The Bride's Protector

by Gayle Wilson

  “Probably not,” Hawk agreed softly.

  “I made it so easy for him,” Tyler said bitterly. “I thought he wanted to take care of me. All he really wanted...” Was to use me. The words were in her head, but it was painful to admit that she had let herself be used again. First by Paul and then by Amir.

  “Anyone who has the capacity to trust can be taken advantage of,” Hawk said.

  “The capacity to trust?” she repeated. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

  She remembered what Hawk had said the first day. The day at the hotel. You have to trust somebody. In this situation she knew she did. And she would rather put her trust in Hawk than in anyone else right now. After all, he was the one who had come to find her. The one who had saved her life. Twice.

  “As soon as I’m sure it’s safe,” he said, “I’ll take you in and you can tell them what you saw. When you’ve done that, it should take some of the pressure off. Ahmad will realize he has nothing to gain by...hunting you down.”

  “What I saw doesn’t prove Amir was involved,” she said.

  “Maybe not. If you’re thinking of the kind of proof that can be taken to a court of law. You should realize, however, that even if you could prove he was involved, he’ll probably never be charged.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ahmad’s head of state now. Diplomatically, he’s off-limits. And he’ll deny it, of course. He’ll blame the assassination on the extremists. Or on a CIA plot,” Hawk said, his lips twisting. “The agency’s always a convenient scapegoat for the odd assassination or two.”

  “He’ll get away with murder? The murder of his own father?”

  “Probably,” Hawk agreed.

  “Then why do I have to testify?” she asked. She should have known this was the way the world worked. For people like Amir, anyway. People with that much money.

  “You need to tell what you saw to prove to him that you can’t hurt him. Not officially, anyway.”

  “And unofficially?” she asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe some people will continue to believe he was involved. Most won’t give a damn. It will be just a little added celebrity. Make him more interesting. After all, he has enough money to buy forgiveness for almost anything.”

  “Even for murder?” she asked.

  “Far more than enough for murder,” Hawk said, his eyes again cold and hard.

  The capacity to trust, she thought. This man had lost that long ago. He knew how the world really worked, and that made him more cynical than she would ever be, despite the betrayals in her life. But still, she thought, finding comfort in the realization, Hawk believed some things were worth fighting for. Justice. The law. He must, or he wouldn’t be who and what he was.

  “All you have to do is tell them what you saw,” he said again. “Tell them about the man who pulled the trigger and about the others in the room. Then they’ll put you somewhere safe until it’s over.”

  “They’ll put me somewhere safe?” she repeated. Not Hawk. Not any longer. She would no longer be his responsibility, and she supposed he would be glad.

  “Something like witness protection,” he explained.

  “And I won’t see you again?” she asked.

  “Probably not,” he said. There was no regret in his eyes or in his face. It was a simple statement of fact.

  Hawk had a job to do. And he was doing it to the best of his ability. As he would for anyone in her situation. At least he had no ulterior motives where she was concerned. Not of any kind, apparently. Not even the ones she had found herself thinking more and more about, the longer she was around him.

  But Hawk’s disinterest had been pretty obvious. Despite the feelings that had been building up in her head about him. More self-delusion, she supposed. Or a very one-sided dream. A fantasy. And it was about time she grew out of those, too.

  “THIS IS NOT MY AREA of expertise,” Claire Heywood stated, after she’d listened to her caller’s explanation. “Perhaps if you’d told my secretary what this was about—”

  “He’s innocent.” The deep voice on the other end of the line interrupted her polite rejection. “He’s being targeted by some powerful people to take the blame for something he didn’t do. I think that’s within your area of expertise, isn’t it?”

  Claire lay down the pen with which she’d been making a series of meaningless doodles as she listened. This man had insisted on talking to her personally, refusing to provide any information to her secretary. Normally, Jane would have gotten rid of him, simply on the basis of his reluctance to reveal who he was or what he wanted to talk about.

  However, he had made his request so persuasively, in such an impassioned manner, that the usually immovable Jane had given in. Maybe he had managed that miracle through the undeniably appealing quality of his voice.

  Claire had known almost from the beginning of his spiel that she wasn’t going to touch this case, but for some reason she had listened anyway. Just a sucker for an attractive male voice, she thought, her lips tilting a little. She had listened this long because it had been a while since she’d really enjoyed hearing a man’s voice. Since before Griff’s death.

  Suddenly, thinking about him, her sense of loss and anger, all the regret she had felt over the things she had said, surged upward from where she’d enclosed them. Escaping from that tight little box where she had determinedly buried her feelings about Griffon Cabot.

  She remembered the jolt of excitement she’d felt the first time he called her. Her body had reacted as soon as she recognized his voice, which had been as deep and pleasant as this one. It, too, had been touched with this same hint of Southern accent, the kind that spelled old money and good schools.

  “Or doesn’t that mean anything in this town anymore?” the man on the phone asked.

  “Everyone’s entitled to a presumption of innocence,” Claire said. Somehow her fingers had found the damn pen again. This time she had drawn a box on the pad in front of her, and then placed a smaller one inside it. She recognized the symbolism.

