DEVON STOOD BESIDE CHAD on the North Shore and watched the surf pummel the beach while Zach romped along the water’s edge. The retriever had the good sense not to plunge into the dangerous surf.
“I surfed here almost every day when I was growing up,” Chad told her.
“Impressive,” Devon replied, and she meant it. The surf here was awesome—some of the biggest waves she’d ever seen. They crashed onto the beach with frightening intensity.
Chad had insisted on taking her for a drive after she’d told him the story she’d concocted about Nate Albert. He was a real person—his name supplied by Warren—the story was pure fiction. Her overwhelming sense of guilt hadn’t subsided one bit during the long drive up here.
She watched Zach playing tag with the waves as they raced up on the shore and reminded herself why she’d fabricated such an outrageous tale. Staying here with Zach had become terribly important to her—more important than telling the truth. Once she wouldn’t have believed this, but her time in WITSEC had taught her to do anything and everything she could to protect herself.
“What are you thinking?” Chad unexpectedly asked.
She stared at the powerful waves for a moment, then turned to him. “Will you do me a favor?”
He pushed his shades to the top of his head, and his eyes met hers. The intensity in his expression astounded her.
“What’s the favor?”
“I want you to forget about me. Go on with your life as if you’d never met me.”
He put his large hand on her shoulder. His touch calmed her, took a bit of the darkness away somehow. It was a dangerous feeling. To rely on him could be fatal—for him, for her.
“I can’t forget about you. I can’t just walk away. I already…care about you.” He drew her into his arms. “You know that. Don’t you?”
It was all she could do not to give in to her emotions and rest her head on his sturdy shoulder. “This is way too fast. I can’t do this.”
“Do what?” he asked, his lips against the hair on the top of her head.
“I have to be careful.”
“You said Nate Albertson is in federal prison.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t send one of his henchmen after me.” She forced herself to pull out of his arms. “I don’t want you involved.”
“I can take care of myself,” he replied as he led her down the beach toward a bench. “I was in Delta Force.”
On the way up to the North Shore, Chad had told her about himself. No doubt he was a highly trained man who was far better able to protect himself than Romero had been. Still, Rutherford and Ames could afford a top-notch hit team like the one they sent to Santa Fe. Chad might not even see them coming.
Zach bounded up to them, his exuberance forcing her to smile. “Good boy.” He had a stick in his mouth that he’d found somewhere on the beach. She tossed it high in the air but away from the water. She didn’t want him in the treacherous surf.
“There was a man,” she told him as they sat down on the wooden bench, “a friend who had a gallery next to where I worked.”
Chad’s eyes roved over her in silent appraisal, and she wondered if he was asking himself why she hadn’t mentioned this earlier. She’d wanted to tell as few lies as possible. She’d told him that she’d been working in a gallery in Portland when a hit team had come to kill her. Basically she’d re-hashed the Santa Fe story including the part about the two cell phones, but she hadn’t mentioned Romero’s death. She’d claimed she’d gotten away and had driven south to Santa Barbara where she was able to crew on a sailboat bound for Hawaii.
This jibed with her explanation of how she’d escaped Nate Albert by flying to London, hitchhiking to the south of France and hiring on as crew on a boat sailing to Florida. Chad had remarked that this was an ingenious way of getting back into the country. Airports had extremely tight security since 9/11 but yacht harbors had lax customs check points.
“What about the man?” Chad prompted.
“They killed him.” She exhaled, hard. “Slit his throat.”
“I’m sorry.” He ran his fingers along the curve of her cheek. “I know you’re worried about me, but—”
“Don’t you get it? He died because he befriended me. I don’t want to put you at risk. If they—”
“They?”
Careful, she warned herself. She’d been thinking of Rutherford and Ames and had said “they.” Slow down. Watch what you say. “Remember, I told you the hit team was an ordinary looking couple from the Midwest. They weren’t what I would have expected. Who knows what the next team will look like?”
His eyes raked her face, their blue depths gleaming with an inner light that was almost frightening. Tenderness replaced the fearsome intensity in his expression. “We’re in this together.”
She’d been alone and lonely for so long with only Zach for comfort. To know someone cared touched her in a very unexpected way. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and cradle him against her breasts. To keep him safe. It was an irrational, maternal instinct she realized, but she couldn’t help herself.
We’re in this together.
He didn’t have a clue about what was really happening. Devon was tempted to warn him, but there was so much about him she didn’t know, and she couldn’t risk getting tossed out of WITSEC. She had no choice but to stick with the story she’d fabricated.
Zach pranced up to her, the stick in his jaws. She took her time extracting it from his mouth while she tried to decide what to do about Chad. She threw the sand-coated stick as far down the beach as she could.
Chad reached over and threaded a tendril of her hair through his fingers. His eyes never left hers as he played with her hair. Unrelenting determination in his voice, he repeated, “We’re in this together.”
Chest swelling emotion welled up inside her. She couldn’t look into his eyes any longer. She was afraid he would see through the web of lies. He leaned down and she almost sighed as his lips hovered over hers.
“Don’t,” she managed to murmur.
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
“No. I don’t.” Even to Devon, her voice sounded pathetically unconvincing.
“If I recall…you kissed me big-time last night.”
She hadn’t forgotten, not for a second, not even when she’d been spinning the tale about Nate Albert. Her entire body had been taut with anticipation since he’d walked into her apartment. Encouraging him was dangerous for both of them.
Tell a joke, her mind ordered. Defuse the situation.
“Know what God said after creating Eve?”
Chad frowned at her.
“Practice makes perfect.”
