by Misty Evans
Lawson didn't remember any discussion about shopping, period. “I told you not to even take a piss without my permission."
"Yes, you've repeatedly stated this is an undercover mission, but there you are, meeting your Eurotrash girlfriend in broad daylight in the heart of Paris and spending the afternoon with her. Walking right down the street with your arm around her, in fact.” Her hands went to her hips, matching his. “At least I was doing something productive that pertained to this mission."
He couldn't believe it. He was getting reamed out by this inexperienced, immature spook. It was enough to make him want to shake some sense into her. “The woman you saw me walking with is the source Flynn set up for us to contact. Her name is Yvette LeMans."
Zara pointed a finger at him. “Correction. You contacted her. I was denied that opportunity, and after I saw you with her, it became clear why.” She dropped her finger and turned her back on him, reaching for the doorknob. “If you wanted to bang your source, Commander, all you had to do was say so. It's not like I'm going to tag along to watch."
Without thinking, he grabbed both of her arms, swinging her back around to face him. Her eyes went wide as he pulled her close. “Jealous, partner?"
She pushed her hands against his chest. “Don't flatter yourself. Why would I be jealous of a woman like that?"
Lawson couldn't stop himself. He brushed one palm up her naked spine to where the halter top's strings were tied together and enjoyed the way she sucked in her breath. “Eurotrash?"
"Sex and the City, season one, episode five. She sleeps with men who have small dicks and large bank accounts. They fly her to St. Tropez, buy her diamonds and clothes, and she makes them think size doesn't matter."
His pop-culture princess was at it again. “Which we both know is a lie."
She held his gaze. “Maybe. Maybe not."
"So what would be Yvette's attraction to me then?” He tried to sound serious. “I'm certainly not the kind of man who can fly her off for a weekend in St. Tropez."
A heartbeat passed between them. “I imagine a constant diet of small dicks would leave any woman wanting something more...” she paused and fidgeted slightly in his arms, “...satisfying."
Lawson let go of a deep laugh. All his earlier irritation melted right there. He had to stop flirting with her, but he just couldn't help himself. She kept jeopardizing his mission, but she was good at this cat-and-mouse game and it had been a long time since he'd allowed himself this much fun. How she'd ever made it into Flynn's army, he'd never understand. “What you saw was just an act. Yvette is definitely not my type."
He expected her to ask him what his type was, but instead, she wrenched herself out of his arms. “Yeah, well, her perfume stinks. You need a shower.” She reached for the door handle again. “Once you're cleaned up, come over and meet my sister. I think you'll like her."
He missed a beat. “Your what?"
"Lucie, my sister. Half-sister actually."
Zara's employee file Hoffman had sent listed her as an only child. “You don't have any sisters. Or brothers for that matter."
"Oh yeah?” She pointed at the door and lowered her voice. “Maybe you'll want to tell that to Lucie. She can show you the paternity test if you like."
"Tell me she doesn't know why you're here."
The Cheshire-cat smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “She knows everything."
"Great."
"Oh, come on.” She punched him on the arm. “She's my sister. You can trust her."
Lawson held her gaze. “Trust is something that's earned. In my book it isn't given away to strangers, no matter how good their references."
Zara stared back at him. “You trust me, though, right?"
Did he? Could he honestly say he trusted this woman, who consistently ignored his orders, went off on her own and played games with him at every turn? Who drove him crazy every time she walked into the room? He made a fist and playfully returned her arm punch. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not."
She sized him up. “This is some partnership we've got here."
You said it, Lawson thought, and followed her to meet her sister.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Eleven
Zara let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her eyes blurred after hours of reading news clips and staring at the information on Lawson's laptop. Dmitri and Vos Loo's biographies and business histories had long since run together in her brain, and she'd spent the past hour playing twenty questions with Lawson trying to develop leads they could begin checking out the next day.
