Trisha Telep (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (epub)

  “Do you need a reason to pop downstairs again?” she murmured to him over her shoulder. “I’m feeling a bit faint.”

  “Honey? Summer?” He took the champagne flute from her and handed it to a passing waiter, while placing a steadying hand at the small of her back.

  “Sorry. I’m not sure what’s going on.” Summer kept her voice low but panicky. Several guests were staring at her in concern. “I’m feeling dizzy, can I sit down somewhere?”

  Kevin’s concerned expression was enough to move the other guests out of their way. He helped her down the stairs and she leaned heavily on him, her hand over her mouth, doing her utmost to look ill.

  One of the attendants from the auction room spotted them and rushed over to help.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. Is there a room where she can lie down in for a while?” Kevin asked, playing the anxious new husband to a fault.

  “Certainly, Mr Hunter. Please, this way.”

  They were shown into a small suite. The attendant made sure that they had water and clean towels before discreetly withdrawing.

  “I could kiss you, you know?” Kevin muttered into her hair, letting her go.

  “I know.” She didn’t bother looking anything but smug. “Now what?”

  “Now you stay here, quietly, while I go snoop around and plant some bugs that could put a nasty man away for a long time.”

  “Oh? That’s a bit dull.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sorry to say that a lot of covert jobs aren’t exactly guns blazing and Bourne shenanigans.”

  “More’s the pity,” she murmured, resting on the bed. “I like a man of action.”

  The look he shot her was dark and inscrutable. “Don’t go anywhere.” He had his hand on the door handle. “Don’t steal anything either.”

  “That wasn’t part of the contract,” she sniped back with a grin, settling in.

  He was still smiling when he slipped into the passage. The two bulky security guards standing by the doors to the auction room were preoccupied with a rich American oil tycoon and his overblown wife. They didn’t look up as Kevin slipped down the passage on the far side, to the next flight of stairs. Kevin paused at each door, listening intently for any noise.

  He had his mobile in his hand, with the battery case halfway open. The sheet with the two dots – one for tracking, one for listening – came out easily enough and he put each dot on a finger of his right hand, before slipping the mobile back into his pocket.

  He was approaching the final cabin when the door suddenly opened and a tall, dark-haired man in a light linen suit stepped into the passage. His face was flushed with anger and Kevin could hear raised voices in the room behind him. When he saw Kevin a heavy scowl drew his brows together.

  “What are you doing here? This part of the boat is not for partygoers.”

  “Oh, I know that. I’m sorry. My name is Kevin Hunter. One of the attendants upstairs said I could come down here. My wife’s taken ill and they told me there’s a doctor on board.” He kept his tone solicitous and slurred a few of his vowels. The man regarded him with distaste.

  “I’m sure there are several doctors on board but none of them are here. Now, I must ask you to move along.” The man’s tone was civil but impatient. He blocked the door behind him with his body, using his arm to indicate that Kevin should be on his way.

  “Fine, fine, I’m sorry.” Kevin raised his hands in apology before patting the man on the shoulder, deftly sliding the GPS dot and state-of-the art listening device beneath his lapel. “Thank you anyway.”

  He made a show of retreating down the passage and up the stairs again, swaying a bit more than the gentle undulation of the river could account for.

  Summer was stalking back and forth in the room, checking her watch. Her instincts told her to run. She felt unsafe and missed Kevin’s presence. Those men who had come on board, she knew them from somewhere. She definitely recognized one of them as a high-powered businessman with connections to one of the important Saudi families. What was this really about? She trusted Jimmy with her life but she was starting to doubt his research into Kevin Hunter’s background at MI5 and the details about this job. It all seemed very low key. Too low key. And it panicked her. If she had the chance she would ring Jimmy but she couldn’t risk it right now. Jimmy had gone dark after Kevin made his first contact with her. Having a government agency after them was not the best of birthday presents.

  The door opened and Kevin breezed in, smiling. “Job done. Let’s go bid on some pretty shiny things.”

