“That ravine is where it’s supposed to go,” she informed him, scorn dripping from every word. “There’s water at the bottom.”
Nate glanced sideways, just in time to catch the irritated flick of a tail as the shaggy-haired beast stepped into what looked like thin air. Instead of plunging into oblivion, however, he stomped down a steep, hidden incline and disappeared, pound by angry pound. Almost immediately, Nate heard the slow rumble of hooves as the rest of the herd moved to follow.
“Well, I’ll be—” He broke off, a rueful grin tugging at his lips.
One dark eyebrow notched upward in a sarcastic query. “Yes?”
Still grinning, Nate tipped a finger to the brim of his ball cap. “Nate Sloan, at your service. Out of Wolf Creek, Wyoming. I run a few head there myself, when I’m not delivering stock for the president of the United States.”
All of which was true, and would be verified by even the most diligent inquiry into his background. What wouldn’t be verified was any link between Nate Sloan, former AF test pilot turned small-time rancher, and OMEGA.
She glanced over his shoulder at Three Bars Red. “And that, I take it, is the horse I was told about.”
“Not just the horse,” Nate told her, offended on Ole Red’s behalf by her slighting tone. “The sire of champions.”
He turned and whistled between his teeth. Red ambled forward and plopped his head lazily on Nate’s denim-covered shoulder.
As Alexandra eyed the dusty face, with its white blaze and its wiry gray whiskers sprouting from the velvet muzzle, the ghost of a smile softened her face, easing the lines on either side of her mouth.
“This is the sire of champions?”
“World-class,” Nate assured her. He rubbed his knuckles along Red’s smooth, satiny cheek, while his senses absorbed the impact of that almost-smile. “I’ve got his papers in my gear bag, but you’ll see the real evidence for yourself come spring.”
The hint of softness around her mouth disappeared so fast it might never have been. “I may see the evidence,” she replied stiffly, “if I decide to accept this gift.”
Nate’s knuckles slowed. “Why wouldn’t you accept him?”
Her chin angled. “The people of this area have an old saying, Mr. Sloan. ‘When you take a glass of vodka from a stranger, you must offer two in return.’ I’ve made it clear that I’m not prepared to offer anything, to anyone, at this point.”
Well, that settled the question of whether Alexandra Jordan might hand over the decoder if asked quietly through diplomatic channels…assuming she had it in her possession, that was.
Tipping the ball cap to the back of his head, Nate leaned against the chestnut’s shoulder.
“There aren’t any strings attached to this gift,” he told her evenly, “except the one you just hacked up with that Texas-size toothpick of yours.”
“I’m not a fool, Mr. Sloan. I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t get something for nothing in this world, or any other. Karistan is in too precarious a position right now to—” She broke off at the sound of approaching hooves.
When the guide drew up alongside, she held a brief exchange in the flowing, incomprehensible Karistani dialect. After a few moments, Alexandra gave a small shrug. “Da, Dimitri.”
She turned back to Nate, her eyes cool. “Dimitri Kirov, my grandfather’s lieutenant and now mine, reminds me that it is not the way of the steppes to keep travelers standing in the wind, offering neither food nor shelter.”
If he hadn’t been briefed on Alexandra Jordan’s cultural diversity, her formal, almost stilted phrasing might have struck Nate as odd, coming from a woman who’d graduated from Temple University’s school of design and maintained a condo in Philadelphia when she wasn’t holed up in her Manhattan studio. Here on the steppes, Alexandra’s Karistani heritage obviously altered both her speech and her attitude toward a fellow American.
“You’ll come to our camp and take bread with us,” she told him, “until I make up my mind whether to accept this gift.”
It was more order than invitation, and a grudging one at that, but it served Nate’s purpose.
“Ole Red and I appreciate the generous offer of hospitality, ma’am.”
Her golden eyes flashed at the gentle mockery in his voice, but she turned without another word. She headed for her mount, holding herself so rigid she reminded Nate of a skinned-cypress fence pole…until a fresh gust of wind flattened her baggy trousers against her frame.
