A Dangerous Engagement

by Candace Irvin

  Anna waited through the cyber silence. Through the palpable worry. And, eventually, Sam's resignation.

  Okay. I'm sending you something now.

  She clicked the message open the moment it registered and quickly scanned the list of automatic weapons and survival gear. Several components were seriously high-tech. Obtaining one in particular would be difficult, but not impossible. Still…she dropped her fingers to the dwarf keys and tapped out her confusion. Eve's asking for two of everything.

  I know. The SF captain who crashed with her is determined to accompany her back to the wreckage. His name's Rick Bishop. Maybe he knows this Tom Wild. If so, you could—

  No.

  Samantha Hall might be one of the Air Force's more brilliant rocket scientists, but she was also insulated in that antiseptic lab. At least to the roiling mind-set of the military masses. Anna might not be on the operator end of the cloak-and-dagger business, she didn't have to be. She'd briefed enough Navy SEALs and Force Recon Marines to know Rick Bishop and his kind would protect each other to the death, even if the operator they were protecting had left the fold. As tempting as it would be to question Captain Bishop once he was in her debt, it would be fruitless. The Special Operations community protected or, when necessary, eliminated its own.

  That, in and of itself, made her wonder about Tom.

  Something about the man didn't add up. For one thing, he was almost too confident, too self-assured. Too angry.

  She could still hear the utter disgust in his voice when he'd discovered she'd taken something. It didn't make sense. Since when did a thug of her cousin's ilk care if a woman abused anything? She'd gotten the distinct impression the man had expected more from her because she'd been an officer. But why should that matter to a man cashing in on his own military expertise? Hell, all Tom Wild cared about was selling himself to the highest bidder. Or did he?

  She focused on the screen as Sam's response spilled across. You think this guy could be Manny's replacement?

  Anna frowned. Frankly, she'd hoped Sam would have the answer. The first thing she'd done after crawling aboard Luis's private plane was phone Sam on the tarmac and read off the name printed on the dossier waiting for her. Then she'd hung up and passed out. Anna shoved her hair from her face, before dragging her fingers back to the keys. I don't know. What about you? Were you able to find anything after I left?

  No. All I was able to do was confirm that Tom was SF. He did a couple years enlisted, then got his commission. Got out about two years ago.

  Great.

  What about you? Have you met him yet?

  Yes.

  How'd it go?

  Dangerously. Against her will, her gaze slipped to the reading table and chair beside the French doors. Sunlight streaming in glinted off the tortoiseshell clasp she'd dumped on the table the night before, taunting her. Just like that, she could feel the man's fingers tugging the clasp from her hair, slowly combing the weight from her shoulders. A split second later, she felt his breath bathing her skin, smelled his damp, seductive scent as he'd leaned down to sear his lips into her neck. Lips Tom Wild would soon believe he had the right to place elsewhere if he so chose. Luis would make sure of it.

  Anna? Are you okay?

  Damn. How long had Sam been waiting? She drew her finger to the stunted keys and tapped quickly. I'm fine. Just tired.

  Shoot, hon. I'm sorry. I was so freaked by Eve's call, I didn't even ask how you were doing.

  Don't worry about it. I understand—and like I said, I'm just tired. In fact, I just got up.

  How's the pain?

  The question mark throbbed in the silence. They both knew what Sam was really asking. Had she succumbed to her old weakness? A weakness that would have surely turned into a serious addiction years before had it not been for the woman on the other side of this wireless link. Anna shoved her fingers back to the keys and forced them to type smoothly. The Percocet's working. That's all.

  You sure?

  Anna closed her eyes. She knew how much it had cost Sam to ask. As much as it hurt to know Sam had felt she had to. By the time she located the dregs of her pride and forced her lids up, the rest was waiting.

  I'm sorry, hon. By the time I realized what Dr. Matthews had given you, it was too late. Want me to contact him? Maybe he can prescribe something else—

  No.

