Athena Force 9: Payback

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Athena Force 9: Payback Page 8

by Harper Allen


  His gaze was still on her. She returned his stare coolly, taking in the way the short spikes of his burnt-silver hair contrasted with the mahogany of his tan, and how the beach-glass aqua of his eyes couldn’t be completely concealed even behind the denseness of his half-closed lashes. He wasn’t in the same league as Lover Boy, she thought assessingly—one look at Des Asher and a woman’s thoughts didn’t veer immediately toward a vision of rumpled sheets and deliciously wasted afternoons. One look at him was enough to make any sane woman keep her guard up rather than let it down.

  Even as the thought flitted through her mind, her guard fell completely away.

  A few minutes ago she’d heard him laugh at something Keifer had said. His laugh had been surprisingly attractive; low with amusement and somehow giving the impression that it was a fleeting glimpse of the real man. So yeah, his laugh could be called sexy, Dawn thought dazedly. But his smile…

  His teeth gleamed briefly white in the shadows. A corner of his usually grim mouth lifted. His aqua eyes were still half-hidden, but now instead of glinting coldly at her they seemed to draw her in.

  She still didn’t think of wasted afternoons when she looked at him, she told herself unsteadily. Her thoughts were running more along the lines of hustling the man into her bed this very night.

  Bad mistake, O’Shaughnessy. Real bad mistake.

  She snapped back to sanity as he spoke. “Number one with a gun, Swanson? You sure you’re not just trying to impress the hell out of this poor Brit?” The laughter in his voice was reluctant, but it was still there as he continued. “Because I am impressed, love. See, I figured you for a small-time operator hired by someone a little higher up on the criminal food chain to infiltrate this place and report back on its security measures and procedures. I’ll admit I was pretty shaken by your moves when you and I got it on a couple of nights ago at the front gate, but I had no idea I was dealing with the female equivalent of the Jackal.”

  Her instincts had been right, she thought in amazement…reckless but right. The truth was so fantastic that Asher found it easier to believe she was spinning him a story, and he’d been amused enough by what he saw as her outrageousness to play along. You could keep this up indefinitely, O’Shaughnessy, the daredevil voice inside her urged. Come on, isn’t it a whole lot more interesting playing ‘catch me if you can’ with the man rather than being stuck acting out the Swanson role?

  It was more interesting. It was more interesting because it was more dangerous, she told her inner daredevil repressively, fixing a scowl on her face and opening her mouth to revert to a Swanson-style put-down.

  So it’s more dangerous. Where’s the downside to that?

  Dawn closed her mouth without delivering the put-down. Slowly she widened her eyes at Asher. She let the corners of her lips curve into a smile, and when she spoke there was absolutely nothing of Dawn Swanson in her purr.

  “What happened between us at the gate, Ash?” She let the faintest trace of disappointment color her tone. “Maybe that counts as getting it on where you come from, but to a red-blooded American girl like me it barely rates as a warm-up to foreplay. Not that I’m trying to scare you or anything,” she added, examining her nails with assumed casualness.

  This time his startled laugh wasn’t reluctant at all. Looking up from her nails, Dawn saw a slash of humor crease a tanned cheek as he replied to her veiled dare. “Don’t forget I’m SAS, Swanson. We don’t scare easily,” he informed her. “Know what our motto is?”

  “Who Dares, Wins,” she replied without hesitation. “Us international assassins know everything there is to know about our opponents. And since we’re on the topic of what we know about each other, have you had any luck in getting that information on me you contacted Interpol and Washington about?”

  He didn’t answer her immediately. The crease of humor in his cheek disappeared, although a ghost of a smile still played around the corners of his mouth. Without appearing to have shifted his stance in any way, there was an instant stillness in every muscle of his body, as if he had sensed a slight movement of the earth beneath his feet.

  Or as if he realized that although they were still playing a game, the rules had suddenly changed, Dawn thought, watching him intently. They have, she told him silently. By asking about your inquiries into my background, I just confirmed there’s something I don’t want you to find out about me. Your response will tell me whether you’re going to end this now and act on that confirmation…or play the game a little longer to see if you can get anything more from me. The next move is all yours, big guy, so are you going to fold and walk away, or are you still in?

