Vaughn lowered his gun, feeling more murderous than he ever had in his life. “Why didn’t you answer me?”
“You should see the look on your face right now,” Marianna said through her laughter. Then she turned and looked in the full-length mirror behind her. “Oh, wait, you can.”
Vaughn turned away without checking his reflection. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Get your stuff together,” he said, his heart rate starting to return to normal. “We’re going back to the hotel.”
“Yes, Mikey,” Marianna said with a smile, slipping into her suede jacket.
After Vaughn discreetly explained the broken dressing room door to the store manager, he escorted Marianna back to the limo.
“What the hell did you think you were doing in there?” Vaughn demanded as he tossed her bags into the trunk. He slammed it so hard the entire vehicle bounced up and down on its tires.
“Just a little fun,” Marianna told him, raising her small shoulders.
“This is not a game,” Vaughn said through his teeth, getting as in-her-face as he dared. “Don’t you understand that your life is at stake? How stupid can you be?”
Marianna’s eyes seemed to darken as she glared up at him. “No one speaks to me that way,” she snapped. “You had better watch what you say, Mikey. My father can have you fired in an instant.”
Vaughn glared back at her, a million retorts flying through his head. He sincerely doubted that the American government would fire him over a spat with the most spoiled princess of the millennium, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. He could be the bigger person here. He had to be. Marianna was clearly incapable of taking the high road.
It’s just a few days, he told himself. You just have to get through the next few days.
He popped open the back door to the limousine, the scents of leather and new car wafting onto the street. Marianna narrowed her eyes at him, then slipped into the car, depositing herself in the center of the backseat. Vaughn slammed the door a little harder than necessary, half wishing her foot were in the way.
At that moment, Dominic emerged from around the side of the building, talking into his cell phone. He closed it when he saw Vaughn eyeing him and walked over to the driver’s side door without a word.
“Where were you?” Vaughn demanded over the roof of the car.
“You are not my boss, American,” Dominic shot back. He got into the car and started revving the engine, threatening to peel out and leave Vaughn standing on the sidewalk.
Great level of cooperation we’ve got going here, Vaughn thought, ripping the door open. He felt as if his head were about to explode from dealing with these people. Had Dominic just been chatting on his phone the entire time he and Marianna had been in the store? How could anyone assigned to the first family possibly be so careless?
As Dominic pulled the car into traffic on Broadway, Vaughn settled into his seat, thinking back over everything that had just happened. The two men in the store were most likely not suspects—they were a little too clumsy for La Rappresaglia—but he’d give Chloe full descriptions just to be safe. The thing that bothered him most of all was Dominic’s behavior. He’d hung up the phone too fast upon seeing Vaughn, and for a moment he’d looked like a deer caught in headlights. Who had he been talking to? Roscoe had mentioned that there could be faction members working on the inside of the president’s detail. Was Dominic one of them?
Vaughn checked the man out surreptitiously. A scowl was fixed on his face as he negotiated the busy Manhattan streets, his arms tense as he gripped the wheel.
Something was up with Dominic.
Vaughn was going to make it his business to find out what it was.
4
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU didn’t pick me up anything.” Chloe dipped a few french fries in a glob of ketchup. Vaughn had just finished telling her and Elena the tale of his exciting, high-risk day o’ shopping over a room-service order of burgers and fries.
While Vaughn had been out running around the city, the rest of the team had set up a mini HQ in one of the hotel suites. The desks had been cleared to make way for scanners and fax machines and seventeen-inch monitors. A bulletin board against one wall was rapidly filling with information about La Rappresaglia, the president’s itineraries, and other scraps of intel that were coming in over the wire. The TV in the corner was tuned to CNN’s coverage of the UN conference, the volume turned down so that it could just be heard over the conversation at the table.
“A purse? A sweater?” Chloe munched away. “I’m not picky.”
Vaughn unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves before digging into his food. “She actually modeled lingerie for me.”
Elena dropped her fork. Two circles of pink appeared on Chloe’s milky-white cheeks.
