And the clock was ticking…
Chapter 8
"You're sleeping with her," Anna said bluntly.
She winced as Rick Bishop stiffened. She'd shared all of thirty words with the Army captain since they'd met at the restaurant entrance five minutes earlier, and most of them had been Bishop's as he informed her that Eve's flight had just arrived, her friend was still at the hotel freshening up and would be arriving shortly. Anna had hoped to use the delay to determine how committed Bishop was to helping her friend reach the crash site that had ended Eve's career and Carrie's life, but she hadn't intended on opening with that. Still, she must have struck a nerve, because she'd caught the flush creeping up from the collar of Bishop's gray dress shirt as he reached for the bottle of spring water beside his goblet. The tide had receded by the time he leaned back.
The man's dark brows arched as he twisted off the foil cap. "I beg your pardon?"
She flushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that baldly. It's just, we don't have a lot of time. I don't have a lot of time. But I do have a lot I need to tell you—and Eve." She scanned the room behind him. She couldn't help it. Tom had been following her all afternoon, right up to that evening. She hadn't seen him, but she had felt him. She was pretty sure she'd lost him in the pre-Carnaval crowds before she'd entered the restaurant, but she had to be certain. If Tom saw her with Eve and had done enough research to peg the woman as her friend he might be suspicious, but they wouldn't be done for. The fact that Eve was currently in disgrace too would help.
But Bishop wasn't.
If anything, the Special Forces captain was war-hero material in the flesh. Tom might have gotten out of the Army a year before, but SF was a tight community. The men stood an excellent chance of recognizing each other. Her only hope was to keep the men apart until Eve and Bishop left for Córdoba. The strategy wasn't impossible, but it was complicated by the fact that she'd needed a public dinner to maintain the cover stories she'd spent the morning constructing for Eve and her stalwart captain—as well as her own.
Anna made one last sweep of the restaurant's entrance before glancing at Pepe three tables away. Pepe met her gaze over his appetizer. From the slight shake of his head, he didn't see Tom either. Thank God. She turned back to Bishop, praying the man would simply chalk up her preoccupation with the restaurant's doors and patrons as simple eagerness to see her friend after all these years. "It was the best I could come up with on short notice."
He blinked. "Best?"
"Cover." She checked the bar doors. Clear there, too. For now. "I'm assuming you two would rather conceal your intentions."
The captain nodded. "Of course."
"I thought so." She tucked the strand of hair that had slipped free into her chignon and leaned closer, careful to keep her voice below the strains of the classical guitar floating out from the corner dance floor, unwilling to allow even Pepe to know the rest. "It'll go down like this. You and Eve came down here for one reason and one reason alone. Hot, passionate sex. I want your hands all over her from the second she arrives. Touch her, kiss her, dance with her, whatever it takes. By the time you two head back to your room, we need every person in this restaurant to believe you both want nothing more than the chance to hole yourselves up in bed and spend the next two weeks setting the sheets on fire. Can you handle that?"
The man swallowed firmly. "Done. Why?"
"Because someone will be in your room. As you two leave by the maintenance elevator minutes before oh-four-hundred tomorrow morning, he'll be arriving. The first thing he'll do is hang up the Do Not Disturb sign. It'll stay there the entire time you're gone. He'll order for two and eat for two, leaving the empty bottles of wine and champagne and the trays outside the door along with enough used towels for the maid to believe you and Eve had sex in the tub at least twice a day."
When the guy swallowed again and flushed again, Anna knew there was more going on than Eve claimed.
Anna bit down on her relief.
Captain Bishop might be here because he wanted to know what had really happened during that crash, but he was also here because he cared about Eve. Deeply. Whether he knew it or Eve denied it. No, Bishop hadn't known her friend long. Hell, look at Tom and how deeply he'd been able to get under her skin—and she had no reason to like the man. Eve and Bishop did. Anna glanced at the entrance again as he set the water bottle down. No Tom. She was about to turn back when she spotted the most beautiful sight she'd seen since arriving in Panama.
"Eve!"
