Code Name: Fiancée

by Susan Vaughan

  She stared at him with her mouth slack. She had left the city, as he said, to return to her post in Baltimore. Her mind and her heart groped at his words, and her stomach lurched at the possibility that she’d been wrong all along. But this major shift in belief wouldn’t wrap around her mind.

  “I know,” he continued, “you aren’t sure if you can trust me. God knows I don’t trust myself. I told myself not to trust you, an undercover operative, experienced in deception. Other women have wanted me for my position, money, influence. Not you. When you defended my actions to Byrne, my doubts fell away.”

  She ought to say, “I am an undercover operative. You shouldn’t trust me,” but the words stuck in her throat. Guilt sat heavily in her stomach, a tight, slick ball of omissions, lies and dissembling.

  “I’ve thrown a lot at you.” He clicked off the bedside lamp and tucked her close beside him. “Sleep on it, and we’ll work things out together. After tomorrow.”

  Vanessa lay in the curve of Nick’s arms, her back sheltered against his front. The ache of looming loss constricted her chest. She wanted to believe he wouldn’t hate her when he learned she’d been spying on him. With all her heart, she wanted to believe he truly cared for her.

  Cared, lusted for, even liked, but not the other L word.

  She wasn’t the sophisticated partner a worldly man like Nick needed. The mission had thrown them together.

  She’d tried to prove she could stay detached undercover, but instead had fallen into a bottomless trap of involvement. Her loss of objectivity could’ve risked the mission because of her foolish, soft heart.

  Softie or not, she had her orders.

  As close as she was to his naked form, she could feel Nick’s regular heartbeat and even breathing. He was asleep. For the past few nights, the nightmare hadn’t tormented him. She counted on his sleeping as deeply and peacefully tonight.

  I told myself not to trust you.

  Tears burned again, and she swiped them away. He’d been right not to trust her. Tomorrow after the meeting with Husam Al-Din or his agent, she’d confess to him her spying on him.

  Then he’d hate her. He’d never want to see her again.

  Pain skewered her heart as she slid out of the silk sheets.

  Chapter 17

  Nick awoke to find Vanessa gone from his bed. When he didn’t hear her in the bathroom or see a light, anxiety prickled the skin on his nape.

  Where the hell was she? Leaving in the middle of the night wasn’t like her. Perhaps she was thirsty and had gone downstairs for a drink.

  Or perhaps the terrorists had set up tomorrow as a decoy and they’d come back to the house for her. Or the money. Or both.

  Alarms buzzed in his head and skittered down his spine. He had no pistol, no knife. Only his wits and rusty combat skills.

  The security monitor blinked green at him. He pushed buttons. Everything seemed in order. The system was working. No intruders.

  What the hell?

  He rolled out of bed and into sweatpants and sneakers. He made quick work of checking the other bedrooms and baths.

  No Vanessa.

  He listened for a moment at the railing. Nothing. Only the normal creaks and shifts of an old house.

  Adrenaline surging in his veins, he crept downstairs.

  The faint ribbon of light beneath the library door stopped him in his tracks. What would Vanessa be doing in there? Or had the terrorists somehow bypassed surveillance and the security system?

  He listened at the door, but heard only the whispery slide of papers. Then a faint hum. His laptop?

  Crouched over in combat readiness, he inched the door-knob clockwise and pushed the door open.

  Vanessa sat at the mahogany desk in front of his open laptop. The desk lamp’s glow shimmered like red honey in the mass of hair falling on her shoulders and in her face. She wore his discarded T-shirt.

  And she was leafing through papers from his briefcase.

  Pain and fury ripped up from his belly to fill his chest and clutch at his throat.

  He stalked forward. “So this is how you show your damn trust in me?”

  She shot to her feet. Her green eyes—her traitorous green eyes—filled with guilty panic. Her freckles stood out in stark relief as if painted. “Oh, God, Nick! It’s not what it looks like. I…I had to—”

  “Had to spy on me? ATSA orders, of course. And were you also ordered to ply me with sex? To make sure I went along with their schemes? That sure as hell changes the meaning of professional.”

