Soldier of Fortune

by Diana Palmer

  CHAPTER ONE

  GABBY WAS WORRIED about J.D. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on exactly. He still roared around the office, slamming things down on his desk when he couldn't find notes or reminders he'd scribbled on envelopes or old business cards. He glared at Gabby when she didn't bring his coffee on the stroke of nine o'clock. And there were the usual missing files, for which she was to blame of course, and the incessant phone calls that interrupted his concentration. There was still the heavy scowl on his broad face, and the angry glitter in his brown eyes. But that morning he'd been pacing around his office, smoking like a furnace. And that was unusual. Because J.D. had given up smoking years before, even before she had come to work for the law firm of Brettman and Dice.

  She still couldn't figure out what had set him off. She'd put a long-distance call through to him earlier, one that sounded like it came from overseas. The caller had sounded suspiciously like Roberto, his sister Martina's husband, from Sicily. Soon afterward, there had been a flurry of outgoing calls. Now it was silent, except for the soft sounds the computer made as Gabby finished the last letter J.D. had dictated.

  She propped her chin on her hands and stared at the door with curious green eyes. Her long, dark hair was piled high on her head, to keep it out of her way when she worked, and loose strands of it curled softly around her face, giving her an even more elfin look than usual. She was wearing a green dress that flattered her graceful curves. But J.D. wouldn't notice her if she walked through the office naked. He'd said when he hired her that he'd robbed the cradle. And he hadn't smiled when he said it. Although she was twenty-three now, he still made the most frustrating remarks about her extreme youth. She wondered wickedly what J.D. would say if she applied for Medicare in his name. Nobody knew how old he was. Probably somewhere around forty; those hard lines in his face hadn't come from nowhere.

  He was one of the most famous criminal lawyers in Chicago. He made waves. He ground up hostile witnesses like so much sausage meat. But before his entry into the profession five years earlier, nothing was known about him. He'd worked as a laborer by day and attended law school by night. He'd worked his way up the ladder quickly and efficiently with the help of a devastating intelligence that seemed to feed on challenge.

  He had no family except for a married sister in Palermo, Sicily, and no close friends. He allowed no one to really know him. Not his associate Richard Dice, not Gabby. He lived alone and mostly worked alone, except for the few times when he needed some information that only a woman could get, or when he had to have Gabby along as a cover. She'd gone with him to meet accused killers in warehouses at midnight and down to the waterfront in the wee hours of the morning to meet a ship carrying a potential witness.

  It was an exciting life, and thank God her mother back in Lytle, Texas, didn't know exactly how exciting it was. Gabby had come to Chicago when she was twenty; she'd had to fight for days to get her mother to agree to the wild idea, to let her work for a distant cousin. The distant cousin had died quite suddenly and, simultaneously, J.D. had advertised for an executive secretary. When she applied, it had taken J.D. only five minutes to hire her. That had been two years earlier, and she'd never regretted the impulse that had led her to his office.

  Just working for him was something of a feather in Gabby's cap. The other secretaries in the building were forever pumping her for information about her attractive and famous boss. But Gabby was as secretive as he was. It was why she'd lasted so long as his secretary. He trusted her as he trusted no one else.

  She was a paralegal now, having taken night courses at a local college to earn the title. She did far more than just type letters and run off copies on the copier. The office had added a computer system. She ran that, and did legwork for her boss, and frequently traveled with him when the job warranted it.

  While she was brooding, the door opened suddenly. J.D. came through it like a locomotive, so vibrant and superbly masculine that she imagined most men would step aside for him out of pure instinct. His partner Richard Dice was on his heels, raging as he followed.

  "Will you be reasonable, J.D.!" the younger man argued, his lean hands waving wildly, his red hair almost

  standing on end around his thin face. "It's a job for the police! What can you do?"

