Kitabı oku: «Secret Agent Heiress», sayfa 3

He supposed her initial distrust was justified. With his dark coloring he could pass for one of Chilton’s men. But hadn’t he identified himself already? Hadn’t he gotten to her when no one else could? Didn’t she have a lick of common sense?

He dropped his face down to her level and articulated each word so she would understand. “We are twenty yards from Dimitri Chilton and his hired help, and we have to be at the rendezvous point in less than ten minutes. Do as I say right now, or you won’t get the opportunity to ask another question.”

She puffed up like some wounded debutante who was about to run off and tell Daddy what the mean old man had dared to say to her. Vincent stared her down. His menacing silence brooked no argument. After a charged moment, her shoulders dropped and her chin fell to a subdued angle.

Finally, she’d do as he said.

She followed his lead and crouched behind him when he moved to the edge of the rocks and knelt down to spy through the brush and locate the other two patrol guards he’d spotted earlier.

But the silence was too precious to last. He felt a tap on his shoulder before her warm breath whispered in his ear. “What about Montana Confidential? Does Daniel Austin know I’m here? And Jewel? Did she get home okay? What about my horse?”

He looked over his shoulder and stared at her in disbelief.

“There is a time to run, a time to fight and a time to shut up.”

Vincent held her gaze until he was sure she understood which time this was.

Though he was quickly learning not to trust her silence, he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He had to get them out of there. Now.

He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and held the gun with both hands in front of him. He stilled his breathing and concentrated on the sounds of the night around them. The darkness would be their ally. He had to time their dash across the open terrain with the sweeping currents of cloud cover. The moon would be hidden for only a few seconds, but that would be all the time they…

The snap of a twig jarred him. He pushed Whitney back against the rock, shielding her body with his, automatically covering her mouth with his hand. He held his breath and waited for the guard to pass by.

The man walked past at a leisurely pace, indicating no alarm about his missing comrade or the length of Whitney’s trip to relieve herself. Vincent considered taking this guard out, too. He could do it in a matter of seconds. He could do it without making a sound.

But he couldn’t trust Whitney to keep her mouth shut or to follow his orders without an argument.

When the sound of footsteps faded, Vincent eyed the sky and counted off his own internal clock. The time to move was now, or they’d never reach the old mining road where his Washington contact was due to arrive soon. The driver couldn’t park and wait for fear of detection. And with the short turnaround time necessary for a hostage retrieval, he couldn’t spare the days needed to abandon the truck and let it sit long enough for Chilton’s men to disregard its presence.

The plan was to reach the rendezvous point and radio his contact to pick them up. If he couldn’t reach the site, he’d call in a bypass so the truck would drive on without alerting the terrorists to the location.

Whitney’s delays had already endangered the mission. Soon he would be left with plan B. Instead of bringing MacNair’s daughter home, he’d simply keep her alive until a second rendezvous could be scheduled.

If she didn’t screw that up, too.

“This is the time to run.” Gambling their lives on her cooperation, he released her and scooted to the farthest end of the rocks. “Stay right behind me.” She was already clinging to the back of his jacket when he turned to give his next command. “Don’t fall down.”

Ignoring the questioning look on her face, he took her hand and sprang to his feet. Keeping low to the ground, he sprinted for the trees, drawing Whitney along behind him. After only a few steps she extended her legs to match his stride, and Vincent quickly realized he had no need to compensate for her speed. She very nearly outdistanced him.

They had barely reached the cover of the trees when the alarm sounded.

“Rashid!”

Three shots fired, followed by a rapid discussion shouted back and forth in Chilton’s native language.

Inside the treeline, Vincent shifted directions and headed up the mountain. He felt the jerk of Whitney’s arm at the sudden alteration of course. But within moments she fell in step beside him again. The confusion and shouting from the cabin bought them precious seconds.

He found the path he’d marked earlier. It led to a boarded-up mine shaft. The slope steepened by several degrees and Vincent leaned forward to take the climb without breaking his pace.

“Where are we going?” Whitney’s breathy query broke the frantic sound of stamping feet and scrabbling bits of gravel breaking loose to roll down the incline behind them.

He released her hand to leap across a three-foot-wide crevasse that split the path. He paused and turned, waiting for her to make the same jump. She balked at the other side. Her chest rose and fell, breathing deeply, in time with his own strained breath.

