An Affair of Vengeance

by Michele, Jamie

  “Why didn’t you go the diplomatic route, too?”

  “I was going to. Things change.” She watched a bird soar high overhead. A golden eagle, judging from its wing shape and span. “And here I am.”

  “That about explains it.”

  Sarcasm. She turned and caught his grin. “Medusa had all-seeing eyes, you know.”

  “I do know. She could also turn men to stone.”

  She laughed. “So can I. So you’d better keep your eyes on the road.”

  He obeyed as he navigated the nimble German car around a tight turn. Krai’s compound was only a couple of hours outside of Marseille, but the narrow roads were treacherous and slow off the expressways. The countryside was beautiful, though. These were the Alpilles, or little Alps, and they were glorious. Her parents had loved vacationing in these wild foothills of the South of France. Evangeline could understand why, for the area couldn’t feel more remote yet romantic. White limestone cliffs soared above ambling vineyards, orderly olive groves, and gray-green scrub. August heat infused the aromatic oils of rosemary, lavender, and thyme into the air.

  And her partner’s tanned skin glowed like honey in the late-afternoon sun. As she watched, he downshifted to punch up a steep hill. His legs pumped the pedals and his narrow khaki slacks exposed every detail of his strong legs.

  What would happen if she let her hand fall? She stared, imagining those tight muscles sliding like pythons beneath her palm.

  She forced her attention back to the landscape. “How long before we’re there?”

  “Minutes, far as I can tell.”

  “How much of a problem do you think it’ll be that I’m with you?”

  “We can assume that you’ll be known by whoever invited me. The episode with Penard at Avarice was public. Ménellier certainly had an agent inside who saw it. Whoever we’re meeting may well have heard about it by now, too.”

  “Great.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “It’s good. It gives us legitimacy as a couple.”

  “Couple.” She rolled the word in her mouth. “That’s an unlikely word. Would your gangster McCrea really be one half of a couple?”

  “No. He wouldn’t. He never has been.” He gripped the leather-wrapped wheel with both hands as he took a bend in the road at precarious speed, accelerating out with professional confidence. His strong thighs tightened again. Evangeline tried not to look.

  “You’d be his lover, not his girlfriend,” he continued.

  “So I’m a nitwit.”

  He shot her a curious look, one eyebrow raised up over his aviator shades.

  “I don’t see why any woman with at least half a brain in her head would get involved with a guy like you,” she said, and then clarified, “a guy like you’re pretending to be.”

  “Your waitress character has a thing for criminals. You’ve been cozying up to Penard for, what, weeks? Months?”

  “It’s the job. I never take contact with an asset over the line.” But she had, with him. “Usually,” she appended weakly.

  “So she looks like she’s got bad taste and no sense.”

  “Hey!”

  “Not you. Her. But if you’re going to portray the sort of woman who’d date a Serge Penard, you have to get inside her head. Become her completely.”

  “I never dated Penard,” she quickly responded, insulted that he imagined she’d actually do such a thing. Still, she knew that he could only judge her on what he’d seen her do, and he’d seen her do some very unprofessional things, indeed. “Is that what you do? Become your character completely?”

  He showed no signs of having heard her question.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing why she was apologizing, except that he’d clammed up rather suddenly. “It’s just that I don’t often meet people with my job. I wonder how other people handle it.”

  Silent and still, he swept the car around another hairpin turn.

  “I met men at the Farm who’d been clandestine their whole careers,” she said. “There was always something competitive in the way they talked about their time undercover, like who’d turned the most assets, or who’d been in which war-torn city the longest without getting made. Like it was a game.”

  “It’s no game.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Different for everyone.” His jaw muscle tensed.

  “What’s it for you?”

  “It’s just a way to live.”

  “It’s no life,” she said. “You said that yourself. It’s something else. Revenge, redemption, an unrelenting thirst for adventure…”

  “Patriotism?”

  “Certainly. But whatever this is, I agree. It’s not a game. The notion cheapens it.”

  Leather creaked as he shifted. “So why do you do it?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Why’d you pick the job?”

  “To serve my country.”

  His head tilted in her direction. “So you’re going with patriotism?”

  “Sure.” Partly. She reached into her bag for a tube of lipstick, beginning to wish she hadn’t asked him how he lived with the job. She couldn’t expect him to open up without doing the same herself, and she didn’t want to talk about why she’d joined the CIA. Her reasons were too personal.

  “What else?”

  She chuckled. “Maybe I like living on the edge, alone and afraid, with nothing but my wits to save me from certain and painful death.”

  “The thirst for adventure.” He smiled. “That’s more like it. And why’d you go against protocol to run me to ground?”

  She tipped her sunglasses back on her head and used the visor mirror to watch as she applied color to her lips. The answer was more than she wanted to reveal, but he should know, at least, what they were walking into. It was only fair. “Because of Krai.”

  “You knew that I was going to meet with Krai before you saw the directions Ménellier gave me?”

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Try me.”

  She tucked the lipstick back into her purse. “You know I’ve been trying to get Penard to be my informant, right?”

  “I’d guessed as much.”

  “Good. Well, he hasn’t taken the bait yet, but sometimes he gives me intel for free.”