  Realizing she was no better than Danielle or the other society women cut deep. She didn’t want him for himself but for ATSA’s security. Her perky, open act had sucked him in, softened him up, had even had him wanting the family and home he’d never expected to have.

  He’d given her his trust, and she’d flipped it on him and stabbed him in the heart with it. The betrayal drummed in his head and clogged his lungs.

  “No! Never. How could you say such things? How could you think…?” She laid the papers on the desk. “You have to look at these. I found—”

  “You found nothing I want to see. Nothing but the end. Put those down and get out.” He hardly recognized his voice, flat and cold as winter.

  She came around the desk, stumbled and caught her balance on the edge. Anguish and uncertainty glittered in her eyes, but he steeled himself against the show of false emotion.

  “I did trust you. I do,” she said. “But I had no choice. The director and Byrne were afraid you might actually pay off New Dawn. I was going to tell you everything tomorrow.”

  Anger twisted his mouth around his reply. “Confess? Vanessa the Confessor. That’s a laugh. I’ve saved you the trouble. We have to go to Arlington together tomorrow. Keep away from me until then.”

  She pressed her hands to her stomach and brushed past him to the door.

  Ignoring her trembling mouth and ashen face, he turned aside.

  Vanessa trudged up the stairway with the weight of Nick’s rejection crushing her nearly double. His painful accusations roiled in her stomach and suffocated her. At the top, she avoided looking in the direction of the master bedroom and stumbled into her old room. She crawled into the four-poster and, shivering, wrapped herself in a cocoon of covers. She’d never be warm again.

  He was right that she’d lied to him, that she’d spied on him. And, she supposed, right to believe all of that meant she didn’t trust him. He was wrong about the sex. But he wouldn’t have believed her if she’d professed her love for him.

  Her eyes ached from the tears flowing into her pillow. Oh, God, she’d hurt him so. He’d begun to heal and find his pride and honor again, but she’d torn open his wounds and left him bleeding. It seemed neither his brother’s crimes nor his fiancée’s desertion had wounded him this deeply.

  She saw the implication of that realization with scalding clarity.

  He loved her, too.

  And now it was too late. Her spying had turned his love to hate.

  All the reasons she’d told herself anything long-lasting between them wouldn’t work came back to punch her in the belly. Maybe he did want her for herself after all, but the other reasons were still valid. He was a wealthy CEO, an international businessman who fit into a world she never could. And now he’d never trust her again.

  Her heart throbbed, then fell like a lump of coal low in her chest.

  Tomorrow they had to work together. From somewhere inside her, she had to find the courage to work beside him. To finish their mission.

  And then to walk away.

  “You don’t seem with it this morning, Wade,” J. T. McNair said. He carried the laptop case stuffed with money and paper. “You sure you’re up for this meet?”

  They walked to the garage, where Nick waited for the drive to Arlington. Vanessa glanced at her watch. Four o’clock exactly. Forty-five minutes before the meeting with the New Dawn leader or his agent.

  She knew she looked like hell. Her eyes were red and puffy
to match her hair. She’d had no sleep. Caffeine and adrenaline had to power her through. “I’m ready. Let’s roll up this slime.”

  For the first time in weeks, she carried a weapon, the S&W 640 in the ankle holster concealed by her navy pantsuit. Practical brogans, not sexy slingbacks, were on her feet. Her hair hid the tiny mike in her ear, and she had a cell phone for emergencies. She felt herself. Less vulnerable.

  Except to one man.

  As they entered the garage, Nick looked up from the newspaper he was holding.

  On the surface, he looked better than she must. Handsome and potently male in his charcoal-colored wool suit and white turtleneck. Harder and more unreachable than she’d seen him, with an edge of pain that scraped her heart. Determination defined eyes as black and deep as the inside of a cave. His jaw could cut glass.

  “I’m gonna miss driving this car today.” A white grin flashed in McNair’s dark face. He stashed his burden in the trunk. The case as well as the car had been fitted with tracking bugs. “You up on the drill?”