It was almost the next day already. Zara rubbed her eyes and stared again at the mugshots of the two terrorists on the screen. Her head hurt and all she wanted to do was shed her T-shirt and jeans and sink between the crisp white sheets of the bed in the other room.
But Lawson was still going strong. He was pacing again between the breakfast bar and the loveseat, barking questions into his digitally encrypted phone at Del on the other end. Zara wondered if Del was as tired as she was.
"I need maps and blueprints of Vos Loo's lab sites,” Lawson said into the phone. “Cross-reference them with any of Dmitri's past hangouts and fax them to me.” There was a pause. “Not soon enough. I'll be heading out at 0800 hours. I need them before then.” Another pause. “I also need some wheels. Not a rental. Untraceable."
Zara stood and stretched and thought about Lucie. As Lawson had ushered her out the door, Lucie had grabbed her pink boots, declared Lawson ravissant, mais embêtant—gorgeous, but boring—and kissed Zara goodbye with a promise to pick up her shopping purchases the next day.
"No, line it up from someone else. I don't trust her ... Yeah, that'll work ... Thanks, Hoffman.” Lawson tossed the phone on the loveseat embroidered with varying shades of red roses. Plopping down next it, he ran a hand over his face. “Let's talk about the night of the farmhouse incident."
Zara sat in the matching chair and pulled her feet up underneath her. “Who did you just tell Del you didn't trust?"
Lawson sat forward, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. Exhaustion showed in his eyes. “Del wanted me to go to Yvette for a car. I don't trust her any further than I can spit. She'd probably have the damned thing bugged or put a tracking device on it just for fun."
"You don't trust Yvette to get you a car, but you trust her to give you accurate information about Dmitri?"
Lawson was silent for a long moment. “She's Flynn's asset. Why would she feed us false information? It would only come back to bite her in the ass and sever her lucrative relationship with the CIA."
"I doubt she needs the CIA to support her lifestyle. She's probably only working for us so she can brag to her friends she's a secret agent. It's probably a great, sexy line when she's hooking up with a new sugar daddy."
Lawson frowned. When he didn't say anything, she motioned to the papers strewn across the coffee table and desk. “We have a ton of data here, but as far as I can see, none of it gives us any idea where Dmitri and Vos Loo are right now."
"The more information we have, the more complete the picture is. That helps us find our quarry."
"But your information came from a source you don't trust. Are you willing to wager our mission's success on Yvette?"
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Jesus.” He stood and paced to the desk, leaning over the chair to stare at the computer screen.
Zara yawned. “There was an untested source inside Moulins Prison who told us about Dmitri budding up to Vos Loo before the escape. What about that source? Maybe he could help us."
Lawson straightened. “The guy was a prison guard who was killed during the riot Dmitri staged for the escape. The pilot of the helicopter who picked up Vos Loo at the prison was also conveniently killed once he landed twenty miles away. Del couldn't track him to any known terrorist group. Apparently he was nothing more than an independent contractor."
Dmitri was very adept at tying
up loose ends. “What about money? Dmitri's got to be leaving a money trail of some sort. Building a lab like Vos Loo needs is a pricey undertaking."
"French Intelligence has frozen Dmitri's bank accounts here in France."
She was running out of options. And brain cells. “Director Flynn thinks French Intelligence has a mole. Is anyone investigating that group for links to Dmitri?"
Lawson shrugged. “Out of my scope. I assume Stone and Flynn are examining that angle and a few other ones as well, but I honestly don't know how broad this operation is. It obviously doesn't rank up there with finding, let's say, bin Laden."
Zara rose out of the chair to take a turn at pacing. “So let's think like Dmitri. What would we need to set up a lab?"
"Money."
"Back to that. If I was Dmitri stockpiling money to set up a biochemical lab down the road, I'd keep it in an offshore account or a Swiss bank where it was accessible but virtually untraceable."
"Has Dmitri ever lived or worked outside of Europe?"
