Kitabı oku: «Hart's Last Stand», sayfa 3

Chapter 3

Hart paced the small sitting area of Suzanne’s hotel room, struggling against his frustrations, against the resentment and anger that were roiling inside him and that he was trying not to let her see. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and the longer they talked, the longer he looked into those fathomless brown eyes, the more he felt torn between ugly suspicion and the unfounded desire to believe her.

She set her glass of water on the coffee table, and he paused, turning at the sound of glass on glass. His dark gaze met hers, and for a split second he thought he saw the passion and mistrust he knew was most likely mirrored in his own eyes.

“I shouldn’t have come back,” she said again, though she wasn’t really talking to him.

Hart slid a hand through his hair as he contemplated his next move. He knew how to play the game as well as anyone. Better, actually. And it was definitely time to play. He closed the distance between them and knelt in front of her. “Suzanne.”

Innocence or treachery? Which was it that shone from those infinite depths, that coated her words, that hid behind that tantalizing smile?

He reached for her, and the moment his hand touched hers, and without warning, all the old feelings of desire welled up inside him, stronger than ever, a scorching inferno that instantly began to war with his suspicions of betrayal.

He’d meant the gesture merely as a way to get her confidence and trust. But it had been a mistake, one he had no doubt now would end up costing him dearly.

With an effort of concentration and training he pulled on the cold mantle he normally assumed when readying for a mission that would take him into battle—and possibly take his life—and shrugged the unwanted feelings of desire aside. He needed to stay focused. To remember that she was likely the most dangerous enemy he’d ever faced.

That caution might be all that stood between his life and his death.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know you’re scared, Suzanne, and I shouldn’t have accused you of lying. It was a stupid thing to do. But you can understand, can’t you? I mean, this whole thing sounds so unbelievable. I was taken back. I felt I had to test you.”

He saw the wariness in her eyes. The fear. But was she afraid of him? Or afraid she wouldn’t succeed in fooling him?

“Look, I’m sorry,” he repeated, making an effort to soften his voice further. “I know you have no reason to lie about something like this, Suzanne.”

She looked down at the hand enveloping hers. “I didn’t lie, Hart, but I shouldn’t have come to you,” she said. “Now they suspect you, too.”

“I told you, someone was already investigating me. They requested my personnel file before you got here. I’m not quite sure where it fits, but your coming has added a piece to the puzzle and given me at least an idea about what’s going on.” That was probably the biggest lie he’d told in years.

She looked at him in surprise.

“It’ll be all right,” he said, seeing the fear still in her eyes, but not trusting himself, or her, to believe it was real. “We’ll figure out what’s going on.”

Suzanne nodded. They’d been attracted to each other once, and the timing had been wrong. Terribly wrong. It was no better now, and she felt certain it never would be. Rick’s ghost would always be between them.

Hart started to stand.

“No,” she said quickly, surprising herself. She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want him to leave for fear he might not come back. “Stay awhile longer, please. You were right, we need to talk. Maybe we can discuss this further over dinner.”

And you’ll tell me more lies? Hart wondered, still kneeling in front of her. Yet in spite of the ugly thought, he thought he saw innocence in her eyes. Or maybe it was merely the skill of a good actress. A well-trained spy, looking up at him guilelessly, letting him see what he wanted to see while she drew him into her deadly web.

And a good soldier knew when to confront his enemy and when to let them think he was coming around to their way of thinking, Hart reminded himself, and this was not the time for confrontation or assault. Congeniality was called for. Maybe even seduction. “I’d like that,” he said, smiling at her for the first time since she’d returned.

Suzanne stole a glance across the table at Hart. Her reactions to him were intense. But she had to believe they were merely physical. She’d been so lonely since Rick’s death. And in reality, long before that. But another whirlwind romance like the one she’d had with Rick before they got married was not what she was looking for. In fact, she wasn’t looking for anything. Or anyone. She liked her life just the way it was. She was independent, successful, and…

Alone, a little voice in the back of her mind said.

She ignored it. The only reason she was here with Hart was that someone was trying to destroy her. She needed his help—that was all.

