FORTUNATELY, or unfortunately—depending on how one looked at it—these two weren’t lovers. There was no doubt that they were muscle, despite the formal black suits, white shirts and ties they wore. They spoke in rapid Afrikaans, and it was clear to Jack the latest arrivals were in the bedroom searching for someone.
It wasn’t going to take the goons long to spring the closet door and find the two someones they were searching for standing there like hookers in church.
Now, how to explain what the hell they were doing in the closet when there was a perfectly good bed not twenty feet away?
Jack grabbed her hand, pushed open the closet door, and walked into the bedroom. “Come on, honey,” he told her in a coaxing voice. “Embarrassed or not, these guys were going to find us in there.”
It was a toss-up as to who was more surprised by their sudden emergence from the nether regions of the closet—Mia or the two goons who spun around, weapons drawn.
“Whoa!” Jack said, putting up his hands even as he took the step necessary to block Mia’s body. The fact that they weren’t already bleeding was a good sign. It showed that these guys either wanted information, or they were actually considering his lame excuse. Mia’s stunned expression was helping in that department.
The other possibility, he quickly realized, was that they might want to avoid the messy evidence of two bleeding bodies. It couldn’t be because they were afraid of someone hearing the shots. There were silencers affixed to the muzzles ensuring that no one outside of this room would hear a thing if they did decide to use their weapons.
“What’re you two doing in here?” the one on the left demanded in a thick accent. The unibrow was a nice touch for muscle. The Heckler & Kotch USP pistols gripped in their hamlike fists gave Jack pause. These two didn’t even have to be good shots to blow him and Mia to kingdom come.
Jack’s own custom Smith & Wesson 1911 with its Hogue grip rested comfortably in the small of his back. Mia’s .22 was in the purse she held clutched in one hand. They wouldn’t even clear leather if these two decided to open fire.
So, since he couldn’t shoot his way out of this mess, Jack did what he did best—talked. And hoped to hell Mia would chime in like she always had. They hadn’t been called the best team in the business for nothing.
“Come on, guys. A little slap and tickle isn’t grounds for getting shot, is it?” he asked easily. The two men stood between them and the exit. Behind Jack and Mia were the three doors. The closet doors, and the one leading into the bathroom.
“Oh,” Mia moaned, leaning into Jack even as she pulled her purse, with the gun inside, closer to her shooting hand. She managed to look slightly embarrassed. “Can we get out of here now, Jack? I’m…not really in the mood anymore.” She shot him a fulminating glance. “I told you we’d get caught.”
“Relax, honey. They won’t tell.”
The second man, greasy yellow hair in a bouffant-on-top-long-on-the-bottom mullet, waved Mia away from Jack. “Stand over there, lady. Keep your hands where we can see them.”
“Good grief,” Mia said sweetly. “Afraid I’m going to smack you with my little ol’ purse?” But she obediently moved a few feet away from Jack and kept her hands up. “My mother always said some day the Sex Police would come. I guess she was right.”
Jack noticed with approval that she’d managed to unsnap the little pearl clip on the small purse for easy access to her weapon. Hell, she could reach inside and fire right through her purse. The hell with pulling it out.
“That’s up to these two guys, darling. Well, fellas, what do you say? Now that you’ve caught us in flagrante delicto, may we go?”
Both men kept a wary eye on Jack, clearly believing Mia to be no trouble. Jack resisted smiling. Mia in a temper was a sight to behold. They had absolutely no idea that she was the really dangerous part of this team. He kept his expression bland, and mildly respectful. These guys were obviously low on the food chain. He didn’t want to do anything to set them off.
“Gimme the disk.”
“Disk?” Mia asked, feigning puzzlement.
Unibrow waved his H&K at Jack. “The disk you took outta the safe in the wardrobe.” He waved his weapon wildly in the direction of the closet behind them.
How the hell did they know that anything had been removed from the safe? Jack wondered. While he and Mia had been voyeurs had someone been watching them? Not that that little detail mattered right now.
Jack shrugged and said, “Didn’t see a safe in there, pal. We just dashed in there to avoid being caught in an embarrassing position. Hey, man, can we put our hands down now? This is—”
He saw the punch coming and moved his head in time to avoid it, at the same time he brought his raised hands down in a neat chop to the guy’s gun hand.