  Mr. SAS was going to fold, she decided with an obscure feeling of let-down. The moment she’d asked about his inquiries to the authorities he’d gone on full alert…and with a man like Des Asher, full alert didn’t include playing games. Which was too bad, because matching wits with him during her time here might have been fun. She’d have won, naturally, but with his SAS training in strategy and maneuvers he would have been a worthy opponent.

  She stifled a yawn, trying to work up enough interest to plan some sort of Dawn Swanson explanation for her behavior. A bad reaction to some headache medication? Delayed shock and fear from being set upon by Slasher and Ripper? she wondered without enthusiasm.

  “Funny you should ask.” Asher’s voice broke into her thoughts. She looked at him swiftly, but the same half smile ghosted around his lips as it had a moment ago and the same wary watchfulness was in his eyes. He continued, his tone giving nothing away. “Until this evening I hadn’t gotten a single damn thing back from either Washington or Interpol in response to my inquiries about you. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. At first I figured I’d made a mistake about you.”

  “Weird.” Dawn arched her eyebrows in astonishment and was sure she saw a flicker of humor momentarily overlay his wariness. “Because I’m beginning to think I made a mistake about you. Maybe we both shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have,” Asher replied. “But as much as I’d like to shelve all my unworthy suspicions of you, something tells me I’d end up regretting it for a long time. No, I’ve pulled some less-than-smart moves in my career, but trusting you won’t be one of them. Whoever prepared your cover story slipped up, Swanson.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Not that Swanson’s your real name, but I might as well keep calling you by it for now.”

  He was trying a bluff of his own, Dawn thought with an inward smile. For an opening move in this preliminary skirmish, it wasn’t bad, either, but she doubted whether he expected her to fall for it. He was simply trying to get her off balance, plant a momentary worry in her mind that Carter might have overlooked a detail when he’d created Dawn Swanson.

  But for all Carter’s faults, overlooking details wasn’t one of them, so she wasn’t worried. It wouldn’t hurt to let Asher think she was, though.

  “What do you mean, they slipped up?” She frowned quickly and then just as quickly smoothed her brow, as if she hadn’t meant to let him see her consternation. The shaky little laugh that followed her alarmed question was the perfect touch, she thought as she fixed an uneasy eye on her opponent. “An international assassin like myself wouldn’t have anything less than the best backup team available. My people don’t slip up, Ash.” She paused long enough to nervously bite her lip. “But just for interest’s sake, what do you think they did wrong?”

  Even before she finished speaking, he was shaking his head. “You disappoint me, love. I’m in this game for the same reason you are—because until you drove up in that wreck of a hatchback a couple of days ago and tried to slice me open with a car antenna, I was going out of my mind with boredom. I’m used to operating behind enemy lines, taking on assignments that never get written up in the official reports, making HALO drops over occupied territory. This particular posting doesn’t exactly compare—”

  She couldn’t help interrupting. “HALO?”

  He shrugged.
“An SAS term. High Altitude Low Opening parachute jumps. Essentially, dropping like a bloody rock right up until the last possible second, which is the quickest and dirtiest way to get from a plane five thousand feet up to the ground where the fighting is. But what I’m trying to say is that for a minute there I thought you were going to make things interesting. Then you started overacting like crazy, Swanson—biting your lip, opening those big green eyes as wide as you could. Hell, I haven’t seen a performance like that since I was a five-year-old kiddie being taken to a Sunday afternoon pantomime by my dear old nannie.”

  Sheer outrage robbed her of speech. Overacting? Dammit, had she been overacting when she’d infiltrated a certain Middle Eastern potentate’s palace dressed as a dancing girl and taken out the sheikh’s murderously corrupt son before he could sign a deal that would destroy the balance of power in that part of the world? Had she been overacting when she’d posed as a nun in the godforsaken jungles of a tiny but violent South American country, had allowed herself to be kidnapped by the group of terrorist thugs that had been slaughtering foreign civilians, and had then coldly dispatched the whole band of killers, one by one, during the night? Had overacting gotten her the position as secretary to a Swiss money launderer, enabled her to get close to the Russian Mafia hit man who’d been jeopardizing one of Aldrich Peters’s more lucrative operations, put her in place to carry out the half-dozen or more other assignments that had required her to play a part?