“See anything you like, Vaughn?” Elena asked, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
Vaughn blushed and bit into his burger. “Yeah, right. I’m a professional.”
“Yeah. And a guy, last time I checked,” Chloe said.
“A single guy,” Elena added, stabbing another fry.
“Did you people not listen to a word I said?” Vaughn asked. “The girl’s a little—”
“Watch it,” Chloe warned, anticipating what he was intending to say. She raised a scolding finger in Vaughn’s direction. Chloe didn’t appreciate language.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Vaughn finished.
“All right, let’s get down to business,” Chloe said. A lock of hair fell free from her messy bun and she pushed it behind her ear before reaching for another fry. “Tell me more about Dominic. He sounds shady.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Vaughn told her. “He was with us all day, but when we got to the lingerie place he just disappeared. He was gone for at least an hour, and I think he was making phone calls the whole time.”
“Not exactly the guy you want looking after your daughter,” Chloe said.
“So, can we get a satellite tap on the phone?” Vaughn asked.
“Tried it,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “His signal’s blocked.”
“That doesn’t bode well,” Vaughn said.
“Ooh! I just designed a new cell-phone tap! You’re gonna love it!” Elena announced, jumping up from her seat. The woman never got excited about anything other than new technology. That and her arguments with Barry over which of them was the more dedicated technophile.
Chloe and Vaughn exchanged a smile as Elena rummaged through her stuff, knocking over a stack of disks in the process and banging her head against the side of a table. When she returned, she held a translucent disk about the size of a nickel between her thumb and forefinger.
“Careful,” she said, holding it across the table toward Vaughn. He wiped his fingers on his linen napkin and took the disk from her. It looked like a plain piece of plastic until he turned it over, revealing intricate circuitry.
“All you have to do is get hold of his cell phone, slide the cartridge out, and place that over the central circuits. It’ll attach like Velcro, and we’ll be able to hear everything that’s said.”
Vaughn smiled up at her. “You’re good, Elena.”
“I know,” she said, preening. She handed him a little black felt pouch. “Keep it in there until you’re ready to use it.”
“Thanks,” Vaughn said. He placed the disk in the pouch and, lifting his jacket off the back of the chair next to his, slid it into the breast pocket.
“Where’s Barry, anyway? I figured he’d smell this food from a mile away,” Vaughn asked, taking another bite of his burger.
“He got a day off to visit with his brother. Tommy’s with the NYPD, so Barry went to walk the beat with him,” Elena said, clearly amused.
Vaughn smirked. He could just imagine Barry out on the streets, flinching at every shout and diving behind his brother whenever a car backfired. “We’re in for some interesting stories.”
“We are, anyway,” Elena said. “You’ll be out with your personal lingerie
model tonight.”
“Don’t remind me,” Vaughn said with a groan.
“Think you’ll have an opportunity to get your hands on Dominic’s phone?” Chloe asked.
“Probably. Marianna’s dragging us both to some club downtown tonight,” Vaughn told them, grimacing. “A gathering of young dignitaries.”
Chloe and Elena laughed, exchanging a knowing glance.
“What?” Vaughn asked.
“I’d kill to see you on a dance floor,” Chloe said, tipping her head back slightly, as if she were asking God to grant her the favor of catching Vaughn in Dance Fever mode.
Vaughn turned crimson, suddenly recalling a hundred high school humiliations. Slow dancing he could do. Anything with a beat—the results were not pretty. “That is one thing neither you nor Marianna will ever see.”
* * *
Trick was the Manhattan club of the moment. Small and cramped, with more space for private VIP rooms than tables for everyday joes, it was the hot spot everyone wanted to experience. Thus the line of at least a hundred people standing outside in the rain, hoping to be noticed by the bouncers and granted entry. But Michael Vaughn had walked right by the crowd with Marianna and her entourage of friends and bodyguards. For tonight, he was one of the chosen ones—one of the beautiful, blessed people who were actually given access to this mecca of nightlife.
He couldn’t have been less impressed.
