abstract. It was sitting right across from her in an Armani linen shirt.

  He was shaking his head. “And anyway, you could never prove anything in a court of law. You’re whistling in the wind, Claire.” He was smiling at her. How could anyone have thought Bowen was handsome? His regular features no longer hid his essence—the monster that was inside.

  She was going to bring him down if it was the last thing she ever did.

  “You were caught on tape, Bowen. Every second of it. The switch with the trucks, killing Marie, all of it. And you’re going to spend the rest of your life in solitary in federal prison. Unless they go for the death penalty.”

  His cheekbones turned red but he still had that smirk. She wanted to slap it off his face so badly her hands itched.

  “There you’re wrong, my dear. Poor, delusional Claire, making up stories. The security cameras were down.” He gave a truly reptilian smile. “Everything you’re saying is only in your head. Your sick head.”

  Oh, Bowen, she thought. You’re going down.

  “Most of the cameras were down, yes. Because someone had cut the wires. The Marines found signs of sabotage, the wires cut, not broken. But you know what, Bowen?” Claire leaned forward just a little more. His face would fill the image she was recording. “The security camera over the motor pool wasn’t down. There’d been problems with it the day before and instead of repairing the wires, the maintenance guys just spliced the feed into the backup generator. So when you cut the wires of the security cameras, you overlooked that one. The tape was archived and forgotten about, until the Marines checked it this morning. And there you are, Bowen, in all your glory…”

  Bowen jolted in his seat and reached out again, grabbing her wrist, twisting it. “You bitch! You lie, you fucking bitch! All the cameras were out that day. I made sure of it myself. And as for your fucking friend, she just stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Just like you have. And you’re going to end up just as dead as she did.”

  “You didn’t need to kill Marie,” she said steadily. “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Of course it was necessary, you bitch. She would have—”

  His mouth closed with a snap and Claire felt a surge of triumph. His words came out slurred, as if he were drunk. He twisted her wrist harder.

  “Okay, you fucking asked for this. You’re going to walk out right now with me. My men will be right behind us—”

  “Your men aren’t here, Bowen.”

  His eyes went wide. She could see the whites all around the pupils. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Look down,” she said softly. “Look at yourself.”

  He stared at her, jaws bunching, trying to guess what her bluff was. Finally, he looked down at himself.

  “That little red dot, Bowen? That’s a laser sight. Attached to a Remington sniper rifle. And behind that is a Marine sniper. None better.” Another dot appeared on his chest. “Two Marine snipers. And your men have been taken out. You’re all on your own, Bowen.” She unbuttoned the first two buttons of her shirt, tapping at the plastic. “And by the way, everything you said is on tape and has just been loaded onto YouTube. Life as you know it is over.”

  Bowen screamed, his muscles bunched to deliver a blow and… he fell backward out of his chair, a red hole in his shoulder, the rifle’s report echoing in the hotel lobby.

  Claire slumped in relief and realized that she was sweating like a pig. And shaking.

  “Guys,” she murmured, knowing they could pick up the feed. “You can come out now.”

  Dan, Jesse, Frank, and Dave appeared from the shadows, hard-eyed men, cradling their rifles, prodding Bowen’s men in front of them. Bowen’s men had their hands handcuffed behind their backs.

  Bowen was screaming obscenities, so enraged Claire wondered whether he even felt the gunshot wound. Adrenaline must have been flooding his body because he rose to his knees, then he stood up, slipping a little in the pool of his own blood on the white marble floor.

  Two more men appeared, a tall, grizzled African-American and a short, broad man. The short man was armed, a Glock in a well-used shoulder holster.

  “Well done, Claire,” the tall African American said, and smiled at her.

  “Ambassador.” Claire sketched a tremulous smile. She knew she should offer her hand to the new US Ambassador to Makongo, Calvin Cooley, the man she most admired and respected in the Foreign Service, but her hands were shaking.

  The respect was mutual. When she’d asked him to come and witness the exchange with Bowen, he’d agreed without question.

  The short man, Leo Kellerman, the new FBI Legat, turned to Bowen. “On behalf of the US government, I hereby arrest you on charges of murder, treason, terrorism, and massive fraud.”

  Bowen swayed on his feet, eyes wild.

  “Oh God, Boss.” The man Dan had prodded turned a teary face to Bowen. “I’m so sorry.” He sniffled, unable to wipe his nose. “They got the drop on us, I’m so sorry—"

  “You fucking son of a bitch, this is all your fault. If you’d killed the bitch the first time this would never have happened!”

  Bowen was screaming, spittle flying, every cell of his body enraged. His hand snaked out, grabbed the Legat’s gun out of its holster and before anyone could stop him, drilled a bullet through the man’s head.

  Half a second later four shots rang out and Bowen crumpled, lifeless, to the floor.

  Claire was rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to breathe. The noise of the shots filled her head, deafening her. Bowen’s body on the floor was riddled with bullets, a small lake of blood already appearing under him, half his face and chest shot away.

  She swayed and was caught in two strong arms. She finally was able to pull in a breath and smelled him. Dan. Gunshot and musk and… Dan.

  Safety. Strength.

  She gave a mewling sound and buried her head in his chest, gasping, trembling. He tightened his arms, covered the back of her head with a large hand, and simply absorbed her trembling into himself.
/>   A weight on her shoulder, a large, gentle, black hand.

  “You did good, Blondie,” a deep voice rumbled way over her head. “Was any of that true? About the drugs being tested and the security camera that recorded everything?

  Claire shook her head against Dan’s chest, and the Ambassador laughed. It sounded like thunder rumbling in the distance.

  “Gunny, you’ve got yourself a remarkable woman there. You keep her safe, you hear?”

  “Yessir,” Dan answered, and oh, God, just hearing his voice made her feel better.

  “She’s scary brave, Gunny. And wily. You’re going to want to watch your step in the future.”

  She felt more than heard Dan’s laugh in his chest.

  “Yessir. I know that, sir. But I’m willing to take the risk.”

  EPILOGUE

  Alexandria, Virginia

  One year later

  Dan stepped quietly into his new, luxurious office. Claire was focused on her computer monitor, and when she was working like this—man, it was like she and the computer were one. Claire concentrating was a sight to see.

  Uh oh.

  She was smiling.

  A smiling Claire and computers were not a happy combo. That smile, in particular, spelled trouble. Wicked and knowing, which usually meant that she was doing something she shouldn’t. Something probably illegal.

  Dan sighed and she turned around, her face lighting up when she saw him.

  Oh man.

  He rubbed his chest. When she smiled at him like that, his heart just gave this enormous thwack inside his chest, even after a year of marriage. He should maybe see a cardiologist.

  Claire held out her hand and he took it. “So,” she said. “How did it go?”

  He’d just come back from talks with the CEO of a small, but very rich private bank.

  “Really well. We’ve got the contract. $100K a year, for five years, plus expenses.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Well done! You’ve got the golden touch.”