by Rebecca York
“I never heard of that.”
She flushed. “I got it out of a cookbook. You poach the eggs in a tomato-salsa liquid.”
“Well, it sounds wonderful. Can I do anything to help you?”
“Pour orange juice, if you want some.”
He poured the juice, and they sat down across from each other, like they were a married couple or something. Would she accept a guy like him as a husband? Someone who put himself in danger—like Edward Rogers? He wanted to talk about that, but he wasn’t free to make any promises until the end of the assignment.
After spreading a muffin with butter, he looked up to find her fiddling with her soup spoon. “Is there something you want to talk about?”
“Yes, I was still thinking about the attack last night. I knew there was going to be a surprise guest at the women’s shelter. Maybe I should have said something to you.”
“You didn’t know the center was going to be attacked.”
She nodded.
“How did you find out about the first lady?” he wondered.
“Well, I didn’t actually realize it was her. I talked to the director a few days ago. The last time we were in town.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She said someone important was coming. But she let me think Prince Nikolai was coming. I was looking forward to seeing him in person.”
“Yeah.”
She went on in a musing voice. “But the whole time I was waiting to see him, I kept thinking about how strange his language can be. Sometimes he uses double-negative or slang expressions. Or the wrong verb form.”
“Yeah. We talked about that before, and I noticed it when I went to hear him. Like when he said ‘we don’t get no satisfaction out of the terrorists’ attacks in the United States.’”
“Maybe he’s imitating the Rolling Stones,” Courtney said with a laugh.
Riley grinned back, glad that she’d brought a little humor into the situation.
But her remark had sent his thoughts down an interesting path. When they’d finished breakfast, he said, “I have some things to discuss with Big Sky.”
“Your bounty hunter organization,” she said stiffly, letting him know she was still thinking about how he’d ended up at the Golden Saddle.
“Uh-huh.”
“You can use the phone in the office.”
“My cell phone is better. It’s a secure line.”
“Right.”
“But I will use the office.” So much for being hon est with her. Well, that wasn’t it exactly. He had business to discuss, and it had to stay secret.
He went down the hall and closed the door, then punched in the number for Big Sky.
Owen Cook answered.
“I have a theory I want to discuss with you,” Riley said.
“About what?”
He stopped, realizing he had a problem. This line was supposed to be secure. But the bad guys had taken everybody by surprise last night. They might do it again—with equipment that could intercept the call. And if they did, that would be disastrous. “Maybe I’d better come over there,” he said.
“We’ll be expecting you.”
He went back to find Courtney loading the dishwasher.
“You finished so quickly?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, I figured out that I can’t discuss this particular business over the phone.”
“And?”
“I have to go see them.”
“So much for your staying around,” she whispered.
He felt his chest tighten. “I’m sorry. While we’re in the middle of this situation, I don’t know what else to do.”
She nodded tightly.
“Until I come back, how about if Jake stays here with you?”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she snapped.
“I know. But I’ll feel better about being off the ranch property if I know someone you trust is with you.”
“Fine!” She slapped a mug into the dishwasher. When he started to help her, she shook her head. “I can do it. You go to your meeting.”
He didn’t like leaving her this way—not when she was upset with him. And not when it was his own damn fault. He shouldn’t have said he would stay here when he knew he might have to go. All he could say was, “I’ll move my stuff over here first.”
As he started to step through the doorway, she called out, “Wait!”
He turned to face her.
“I guess my…my hormones are acting up. I’m upset, but I shouldn’t have taken my anxieties out on you.”
“I understand,” he said.
“Go on. And take care of that business.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course. Put your things in the spare bedroom,” she said.
“Sure,” he answered, wondering if the suggestion was for appearances’ sake or if she was making it clear that her bed was off-limits from now on. He didn’t have the guts to ask, so he grabbed his coat and went over to the bunkhouse.
As he was packing his things, Jake came to the bedroom door. “Leaving?”
You wish.
“I’m moving into the main house.”
“Says who?”
“I want somebody around there at night until the current situation is resolved.”
“Sure you do,” Jake muttered.
Riley clenched his hands, but he kept his temper under control because he and Jake were already standing on shaky ground.
“I’ll be going into town for a while. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on Mrs. Rogers until I get back.”
“When will that be?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You want me in the house with her?”
“If you can spare the time. But I think that’s not absolutely necessary during the day.”
“Yes, boss,” Jake said with a sneer, and Riley wondered what he had to do to get on the good side of this man.
He threw his belongings into his duffel bag and took them across the ranch yard. Courtney was standing in the living room rearranging ornaments on the Christmas tree.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, after dumping his possessions on the floor in the guest room.
“Okay.”
She smoothed her hand down her side, pulling the dress more tightly against her belly, then must have realized what she’d done and dropped her hand.
“Where are you going—exactly?” she asked.
