Laurel knew better than to open her mouth. If she denied that there was a real personal attraction between herself and Cruz, she’d only be pointing it out.
“As for the question of Cruz’s physical state,” Redpath said, “he and Gillie are settling that right now.”
Laurel flinched at the thought of what Cruz must be going through. She had misread him. Again. He hadn’t lied to her. He’d simply allowed her to draw whatever conclusions comforted her. If they were the wrong conclusions, she had only herself to blame.
Grimly Laurel realized that Cruz’s insight into how her mind worked was going to make getting free of Risk Ltd. that much harder. The reasons she had to flee were being systematically stripped away, leaving only the reason she didn’t want to discuss.
Jamie Swann.
34
Los Angeles
Tuesday, 12:10 P.M.
The lunch crowd milled around Jimmy’s on Santa Monica Boulevard. Stockbrokers and lawyers from Century City knocked elbows with talent agents and executive producers fresh from studio meetings.
Tourists tried to find Rodeo Drive.
And men of all sorts braked sharply when they caught a glimpse of the statuesque woman standing on the corner. There was a touch of the streetwalker in her—the revealing clothes, the arrogantly hip-shot stance. But a second glance, and a third, told the men that whatever she was selling, they couldn’t afford to buy.
Claire Toth’s cream silk clothes came from Neiman Marcus and had been fitted by a loving tailor. A few hours earlier, her scarlet leather pumps and shoulder bag had been in the window of an expensive Italian boutique on La Brea. Her necklace was also scarlet, a bold postmodern mixture of female decoration and leering cartoon faces that drew attention to her striking cleavage. With a graceful motion she smoothed the line of her eel-tight slacks and pursed her mouth, redistributing the carmine lipstick.
Standing next to her was as close as Jamie Swann would ever get to outright invisibility.
“You do get off on having men look you over, don’t you?” he said sardonically.
“Yeah, babe. It’s a real rush, knowing you have more control over a man’s body than he does.”
Swann smiled sourly.
“But best of all,” she said, “is the secret game that goes along with it. The one you play. It’s like screwing a man in front of his wife without her even knowing what’s going on.”
“Crisscross double-cross. Some fun and games.”
As Swann spoke, he again chewed over Laurel’s cryptic message—six numbers spelling out danger.
At least, Swann assumed Laurel had sent it. Anyone else who had his pager number knew better ways to pass information than a crude code taken from the telephone number pad.
DANGER.
What in hell could be worse than having Risk Ltd. on my ass? Swann asked himself. And why isn’t Laurel at home to pick up my calls? Or is someone screening her calls for her?
That possibility was the reason Swann hadn’t left any message on Laurel’s answering machine.
Christ. How in hell am I going to make that egg work without her?
There was no answer to Swann’s silent inner seething. All he had was the gut feeling that the whole game was falling apart around him.
Time to pick up the markers and try another table. But not without whatever Claire can squeeze out of the old bastard.
Running and hiding took money. Swann was broke.
Dead broke.
That made him very edgy. He was trying to conceal it by leaning casually against a spun aluminum light standard. The dark Ray•Ban sunglasses he wore concealed his eyes. His loose cotton shirt hid the pistol rammed into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. He looked like what he’d been from time to time—hired muscle.
From behind her own sunglasses, Toth watched Swann with a wariness she could scarcely conceal. All she’d heard from her assassins was that they had failed on their first attempt. If Swann had heard from his daughter about the attempt on her life, he hadn’t said anything about it to Toth.
If he’d heard and not told her, she was dancing on a whirlpool and could be sucked under at any minute. If he’d heard. If not, everything was as solid as the cement sidewalk under her high-heeled sandals.
But there was no way to be certain.
She’d never lived this close to the edge. If Swann had talked to Laurel and not mentioned anything, it meant he was just waiting for the right moment to confront Toth. If Swann hadn’t heard from his daughter, he soon would.
Then Swann would try to keep his promise to Toth before she could keep her promise to him.
If I’m ever killed, I hope you’re the one who does it. You’d make me come while you did it.
A shiver went through her, fear and sexuality combined, each reinforcing the other. She knew she would push the savage combination too far one day.
Knowing that only added to the rush.
Toth ran her hands down her body and then over her thighs, unconsciously making certain that her lethal assets were in place.
The movement drew Swann’s attention from the busy street. He watched while Toth repeated the motion, running her hands over her body the way some snipers caress the weapon of their choice while waiting for their target to show up.
“You going to screw the old man or shake him down?” Swann asked.
“Same difference. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
Swann snorted. “You’ve been playing at being a spook for years. Well, babe, I’ve been doing the real thing since you were in diapers. Informants, agents, patsies, assets—they’re all the same. They really want to be dominated, not sweet-talked.”
“When did you ever try sweet-talking?” Toth asked, remembering how Swann had put his business proposition to her. Hard, blunt, heavy.
“I blew in a guy’s ear once. Damn near had to kill him to get his attention after that.”
Toth started to speak.
Swann cut her off. “Here he is. Let me handle it.”
