Femme Fatale

by Doranna Durgin

  She blinked her eyes, wishing she could see, wishing there was a better time to just look at the man. But she knew her vision wouldn’t recover completely in time. She took some solace in the fact that the battery-powered minicam she wore on her wet suit shot footage of everything in front of her. The fish-eye lens would make certain she got it all.

  As bad as her present condition was, though, she knew she was light-years ahead of Mr. Mystery. He opened and closed his eyes rapidly, striving desperately for some return to normal vision. That would be minutes in coming, though. The F/X box she’d planted on the wall behind her when Barbara Price had warned her that the man was coming had strobed directly into his eyes.

  Still, the light in the room was enough to reveal the hard, handsome planes of his face. He had high cheekbones and a square jaw, the features of a man who had shaped his life through determination and grit. And the ringlets of hair drew her attention. She couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to trail her fingers through those ringlets.

  Get away! Get away! The impulse roared within her.

  Trouble had always been easy for her to get into. Escaping trouble was the trickier part.

  Getting aboard Guilty Pleasures had been easy. Under the cover of the river, Kylee had slipped a small miniscuba from her coat and swum to the boat. Everyone aboard had been pulled forward by her dive into the river, drawn by the plight of the drowning woman. Besides the miniscuba, she’d also carried several of the F/X boxes set up to respond to the miniature remote control device she carried.

  Once aboard the boat, Kylee had fitted the earpiece to her ear and throat again, then let Barbara Price guide her to Scherba’s stateroom with the thermographic capabilities of the spy-satellite Stony Man was using for the mission. A digital electronic lock pick had gotten her past the locks on Scherba’s door.

  Inside the room, Kylee had used the encrypted disk Bethany Riggs had turned up in Cape Town, South Africa, to bring up the hidden operating system lurking inside Scherba’s notebook computer. A spare satellite phone plugged into the notebook’s modular connection had provided the link Barbara and her team needed to access the computer’s hard drive.

  Everything had been going great till Barbara had reported that Mick Stone had decided to come belowdecks. A quick check then revealed the secondary alarm booted directly to the computer that Kylee had missed earlier. By then, it had been too late to run.

  She’d pulled her wet suit down to her waist on the theory that the sight of a naked woman temporarily rendered most men unable to think for several seconds at a time, then crawled into Scherba’s bed. The ruse had been an excellent on-the-fly idea. Too bad it hadn’t worked. If she hadn’t had the F/X box rigged and ready to go, getting out of the room could have proved much harder.

  And you’re not out of here yet, she chided herself.

  With easy athletic grace, Kylee rolled from the bed, fully expecting Mr. Mystery to start blasting with the big silenced pistol in his fist. The fact that he didn’t surprised her.

  However, he did shift, clearly moving by memory, and came to a stop in front of the doorway. That was something she had not planned on. His economy of movement, the sheer grace of his course of action, was expected after seeing him so many times in motion aboard Guilty Pleasures. But she hadn’t expected him to think so quickly to block the doorway.

  Now that she was this close to him, had felt the heat of his cerulean-blue gaze, she couldn’t help wondering how good he was physically. She was a trained martial artist, but he looked like a bruiser who survived on sheer strength and ferocity. Unfortunately, he also looked like a man who could clear out a bar of Hell’s Angels by himself.

  He stood in the doorway, raising his open left hand to block her. He blinked his eyes rapidly, continuing to try to bring his vision back to normal.

  That’s not a place you want to be, Mr. Mystery, Kylee thought. She rose to her feet in front of the computer table, glanced to check that the satellite uplink was still functioning, and estimated the distance separating her from the man. Now she pulled the wet suit back over her shoulders and zipped up.

  Taking one long step, Kylee launched herself into the air in a flying kick. Some preternatural instinct must have warned the man, some ghost of a sixth sense that had survived the prehistoric times. He was in motion before she could stop her attack, dropping into a defensive crouch.