  “Except nobody seems willing to make that presumption in this case,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. Really I am, but I can’t help your friend. I can give you a list of names, some very fine lawyers who would be much more—”

  “They’re going to release his picture,” the voice on the phone said. “Which will start a manhunt. Despite the fact that they probably know he had nothing to do with this assassination.”

  With this assassination. The middle word in that phrase had been emphasized, and it triggered the association he had obviously been trying for.

  “This assassination?” Claire questioned. Her voice was very low, but she couldn’t have prevented herself from asking if her life depended on it. He was probably counting on that.

  “He’s a friend of mine. And our circle of friends is...limited. We’ve always looked out for one another’s interests. I think maybe you understand what I’m talking about.”

  The words beat at Claire’s consciousness, making her think about things she didn’t want to think about. Griff’s team? she wondered. Can that possibly be what this is about?

  She had wondered when she’d heard about the earlier assassination. The one in Baghdad. She had considered the possibility that Griff’s people had been involved. Because, of course, it had been rumored in the intelligence community that the terrorist in Iraq was the man who had been responsible for the attack in which Griff had been killed. And now this man seemed to be implying...

  “I’m not the lawyer your friend needs,” she said truthfully. “However much I might like to help him...” She hesitated deliberately, hoping he would understand why she couldn’t do what he’d asked. “You want the best representation for your friend, I’m sure.”

  “I’m not talking about legal representation,” he said.

  That threw her. She had thought that’s where this was leading. What else could they possibly want from her?

  “Then...I’m afraid I don�
�t understand,” she said.

  “Why don’t we meet somewhere, and I can explain it to you,” he suggested.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Somewhere public.” He broke into her refusal. “Wherever you say. You can trust me, Ms. Heywood. After all, we had a mutual friend. A very good friend.”

  Had a mutual friend Past tense. The quiet words echoed as the others had. She hadn’t been mistaken. This was about Griff. About a member of his team.

  That had been something Griff had eventually told her about. Eventually and not immediately, of course, because he must have known she wouldn’t approve. Griff believed the kinds of things they did were necessary for national security, but Claire had never bought into his reasoning.

  It was an argument they had had time and time again, with Griff reasonably, logically and calmly defending his decisions. Acknowledging that he would make the same kinds of decisions in the future if the nation’s security demanded them. And always she had argued in favor of other actions, other options.

  And yet when she had heard about the death of the man in Iraq, there had been no regret in her heart. No outrage that someone had killed him. She had felt only gratitude to whichever of those men had taken revenge for Griff’s death. For the death of a good man. A very good friend.

  “The Lincoln Memorial,” she said softly, her agreement surprising her as much as it probably would him. As it would have surprised anyone who knew her. “The foot of the statue. Three o’clock.”

  She put down the phone without waiting for his confirmation. She was still holding the pen, she realized. Because her fingers were trembling, she laid it down on the pad, beside the series of boxes she had drawn as she listened, each one smaller and more tightly enclosed than the last.

  She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes, fighting the sting of tears. She had sworn she wouldn’t cry. No tears for Griff. Or for her. Or for anyone else. Because she knew that her tears wouldn’t change anything.

  Nothing would change. She didn’t believe in an eye for an eye. Since childhood she had been taught that was wrong. Still, when she had heard someone had killed that bastard in Baghdad, there had been a surge of exaltation so strong it had almost frightened her. An age-old, primitive desire for revenge. And she had recognized at that moment that she might even have done it had she had the expertise or the opportunity.

  But there was no one to whom she could ever have made that admission. Like her attendance at this meeting she’d just arranged, no one who knew her would believe the thought of tracking down Griffs murderer had even crossed her mind.

  But whoever he was, the man who had pulled that trigger in Baghdad, she knew exactly how he felt. And if the man they were accusing of the sheikh’s death was the same one, and if, as her caller suggested, he was being set up in retaliation for what he’d done for Griff...

  She sat for a few minutes staring out the window of her office, situated in the heart of the most powerful nation in the world. A strength protected, Griff had insisted, by men such as these.

  They weren’t interested in her legal expertise. They were smart enough to know that would be worthless in this case. So that meant they wanted something else. They wanted what she could give them. An insider’s knowledge? She knew people who would know what was really going on. She thought of her grandfather. After all, as they said in Washington, there was no one as well connected as an old spook.

  And her father. Of course, her connection there might be important to them also, she realized. The press was an incredibly potent force, especially in this world dominated by politics and intrigue. Even the Griff Cabots of this world recognized that. Now all she had to decide was whether she was willing to use those connections on behalf of Griff’s friend.

  Chapter Nine

  “There’s a witness who will testify that she saw the real assassins,” Jordan Cross said. “A witness who can identify those men, none of whom were my friend.”

  It was the same voice, Claire thought, but somehow it was even more compelling in person. And the man was as intriguing as his voice. He was tall and dark, almost as handsome as Griff. His eyes, dead-of-winter gray, should have been cold as sleet. They were passionate instead, full of intelligence and purpose. Intent on making her believe that she should help them.