Vincent swore as she planted her hands at her hips and demanded a response. “I asked where you were taking me.”

He had no time to explain his plan. He spared her an answer before turning his attention back to the zigzagging climb to the top of this crest. “Away from Chilton.”

They were at least ten minutes out. He had to cut time somewhere. He hit the trail at a faster pace. He heard her make the leap behind him. Good. She was moving.

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“Don’t talk. Save your breath.”

A heavier tread in the underbrush below them caught their attention. Chilton’s men had found their trail.

“Is that—”

“Move it.”

He went back to grab her hand and pull her along at his speed. They doubled back on a hairpin turn and her slick-soled riding boots slipped on some loose gravel. She went down hard on her knees and left hand. With his help, she quickly regained her footing. A spot of creamy white on her pant leg indicated she had ripped her jeans, and probably cut her knee in the process.

But with Chilton closing in, they had no time to stop and play doctor. “Hang in there, Ms. MacNair.”

He wasn’t a big one for encouragement, but he needed her to keep up. The brightness of the moon worked against them in the woods. Its iridescent light created deceptive shadows that assailed them from all directions, playing havoc with Vincent’s own internal compass. But Chilton’s men had no such handicap. The beam of their flashlights bounced through the trees, illuminating leaves and rocks and even their path like all-seeing eyes.

But the mine shaft should be close now, almost straight above them. Yes.

Changing his strategy, Vincent spun around and retraced their last few steps. He pulled out night-vision goggles from his jacket pocket and slipped them over the top of his head. He had the original trail memorized, could probably find it with or without a light. But covering new ground required he be able to see.

He went back to the steep sheer slope that went straight to the top of the plateau. Looking up, he saw that a few small trees managed to cling to the rocks. And traces of abandoned birds’ nests indicated tiny ledges and crannies in the rock itself. About twenty feet to the top. The drop-off below them was another hundred feet or so. But with Chilton’s men closing in, he decided they had little choice.

Whitney tugged at his jacket and pointed to the swaying lights coming up the path. “Hello, spaceman. Bad guys coming.”

Vincent wrapped his hands around her slender waist and lifted her off the path.

“What are you doing?” He set her toes on a four-inch ledge, and she automatically grabbed hold of the tree root in front of her face so she wouldn’t fall. “Romeo?” Her voice held hardly any tone, an indication of her shortness of breath. He’d pushed her hard and she’d hung in there with him.

He was about to push her harder.

“Climb.”

With his greenish night vision through the goggles showing him the way, Vincent guided Whitney’s hands to the sturdiest grips, and slowed his pace to make the climb beside her.

He changed his grip to her shoulder to keep her from moving when Chilton and his men ran past directly below their feet. Chilton shouted orders in his native tongue and his two men responded with clipped words and phrases. The terrorists continued up the winding path that took them farther away from their position. They’d reach the top about the same time, but Vincent would be closer to the road. That still left him with a slight advantage.

He urged Whitney to resume the climb. “Do you know what they’re saying?” she asked.

Damn, but the woman loved to talk.

“Chilton doesn’t want you dead.”

“That’s nice.”

He didn’t want her dead yet. Vincent didn’t share what other promises of violence Chilton had in mind for her in the meantime.

“He wants me dead, though.”

“Not so nice, hmm?”

A third of the way from the top she slipped. The root she clung to began to peel away from its thin layer of dirt. Vincent nabbed her by the wrist to keep her from falling. She cried out in pain, but quickly turned her face into her upraised arm to muffle the sound.

Vincent bided his time while she hugged the rock, alternately wanting to hurry her along and to ask what he’d done to hurt her.

“Whit?” Maybe by now she was too weak and too frightened to answer.

After a moment she wrapped her fingers around a more secure grip and pulled herself up to the next ledge. When they reached the end of the steep shortcut, he hoisted himself up and over to the top of the plateau. He was winded from the exertion, but reached out to pull Whitney up beside him.

She rolled over the top edge and curled into a ball, her energy totally spent. Her breathing came in shallow gasps that echoed in the night air. He needed to quiet her down. Chilton’s men would be close now. But when he knelt behind her and touched her shoulder, she winced. She pulled her hands into her waist and curled up even tighter, making it impossible for him to assess her condition.