The gun stayed clenched in the meaty fist, and the guy swayed but didn’t fall. Jack sharply jerked up his knee, knocking out a few of UniBrow’s teeth in the process. Damn. The dry cleaner was going to bitch about the blood on his fine wool pants come Monday morning.
In one continuous motion, Jack grabbed the guy by the hair, pulling him upright. Unibrow came surging up like a monolithic tidal wave, grabbed Jack’s throat with both hands and shook him like a rat. Blood poured from the guy’s mouth and the missing teeth made him look like a demented seven-year-old on steroids.
Jack bit his tongue a couple of times before he managed to seize his opponent’s right elbow from underneath and turn rapidly to release the guy’s hold. He followed that with a chop to the man’s bull-like neck.
Uni rocked back on his heels like a drunk trying to look sober, and it was only quick thinking on Jack’s part that he stepped away before Uni grabbed a leg and turned him over like a frigging turtle.
Mia used her long legs to kick Mullet-head in the jaw with full force while he was watching the stuffing being beaten out of Uni. He crashed onto the edge of the bed with a very surprised expression on his face.
“See what I mean, Jack?” she said, only slightly out of breath. “You’re a crappy liar.” She removed the .22 from her purse and got a solid two-handed grip on it. “And everyone knows it—” Weapon raised, she spun on Mullet-head who’d immediately staggered to his feet, his weapon aimed at her heart. “Would you quit pointing that thing at me? It’s damn rude.”
They stood there like cartoon characters. Four pissed off people, four weapons. Eight steady hands.
Who was going to yell chicken first?
“Tell you what, guys,” Jack said, knowing the odds, and knowing he wouldn’t risk Mia. Not even for his country. “Let’s all just put our toys down and call it a draw, huh? Whaddya say?” His prime directive was to get this disk to HQ. More important was getting Mia out of the mix.
“Give us the computer disk,” Mullet-head snarled, “and you can go.”
Yeah, right. The good news was the ambassador apparently wasn’t in on this. The bad news was they were standing here at gunpoint.
“If we only had the disk,” Mia said, “we’d be happy to oblige. As it is…” She shrugged.
Jack glanced at Mia, noticed she suddenly looked shorter, and realized she’d kicked off her shoes. She wanted to be barefoot for the five-yard dash to the closed bedroom door. Only problem was, she’d get shot in the back before she made it. He gave her a warning look.
“Remember when we went to that cute cabin in the Poconos for the weekend last year?” Mia asked in a dreamy voice. Scary when she was standing there, feet braced a shoulder’s-width apart, arms extended, and holding a fully loaded weapon aimed at a man’s balls.
Cabin? Yeah, he remembered. They’d fought like two hellcats in a bag over her wanting to get married, and him wanting things just the way they were. Pissed, and with nowhere to run to, Mia had locked herself into the bathroom. And hadn’t been able to unlock the door. Opting not to break it down at midnight, she’d had to…climb out the window.
No way. They were on the second floor. Snow was flurrying out there. They weren’t dressed for the weather—
“Yeah,” he warned. “You were stupid.”
Her beautiful eyes widened. “Stupid?” she asked dangerously.
“Stop dickin’ around,” Mullet-head snarled, taking a step closer. “You two are pissing me off. Give us the disk. Now.”
“Do you have a disk?” Jack asked Mia.
“Nope. You?”
“Na-ah.”
“We don’t have this disk you want. Sorry.” Mia took a step back. Since both men were watching Jack with eyes like raptors, she took another. These two weren’t likely to chase them down the stairs and through the house. Not in front of hundreds of witnesses. There were only two ways out. She preferred to do it through the nice warm house with lots of people around.
They could dump the disk and retrieve it later—
“Look,” she said into the thick silence, “this is really freaking me out. Why don’t you call the ambassador or his wife? They’ve both known us for years. They’ll vouch for us.”
“Don’t know them. Don’t care. I’m givin’ you to three to hand it over. One. T—”
Lying bastard.
He shot Jack on two.