  J.D. didn't even look at him. He paused at Gabby's desk, an expression on his face that she'd never seen before. Involuntarily, she studied the broad face with its olive complexion and deep-set eyes. He had the thickest, blackest eyelashes she'd ever seen. His hair was just as thick and had deep waves in it, threaded with pure silver. It was the faint scars on his face that aged him, but she'd never quite had the bravado to ask where and how he'd gotten them. It must have been some kind of man who put them there. J.D. was built like a tank.

  "Pack a bag," he told Gabby, in a tone too black to invite questions. "Be back here in an hour. Is your passport in order?"

  She blinked. Even for J.D., this was fast shuffling. "Uh, yes...."

  "Bring lightweight things, it'll be hot where we're going. Lots of jeans and loose shirts, a sweater, some boots, and a lot of socks." He continued nonstop. "Bring that third-class radio license you hold. Aren't you kin to someone at the State Department? That might come in handy."

  Her mind was whirling. "J.D., what's going...?" she began.

  "You can't do this," Dick was continuing doggedly, and J.D. was just ignoring him.

  "Dick, you'll have to handle my case load until I get back," he pressed on in a voice that sounded like thunder rumbling. "Get Charlie Bass to help you if you run into any snags. I don't know exactly when we' 11 be back."

  "J.D., will you listen?"

  "I've got to pack a few things," J.D. said curtly. "Call the agency, Gabby, and get Dick a temporary secretary. And be back here in exactly one hour."

  The door slammed behind him. Dick cursed roundly and rammed his hands into his pockets.

  "What," Gabby asked, "is going on? Will somebody please tell me where I'm going with my passport? Do I have a choice?"

  "Slow down and I'll tell you what little I know." Dick sighed angrily. He perched himself on her desk. "You know that J.D.'s sister is married to that Italian businessman who made a fortune in shipping and lives in Palermo, Sicily?"

  She nodded.

  "And you know that kidnapping is becoming a fast method of funding for revolutionary groups?" he continued.

  She felt herself going pale. "They got his brother-in-law?"

  "No. They got his sister when she went alone on a shopping trip to Rome."

  She caught her breath. "Martina? But she's the only family he has!"

  "I know that. They're asking for five million dollars, and Roberto can't scrape it up. He's frantic. They told him they'd kill her if he involved the authorities."

  "And J.D. is going to Italy to save her?"

  "However did you guess?" Dick grumbled. "In his usual calm, sensible way, he is moving headfirst into the china shop."

  "To Italy? With me?" She stared at him. "Why am I going?"

  "Ask him. I only work here."

  She sighed irritably as she rose to her feet. "Someday I'm going to get a sensible job, you wait and see if I don't," she said, her eyes glittering with frustration. "I was going to eat lunch at McDonald's and leave early so I could take in that new science-fiction movie at the Grand. And instead I'm being bustled off to Italy.. .to do what, exactly?" she added with a frown. "Surely to goodness, he isn't going to interfere with the Italian authorities?"

  "Martina is his sister," Dick reminded her. "He never talks about it, but they had a rough upbringing from what I can gather, and they're especially close. J.D. would mow down an army to save her."

  "But he's a lawyer," she protested. "What i
s he going to do?"

  "Beats me, honey." Dick sighed.

  "Here we go again," she muttered as she cleared her desk and got her purse out of the drawer. "Last time he did this, we were off to Miami to meet a suspected mob informer in an abandoned warehouse at two o'clock in the morning. We actually got shot at!" She shuddered. "I didn't dare tell my mama what was going on. Speaking of my mama, what am I supposed to tell her?"

  "Tell her you're going on a holiday with the boss." He grinned. "She'll be thrilled."

  She glared at him. "The boss doesn't take holidays. He takes chances."

  "You could quit," he suggested.

  "Quit!" she exclaimed. "Who said anything about quitting? Can you see me working for a normal attorney? Typing boring briefs and deeds and divorce petitions all day? Bite your tongue!"

  "Then may I suggest that you call James Bond," he said, "and ask if he has any of those exploding matches or nuclear warhead toothpicks he can spare."