  Instead of striking his chest as she’d intended, the heel of her left foot collided with his face. She hated that, hated thinking of the swelling and the bruises that would surely mar those handsome features for the next few days. The impact drove him backward, but he turned to allow some of the kick to glide past him. Kylee slid with it, ending up in a spilled tangle of arms and legs and heaving bodies.

  He cursed at her. “Stupid, sheila. Even if you get past me, how do you expect to get by all of those guards top-side?”

  Kylee didn’t waste her breath. She slammed an elbow under his chin, snapping that handsome jaw shut and hoping she wouldn’t break any of his teeth.

  He slapped at her with his free hand when she grabbed his other wrist and tried to break his pistol free. Putting pressure on the man’s arm was like trying to squeeze an iron bar.

  For a moment during the skirmish, she was on top of him, her legs straddling him as she fought to control his gun arm. Her pulse thundered at her temples, and she knew the increased pace and pressure weren’t only from the exertion and the excitement that flared through her. She felt the hard length of his body pressed against hers from underneath, felt the heat of him as he struggled against her. Her breasts molded to his chest as he circled his free arm around her upper body and tried to lock a hold on her. She drew back a fist and punched him in the nose hard enough to snap his head back. She’d never hesitated to hit her brothers during a stunt session that called for it.

  Mr. Mystery snarled curses at her in the same thick Australian accent he’d used only a moment ago. He maintained his grip even as she shifted, grinding her hips into him to get the leverage she needed, and drew back her fist again. This time, though, he dodged and she slammed her knuckles into the floor. The carpet wasn’t enough to cushion the blow. Bright, broken pain shivered up through her wrist and she hoped she hadn’t sprained it.

  “Give it up, sheila,” the man yelled. “They’ll kill you.”

  “And you won’t?”

  “No.”

  “Sorry. I don’t believe you.” Kylee slammed her forearm into that stubborn jaw again.

  In the end, though, the same wet suit that had given her away in the chair also proved too slick for the man to maintain his grip on. She slipped away even as he tried to squeeze her and restrain her. Kicking her feet against him, she slid across the threshold on her back.

  On the other side of the doorway, Kylee tried to get to her feet. Her ribs felt bruised, but she couldn’t help smiling. I’m better than you, Mr. Mystery. I came onto your home turf and captured your flag.

  Pushing himself over onto his stomach, his blind eyes still searching the immediate area around him, the man lifted the .45 in his right fist.

  “Hold up, sheila!” he roared. But his aim was off by a few inches, letting her know that he still couldn’t see properly.

  Rolling onto her side away from the man, Kylee swung her right arm back, catching the man’s gun wrist and knocking the weapon loose. The big .45 struck the wooden flooring, dug a scratch in the finish and slid away.

  The man caught Kylee’s right ankle in a grip that felt like iron. Instinctively she rolled so that her ankle turned in toward the man’s thumb. Years of martial arts training had taught her that turning a trapped limb toward the opponent’s thumb was the easiest way to break that opponent’s grip no matter how strong he—or she—was.

  Her ankle turned now, but she was certain she’d lost some skin and would wear a ring of bruises around the ankle for a few days. She stamped with the other foot, catching the man’s elbow and breaking his hold.

  Ky
lee rolled away. The catamaran crew would be alert now. Her escape window was closing by the second. She pushed herself to her feet, surprised that the man was getting to his feet at the same time. He threw himself forward, seeming to fill the middle of the room as he got to his feet between her and the spiral stairs that led to the catamaran’s main deck.

  The man drew up in an openhanded martial arts stance. He also turned his head to the side, using his peripheral vision instead of trying to look at her directly. The temporary stun effects of the F/X box would take out direct vision, but peripheral vision wasn’t affected quite as much and recovered more quickly.

  Kylee closed on him, trying to muscle her way past him.

  His hands flicked out in a series of slaps and punches. If any of them had landed, Kylee was certain she’d have been knocked down. She ducked and bobbed, blocking with her open hands, using her hands and her forearms to turn the blows aside.

  You’re good, Mr. Mystery, Kylee silently conceded. You’re quick and you’re dangerous.

