by Larry Bond
Louisa Farrell didn’t keep him in suspense. She led him straight to a corner table near the jukebox. A tall, pretty woman rose gracefully at their approach.
“Peter, this is Helen Gray. Helen, I’d like you to meet Colonel Peter Thorn.”
Thorn was busy reevaluating his first hasty impression. This woman wasn’t just pretty—she was beautiful. Short, wavy black hair framed a heart-shaped face and the brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen. An elegant, form-fitting black dress showed off a slender body with curves in all the right places. He couldn’t guess her age any closer than a vague feeling that she was definitely over twenty-five but probably under thirty.
He had to admit to himself that he was impressed. This evening might turn out to be a lot more enjoyable than he’d first imagined. He held out his hand. “How do you do, Miss Gray?”
She shook it firmly and smiled politely. “I do pretty well, Colonel Thorn.” Her voice was quiet, but it held a note of utter self-confidence.
Thorn was even more impressed. Maybe the Fort Bragg ladies’ circle was doing a better screening job these days. Helen Gray was certainly a far cry from the usual run-of-the-mill debutante or charm school graduate they tried to fix him up with. Whatever else she might be, this woman clearly wasn’t a stereotypical, wilting southern belle. He wondered exactly what she was doing at the base.
When several minutes of friendly but noncommittal conversation failed to yield an answer, he decided on a direct approach. “So what do you do for a living, Miss Gray?”
He saw Louisa Farrell hiding a smile and wondered what was so funny.
Helen didn’t bother hiding her own amusement. She smiled, impishly this time, over her wineglass. “It’s Special Agent Gray, actually, Colonel Thorn. And I lead the HRT section exercising here right now.”
It took an effort to close his mouth. “You’re with the FBI?”
Helen nodded briefly. “You’re not surprised that a woman can beat your men at their own game, are you?”
Thorn noticed that her blue eyes, once warm and maybe even inviting, were a little colder now. Clearly, this was dangerous ground. Screw it. He opted for honesty. “Not really, Miss Gray.” He looked her up and down. “It’s just that I’m having a lot of trouble visualizing you in a black ski mask and body armor.”
He held his breath, waiting for either a verbal explosion or a glassful of Chardonnay in the face.
Instead, she laughed delightedly. “That’s not exactly a politically correct thing to say, Colonel.”
Thorn smiled broadly. “I’m not exactly a politically correct kind of guy.”
Louisa Farrell patted his upper arm. “I can certainly vouch for that, my dear.” She inclined her head toward Helen and loudly whispered. “But Peter’s not all that bad—not for a Neanderthal door-kicker, that is.”
Helen laughed again. “I believe it.”
Somebody turned up the volume on the jukebox and put on one of the older, slower tunes—a fifties classic. Louisa took that as a clue to slip away. “If you’ll both excuse me, I do believe I’ll try to find my husband and force him to dance with me.”
A few other couples were already out on the floor, swaying in time with the beat.
Thorn studied them for a few seconds, working up his nerve. Then he turned to Helen. “Much as I hate to spoil my knuckle-dragging image, I have to admit that looks like fun.” He hesitated, suddenly surprised to discover how afraid he was that she’d refuse. “Would you care to dance, Miss Gray?”
“I’d love to, Colonel.”
Thorn led her out onto the floor, still perplexed by his earlier hesitation. Up to now, he’d never let any woman, or anything else for that matter, throw him off his stride like this. So what was so different about this one woman?
He forgot to worry about it as she slid into his arms.
Thorn moved in time with the music and with Helen for several minutes, content at first in the comfortable feeling of her body pressed lightly against his. He was conscious, though, of a growing desire to learn more about her. When the song ended and someone else put on a louder, faster tune from the seventies, he seized his opportunity. “Mind if we sit this one out, Miss Gray?”
“Only if you stop calling me Miss Gray,” she replied. “Deal?”