  Nick’s gaze skipping over her, he skewered the officer with a menacing stare. “ATSA cars stationed along the route to make sure we’re not ambushed. Arrive at the cemetery ten minutes ahead of the meet. Leave the car in visitor parking and take Roosevelt Drive directly to the Tomb of the Unknowns and wait to be contacted. As soon as I’m approached, your people will move in.” There was a pregnant pause. “Satisfied?”

  “You wearing a wire? Mike work okay?”

  “Affirmative. Checked everything out earlier. Let’s go.” Nick sauntered around to the driver’s side as if going to a picnic.

  Vanessa slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. If for no other reason, she needed clamping down to keep her somersaulting nerves in check.

  Their erstwhile driver spoke into the headset he wore. “Fiancé’s headed out.” The code name made Vanessa wince.

  McNair bent to speak to her. “I’ll be here at the command post. Byrne’s already in place at Arlington. Harris heads your escort, in one of the cars en route.”

  “Got it.” She pressed the button to roll up the window.

  In silence Nick and she drove into D.C. on Connecticut Avenue. He steered the powerful automobile along the mapped-out route and took no apparent notice of her presence. Tension rode between them, a thick wall more impenetrable than the stones Ray would slather with mortar on Monday.

  As they proceeded around Tenley Circle to continue on Wisconsin Avenue, she noted the ATSA vehicles stationed at intervals, but didn’t acknowledge them. The sunny Sunday offered barely any traffic to impede their progress. They left their escort behind as they crossed into Virginia and onto the George Washington Parkway. To Vanessa, the short drive had lasted eons, but twenty minutes put them ahead of schedule.

  “Nick, I know you’re angry with me, but we have to talk to each other for this op to work.” Heart racing, she clenched her hands in her lap. They were icy beneath a film of sweat.

  She saw his jaw tighten. He expelled a breath as though from a burst balloon. He jerked a nod at the dashboard clock. “We’re early. What do you suggest?”

  The tension wall seemed to thin and waver. She allowed herself to relax a bit. “Pull up ahead. We can wait awhile.”

  The Mercedes rolled to a stop in the small rest stop she indicated. No one occupied the five parking places or the lone picnic table.

  “You’re right,” he said, still gripping the wheel as if it might fly away, “We have to set aside our differences. That’s only part of what’s tying me in knots.”

  “If you still think something smells of trap in this arrangement, why go through with it?”

  “Not trap. Al-Din wants that money, and there’s no reason to harm either of us if he thinks he has it.”

  “Then what?”

  “They chose the day and time for more reason than dusk. Byrne has found nothing to suggest that, but my gut warns otherwise. I’d like to be wrong. That’s another reason to go ahead.” He reached for the Washington Post he’d tossed to the back seat. Multiple sections made the Sunday edition thicker than a New York deli sandwich. “I was looking in here for what else might be scheduled for today.” He began leafing through a section, skimming headlines.

  Vanessa trusted his instincts, even if he didn’t. Working together felt wonderful. Temporary, she reminded herself. “Give me a couple of sections. I can search, too.”

  Nick watched her over his pages as she scanned the features. Last night had exacted a heavy toll on her. She must not’ve slept any more than he had. He’d tried to ignore the effect of his fury, but the image of her, pale and shaking, had haunted the rest of his night.

  Her translucent skin held a pallor as white as the newsprint she held, and exhaustion smudged violet beneath her eyes. The sight of her, brittle and hurt but undaunted, speared him with remorse.

  But they had to get through this damned meet first before he could fix the damage. He had to put himself in the zone and stay focused until the danger passed.

  As he turned a page in the Capitol news section, the photo of a familiar building caught his attention. He read the caption and the accompanying story with mounting agitation. “I found it.”

  “What? We don’t have much time.”

  The dashboard clock read four-thirty.

  He shoved the paper between them so she could read it. “Remember at the Hirshhorn, the Yamari sculpture?”

  She nodded, peering at the page. “The pedestal was covered with a tarp when we were there.” Her eyes widened, and she gripped the paper’s edge as what she read sank in. “Ye gods, the dedication ceremony’s today. At exactly five!”