  She ducked beneath a strike that would have flattened her nose if it had connected and fired a punch into his midsection. Her fist connected with the Kevlar vest he wore, but she could also feel the hard muscle that lay beneath. The punch didn’t even faze him.

  If it hadn’t been for years of martial arts training and stuntwork, seemingly unending days of being a mock punching bag for her brothers, Kylee knew she wouldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds against her opponent. Even then, she suspected that the man was holding a little back, maybe to protect himself or maybe because she was female.

  And with each passing second, the man’s vision grew better.

  In an all-or-nothing move, Kylee dropped quickly into a crouch and threw a leg out to sweep the man’s feet from under him. She pushed herself up again as he fell. By the time she reached the spiral staircase leading up to the catamaran’s main cabin, she’d taken out the earplug that had protected her against the loud noise of the F/X box and put the earpiece into place.

  “Are you there?” Kylee asked in a breathless rush. She grabbed a coat from the rack near the door as she entered the stairwell, shrugging it on to cover her wet suit. She ascended the stairs in a rapid, driving rhythm.

  The man cursed behind her as he got to his feet. He ran forward and slammed into the spiral staircase by mistake. The structure shook.

  “I’m here,” Barbara answered. “You’re in a bad spot.”

  “And assessments off the cuff like that are what a mission controller does?” Kylee quipped. “I think I had that one.”

  “The good news is your button-cam got a picture of Mr. Mystery. We may be able to identify him.”

  Kylee stopped at the entrance to the main cabin. The room was filled with buffet tables and elegant lounge furniture. “What about the room?”

  “Four guys. All armed.”

  “Security?”

  “Two confirmed hits on the database we built on the op,” Barbara agreed.

  “It’s a safe bet on the other two, then,” Kylee said. The stairwell vibrated beneath her, letting her know Mr. Mystery was up and about and in hot pursuit.

  “I’d say so.”

  “The computer connection?”

  “We’re working it.”

  Desperate, Kylee peered out. Four men stood in the room with pistols in their fists.

  “Over there!” one of the men yelled. “In the stairwell!”

  Kylee ducked and at least two bullets ripped through the stairwell above her head. “Don’t shoot!” she yelled. “Please don’t shoot!”

  Thankfully, the vibrations coming up from belowdecks halted as well. Maybe Mr. Mystery thought she was going to be coming back down.

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kylee couldn’t help feeling jazzed and amped up. She was a throwback to the Highland rogues, as her mother had feared. Situations like this always brought out her worst. At least, that was how her mom would have looked at it.

  God forbid that she ever find out, Kylee thought.

  One of the men spoke in a guttural language that Kylee thought she recognized as Czech. However, with an earplug in one ear, and with gunshots still ringing in the other, she wasn’t sure. She hoped the translation was roughly, Hey, that was a woman. Don’t shoot.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the cabin with her arms away from her body. She still had the remote control in her left hand and kept the device concealed. Looking down the barrels of four pistols, she discovered it wasn’t hard to look scared. She held her hands up immediately.

  “Who are you?” one of the men demanded in accented English.

  “Down there!” Kylee gulped and glanced nervously at the stairwell. “A man with a gun! He’s killed them! He’s killed them all!” She decided then and there that if Barbara Price ever offered to let her see any video or hear any audio recording of tonight that she would flatly refuse. Playing the ingenue was so not her best suit.

  “Killed who?” the man demanded.

  “Them!” Kylee screamed in terror. Come on, guy. Them are always getting killed.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the stairwell. So far, Mr. Mystery hadn’t put in an appearance. She hoped he wouldn’t get hurt. Besides being quick and dangerous, Mr. Mystery was also quite dashing. In a rough-hewn kind of way.

  The men seemed undecided. All of them kept their pistols pointed at her. Maybe they hadn’t immediately moved her into the potentially datable, don’t shoot her in the head category that most men seemed to lump attractive women who appeared suddenly before them.