  She gave him a hard glare. "Do you speak any Spanish?"

  "Well, no," he said, puzzled.

  She rattled off a few explicit phrases in the lilting tongue her father's foreman had used with the ranch hands back during her childhood. Then, with a curtsy, she walked out the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GABBY HAD SEEN J.D. in a lot of different moods, but none of them could hold a candle to the one he was in now. He sat beside her as stiff as a board on the jet, barely aware of the cup of black coffee he held precariously in one big hand.

  Worst of all was the fact that she couldn't think of anything to say. J.D. wasn't the kind of man you offered sympathy to. But it was hard just to sit and watch him brood without talking at all. She'd rarely heard him speak of his sister Martina, but the tenderness with which he described her had said enough. If he loved any human being on earth, it was Martina.

  "Boss..." she began uneasily.

  He blinked, glancing toward her. "Well?"

  She avoided that level gaze. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Her long, slender fingers fidgeted with the skirt of the white suit she was wearing. "I know how hard it must be for you. There's just not a lot that people can do in these kinds of situations."

  A peculiar smile touched his hard features for a moment. He swallowed a sip of coffee. "Think not?" he asked dryly.

  "You aren't serious about not contacting the authorities?”

  she persisted. "After all, they've got those special teams now, and they even rescued that one kidnap victim..."

  He glanced down at her. The look stopped her in mid-sentence. "That was a political kidnapping. This isn't. As for those special teams, Darwin, they're not infallible. I can't take risks with Martina's life."

  "No," she said. She stared at his hands. They were so gracefully masculine, the fingers long and tapered and as dark olive as his face, with fiat nails and a sprinkling of hair, like that curling around the watch on his wrist. He had powerful hands.

  "You aren't afraid, are you?" he asked.

  She glanced up. "Well, sort of," she confessed. "I don't really know where we're going, do I?"

  "You should be used to that by now," he reminded her dryly.

  She laughed. "I suppose so. We've had some adventures in the past two years."

  He pulled out a cheroot and lit it, staring at her narrowly over the flame. "Why aren't you married?" he asked suddenly.

  The question startled her. She searched for the right words. "I'm not sure," she said. "I suppose I just haven't bothered to get involved with anyone. Until four years ago, I was living in a small town in Texas. Then I came up here to work for a cousin, he died, you needed a secretary.. ." She laughed softly. "With all due respect, Mr. Brettman, you're kind of a never-ending job, if you know what I mean. It just isn't a nine-to-five thing."

  "About which," he observed, "you've never once complained."

  "Who could complain?" she burst out. "I've been around the country and halfway across the world, I get to meet gangsters, I've been shot at...!"

  He chuckled softly. "That's some job description."

  "The other secretaries in the building are green, simply green, with envy," she replied smugly.

  "You aren't a secretary. You're a paralegal. In fact," he added, puffing on his cheroot thoughtfully, "I've thought about sending you to law school. You've got a lot of potential."

  "Not me," she said. "I could never get up in front of a courtroom full of people and grill witnesses like you do. Or manage such oration in a summing up."

  "You could still practice law," he reminded her. "Corporate law, if you like. Or deal in estates and partnerships. Divorces. Land transfers. There are many areas of law that don't require oratory."

  "I'm not sure enough that it's what I want to do with the rest of my life," she said.

  He lifted his chin. "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-three."

  He shook his head, studying the chignon, the glasses she used for close reading and now had perched on top of her head, the stylish white linen suit she was wearing, the length of her slender legs. "You don't look it." "In about twenty years could you repeat that?" she asked. "By then I'll probably appreciate it."

  "What do you want to be?" he asked, persisting as he leaned back in the seat. His vested gray silk suit emphasized the sheer size of him. He was so close she could even feel the warmth of his body, and she found it oddly disturbing.

  "Oh, I don't know," she murmured, glancing out the window at the clouds. "A secret agent, maybe. A daring industrial spy. A flagpole sitter." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Of course, those jobs would seem very dull after working for you, Boss. And do I ever get to know where we're going?"