She opened her mouth to say something to him, but a movement near the entrance to the hotel dining room caught her eye, and as she turned, she instantly forgot every thought in her mind. The man she’d seen near the pool earlier looking up at her room stood talking with the maître d’.

He was short and wiry with small eyes, dark, oiled-back hair, dark complexion and a thin black mustache that followed the curve of his upper lip and ended bluntly at each corner. She thought instantly of a weasel. A very dapper, very slick and very polished weasel.

The maître d’ motioned with his hand, and both men began to cross the room toward Suzanne and Hart.

She stiffened.

The maître d’ breezed past.

The man from the pool caught her eye.

A slight smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and he nodded.

Suzanne cringed and instinctively pushed against the back of her seat. Was that his way of telling her she was being watched?

Hart saw Suzanne’s reaction to the man passing their table. He glanced over her shoulder and watched as the man took a seat at another table. Was he Suzanne’s accomplice? Or had she recognized a federal agent? Was that a warning to the man he’d seen in her eyes or fear of him?

“Who was that?” he asked, deciding his waning patience wasn’t going to abide anything at the moment but a direct approach, even if all it garnered him was yet another of her lies.

“I don’t know, but I saw him earlier. He was watching me.”

“Watching you?” He nearly scoffed at what was most likely a lie, and his mind raced to figure out where to put this piece of the puzzle. Feigning concern, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Where was this, Suzanne? And when did you notice him watching you?”

“When I—”

“Excuse me, señorita.”

They both looked up to see that the man in question had returned and was standing beside their table. He nodded to Hart, then looked back at Suzanne and smiled widely, but there seemed a sadness in his dark eyes that didn’t disappear with the warm gesture of his lips.

Hart saw Suzanne’s fingers tighten around the delicate stem of her water glass, but the move didn’t completely obscure the fact that she was trembling. At least, it didn’t obscure it from him.

Fright or nervousness? he wondered.

“Yes?” she said.

“Excuse me,” the man repeated. “I am Salvatore DeBraggo.” He offered a curt bow, at the same time scooping up Suzanne’s free hand and raising it to his lips. “Are you not Señorita Cassidy from Casswell’s Gallery in Beverly Hills, California?”

His accent was extremely thick, but Suzanne understood every word. Mainly because they’d brought her a rush of relief. She’d almost expected him to pull out a knife or gun. She smiled, feeling foolish. “Yes, I am, but I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr….”

“Oh, no, señorita, we have not met. You see, I have been dealing with your associate, Señor Weller. I have a very extensive collection of antique jewelry, my late wife’s, actually. But—” he waved a hand, as if in dismissal “—we had no children, so there is no one to give the jewels to and I could use the funds.”

“I see,” Suzanne said.

“Yes. I would like to place them up for auction, and when I spoke with Señor Weller today on the telephone and he realized you and I were both here in the same city, he assured me you could—”

Hart felt his temper rising. He was trying to handle the possibility of losing his career, deal with espionage, treason and betrayal, and keep his burning libido under control, and this overly polished dandy was trying to arrange an auction? The rein on his patience snapped.

“Look, Braggo,” Hart interjected.

“Señor DeBraggo,” the man politely corrected, still smiling but not taking his gaze off Suzanne.

“Señor DeBraggo,” Hart repeated with more than a touch of sarcasm purposely instilled in his tone, “Ms. Cassidy is here on vacation, at least for the next few days, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

The man handed Suzanne a card. “Of course. Again, please excuse me, señorita. I apologize humbly for the interruption. It was only that Señor Weller insisted I contact you here right away. He made no mention of a vacation. I am sorry to have bothered you.”

“It’s all right, really, Señor DeBraggo,” Suzanne said, shooting a glare of reproof at Hart. “I often mix business with pleasure. It’s no problem at all.”

DeBraggo smiled. “Then I will await your call, Señorita Cassidy. I am also staying here in the hotel and have written my room number on the back of my card, in case you have the time to look at my jewelry. Until we talk again, at your convenience, of course.” He snapped his heels together, then turned and walked away without even so much as a “drop dead and goodbye” to Hart.

He watched the man walk back to his own table. There was something about him that made Hart uneasy. Instinct warned him that the man was not what he seemed, that he was someone who could be very dangerous. Maybe even deadly. The glint in his eyes was too cold and hard.