"He was born and raised here in France and detests non-European cultures. Thinks they're dirty and uncivilized. That doesn't mean he wouldn't use a bank in the Caymans if he had to, but I'd bet anything he keeps his money in a place closer to home."
"His French accounts couldn't have been his only resource. He's too smart for that."
Zara returned to the chair. “He's most likely using Switzerland. A good country for him to hide his money in and a great place to live. A European melting pot where both he and Vos Loo can walk, talk and conduct business without anyone giving them a second glance."
"Hoffman says Vos Loo had two labs in Geneva back in the ‘90s.” Lawson rifled through some papers on the desk and pulled one out. “One was part of a legitimate research company called ChemTech2000. The other was a private research lab he shared with another biochem doctor. Three years ago, they were making a form of ricin that could be released from an airborne weapon."
Propping her feet up on the coffee table, Zara rubbed her eyes again. “Geneva has emerged as a global player in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals over the past ten, fifteen years. There's a large network of research facilities and universities dabbling in healthcare and life sciences."
"Vos Loo's own little Petri dish of contacts and suppliers."
"Exactly.” Lawson was quiet, and Zara closed her eyes. She had to get some sleep or she would be worthless when he woke her up in six hours. “So what's our plan for in the morning?"
"I want to check out the farmhouse and see if I can find Dmitri's compound south of there."
She forced her eyes open. “We. We will check out the farmhouse and the compound. I'm going with you whether you like it or not."
His jaw muscles worked but he didn't say no.
"What about Geneva?” she asked.
Lawson looked at the paper in his hands again. “It's a good lead, but we need a concrete link to it before we leave here and move our base of operations. Del and Annette can work on that. Meanwhile, I want to examine Dmitri's compound before we leave France. And I want to get you outfitted with a gun."
Even a gun couldn't motivate her at the moment. Dragging herself out of the chair, she gave Lawson a thumbs-up sign and plodded across the room to the door linking their suites. “I'm going to bed. What time do we start tomorrow?"
He pointed at the computer. “I need you to type a report for Flynn first."
"Director Flynn is not at work right now."
"I want you to type it now so he'll have it first thing when he comes in to the office. It's the only way I can keep him out of my hair, so before you sneak off to La-La Land, type.” He pulled the chair out and motioned for her to sit.
Zara looked him straight in the eyes. “Tell me you're kidding."
"Nope."
"Because I'm the female in this partnership, typing responsibilities just naturally fall to me?"
He raised his brows. “Men suck at typing. Women don't. It's in your genes. Since you're the better typist, I want you to type the reports to Flynn from here on out. My time and skills are better used elsewhere."
Her mouth fell open. “That's just sexist and ... and...” She set her fists on her hips. “And wrong. I'm not your secretary and I'm not about to type up a report for you and let you sign your name to it. Get real!"
"What are you getting so uptight about? It's a freakin’ report."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Type your own damn report. I'm going to bed."
Lawson's husky laughter stilled her hand on the doorknob. Looking back at him, she saw a truly rotten smirk stretch across his face. “Gotcha,” he said. “You failed my test."
She stared at him in disbelief. He was teasing her again. While she didn't like it, she had to admit anything was better than Military Man. “I stand by my earlier judgment of your character,” she said, keeping her face serious. “You're a bona fide asshole, Commander."
He tipped his head and his face went serious. “And you, Agent Morgan, are a thorn in my side, but we can learn from each other. I can teach you how to stay alive in the field."
"That's what the Farm was for."
He looked her over from head to foot. A spark of lust flared in his eyes. The same spark she'd seen at the airport. The one she'd seen a few hours earlier when he'd gotten a good look at her in her miniskirt and Lucie's boots. “You can teach me the finer points of playing James Bond."
Zara's chest tightened. What was going on here? “Yeah, right.” She laughed, trying to sound casual. “You are so not James Bond, Lawson."
When he spoke, his voice was low and edged with a roughness Zara recognized as well. “That's too bad, ‘cause you'd make one hell of a Bond girl, Z."