A long gray limousine with smoked windows slid through the afternoon traffic like a hearse and pulled up beside them at the curb. The back door popped open. Damon Hudson sat calmly in one corner of the backseat, like a pasha on a pleasure cruise aboard his magic steel carpet.
“Ah, Ms. Toth, you brought a friend,” Hudson said. “How unfortunate. Our conversations will be conducted in private or they won’t be conducted at all.”
Swann leaned down. His swift, deadly grace pointed out all that Hudson’s treatments could not do for him.
“Wrong, old man,” Swann said coldly. “I come along for the ride or the information goes to the media before you can get this big piece of shit to the nearest freeway on-ramp.”
Bill Cahill stepped out from behind the wheel and stared over the hood of the car. His eyes were hidden by glasses that were as dark as Swann’s.
“Mr. Hudson’s car, pal,” Cahill said. “Mr. Hudson’s rules.”
“Not this time,” Swann said without looking away from Hudson.
Swann and Hudson locked eyes in a silence whose tension was only increased by the random street sounds around them.
“Ride up front with the driver,” Toth said to Swann. “That puts us on level ground.”
Ducking around Swann, she tried to get into the seat next to Hudson. Swann’s casual grip held her back like she was a child rather than a big, unusually strong woman.
Hudson said something out of the corner of his mouth. Cahill slipped back behind the wheel. The electric lock on the passenger-side front door snapped to like a well-trained sentry.
After a tense moment, Swann released Toth and slid into the front seat. He slammed the door before she could get in and close her own door. As the limousine pulled back into traffic, Swann and Cahill sat side by side, eyes front.
Hudson touched a button hidden on his armrest. Silently a thick panel of smoked bulletproof glass slid out of its hiding place. Toth watched with a faint smile of
amusement while the glass sealed off the passenger compartment.
Leaning forward, Hudson opened the door of a small builtin refrigerator. Someone had already unwrapped the foil and wire cage that enclosed the cork on a bottle of Cristal. Now Hudson pulled the heavy cork.
“I believe you’ll like this,” he said, smiling the smile of the perfect host. “Maybe your, uh, friend up front would like some too.”
“He’s working. Like your friend up front.”
“Is he working for you?”
“Of course,” she said.
Her smile revealed none of the doubts that still lanced through her at odd intervals. The double-cross had been Swann’s idea. He’d approached her shortly after the Russians had. He planned on doing what the Russians had always done—use her as a cat’s paw. But this time the cat had her own agenda.
All she had to do was get out from under the claws of the lion-eyed man in the front seat.
35
Karroo
Tuesday, 12:20 P.M.
The ambassador was as clever an opponent as Laurel had ever faced. No matter how polite the discussion, no matter how many conversational ploys Laurel offered, Redpath never moved away from her own agenda.
“You should consider Cruz’s interest a compliment,” Redpath said. “He isn’t a ladies’ man. Of course, if you’d feel safer with another operative, I will assign one.”
“I would prefer to be on my own. Period.” It wasn’t the first time Laurel had said the words. She doubted it would be the last.
“You’re too intelligent to believe you’d be safer on your own.”
Laurel didn’t argue. She closed her eyes and saw again the gouges in Cruz’s living flesh, felt again the jerk of his body when he was hit. Without his protection, she would have died. She was certain of it.
She just didn’t like admitting it, much less living with the complications.
“I also agree with Cruz that our actions in contacting you have put you in danger,” the ambassador continued. “There will be no charge for our services.”
“I haven’t asked for any services. And I won’t.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Redpath said.
Gillespie’s naked head appeared in the doorway.
Redpath nodded a bare half inch.
Laurel decided it must have been a signal, for Gillespie and Cruz padded into the library on their bare feet. She was reminded of a panther and a cougar turned loose in a museum—an amusing sight, so long as the beasts weren’t hungry.
Cruz stared at Laurel with an intensity he couldn’t disguise. Then he looked away like she wasn’t even in the room.
Laurel felt his brief glance as clearly as a touch. She didn’t look back at him, afraid that she’d somehow reveal the turmoil just beneath her control. Instead she watched Gillespie like he was indeed the dark panther he resembled.
“Ms. Swann,” Redpath said, “this is Sergeant-Major Ranulph Argyle Gillespie, Twenty-second Special Air Services Regiment, Retired. He’s our chief of training and discipline.”
Laurel nodded and kept on not looking at Cruz.
“Gillie is also a wicked specialist in the cooking of any dish that uses habañero, poblano, or serrano chilies,” Redpath said. “Otherwise, he’s quite useless.”
Gillespie gave the ambassador a hooded, sideways glance that was entirely masculine.
“Well,” Redpath said, her eyes gleaming, “maybe not completely useless.”
The sergeant-major straightened and popped a stiff palm-out salute whose perfection was ruined only by his inability to make his bare heels click when they met.
“Mum,” he said, to Laurel. “Pleased to meet you. Formally, as it were.”
Laurel inclined her head an inch or two, feeling like a royal princess. Gillespie couldn’t have been more imposing if he’d been wearing a bearskin hat and the uniform of the Queen’s guard.
“How did the workout go?” the ambassador asked.
“I kicked his ass,” Cruz said. He gave Gillespie a look that challenged him to dispute the claim.