  Even if the surgeon could change her prescription, there was no way she could fill it. Not without Luis finding out. As it was, the vial's label had been made out to someone else, just in case. For a thug so paranoid about betrayal that he kept his insulin in a safe, a blank label on her pills would have aroused almost as much suspicion as her own name. Maybe more.

  I'm okay, Sam. Really. She changed the subject before her friend could argue. What I do need you to do is dig deeper. I may need something on Mr. Wild to keep him in line—and soon. Call Foster. Tell him about this communications link if you have to. Just get me something I can use.

  The remote control Sam had negotiated for her personal, subjective, use was still inside the hidden compartment in her purse. She hadn't even looked at, much less tampered with the settings—meaning the passive receiver Foster had had implanted inside her breast was live and in concert. The bug would remain so, too, unless she used the remote to turn it off. Until then, everything she said—more importantly, everything Luis said—would be monitored 24/7 by Agent Foster and his NCIS cronies. Foster had to have pulled up Tom Wild's military record by now and gone over it with a microscope. She might as well benefit from the man's snooping for a change.

  I don't trust Foster.

  Yeah, well. Neither did she. Her sigh filled her bedroom suite as she stabbed the keys. We've been through this.

  The cursor flashed amid the silence. When are you going to tell me what that bastard has on you?

  Nausea roiled through her. She'd give anything to pretend it was due to the effects of Percocet on an empty stomach. But it wasn't. Anna sucked in her breath as she forced her fingers to move. Sam, please. They'd been through this, too.

  Anna willed her friend to honor her last remaining shred of privacy as the cursor continued to flash.

  Okay. I'll call the jerk. I'll even be polite. For you.

  Her relief bled out. Thank you.

  Just remember, I'm here if you need me. I—

  Nothing.

  Sam?

  Thirty-five excruciatingly silent seconds passed. And then, Damn. I've been paged. Gotta run, hon.

  The inspection. She'd forgotten all about it. Okay. I should go too. I'll give Luis the list of supplies Eve sent and make the rest of the arrangements myself. But Luis is going to expect my help in return—with Mr. Wild.

  Understood. E-mail you when I know more. Bye.

  A second later, the wireless connection severed. Anna pushed the miniature laptop to the rear of the desk and massaged the cramps from her fingers as she stood. If only she could rid herself of the ache in her chest as easily. She stared down at the bottle of Percocet beside the computer.

  She'd lied to Sam. The pills weren't cutting it. Worse, if she hadn't feared Luis would be banging down her door any moment, eager to grill her about her plans for seducing his newest employee, she might have given in to temptation and upped her waking dose. Unfortunately, that same new employee would be arriving for his meeting with Luis in less than six hours. She turned her back on the whispering pills and headed for her ridiculously burgeoning closet instead. As seductive as the promise of surcease was, she wasn't about to fall victim to it again.

  She couldn't.

  Once she handed over Eve's list and struck her bargain with Luis, she was going to need all her wits about her—lest she find herself toppling down from the tightrope strung between her cousin's fickle switchblade…and Tom Wild's bed.

  * * *

  Even when Luis was early, he was late.

  Tom abandoned his pretense of patience and rose from one of the leather chairs facing Luis's desk. Luis continued to con
verse in Spanish with whomever he'd been discussing Panama's pending tariff's legislation for the past twenty minutes as Tom paced across the dark gold carpet. He stopped just shy of the study's entrance, in front of a display cabinet containing his host's collection of hand-painted Kama Sutra miniatures. While the paintings ranged from mildly erotic to outright lewd, several of the depictions were also impossible. Especially the one on the upper left.

  Waste of a nickname or not, he'd been around enough to know that pose would require the skills of a contortionist.

  Tom shook his head, turning back to Luis and his status symbol of a desk in time to catch his host's grin. He shook his head as Luis waved him toward the crystal decanters resting atop the polished buffet to his left. He'd already accepted enough coffee to float a battleship. If Luis didn't get off that phone soon, he'd be forced to seek out the man's housekeeper for directions to the nearest commode. A mausoleum like this was bound to have a dozen at least. Tom strolled across the plush carpet instead, toward the array of wooden file cabinets lined up along the far wall. Like the rest of the furniture in his host's private office, the file cabinets were dark, heavy, and fanatically dust-free.

