by Lyn Stone
Dani opened her eyes and looked up at him. His teeth were clenched. A muscle worked in his jaw and there were faint new frown lines between his eyes. If nothing else, she was giving his new face character.
"That didn't enter your head, did it, Ben? Taking me home with you. But I tell you this and you can take it to the bank," she said, waving her finger under his nose. "I could never adapt to small town existence. And I surely don't intend to be your one last fling in the danger zone."
She moved to the door, feeling as if her feet were mired in setting cement. She had to get out of this room while she still could.
Ben didn't try to stop her.
Oh God, she prayed as she hurried down the hall to her room, please don't let me break down and cry like a little girl. She had not shed a tear over anything since she was twelve. Until she'd met him.
But when the door closed behind her, she leaned against it and put in an amendment to that prayer, mumbling the words out loud between sobs. "Okay, but please don't ever let him see me do it."
Chapter 14
Ben knocked softly on her door. When she refused to answer, he banged with his fist. "Dani? It's me. Open up."
He put his ear to the door and didn't hear a thing. Maybe she had gone downstairs to the restaurant where Cate was. He waited a few minutes, listening, then called out again. "Dani? Are you in there? Please. This is urgent."
Nothing. With a head shake and a sigh, he started to the elevators. Then he heard the dead bolt click and turned.
"What's happened?" she asked, her head down as she closed the door and started down the hall toward him. "This had better be about the case."
He reached out to her but dropped his hand when she stepped back. "We have to straighten this out," he said. "We can't do what we have to do if we can't work together."
"Got that right," she muttered, adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder, still refusing to meet his eyes. Her voice sounded thick and pitched lower, as if she'd been crying. "But we're done talking about you and me, and we do have to go anyway. Cate will be waiting." She brushed past him, marched to the elevator and punched the button with a vengeance.
Someone had really done a job on her self-image, he thought. Some man's unaccepting family, no doubt.
Ben had to admit that his parents wouldn't be thrilled if he announced he was interested in her. Not for the reasons she thought, however. No, they simply wouldn't want him mixed up with anyone in her profession. That would just be somebody else they had to worry about dying.
The doors to the elevator opened and he stepped in behind her. "We'll work it out," he promised, accepting and then dismissing her angry glare. Her eyes were all red. He'd been right about the crying and it made him want to comfort her again. Like she would allow that.
He locked his hands behind him. "We'll talk again."
She shot him an angry look and pushed out ahead of him the instant the doors opened. He followed her as she strode forcefully in the direction of the hotel dining room.
Cate had a table by the huge picture windows looking out over the city. She stood and waved to get their attention.
Dani had made it halfway across the room when she abruptly stopped. Ben crashed into her back. She made a sound, half cry, half grunt, then turned and grabbed him, pulling them both to the floor. Shots rang out. Glass shattered. Bullets whizzed by them. Screams issued all around them as patrons overturned tables and chairs in their haste to escape.
A patron's shoe ground Ben's hand into the carpet just as another clipped the side of his head. Mass panic. Ben grabbed Dani and rolled them under a table to keep from being trampled in the stampede.
She struggled against his grip, scrambled to her knees and was out from under cover before he could stop her. Helpless, he watched her back as she took a shooting stance, gun gripped with both hands and returned fire. Dammit, he was unarmed. Couldn't do a thing to help her. Another volley cleared the table next to him, showering him with glass and wine.
Dani continue to return fire and dropped again, one hand on his head, shoving him flat as she went down.
The firing had stopped. Either she had taken out the shooter, he had fled or he was waiting for them to show themselves.
"Dani?" Cate called above the din of fleeing patrons.
Ben thought she sounded strange, her voice strained and high-pitched, totally unlike the woman who never seemed to lose her cool. Something was wrong.
He started to get up, but Dani grabbed him by the belt and yanked him back. "Stay low," she ordered, her words brusque.