  It’s the hair, Kylee thought. Definitely the hair. She hated having a bad-hair day, but having a bad-hair day at gunpoint was so much worse.

  Deciding to up the ante before she lost all control, Kylee said, “There he is!” She screamed, pointed and dove for the floor.

  One bullet cut the air over her head, missing her by scant inches. Okay, good thing I wasn’t holding pat with the bluff.

  Gunshots cannonaded inside the cabin. The trapped noise swelled to enormous proportions. Curses in a half-dozen languages rent the air.

  Kylee scrambled across the floor on elbows and knees, driving herself forward with her head down. At least one of the gunners was stubbornly targeting her. Bullets chopped through the buffet table, smashing plates and knocking vegetables and bowls of dip to the floor.

  Unfortunately for his teammate, the man’s targeting efforts also lined him up with one of the other security guys. A bullet caught the other guard in the hip and sent him crashing to the floor.

  “More people are coming outside,” Barbara said over the headset.

  Of course, Kylee thought grimly. Can’t wait around forever for the drowned woman to be scooped from the river. Maybe take in a gunfight as an intermission. She was of the definite opinion that Creepstof Scherba didn’t know any decent people.

  “Cease fire, damn you!” Mr. Mystery’s deep bass voice thundered through the crash of gunshots. “Cease fire!”

  Kylee pushed herself up at the edge of the buffet island. She took an F/X box and lobbed it over the table toward the man who had chosen to shoot at her. She saw his feet shift as he turned toward the device, then turned quickly away.

  Probably thinks it’s a grenade, Kylee told herself.

  The gunfire stopped.

  “It’s the woman!” Mr. Mystery roared. “Stop the woman!”

  Everybody hates a tattletale, Kylee thought. She closed her eyes and pressed the remote control.

  In response, all the F/X boxes blew, filling the back end of the catamaran with light and thunder. There was enough noise to make most observers believe the boat was under attack.

  Kylee rose into a sprinter’s position on her knuckles, then hurled herself forward. She stayed low as she charged for the door that let out onto the catamaran’s stern. She counted her steps, a habit that came out of her stunt training because everything there had to go by the numbers. Counting during action was second nature; first for
safety during the gag, then for the cameras to make the director happy.

  Only a few of the gunmen were on their feet. The rest of Creepstof Scherba’s guest list that had wandered to the catamaran’s stern in search of entertainment had dived to the floor. Most of them carried guns as well.

  Kylee decided the computer cracker must have been giving weapons away as party favors. As she ran, she was forced to step on the bodies of the frightened people lying on the floor. She didn’t hesitate because the biggest risk was that she would slip and twist an ankle before she could get clear of the boat.

  Five feet from the stern, she leaped into the air and spread her arms as she dived over the side. She kept the dive shallow, quickly arching back up for the cloth bag tied to the boat’s ladder that contained the swim fins and the miniscuba she’d secured there when she’d come aboard.

  By the time she had the scuba in her mouth, searchlights around the catamaran had flared to life and started tracking the river’s dark surface. She dove lower, swimming less than three feet from the bottom.

  The light cones from the powerful searchlights illuminated fish swimming close to the surface, but they never touched her for more than an instant, a glance of contact that never allowed the men looking for her to find her.

  Mick stood in the bow of the catamaran and stared into the dark water. Ellipses of yellow-white light from the boat’s searchlights skipped across the river water.

  Twice, men from Scherba’s regular security team fired into the water. The bullets slapped against the water with flat cracks that let him know the 9mm rounds had ricocheted from the rolling river surface.

  “Cease firing,” Mick snarled. Anger flooded through him, but it was a mixed thing. He was actually relieved the woman had gotten away. Even if she was a thief, hired by one of Scherba’s enemies, she didn’t deserve the fate Scherba would have had in store for her. From the talk he’d heard from the other security guards, Scherba wasn’t a man who suffered enemies long after they’d made a move against him. But Mick was most angry with himself because, if he’d been truly effective at his security post, the woman would have never set foot on the catamaran. She would have never become a danger to Scherba. Or a danger to herself.