“You are injured.” She clearly needed time to rest if she was to go any farther. He listened for the sound of Chilton’s men in the distance. He could give her a minute. “Stay here.”

A nearby break in the trees hid the entrance to the boarded-up mine shaft. Vincent pried off a board at the bottom and tossed it aside. He reached in and pulled out the black nylon duffel bag he’d hidden there. He dropped his goggles inside and set it at his feet. Then he took out his knife to loosen the nails of the next board. He was pulling loose the third board when he heard a soft voice at his shoulder.

“Are we going in there?”

Vincent rose to his feet and turned. Whitney had come up behind him undetected. Not an easy feat for a grown man trained in covert experience. The irony of this talkative amateur pulling it off wasn’t lost on him.

She huddled inside her thin blue sweater with sleeves that barely came past her elbow. She looked cold and exhausted and not much older than that Jewel girl back at the ranch. That distracting urge to protect trickled into his thoughts again.

He’d planned to go back for her. But Whitney had found her way here.

Vincent pushed aside the impulse to swallow her up in his arms and warm her with his own body heat. He didn’t have time to deal with the hostage’s needs right now. He had to get her to freedom. That meant making the rendezvous that was fast approaching.

Besides, Whitney had more resiliency than he’d expected for a pampered society girl from a privileged family back East. He had to give her credit. She might lack common sense, but she had stamina and determination to spare.

“No.” He reached out and took her by the elbow, more gently this time, and led her up the rise to the top of the shaft. “Decoy.”

“So Chilton will think we’ve gone in there?” She crouched behind the rocks where he pointed.

“I hope. Stay here.”

He slid back down the slope to grab his bag and cover their path. When he returned, he held out his hand to help her to her feet. She studied his hand with the same trepidation she might use if he’d stuck a gun in her face.

“It’s not much farther.” Distancewise, he spoke the truth. But he couldn’t promise that Chilton and his men would make this an easy trip.

Her shoulders lifted with a determined sigh and she reached up to fold her hand into his. The ground was flatter up here. Still rocky and dotted with trees, it provided less cover, but they could move more quickly. Vincent broke into a loping run, and Whitney kept pace behind him.

When they reached the road, they ducked behind a pile of decaying tree trunks that had burned and fallen to the ground after a recent forest fire. Whitney leaned back against the wood and seemed to concentrate on her breathing. Vincent pulled the two-way radio from his pack and called in.

“The hawk has his prey. Repeat. The hawk has his prey. Over.”

A blip of static answered, then cleared. “Understood. Hawk’s nest on the move. Out.”

“I don’t think I like being referred to as prey.” She breathed in quick, shallow breaths, but her voice sounded stronger. “Chilton’s a smart man, you know. That’s not much of a code for him to break.”

“He’ll have us in his line of sight any minute. He doesn’t have to eavesdrop.”

Preparing for that certainty, Vincent pulled out his gun, checked the clip and reloaded. In the light from the moon, he saw those quicksilver eyes of hers pool up like saucers.

But was it the gun, or Chilton’s imminent arrival that frightened her?

“Is there something I should do?” she whispered.

“Shh.”

“Of course. Always with the shush thing.”

Thankfully, she settled in beside him to do her brooding in silence and no doubt think of the next line of questions she wanted to ask. Vincent squeezed his eyes shut. Fatigue was starting to tell in the protest of his muscles as he knelt behind the cover of the trees. But his senses were working just fine. He fine-tuned his ears and listened for the crunch of footsteps in the underbrush.

He heard the order to spread out and widen the search first. Chilton hadn’t taken long to discover his ruse, and was closing in. Vincent opened his eyes to check his watch. Their ten-minute flight had taken twelve. “Where are you?” He breathed the urgent wish between clenched teeth.

Right on cue, the roar of a four-wheel-drive engine echoed through the rocks of the plateau. But Chilton heard it, too.

A black pickup topped the crest and bounced down the mining road toward their position.

“There he is.” Whitney popped up and pointed at the truck.

“Get down, dammit!” He palmed the top of her head and pushed her down to the ground just as the first bullets hit.

The rapid fire of semiautomatic weapons flashed like fireworks in the darkness. Vincent braced his elbow on the top rotting trunk, took aim and fired at each burst of light.

