by Lyn Stone
Her mouth dropped open with a disbelieving scoff that he would go so far with this charade. Was this really necessary?
He grinned. After a moment of pregnant silence, he sighed loudly and spoke again. "Enough for now. We had best not get too carried away and forget why you're here. You should see to the boy."
But instead of allowing her to do that, he took her by the arm and quickly drew her into the lavatory. There, he turned on the water faucet. "To cover the sound of our words," he explained in a hurried whisper. "Chari has both bedrooms bugged, voice activated transmitters. We'll leave the devices operational most of the time so he won't suspect we know. You'll have to play along. Can you handle it?"
She puffed out her cheeks and expelled a breath, then met his worried gaze. "It seems I have no choice."
He smiled again and touched her face. Just one finger along her cheek. "It will be all right, Solange. Please don't be afraid. Not of me, anyway."
She looked around the small enclosure, which was still steamy from his bath. "I hope there aren't any cameras. You did say he was into films."
"I thought of that first thing and checked it out. With the heavy plaster, it would be too difficult to conceal them in the walls or ceiling. However, the exits and corridors are covered, I noticed."
"He will kill me when I'm no longer needed. I saw it in his eyes," she said with conviction. "As soon as he thinks René is well enough to do without me."
To Mercier's credit, he didn't bother with false reassurances. Instead he asked, "How soon will that be?"
"I've told you, he is not as severely hurt as I pretended. I have kept administering more morphine than needed so that we would not have to explain things to him. When I discontinue that medication, he should be conscious within a few hours and perfectly well within a week."
"How are your supplies?"
"Almost exhausted," she admitted. "Only two more doses. My father or I only visited the prison once a day and administered enough to keep him sedated until one of us could return. It is too dangerous to carry around a large supply of a controlled substance, especially in that environment."
"I see your point. The boy might as well be allowed to come around soon, anyway. Chan might order you to help out in the lab."
"Isn't that what you were hoping he would do?"
He shook his head and ran a hand over his face. "I don't know, Solange. It's so risky."
"This entire errand is a risk, Jacques. I only hope I can manage to do all that is necessary," she whispered.
She felt his strong hand clasp her upper arm. "It could be deadly if you don't know what you're doing, Solange. Tell me now if you aren't sure, and I'll do my level best to get you out of here."
He would try to get her safely away. But she knew that the chance of his succeeding was very poor, given present circumstances.
"I have to go in if he will allow it. You need to know what they have made in the lab and what they might have done with it so far."
He nodded. "Or what they plan to do. But if you agree to do this, you have to pretend to help them. You might be involved in the actual production of this stuff. You do know the proper precautions to take when handling substances like ricin?"
His hand on her arm had increased the intensity of its grip. Solange realized he was afraid for her. Really afraid, to the point where he might risk this vital mission if she seemed reluctant.
"I know what to do," she assured him, putting more conviction into her answer than she truly felt. "Perhaps I can be of more help than you think."
In a surprising move, he put his arms around her and held her close. "I wish to God I had left you where you were. You're not cut out for this."
She pushed against his chest until she could look him straight in the eye. "Do not underestimate me, Mercier. While it is true I have not been trained at deception, I now have enormous incentive to learn very quickly. Modesty aside, when I decide to do a thing, I excel at it. That is how, against extremely heavy odds, I became a physician."
He smiled down at her, a kind smile, still holding her in his arms. "My mistake." Their eyes met and held. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
Solange felt the firmness of his lips soften against hers. She waited for him to begin grasping and probing, injecting passion and heat into the caress, but he did none of that. His kiss remained just that, a caress. Still, she felt it to her soul. It seemed to thaw something frozen inside her.
How long had it been since someone had cared about her welfare, worried for her safety, offered to defy death in order to remove her from danger? Certainly not since she was nine years old and lost her beloved mother. Even then, her father had not gone out of his way to caution her about anything, to smooth the way for her in life. He had only taken a real interest in her after she had struggled through medical school and residency and become one of his peers.
Her one lover when she was a resident at St. Evelyn's had been little more than a roommate who alternated duties with her in the emergency room. Jean had never kissed her in the soulful way Jacques had just done. He had never made her feel this way. They had parted after eight months, almost with relief, when he had secured a position in Strasbourg.
His coldness must have affected her more than she had realized. Since Jean, she had shied away from establishing an intimate relationship with anyone and directed all of her energy into her work. Until now she had been quite content with that. She had believed it was she who lacked passion. Well, she certainly knew better now.
However, Jacques Mercier was not a man to build fantasies around. He was a spy. He lived his life as other people. He told lies for a living. She had witnessed how brutally he could behave. And yet he could also be infinitely gentle and caring.
Prudence and caution demanded she question that behavior. It could be but another pretense of his. Something he used to control her.
She pushed completely away from him and pulled her mantle of professionalism about her like a protective cloak. "I need no persuasion to do what needs doing, Jacques. You may relax."
He laughed a little, the sound wry. "That's what you think? That this is meant as persuasion? If I believed kissing you would work, I would have kissed you goodbye in Tournade."