Ben did as she said, crawling on his hands and knees over broken dishes, puddles of drinks and spilled food, snaking between upended tables and those still upright. It was combat all over again. Only this time, he was an unarmed civilian.
He trained his eyes on Dani's shapely behind which was right in front of him. She had lost her shoes in the scramble. Her bare feet looked vulnerable and small as she crawled toward Cate's table, fast as a baby on caffeine.
"Catie!" she cried. "You hit?"
"Yeah, a little."
A little? Either you were hit or you weren't. Ben scooted past Dani and reached Cate first. "Grab some clean napkins!" he ordered. "And get an ambulance here!"
A stack of folded cloth napkins landed in his hand. He stretched the V-neck of Cate's sweater off her shoulder. "Got a nick, maybe caught that tendon," he told her. He had seen plenty of gunshot wounds during his tour of duty and had patched up a few until the medics could get to them. Ben placed a pad of the cloths over the gash and applied pressure. "You'll be fine, Cate."
"Never saw him...too late," she muttered, closed her eyes and went limp.
"Cate?" He slid his free hand under her head and felt a wetness matting her thick blond mane. Maybe from a spill, he hoped. But when he checked his hand, blood.
"Dani?" he shouted, glancing over his shoulder.
She was gone, as were all the customers and staff in the place. He flashed back to the explosion that nearly took his own life. Alone again, except for a casualty. At least this time, he wasn't injured, too.
"Hang in there, Cate," he said. He heard the strident blare of sirens getting louder. "Help's on the way."
He didn't have to wonder where Dani was. She had gone after the shooter. Ben cursed under his breath, itching to follow her, but he couldn't leave Cate like this. Dani would never forgive him. And she could handle herself. He had to trust that she could because he didn't have any other choice.
"Medic!" he shouted when he heard a commotion just outside the dining room. "Over here!" He raised one bloodied hand and waved so they could locate him among the tables and chairs.
The instant he was certain Cate had the attention she needed, he dashed out of the dining room to look for Dani. He saw her almost immediately. She stood, gesturing wildly, obviously explaining the incident to the Swiss police. He hurried to join them.
"How's Cate?" she asked, interrupting her conversation with the officer.
"Shoulder wound, not serious. Head's bleeding. I probed a little but couldn't locate an entry wound. Her hair's really thick and I might have missed it. Maybe hit something when she fell. She lost consciousness."
"Oh, God," Dani said, exhaling sharply. They both looked around as Cate was rushed out to the ambulance. Dani turned her attention to the policeman. "We have to go. You need anything else, we'll be at the hospital."
They ran, barely making it to the ambulance before the doors were closed. Dani flashed her badge. "Elle est l'un des nos agents. She's one of ours," she told the paramedics, who made room for them to ride along.
"Did you get a look at the shooter?" Ben asked her as they squeezed inside.
She shook her head, grimacing as she watched one of the attendants tape down Cate's IV. "I think he's American."
The back doors of the ambulance slammed shut. "How could you tell?" Ben asked.
"I got one of his shoes," she said. "Maybe we can get prints."
"You
got close enough to get his shoes?"
She shook her head again, never taking her eyes off Cate. "He outran me. One came off when he scrambled into the getaway car. Got the plates."
"Good work! The police have the shoe?" he asked as the vehicle tore into the street, its siren blaring.
Dani patted her bulging shoulder bag. Her lips were tight and her forehead creased with worry. He felt her pain as if it were his own.
She obviously hadn't seen the shooter before he opened fire and neither had Cate, according to what she had told him. Some things you just couldn't anticipate. He had learned that the hard way. But Dani thought she could. And that she should. She would blame herself if Cate didn't make it.
He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. It was not her fault, he wanted to say.
But how many people had insisted that he was in no way at fault for the deaths caused by that bomb? No way for him to know that the child had let himself be wired. Who is his right mind would believe a boy would destroy his own family just to kill a couple of Americans? Ben should have frisked him. Why hadn't he?