She shot to her feet, cutting Bishop off as he followed suit. Budding romance or not, this reunion was hers. She'd be lucky if it lasted five minutes before Tom crashed it, so she intended to savor every one. Anna made a shameless beeline for the Sister she hadn't seen since commissioning, drinking in Eve's short blond curls and the beaming smile on her ivory, heart-shaped face. She hugged Eve close for several moments, then stepped back to admire the beige slip dress hugging her friend's stunning if too slender figure. The flecks of green and burnished gold woven in set off Eve's emerald eyes perfectly. "You look gorgeous."
From the glow in Bishop's darker gaze, the man obviously agreed. Even more fortunately, he also immediately slipped to the plan she'd just finished briefing. He stepped up to Eve, taking her friend's hand and pulling her smoothly into his own arms as he leaned down to press his lips to her temple before dragging his mouth to her ear. The spark between them was real all right. It gave Anna hope.
This just might work. She waited for Bishop to fill Eve in. She couldn't make out his words, but the moment Eve stiffened, she knew he'd mentioned the word lovers.
"We're what?"
At least Eve had whispered.
Anna waited as Bishop led her Sister to the table and seated her in the leather chair to the right of his. Anna sat before the man could assist her too and quickly leaned into Eve's opposite ear to fill her in on the rest. Eve's gaze snapped to Bishop's as they reached the crucial part.
"You honestly think people are going to believe we flew down here just so we could hole up for a marathon session of sex?"
"By the time we leave tonight, they will." Anna had to hand it to the man, the way Bishop smoothly linked his fingers with her friend's, even she bought the too-turned-on-to-keep-his-hands-off-her act. "Now relax." Eve complied as Bishop turned to fire his questions at her. "The chopper? Our gear?"
Anna leaned forward. "It's all set. A taxi will pick you up at the staff entrance at exactly oh-four-hundred tomorrow morning. You'll be driven to a private airstrip. From there, you'll be given the gear you requested and then you'll board the Huey. Once the chopper inserts you both at the position you've requested, the pilot will head home and wait. You'll have seventy-two hours to check in at the number keyed in on the cell phone he'll provide you with. Don't worry, it's encrypted. You can fine-tune your extraction then."
"How?" They all knew what the man was asking.
Unfortunately, she couldn't give him much.
If Tom was lying in wait outside the restaurant, there was no doubt in her mind the man sitting across from her would put his relationship with Tom first, just as Juju had. But from the determination in Bishop's stare, she also knew she'd have to give him something. She chose her information carefully as she nodded. "I'm sure Eve told you I've been staying with my cousin while I'm assigned down here. What she couldn't have told you, because she didn't know, is that my cousin has connections. Connections that aren't exactly…respected. Once I downloaded the file containing the list of your requirements, it was obvious the best way to help you was not to go through the regular but obscure channels we discussed, but to go through my cousin. He's agreed to help."
Suspicion ripped into the man's stare. Damn.
"Why?"
She held his dark gaze as steadily as she could, then shrugged. "Good question. Unfortunately, it's one I can't answer at the moment. What I can do is fulfill your request." She notched her brow deliberately, telling him without words she'
d already given as much as she could. It was up to him—and Eve—to take it, or not. "Are you still interested?"
"What do we owe your cousin in return?"
"Nothing."
She caught Eve's blink out of the corner of her eye and forced herself to ignore it. She couldn't ignore the captain's terse, disbelieving smile. "Try again."
She finally glanced at Eve. "Is he always this suspicious?"
"Yes."
The two glanced at each other, obviously startled that they'd answered in unison. Anna wasn't. But she did take advantage of their momentary distraction to scan the entrance to the restaurant again.
"Expecting someone?"
"Of course not."
"Then answer my question."
"Bishop, please."
He ignored Eve. "Look, lady. I don't care how good a friend you are. This guy may be your cousin, but he's still a man. He's not sticking his hand into a puddle this deep and this muddy without knowing he can fish out something he wants in return. Now, what do I owe him?"