  They were also locked.

  He dismissed them easily. He sincerely doubted a man who'd managed to evade Juju and his DEA cronies for as long as Luis had, kept anything incriminating inside them. No, it was the room's second collection of gilt-framed artwork that fascinated Tom—namely the succession of antique maps and modern lithographs mounted along the wall above. He wasn't sure what Luis saw in the various reproductions of Panama's cultural and political landmarks, but he knew what he saw.

  Targets.

  "Can you really do it?"

  Tom stiffened as Anna's husky murmur rasped through him. How the hell had the woman managed to sneak up on him? When he turned and spotted her bare, pink-tipped toes—and the abandoned heels lying just inside the door—he knew. She'd slipped them off on purpose. The strategy had worked, too. He'd had his ears tuned so intently to the monotonous drone of tariff discussions that he'd missed her silent tread. Why was she even here? According to Luis, Anna had lain down for a nap before dinner. Right. The woman might have retired to her room for the afternoon, but he doubted she'd sunk into the arms of Morpheus. More like morphine.

  Unfortunately, the study was too dim this far from Luis's desk and floor lamps for him to get a clear view of her pupils. With her hair swept up and another of those simple, elegant sheaths—this one burnished bronze—encasing her curves, the woman appeared to have it together. But then, she'd been just as cool and poised in his hotel room the night before.

  He'd have to lure her closer. He nudged his brow up as her cousin droned on in the background. "Can I do what?"

  Her feet whispered across the remaining yard of carpet until she'd reached his side. She stood so close, the hem of her dress skimmed the trousers of his suit. He ignored the heat radiating off her flesh, as well as that damned deceptively innocent scent, as she nodded to the map in front of them. It was a 1902 black-and-white lithograph of the originally proposed Panama City to Colón channel and the alternate San Blas route.

  Ah. "The Canal locks?"

  She nodded. "Before you left yesterday, you claimed you could blow them up. Can you?"

  "Yup." He felt her stiffen as she swung her gaze to his. Unfortunately, she turned back to the print before he could assess her pupils. He decided to elaborate. "I'd need help."

  She kept her attention fused to the print. "How much help?"

  A lot. More than her cousin had at his disposal. The Canal might make one hell of a sweet target on a map, but he hadn't been serious when he'd offered to level it. It would take five times the number of goons employed by Ortiz Imports, legal and illegal rackets combined, to accomplish the task. Tom snagged the woman's elbow and guided her to the right, stopping in front of a watercolor-enhanced sketch of the Canal Zone. It was dated 1916, two years after the passage opened. He released her arm, stretching his hand over the file cabinets so he could tap the locks at Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatún in succession. "Have you seen them up close?"

  She nodded. "Miraflores."

  Made sense. Those were closest to the city. Like Luis, Anna had been raised in the squatter slums of Curundú. It was a miracle she'd crawled out long enough to visit anything before she'd escaped to her long-lost father's house in the States at fourteen. Tom traced his fingers down, hitting all three locks as he made his way to the Pacific. "Then you know the locks are huge." The steel gates themselves weighed between 390 and 700 tons apiece. "I'd need a platoon of Army Sappers to rig the demolitions at Miraflores alone. Another two platoons of men to provide security during the job."

  "Luis has men."

  He laughed at that. "Trained ex-Army infantrymen, honey. Not armed thugs."

  Her gaze finally snapped to his. Unfortunately, the room was still too dim, her irises too deep brown for him to gauge her pupils. Her vibes were definitely constricted. Cool.

  "Ex-Army, armed thug. What's the difference?"

  He shrugged. "You tell me."

  She didn't respond. Not that he'd expected her to.

  He snagged her arm, exorcising that soft floral scent from his lungs and his gut as he nudged her further to the right. He stopped in front of a modern color photograph of the Bridge of the Americas at sunset. He caught her sharp intake.