A bolt of sheer masculine appreciation shot through Cowboy. Damned if the woman didn’t have the trimmest, sweetest curving posterior he’d been privileged to observe on any female in a long, long time.
Too bad she didn’t have the disposition to go with it, he thought, eyeing that shapely bottom with some regret. He generally made it a point to steer clear of prickly-tempered females. There were enough easy-natured ones to fill his days and occasional nights when he wasn’t in the field.
Although… For a fleeting moment, when she eyed Ole Red, Nate had caught a hint of another woman buried under Alexandra Jordan’s hard exterior. One who tantalized him with her elusiveness and made him wonder what it would take to coax her out of the shell she’d built around herself.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he gathered Red’s reins. Although OMEGA agents exercised considerable discretion in the field, Nate was careful not to mix business with pleasure. He’d learned the hard way it could have disastrous results.
As he pulled Red around, he glanced across a few yards of windswept grass to find Dimitri combing two arthritic fingers through his scraggly beard, his cloudy eyes watching Nate intently.
“I stay, cattle. You ride.” The aged warrior’s chin jerked toward the mounted woman. “With ataman.”
Ataman. Nate chewed on the word as he rode out. It meant “headman,” or so he’d been briefed. Absolute ruler of the host. Although the Karistanis practiced a rough form of democracy based on the old Cossack system of one man, one vote, they left it to their leader’s discretion to call for that vote. Thus their “elected” rulers exercised almost unchallenged authority, and had through the centuries, despite the efforts of various czars and dictators to bend them to their will.
Red’s longer stride closed the distance easily. As Nate drew alongside the new Karistani leader, he found himself wondering how a woman coped with being the absolute leader of a people descended from the fierce, warlike Cossacks…the legendary raiders who had made travel across the vast plains so hazardous that the Russian czars at last gave up all attempts to subdue them and gradually incorporated them into their ranks. The famed horsemen whose cavalry units had formed the backbone of Catherine the Great’s armies. The boisterous warriors who swilled incredible amounts of vodka, performed energetic leg kicks from a low squat, and dazzled visitors and enemies alike with their athletic displays of horsemanship.
Having seen the way Alexandra Jordan handled both the raw-boned gray gelding she rode and that old-fashioned but lethal Enfield rife, Nate didn’t make the mistake of underestimating her physical qualifications for her role. But he had more questions than answers about her ability to lead this minuscule country into the twentieth century. Why had she refused all offers of aid? What was causing those worry lines at the corners of her eyes? And where the hell was that decoder?
Nate had the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to find some answers to those questions, before Maggie arrived in the area. He ought to have the situation pretty well scoped by then. Maybe he’d even get lucky and find the decoder right away, saving Maggie at least a part of the long trip.
He slanted the woman beside him another glance.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t.
Alex ignored the man beside her and kept her eyes on the far horizon.
Damn! As if she didn’t have enough to worry about without some long-legged, slow-talking cowboy from the States charging down out of nowhere, almost scaring the wits out of her with his rodeo stunts! Every time Alex thou
ght about how close she’d come to putting a bullet through him, her heart thudded against her breastbone.
She had to stop jumping at every shadow. Despite the garbled message old Gregor had received a couple days ago over his ancient, wheezing transmitter, there’d been no sign of any raiding party from Balminsk. In two days of hard riding, the patrols she’d led out hadn’t found any trace of them. It was just another rumor, another deliberate scare tactic from that wild-eyed bastard to the east.
The old wolf was trying to keep her off-balance, and he was succeeding. He wanted to goad her into some action, some incident that would shatter the shaky cease-fire between Balminsk and Karistan and give the outside world the excuse it was waiting for to intervene. And once the outside powers came in, they would never leave. Karistan’s centuries-long battle with the Russians had taught them that.
