They were silent for a moment, remembering how often they'd been there before.
"You know my problem then," Ryder said finally. Plans to contaminate key reservoirs with a "warning" virus were set to be put into operation January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, at the hands of the elusive Viktor, Sean's contact on the other side.
"From my vantage point there is no problem. In fact, if you leave this afternoon for the Florida compound, you are a good twelve hours ahead of schedule."
Ryder raked his hand through his hair and made a grab for one of his mentor's cigarettes.
"You quit years ago," Alistair said, arching a brow in disapproval. "Think of your health."
"I am," said Ryder. "My mental health. There's been an unexpected development." He gave Alistair the Reader's Digest version of events, beginning with Max and Kelly's first meeting in Maui to the supercharged atmosphere in the limousine the previous night.
"Biology is destiny," said Alistair, the newlywed. "We, of all people, should be well aware of that fact."
Both men had found their wives at the most inopportune of times--and in the most unexpected of places.
"If anything," Alistair continued, "their involvement should make their month on the island easier for both of them. The fact that the legendary Lorena is on the scene only underscores the necessity for fast action on our part."
Both men found it difficult to believe it was Max who'd pinpointed Lorena that night at Il Duce. It proved there was a glimmer of light in an ever-darkening tunnel.
"You've known since the beginning that Max is volatile, Chambers. If you add this factor to the equation--" He shook his head. "I don't even want to think what can happen before it's over." Five years of painstaking preparation could go up in a burst of sexual heat. "I saw him fall apart once. I don't want to see it again."
Quickly he refreshed Chambers's memory on the wartime episode.
"Get them to Florida," Alistair said, as maddeningly calm as ever. "Once you have them on the island, you can maintain tighter control."
Alistair made it sound easy: keep them in seclusion until a few days before New Year's Eve then whisk them down to Rio for the annual party. No matter that Max didn't know the party had never been cancelled. They operated on a need-to-know basis; as soon as he needed to know, they'd tell him.
What they had to keep in mind was the fact that Maximilian Steel was only the bait and nothing more. All they expected of him was his presence at the party.
The trap belonged to PAX alone.
The elusive Viktor could never be lured to a meeting place within the United States; he was much too smart for that.
But Rio de Janeiro, at one of Maximilian Steel's famous millionaire's only New Year's Eve parties, was an entirely different story.
Where better for Viktor to finally meet the Man of Steel and make a deal?
Viktor would be in for a surprise for, this time, instead of just the usual international A list, there would be a few important additions: a host of PAX operatives ready, willing and able to stop Viktor cold.
"Why do I have the feeling it's going to explode right in our faces?" Ryder asked.
Alistair laughed, the amused chuckle of a contented man. "Because you're getting older, my boy, and you've finally learned that human nature is the one thing you cannot control. We have faced more difficult scenarios than this. Have faith."
Easy for him to say. Chambers hadn't seen the way they looked at one another. He hadn't heard Max's voice talking low to Kelly in the back seat of the Rolls.
And, most especially, Chambers hadn't been there when Max Brody gave up the ghost.
"The party." Ryder shook his head. "I hope he hangs together until then."
"You'll see to that, won't you?" Alistair said. "We're depending on you."
Ryder grinned. "You realize you said 'we,' don't you?"
Alistair shrugged. "Old habits, et cetera, et cetera."
They discussed details and Ryder placed a call to headquarters for engraved invitations to be mailed out stat.
"I hope you're right about the party," Ryder muttered, finally grabbing himself that cigarette he wanted, "but I won't be breathing normally until this thing is over."
#
"So this is how the other half really lives," Kelly said as the sleek private jet left JFK Airport far behind. "This makes first class look like a slave ship."
Max Steel chuckled and unsnapped his seat belt. "When you travel as much as I do, comfort becomes a priority."
"Comfort is an extra wide seat and a clean pillow, Max." She unsnapped her own seat belt and stood up to inspect the CD player installed overhead. "This is downright hedonistic."
Not to mention, downright incredible.
Who would have imagined the inside of a plane could look like a suite at the Waldorf Astoria? Oh, she'd enjoyed sporadic bouts of luxury growing up, depending upon which way Sean's career was going, but nothing that came close to the opulence Steel took for granted.
Steel's men had taken a basic 737 and turned it into a flying palace complete with paneled library, offices, and the drawing room where they were now.
Everywhere she looked there were burled wood accents and silk furnishings and an attention to detail that she hadn't managed to achieve in her own home.
From somewhere a gentle bell tolled.
"Come in," Max called.
The door opened and a tall man with distinguished greying temples entered. His navy blue uniform was worthy of a military parade and he wore it with the noble bearing of a four star general.
"Good afternoon," he said, nodding at each of them in turn. "Captain Jensen asked me to let you know our estimated flying time is three hours and forty-five minutes. Skies are clear, no turbulence reported. If you desire a printout of our flight plan, sir, please let me know and we'll be happy to oblige."
Max inclined his head. "Thank you, Jack. If we need anything more, we'll ring."