“It’s better if I don’t tell you. But you can call my cell phone if you need me.” He wrote down the number on a piece of paper and set it on the end table.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He stood looking at her, then crossed the space between them and folded her into his arms. To his relief she returned the embrace, and they clung together—until he gave her one more squeeze, then eased away.
Turning, he forced himself to walk out of the room, then out of the house. He had an obligation to contact Big Sky, but as he drove away, he was still thinking about what he’d told Courtney. The bad guys could be using high technology. Or maybe there was another, much lower tech, explanation for their success. He had to discuss the possibilities with the colonel.
Still, he felt a sense of dread as he left the ranch property and headed for the motel where the men from Big Sky had taken rooms.
Murphy answered his knock.
He stepped inside and closed the door against the cold. Cook, Powell and Martin greeted him warmly.
“How’s the arm?” Powell asked.
“Healing.”
Murphy was watching him. “Last night you said you wanted to keep an eye on Mrs. Rogers. What took you away from the ranch?”
“I’d like to test an interesting theory.” He gestured toward the laptop computer set up in one corner of the room. “Can we get copies of Prince Nikolai’s speeches? Particularly the last one—a couple of days before the fire at the battered-women’s shelter.”
Murphy tipped his head to one side, considering t
he question. “You think the speech is connected to the attack?”
Riley looked at the colonel. “Mrs. Rogers and I were talking about the prince’s diction. We discussed it a couple of times because it made such an impression on her. She pointed out that he was educated at Harvard, but he lapses into ungrammatical constructions when he’s giving his speeches.”
“And?” the colonel pressed.
“Suppose he’s not just going around the country giving pep talks to our citizens. Suppose he’s up to something we haven’t figured out.”
“Like?”
“For starters, using some kind of code.”
Cook had been listening intensely to the conversation. “Let me take a look.”
He sat down at the computer, called up a copy of the prince’s latest speech and began doing some kind of analysis that Riley couldn’t follow.
When Riley leaned over to watch, Cook rolled his shoulders. “Don’t stand behind me,” he muttered.
“Sorry.” Riley moved away, suppressing the impulse to start pacing. He knew he wasn’t going to get instant results, yet he couldn’t help the feeling of restlessness that gripped him. He wanted to know what had happened last night—and why.
Murphy came up behind him. “Let’s go in the other room,” he suggested. “I’d like to get your impression of Sheriff Pennington.”
Riley snorted. “He’s a real piece of work. He was obviously in bed with the militia.”
The colonel led him into the connecting room. “What did he do?”
Riley told him about his hassling Courtney—and about the way he’d deferred to Fowler after the shooting.
“Fowler also said it was the sheriff who passed on the information that the first lady was coming to the opening of the women’s shelter.”
“I guess the Secret Service told local law enforcement.”
“A mistake on their part—since he was working with Fowler.”
“Or they’re both working for the terrorists.”
Riley nodded. “What’s he doing now?”
“Making life unpleasant for us,” Clark answered from where he sat in the corner of the room.
“How?”
“Mostly asking pointed questions.”
“And you’re giving evasive answers.”
“Right.”
Murphy kept Riley busy talking about the case. When Riley heard the printer going in the other room, he looked up expectantly. Moments after it finished, Cook opened the door and walked into the room.
“What?” Riley demanded, studying the smug expression on his friend’s face.
“You were right on the money,” the computer expert answered. He came over and laid several sheets of paper on the table.
“Look at this. The first clue was this sentence he uses in every speech. ‘Now we begin.’ That leads to the question—begin what? So I started checking what he said right after that. And I noticed it’s where the odd phrasing starts. See, look here. After that phrase, the first letter of every other word spoken spells out a sentence. It’s not really complicated, if you know what to look for. Here’s ‘take your outmoded American reasoning and change the haughtiness.’ If you used the first letter of every other word, you get ‘torch.’”
“Cut to the chase,” Riley interrupted him. “What does the whole message say.”
“Torch new women’s shelter. Go in back door.”
Murphy swore. “All his speeches have this odd wording according to Mrs. Rogers. Well, wouldn’t it be interesting if one of the prince’s speeches preceded every terrorist attack.”
The other men in the room had gathered around the table, looking at the message, talking excitedly.
“We thought it was King Aleksandr making trouble over here, so we’d withdraw our troops. But it looks like it was the damn prince all along,” Riley spat out.
“What’s his motive?” Clark asked.
“I’d guess he’s been hedging his bets. If the war succeeded, then his father would be out of power—and he could take over.”
The colonel jumped in, “And if terrorist acts did manage to scare the U.S. into pulling out their troops, then he’d conveniently have his father killed. And as the grieving crown prince, he would naturally take his rightful place on the throne.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “What a damn sneaky bastard. It looks like he wants his father to come across as a tyrant—so he can take over the country—either way the war turns out.”
“Fowler’s militia were outwardly against the war. But they were really drumming up sympathy for the prince.”