Thorn grinned. “All right … Helen.” Her first name seemed to flow very easily over his lips. He followed her off the floor, again admiring her beauty and grace.
They found a table far enough away from the jukebox so they could hear each other speak. He smiled across at her. “I hope your shoes are still intact. I’m afraid that dancing isn’t my strong suit. I took some classes at West Point, but not much stayed with me.”
Helen laughed. “Lucky you! My father was so afraid that I was becoming too much of a tomboy that he made me take cotillion with my sisters—for three years!”
Cotillion. That explained some of her grace. Thorn flagged down a waiter and secured two fresh glasses of white wine. “Sisters? I guess the Gray family’s a pretty big clan, then?”
She shrugged. “Not that big. I have two sisters, one older and one younger, and one older brother.”
Thorn smiled crookedly. “As an only child, that sounds like a pretty big family to me.” He took a drink, remembering the long evenings and quiet holidays. “I used to wonder what it would be like to have brothers and sisters. But I guess I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my dad for anything. It seems like he and I did everything together when I was growing up. Hiking … kayaking … skiing … riding, you name it.”
Helen shook her head. “Your dad sounds like quite a guy.” She hesitated. “What about your mom?”
Thorn felt his jaw tighten. “I don’t have a mother. Haven’t had one since I was a kid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry … Did she die?”
He paused, undecided about how much to tell her. They were treading in very private waters. On the other hand, he felt intuitively that he could trust this woman. “No, actually my mother left us when I was eleven—after my dad came home from Nam. She said she needed more ‘space,’ that she had ‘grown up’ while he was overseas. I’m not sure either my dad or I ever really understood what she meant by that. We pretty much lost contact with her and learned to manage on our own.”
Thorn stopped almost abruptly, somewhat embarrassed at having revealed so much. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound bitter. It may have been a blessing in disguise. I probably got away with taking all sorts of crazy risks with just my dad looking after me. After she left, my dad wangled a transfer to Fort Carson, Colorado, for a couple of years.”
He pushed the conversation and his memories on to more pleasant ground. “That wasn’t a bad place to grow up, really. I rode horses all year round and skied in the winter. Heck, I even cross-country-skied to school. It was great. And then when I was thirteen we moved to Tehran so my dad could help train the Iranian Army …”
The stories of some of his teenage adventures and misadventures in Iran’s crowded capital lightened the mood considerably. But Thorn suddenly realized he’d been monopolizing the conversation for far too long. He made a frantic bid to turn the spotlight back on her before she decided she had been trapped by an egomaniac. “What about you? Where did you grow up?”
“Nowhere quite so glamorous, I’m afraid.” Helen’s smile took the sting out of her words. “We lived in Indianapolis, where my dad was an executive with the phone company. Probably what you’d call a typical suburban existence. I had all the advantages of a close family, good schools with teachers who cared about me, and wonderful friends.”
She grinned broadly. “I’m practically a poster child for solid midwestern values.”
Thorn snorted. “Right. Lots of suburban girls go on to careers as an FBI commando.”
Helen spread her hands. “Well, of course, since I was the third kid I was always jockeying for position in the family And while my sisters fulfilled my mother’s dream by becoming charming, pretty girls who married well, I was alw
ays chasing after my brother and building forts in the backyard. I think sending me to cotillion was a last-ditch effort by my parents to make me suitable company for men.” She laughed. “Little did they know that I’d choose a profession where I’m almost exclusively surrounded by men!”
Suddenly, Helen’s watch beeped. Thorn saw her stiffen and then relax.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Eleven o’clock. I’m afraid I have to leave soon.”
“Does your ride turn into a pumpkin at 2400 hours or something?”
She chuckled. “No. But I do have an 0400 wake-up call, courtesy of your Sergeant Major Diaz. He’s challenged my team to a rematch.”
Thorn shook his head mournfully. “Remind me to see if I can get Diaz transferred to an Arctic weather station.” He looked seriously at her. “I’d really like the chance to see you again.”