"Of course." He nodded at Kelly then bowed to Max. "Enjoy your flight."
"Incredible," Kelly said when the man disappeared. "He actually bowed. You get more respect than Queen Elizabeth."
Max laughed. "The comparison makes me somewhat uncomfortable but I understand the meaning. We operate by old rules: respect, obedience and diligence."
He was more accustomed to power than she had first thought.
"Talk like that makes me uncomfortable," she said, running her finger along the shiny brass fittings surrounding the CD player. "You sound like a mid-eastern potentate speaking about his beloved subjects."
"And you, of course, are an advocate of democracy."
She hoped the look she gave him was pure red-white-and-blue. "Most Americans are."
He looked more amused by that than the statement warranted but no matter. She'd made her point.
"You forget I am also an American."
"Technically, perhaps. Your outlook seems pure Brazilian to me."
"Meaning what?"
If she had to choose each word with care, the next month would be a nightmare. She might as well go for broke. "Meaning you have a certain male arrogance I consider quite South American."
"I thought I was a mid-eastern sheikh."
"Potentate," she corrected with a quick grin. "Let's get things right."
"You'll find as we work together that I'm quite American in outlook."
"A slave to capitalism?" she asked dryly.
He started to laugh. "No, Kelly, a master of capitalism. There's a difference."
She sat down in a wing chair opposite him. "Next thing you'll be telling me you're an equal opportunity employer."
"Probably more so than you," he said without missing a beat--or an inflection. "I hire the most qualified and pay the top dollar. Talent is the only criteria."
She glanced out the window at the rolling farmlands of central New Jersey spread out below them. "Aren't you just wonderful," she said, crossing her legs. She didn't miss the fact that his eyes lingered for a lon
g moment. "Perhaps we'll name a bank after you."
"Too late," he shot back. "There are three already."
"You realize you've carried your masquerade too far, don't you?" She meant her words to be playfully sarcastic but his face drained of color and she stopped. "Have I said something wrong?"
He stood up.
"Max, I didn't--"
"I'll be back," he said then stormed from the drawing room.
"So you're not perfect after all, Steel," she murmured as he closed the door behind him. God had granted him many blessings but a sense of humor was obviously not among them.
She thought of the photo of him in his teeny-weeny Speedo and smiled.
A sense of humor wasn't everything.
#
Max found Ryder sitting up front in the smaller of the two offices on board.
"You look airsick," Ryder said as Max flung open the door. "Wish you were back in that worm-eaten Cessna?"
"I wish I were back in New Jersey," Max said, leaning against the doorjamb. "She nailed me, O'Neal. Right between the eyes."
"When you say things like that you make me wish I'd taken sky diving more seriously."
"She said I'd carried the masquerade too far."
Ryder's eyes narrowed. "And?"
"What more do you need?"
"That's all she said?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"Depends on the context."
"I don't know the context," Max said. "All I know is what she said."
"Forget it and go back in there."
"I think I'm blowing it."
"What's the real story, Max? What was going on in there?"
A bead of sweat trickled down his back. "I guess you'd call it banter," he said. "I stink at banter."
That slick glossy talk that passed for conversation these days left him cold. Although he wouldn't admit it to Ryder, he'd had a better time helping Kelly Madison clean up her trashed apartment last night than dining at Il Duce.
How could he explain the way he felt split right in two, with both Brody and Steel battling for supremacy?
The formal mannered speech of Steel masked the turbulent emotions of Brody until he wasn't sure who was talking and who was thinking--and which man was the man with Kelly Madison.
"Nobody asked you to be a raconteur," Ryder said. "Just go out there and be yourself."
"Yeah, right," Max said with an uncertain laugh.
"If I can remember who that is."
And if he could remember why it mattered.
#
Max was coiled tighter than a rattlesnake and, as far as Ryder was concerned, he was about as dangerous.
Apparently a man could grow tired of just about anything--affluence included--and after five years, Max was showing all the signs of surfeit.
Ryder leaned back in his desk chair and thanked the powers that be that they'd left Manhattan far behind. Manhattan was a dangerous place for a man about to blow his cover--something that Max Brody, aka Maximilian Steel, was eminently ready to do.
A twinge of guilt pinched at his conscience. Five years ago he'd believed he was doing Max a favor by lifting him out of Millstone, New Jersey and giving him a chance to enjoy life the way only a privileged few were able to enjoy it.
Now he wasn't so sure. A long time ago his wife Joanna had said there was a significant difference between giving a man a chance to better his life and playing God with that same life. It had taken a long time but he was beginning to see her meaning.
Pygmalion and Galatea.
Professor Higgins and Eliza.
Ryder O'Neal and Max Brody?
Well, it didn't have quite the same ring to it but the analogy was uncomfortably sound.
Brody had known going in that this wasn't going to last forever. They hadn't made empty promises about life after the plan was over. Max was a guy who lived for the moment and five years ago Ryder had had no qualms about taking him into PAX.