Even her own country, Alex thought bitterly. Even the U.S. Her hands tightened on the reins as she recalled the conditions the State Department representative had laid out as part of the aid package he presented. If she’d agreed to those conditions, which included immediate dismantling of the missiles on Karistan’s border, her tiny country would’ve lost its only bargaining power in the international arena. It would’ve become little more than a satellite, totally dependent on the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy to guarantee its future.
The sick feeling that curled in Alex’s stomach whenever she thought of those missiles returned. Swallowing, she gripped the reins even tighter to keep her hands from trembling. She still couldn’t believe she was responsible for such awesome, destructive power.
Dear God, how had her life changed so dramatically in three short weeks? How had she been transformed overnight from the latest rag queen, as the trade publications had labeled her, to a head of state with absolute powers any dictator might have envied? How was she—?
“This country’s a lot like Wyoming,” the man beside her commented, his deep voice carrying easily over the rhythmic thud of hooves against soft earth. “It’s so big and empty, it makes a man want to rein in and breathe the quiet.”
“It’s quiet now,” Alex replied. But it wouldn’t be for long, she thought, if she didn’t find a way to walk the tightrope stretching before her.
As if reading her mind, the stranger nodded. “I heard about Karistan’s troubles.”
“I’m surprised.” Alex was careful to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Most of the press didn’t consider my grandfather’s struggle for independence front-page material.”
His lips curved. “Well, there wasn’t much coverage in the Wolf Creek Gazette, you understand, but I generally make it a point to do a little scouting before I ride over unfamiliar territory.”
Alex frowned, not at all pleased with the way his crooked grin sent a flutter of awareness along her nerve endings. Good Lord, the last thing she needed right now was a distraction, especially one in the form of a broad-shouldered, lean-hipped man! Particularly one with a gleam in his eyes that told her he knew very well his impact on the opposite sex.
She almost groaned aloud, thinking of the problems his presence was going to generate in a camp whose population consisted primarily of ancient, war-scarred veterans, a handful of children, and a clutch of widows and young women. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about.
“You want to tell me about it?” His deep voice snagged her attention. “Karistan’s struggle for independence, I mean?”
For a crazy moment, Alexandra actually toyed with the idea of opening up, of sharing the staggering burden that was Karistan with someone else. Almost as quickly as the idea arose, she discarded it. The responsibility she carried was hers and hers alone. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t risk sharing anything with a man who was delivering a gift that, despite any claim to the contrary, came with obligations she wasn’t ready to accept.
“No, Mr. Sloan, I don’t care to tell you about it,” she replied after a moment. “It’s not something you need to be concerned with.”
His brown-flecked agate eyes narrowed a bit under the brim of his hat, but he evidently decided not to push the issue.
“Might as well call me Nate,” he offered, in that slow, deliberate drawl that was beginning to rasp on Alex’s taut nerves. “Seeing as how we’re going to be sharing a campfire for a while.”
She gave a curt nod and kneed her horse into a loping trot that effectively cut off all conversation.
Drawing in a slow breath, Cowboy tugged his hat lower on his forehead and set Red to the same pace. Alexandra Jordan was one stiff-necked woman.
He suspected he had his work cut out for him if he was going to have anything significant to report to Maggie when she arrived in the area.
Chapter 3
At that moment, Maggie wasn’t sure if she was ever going to get to her target area.
She dropped a clunky metal suitcase containing her personal gear and a stack of scientific tomes on the second-floor landing of OMEGA’s headquarters and scanned the flickering closed-circuit TV screen overhead. Verifying that the director’s outer office was clear, she palmed the sensor.
“Is he in?” she asked the receptionist breathlessly.
Gray-haired Elizabeth Wells glanced up from the Queen Anne-style cabinet she was locking. Her hands stilled, and a look of uncertainty crossed her usually serene features. “Maggie? Is that you?”
Maggie reached up to whip off glasses as round and thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle. Her spontaneous grin slipped into a grimace as her scraped-back hair tugged against her scalp.
“Yes, Elizabeth. Unfortunately.”
“Good heavens, dear. I doubt if even your own father would recognize you.”
