by Fiona Brand
West prowled the length of the room, reached the open bifold doors, turned and surveyed the room, his gaze restless. Ben noted he still had his shoulder rig on. For that matter, so did Carter.
"Stop pacing, you're making me nervous."
West's gaze flashed over him. "You should be nervous. The guy was good with a handgun. Hit dead-centre. If he's the same shooter who did Roma's friend in Sydney, we've got a problem."
Carter extracted a couple of painkillers from a foil packet and slapped them down in front of Ben. "I'm betting it's the same guy."
So was Ben. They'd spent a good two hours with the police, giving statements, running through motivations and possible suspects. West had provided a physical description, but the identikit was inconclusive. Lean, medium height, dark blond hair, in the forty-plus age group … the description fit a huge list of known criminals and terrorists. And that was always presupposing the hair colour was correct. The police had taken the body armour with the bullet still embedded in it away for analysis, along with a handgun that had been found beneath a seat, apparently placed there by the shooter. The Luger was an unusual weapon, more a collector's piece than a street gun. And finding it had filled them all with disbelief. It was the kind of break that only happened in the movies, but they'd had to accept that it was the weapon that had been used against Ben, because it had recently been discharged. The only reason they could come up with for the shooter to leave the weapon where it would be easily found was because he wanted them to find it. As to why he would want them to find it, no one knew.
Carter filled a glass of water and placed it by the pain killers. "What did Gray say?"
Ben swallowed the pills, grimacing. "Not much that's printable."
West stopped pacing. "Did you tell him Roma had your gun?"
Ben eyed them both. They had innocent looks on their faces, which was a difficult feat. The last time either of them had been innocent had been when they were in a cradle. "I didn't have to. He already knew. Some reporter beat me to it."
There was a period of silence, in which West took an inordinate interest in studying the shrubs on the terrace, and which Carter filled by examining the contents of the fridge. He came back to the table with three cans of orange juice and the remains of a cold pizza.
West dropped down into a chair and picked up a slice of the pizza. "Speaking of guns," he murmured as he settled back in his chair, "if I were you, I'd get another set of body armour. You survived one shot today, but guess who hits town in about—" he checked his watch, and whistled "—half an hour."
Blade.
Ben pulled on his T-shirt. Oh, yeah, Gray and Blade. Perfect.
Carter nudged the pizza carton in his direction. Ben noticed that he'd been left the scrawniest piece. There were some boundaries that even friendship didn't breach.
"You got an engagement ring?" Carter asked, apparently more interested in the dietary information on the juice can than any answer Ben might come up with. "I can go out and get one for you, if you want."
Ben eyed Carter narrowly as he snagged his piece of pizza. "I can get my own ring."
Carter and West exchanged grins, then sat back to wait.
Blade arrived first, dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, long black hair sleeked back in a ponytail, dark eyes fierce. He'd used his own private helicopter, landing on the pad on the roof of the hotel. "What happened?" he snapped, when Ben opened the door. "Where's Roma?"
Roma cocked her head at the sound of Blade's voice, her heart filling with a mixture of delight and resignation as she pulled on jeans and a soft cotton checked shirt and braced herself to walk out into the lounge.
She'd spent the last hour piecing herself together after the shooting and the seemingly endless time spent sitting in a police interview room at Auckland Central, watching Ben treat the fact that he'd been shot with the same kind of distance the police did. It wasn't a distance Roma was very good at holding on to, but she'd had to. There had been a lot of ground to cover between the Sydney shooting and this one, and Ben had been shut off from her, not only by the demands of the investigation, but by West and Carter, who'd closed ranks around him. Even when they'd returned to the hotel, West and Carter had made it clear who they were protecting, and from what. Understanding that she wasn't personally to blame for the threat didn't help much. The threat existed. And so long as she was close to Ben, he was in danger.
Blade strode up to Roma, gripped her arms, stared into her eyes. "You all right, baby?"
"I'm—"
He pulled her into a hug, not waiting for an answer. "We'll get the bastard," he stated coldly.