  “If you move, you will die.”

  The voice was low and urgent in her ear. A heavy hand pressed across her mouth, stilling her movement before she could even attempt it. Summer snapped her eyes open. She could make out one dark silhouette standing at the foot of the bed, another crouched beside her.

  The small alarm clock in her line of vision told her it was 3.35 a.m. Who, besides criminals, operated at that hour?

  “Do you understand?” the voice hissed again. Fully awake now, Summer got a nose full of garlic and bad body odour and hastily shook her head affirmatively.

  “I am going to move my hand, and you will tell me where your husband is. Is that clear?”

  She nodded again. Her fingertips found the knife she always slept with under the pillow. As he moved his hand, she surged upwards, bringing the knife with her. She used a controlled slicing movement to his face. The blade caught him above his eyebrows, slicing deeply, peeling the skin away. Blood gushed from the small veins and covered his face within seconds. He let out a yelp of terror and flung himself backwards, crashing into a writing desk and gilded chair.

  The second man was no less stunned but had the chance to react to her unexpected manoeuvre as she took out his colleague. He launched himself at her across the bed and grappled madly for the blade in her hand.

  Summer bucked and squirmed as violently as she could within the bedclothes, thrashing against the man’s weight pinning her down. She flung the knife from her, knowing that there were other weapons stashed around the room that she could use if only she could get to them. She used her nails to scratch at the man bucking on top of her. He pulled away to mutter a curse as her nails gouged satisfying cuts across his cheek. Seeing her chance, she reared up and head-butted him, silently thanking Uncle Mike for showing her the deadly move shortly after her thirteenth birthday. Her assailant fell back with a curse, grabbing his nose. Using her legs, she wiggled out from beneath him and rolled off the bed, away from both men.

  She landed in a tangle of sheets and bedding. Kicking free, she stumbled to the walk-in closet where she remembered Kevin hiding a small snub-nosed .38 in the pocket of one of his jackets. She felt around in the dark and, after a few moments, she palmed the gun.

  Summer widened her stance, enjoying that both of her assailants were still moaning and crawling around. She flicked on the lights, flooding the room with brightness. The gun never wavered in her hand.

  “Now, can you kindly tell me what the hell you are doing in my room?” she grated out. “I’ll count to three before I start shooting and, trust me, I am a very good shot.”

  “We only want the clay tablet, that is all,” one man said in pained tones. He still had his hands cupped around his bleeding nose.

  The other guy had managed to staunch some of the blood flowing from the cut above his brow with a piece of the torn bedding.

  “I’m not quite awake yet but I have trouble understanding how you can demand anything if I’m the one with the gun,” Summer pointed out. “It seems, I don’t know, like I should be the only one making demands.”

  “You have no idea who you are dealing with,” the first man said again. “We will be able to find you wherever you go. Just give us the tablet and we will go away. Pfft, like that, for ever.”

  “No, my friend. I know exactly who I’m dealing with.” She casually waved the gun and watched them both flinch. “You can certainly tell Mr Alexandrov that I am not happy with
his highhanded ways at all. We bought the items at auction, legally. If he has a problem, he can take it up with our lawyer.”

  She watched the words sink in and satisfied herself that they realized she wasn’t just a bit of eye candy on Kevin Hunter’s arm.

  “Now would be a good time to leave. “She stepped out of the closet completely and advanced on them. “Please, leave quietly and with a minimum of fuss. I don’t want my husband’s people to become aware of this little misunderstanding.”

  She saw them out of the hotel suite and locked the door behind them. In the kitchen, she obsessively washed her hands to get rid of the skin and blood beneath her nails. She drank several glasses of bottled water quickly, wishing for strong tea instead. For a few moments, she stared blankly into space, her mind racing. She was jerked out of her reverie by a thunderous knock on the door.