The place was decorated like a hundred other bars in the city—black walls, red and purple faux-suede couches, random pillows in a thousand funky patterns. The low black tables that the sofas surrounded were chipped down to their original wood in various places. The tiled floor was covered with crushed cigarette butts and spilled drinks. There was nothing new.
Standing against the wall in the small cove Marianna had reserved for herself and a dozen of her children-of-dignitary friends, Vaughn felt as if he’d seen this exact spectacle countless times before. Different bar, same scene. Overprivileged kids getting drunk and stoned on Mommy and Daddy’s money. Two-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne being passed around as if they held cheap beer. Smoke filled his lungs and stung his eyes as he kept watch over Marianna, who was, for the moment anyway, completely ignoring him—a shift that was more than fine by Vaughn.
Marianna sat on one of the velvet-covered stools that surrounded a table covered by half-empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays. She wore a pair of low-riding black leather pants and a silver halter that was no more than a handkerchief with string for straps. Every so often she would laugh at one of her friends’ jokes, tossing her head back and exposing even more skin to the world. Every set of male eyes, and more than a few jealous female eyes, was drawn to her.
“What is with Mr. Stoic?” one of Marianna’s friends asked in English, leaning toward her. The girl’s straight blond hair was streaked with pink, and her eyes were bloodshot. From the lack of meat on her skinny frame and the obviousness of her collarbone, Vaughn figured she was either a heroin addict or an anorexic. Maybe both.
Vaughn knew the girl was referring to him, and he knew she’d intended for him to hear her. It was the first thing she’d said in English all night, and she’d said it loudly enough to be heard over the near-deafening music.
“Born with a stick up his butt,” Marianna replied, sipping at her apple martini. “All Americans were, you know. They act like they’re such free spirits, but really it’s a country full of repressed humanity.” She looked Vaughn up and down, and he stared right back at her, refusing to look away and let her think she was embarrassing him. This was a childish game, and he hoped his expression conveyed his distaste. “Just look at him,” Marianna continued. “No man that hot should be allowed to be so uptight.”
Vaughn flushed but still didn’t avert his gaze. It was dark enough in the room to hide the sudden color shift of his skin. At least Trick had that going for it.
Bored by his lack of response, Marianna and her friends went back to their conversation in Italian, and Vaughn continued to scan the club for suspicious-looking characters. Unfortunately, everyone in the place looked suspect. He glanced over at the bar and saw a tall man with a frizzy, light-brown ponytail sipping a glass of vodka as he checked out the scene. The man was dressed in black from head to toe, including an ill-fitting pair of leather pants. He raised his drink to his mouth to take a sip and Vaughn noticed a small, X-shaped scar on the left side of his chin. Next to him was a middle-aged blond guy, totally out of his element, talking with a beautiful brunette in a sexy but tasteful black dress. She wore tortoiseshell-framed glasses, and her lips were slick with gloss. And her body rocked. She was flirting, touching the man’s arm and gazing up into his eyes, but the blond guy was barely paying attention. Instead, he gazed toward the other end of the bar, never cracking a smile.
Vaughn looked at the young woman again, watching as she tucked a strand of her bobbed hair behind her ear. What was wrong with that guy? If she’d chosen to flirt with Vaughn, he might actually have forgotten he was on assignment.
Which you are, lover boy, he reminded himself. He tore his eyes away from the couple and followed Mr. Blond’s gaze toward the other end of the bar.
Dominic stood there with at least six other bodyguards knocking back shots and slapping one another on the back. A bitter taste filled Vaughn’s mouth at the sight of such irresponsibility. This place was full of wealthy, important people from around the world—it was a prime target for kidnappers and terrorists. Yet the men who were paid to protect these kids were busy getting sloshed at the bar.
All the better for me, Vaughn thought, sensing his window. He leaned away from the wall, told Marianna, who ignored him, that he’d be right back, and made his way out of the private alcove and into the bar area. As he approached Dominic and his friends, the hulking man pushed away from the bar and spread his arms, smiling for the first time since Vaughn had met him.