Her dealings with Tom these past two days had warned her this man would be tough to convince. Hell, she should probably thank Tom, because the practice allowed her to hold firm. Not that she'd had a choice. There was no way she could admit that she'd already sold her soul for them.
"I told you, nothing."
She bit down on her curse as Bishop called her bluff, pulling his arm from Eve's shoulders to grab her hand, hauling her friend to her feet with him as he stood. Just as Anna thought the man was about to outright reject her assistance, Bishop stiffened. Anna instinctively snapped her gaze to Pepe's. Pepe nodded and flicked his own iron stare straight to the doorway leading to the restaurant's bar. Straight to Tom. He was here. La Madre dulce. Now what?
The man turned to Eve. "I need to use the latrine. Be just a minute."
Anna watched as Bishop appeared to do as he'd claimed, briskly crossing the room to turn down the hall that led to the restrooms. Unfortunately, the unerring purpose in the man's stride told an entirely different story. Revealed an entirely different plan. If the men's room contained a window or any other exit along that hall she was doomed. A furtive glance to the restaurant's main doors confirmed it.
Tom Wild had disappeared from sight.
So had Captain Bishop.
She didn't have to draw on her trip to the ladies' room the night before to know what was going on. Nor did she need to call on seven years of work as an intelligence analyst. The men were linking up right now, somewhere beyond these walls, she'd stake her rapidly splintering cover on it. All she could do was pray a departing Pepe reached Tom in time to thwart it. If Pepe didn't, she wouldn't have to wait twenty-four hours for Tom to fulfill the promise he'd growled into her ear this morning. Her world would be crashing down tonight.
* * *
She'd sent her no-neck goon after him.
God help him, he was actually amused. Given the thickening stew of questions and serious dearth of answers that'd been churning through his gut all day, Tom welcomed the opportunity to expend a bit of energy. For the moment, however, he limited himself to slipping off his suit coat and folding it lining side out as he melted into a jewelry store's alcove, blessing the cloak of night that already enveloped him as well as the hundred-odd pedestrians strolling along this side of Panama City's high-end strip. The sun might have set less than an hour earlier, but the turistas were already out in full force. Fine with him. The ratio of nationalities was in his favor for a change, allowing him to blend in as a still-searching Pepe stalked right past the jewelry store. No doubt about it, the thug was definitely looking for him.
Good. He'd been aching to put his fist through something since his bust of a meeting with Luis earlier that morning. Might as well be this clown. Not only hadn't he and Luis dined together, but from the moment he'd slammed the limo door behind him, Luis had been on his cell phone obsessing over a shipment of bronze statues just in from Asia. From what he could gather, some of the antiquities had been damaged during off-loading. Evidently that had been the crisis.
Not that he could be certain.
He hadn't even gotten a look at the statues, much less the inside of Luis's heavily guarded warehouse. Instead, he'd received a grilling from the perverse bastard on the status of his so-called budding relationship with Anna—all the way into the city. Once there, Luis had politely dumped him in front of his hotel. In no mood to wait for his jeep to be delivered, he'd paid through the nose to hire another Rent-A-Wreck during pre-Carnaval week to head back out to the jungle shack he'd tracked Anna and that crate of rifles to at dawn. What he'd found had forged more questions than answers. Stranger still, those questions had just led him to an old sorority friend of Anna's…and his old Special Forces A-Team buddy, Rick Bishop. Finally, a chance at real answers.
Just as soon as he got rid of that lumbering goon. Pepe had turned around two blocks past his vantage point in the jewelry alcove to double back to a deserted alley.
That's it. Keep moving, buddy. Now, turn in…
Perfect!
Tom left his jacket in the alcove and caught up with the gorilla seven paces in. By the time the ape sensed his presence in the alley behind him and froze, it was too late. Tom had already jerked his hands up, slamming his cupped palms directly over the man's ears, simultaneously rupturing both Pepe's eardrums in a move he owed not to Uncle Sam's Army, but the meaner streets of Chicago where he'd grown up. He wrenched his arms down as the ape passed out, proving once again that the bigger they were, the harder they fell.