Blade's wife, Anna, handed him the baby to hold and hugged Roma. "At least he's a bad shot. Chances are he'll be sloppy in other ways."
Gray arrived with Samantha and their twins in tow. Suddenly the room was overflowing with people, and this was only the beginning. The entire family was due to arrive for the ball that evening.
Gray hugged her, set her away from him and gave her a piercing look. "How in hell did you get McCabe's gun?"
Blade's head came up. "She got Ben's gun?"
Roma switched her attention to Blade, frowning. The whole lot of them had missed the point, just as they had with Lewis. They were all focused on her, but it was Ben who'd been shot.
Blade grinned. "Did you shoot him, baby?" he crooned. "Please tell me you shot him."
Gray eyed her with something between frustration and amusement. "She didn't get the bad guy, but she drew a bead on the damn reporter. You can read about it in the paper tomorrow."
Gray's wife, Sam, straightened from unstrapping the twins from their double stroller and sent Blade a reproving look. "Don't look so happy, Blade. If she'd shot the reporter, she'd have to go to prison, and then we'd have to break her out."
Sam enveloped Roma in a hug. The twins staggered forward and wrapped their plump little arms around her legs and gave her baby hugs, begging to be picked up. Roma went down on her haunches, happy to concentrate on her niece and nephew and their uncomplicated needs while Ben fielded a barrage of questions from her family. She hugged the twins close, breathing in their sweet baby scents and enjoying their wriggling, squirming little bodies, the sloppy kisses they planted on her cheeks.
Minutes later her cousin Cullen walked in, followed by his wife, Rachel, and their two children, Emma and Jake Junior, who had been predictably nicknamed JJ. Cullen's grey eyes fixed on her, cool and considering. He walked up to her and gave her a hug. Of all the members of the family, he was the most enigmatic. All the Lombard men were take-charge kind of men. Blade was a handful in any situation you cared to name, Gray was just flat-out dominant, but Cullen had a gentleness to him completely at odds with his big warrior's body. Not that most people ever got past the wintry-grey shield of his gaze to that core of gentleness.
The twins were still hanging on to her legs, and Emma and Jake Junior were clustered around her, when Elsa McCabe arrived, with Bunny in tow, swelling the numbers in the suite even further.
Ben made introductions around the room, then submitted to having his T-shirt pulled up while both Elsa and Bunny examined his chest. Elsa was pale, her expression controlled, but it was Bunny who held Roma's attention. The little girl stayed close to Ben, big eyes dark and solemn.
JJ tugged at her sleeve and shoved a book at her, wanting a story, and Roma dragged her gaze away from the picture of Ben trying to explain to his mother and daughter just how he'd come to get shot.
She made it to a couch, weighted down with slow-moving toddlers. The twins both tried to plop their soft little rumps on her lap. Emma shook her head in exasperation, sat down and heaved one of the twins onto her lap, exclaiming loudly at the weight. Little Nathaniel, the older of Gray and Sam's twins by ten minutes, stared at Emma, mesmerised, and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
JJ wiggled in beside her and patted the book. "Read," he said happily.
Roma opened the book and began to read. After a few minutes Emma wriggl
ed out from beneath Nathaniel and wandered over to watch Anna feed her baby, and Bunny McCabe took Emma's place on the couch, smiling shyly as she hefted Nathaniel onto her lap and cuddled him close.
The persistent, distant buzz of a cell phone sounded, almost lost in the torrent of noise filling the suite. When it finally registered that it was her phone, Roma eased herself free of children, walked into her room and answered the call. At first she couldn't quite hear what the caller was saying; then a few words registered. Roma went still inside. "Who are you?"
"Someone you know, yet don't know."
Her jaw squared, and she repeated her question.
There was a pause. "I can't see you now, you've gone into your room, but I could see you before … with the children, your family. McCabe." The last was uttered with a flatness that sent a cold shock of awareness through her.