He shook his head. “Very funny. You joke to get out of tight spots.”
She couldn’t deny it. Jokes relieved tension. She’d learned that as a young child when her parents had been fighting.
He took her face in the palms of his hands and tilted it upward until she was forced to look into his eyes. In their smoldering depths she saw something she couldn’t name. Ever so slowly he drew her to him.
She knew she shouldn’t do this. Kissing him only encouraged feelings of intimacy. His we’re-in-this-together attitude would only increase if she allowed him to get close to her like this. She tried to pull away, but his powerful arms anchored her in place.
His lips touched hers and longing rose, swift and overwhelming. Devon admitted the truth to herself. She wanted this man. It wasn’t just, sex, either, she realized with shattering clarity. She needed much, much…more from him.
He teased her lips apart and nudged his tongue into her mouth. Her pulse went berserk, throbbing heat invading the sweet spot between her thighs. She clung to him, savoring the male scent of his body, the salt air dancing around them, the trace of woodsy aftershave.
His hand inched up her rib cage and cradled her breast. He stroked the nipple with his thumb until it was a taut bead straining against the sheer fabric of her sundress. She arched against his rock-hard, inescapably masculine frame and furrowed her fingers through his hair.
She molded her body against his and kissed him, not even thinking about holding back. Passion surged through her and she knew she didn’t have the willpower to resist him. She’d known she had a sensual side, but her physical reaction to other men had never been this intense.
He pulled back a scant inch. His heavy-lidded eyes gazed down at her. “You see? All it takes is a kiss.” His warm breath stirred her hair. “And we’re ready to go.”
There was no point in denying it. Unwilling to trust her voice, she merely nodded.
“I don’t think a public beach is a very good spot.”
“No, it’s not,” she agreed.
“Let’s go to my place.”
BROCK STARED AT 251’S FILE. There was nothing in the jacket about the agent’s Mennonite background. It listed his parents as Martha and David Norton. Place of birth: Belize City, Belize, Central America.
Did another more comprehensive file exist somewhere else at Obelisk? If it was stored in an electronic format, Brock would know about it. But if it was in an old-fashioned paper file—it could be anywhere in the building.
Cassidy’s office was the most likely spot. As CEO he should have information on everyone. Brock had never found Cassidy to be particularly clever. Why would he hide 251’s religious background? It didn’t make sense.
While he mulled over the puzzle, Brock logged on to refdesk.com and looked up the Mennonites in Belize. They were distant relatives of the Pennsylvania Amish who had moved to Mexico in the 1900s. They were devoted pacifists who rejected any form of taxation. In the 1950s the Mexican government tried to make them join the Social Security network. The whole group packed up and moved to Belize.
Unlike the Pennsylvania Amish, the Mennonites in Belize didn’t reject modern equipment. None of that horse and buggy crap some people found quaint. The Mennonites in Belize were very successful farmers and produced most of the country’s dairy products. The small but influential group was wealthy compared to their countrymen.
Brock read a little more but didn’t find anything online that gave him the slightest clue about why 251’s Mennonite background wasn’t in his file. Brock knew he was going to have to get into Cassidy’s office and see if he had paper files that hadn’t been scanned into the security system.
There wasn’t any reason Brock could see not to go ahead with his plan. Tomorrow 251 would be back in this country. 77 had already been prepped on the mission.
“Samantha Robbins is as good as dead.”
His words echoed through his office. With the bitch out of the way, he could send 77 after the DARPA device some jerk was testing in Hawaii.
“Speaking of bitches.” He picked up the telephone and called Jordan Walsh. The bitch hadn’t returned a single one of his phone calls. Who did she think she was? The damn answering machine picked up, and he slammed the receiver down.
Maybe he should just go over to her place tonight. The message didn’t say she was traveling. He assumed she would be home. He didn’t care about Jordan Walsh blowing him off—but he did care about her Gull Wing. He intended to have that car.
Brock killed the rest of the afternoon running security checks on Obelisk executives. No one but Cassidy seemed to be in contact with Bash Olofson. It occurred to Brock that Olofson might have files on Obelisk operatives. Brock had never tried to get into his computer.
“Too risky.”
If he were caught breaking into Olofson’s house, it would be the end of his career. He had no doubt the general would have him killed. Brock liked to get into computers directly. He had no trouble accessing the Obelisk executives’ terminals because they were in the building.
He could send the general an e-mail greeting card and use some other general’s name so Olofson would be sure to open it. Most people didn’t yet realize that worms could be embedded in those cutesy online cards. The worm wouldn’t destroy files. It would relay them to another computer.
Brock would have to purchase a computer and use a false name. There was always the chance the worm would be discovered. He didn’t want it traced back to him.
That evening he went to Jordan’s condo. No lights were on and no one answered the bell. He slipped a note under the front door.
Call me. I miss you.
He wanted to go to his warehouse and detail his cars, but night was the only time he could safely search Cassidy’s office. He drove back to Obelisk, parked in his spot and checked his watch. The security guards patrolled the building every thirty-seven minutes.
Brock slipped into the building and took the backstairs to Cassidy’s twelfth-floor office. He had keys to every office in the building, even though the only other set of keys was supposed to be in the security guard’s office. He slid the key in the lock and the door clicked open. Brock slipped inside and shut it quietly behind him.
He turned on the special military flashlight. It was longer and thinner than a standard flashlight, but gave off tremendous light. He checked his watch. In thirty-one minutes the guard would make rounds and check this office. He had to be out by then.
It didn’t take half that long. Cassidy had nothing of interest hidden in his office. Nothing. Where was the file?