And Pepe fell hard. Tom grunted as three-hundred-plus pounds of deadweight crashed into him. He lashed his arms about Pepe's significant girth and dragged the ape's limp body around the oversize Dumpster he'd noted during his recon minutes earlier. A hearty heave and he had the slumbering thug tucked as far back as he could. If Pepe was lucky, the thug would sleep it off with whatever was in his pockets still intact. The man's eardrums would take longer to reach the same condition. As for his temper upon waking?
That remained to be seen.
Right now, Tom couldn't afford to stick around long enough to find out. He hit the end of the alley as quickly as he could and forced himself to digest his lingering adrenaline as he strolled back to the jewelry store alcove to snag the remainder of his suit before continuing on to the alley that had been his final goal all along. The one downwind of Enrique's bathroom windows. As expected, Rick was waiting.
Uncharacteristically pacing, too.
His old A-Team buddy spun around as he coughed lightly. "What took you so long? I'm supposed to be in the john."
"Sorry. Had to stop and toss a banana to a gorilla." Tom finished donning the jacket he'd removed for the impromptu force-feeding as he met Rick at the end of the deserted alley. He straightened his tie. Much as he'd like to offer the truth, he couldn't. The less Rick knew about the ape snoring two alleys over, the better. For everyone concerned.
Fortunately, as with Juju, Rick had been on the job long enough not to take it personally. "And here I thought you stopped for a touch-up at the local beauty parlor. By the way, what's up with the blond tresses? And those eyes?"
"Don't ask."
Silence settled in as the mood turned serious. If Rick was supposed to be in the can, they didn't have much time.
"So, Wild Man…other than the fact that you finally seem to be living up to the potential of your name, what else can't we discuss?"
He shrugged.
Rick matched it. "How 'bout the girl. Can we talk about her? As in, what the devil is she really up to?"
He shook his head.
"Great. I knew this stank from the moment I walked into that goddamned honeymoon suite."
Tom froze. "What?"
Rick nodded. "The room. It's nothing more than a full-out love nest. And that woman expects Eve and I to occupy it. Together. For a few hours at least."
Tom raked his hands through his hair to cover the tremble. God help him, he should not be welcoming the
overwhelming relief that was setting in. Not this much. But he was.
Anna hadn't been setting up a torrid assignation of her own this afternoon—for sex or drugs. She'd done it to cover up for her former sorority sister. Like everyone else in SF, he knew about the crash. The fallout had interested him even more when he discovered the link last week between the two Black Hawk co-pilots and his own mark. All three were members of the same college military sorority. Except, SF rumor control had also claimed that the operator standing three feet away from him in this darkened alley had attributed the crash to the women. A Captain Carrie Evans and Eve Paris. The same Eve Paris he'd just spotting wrapped up in Rick's all-too-willing arms, whether or not the man was protesting his revised sleeping arrangements.
"What gives?" Tom jerked his chin to the curtained window his buddy had crawled out of a good ten minutes before. "She cause it?" To his surprise, Rick sighed.
"I don't know."
Tom blinked. "You don't know?"
"That's why I'm here. Eve swears she pulled pitch."
"Hell, buddy. You were there. What do you think happened?"
"Damned if I know. I thought I did, but…" His friend sighed again as he tapped the scar slicing across his temple. It was still fresh. About six weeks fresh, he'd wager. "Given this, who knows? The descent got pretty ugly. And frankly, if all I lost is an accurate account, I got off lucky."
Bill Turner. It was Tom's turn to sigh. "I heard about Turner. I'm sorry, man. He was a good sergeant."
"Yup." That single word said it all. And yet, it left more out. Tom's instincts convinced him that whatever Rick was withholding, it was tangled up in that burned-out wreckage three hundred miles away. He also suspected that whatever it was, Rick wasn't comfortable admitting it to himself. Not yet. Tom forced himself to respect the man's privacy. God knows it was bad enough with Juju nosing into his own.
His buddy sucked in his breath. "All I know is that Eve is so doggone sure, I've gotta give her the benefit of the doubt. At least till we know different. Till I know. Maybe then I can sleep."
A Dangerous Engagement Page 13