The Agent's Proposition

by Stone, Lyn

  “Where?” she asked. “You’re not planning to drive anywhere, are you?” She glanced pointedly at the discarded beer bottle. “You’ve been drinking.”

  “Half a beer doesn’t affect me.” He beckoned her to his side of the deck and lifted her onto the dock. She yelped a little when he almost dropped her on purpose.

  “I’m driving!” she declared when he joined her.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He led the way up to the parking lot and waited for her as she paid her fare and sent the waiting cab on its way back to town. When she rejoined him, he ushered her into the café and hailed Bobby Ray, who was sitting at the bar, sucking down a draft. “Hey, take over for me for a couple of weeks, will you?”

  “Yeah, sure, no problem,” Bobby Ray muttered.

  Cameron tossed him the keys to the boat. “Hire a mate. Don’t take her out by yourself. Tomorrow’s still open. Take care of the Duck for me, or I’ll wring your skinny neck.”

  Bobby Ray nodded and pocketed the keys. He never said much. Clients probably didn’t enjoy his company, but he was careful on the water and damn good at finding fish.

  “Are you sure you can trust him?” she asked as they were leaving the café. “He looks sort of…disreputable.”

  He did at that. Scrawny, dressed like a bum, rarely shaved, missing a few teeth. But he was a good man. Cameron inclined his head and took her arm to guide the little agent to his car. “We’re a disreputable lot, and that’s a fact, ma’am, but we look out for each other. And I have really good insurance.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “It’s a Southern thing, sign of respect.”

  “You don’t know me. How do you know I deserve respect?” she snapped.

  “Call me an optimist.” He stopped beside the Chevy, opened the passenger door and got in. The window was already down, so he reached out and handed her the key. “Here you go.”

  She took the key ring and stared at it, frowning.

  “So, you driving or what?” he asked, prompting her to get a move on. If they had a short fuse on this like she said, they needed to get busy.

  She hurried around the rust-spotted hood and got in. After a cursory assessment of the interior, she remarked, “There aren’t any seat belts.”

  “Or air-conditioning. She’s an old car. We have to go only about two miles, though. You’ll be safe enough.”

  She stuck the key in the ignition and twisted it. Cameron smiled at the deafening rumble. Who needed a muffler to go two miles? He rarely drove anywhere but to the house and back.

  “Hit the main drag and hang a right.”

  There were no more comments about his ride, and he gave her points for that. He had bought the clunker from Bobby Ray for a couple of hundred when the boy had needed money.

  “Are we going to your house?” she asked, shifting gears rather expertly.

  “Yep. Turn right here. Third house on the left.” He pointed to a small clapboard cottage with blue shutters.

  “Cute,” Bradshaw commented as she parked in the shell-scattered driveway. “I’ll just wait in the car.”

  “Come on in. You know you’re curious.” He shot her a daring grin. As long as he was committed to doing this, he might as well make up his mind to enjoy it.

  Without further argument, she got out of the car and followed him inside.

  “Make yourself comfortable while I pack.”

  “All right,” she said, perching on the edge of the old sofa, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped. She surveyed the room with a critical eye. “Is this where you grew up?”

  “Nope. Savannah. This was my granddaddy’s place. Now mine.”

  “Does your family still live in Savannah?”

  “Yeah. If you want something cold to drink, there’s tea in the fridge. Help yourself.” He left her there.

  “So this is your retirement home?” she called out from the living room.

  “I don’t have a retirement,” he snapped, wishing the bitter words back the instant they were out.

  “That could change if this works out. You could move back to the D.C. area.”

  He didn’t answer, because he didn’t know what to say. Pride wouldn’t let him admit to her that he wished he could get his old life back, square things with his superiors and regain his father’s respect. Until she made the offer, he hadn’t realized how desperately he wanted that. Yeah, he would go and he would succeed this time no matter what it took.

  Half the country could suffer a power outage if he didn’t. A shutdown across the power grid could cause deaths and seriously impact critical infrastructures. The economy, in rough shape now, would tank completely. Clearing his name meant a lot to him, all right. And, of course, there was little Agent Bradshaw, who might run into trouble and get herself hurt or worse if he refused.

  Enough analyzing. He had made a decision and that was that. He had never been one for second-guessing himself. Fully committed was the only way he knew to approach things. Full steam ahead.

  Packing was simple enough. She had said the source of this threat was not in country, so he ought to prepare for any contingency. He included his tux and accoutrements, his best suit and the expensive casual things he hadn’t used since his last undercover gig in London. He added the forbidden laptop. Had they really thought he’d abide by that directive?

  On the off chance that Bradshaw wasn’t providing equipment for him, he tossed in a pack of disposable wrist restraints, a penlight, his knife and his Kevlar vest. The Glock went in the bag next, along with his .38 caliber backup.

  He didn’t bother to change clothes, since she was in such a hurry. So was he, now that he’d agreed to do this.

  She was sipping a glass of tea without ice when he reentered the living room. “Come on. Make it quick.”

  “You’re in a rush all of a sudden,” she said as they walked to the car.