She stood stock-still for a second, her gaze locked with his. “I'm the spook, remember? I'm 007. So in that case, you're the Bond girl."
When Lawson laughed, she smiled coyly before walking out.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Twelve
He should have been sleeping. Or at least trying to come up with a solid piece of evidence pointing to Alexandrov Dmitri's whereabouts. But the day's events kept circling in Lawson's mind like a carousel, spinning up, down and around in a cacophony of light and sound. Lying in the too-big bed, he stared up at the ceiling and went through them all methodically again. He stopped at each incident during the day and waited for his gut to react, for the twitch between his shoulders to signal where he needed to probe deeper.
The only time either reacted was when he thought of Zara. He couldn't get the images of her out of his mind. The fantasy red dress. The sight of her sleeping in the tub. The way she sat on the motorcycle. Those damn pink knee-high boots.
He threw the sheet off his naked body and shifted in the bed to try and get comfortable. He could still see the confidence in her eyes when she'd bested him at swearing without uttering a single cuss word and then the defiance in her whole body when he'd insisted she play secretary. He remembered the feel of her eyes on him every time he moved, and the sexual tension flowing between them whenever he teased her. He was keeping her off-balance which was good. She was throwing him for a curve every time she looked at him with those big baby blues.
Her sister Lucie had the same eyes. It was downright weird how much the two of them looked alike. Not quite twins, but damned close. There were men who would wet themselves just fantasizing about a pair of women like them. Lucie was taller and thinner than Zara and walked with her hips leading the rest of her body, but overall the sisters were more alike than different. Zara had explained that Lucie was the product of a brief affair between Zara's father and a Dutch woman that occurred before Zara's mother, Olivia, got pregnant with Zara.
Lawson stuck his hands underneath his head. The only thing nagging at him besides his attraction to Zara was the thing she'd said about trusting Yvette's information. Lawson had believed Yvette was a reliable source because of Conrad Flynn.
Since when do I take anyone's
word for gospel? While the DO sat behind his oak desk at Langley, Lawson was in Paris putting his ass on the line. Zara's too. He couldn't afford to trust the wrong person, even if that person was his current employer.
Forty minutes later he was climbing the fire escape to Yvette's flat under the cover of night. He entered through a bedroom window she'd carelessly left open. The scent of her perfume, clouded with the smell of stale pot, candle wax and sex, greeted his nose.
The room was dark but his eyes adjusted quickly as they took in two sleeping forms on the bed. What a surprise, Yvette wasn't alone. The man in bed with her was lying flat on his stomach, snoring lightly. Lawson drew a knife out of the sheath attached to his leg and moved toward his source.
The prick of the knife's point against her neck brought her instantly awake. Her lips parted on a sharp intake of breath and he saw the white of her eyes as they widened in fear. “Tell me,” he whispered an inch from her face, “why I shouldn't slit your throat?"
When she didn't answer, he sank his free hand into her hair and pulled her head back to expose more of her neck. He didn't like playing hardass with a woman, but this woman was messing with him and putting his life and the life of his partner in danger. In that case, all bets were off.
Yvette swallowed hard and grabbed his arm, but her strength was dulled from the marijuana. “Please.” The accent disappeared from her voice. “Don't kill me."
"Give me a reason not to."
The man stirred next to her, and Yvette stayed silent until his snores filled the room again. “I told you everything I know,” she whispered.
"Tell me where Alexandrov Dmitri is."
She shook her head. “I don't know."
"You told me he wasn't in Paris. You know where he is."
"Not him. I only know..."
When she didn't continue, Lawson turned the point of the knife just enough to break the skin underneath it. Yvette flinched. “There is a woman,” she said, all resistance leaving her body. “Varina Scalfaro..."
* * * *
Lawson needed sleep, but with less than two hours left before sunrise, sleeping seemed pointless. He stripped off his clothes in the bathroom and turned the shower on. When the water was hot, he stepped into the tub and stuck his head under it.