Not to blame, huh? He hadn't believed that for a minute before and neither would Dani now about herself.
"I have to stay with Cate." Dani handed Ben her cell phone. "Can't use this in here. Go and call Mercier. Speed dial one. Give him this license number to trace." She rattled it off. "He'll give you a contact here. Can you lift prints?"
Ben shook his head.
"Okay, make the calls, let Mercier know the prints will be coming within the hour if I can get any off the shoe. Hurry back and sit with Cate while I do that. She has to be attended by one of us, even if there's surgery."
"I know the drill."
"I thought you might." Dani gave him a little push to hurry him along. Suddenly she remembered that Ben was a target, too. "Watch your back," she warned. "Don't go outside."
He shot her a look that said he was neither a child nor the village idiot. She shrugged an apology as he left and turned her attention to Cate. The doctor was examining the injury to her head and ordering her to X-ray. He turned to Dani as he ripped off his gloves. "Shoulder should be fine. It'll scar without stitches, but I think we should see about her head injury first. There's massive swelling and she's comatose."
"She was hit there, too?" Dani asked.
"Apparently she struck something sharp near the base of the skull."
"But she was lucid," Dani told him. "She called out to me. Talked to Ben."
He nodded. "A good sign, indicating that the edema is the problem. When the swelling subsides, she should come out of it. Still, we need a scan to determine the extent of the damage." He pushed past her. "Excuse me."
Dani followed the gurney as they wheeled Cate to X-ray. Ben joined her in the hallway and handed her the phone she had given him. "Mercier's sending a local to attend Cate, be here in about a half hour. He's running that license and wants prints or partials ASAP if you can get any. Oh, and he ordered us to a safe house. Said you have the address."
As if she planned to hang around some hole in the wall when there was so much to do. "Go with Cate," Dani said. "If she says anything, write it down, make notes on who heard it."
"I know," he said. Dani frowned at his back as she stopped at the waiting area and he continued on down the hallway with the gurney. Cate had been right, they were both control freaks.
Right now she needed to get down to plain old police work.
She went to the receptionist at the window and flapped open her badge folder. "Please get me a small container of talcum powder," she said in French. "And give me your tape dispenser, would you?"
The young receptionist, looking a bit startled, did as she asked. "Thank you," Dani said with a smile. "Now, do you have any more of those slick black folders over there?" The girl nodded and opened a deep drawer full of supplies.
"An empty one, please, from the middle of the stack," Dani ordered. She held it by the edge when the girl handed her the item. Dani thanked her again and went back to her chair. She noted a few strange looks from six others in the waiting room as she withdrew the cheap, black men's shoe from her purse and carefully set it aside on the end table beside her chair.
Ignoring her audience, she found her small makeup bag and retrieved the camel-hair brush she used for her blusher.
Very carefully, Dani dusted the shoe with talc, smiling tightly as she discovered the splotches and began to lift them with the tape. She stuck pieces of tape to the shiny black surface of the file folder. "There," she muttered to herself. "Now to send."
With the receptionist glaring at her, she took out her satellite cell phone, used the photo option and quickly transmitted the images to Control. They would be of high enough resolution that the COMPASS computers could maybe approximate a match.
Mission accomplished, she closed the phone and tucked it away along with the shoe and her makeup bag. Sometimes she had to do things the quick way. The cops would have taken hours.
Just then a woman entered the waiting area. "Danielle Sweet?" she asked, a quiet inquiry addressed to the room in general.
Dani sized her up before responding. The woman wore a business suit of charcoal-gray, had on sensible shoes, a bulge beneath her jacket that indicated she was armed. She was assessing every individual in the room, almost at once. Her gaze landed on Dani and stuck. "Ms. Sweet?"
Dani stood, ready for anything.