  “Might as well get this show on the road. By the way, where are we going?” he asked.

  “France. The Riviera.”

  “That covers a good bit of ground.”

  “Saint Tropez. Are you familiar with it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Interesting beaches,” he replied with a suggestive smile, knowing full well she’d start picturing all the sunbathers nude. Some of them would be, maybe most of them. How would Miss Prim and Proper react to that reality? He had to admit he wouldn’t mind seeing her try to blend in with the locals on one of those beaches.

  She seemed a little too “by the book” to be working for such an offbeat agency. The bunch at SEXTANT were supposed to have psychic leanings, at least according to the scuttlebutt at the Company. The agents had joked about it.

  Cameron hadn’t joked. He had been raised in Savannah, where psychics lived on every corner and were nothing to laugh at. He was no fortune-teller or mind reader, but he had experienced a few premonitions himself, so he didn’t discount things of that nature. The government had been implementing special programs exploring psychic phenomena for decades. Maybe they had come up with something useful, after all.

  However, he figured if Bradshaw were able to read his mind, she wouldn’t have had to ask so many questions.

  Also, she wouldn’t be so worried about whether she could trust him to do what he’d agreed to do. She would also know the Cochran agenda stretched past protecting the power grid and establishing his innocence. Now that he’d made the decision to take this on, his former ultimate goal had returned with renewed determination.

  Cameron wanted the guy he had almost caught, but that was just the first step. Somebody else was calling the shots. He was sure of it. An insider, an American, a traitor.

  He looked at Agent Bradshaw more objectively than he had before and tried to judge how she might react to a life-threatening situation. She must be pretty well trained and fairly intelligent to get where she was in the business, but she looked so damned innocent and untried.

  He hoped she would be able to handle what was coming, because trai
tors, when cornered, could potentially prove lethal. They had nothing left to lose by fighting to the death.

  Then again, now that he thought about it, neither did he.

  Chapter 2

  Tess evaluated what she knew about Cochran. He looked a darn sight different in person than in his official photo. What had not been captured by the camera was the laid-back sexuality, which sort of drew you in if you weren’t careful. Like a spell or something…

  Cochran scared her a little. Not physically, but he threatened her self-confidence when it came to judging men. He probably wasn’t what he seemed, so what was he?

  The photo in the file showed a perfectly groomed, rather handsome government agent wearing a gray suit, a short haircut and a stern expression. In person, at first meeting, he’d been a half-naked, wildly attractive sea captain with a killer tan and a sun-bleached mane that needed a trim. That lazy grin, combined with his intense green-eyed appraisal of her, had raised the hairs on her arms. Still did.

  He made eye contact readily enough, but she was the one uncomfortable with it, not him. And she couldn’t read a thing he was thinking.

  Maybe this was the real Cochran. Maybe getting fired had changed him. It was impossible to know who she was dealing with here, and that bothered her a lot.

  The Company had confiscated his computers and fearing he would retaliate against them by using his expertise, had ordered him not to replace them. She would bet he’d gotten around the directive in short order and really hoped he had. Technology changed so rapidly, he’d be well behind the curve now if he hadn’t kept up.

  She noted he hadn’t bothered to change out of his shorts, Café Loco shirt and deck shoes. Once she’d told him about the private jet waiting for them, he had seemed eager get on with it.

  They were in the air now, and Cochran had been on her cell phone with Mercier for the last half hour, working out the specifics of their deal and details on the case.

  Tess felt a little out of the loop, but she was glad her first mission had been accomplished. When she’d made the call for Cochran, Mercier had congratulated her and wished her well on her first real assignment in the field. She had been on backup for three others since he had hired her, and apparently he now trusted her to go secondary on this one.

  Six years ago Tess had felt confident enough in her skill, and admittedly curious enough, to volunteer for a small study in parapsychology sponsored by the University of Virginia where she was enrolled. She learned later that the study was actually a renamed and privately funded continuation of the CIA’s Star Gate Project, which had been officially launched in the 1970s.

  The study primarily involved remote viewing, which could aid in producing intelligence data. But her particular skills must have been recorded, because four years later she had been recruited.

  She had qualified her skill when describing it to Mercier, but he had seemed satisfied that she would be a valuable member of the team and had hired her.

  This was her first time out without a fellow SEXTANT agent in the lead on a case. Tess wished she knew Cochran better than she did. She didn’t like not knowing exactly who had her back.

  There was the sexual attraction, which she would have to deal with, too. She had felt something like it before, but that had come to no good in a great big hurry.

  Brian had been her first and only, the perfect choice—or so she had thought at the time. Early on Tess had decided to wait for love to have sex. She had to make her own rules, and that one had seemed prudent at the time. As a result, she’d reached her sophomore year in college virtually untouched.

  He had been so attentive, so persuasive and so handsome. She hadn’t even tried to read his thoughts, thinking that would be intrusive and somehow taking advantage of him. She should have asked herself why a great-looking, popular jock like him, with so many other choices available, would attach himself to a bookish little mouse like her.