  "To Italy, of course," he replied.

  "Yes, sir, I know that. Where in Italy?"

  "Aren't you curious, though?" he mused, lifting one shaggy eyebrow. "We're going to Rome. To rescue my sister."

  "Yes, sir, of course we are," she said. It was better to agree with maniacs, she told herself. He'd finally snapped. It was even predictable, considering the way he'd been pushing himself.

  "Humoring me, Miss Darwin?" he asked. He leaned deliberately past her to crush out his cheroot, and his face was so close that she could smell the spicy cologne he wore, feel the warm, smoky scent of his breath. As his fingers left the ashtray, he turned his head.

  That look caused her the wildest shock she'd ever felt. It was like an earth tremor that worked its way from her eyes to the tips of her toes and made them want to curl up. She hadn't realized how vulnerable she was with him until her heart started racing and her breath strangled in her throat.

  "I hesitated about taking you with me," he said quietly. "I'd rather have left you behind. But there was no one else I could trust, and this is a very delicate situation." She tried to act normally. "You do realize that what you're thinking about could get her killed?"

  "Yes," he said simply. "But not to act could get her

  killed quicker. You know what usually happens in these cases, don't you?"

  "Yes, I do," she admitted. Her gaze moved down to his broad mouth with its lips that seemed sculpted from stone and back up again to his dark eyes. He looked different so close up.

  "I'm doing what I think is best," he said. His fingers nudged a wisp of hair back into place at her neck, and she felt trembly all over from the touch. "We're not sure that the kidnappers still have Martina in Italy. Roberto thinks he knows one of them—the son of an acquaintance, who also happens to own land in Central America. I don't have to tell you what a hell of a mess this could turn into if they take Martina there, do I?"

  She felt weak all over. "But how are they dealing with Roberto?"

  "One of the group, and there is a group, is still in Italy, to arrange the handling of the money," he answered. He let his eyes fall to the jacket of her suit, and he studied it absently with disturbing concentration. "We may do some traveling before this is all over." "But first we're going to Italy," she murmured dazedly. "Yes. To meet some old fri
ends of mine," he said, his chiseled mouth smiling faintly. "They owe me a favor from years past. I'm calling in the debt."

  "We're taking a team?" she asked, eyebrows shooting up. It was getting more exciting by the minute.

  "My, how your eyes light up when you speak of working with a team, Miss Darwin," he mused.

  "It's so gung ho," she replied self-consciously. "Kind of like that program I watch on TV every week, about the group that goes around the world fighting evil?"

  "The Soldiers of Fortune?" he asked.

  "The very one." She grinned. "I never miss a single episode."

  "In real life, Miss Darwin," he reminded her, "it's a brutal, dangerous occupation. And most mercenaries don't make it to any ripe old age. They either get killed or wind up in some foreign prison. Their lives are overromanticized."

  She glowered at him. "And what would you know about it, Mr. Criminal Attorney?" she challenged.

  "Oh, I have a friend who used to sell his services abroad," he replied as he sat back in his seat. "He could tell you some hair-raising stories about life on the run."

  "You know a real ex-merc?" she asked, eyes widening. She sat straight up in her seat. "Would he talk to me?"

  He shook his head. "Darwin." He sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

  "It's your fault. You corrupted me. I used to lead a dull life and never even knew it. Would he?"

  "I suppose he would." His dark eyes wandered slowly over her. "You might not like what you found out."

  "I'll take my chances, thanks. He, uh, wouldn't be one of the old friends you're meeting in Rome?" she asked.

  "That would be telling. Fasten your seat belt, Darwin, we're approaching the airport now."

  Her eyes lingered on his dark, unfathomable face as she complied with the curt order. "Mr. Brettman, why did you bring me along?" she asked softly.

  "You're my cover, honey," he said, and smiled sideways at her. "We're lovers off on a holiday."