Hart looked back at Suzanne. “Do you get that sort of thing a lot when you’re out?” he asked sharply, unable to rationalize just why his temper was still smoldering. What in hell did he care if the man had insultingly ignored him? Or that Suzanne didn’t mind mixing business with pleasure? If indeed that was what had happened. And if it was and his instincts were on the wrong course, it was certainly none of his concern if her partner sicced inconsiderate clients on her.

“No, not often,” Suzanne said, staring at DeBraggo’s card.

Hart took a long swallow of ice water, hoping the coldness of it would somehow miraculously put a chill on both his overactive libido and his temper. Could he mix business with pleasure? he wondered, watching her. Could he draw her into his arms, kiss her, taste her passion as he’d wanted to for so long and still seriously consider that she could be out to destroy him? That she could be guilty of treason, possibly even murder?

A frown dug deeply into Suzanne’s brow as Hart studied her. He suddenly found himself wondering if she could read his thoughts.

“Hart,” she said softly, cutting into his musings.

He saw new fear in her eyes.

“I didn’t tell Clyde what hotel I was going to be staying in.”

Hart instantly shoved out of his seat and darted across the restaurant in the direction Salvatore DeBraggo had gone. His gaze swept over the other patrons, but there was no sign of the Spaniard anywhere.

Hart lay on his bed and stared into the darkness, running everything that had happened that evening through his mind again. Right after leaving Suzanne he’d called Private Roubechard about the background checks he’d requested, but there was some problem with getting the files downloaded and transferred from the Armed Security Agency, so they weren’t going to be available until morning.

He mulled over the incident at dinner again. Had the whole thing with DeBraggo been a setup? Something the man and Suzanne had staged just for him? Maybe so she could gain a little more of Hart’s trust? Look a bit more innocent, a bit more vulnerable, so that he’d believe and help her?

He threw back the sheet and swung his feet to the floor, annoyed by his inability to turn off his thoughts and go to sleep. That wasn’t usually a problem. He’d slept in everything from a sagging feather bed to a foxhole to a leaf-filled muddy crevice in the Peruvian jungle. He’d slept through artillery fire, bombing raids and silence so deep it was deafening.

He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Almost 3:00 a.m. If he wasn’t going to sleep, the least he could do was think. Rationally.

Why had she really come back?

Frustrated and annoyed by the traitorous bent of his thoughts, Hart settled down at the desk in his bedroom and flipped on the computer. If his libido and sudden bent for nostalgia kept getting in the way, he was most certainly going to end up either behind bars or dead. Especially if the woman heating his libido and stirring that nostalgia had come to him with a lie and treachery in mind.

He typed a series of codes into his laptop and tried accessing ASA, but whatever was wrong on their end was still wrong.

Maybe he could do a search for DeBraggo and Suzanne on the Web. He zipped through several search engines before deciding which one to use.

Within five minutes he had pulled up several sites that had something to do with the name DeBraggo. One advertised financial assistance, another was a travel agency in Texas, another a tax attorney in New Mexico and yet another an import/export-business Web site.

None seemed suspicious, but he knew that guilt sometimes had a way of hiding behind a facade of angelic innocence.

He opened the first one, and his brows rose in interest. Their headquarters were based in Los Angeles, California.

A little much for coincidence.

The sound of screeching tires, followed by a crash, suddenly shattered the stillness of the night and Hart’s concentration. He ran to the window of his apartment. Two cars were at the corner, the front end of a sporty red foreign job embedded in the passenger door of a sleek black Lincoln twice its size. A cloud of steam rose from the sports car’s crushed hood as the two drivers started throwing their arms and hands about, obviously arguing.

Hart stared down at the wreck glistening in the glow of the moon. The steaming sports car reminded him of dancing waves of fire.

Rick’s chopper had burst into flames.

Memories assaulted Hart and before he could stop it, time spun backward…

The team had split into pairs, partnering off to circle their enemy, surround them and move in stealthily for the attack. Rick and Hart had been approaching from the rear, flying low over the Raumsean Woods, several miles inside of Iran’s border.