  “Useful clot.”

  “Especially when he’s drunk. A while ago, he told me that he’d done deals with Krai. When you muscled past Penard and up to Ménellier, well, I figured Krai was next in line. I know Ménellier spends time at his compound.”

  “They could just be mates.”

  “Nobody is just mates with Krai. And I know Krai is dirty. So I ran you harder than I otherwise would have.”

  “How do you know what no one else can prove?”

  Her stomach floated into her throat as the car crested a hill and dipped abruptly into a valley. “My dad knew. I don’t know how. Maybe he got on the inside. Maybe he just said what everyone else was thinking. But however he came to his conclusion, I believed him. I always trusted his judgment, and I’m not about to stop just because he said something that was very unpopular.”

  “Was your dad a spook, too?”

  “No.” Just the facts. No emotion. Just tell him what he needed to know. “After he left the State Department, he ran a nonprofit peace-advocacy group. He’d been campaigning against smugglers who hid behind legitimate businesses.”

  “Like Kral.”

  “Exactly. And he took the fight public. He pointed his finger at Krai in a press conference.”

  “I’m sure that didn’t go over well.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “What happened?”

  “Car bomb, apparently random. Took my father and my mother along with seven others in a crowded market in Arles. Wounded many more.”

  “When?”

  “Eight years ago. December twentieth.” She got the words out in a single breath. She’d had to. Her next exhalation was
too ragged to support speech.

  McCrea kept his eyes on the road. She was grateful. She needed a moment to recompose herself.

  “So that’s why you’re doing this,” he said.

  “That’s why.”

  “I’m glad to know.” He let the car speed down an incline. “But however personal this gets, don’t make me play guessing games for information again. It’ll get us killed.”

  “Likewise.”

  He didn’t respond, and she let the conversation die.

  Several miles later, he slowed the vehicle to turn onto a side road. Goose bumps raised the skin on her arms as they drove into a scrubby forest that veiled the late-summer sun. Ten minutes later, the road took a sharp turn and cleared the forest, entering the mouth of a small valley. A gray-green hill slumbered hazily in the distance.

  Two men in forest-camouflage fatigues stepped across their path to bar their progress. McCrea slowed to a stop and gave the men a nod.

  One leaned close, keeping the muzzle of his Heckler & Koch assault rifle pointed respectfully at the ground. “Name?”

  “McCrea.”

  “And her?”

  “Evangeline,” McCrea said.

  The man frowned. “She’s not supposed to be here.”

  “I say she is.”

  “I’ll have to call.” The guard backed away. The second man didn’t blink as he stared the pair down from the front of the car. After a short, hidden conversation, the lead guard waved them through, and McCrea continued driving, heading toward the valley and hills beyond.

  “No gate,” she said.

  “I doubt anybody gets this far unless they’re invited.”

  A quick movement to her right told her he was telling the truth. Three camouflaged men appeared at the edge of the forest and retreated just as quickly, clearly on patrol, or to inform McCrea and his guest that they were under armed surveillance at all times.

  He shifted into a lower gear as the car began an ascent to a village carved into the side of a high peak. As they drove closer, she made out tight streets and alleys connecting the densely packed, red-roofed buildings of the town. Slatted shutters as blue as the pale summer sky framed most windows. A hulking gray fortress capped the hill.

  They crossed a single-lane bridge over a ravine and entered the hamlet. Stucco-walled buildings crowded the road, darkening the crannies through which their small car barely squeezed. Up they drove, past dusty squares and empty alleys. Here and there, Evangeline saw life. A wrinkled old woman in a black head scarf scowled at them through an attic window. Two towheaded boys kicked a soccer ball down a dead-end street. A handful of middle-aged women chatted while hanging laundry in a sunny lane.

  Her jaw dropped when she heard them speak. “Those women were speaking Czech. Krai was born in Prague. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  He glanced at her. “Agreed.”

  Activity increased the closer they got to the top of the town. Around a corner she glimpsed a handful of girls riding bicycles, hooting and hollering just as she had when she was a kid. Three old men wearing black hats and vests sat in slatted wooden chairs under the shade of a striped awning, drinking tall, frosty glasses of pale beer.

  What was this place? As much research as she’d done into Krai’s background, she hadn’t heard anything about a lost city of Czechs in the middle of France, but then, no operatives had ever gotten so close to the estate. From satellite imaging, they’d assumed that he only controlled the fortress at the top of the hill. Now, she realized the whole village was under his thumb.

  After navigating the narrow road through town, they came to a tall metal gate that marked the boundary of the old fortress. Guards in burgundy livery—no camouflage this time—saluted McCrea before the gate rolled open with a well-oiled hum. A few flashy Italian sports cars mingled with a handful of sleek black Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, and BMWs in the parking lot.

  McCrea pulled up the brake. Two men trotted out of the shadows to open their doors. Evangeline stepped onto the smooth cobbles of the inner sanctum and waited for McCrea as he flung a khaki jacket over his shoulder and walked to her side. He took her arm without comment and led her across the courtyard to the large wooden door of the main building. The door opened by unseen hand.