  “The Yamari president will take part—is probably already there—along with the ambassador and several U.S. diplomats including the U.S. Secretary of State.”

  She looked up from the story. He could see the implications clicking in her intuitive mind. “Our money exchange is a decoy to distract ATSA. They must be on to us. New Dawn’s real objective is that gathering.”

  “The money meet may be legit. Or they sent an expendable agent for ATSA to grab.” He tapped the photo of the draped sculpture with the Hirshhorn Museum in the background for emphasis. “I’m betting the new Yamari democracy is their real target. Not the U.S. president on Veterans Day, but the new Yamari president today.”

  “Two days before Veterans Day. The ceremony’ll have only the normal Diplomatic Security detail.” The State Department provided security for foreign diplomats.

  The knots in his shoulders eased at her acceptance. “So you buy my logic?”

  “Your logic is flawless given the timing of both events. No way it’s coincidence.” She straightened in the bucket seat and dug her cell phone from her jacket pocket. “If they kill Ambassador Khalil as well, Husam Al-Din and New Dawn could carry out a coup with little opposition.”

  Nick waited as she hit speed dial. She reached the command post in seconds and explained their discovery. Moments later, she disconnected.

  “What?”

  Vanessa bit her lip. “McNair alerted Byrne and Harris. In case we’re wrong, Byrne will continue to stake out the cemetery. Harris and the escort are on the way to the Mall. Capitol Police and Diplomatic Security will evacuate the Hirshhorn ceremony site.”

  Nick turned the key, and the engine purred to life. “What about us?”

  Her pulse jumped, then slowed. He didn’t mean us in that way. “We’re to drive around for a while, shake any tails, then return to Chevy Chase. Byrne doesn’t like the feel of Arlington, no matter what else happens.”

  From the furrows on her brow, she didn’t like her orders any more than he did. Had his suspicions screwed up any chance they had of snaring Al-Din and stopping New Dawn? Or did his hunch hit a bull’s-eye? He had to know.

  “How far are we from the Hirshhorn?” He pressed the accelerator and rolled to the Parkway entrance.

  He waited as she studied his face. Then her shoulders slumped. “We can’t. Our New
Dawn tail would know ATSA was on to their plot.”

  He slapped the steering wheel in frustration. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Dammit, I need to know.”

  Her approving smile ratcheted up his confidence. “Your hunch has to be right. There are no coincidences. Simon or Gabe Harris will let us know.”

  “Okay. Our not going to Arlington might abort the money meet, but that can’t be helped.” The car’s quick response soothed his nerves as he pulled into Parkway traffic. Too long since he’d driven his own car.

  He drove along the winding road as Vanessa used the map to guide him in taking exits and reversing direction. They had just detoured for the third time when her cell phone jangled.

  From her side of the conversation, Nick could tell it was Simon Byrne. She listened intently to his sit rep.

  When she disconnected, she said, “He’s on his way to the Mall. Something’s going down at the Hirshhorn. They evacuated the diplomats already. He wouldn’t say anything more.”

  Nick rolled his shoulders, tension drawing his muscles taut. “Did anyone show up at Arlington?”

  “Just as you figured, Al-Din sent a close advisor. ATSA has him at HQ now. The general himself is grilling him.”

  “Not Husam Al-Din after all.” No surprise. The terrorist leader was no fool. “Who is he? Does Byrne know his name?”

  “And his voice. So do you. Abdul Rashid was your phone buddy. The shop employee Alfieris identified him as his contact.”

  “What else?” Nick said, hearing something in her tone.

  “Rashid works for the Yamari prince as his secretary. Officers are on their way to talk to Prince Amir.”

  The possibility of Prince Smarmy’s complicity in this affair should please Nick, but he felt no satisfaction. Only a tight knot in his belly about what was going down at the Mall. Had anything happened? Was this all a monumental waste of time? His heartbeat clattered. But all he could do was drive. And wait.

  Vanessa said, “I still see familiar headlights behind us. Take this turn. We’ll shake him before we head home.”

  “Husam Al-Din might call since he didn’t get his money.”