Then he turned her around and patted her playfully on the bottom. "Go, Solange. See about your patient."
She went, but not before she caught a quick glimpse of the effect their kiss had on his body. He was definitely not relaxed. And something in her other than that frozen section of her soul had responded just as readily to him.
Perhaps they would become lovers. If she survived this, he might make a wonderful memory for her. And if she did not survive it, this would be her last chance to experience anything resembling intimacy.
She had seen firsthand how well Jacques could pretend. She could do that, too. If nothing else, she was a quick study.
The next day passed uneventfully. At dinner Jack remembered what Holly had said about Eric's psychic observation. He'd been right. The cuisine proved excellent, though the company certainly did lack charm.
To Jack's immense relief, Solange either had elected to eat alone in her room or had been ordered to do so. If Chad was deliberately keeping her away from his men, that could only be a good thing.
After dinner Piers directed Jack to his lookout post and left him there. He was not allowed a weapon, of course. Several other guards, armed, were scattered equidistant around the rooftops. Now and then there would be the flick of a lighter and then the glow of a cigarette, these and the dark, shifting silhouettes of the men with automatic rifles were the only movements Jack saw while on the roof.
The moon cast its weak glow over the landscape. It was easy enough to spot the trees. He located the second-nearest one, which he knew concealed the cell phone and other accouterments the Sextant team had left there for him. No way he could retrieve those without being observed, but other than reassuring the team he was still alive, he had no need for them yet,
anyway.
The night remained quiet, no sign of anyone or anything attempting to approach the grounds. The main road lay too far off to hear traffic if there was any.
How serene it seemed out here in the countryside. How deceptively benign this quiet peace, when in reality there were weapons of death and destruction filling the house beneath him.
Jack reflected on death—-not the natural passing that old age or illness produced, but the killings. He thought how he had seen too much of it in his thirty-five years. Strangers, friends, his brother and his beloved wife, all victims of brutal, senseless acts of terror. He, too, would probably become another of the early-death statistics one of these days, but not before he rid the world of at least one more monster who had no regard for life. Ahmed Chari.
When his watch was over, one of the other men relieved Jack, handing him a flashlight to find his way back downstairs.
The urge to go exploring and try to find the lab almost overcame him, but he knew now was not the time. Unless Chari was a complete idiot, Jack knew his host would have someone watching the new guy very closely.
He passed through the room where Solange lay sleeping on the cot placed near the boy's bed. Though he wanted to stop, he did not. She needed all the rest she could get. Her mind must be absolutely clear and focused when she entered that lab, if in fact Chari decided to put her to work there. Jack got a cold chill just thinking about it, but she was his best hope of getting the pertinent information needed before destroying this setup.
He went straight to bed and fell into a light sleep, an old and useful trick he had learned long ago in the Army's Special Ops where insomnia could be a dangerous enemy. So could sleeping too deeply.
The sound of voices from the next room woke him. Faint light spilled around the door that he had left half open. He pulled on the heavy twill pants Piers had given him earlier and crept close to listen.
Solange spoke soothingly. "It is coming off the morphine that makes you feel this way, René. I cannot give you more."
"Poison!" the boy rasped. "I do not wish you to give me more. I hate drugs. I told you and the old doctor from the beginning, I would rather have the pain."
"As soon as you have eaten something, you will feel better. No, do not try to rise yet!" her voice grew louder, more commanding.
"But I must! I cannot stay here in this place," he complained.
"Nonsense, this is your home, René," she argued.
He scoffed at that. "You understand nothing, doctor. My father will not be happy I have returned."
"All fathers and sons are at odds now and then. It's perfectly natural to disagree. But you know he loves you and wants you to be well again."
"He hates me. I remind him of my mother. But he is wrong there. I am not weak."
"There, there. Be calm. Try to sleep again and we will discuss all of this later."
Jack entered the room. Solange turned, frowning at him. She wore a faded red T-shirt bearing the flaking image of a black motorcycle on the front, obviously an old one of René's. Her legs and feet were bare. With her hair tousled around her face and her eyes that wide and frightened, she appeared even younger than her patient.
"Who are you?" René demanded. He sat up, slid off the bed and shook his fist at Jack. "One of my father's men? If you bother my doctor, I will kill you!"
The anger and fear in René's eyes was more than adolescent rebellion. The boy knew, or at least suspected, that there was real danger here, for himself and for the woman who had saved him.
Jack made a sudden decision. If René knew what his father was involved in and started slinging accusations around right now, they were all as good as dead. Probably the boy, too.
If Chari knew René was already aware of his plans, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out why Jack had shown up here with him.
He raised a finger to his lips, hurried over to the nightstand beside the bed and pointed to the underside, then tapped on his ear with his finger.
An owl-eyed René opened his mouth to speak, but Solange quickly pressed her hand over it. "René, dear, this is Jacques Mercier. It was he who brought you out of Baumettes and home to your father."
René was busy bending over to look beneath the table at the tiny instrument Jack had pointed out. He nodded slowly as he straightened, holding his injured ribs with one hand.