The experimental weapons-detection systems installed in their Cobras warned them of an antiaircraft missile installation hidden within the dense growth of trees below. With that warning they both should have been able to easily avoid any attack and take out their would-be assailant before he even knew they were there.

“Tracker, we got one below,” Hart radioed. “You see it?”

“Got it in my sights, Ice,” Rick answered, using the name the close-knit group of men in the corps had given Hart not only because of his coolness under pressure, but because each of them, in one way or another, had discovered that he kept his innermost emotions on ice; out of reach or touch.

Hart watched him descend toward his target.

Suddenly a missile shot from the trees.

“Tracker, evade!” Hart ordered. “Evade!”

Rick’s Cobra exploded in a burst of flames.

Stunned, unable to believe what he’d just seen, Hart froze. For the briefest of moments he stopped living, as he watched what was left of the burning chopper spiral from the sky, crash into the dense woods and explode again.

Another missile burst from the foliage below.

The instinct for survival rushed in on Hart, and he jerked back on the throttle…

Hart was pulled back to the present by the sound of a police siren. He realized that his only hope of finding out who was trying to destroy him was to turn the tables on them—just as he’d done during that mission. For the briefest of moments that day a year ago he’d stopped being the hunter and had become the prey—a move that had nearly gotten him killed.

It wasn’t going to happen again.

He shrugged aside the past and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now, on what he knew about Suzanne Cassidy.

It wasn’t much.

He snatched the telephone receiver from the hook. The night before Rick’s last mission, she had done the one thing that no pilot could ever forgive. If she was innocent she would have known better.

The thought had nagged at him for the past year. Rick would have trusted her, might even have confided in her—told her things about the corps, about their missions, that he shouldn’t have. Things that she might have, in the end, used against him.

Hart punched out the number for her hotel, but the moment the operator came on the line, he hung up. No. Not this way. He needed to look into her eyes when he asked her that question.

A week ago he would have labeled the mere idea of her stealing secret military plans and setting Rick up to be killed ridiculous, the suspicion ugly and totally unwarranted. Now he couldn’t discount it, because now he knew all too well that she could have come back to do the same thing to him.

Or was she merely someone’s pawn? A total innocent who was being used?

His mind was a jumbled maze of unanswered questions, each filling him with frustration, slicing away at his patience and leaving him too keyed up to even contemplate another attempt at sleep.

He dressed and left the apartment, carrying a brown paper bag in which he’d placed the water glass Suzanne had used at dinner and which he’d managed to slip out of the dining room under his jacket without anyone noticing.

The lab guys at the base weren’t going to like being woken up in the middle of the night, but he didn’t care. If he was going to find out the truth, this was as good a time as any, and he couldn’t think of a better place to start than running her prints and finding out who or what Suzanne Cassidy really was.

All he knew about her was that she’d been Rick’s wife, a schoolteacher and had once said she’d grown up in Virginia. But he had to know what else there was. It might be all innocent; then again, it might not.

It was a fact that the Soviets had always had spies in the United States, families who were devout Russian Communists, but who had lived in the U.S. for years, maybe were even born here. They obtained government jobs and top-secret classifications, became scientists, doctors and teachers, and were usually not caught until they’d managed to pass back secrets to the Russians.

And they weren’t usually caught until it was too late.

On impulse he stopped by Suzanne’s hotel on the way to the base. If she wasn’t in her room, he’d take the opportunity to search it. If she was, he’d apologize for his brusqueness earlier, say it had kept him awake and, in spite of the late hour, ask her downstairs for coffee.

As he entered the lobby he heard the chime of the elevator to his left and glanced toward it.

Suzanne stepped forward as the wood-paneled doors silently slid open.

Salvatore DeBraggo was beside her.

Chapter 4

It was almost noon when Suzanne pulled her rental car alongside the building that housed Hart’s office. She’d meant to arrive earlier, but after he’d left her last night, she’d known she would have a hard if not impossible time getting to sleep, so she’d run down to the hotel lobby to get a book from the gift shop.

The sight of Salvatore DeBraggo standing in the small shop, flipping idly through a magazine, had rattled her, and she’d been about to turn and hurry away when he’d looked up, spotted her and spoken.

“Mrs. Cassidy.” His thick accent turned her name to a series of deep, musical rolls.