They were all talking at once now, discussing the prince’s cleverly twisted plans. But Riley cut to the chase. “So what do we do about it?”
“I guess we inform the feds—and they can figure out how to deal with his royal ass,” Martin said. “I mean, we can hardly collect a bounty on a prince.”
PRINCE NIKOLAI STOOD impatiently beside his valet as the man packed suits and shirts into his specially designed luggage. He’d given orders for his entourage to be ready to depart. Apparently Boris had taken advantage of his absence to leave the hotel on a private shopping expedition—and he’d gotten back only minutes before Nikolai.
“Hurry up,” he growled. “We have a plane to catch.”
“Yes, Highness,” the man answered.
“Don’t be so damn meticulous! Just get everything packed. Now!” he snapped.
Boris looked at him in terror, trying to cope with instructions that were the exact opposite of his usual orders.
Nikolai would punish the man later. There was no time now. With a curse, Nikolai brushed past him and grabbed a suit from its hanger. He seldom did physical labor. The squash court was his preferred form of exercise. Today he shoved the expensive garments into the packing case.
They had to be in the air before three in the afternoon. That was the deadline he’d set for himself. Maybe that had been too early. But he’d sent out the message in his speech this morning, and he was stuck with the time. Now it was imperative that he be away from this place before the last of the militia details were cleaned up.
Boone Fowler had been working for him. But the man had proved too unstable for the job. He was uncontrollable. He took on responsibility that wasn’t his to take. He and his fanatical followers had paid the price for his insubordination.
The other terrorists had been much more professional. Which was why Nikolai was using them for one last job near the militia compound, to make sure Courtney Rogers couldn’t tell anyone what she knew about Boone Fowler.
Meanwhile, he had to make new plans for his own future. With all the strident speeches against his father, he couldn’t go back to Lukinburg until the old man was dead. But he’d struck a deal with the so-called president of one of the neighboring states. The man would take him in for “humanitarian reasons” in exchange for a large sum of money. Nikolai didn’t have the cash to pay him yet, but he would get it as soon as he got his hands on the royal treasury. One way or another he was going to get his father off the throne and take over the country.
MURPHY AND HIS MEN were still discussing the prince and his underhanded tactics when Clark cut into the conversation.
“Wait a minute. Didn’t he just give another speech a few hours ago?”
“Yeah,” Powell answered. “I was thinking that he’s been pretty active lately.”
“But he can’t be giving messages to the militia. They’re dead.”
“He could still be giving instructions to the terrorists,” Riley said.
Cook hurried back to the computer and got the text of the prince’s latest public appearance. This time Riley couldn’t stay out of the way. He leaned over the man’s shoulder, decoding along with him, his stomach knotting as the words of the message slowly emerged.
Blow up militia compound—kill Golden Saddle bitch by 3 p.m.
Chapter Sixteen
Riley felt a dagger of fear pierce his chest. When he looked at his watch, he saw it was after
two-thirty.
“Oh, God, while we’ve been sitting around here, they’ve been planning to kill Courtney. We’ve got to get out there,” he shouted, “before it’s too late.”
The other men were already moving, climbing into their outerwear and gathering up weapons and equipment.
When Riley pulled the door open, he saw that the weather had changed again. A swirl of snow hit him in the face.
He swore. “This is going to slow us down.”
“And the bad guys, too,” Cook said.
Riley muttered a response. He had already whipped out his cell phone as he trotted toward his SUV.
“Hold up. We’ll go in our vehicles,” Murphy shouted. “They’re faster. And they have heavy-duty snow tires.”
Riley switched directions and climbed into the front seat next to the colonel. As they sped away, he punched in the ranch number. When the phone started ringing, he got ready to shout a warning as soon as Courtney answered. But the phone simply rang and rang. No answering machine. No nothing.
“I can’t get through. They could already be there.”
“Not likely,” Murphy answered. “We’ll get there in time.”
Riley knew the assurance was automatic. There was no guarantee of anything. Silently he cursed himself for leaving the ranch.
“Stop beating yourself up,” the colonel ordered. “If you hadn’t come here with that theory about the prince, you’d have no idea that the bad guys were on their way. They would have caught her and you with your pants down.”
Riley grimaced.
Murphy waited a beat, then added, “I didn’t mean that literally, of course.”
“Right,” Riley answered, pretty sure that his commander was trying to distract him. The suspicion was confirmed by Murphy’s next words.
“Use your phone to tell the feds what’s going on. They’ll provide backup. And even if they get here late, they need to see what goes down at the ranch.”
“Because someone could get killed,” Riley clarified.
“Yeah. And it’s going to be the bad guys.”
In a clipped voice, Murphy gave him a direct number to the FBI regional office in Billings. But getting a simple message through wasn’t easy, because the jerk who answered the phone wasn’t inclined to believe the messenger. He had to confirm his identity, then wait for a decision. All of which made him want to scream.