A spatter of bullets hit his position, splintering the wood and sending chunks of bark flying. Vincent ducked to the ground, pinning Whitney beneath. With his hand on her head, keeping her flat in the dirt, he rose again, pointed his gun and fired.

He hit his mark. The flash fire of one weapon sank to the ground and went out. But the bullets kept flying.

The truck engine gunned and picked up speed.

Two of the terrorists were close enough to make out their shapes as they dodged from cover to cover, spraying bullets in their direction.

The squeal of brakes behind him gave a small measure of reassurance. “Romeo! Get in!”

Vincent grabbed his bag, pulled Whitney up by the arm and pushed her toward the open door of the waiting truck.

“Go! Go! Go!” he ordered.

The driver stomped on the accelerator. Whitney had climbed in, headfirst. Vincent flattened his hand on her butt, pushed her across the seat and tossed his bag into the bed of the truck. The wheels spun on the gravel and dirt, giving him time to get his feet on the running board before the truck sped away. Clinging to the open door with his left hand, Vincent turned back and fired at their pursuers.

A spray of gunfire hit the truck. Bing. Bang. Thunk.

The truck lurched and Vincent fell inside. They’d hit the back window and shattered it. “Gun it, Carl!”

Whitney sat in the middle of the bench seat, brushing the broken glass from her shoulders.

“You hit?” he asked, keeping his eye on the side-view mirror, mentally calculating the distance before they’d be out of range of Chilton’s weapons.

“No.”

The truck continued to pick up speed.

“Romeo?”

Whitney’s fingers dug into his thigh.

“Romeo!”

“What?”

He pried her grip from his leg, then looked up to see why she’d cried his name.

Carl was slumped forward. A tiny hole leaked bright red blood from the back of his head.

He was dead.

Chapter Three

“What is it with you and dead bodies, anyway?” Whitney didn’t know which way to move. She was crunched in the cab of a truck between a killer and a corpse.

And the dead man was driving.

Vincent leaned across her and grabbed Carl by the shoulder. When he pulled him back, the body’s limp fingers released the steering wheel.

“His foot’s still on the accelerator. Grab the wheel.”

Grab the wheel?

She understood what he wanted her to do. She just wasn’t sure she had the desire to do it.

“Whitney.”

Fine. Nothing like an order in that crisp, low-pitched voice to make her kick it into gear. Her father had that same kind of voice. He never asked, either. He just expected her to do whatever he commanded.

She wedged her shoulder between Carl and the steering wheel and took hold. Vincent threw his considerable weight across her lap and reached beneath the dashboard. The engine whirred in protest and the truck immediately dropped speed.

“What are you doing?”

He grabbed her left ankle and placed it on the accelerator. “Drive.”

For a few awkward moments, she simply acted on instinct. She pressed down on the accelerator and tried to gauge the upcoming curve in the road from her vantage point. With Vincent pinning her legs, she couldn’t sit up any higher. And with Carl’s weight on her shoulder, she stooped beside the wheel, looking between the wheel and the top of the dash to guide them along the dark road.

When she entered the curve, the headlights picked up a stand of boulders that had claimed that particular spot for untold millennia. Whitney moved her foot to hit the brake and slow them down, but Vincent moved it back to the accelerator.

“Don’t stop.”

“But—”

“Drive.”

And then she realized what he was doing. He reached across her and opened the driver’s-side door. The ground rushed past at an alarming speed. “Oh my God. You can’t do that.”

But he already had. He pulled Carl’s legs from the floor of the truck and shoved them out the door. Then Vincent sat up, latched onto her arm to hold her in place and pushed Carl out from behind her.

The body hit the ground with a horrible thud. She couldn’t help but look in the rearview mirror to see his limp body roll to the side of the road. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Whitney!”

All at once his hands were on the wheel with hers. He cranked it a quarter turn to the left, jerking it from her grasp.

The rocks she’d seen from a distance rushed up in front of them with frightening speed. She stomped on the brake. Vincent turned the wheel.

But with gravel and speed they had few options.

Vincent wrapped his arms around her, turning so his body shielded hers from the impact. The truck spun out and slid madly through clumps of rocks and brush until it slammed with a deafening crunch into the rocks.