The woman approached. "Tewanda Hardy from the embassy," she said, holding out her hand. "Mercier called." Dani guessed she was really CIA. Their agents often used embassy cover and Mercier had a number of close contacts within the agency. "Our friend, Caterina. How is she?"
Relieved that Mercier had come through with local backup, Dani shook her head. "They're trying to determine that now. She was unconscious when they brought her in."
"Try not to worry," the woman said. "I will be with her while you do what you must. Who is with her now?"
"My partner," Dani said.
Without being asked, Hardy withdrew a flat wallet and handed it to Dani. Her creds identified her as who she claimed to be. Dani handed it back. "Thanks for coming so quickly. You'll call me if there's any change at all in her condition?"
"I have your number and will also be in close contact with Mr. Mercier."
Hardy glanced meaningfully at the restroom down the hallway, then headed for it. Dani followed. There, Hardy took the shoe and gave her items Mercier knew Dani and Ben might need.
They returned to the waiting room and remained silent after that. Dani prayed the blow to Cate's head hadn't done any lasting damage.
Later, as they left the hospital in a taxi, Ben held back the information he had overheard in radiology. Obviously the doctor there assumed that Ben spoke only English. Or perhaps they didn't care one way or the other.
The conversation, held in French-accented German, had been difficult to follow, but Ben had enough of both languages to get the gist of Cate's condition.
"Okay, let's have it," Dani said with a weary sigh. "You're as transparent as glass, Michaels." She sat sort of sideways in the corner of the backseat, looking back toward the hospital. "What did you hear that I didn't?"
He let his shoulders slump and stretched his neck muscles by leaning his head forward and rubbing his nape vigorously. "It looks like a brain stem injury. That's what they're afraid of."
Dani tensed and grabbed his arm. "Oh God, Ben, paralysis?"
"No, no. There's response in her extremities. And she moved on the table. I saw her."
"Then what?" Dani asked, again looking out the back window at the gigantic structure where they had left her friend.
"They're worried about...her faculties, I think. I'm not sure. They weren't speaking English, so some of it got past me."
Brain damage. Dani squeezed her eyes shut and cursed. Then she blinked as if to clear her vision.
"Hey, her mind was functioning well when she called out to you in the restaurant after she was hit," Ben r
eminded Dani. "She made sense. She even told me she never saw the shooter. That was just before she fainted." He took Dani's hand in his. "We have to believe she'll recover, Dani. Don't lose faith."
She nodded, holding his fingers in a death grip.
"So what now? We catch this guy, right?" he said, hoping to distract her through purpose.
"Damn straight," she answered, her voice gruff and just shy of tears. "Now we catch him."
She had given the taxi driver an address that was not for the hotel. Ben figured they must be on the way to that safe house Mercier had arranged. "I'll need my computer," Ben said. "If I can hack into some serious stamp collecting sites, we might get lucky and find out where the deal's going down, if there's any chatter about it on the Web, that is."
"Our things and Cate's have already been picked up," she told him. "We can't go back to the hotel. It's not safe to."
"I need to give that laptop a workout as soon as we get where we're going. We need to get to the bottom of this."
"With a vengeance," she said through gritted teeth.
Yes, vengeance had become the name of the game, Ben thought���now it was working both ways. Dani wanted payback for what had happened to Cate. And Victor Bruegel wanted some serious retribution for a supposed wrong Ben had done to him.
Bruegel must hate his guts for some reason, but damned if Ben could figure out why. He had saved the man's life, kept him alive against all odds after the truck bomb.
He wished he had been able to save the others. Their deaths couldn't account for Bruegel's hatred, though. Victor hadn't even liked the family they were transporting to the border.
Besides, how the hell had Victor gained the power to set up an operation like this? Ben hadn't been out of the game that long. How had Bruegel gotten control of Persand Inc.?
An even larger mystery was how the man had convinced Kelior and Belken to carry this out. To commit treason. To kill innocents. He sure hadn't generated that much loyalty when he had been under Ben's command.