  A glint of sunlight on metal caught her eye right before they entered. A man in camouflage fatigues paced upon the wall above her, the business end of his G36 trained on the valley below.

  It was comforting, at least, to have their guns pointed somewhere other than at her, but the sight was a sobering reminder that as dramatic and beautiful as this strange hilltop retreat might seem, it was nonetheless a dangerous lair.

  A silver-haired gentleman in a formal cutaway coat greeted them in the dark foyer. He bowed. “Monsieur and mademoiselle, welcome. Your presence is much anticipated. If you please, I will take you to your rooms. Do not bother with your bags; they will be unpacked in your dressing room within the hour.”

  The butler led the way up tightly spiraling stone stairs. Bright yellow sunlight sliced in through slit windows cut into the walls. At the first landing, he opened a door and proceeded onto a loggia overlooking a large courtyard.

  “You’ll find most guests by the pool in the inner courtyard, just there. Dinner will be served by the pool at eight o’clock.” Their guide pointed a bony forefinger down to a rectangular pool ringed by a forest of potted plants. A handful of women in bikinis reclined on chaises. A group of men sat under an umbrella playing a game of cards. Strains of gypsy music reached her ears.

  “It’s lovely,” Evangeline said, letting herself smile, for it truly was.

  A grin split the man’s wrinkled face. “Yes, mademoiselle. It is.”

  “Oh, McCrea! I can’t wait to go swimming.” She tugged at his sleeve, wondering exactly what sort of public affection he’d give her.

  “Indeed.” He was impassive.

  “Here are your rooms.” The butler opened a door at the far end of the promenade. “You will find a bath through the door to the left. Is there anything else I can do to be of service?”

  “No, thank you.” McCrea gave the man a brief nod of dismissal and he disappeared at a speed that belied his wrinkles and gray hair.

  McCrea abruptly pulled Evangeline into the room and closed the door. Mellow afternoon sunlight shone through two tall windows, highlighting a canopied bed that sat two steps up on a pedestal in the center of the room. Silken red-and-gold blankets and innumerable fluffy pillows made her think it was fit for a harem.

  She was suddenly, uncomfortably, very aware of McCrea’s strong grip on her arm. He must have sensed the increase in tension, too, because he dropped his hand so quickly it slapped against his thigh.

  Her cheeks flushed hot. The last thing she needed to think about was slapping that man’s thighs. “I’ll just be in the bathroom freshening up.”

  His hand caught her elbow as she passed him. “Not yet,” he said and spun her around.

  She softened against his body as if she’d embraced him a thousand times before. Easily, smoothly, like a habit she couldn’t break. His teeth nipped her earlobe.

  “Showtime,” he whispered.

  Of course. They stood together in front of the huge windows overlooking the town, highly visible for anyone who cared to wonder about their relationship. She exhaled, and her chest hurt. His sudden desire was a charade. But what else could it be? Passion was their assignment. It got her to Krai. That was its only function, and for her to view it in any other way was foolish. Not only would her desire confuse and distract her at a time when she most needed to be sharp, but to grow dependent upon McCrea’s presence would only leave her bereaved when he left. One way or the other, they’d separate when the mission ended. That was the way of things in the clandestine world. Though they were forced to pretend a physical relationship, which was in itself no small thing to cease, emotional dependences were harder to break and rightly avoided.

  Her partner’s competent hands skimmed her bell
y and around her backside. He applied pressure, dragging her closer. His hips bumped her stomach, and he ducked his head to kiss her. Shades of last night’s lust blew into the room, but this was different. Oh, his mouth felt the same, smooth and soft, and his tongue was equally skilled. But he held something back. She couldn’t know what it was, but the coldness in his kiss made her eyes well up with unexpected tears. His professional detachment felt complete, and though she admired his strength and focus, she’d never felt lonelier.

  Which was exactly why she had told herself not to get physically involved in the first place. That aching dejection in the pit of her belly meant that she’d already become hooked on his touch, and she had no idea how to break herself free. So she cursed him for touching her like he’d meant it last night and kicked herself for wanting him to do it again. If only he hadn’t kissed her like a lover in his hotel room and on the dance floor, maybe she’d never know what she was missing now.

  One of his hands rustled into her hair and seized a fistful of knotted curls as his tongue played against hers, more delicately than before. His touch seemed to thaw and gather intention. Her pulse raced to where his hands warmed her skin—the back of her head, the rise of her butt. That palm on her rear slid down to cup her gently, his fingers spread wide over her cotton-covered flesh. He was so unbearably close, she couldn’t stop her hands from running down his thighs, from hips to knees. Hard as extruded steel under her fingertips, his legs flexed and vibrated against her touch.

  He felt the pull of attraction, too. She knew it. That telltale quiver in his muscles gave him away. At least he wanted her, she thought, as she melted into him. At least she wasn’t the only one adrift. They were lost together. Her loneliness abated—sweet, blissful reprieve! The full-throated rasp of his tortured groan sent her limbs trembling and brain spinning.

  She remembered the enormous bed, so nearby, and pushed him back toward it. Get it done, she thought. Get it over with, and perhaps afterward they could think clearly. She had little left to lose, at any rate. She was already his.