  I don’t think so, Dawn seethed. And those jobs needed way more finesse than putting one over on Mr. SAS. He’s just trying to piss me off by—

  By telling her the truth. Her outrage faded away, to be replaced by uncomfortable self-honesty. The man was right, damn him. She hadn’t given it her best shot. Her performance a moment ago had been amateurishly halfhearted because she’d assumed she wouldn’t have to work at conning him. She’d violated one of Lee Craig’s cast-iron rules.

  Act like every assignment is your first, or else it could turn out to be your last, Dawnie. Never let yourself forget that laziness and arrogance can kill someone in our profession faster than a bullet.

  Des Asher had said she’d disappointed him, Dawn thought wryly. He might be taken aback to learn that an assassin who had gone under the code name of Cipher would have said the same thing if he’d been alive to witness his former protégé’s most recent efforts.

  She pushed all thought of Craig aside and concentrated on the frowning man standing in front of her. “Three things I want to get straight—firstly, I’m not real sure what a pantomime is, but I have the feeling I’ve just been insulted.” She exhaled tightly. “Secondly, I probably deserve it. I thought I could get away with treating this as a game. But with you as my opponent, I should be treating it as a war game, right?”

  “Going up against me won’t be the walk in the park you seem to think it’ll be,” Asher agreed with a tight smile. “Even though I don’t buy your international-assassin story, I’m willing to accept you’ve taken on the best, and won. But I’d lay good money you’ve never taken on the SAS and beaten us. Don’t count on this being the first time, Swanson.”

  “I’d lay good money you’ve come out on top in most of the confrontations you’ve been in, too,” she told him, her smile equally tight. “Ain’t gonna happen that way with me, buddy. So we’re on the same page here—bluff, counterbluff, no holds barred and may the best woman win?”

  “Bring it on, love.” Asher’s tone was strained.

  “You bet, sweetie.” Hers was just as edgy.

  For a long moment gold-green eyes locked with aqua, the tension between them so thick Dawn had the impression that if she’d had a blade in her hand, she could have sliced through it. This was what she’d needed, she thought, feeling her senses sharpen and the blood quicken in her veins. Try as she might, she couldn’t completely eradicate her Lab 33 history and the training she’d received from Lee Craig, but in the months since she’d met the Cassandras and learned the truth about herself, the outlets that had in the past served as releases for her restless energy and instincts had been closed to her.

  I guess you could say I’ve been itching for some real action, she told herself. Something tells me I’ve just found it.

  “What was the third thing?” Asher’s question pulled her abruptly from her thoughts. She blinked at him.

  “The third thing?”

  “You said there were three things we had to get straight between us. I almost forgot to ask you what the third one was.”

  Her blankness disappeared, and with it went some of the rigid tension that had been gripping her. War games were still games, Dawn told herself as she let a slow smile curve her lips. Playing with Des Asher was going to be fun.

  “The third thing was you admitting you’d had a nannie, Ash.” She slanted a dubious look at him. “If I were you, I wouldn’t make that public knowledge. Not unless you’re totally secure in your masculinity, that is.”

  “Oh, but I am.” Earlier in their conversation she’d injected a purring note into her voice and now he did the same; although with its undertone of roughness, Asher’s purr reminded Dawn of velvet over concrete. If I was a girly girl, I might even feel the tiniest hint of a shiver running down my spine at Mr. SAS’s bedroom voice, she decided. In fact, girly girl or not, I believe that’s exactly what I’m feeling right now.

  “But you understand that kind of security, don’t you, love.” His glance swept briefly over her, from her sneaker-shod feet past the baggy sweatpants and top to the mud-brown of her hair. “Only someone with supreme self-confidence would have no problem with posing as a dweeb, as Jeff Keifer calls you. That god-awful shade of brown comes out of a bottle, right? My guess is you’re a natural blonde.”

