But now she was home free.
She glanced at her watch. In forty-five minutes it would be midnight, and Flight 712, nonstop Newark to Bermuda, would be on its way.
#
They made it to the airport with no time to spare.
An unexpected traffic jam inside the airport's perimeter had eaten up a chunk of time, and they had less than eight minutes to check in, get their boarding passes and run for the gate.
While Maggie fumbled through her purse looking for the tickets, John coolly reached into her carry-on bag and withdrew the folders.
"Now I know why you're so successful," she said as they raced into the terminal, dragging their luggage behind them. "You're organized."
"Gate 19," said the clerk as she checked their suitcases. "You'd better hurry."
John grabbed Maggie's hand and started to pull her through the empty airport.
They did a wind sprint down the deserted corridor, whizzed through the security scanning machine, even though the agents looked long and hard at their crazy outfits, and made it to Gate 19 just before Maggie's lungs gave out.
"I see you folks like to live dangerously," said the attendant at the opening to the jet way. "We close the doors in three minutes." He folded John's ticket back, checked the seat number, then reached for Maggie's. "You're Maggie Douglass?"
As if her heart weren't pounding hard enough as it was. "Yes," she managed between gasps. "Is something wrong?" Don't tell me PAX can set up a Summit Meeting but can't buy an airline ticket.
The attendant's smile was bland and noncommittal."There were three phone calls for you. If you hurry, you can make it to the information desk and back."
"You get settled," John said. "I'll get the messages for you."
"No!" She forced herself to calm down. "I mean, it's probably Alistair -- something about our arrangements in Bermuda. You board, and I'll be right back." If the message was from one of the PAX operatives, John would never be able to retrieve it, and she wouldn't know how to answer the inevitable questions.
Before he had a chance to protest, she turned and raced back up the corridor, blessing those long runs through the Pocono countryside for giving her enough stamina to survive this.
"Maggie Douglass," she gasped at the woman behind the information desk. "There's a phone call for me?"
The woman looked up and smiled the same smile as the attendant and the ticket clerk. "Yes, Ms. Douglass. You're a popular lady. Let's see . . . " She punched in a series of letters on her computer keyboard and hummed a tune while she waited for the file to come up. "This always takes so long. Sometimes I wonder why they don't --"
A man stepped between Maggie and the desk. "Magdalena Douglass?"
Maggie wheeled around to face him. "Yes?"
Two other men joined the first.
"You're to come with us."
Good God, what on earth was happening? She tried to get the information clerk's attention but she was flirting with the youngest of the three football player-sized thugs.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know who you are."
The leader flashed a card she recognized all too well and quickly recited her upper-echelon code number.
"Mr. Chambers asked us to bring you back quickly. There's a Code Blue situation, and your help is needed."
"My help? I can't help anybody. I'm on my way to Bermuda!" What was her uncle thinking? She'd been out of the business for years. Surely there wasn't anything she could do to help them.
"I'm afraid we must ask you to cooperate and accompany us back to East Point. Mr. Chambers will answer all of your questions there."
They tried to usher her out of the airport but Maggie stood her ground. "I don't think you understand. My plane is about to leave, and someone I care very much about is already on it. I have to go!"
She tried to push past them, but she might as well have tried storming the back field of the Miami Dolphins.
"Ms. Douglass," said the leader, "you're making this unnecessarily difficult."
"Unnecessarily difficult?" Her voice was high and shrill. "You're ruining my life! If I don't make that plane, I'll never be able to explain this to John."
"A moot point," said the leader.
Her stomach lurched. "What do you mean?"
He pointed toward the screen overhead. "Flight 712 has already left for Bermuda." He nodded his approval. "Right on time."
"No!" She broke free and, tossing her high heels to the ground, started to run back toward the gate, but they were too fast for her.
"Mr. Chambers said you might be difficult," the leader said, grabbing her by the waist. "I hate to do this, Ms. Douglass." He whipped out a pair of handcuffs and slapped them on her wrists. "I hope you understand."
Oh, she understood, all right.
She understood that even a hopeless romantic like John would know the brush-off when he saw it.
They didn't even have the decency to bring a limousine. Instead they crammed her into the back of her own battered Jeep.
A pumpkin coach would have been better than that.
Some sorry excuse for a Cinderella she was. No glass slippers. No satin gown.
A jet engine roared overhead as she slumped into the back seat.
And Prince Charming on his way nonstop to Bermuda.
"Alistair Chambers," she mumbled as the Jeep lurched out of its parking spot, "I'm going to kill you."
#
"This is Captain Donnelly. Temperature in Bermuda is a balmy seventy-eight degrees. Attendants, take your seats and prepare for takeoff."
John grabbed the sleeve of a tall red-haired attendant. "We can't take off!" he blurted. "Maggie -- the woman I'm traveling with -- isn't on board."
The attendant's eyebrows rushed together in a frown. "She didn't make it to the airport?"