Solange tried to help him back into bed, but he waved her off and climbed in by himself. "I suppose I must thank you for your trouble, sir. But why in heaven's name did you have to bring her along?"
"What's the problem? Don't you like her?" Jack asked, allowing a note of sarcasm.
"Of course I like her! But she shouldn't..." He glanced again at the table and back at Jack. "Escapes are dangerous. She could have been hurt."
"To tell you the truth, she got in the way. Wouldn't allow me to take you unless she came, too."
"Wait! I remember you now. I saw you the day...you stopped them beating me, didn't you?"
"Try not to read too much into that. It was my chance to relieve Bernier of that handmade knife he was so damned proud of."
René lay back on the pillows and closed his eyes. "Again, thank you. But I wish you had left me on my own once you got me out of there." It was clear he devoutly wished that.
With a sudden note of hope, he added, "Do you think my father would allow you both to accompany me out of the country? We could go to Spain!"
Jack looked at Solange as she sighed. Then he shook his head. "No, René, I think not. You will be safer here than traveling around. The police will be searching for all three of us."
The boy's face twisted with disgust as he opened his eyes and met Jack's gaze directly. He looked sick at heart. A wealth of understanding passed between them. Jack could see that René knew precisely what sort of threat they faced. He knew what was going on.
René nodded, his expression a curious mixture of apology, disgust and fright. Jack didn't need telepathy to realize that René was the one who had contacted the authorities about the lab.
The boy was also was quick enough to put together exactly why Jack had really come here.
Does your father know it was you who made the call? Jack mouthed the words and pantomimed, making no sound whatsoever.
René slowly shook his head and his lips formed the word no. Then he offered a slender hand to Jack and they shook firmly, as men do when united in a cause.
Obviously, the son possessed a humanity lacking in the father, thank God. It was possible, even probable, that Chari had René framed in order to keep him in prison and out of the way. Jack wondered how this might impact the mission.
"Go back to sleep," Jack advised, speaking normally. "Until the doctor and your father decide you're able to travel, you won't be going anywhere. At any rate, it will be some time yet before you can even walk."
René gave a thumbs-up signal to show he understood he was to remain bedridden. He smiled at Solange, then at Jack and sighed audibly, as if relieved to have someone in his corner at last. With a final nod, he closed his eyes.
The boy wasn't well by any means. He was coming down off morphine, muscles weak from inactivity and had to be hurting like hell with those bruised ribs. The brief and sudden spate of activity had exhausted him. But the young bounce back like rubber balls.
René's youthful enthusiasm might too easily work to their disadvantage once he had recuperated a little more and grew bored with inactivity. It was anyone's guess how this new ally of theirs would respond to instructions.
Jack wished for their sakes, as well as René's, that the little doctor had brought enough drugs to last these next few days.
Solange brushed the tousled hair off René's sweaty forehead, a motherly gesture that seemed very natural for her, then got up and headed for her rumpled cot. She moved slowly as if she were very tired.
"Good night, Jacques," she said.
"Not yet, but it could be," he replied, knowing the bug would pick up their words. "Come with me."
She glanced again at René who appeared to be sleeping, then back at Jack. "I should stay in here."
"We'll hear him if he wakes up again. Come in for an hour."
"A whole hour?" She put a smirk in her voice that made Jack smile.
"More if you like. I can be very inventive."
"Let me brush my teeth first. I still taste all of that garlic from the stew."
"I'll be waiting," Jack said in what he hoped was a seductive voice.
He hurried her into the bathroom, switched on the light and then turned on the water so they couldn't be overheard. "Well, this is it, Solange. You're sure you want to go through with it?"
She nodded. "We have to. What shall I do?"
"Act naturally. Don't ham it up too much." He . grinned. "Unless you feel moved to it."
"What...what are you going to do?"
"Nothing you won't love. Relax." He turned off the water tap, took her by the hand and led her to his bed. He had left on the light in the bathroom so she could see how to get back to her own bed later. And so he could see her.
The springs creaked when he sat down. "Now let's remove this," he said with a sly chuckle. He tugged the hem of the borrowed shirt but didn't offer to lift it. "Ah, what have you been hiding from me, ma chére? Look at you! Here, lie down." With an encouraging pat on her shoulder, he pushed her facedown on the bed. She looked over her shoulder, frowning up at him in the lamp light.
"Relax and enjoy it," he crooned. "You are entirely too tense, love." He slid his warm palms up her back and gently grasped her shoulders, massaging her shoulder blades with his thumbs.
She sighed audibly and then groaned. "Um, that feels...so good."
"Yes," he said, sounding breathless. "This? You like?"
He changed the position of his hands and worked the muscles along her spine. The soft sounds she made had him sweating. They were entirely too close to what they were pretending to be. His body reacted predictably enough.
He shifted on the bed, putting a knee on either side of her hips, causing the vintage bed to squeak appropriately each time he moved. When he could stand no more, Jack pinched her playfully, along her rib cage. She cried out at the surprise move and struggled wildly against the tickling.