  “Wrong. Fiery red,” Dawn said promptly. She might have weakened to the point of having a shiver or two down her spine, she thought ruefully, but she hadn’t completely thrown all caution to the winds. She’d told him she was an assassin in such a way that she’d known he wouldn’t believe her; offering an important identifying detail like her true hair color went against all her professional instincts. But Asher was shaking his head.

  “You’re too cool and controlled to be a spitfire of a redhead. You’re definitely blond. Not as light as platinum, but not a dark blond, either.” He studied her. “I’ll go with the color of wild honey. Is this a money wager or not?”

  “Not.” Her reply came out more quickly than she’d intended. Dammit, the man had rattled her, Dawn thought in chagrin—her, Dawn O’Shaughnessy, who up until tonight hadn’t known the meaning of the word. “It’s not any kind of wager, for the simple reason that you’ll never get the chance to know if you were right or not. Sorry, big guy, but that’s the way it has to be.”

  “You sure about that, Swanson?” The velvet on concrete was back in his voice again, but she was ready for it.

  “Abso-freakin’-lutely, Ash,” she drawled. She glanced at her watch. “And now if you don’t mind, I have to turn back into a pumpkin. Dawn Swanson has to be at Sir William’s side again in two and a half hours, all bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to crack the whip over his tea-swilling staff, so although it’s been swell, I’d better haul—”

  “Understand one thing—he’s not part of your game, love.” The easy endearment did nothing to warm the sudden ice in his tone, and all Dawn’s senses immediately heightened. “My uncle may be a bloody-minded pain in the arse and being assigned to watch over him might be my idea of hell, but I have a certain affection for the old boy. He’s the genius everyone says he is, but he’s also childishly naive in many ways.”

  “A lot of geniuses are,” she agreed curtly. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that within the space of a couple of days, you’ve duped him into thinking he can trust you.” Asher’s jaw tightened. “I’m going to make sure that whatever it is you’re planning, you won’t pull it off, Swanson.”

  He moved quickly for a big man, Dawn noted dispassionately, but not q
uickly enough to take her unawares. As his hand shot out, she knew he intended to grasp her arm and she had time to react, but instead she let his fingers close over her wrist.

  Maybe sometime in the future she would have to demonstrate her superhuman reflexes to DesAsher. To do so now would merely give him advance warning of what he could expect in a fight with her. But even if letting him trap her wrist was good strategy, there was no rule that said she had to be happy about it, she thought angrily.

  “You’ve got ten seconds to say your piece and get your hand off me.” She kept her voice even and her gaze steady as she met his eyes. “Ten. Nine. Eigh—”

  “Ten seconds is plenty,” Asher cut in. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not averse to adding some interest to our personal war by bending the rules a little. We’re both professionals—we know how to handle ourselves. But Sir William’s a civilian. If any harm comes to him because of you, I’ll hunt you down, Swanson.” He released her wrist as swiftly as he’d grasped it. “And although I’ve got a fatal weakness for green-eyed blondes, don’t count on that stopping me from doing what I have to when I find you. Understood?”

  He stepped back, as if he suddenly needed to put some space between them. “It probably would be smarter to take you in right now, and the hell with our strategic little game.”

  “What game?” His right hand was by his side, Dawn saw. The movement could have been unconscious on his part, or it could have been calculated to put him within closer reach of his sidearm, the heavy Sig Sauer he’d drawn on her once before. It didn’t matter one way or another. This encounter was nearly at an end. “We never had this conversation, Ash. I was never here. Dawn Swanson’s been safely tucked up in bed for the past five hours, and if you try to say different, I’ll simply deny it.” She gave him a thin smile. “You’re already on shaky ground where I’m concerned. Keifer wasn’t too happy with the way you reacted at the gate when I arrived, and your dire warnings about me to Sir William got you nowhere. Maybe if your inquiries to Interpol and Washington had resulted in anything more than a big fat zero, your suspicions might be taken more seriously, but as it is…” She let her sentence trail off, but just as she was congratulating herself on having made her point, the crease she’d seen earlier reappeared in one tanned cheek.

 

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