  "You could take that down?"

  He nodded. "I'd still need a squad or more of Sappers, depending on how many sections your cousin wanted dropped. Personally, I think he's better off going with a simple bomb. With Carnaval and a hundred-thousand-plus revelers on the horizon, he could have me plant it inside a dance club or just about anywhere along Via España before the parades and get the same political bang for his buck so to speak. Wouldn't reap as much in property damage, but the human toll would be richer."

  He felt her arm tense beneath his hand. Odd. Her gaze lifted, met his. Held it. He still couldn't make out the depths clearly enough.

  "Does it bother you, Mr. Wild?"

  A lot of things bothered him. Not the least of which was playing poker with this particular woman. He met her phony innocence and raised it. "Does what bother me? Throwing my lot in with your cousin or the killing?"

  "Both."

  He shrugged, turned the card back on her and called her on it. "Does it bother you?"

  She didn't back down, but neither did she display her hand. Silence settled in between them, punctuated by the woman's soft, carefully measured breaths amid her cousin's drone. Juju was right. There was something going on with Anna Shale, and he was beginning to think it didn't have anything to do with the drugs. But what did it concern?

  He was about to open his mouth, risk showing just enough of his own hand to draw her out, when Luis ended his call.

  "Anna, Señor Wild, sorry to keep you both waiting."

  Tom swallowed his curse and dropped his hand, stepping away from the woman as they turned. Luis had already risen from his leather throne and skirted his desk. A moment later, the man's hands came out to draw his cousin into his arms as he brushed his lips across each of her cheeks in turn.

  "I trust all went well, prima?"

  What went well? And for whom? Unfortunately, newly employed stooges of Luis Ortiz did not ask for clarification.

  Not if they wanted to remain employed.

  Tom studied the woman as she covered her cousin's hands with hers and squeezed. "Yes. Thank you, Luis." Whatever had happened, she appeared genuinely and deeply grateful.

  "Nonsense. I was happy to assist." Luis extricated his hands and patted the woman's cheek as if she were a child to whom he'd granted a boon and not a traitor who'd caused the death of three Panamanian border agents and a U.S. Army soldier three months before. Granted, she might not have known she was signing the men's death warrants when she'd passed on classified information regarding a major Panamanian border search to a Colombian drug cartel—it didn't matter. The end result had been the
same. And his rage still burned.

  Tom forced himself to conceal it as Luis faced him. "Again, allow me to apologize for my distraction, Señor Wild. As you've probably surmised, that was a call I simply had to take. My suppliers in Taiwan have become increasingly concerned with my government's pending tariff legislation. Fortunately, all has been appeased…for now. However, we are now in danger of losing our dinner reservations. Anna has made them for the hotel next to yours. I'm told the food is excellent, and all you need do after is walk home. If we leave now, we should make it." He gestured to the door. "Shall we?"

  Tom waited for Anna to precede them, pausing along with Luis as she reached the door to the study and stopped to retrieve her heels. The moment he followed her out into the hacienda's inner courtyard, the phone on his host's desk rang—again. Beneath the brighter lights of the courtyard, there was no mistaking Luis's frown or the frustration in his sigh. "Un momento, por favor."

  Tom nodded as the man shot a pointed take care of him look to his cousin before heading back inside the study to his desk and still-shrilling phone. By the time Luis greeted his latest caller and settled into his throne, Tom knew that, like the last, this call would take longer than a mere moment.

  He turned to Anna and the massive verdigris fountain towering behind her as he settled in for yet another delay. The irony of the scene didn't escape him. Two sirens, one of flesh and one of stone, both reputed to have used their beauty and their wiles to lure men to their deaths. Despite his feelings, he stepped away from the study door to assist the woman's balance as she leaned down to slip on one of her heels. He dropped his hand as she stiffened before moving neatly out of range. The trio of fish gurgled in the silence as she leaned against the edge of the fountain, pointedly choosing cold stone over him.