  Keeping the .38 by her side, she approached the door and shot a quick look through the peephole. It was Kevin and he looked fit to murder. She unlocked the door and stepped aside as he bulldozed his way into the room.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “Who were those men?” He spun around the lounge area and eventually focused on the gun by her side. “I saw them leave from this floor. The other suite isn’t occupied. What’s going on?”

  “If you cared so much, Mr Hunter, you should maybe have hired some bodyguards to guard me and the goods you bought tonight. Those two idiots who broke in here were sent by Mr Alexandrov to steal the clay tablet.”

  “Alexandrov?” Kevin echoed. “But he’s not the one we . . .” He held out a hand. “How do you know they were his men?”

  “I recognized him at the party. I know him very well as I’ve done business with him in the past.” She shrugged, pretending nonchalance, enjoying his discomfort. “I know what he was after so I made sure we got what he wanted instead.”

  “I can tell you’re dying to tell me what we managed to accomplish tonight.”

  “Well, we only made sure that one of the biggest crooks in the antiquities trade did not get his grubby little paws on a very important piece of an ancient puzzle. The little clay tablet we bought tonight outlines the final location of the fabled lost treasures of Sargon of Akkad.”

  “And you can be sure about this because . . .”

  “I stole the other pieces for him from a variety of collectors and museums over the past five years. The tablet we bought tonight had been looted by soldiers from the museum in Baghdad during the Iraq War.”

  “Oh.” Kevin looked nonplussed. “Well, I have to admit your evening turned out a lot more exciting than mine did.”

  “And what did you do?” she asked, amused by his glum expression, thinking she could cheer him up.

  “Well, there was a brief shoot-out between us – the good guys – and the other guys – the bad guys. In the end, we won by superior force – and working with the Egyptian government – and managed to make some arrests. Hopefully they’ll languish in a jail for a long old time.”

  “Oh. There was actual shooting?” Summer asked, feeling a bit jealous. “Your night was definitely more exciting than mine.”

  “But I can see blood, which means you got to beat up some bad guys of your own.”

  “Yeah, that part was pretty cool.”

  “So. Tell me more about the clay tablet.”

  Summer blinked. “I think they took it with them.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “Yes.” Her smile was wide. “I am. What about it?”

  “I think a heavy interrogation session is in order.” Kevin grabbed her slender waist and pulled her to him. “Are you up for it?”

  Summer’s answering smile was wide and cheeky. “I can tell you are.”

  His kiss was long and deep and sweet. He bent and picked her up, cradling her to his chest. She flung her arms around his neck, letting the gun dangle down his back. He walked through his room with its bloody bedding from Summer’s recent fight, and kicked open the door to her bedroom with its slightly smaller bed.

  He stripped her knee-length nightie over her head with practised ease. As he lay her down on the soft covers, he looked at her and smiled.

  “I have to warn you that I am well versed in interrogation techniques.” He placed butterfly kisses along her jaw and down her throat. “My subjects always talk.”

  “I like a challenge,” Summer murmured as she untucked the shirt from his waistband. “Less talking,” she instructed him fiercely, “more kissing. Just remember, I have a gun.”

  Kevin bent his dark head over hers, only too happy to comply.

  “Miss Summer!”

  Summer pushed her hat back from her forehead with the back of her hand and looked up at the scrawny kid running towards her through the excavations. He picked his way through carefully, as nimble as a mountain goat.

  “There is a man here, he wants to see you.”

  “Did he give his name, Adnan?”

  “No, but he did say he was your husband.”

  Several of the workers around her stopped working to look at her with curiosity. With an impatient gesture, she brushed away the loose strands of hair that clung to her neck. It’s been over a year, what was he doing here?

  “Let’s go meet him.” She followed Adnan to the entrance of the dig where she could see Kevin leaning against an impossibly clean 4×4. He looked better than ever. Maybe a little more slender, but it suited him. His eyes were hidden by a pair of expensive wraparound glasses.

  “You left me,” he said by way of greeting, his voice low. “I didn’t like that.”