Maggie hitched one hand on a hip in an exaggerated pose. “Amazing what a pair of brogans, a plaid shirt and a plastic pocket pack full of pens can do for a woman’s image, isn’t it?”
“But…but your face! What did you do to it?”
“A slather of bone white makeup, some gray shadow under my eyes, and a heavy hand with an eyebrow pencil.” She waggled thick black brows Groucho Marx would have envied. “Good, huh?”
“Well…” Elizabeth’s worried gaze flitted to the dark blemish of the left side of her jaw.
Maggie fingered the kidney-shaped mark, pleased that it had drawn Elizabeth’s notice. The unsightly blemish should draw everyone else’s attention, as well. Maybe, just maybe, the distraction would give Maggie the half second’s edge that sometimes meant the difference between life and death in the field.
“Don’t worry,” she assured the receptionist. “The guys in Field Dress assured me they didn’t use exactly the same technique as a tattoo. They have some formula that dissolves the ink under my skin when I get back.”
“I hope so, dear,” Elizabeth said faintly.
Maggie clumped toward the hallway leading to the director’s inner office. “Is the boss in? I need to see him right away.”
“You just caught him.” The receptionist pressed the hidden electronic signal that alerted Adam Ridgeway to a visit from an OMEGA operative. “He wanted to be sure you were on your way before he left for the ambassador’s dinner.”
Maggie hurried down the short corridor to the director’s inner office, not the least worried that her dramatically altered appearance might trip one of the lethal devices the security folks euphemistically termed “stoppers.” The pulsing X-ray and infrared sensors hidden behind the wood-paneled walls didn’t rely on anything as unsophisticated as physical identification. Operating at mind-boggling speed, they scanned her body-heat signature, matched it to that in the OMEGA computer, and deactivated the security devices.
Maggie stopped on the threshold to the director’s office, searching the dimly lighted room. She caught sight of Adam’s lean silhouette in front of the tall, darkening windows, and drew in a sharp breath.
Adam Ridgeway in a business suit or expertly tailored blazer had stopped more than one woman in her tracks on D.C.’s busy streets.
In white tie and tails, he was enough to make Maggie’s heart slam sideways against her rib cage and her lungs forget to function.
Damn, she thought as she fought for breath. No man should be allowed to possess such a potent combination of self-assurance and riveting good looks. Not for the first time, she decided that the president couldn’t have chosen a more distinguished special envoy than Adam Ridgeway. In his public persona, at least, he epitomized the wealthy, cultured jet-setter dabbling in politics that most of the world believed him to be.
The dozen or so OMEGA agents he directed, however, could attest to the cool, ruthless mind behind the director’s impenetrable facade. None of them were privy to the full details of Adam’s past activities in service to his country, but they knew enough to trust him with their lives. What was more, he possessed knife-edged instincts, and a legendary discipline during crises.
Only Maggie had been known to shake him out of his rigid control on occasion. She cherished those moments.
Evidently this wasn’t one of them. Adam lifted one dark brow in cool, unruffled inquiry. “A last-minute glitch, Chameleon?”
Folding her arms across her plaid-shirted chest, Maggie peered at him over the rims of the thick glasses. “Didn’t I disconcert you? Even for a moment?”
After a hesitation so slight she was sure she’d imagined it, his mouth curved in a wry smile. “You disconcert me on a regular and frequent basis.”
She would’ve loved to explore that interesting remark, but a driver was waiting for her downstairs. “Uh, Adam, I have a small problem. The sitter I had lined up for Terence just backed out. Would you keep him while I’m gone?”
“No.”
The flat, unequivocal refusal didn’t surprise her. “Adam…”
“Save your breath, Maggie. I will not keep that monster from hell. In fact, if he ever crosses my path again, I’ll likely strangle him with my bare hands.”
She tugged off the glasses. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes! What happened last time was as much your fault as his. You shouldn’t have left that rare edition on your desk. I told you he likes to eat paper.”
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