“Mr. DeBraggo, hello.” She felt a tiny bit of relief to realize there were several other people in the gift store. She wasn’t alone with him.

“Please, let me apologize again for interrupting your dinner earlier,” he said, smiling.

Anger and a bit of bravado melded with her fear, and she instantly decided to confront his lie. She’d never been one to skirt an issue. “I didn’t tell my associate in L.A. where I’d be staying, Mr. DeBraggo.”

He nodded. “Ah, my late wife used to tell me I wasn’t very good at white lies.” He smiled. “I should stop trying.”

Suzanne didn’t return the smile.

“Yes, well, the truth is, I recognized you from your picture in the New York Times—the article they did on your gallery when you purchased the Mastroniani painting from the Brenroget estate last month. I’m afraid when I saw you in the hotel restaurant, impulse overrode my normally good manners.” He shrugged. “Again, I apologize.”

It had been a coincidence, and Suzanne had chided herself for the dark suspicions she’d harbored about him. Assassin, FBI agent, foreign spy, even privateer and terrorist.

She turned the car ignition off and grabbed her bag. Before leaving for Hart’s office she’d made several long-distance calls in regard to the jewelry Mr. DeBraggo wanted to sell. She wasn’t certain but something still didn’t ring true about him. And she could swear she’d seen one of the pieces before—in a museum.

She’d also placed a call to Clyde, who had suggested she move into a place owned by a friend of his. He’d also badgered her mercilessly for almost fifteen minutes for details about whom she’d gone to dinner with.

The fact that Hart could still stir feelings in her she didn’t want stirred had taken her aback yesterday, but she had gathered her wits about her now. It was merely a physical attraction. That was all it had ever been, and she could handle that.

She stepped from her car and entered the building. She made her way to his office and found his aide standing at the file cabinet just outside. Hart’s office door was closed, but she knew he was in there. She’d seen him through the window when she’d climbed out of her car.

She had to be careful.

The aide turned from the cabinet, and Suzanne asked to see Hart.

Even though Hart could hear her voice through his closed door, he’d known the moment she stepped into his aide’s office, had been acutely aware of her presence since he’d seen her car pull up outside. Anger and yearning churned within him. He had half hoped that she had left Three Hills and was out of his life forever, and he had feared that was exactly what she would do and he would never seen her again. His feelings didn’t make sense, but he was too smart to examine them.

Doubting oneself, examining feelings and trusting women were the three things that turned a man into a fool.

He looked down at the lab report on the drinking glass he’d taken from the hotel dining room. They’d come up with nothing out of the ordinary. According to the fingerprints from DMV and when she’d worked as a clerk in the army before her marriage, Suzanne Cassidy was Suzanne Cassidy. Maiden name Ramsey, middle name Julynne. Her parents had divorced by the time she was eight, father ex-military, mother an artist who’d been married six times.

The preliminary background check Hart’s aide had handed him earlier on Suzanne hadn’t told him anything different. It was far from complete, and he didn’t need to read through it again to know what it said. He’d already gone over it a half-dozen times.

According to it, Suzanne was clean. But Teresa Calderone’s record had been clean, too, or so said the feds, and believing that, and them, had nearly gotten Hart and several other members of the Cobra Corps killed.

A little over two years or so ago, the daughter of Peru’s staunchest antidrug advocate had been abducted by a member of the drug cartel, and the CIA spooks pulling duty there had requested the corps’s help in getting her back. It had been a simple plan: go in, grab her, get out.

The CIA’s main contact for information in Peru had been Teresa. Unfortunately, the spooks’ background check on her failed to discern that her fiancé had been murdered by a member of the cartel.

Teresa hadn’t really cared about rescuing the hostage or aiding the war on drugs. She hadn’t even cared about living. All she’d cared about was getting revenge—killing the man who’d ordered the death of her fiancé—and helping the CIA and the Cobra Corps put her in a position to do just that.

But Teresa hadn’t done nearly as good a job of seducing the cartel’s leader, Guilermo Ortega, as she’d thought, and when she tried to kill him, he’d been ready for her. It was only by sheer luck that Hart had been nearby and heard the struggle. A well-placed fist to the jaw had rendered the older man unconscious, and Hart had gotten Teresa away.