  Maybe in the back of her mind, she had questioned it. But she hadn’t wanted to analyze the way she felt or look any deeper into his intentions. Starry-eyed and infatuated, she had accepted all his words of undying love as absolute devotion. Until the day after she’d given in to it completely. He had told everyone, leaving her humiliated.

  She looked up as Cameron returned to the seat beside her and handed her back the phone. “I got all the details of the investigation so far. Mercier’s arranging for a yacht we can stay on, a repo that’s small enough we can crew it, but big enough to impress.”

  “A boat? Jack’s putting us on a boat? Why?”

  “Because I suggested it. Our target is moving. Could be on water, so we ought to be prepared for that. He agreed it was a good idea.”

  Tess hated boats. She had quailed at boarding Cochran’s back on Tybee. But she wasn’t about to reveal her nearly phobic fear to Cochran. That was no way to begin.

  He pinned her again with that intense scrutiny, as if he were trying to read her thoughts.

  She knew that look. Was he psychic? She couldn’t read him. That had bothered her when they met, but she hadn’t worried too much. She could read some people, but they had to be open to it, either willing to let her or clueless about her trying. He didn’t strike her as either willing or clueless.

  “You don’t like boats,” he stated, guessing. Or maybe he knew.

  “I don’t have any experience with them, that’s all. You’ll have to teach me what to do.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be an old salt in no time.”

  That remained to be seen. “Why can’t we stay in one of the hotels?”

  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because once we find this dude, we have to get him into international waters to arrest him.”

  “No, we don’t. The French police will cooperate with us. They have before. Jack has influence, and jurisdiction shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

  “Yeah, they’ll hold whomever we catch, maybe even let us interrogate him, but under their collective thumb. Trust me, we won’t have the time to cut through bureaucracy. We need to get this guy and find out who he’s working for immediately. His boss might have a backup hacker and go right ahead with his plan.”

  “His boss?”

  “He’s not working this alone. Also, if we don’t have our perp isolated, who do you think he’ll contact the minute he gets to a phone or a computer?” He stared straight into her eyes. “Get over the boat thing. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope you do.” This was just another battle she would have to fight in order to be who she wanted to be. She had won others, like conquering her strong resistance to confrontation and her aversion to physical contact. She admitted she still overcompensated to some degree, but for the most part, she was well over those hurdles and felt pretty good about herself.

  She had overcome her childhood, or rather her lack of one. Her parents had been reared in a commune until they rebelled and ran away at seventeen. Their awkward attempts at entering the establishment had thrust a lot of responsibility onto the daughter they’d had too early in their lives.

  Impulse had governed them and probably always would, but not Tess, who had a firm grip on reality, knew how to map her success and conquer her fears. So, she wasn’t about to quail at riding in a stupid boat.

  “Nice plane,” he commented, looking around as if he hadn’t noticed before. “Not exactly Air Force One, but nice. Does it have a shower?”

  “Back there,” she replied, pointing, hoping he would fit into the little enclosure. He was a large man, well over six feet tall and well muscled, almost bulked like a weight lifter. Deep-sea fishing must provide a great workout.

  She jerked her gaze away from his legs, bare from just above his knees to below his ankles. He had great legs. She cleared her throat, hoping he hadn’t noticed her noticing. “Your bag—”

  “I know where it is. I stowed it.” He got up and smiled down at her. “I’ll just go and clean up a little.”

  Tess nodded, wondering i
f he would be in there long enough for her to snoop. Had he brought a weapon? A computer? Anything else she should know about?

  “Will we have to go through customs?” he asked, as if he’d read her mind. Again.

  “No. Mercier called ahead. He…knows people,” she stammered. “Do you have a weapon?”

  “Two, which I wouldn’t want confiscated, and I don’t like anyone touching my laptop.”

  Tess dropped her gaze, knowing it might reflect the guilt she felt about her plan to search his things. “You’re not supposed to have a computer.”

  He laughed at that, and the sound of his laughter stroked every cell in her body as he left her to take his shower.

  Damn, the man rattled her. She had to get over it and get her composure back. Her uncanny instincts didn’t work when she was this unnerved, and they had to work.

  At least she had gotten him on board the mission and had accomplished her initial goal. She had to relinquish control of the op to him now, and that would be the most difficult aspect of the job.

  Tess liked being in charge, but she had to admit this was not the time, any more than on the last two missions. Gaining experience had to take precedence. She had lied a little bit, indicating that Mercier would have sent her on alone if Cochran had refused to join her, but he didn’t have to know that.

  She leaned back in her seat and tried to relax, regroup and unwind. All she could think about was that wicked smile of his, which mocked even as it dared, judged even as it flattered. What a puzzle Cochran was. Cameron. Would they progress to a first-name basis? Did she even want to?

  She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the two of them working in tandem, as partners, maybe even friends. Could she unbend enough to manage a friendship? Certainly never more than that, she warned herself, no matter how heart-stopping he looked or how powerful that spell of his turned out to be.

  His touch, innocent at it had been the few times they had made contact, had alarmed and upset her. She couldn’t allow herself to backslide and become the scared little rabbit she had been growing up.