Her hand tightened on the phone. "You shot Ben."
"I also sent you the photos. And I was in Sydney not long ago. Your friend Lewis Harrington's recovering well. I know. I checked on him."
"Why are you doing this?" she demanded fiercely. "Leave us alone."
"Don't let McCabe close to you again."
The phone went dead as the call was terminated.
Michael Linden slipped his cell phone into his overnight case, snapped it closed and straightened. It was time to leave. The Lombard men would move on him fast once they realised he was so close. Gray and Blade were cold, efficient bastards, and they were dogged. They'd hunted Harper down, even though it had taken years. And he'd seen Cullen Logan in the suite. Logan had been out of the loop for a while, but Linden didn't underestimate him, just as he didn't underestimate McCabe, West or Rawlings. He'd made it his business to find out everything he could about their respective careers and their lives, unwilling, out of sheer habit, to let any detail slip.
But he'd also been fascinated by the men who saw him as prey. They'd worked together for years in the SAS; they were a tightly woven team—as near as damn it to the legendary pagoda squads that had operated out of Britain years ago that it didn't make any difference.
And now they were hunting him.
A hot thrill shot up Linden's spine. He grinned coldly. Not that they had a hope in hell of catching him … unless he chose to let them.
He picked up his overnighter and the photographer's case that held his weapons, cast his eye over the hotel room one more time, then walked calmly to the door, stopping to check his appearance in the mirror. With his sober tie and lightweight jacket, he looked smooth, urbane, a businessman on a trip—if it hadn't been for the edgy glitter of excitement in his eyes.
He stared at himself, riveted, feeling that disorienting shifting sensation inside. He looked alive in a way he hadn't for the past year. There was nothing about his appearance that suggested he would be dead in a month.
Roma pulled her purse out of her holdall, searched through the contents and pulled out credit cards and all the cash. Her fingers shook so much that the cards scattered on the floor. Taking a calming breath, she methodically picked them up, folded the bills around the cards, making a tight bundle, and slipped it all into the front pocket of her jeans. Next she found her passport and slipped that into her back pocket. She couldn't take the holdall, or even the purse. She couldn't even afford to carry any items of clothing with her, or wear a jacket. If she looked as though she was going somewhere, she was more likely to be noticed and stopped, and once her family and Ben knew what she was going to do, she wouldn't get another chance; they would watch her every second.
With hands that were still annoyingly unsteady, she extracted the Sig from the sweatshirt she'd wrapped it in, checked the safety, then slid it beneath the waistband of her jeans in the small of her back. The metal was cold against her skin, and the gun sat uncomfortably, the shape and weight awkward, but there was no other solution.
She resettled her shirt over the gun, turned to the side and examined the effect in the mirror. The fall of the loose shirt hid the gun well enough that she could walk out of the suite with it, and that was all she needed.
She took another moment to study herself in the mirror. She was breathing too fast, and her face was pale, but otherwise she looked remarkably composed, her expression as blank as her mind. Later on, she would have time to feel, but she couldn't allow herself the luxury of emotion yet.
Her hair was loose. She would have to change that. Rummaging through a drawer, she found a red baseball cap and stuffed it in her back pocket, where the bulge was hidden by the fall of her shirt. When she got free of the suite, she would twist her hair into a knot and stuff it beneath the cap.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped out into the lounge.
The sudden blast of noise was overpowering, battering her senses after the calm of her room. The television was on in the corner. Bunny, Emma, Jake and the twins were camped around it amid a jumble of toys, watching a cartoon. Anna was changing her baby in a corner and chatting with Jack and Millie, who must have arrived while Roma was in her room. Jack was a long-time employee and friend of the family. Over the years, he'd become family. Someone was clattering in the kitchen; the deliciously savoury scent of onions frying permeated the air. Most of the men were camped around the dining table or hanging out in the kitchen, their voices a rumble of sound as they presumably went over every aspect of the shootings.