"She made it to the airport but she had to pick up a message at the information booth. She said she'd be right back, but --"
"Don't worry, sir." She was the epitome of professional calm. "We had a small problem up in first class with some late arrivals. She probably was with the last group and is sitting up there for takeoff." Her smile widened. "Rules, you understand."
Swiftly, she moved up the aisle to claim her own jump seat.
The engines' roar rattled his teeth as the plane gathered speed for takeoff.
She had to be on the plane, he thought as the jet raced down the runway. The information desk was only thirty feet away from Gate 19.
There was no way she could have missed the flight.
The 747 lifted.
Clunk. Clunk. The landing gear retracted.
Ding. Ding. The no-smoking sign went off.
Maggie had missed the plane.
#
He told himself there was a good chance Maggie had made a competitor's flight that left thirty-five minutes after the one he was on and with any luck at all, she would land in Bermuda right around the time he retrieved their baggage.
But she didn't.
No messages. No telegrams. No phone calls. Nothing.
Then it hit him.
Maybe she'd gone straight to the yacht, expecting to meet him there.
So he gathered up all the baggage, dragged everything outside, flagged a taxi and headed for Castle Harbour.
There he was told, in no uncertain terms, that not only was Ms. Magdalena Douglass not on board, she was not expected to be on board.
"Sonesta Beach," he growled to the cabdriver who was unloading the suitcases, "and an extra tip if you don't ask any questions."
The driver arched a dark brow and whistled as he repacked the trunk.
There's a reason for all of this, he thought as he crawled beneath the sheets at the hotel. The insane pace he'd been keeping the past two weeks had finally caught up with him, and he was rocky with exhaustion. Right now nothing made any sense.
He'd left messages for Maggie at the airports in both Newark and Bermuda, and with O'Hara at the yacht. He'd even tried calling The White Elephant
, but each time he'd gotten only an earful of static.
When he woke up in the morning there'd be a message from her or a call or, better still, he'd find one curled up beside him.
Yeah, he thought as he closed his eyes. This would all make sense in the morning.
#
The telephone next to the bed jarred him awake a few minutes shy of 6:00 a.m.
"Mr. Tyler?"
"Mmph." He cleared his throat and forced his eyes open. "Speaking."
"This is O'Hara at La Jolie."
"La Jolie?"
"Mr. Chambers's yacht."
Suddenly he was wide awake. "You've heard from Mr. Douglass?"
"I most certainly have, sir. You've been cleared to board."
"Ms. Douglass is there?"
"Well, no, sir, she isn't."
"But she's on her way."
"Well, no, sir, she's not."
"She's not there, and she's not on her way there?"
"Correct, sir." The captain's voice brightened. "But we're all ready for you, sir. We have a grand itinerary mapped out for your pleasure."
"But no Ms. Douglass."
"I'm afraid not, sir."
"Thanks," he said, his blood boiling, "but you can tell Ms. Douglass exactly what she can do with her yacht."
A horrified silence from the other end, then, "Sir, perhaps that's a message best delivered in person."
. John leaped out of bed and grabbed for his clothes. O'Hara was right. That was exactly what he was going to do.
So he hadn't imagined that invisible barrier around her, that odd little edge of reticence that had intrigued as much as it had puzzled him.
It was there, all right, and he'd run heart first into it.
He wouldn't make that mistake again.
He'd catch the next flight back to the States, and when he got there he'd deliver that message.
And after that, he'd do his damnedest to forget Maggie Douglass ever existed.
Chapter Seventeen
Maggie's alarm went off at eight the next morning.
She picked up a copy of Cosmopolitan from her nightstand and heaved it across the room at the clock.
Bull's-eye.
She glanced around her redecorated bedroom, and not even the fancy new wallpaper with coordinating draperies and spread could make up for the fact that she wasn't in Bermuda with John.
How could Alistair have done this to her?
Last night when those black-suited goons had deposited her in her office -- which Alistair had commandeered for the duration -- her fury had been magnificent to behold.
She had raged at him for ruining her life with petty concerns like Summit conferences and global nuclear disarmament.
She had decried PAX and everyone in it, and later on, when she realized the die had already been cast, she'd cried for the first time since losing her husband.
Damn, damn, damn!
It was her own fault. She saw that now as clearly as she saw the sun shining outside her window. No one had forced her into this idiotic arrangement with the organization. Her own greed had done that for her.
When Alistair had dangled his new carpeting and expensive wallpaper and worldwide publicity in front of her eyes, she had snatched at the bait like a hungry shark.
Why was she so surprised when she got caught by the hook?
Appearances to the contrary, she wasn't a fool and, deep down, she'd known from the start that there were scores of other inns across the country that would have served PAX's purposes just as well as The White Elephant, and probably would have cost the organization less money.
Cryptography was a vital part of governmental and military communications. The airwaves were crowded, transmissions, easily tapped into. A sophisticated crypto system was necessary to secure communications between key locations.