But within seconds Hart and his crew had gone from being the hunters to the hunted, and after grabbing the young woman, they’d barely escaped Ortega’s camp with their lives.

That much could not be said for Teresa Calderone, however. She had broken away from Hart at the last moment and gone back in after Ortega.

As far as Hart knew, no one had ever seen her alive again.

Trusting Teresa Calderone and the CIA’s work had been a mistake. The type of mistake he’d vowed he would never let happen again.

“Captain Branson?”

Jerked from his memories, Hart stared at the intercom, experiencing a moment of disorientation as his aide’s voice drew him back to the present.

“Ms. Cassidy is here to see you, sir.”

Hart looked down at the report that lay open on his desk. Everything in it indicated Suzanne Cassidy was the epitome of the all-American girl. Yet the feds suspected her of treason.

And he suspected her of worse.

He flipped the folder closed, closing off his emotions as well, he opened his office door.

Suzanne was standing beside Roubechard’s desk, deep in conversation with the young man. She turned, as if feeling Hart’s gaze on her. A white halter top and slacks elegantly draped the subtle curves of her body, accentuated the richness of her dark hair and the creaminess of her skin.

In spite of himself, Hart’s eyes drank in the sight of her, and he found it an effort to swallow past the knot that suddenly formed in his chest. She looked beautiful, almost mesmerizing. He damned himself for noticing and his body for reacting.

If he didn’t start thinking with his head, instead of another body part, he was doomed.

Maybe she’d been able to sleep because she had nothing to fear. There was no reason for her to toss and turn, to lie awake thinking and worrying because her plans were already in place. It was an ugly suspicion, but one he found all too plausible.

“Good morning, Suzanne,” he said calmly, none of the turmoil churning inside of him evident in his tone. He smiled and cloaked himself within the soul-numbing coldness of battle. “Come in.”

“Thank you.” She brushed past him, her gaze avoiding his.

He watched her move away from him, unable to keep from appreciating the sight. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Suzanne said. She looked around nervously. “Did you get the report on Rick?” Her tone was a little cooler, a little abrupt.

She glanced back at him, and their eyes met for a brief second before she tore her gaze away.

Hart closed the door and returned to his desk as she sat in a chair opposite it.

“Good morning, Suzanne,” he said again pointedly, his gaze riveted on her. He knew what she was trying to do. But whereas she intended to try to ignore the physical attraction that obviously still burned between them, Hart had made exactly the opposite decision. He had every intention of using it in whatever way necessary to get to the truth.

Suzanne’s smile looked forced. She wound her hands together in her lap, while looking everywhere in his office but at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Good morning, Hart. Did you get the report on Rick? Is there anything of significance in it?” She spoke hurriedly. “I mean, anything that seems unusual?”

He looked down at the folder containing the report on Rick. There had been nothing in the preliminary background check to indicate that Richard Jonathan Cassidy had been anything other than an honorable and dedicated military officer. Which was what Hart had expected.

“Yes, I got it,” he said, “and no, Suzanne, there is nothing out of the ordinary in it.” But she probably already knew that. He caught her gaze, stared deep into her eyes, searching for reaction, for lies or truth, and felt himself becoming lost.

He pulled himself up, reining in the unwanted feelings. “Nothing to indicate why the feds would suspect him, or his wife,” he added pointedly, “of treason.” He rose and walked to a table by the window, where a coffeepot sat on a warmer, and grabbed one of the cups beside it. “Sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, I’m sure, but thank you.”

Hart poured himself some coffee and took a long swallow. Hot enough to jar his physical senses, strong enough to jolt his other senses into permanent alert.

What had Rick told her before that mission? The answer should have been nothing. The mission had been top secret. But what if Rick had told her something? Possibly just enough to get himself killed?

The findings on Rick’s chopper about just why he hadn’t been able to maneuver away from the missile had proved inconclusive. Not enough wreckage left and retrieved, Hart remembered the report had said. Best speculation: compressor-blade failure.

Hart moved past Suzanne to resume his seat behind the desk, and a whisper of her perfume drifted to him, a heady scent that teased his senses as much as her beauty, her nearness, teased his desire.