A fight broke out in front of the television as the twins tussled over a ragged teddy bear, followed by a howl of outrage as JJ discovered that the two toddlers had filched his favourite toy. Millie and Jack's baby, who had been sound asleep in a carry cot, woke up and began crying, his high-pitched wails adding to the cacophony of sound. The suite erupted into chaos as parents leapt to their feet and tried to pacify their children.
Blankly, Roma turned away from the sheer wonderful normality of the scene. She loved her family, the noise and confusion, the fights and the laughter, the sometimes smothering closeness that enveloped every member, whether a blood relation or not, in a blanket of love and warmth. They fought and argued and teased each other, but Lombards loved hard. Her family would hold her close, but she wouldn't allow any of them to put themselves at risk, and especially not now, with the suite filled with children and babies. That was the second reason she had to leave. The first reason was Ben. He would keep her with him, regardless of the danger, and she wouldn't, couldn't, lose him in that way.
She'd thought it through, but no matter how she approached the problem, the most effective solution was always the same. If she removed herself from Ben, she removed the immediate danger. It wasn't a complete answer, because she couldn't remain in hiding forever, but she would take that hurdle when she got to it.
As soon as she was free of the building, she would phone Gray and warn him that the suite was under surveillance.
As she grasped the handle of the door, the buzzer sounded, shocking her into immobility.
"Get the door, Roma!" Blade yelled.
She flinched, then mechanically opened the door, standing aside as Sadie Carson barrelled in. Tony Fa'alau followed at a more sedate pace, courtesy of his limp.
"Heard you had some trouble today, girl," Sadie said, reaching up and pecking her on the cheek. "Came to give you a hand."
Tony greeted her in his usual gentle manner, then there was a shout of "Sadie", and Blade walked over, scooped Sadie up in a bear hug and swung her around. "How's my girl?" he teased.
Sadie blushed. "Put me down, you devil. We can't have any more of this nonsense. I'm a married woman now." She grinned when Blade set her down, and slotted herself in the curve of her new husband's arm. "We eloped," she said happily. "Didn't want any fuss and bother."
The noise level went crazy as Sadie and Tony were surrounded and congratulated. One of the babies woke up and howled with displeasure at having his nap interrupted, and Nathaniel took advantage of the momentary lapse in supervision and clambered onto the coffee table, knocking a bag filled with baby bottles and fresh dia
pers onto the floor, and crowing in happy delight at the accomplishment.
In the midst of all the confusion, Roma slipped from the room and closed the door gently behind her, heart pounding as she walked toward the lift. The security monitors were all on in the suite; if anyone glanced in their general direction, they would see her leaving.
When she reached the lift, she pressed the button to open the doors and found she had to wait; the security people who'd escorted Sadie and Tony to the suite had just used the lift to return to their station. Seconds felt like minutes as she stood staring at the polished stainless-steel doors, willing them to open, aware of the security camera boring into her back.
Finally the light glowed, indicating that the lift was on its way back up. When the doors slid open, Roma stepped in, jabbed the button to close the doors and held her breath as the lift began to descend. The lift camera was small, but this one caught her face-on. With any luck the security people monitoring the lift wouldn't question the fact that she was unaccompanied until it was too late. She didn't doubt that they would question why she was wandering around the hotel on her own—McCabe was too efficient not to have covered that base—but it was hardly a crisis situation. She was still in the centre of the security net, watched and protected; there wouldn't be cause for alarm until she was observed leaving the secured area.
The second she left the building all hell would break loose, but she would be free and clear before they had time to react.
With jerky movements, she rearranged her hair, winding it into a knot, jamming the cap over top and tucking loose strands beneath it. She pulled the bill of the cap down and examined the effect in the mirror. She couldn't change her face, but this way people would look twice—used to seeing her with her hair loose or wound up in an elegant knot. The cap was also an eye-catching red; if anyone looked at her they would notice the cap before anything else, and the bill cast her eyes into shadow, adding another layer of deception. As disguises went, it wasn't much, but all she needed were those few seconds of hesitation.