If she did her job right, the print, voice and computer transmissions could all be encrypted in an instant and restored to plain text in the blink of an eye.
The cryptographer who usually handled sensitive situations such as Summit Meetings had been rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy, leaving PAX high and dry. There simply wasn't time to pore over the records, choose a new operative and pray it all went according to plan.
Not when there was Maggie Douglass with her cursed McBride gift and sense of loyalty that were conspiring to ruin her life.
She'd tried to call John at Hideaway Haven, but PAX, in its infinite wisdom, was in the process of securing phone lines, and each time she dialed she found herself talking to her Uncle Alistair.
She'd considered bribing one of the operatives to spirit a message over to the enemy camp, but she'd probably find herself swinging from a rope if she tried it.
She thought of the ride, the pure lethal surge of desire she'd felt knowing that in a few hours they would finally be in each other's arms.
Had he gone all the way to Bermuda only to find out he'd been ditched?
Had he flung himself into the Atlantic in despair, or was he on her uncle's yacht right now with some bimbo he'd found sitting across the aisle?
Would he ever speak to her again?
Was it all over before it even started?
Did hopeless romantics forgive and forget, or did they nurse grudges of biblical proportions?
Tune in tomorrow at the same time for the next installment of Maggie and John: Can True Love Conquer All.
Until the Summit Meeting was over, it was anybody's guess.
#
Somewhere over the Atlantic, John's anger turned to fear.
For the past twelve hours he'd been fuming over being dumped at thirty-one thousand feet by the woman he intended to marry. His rage had been too dark for him to see the light, and when he did, it sucked the breath out of his lungs.
What if Maggie hadn't really missed the plane?
What if she'd been kidnapped?
It was a mercenary, venal world out there. You had only to pick up a magazine or turn on the radio to know just how mercenary it was. A woman with access to a seventy-foot yacht and a millionaire entrepreneur would be a choice target.
That was the good news.
The bad news was, the world was also dangerous.
Right now the woman he loved could be facing down a gunman or terrorist or --
Or she might be sunning herself on the porch of The White Elephant, sipping lemonade and flirting with another man.
Scratch that.
He'd rather fight the terrorist.
He glanced at his watch.
In two hours and fifteen minutes, he'd have his chance.
He made it home in record time, jumped into his Jag, and zoomed up the road to The White Elephant, only to find himself stopped by a huge barbed wire fence ringing Maggie's property.
"What the hell --"
He threw the shift into park and jumped out. The vicious barbs glistened in the sun. Electric wire snaked along the top.
Anyone stupid enough to try scaling that fence would end up skewered then broiled like a shish kebab.
Sweat broke out on his forehead and behind his neck.
From behind him came a deep male voice. "This is private property, sir."
John spun around and faced two security guards big enough to be their own time zone. "I'm a friend of Ms. Douglass."
Not even a glimmer of recognition at Maggie's name. "Have you a pass to enter?"
He dug into his back pocket and pushed his wallet toward the leader. "Driver's license. AmEx."
The leader shook his head,. "Sorry, sir."
"I want to see Maggie."
The security guards stepped neatly in his path. "Sir, we would hate to call the police over such a small matter, but we will if you take another step toward that gate."
What the hell was going on here? These thugs talked as if they'd spent a week with Miss Manners.
John shifted both his position and his thinking.
"My apologies," he said, backing toward the Jag. "Next time I'll
call first."
He made a U-turn and, in his rearview mirror saw them watching as he headed for the main road.
Damn right he'd call.
If he didn't see Maggie with his own eyes within the next twenty-four hours he'd call the police.
#
Alistair watched the entire episode from one of the twelve huge monitors hanging from the ceiling of Control Center.
"Should we run a check?" the taller of the two guards said into the transmitter concealed in his moustache. "We have a plate number."
"Unnecessary," said Alistair. "He's a local innkeeper. We have a full file on him already."
More of a file than anybody had a right to have.
For the first time since Maggie had been returned to The White Elephant, Alistair understood what had really happened.
They were in love. Why hadn't he seen it before?
As usual, the problems of the individual had faded against the backdrop of larger, more pressing difficulties.
And, as usual, it was the individual who got hurt in the process.
He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
"I made my choice a long time ago, Alistair," she'd raged at him, "and I don't regret it. Perhaps you should have done the same." She'd believed her chance for happiness with Mr. Tyler had been destroyed the moment she was spirited out of the airport.
But Maggie was wrong. It wasn't over between her and Mr. Tyler -- not by any means.
Oh, PAX had thrown a metaphorical roadblock in their way, but what was true love with an obstacle or two?
But as the Yanks were so fond of saying, "A man's got to do what a man's got to do."
Once the Summit Meeting was over and the dignitaries had departed in a blaze of diplomatic glory, Alistair had two very important items on his agenda: He would see to it that Maggie and John were reunited and sent packing to Bermuda and La Jolie, and then he would make Holland his wife.
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