“He kicked my ass as long as I moved at half speed,” Gillespie said. “Of course, that makes him a lot better than ninety-nine out of a hundred of your average fuck-wits, begging both your pardons. But he’s bloody vulnerable to his left. It won’t take a good man but a minute to see.”
“It’s my weak side naturally,” Cruz said. “If you’re going to hold me to some ridiculously artificial standard of readiness—”
Redpath cut Cruz short with a gesture.
“Sergeant-Major,” she said crisply, “is Cruz clearly incapacitated?”
The towering soldier’s face was expressionless for a moment. Then, after a purposeful pause to show that he wasn’t entirely happy, he shook his head. “He’s sound enough…in the body.”
It was less than a ringing approval and Cruz knew it. Before he could argue, Redpath was talking.
“If you have reason to change your mind,” she said to Gillespie, “I’ll reassign Cruz. Otherwise, he’ll remain the primary operative on this case.”
Gillespie nodded.
“Excellent,” Redpath said.
Laurel was silently amused by the way Redpath easily handled both men, when either one of them could have broken her like a bread stick. Even as the thought came, she realized it was the key to both men; they treated Redpath with a deference that was born of true respect.
And deep affection, at least on Gillespie’s part. The look he’d given Redpath when she’d teased him about being useless unless he was fighting or cooking had been the look of a man who was very confident of his appeal to a particular woman.
Redpath pulled the large Russian volume back in front of her. “I was able to borrow this book from a friend of mine who is a professor of Russian history at UCLA. It’s a czaristera catalog of the output of the Fabergé workshops in St. Petersburg and Moscow. My source assures me it’s the most complete catalog on the subject in existence.”
“What does it say about the Ruby Surprise?” Cruz asked.
“That it was never made.”
“What?” Cruz and Laurel asked at the same time.
“There is no indication that a Fabergé workshop ever executed an imperial egg using a large gem-quality ruby as the surprise,” Redpath said. “Talk of one, yes. Some rather rudimentary sketches, yes. But the plan was shelved when no suitable ruby could be found.”
The room was absolutely silent for a moment.
“Do the records go all the way to the Revolution?” Cruz asked.
“Yes,” Redpath said.
“Bloody hell,” Cruz said.
“It’s an interesting situation, isn’t it?” the ambassador said cheerfully. “Full of possibilities. Why don’t we all meet in a few minutes over lunch and discuss them.”
It was neither a question nor an order.
Not quite.
Without looking at Laurel, Cruz turned and started for the door. She watched him move across the room, noting every motion, the light that turned his eyes to burning blue, the power implicit in his easy stride, and the faint stiffness in his left side.
Then she realized that she was staring. Hastily she got up and followed Cruz out of the room.
When the door was safely closed behind Laurel, Redpath looked up from the desk and studied the warrior who stood in his customary at-ease posture, hands clasped behind his back. Slowly she came around the desk and leaned against it so she could see into Gillespie’s clear black eyes.
“Tell me the rest of it,” she said.
He dropped his hands from behind his back and stretched his arms over his head. Then he smiled down at her, his military formality gone as if it had never existed.
Redpath smiled, remembering Laurel’s description of Gillespie: drop-dead handsome.
“Cruz is knocked out with this girl,” Gillespie said. “He almost fell on his face when she walked into the gym. She turned his brain to bean dip. That’s not
a good situation for an operator. It’s bloody deadly.”
“And it goes both ways,” Redpath added.
“That it does. She was so careful not to look at Cruz when he first came in I almost laughed out loud.”
“Yet she watched him leave.”
“Too bloody right. Men would kill for a look like that from a woman like her.”
“I don’t think mayhem is what Cruz has in mind,” Redpath said dryly.
“He’ll be looking out for her when he should be looking out for himself or our client. It won’t do, guv.”
“Normally, I’d change the mixture,” she agreed.
“But you won’t this time. Why?”
Redpath stared thoughtfully at the tips of her fingers and then at Gillespie’s hard face, as if remembering how it felt to touch him.
“Oh, I changed the mix somewhat,” she said. “I made Laurel our client.”
“Bloody great. I’ll bodyguard her.”
“No.”
“Cruz?” Gillespie asked, irritated.
“Yes. He’s been fighting other men’s causes all his life. Maybe having something of his own will…” Redpath shrugged.
“Open him up a bit?”
Redpath nodded.
“Judas priest. You’re a closet romantic.” Gillespie gestured toward the painting of the fierce Highlander. “Your grandfather the mercenary would be disappointed to know that.”
“Would he? Are you?”
Gillespie smiled. “Closet, table, floor, or a bloody trapeze, anywhere you want romance is fine with me.”
Redpath’s smile was as luminous as her eyes. “Ah, Gillie, the best Scots are romantic. And the black Scots are the best of all.”
Gently Gillespie lifted the ambassador until she was at his eye level and asked, “What will you do when Laurel tells Cruz to go to hell?”
“Will she?”
“To protect her, Cruz will have to use her to get to Swann,” Gillespie said. “You know it. I know it. Swann knows it. Cruz knows it.”
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