“Agent Vaughn!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, obliterating any cover Vaughn may have hoped to maintain. “Join us for a drink.”
Wow. This guy really is trashed, Vaughn thought.
“Sure,” Vaughn said, accepting Dominic’s invitation. The sea of bodyguards parted slightly so that Vaughn and Dominic could lean on the bar. Dominic couldn’t have made it any easier for Vaughn. As he reached up to try to get the bartender’s attention, Vaughn slipped Dominic’s cell phone from his pants pocket and deposited it in his own.
“Get me a scotch. I gotta hit the bathroom,” Vaughn said.
“Little man can’t hold his liquor!” Dominic said with a laugh, slapping Vaughn on the back.
Vaughn laughed in response and dove back through the crowd, heading in the direction of the bathrooms. He closed himself into a stall, slipped the cartridge from Dominic’s phone, and placed Elena’s disk over the central circuitry, pressing it down to make sure it was secure.
We’ll see what this guy is really up to now, he thought, putting the phone back together. He placed it back in his pocket, flushed the toilet for good measure, and headed back to the bar. Mr. Blond and his woman were headed for the door, and Vaughn let out a sigh of relief. One less person to watch.
“Here is your scotch!” Dominic said, handing Vaughn a tumbler full of alcohol he had no intention of drinking. “We toast your health!”
Each of the hulking bodyguards held up a drink and shouted, “Salut!” Vaughn took a sip of his drink to appease them as they each opened their mouths and gulped the full contents of their glasses down. A pair of drunken girls jostled into Vaughn on their way to the restrooms, and Vaughn made a big show of being thrown into Dominic’s side so that he could transfer the phone again. He placed it back in the pocket he’d taken it from just before Dominic pushed him upright again.
“You shouldn’t have any more,” Dominic said, laughing as he took Vaughn’s drink away. “You are a lightweight, my friend!”
Vaughn nodded and smiled. “You’re right, you’re right. I should get back to the table anyway.”
He started to move away but paused when he saw Marianna walking out of the private cove with two young men. They each held one of her arms as they led her down the steps to the dance floor in the next room. One of the men was slim but powerful-looking, with cut arms and a goatee. The other man, taller, broader, and with more facial hair, laughed when Marianna missed a step and tripped into him. Something about these guys put Vaughn on alert.
“Dominic, who are those men with Marianna on the dance floor?” he asked as the trio joined the gyrating throng.
“Oh, they are just Carlos and Roberto Vianna,” Dominic scoffed. “Carlos is the tall one and Roberto is the other. The CIA did not have you study up on Marianna’s close friends?”
“They’re friends?” Vaughn asked skeptically. Marianna didn’t look entirely comfortable being jostled between the two men. And besides, if La Rappresaglia had people on the inside, they didn’t necessarily have to be people that worked for the family—trusted friends were a possibility as well.
“The families go way back. Carlos and Roberto are cousins, and their parents visit the president and his family every summer on the Riviera,” Dominic said lightly. “They grew up together. If you were not such an outsider, you would know this.”
Vaughn ignored the dig and watched Marianna closely. She laughed as Roberto whispered something in her ear, but it was a strained laugh. Vaughn could tell something was up.
“Relax! She is fine!” Dominic said, slapping Vaughn on the shoulder.
Just then, Carlos and Roberto each grabbed one of Marianna’s arms, more forcefully this time, and started to move toward the other side of the dance floor. Vaughn saw Marianna’s eyes go wide before they turned her around, and then all he could see was her back as she struggled to free herself from their grip.
Heart in his throat, Vaughn jumped into action. He shoved his way through the mob by the bar, stepping on a few feet and causing more than one shout of protest. At the top of the stairs he could see the Viannas shoving Marianna toward a nearly hidden door on the other side of the dance floor. Vaughn scrambled down the steps, knowing that once he was at eye level with the dancing multitudes, he would lose sight of her for at least a minute.
Close Quarters Page 3