  “Well, you know how it goes. A bad girl meets a good guy, they take down some scumbags . . . it was never going to work out.” Her flippant reply was out before she could stop it.

  “Is that your excuse for stealing government property?”

  “I’m sure the government will get over it,” she shot back, irritated. “It’s really taken you a year to track me down?”

  “One year, four months and fifteen days.” His tone was measured, dangerous. “It’s the strangest thing. We heard about this young archaeologist out here in the wilds of what used to be ancient Mesopotamia. She’s not funded by any known agency or university and yet she seems to know all the right people in the local government who are happy to give her permits to dig in places where no one ever thought of looking for any sign of civilization before. And then stories start leaking out about this massive funerary hoard belonging to some long-forgotten king that she’s discovered.”

  “Imagine that,” she said, suppressing a grin. She could tell how worked up he was about her walking out on him. His face was white with anger.

  “Yes, imagine that.” He moved closer, his long fingers reaching for her waist, settling there with familiarity. “So I thought it would be a good idea to come out here to check if it was indeed my long-lost wife. And look! Here you are.”

  Summer held up her left hand. “It was only pretend, Mr Hunter. I left the rings behind when I left you in Cairo. The only thing I took was the clay tablet and I told you I would.”

  “Which is why I’m here.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans. “I don’t really care about that tablet. And I think this belongs to you.”

  Before Summer could respond or withdraw her hand, he slipped a glittering ring on to her finger. The diamond blinked in the bright light and she caught her breath.

  “It’s beautiful!”

  “Not quite the De Beers classic collection.”

  “Oh no, this is much prettier. Circa late 1800s if I’m not mistaken? Look at that classic cut. It’s perfect.” His laughter made her grin ruefully. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I like shiny things.”

  “Yes, I could tell.” He folded her fingers over his and raised her hand to his lips. “My grandmother was an extraordinary woman. She gave me that ring and made me swear never to give it to someone who didn’t challenge me. And I am pretty sure I found her. But are you sure you want to marry me?”

  “I suppose I
can give it a try. I have to warn you though – I’ll have you sign a prenuptial. And no more government work!”

  “Fine by me.” His grin was wide but she could see the pain hidden there.

  Her hand snaked down to link with his and her smile was brighter than the blazing sky above as she led him to the mess tent. She was aware of all the looks they were receiving from the workers around them. The ring on her finger felt heavy but her heart was light. Kevin looked down at her and she realized that his pursed lips were simply from suppressing the grin bubbling up inside him.

  “Does this mean I can hire you as security?” she asked, pouring him a large glass of water. “Do you have any references?”

  “I’m sure we can work something out.” He put the glass down on the table beside him and drew her into his arms, then kissed her with scarcely contained passion.

  “Yes, I think we can definitely work something out.”

  Code Word: Storm

  Sydney Croft

  One

  Annika Svenson loved her job. As a special operative for the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives, she was given awesome assignments – lots of danger, action and really freaky situations.

  Because ACRO didn’t employ the average agent. No, ACRO specialized in people with unique talents, like Annika’s electric eel-like ability to shock the hell out of whoever she touched. Her skill, combined with the fact that she’d been raised to be a secret agent from the age of two, made her someone every ACRO operative wanted to work with.

  It also made her someone those very operatives avoided when they weren’t working with her. Annika wasn’t the nicest person on the planet, but she couldn’t care less what anyone thought of her. As long as she had the support of Devin O’Malley, ACRO’s big boss, and the man who’d rescued her from the CIA’s clutches a couple of years ago, she had all she needed.

  Her cell phone rang and, speak of the devil, Dev’s “Carry on my Wayward Son” tone jingled in her pocket. As she dug the phone from her jeans, she glanced outside the window of the East Seattle house ACRO had rented. The mansion across the street looked back at her like some kind of million-eyed monster, which was appropriate, since the man hiding inside was a beast in his own right. All was annoyingly calm, which was the first thing she said to Dev when she answered.