Vincent’s body lurched forward, then crushed her against the seat.

And then it was still.

Whitney slumped within the cocoon of Vincent’s body until she could hear something besides the pounding of her heart in her ears.

His weight on her chest didn’t stir. “Romeo?”

She flattened her palms at the front of his chest to push some space between them. She felt the reassuring tattoo of his heartbeat beneath her hand. But she needed to see his face. Find out if he was conscious or injured.

He was a bigger man than she realized. Solid muscle filled out his large frame. She took a deep breath, put her shoulders into it and managed to push him over into the seat next to her.

His eyes were closed.

An instant panic quickened her pulse again. “Romeo?” She touched her fingers to his parted lips. His regular breathing warmed her fingertips, but did little to reassure her. “Romeo?”

She climbed up on her knees in the seat to bring her up to eye level with him. She cupped his face between her hands and shook him gently. “Romeo? C’mon. Wake up.”

The rasp of his beard growth tickled her palms, sending inappropriate shivers of awareness straight up her arms. She might be reacting to his rough brand of charm, but she seemed to be having no effect on him.

For an instant she wondered if Dimitri Chilton had heard the crash. How far behind was he? Did he still pursue them? Her pulse quickened with renewed urgency.

Vincent Romeo was her only ticket off this mountain. The big brute had to be okay.

“Romeo.” She called his name right in his ear and gave him a light smack on the cheek. Nothing. She tapped him again. “Dammit, will you—”

Faster than the panic rising within her, his eyes popped open. He snatched her by the wrists and twisted her flat on her back in the seat with his larger body trapping her there.

Whitney’s breath whooshed out in a startled gasp. She stared helplessly up into eyes that were black. Black as coal and filled with deadly intent.

“Romeo?”

His eyes narrowed between sooty lashes. His gaze traced the shape of her face, lingered on her neck, then seemed to fix on the small jut of her breasts. To her horror, she felt the tips tighten into pebbled beads beneath the intensity of that look. Pinned beneath his crushing weight, she felt more exposed than she had been behind that rock with Rashid.

“Um—” She licked her parched lips. “Are you okay?”

His gaze darted back to her mouth, drawn to the movement there.

And then he blinked.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. The raspy groan in his throat told her the movement hurt. He released one of her wrists and touched the back of his skull. The succinct curse he chose revealed just how much it hurt.

“I took a blow to the head. Things were fuzzy for a minute there, but I’ll be all right.”

“Good. Because you’re hurting me.”

As quickly as he had pinned her to the seat, he released her and scooted to the far end of the truck’s cab. It was almost embarrassing to see how quickly he could move away from her. Whitney sat up much more slowly, nursing her wounded pride and massaging her sore wrists.

“Is that where I caught you?”

The ugly purple welts that encircled her wrists were visible, even in the moonlight. Vincent thought he’d done that to her? She found the energy to summon a rusty smile. “No.” He’d probably saved her life.

Her smile was eclipsed by the memory of Dimitri Chilton’s eyes, laughing at her expense. “It’s from the tape they used to tie me up. Chilton thought inflicting a little pain would keep me in line.”

Vincent said nothing, but she could feel the atmosphere in the truck change. He was past recovering from his knock on the head. Agent Romeo had returned. And the man who had made her body tingle with awareness, even in the face of danger, disappeared.

“Let’s get you home.” He tried to get out, but the truck frame had bent and the door was jammed.

Whitney obeyed his silent command and climbed out the open door on her side ahead of him. She couldn’t help peering up the road behind them, wondering if she could see Carl’s body. One man’s life sacrificed for her own.

The shock of the discovery hit her and robbed her of breath. The Black Order wasn’t just out to hurt her or her family. True terrorists, with a cause she couldn’t begin to understand, they possessed a ruthless determination to get what they wanted.

Heaven help anyone who stood in their way.

A feeling of absolute shame retched in her stomach, turning it sour.

She’d felt shame before.

The shame of accusations she couldn’t defend herself against.

The shame of public scrutiny damning her reputation.

The shame of hearing her parents’ teary voices filled with disappointment as they boarded her on a plane for Montana.

But none of that could match the knowledge of one man trading his life for hers.

“Did Carl have any family?” she asked.