But now the time was almost up and Ryder was getting the uncomfortable feeling that nothing about this deal was going to turn out quite the way he'd planned.
Alistair had said that biology was destiny and Ryder had a pretty good idea that their time in Florida would prove him right. You didn't need to be Doctor Ruth to understand the currents flowing between Max and Kelly.
Even if he wanted to stop what was happening between them he couldn't, any more than he could stop what PAX had set into motion a long time ago--no matter how badly he might want to.
There was a good chance that now, after five years, the old Max Brody was dead and Ryder couldn't help wondering how Maximilian Steel was going to like living in New Jersey.
Chapter Sixteen
It had been a long time since Max felt in control of his life but that afternoon as the PAX jet streaked over the Carolina coast he decided to take back a piece of himself, at least until they landed in Florida.
Everybody knew air time wasn't real time and things you said and did in transit didn't count once you were back on terra firma.
Last night had been too special to let slip through his fingers; what had happened between him and Kelly was too important to ignore.
For a little while he'd forgotten Steel's successes and Brody's failures and just been himself--whoever that was--and to his surprise, Kelly Madison seemed to like that stranger just fine.
There had been something exciting about working close to Kelly in the small apartment, an intimate communication that couldn't be duplicated in a place like Il Duce--or this plane, for that matter.
The clean smell of her hair as she moved past him. The sway of her hips beneath her silky black dress. The graceful curve of her back when she bent to retrieve a scarlet sofa pillow.
He stood outside the door to the drawing room where he'd left her. Time was running out; he could feel it in every bone in his body. Five years of work was now concentrated on the next few weeks on a tiny Florida island.
On Kelly Madison.
Only a saint or a fool would turn away from paradise a minute too soon and Max was neither.
Forget Steel.
Forget Brody.
It was time he acted like a man.
#
Something was different about him.
Kelly knew it the moment Max came back into the drawing room. She sat at the game table by the window playing solitaire and was just about to run the diamonds clear up to the king when he threw open the door and strode into the room with a purpose that could only be described as predatory. The click of the lock tumbling into place echoed in her ears.
He looked down at her and adrenaline bubbled wildly through her veins. Her senses sprang acutely--painfully--to life. The lemon yellow sunlight streaming through the oval windows was tinged with gold and suddenly warm against her skin. The sound of her breathing was hushed, expectant and even the scent of her own perfume seemed new and exotic.
Her hands began to shake with a delicious primal excitement and she quickly scooped up the cards and began shuffling them in an attempt to hide her trembling fingers.
"I was afraid you'd bailed out," she said lightly, dealing herself another round. "Everything okay?"
His back was to her as he poured out two glasses of brandy from a gorgeous crystal decanter she'd already identified as Steuben Glass.
He turned, his eyes intense, and handed her a glass.
"No toast?" She rose to her feet as if lifted by silken strings.
A slight smile tilted his mouth. "To the inevitable."
So true, Mr. Steel. So very, very true...
The brandy slid down her throat, sending out spirals of warmth throughout her body, reminding her of the Maui sun and how she had burned beneath his gaze.
"We have almost three hours until we land."
She nodded, knowing her voice would betray the violence of her emotions, the intensity of her need.
He took her glass from her and placed it on the table next to his.
"I want to taste you, Kelly."
The jagged edge of a moan escaped her lips and she closed her eyes for an instant against a blinding flash of desire.
"This is happening so fast, Max," she whispered as he drew her into his arms. "I barely know you..."
But she did know him. Deep down there was a loneliness in Maximilian Steel that she understood; she could feel it in the way he held her, see it in his eyes, and it called to her in a voice as strong as the one raging in her ears this moment.
Dear God, why couldn't she at least admit it to herself? She wanted him. She wanted him more than she wanted food or drink or her blessed independence. From the first second he stalked up to her in Maui--all fierce male splendor and heat--she had wanted him, wanted to run her hands along the swelling muscles of his chest, taste the salt of his skin against her tongue, savor the scent and the sound and the strength of him.
He was a man in every sense of the word: strong and virile and powerful. He wrapped his arms around her; she could feel the raw strength barely tamed by civility and her last vestige of restraint snapped against the raging tide of urgency that flooded through her.
"This is crazy," she murmured, her lips pressed against the warm pulse at the base of his throat. "Someone could--"
He silenced her with a finger against her mouth. "No one will. The door is locked, Kelly. We're all alone."
She flicked her tongue against his finger for an instant, her senses reeling at the taste of his skin--at the boldness of her action.
Alone.
Thirty-five thousand feet above the earth, far away from Sean and the office and the endless noise of telephones and computers and well-meaning people trying to run her life for her.
How long had she'd waited for a man like this to sweep her up with the sheer force of his will. She'd believed men like Max Steel to be extinct--products of another century when strength and power and a fine arrogance were commodities to be treasured not work-shopped and talk-showed and group-therapied out of existence.
She was tired of being strong, tired of being decisive, tired of being so achingly empty and alone that the nights stretched out before her like an arid desert with no beginning and no end.
Fine Madness Page 11