“I’m based at Quantico,” she said quietly.
“That’s not very far from Washington, is it?” he asked.
“No.” The smile reached her eyes again. “It’s not.” They stood up together. “I hope you’ll call me.”
Thorn nodded seriously. “You can count on it.”
He watched her go, slipping through the crowd with a dancer’s grace. She turned once, looked back at him, smiled one last time, and then vanished.
He shook his head, completely baffled. How had she got him to talk about his family and his childhood? Those were not things he usually discussed at the drop of a hat. Especially not to someone he’d just met. And just what the hell had he said? Whenever he tried to recall the conversation in detail, he remembered little more than a blur of voices and those warm blue eyes.
“A hell of a woman …” he murmured.
Helen Gray was still remembering the way he’d smiled back at her from across the room. Still holding her wineglass, she moved off to find Louisa Farrell and say her goodbyes.
The general’s wife found her first.
“Well,” she said, nodding back toward the knot of officers standing near the doorway. “What did you think of Peter Thorn?”
“He’s an interesting man.” Helen took a last sip of wine, carefully considering her response. “A very interesting man.”
CHAPTER SIX
INFILTRATION
JULY 8
Falls Church, northern Virginia
“Senior administration officials say that the most interesting development at this U.N. conference on security and international development is something that wasn’t on the official agenda at all: a series of private meetings between U.S. Secretary of State Austin Brookes and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmad Adeli. Sources close to both governments have characterized these meetings—the first between high-ranking American and Iranian officials in more than ten years—as surprisingly cordial and productive.”
Colonel Peter Thorn turned his head toward the open bathroom door and paused with his hands halfway through the convoluted process of turning a thin strip of colored silk into a perfectly knotted necktie. He’d left the television on both out of habit and from a desire for some noise to break the silence enveloping his rented town house.
“During the talks, Minister Adeli is said to have confirmed his government’s hopes for the eventual restoration of full diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States. Apparently, only the fear of angering Islamic radicals still entrenched in the Iranian Parliament remains a minor stumbling block.
“Appearing before reporters this afternoon, the usually reserved American Secretary of State seemed a different man—smiling broadly and even cracking a few jokes with members of the press. If these reports are accurate, it’s not hard to understand his newly expansive mood. Long under fire for his dull personality and haphazard management style, Austin Brookes must be savoring the prospect of achieving the high-profile diplomatic victory denied his predecessors in three previous administrations.
“This is Terrence Nakamura, reporting live from Geneva, Switzerland, for CNN.”
Thorn snorted and finished knotting his tie. Uninterested in world currency fluctuations, he tuned out the rest of the broadcast. He didn’t know whether to be amused or simply disgusted. Like most lawyers and all politicians, the Secretary of State was only too happy to claim credit for the work done by others. If General Amir Taleh hadn’t had the guts to smash the radical hold on his own government, Brookes and the rest of his State Department stuffed shirts would still be at receptions passing each other glasses of dry sherry and drier position papers.
He shrugged his momentary irritation away. You couldn’t change the ways of politicians any more than you could repeal the laws of physics.
Thorn studied his reflection in the mirror, turning his face first one way and then the other to make sure he’d hit all the right spots with his razor. Satisfied, he tugged at the collar of his blue button-down shirt, loosening it just a touch to let some oxygen down his windpipe. He looked more critically at his reflected image, eyeing the shirt, patterned red tie, and lightweight gray suit with a slight frown. They made him look more like a typical D.C. bureaucrat than he cared to at the moment. As a Delta Force operator, Thorn was used to wearing civilian clothes, but his personal tastes off duty ran more to blue jeans and boots than wool slacks and dress shoes.
Buck up, boyo, he told himself sternly. This was a special occasion after all. It had taken nearly two weeks of fairly regular phone calls, but he and Helen Gray had finally managed to synchronize their busy schedules for an evening out. He intended to make the most of it. Besides, Washington’s finer dining establishments usually had a particular place reserved for people who showed up in casual clothes. They called it the exit.