Vincent had crawled beneath the truck to inspect the damage. When he came out, he stood and dusted his hands off on his jeans. He was giving her that crazy look again, the look that said he wondered if she had any sense. “I didn’t know him,” he answered. “He was just a voice on the radio. A contact.”

“Don’t you care that he’s dead?”

He climbed into the bed of the damaged truck and picked up his duffel bag. He tossed it over the side and climbed back down. “He was doing his job. Like I’m doing mine.”

He opened the bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper and a heavy-duty flashlight. When he knelt down and unfolded it, she could see it was a computer-generated map.

She hugged her arms around herself, feeling a chill from within far colder than the crisp mountain air. “That’s a callous attitude.”

He absorbed her accusation with no reaction other than to stand. “Dimitri Chilton has a pretty callous attitude toward life and death. He had to have heard the crash. If he has reinforcements to call, he’s doing it right now. If not, I expect him to show up here any minute.”

Whitney shivered. “If you’re trying to scare me, the job’s already been taken.” Forget trying to wheedle an emotion out of Vincent Romeo. The man had ice in his veins. The sooner she cooperated, the sooner she could get back to Jewel and Daniel and people who might actually care. “Let’s just get in the truck and drive out of here.”

“Can’t. The axle’s shot.” He folded up the map and stuffed it back in the bag.

“Great.”

“Let’s go.” He slung the bag over his shoulder and shined the light up into the woods to the east.

“What’s your plan now?”

“Call in. You’re safe for now. We’ll set up a second rendezvous for tomorrow.”

She spread her arms wide and asked him to look at the trees and rocks and nothingness surrounding them. “Where are we going to spend the night?”

“If your friend Court Brody knows this mountain the way I hope he does, there should be an old prospector’s cabin about two miles away on the other side of that ridge. You up for the hike?”

“Do I have any choice?”

He was already walking. “No.”

“You like those one-word sentences, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” she repeated under her breath. Was that a joke? Or merely proof of a stated fact?

Whitney shook her head and pushed her weary body into step behind him. She still had another two miles to try to figure out Vincent Romeo.

VINCENT ENTERED the cabin first and scanned for signs of unwanted tenants and wildlife. The temperature was dropping rapidly outside as night deepened into midnight. The damn-fool woman traipsing along behind him didn’t have a coat. She wasn’t even wearing a heavy sweater. What kind of simpleton went horseback riding in the mountains without wearing more rugged clothes?

Probably back in Martha’s Vineyard, she had a servant to run along behind with a jacket or shawl when things got cold.

Vincent immediately regretted the unkind thought. She hadn’t asked to be kidnapped. And Dimitri Chilton didn’t care whether she suffered or not. From Whitney’s brief explanation in the truck, the bastard probably got a kick out of seeing her suffer.

She hadn’t complained about the grueling hike, the perilous rock climb, the flying bullets, the wrecked truck. Not once.

The only thing she’d criticized was his own behavior. Yeah. He hated to see a fellow agent go down. He hated the call he had to make to report his death. He hated the thought that anyone had to die. But those were the risks. Job one was keeping Whitney MacNair safe. Carl Howard would have understood.

Why couldn’t she?

When he heard her boots on the boards that passed for a front porch, he turned around. “It looks sound enough. None of the windows are broken. There’s no furniture, but we can make do on the floor.”

She pushed her way past him and inspected the ten-by-twelve-foot hideaway for herself. “As long as the roof doesn’t leak and I can warm myself up, I’ll be happy.”

Vincent closed the door behind him and dropped his bag to the floor. She had already crossed to the cobwebby stone fireplace and dropped to her knees to brush out the crumbling remains of broken plaster and charred wood.

“We can’t build a fire.”

The shock on her face when she looked up at him reminded him of the Christmas Eve when he snuck downstairs and discovered his father was filling in for Santa Claus. “No fire?”

“Chilton could spot the smoke.”

He pulled a black T-shirt and a spare set of jeans out of his bag. “We can black out the windows, though, and leave a lantern going through the night.”

She had no response to that. She stayed where she was, looking small and defenseless.

Vincent made no false promises, so he had nothing to say to cheer her up. He busied himself hanging his clothes over the windows, setting up the lantern, and pulling two granola bars and a water bottle out of his bag.