  “Then he needs to turn himself in to the authorities and let her do just that. As soon as he can,” Claire suggested calmly, fighting his power.

  They were standing in the shadowed memorial, right at Mr. Lincoln’s feet. The place was crawling with tourists, cranky kids in tow, snapping endless photographs, most of them across the breathtaking vista of the reflecting pool.

  No one seemed to be paying them the slightest attention. Except, Claire had noticed, for the occasional feminine glance that touched on her companion and then came back, lingering a few seconds longer than was absolutely necessary on his face. She didn’t blame them. Jordan Cross was as good to look at as he was to listen to. That was the name he had used when he’d introduced himself, but she couldn’t know if it was his real one.

  “There are a couple of problems with doing that,” Jordan said softly. The gray eyes circled the crowd around them and then returned to hers. “For one thing, they don’t intend to give him a chance to talk. Not even to prove his innocence.”

  “Why not?” Claire asked.

  His well-shaped lips tightened as he continued to hold her gaze, considering, perhaps, what to tell her. “They ordered him to stay out of Iraq. He didn’t Someone had killed a friend of his. Maybe the only friend Hawk ever had.”

  He obviously thought that what the man he called Hawk had done was honorable. Therefore, he was willing to use any weapon he had to protect him, even Claire’s feelings for Griff.

  “He’ll come in and take the heat for what he did in Baghdad,” Cross continued. “But he wants to bring in the witness to al-Ahmad’s assassination. She testifies to Hawk’s innocence, and then they put her in witness protection.”

  “He must realize that...” Claire took a breath, trying to think how to phrase what had to be said.

  “He’s prepared to accept punishment that’s appropriate.”

  “Prison?” she asked.

  “Why should he go to prison? He executed a murderer. The agency knows that. Their hands haven’t always been so clean.”

  “Maybe they’re turning over a new leaf,” she suggested.

  “But you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game. Especially if someone’s been playing that game as long as Hawk.”

  “I think they can change the rules whenever they want to,” she reminded him softly. “It’s their game. Who’s going to stop them?”

  “That’s where you come in,” he said, smiling at her.

  His smile was undeniably powerful. And suddenly Claire found herself wondering exactly what kinds of jobs Jordan Cross himself had done for Griff.

  “I don’t understand what you think I can do,” she said.

  “Hawk knows a lot of things the agency wouldn’t be eager to have become public.”

  “So we threaten that he’ll make them public? The same kinds of things this man Hawk did in Baghdad?” Her feelings about those were probably revealed in her tone, because he reacted.

  “You really have no idea, Ms. Heywood, about the kinds of things Hawk has done for this country.”

  “I’ m sorry, Mr. Cross, but my ideas about national policy differed from Griff”s. They differed a great deal. So don’t expect me to feel gratitude for Hawk’s contributions.”

  “Is that why you broke with Griff? Because you didn’t approve of what we did?” There was a thread of anger in Jordan’s voice. For the first time the gray eyes were as cold as she had imagined they could be.

  “Whatever was between Griff Cabot and me is none of your business.”

  Angered by his criticism, the same one she had made of herself often enough after Griff’s death, she started across the floor of the memorial toward the steps.
His hand on her elbow stopped her. His grip wasn’t hard enough to bruise, but she was surprised he would touch her like that. She couldn’t ever remember being forcibly detained. Not in her entire life.

  “We’re not playing games, Ms. Heywood,” he said, his voice very low, his mouth close to her ear so no one around them could hear what he said. “A man’s life is at stake. A good man, whether you want to believe that or not. A man whose neck is in this noose because he went after Griffs killer. And you should remember that Cabot and the others were just that terrorist’s latest victims. They wouldn’t have been his last, I can promise you. Whatever your politics, however deeply you feel about them, you can’t possibly believe that preventing that murderer from killing again wasn’t justified.”

  Claire had stopped because she didn’t have a choice. But what he said was compelling. Especially given his obvious conviction. And especially for someone who prided herself on dealing with the truths that lay hidden under all the convoluted rationales of national politics.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked, held now not by the grip of his hand, but by his sincerity. She wondered again in what capacity Jordan Cross had functioned for Griff’s team.

  “We want you to act as a go-between. Set up a forum where Hawk can make his case. Get them to promise two things—protection for the witness and to let Hawk walk out when the meeting’s over. In exchange, he gives them his oath to keep quiet about what he knows.”

  “Would he go public?” she asked. Keeping that trust was the essence of the relationship the team shared. Even she knew enough about Griff’s work to understand that.

  “I’d bet my life he wouldn’t,” Jordan said, his lips relaxing suddenly into a smile. “But they won’t know that. And with Hawk’s background...I don’t think, even with all they know about each of us, they can be completely sure he won’t.”

  “If this works, I want to be there,” Claire said. “At the meeting.” From the quickly concealed reaction in his eyes she realized she had surprised him. Probably because he thought there was an element of danger involved. She didn’t care. She wanted to meet the man who had killed the terrorist in Iraq. She wanted to make her own judgment.