Thorn checked his watch, swore at himself, and grabbed his car keys off his nightstand on the way downstairs and out the door. He’d made a reservation at Stannard’s—one of the capital’s most elegant restaurants—for eight o’clock. It was already past seven.
Nearly an hour later, Thorn pushed his way into the Stannard Hotel’s packed foyer. The blast of overworked air-conditioning came as a much-needed relief after his dash through the hot, muggy evening outside.
Despite his best efforts, he was late. First, some idiot had stalled out on the Fourteenth Street Bridge, tying northbound traffic into knots. That was bad, but even a few weeks in the D.C. area had taught him to allow for delays on the highways. What he hadn’t anticipated was the near-total gridlock on the capital’s downtown streets long after the normal working day had come to a close. For a lot of people in this town, parking apparently meant double-parking, turning their blinkers on, and then going off to run errands. As a result, the crowded streets off Pennsylvania Avenue were a zoo—down to one lane in places and full of pedestrians darting across without bothering to look for oncoming traffic.
Stannard’s small, richly appointed lobby was a sea of suits and evening dresses—jammed with people waiting for tables who had spilled out of an adjoining bar with drinks in hand and their voices at full volume. Thorn slid through the throng, searching for Helen—half afraid she wasn’t there and half hoping that she, too, was late.
“Peter! Over here!”
He turned toward the familiar voice with relief and saw Helen Gray smiling at him. Smart woman, he thought. She’d taken a station in a corner near the entrance to the dining room, shielding herself from the worst of the crush while still securing a good vantage point. He made his way to her side with all possible speed.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said hurriedly.
“You should be.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve already been propositioned by an Arab sheik, a labor lawyer, and a dairy industry lobbyist.”
Ouch. Thorn looked carefully at the floor and then back at her. He shook his head soberly. “I don’t see any bodies. What happened? Your pistol jam?”
Helen laughed. “No. I left it at home. It didn’t go with the dress.”
She was right, Thorn decided, a 9mm Beretta would definitely look out of place
on the elegantly dressed woman in front of him.
He’d thought the black number he’d first seen her in at Fort Bragg was nice, but the dress she had on now was stunning. It was cut low enough to show off her tanned shoulders and the upper curves of her firm, perfectly proportioned breasts. It was the kind of dress that invited open admiration from men and barely concealed envy from other women. It was a dress he thought would look even better on its way off. Down boy, down! he told his libido, wondering again what it was about this woman, out of all women, that made him think and act so much like an oversexed, underbrained teenager.
He cleared his throat and sought more neutral mental ground. “Maybe we’d better see about getting our table.”
“Absolutely,” Helen agreed. From the satisfied look on her face she’d probably been reading his mind.
She nodded toward the tall, imposing figure of a maître d’, stiff and formal in a tuxedo and firmly ensconced behind a lectern at the entrance to Stannard’s oak-paneled dining room. “I tried to check in earlier, but Prince Charming there seems to think that only someone named Thorn can confirm a reservation made by someone named Thorn.”
Her voice left no doubt about her feelings toward the kind of person who would uphold such an idiotic policy. Thorn had a sudden vision involving punji sticks, barbed wire, honey, and an anthill. He shook his head, very glad he wasn’t in the other man’s pointy black shoes, and led her up to the lectern.
Thirty seconds later he was beginning to plan his own prolonged and painful revenge on the maître d’.
He gritted his teeth and tried again. “Look, my name is Peter Thorn. I made a reservation for eight o’clock tonight two days ago. Check your book.”
“Yes, sir.” The restaurant’s maître d’ seemed completely unimpressed. “I have checked. Your reservation is perfectly in order.” He offered them a bland, disinterested smile. “But I am afraid we are running slightly behind schedule this evening. I will be happy to seat you as soon as the first available table opens up.”