An Affair of Vengeance (15 page)

M
cC
REA LOOKED UP
when she entered, his eyes heavy-lidded and pink. The black silk tie around his neck was loose, and the top two buttons of his white shirt were undone, exposing a hint of dark chest hair. He sipped from a white ceramic mug nonchalantly, as if he had every right to be sitting in a CIA safe room.

In a flash, she pulled her snub-nosed .38 out of her purse and aimed it at his chest. It didn’t feel exactly right to draw on him, but training overrode instinct. A fresh burst of adrenaline focused her vision and strengthened her grip. “Explain yourself.”

“There’ll be no need for that,” he said dryly, and put his lips to the mug.

A second man shifted into view from the shadows—Mason, sitting in a chair off to the right, looking sharp as ever in a stiff black suit. “We were right. He’s British law enforcement.”

She lowered her gun. The news wasn’t entirely unexpected, but still, it shocked her. She exhaled, and the strain of the chase emptied from her system along with her breath. Empty and exhausted, she looked to McCrea for answers. “Which group are you with?”

“SOCA. British FBI, more or less,” McCrea answered. He looked into his cup rather than at her, as if he were ashamed of something.

Of what they’d done? Their kisses, their conversations? Surely. They’d both been careless; they’d both been vulnerable. But at least it’d been coming from both sides. Neither of them was innocent.

That didn’t make it any easier to be confronted with her own unprofessionalism.

She slid her handgun back into her purse and sat down heavily on an armchair. Her feet ached at the relief of pressure. She tried not to let the tiredness register on her face. She wanted to be strong here, in front of this man with whom she’d been obsessed for two days. “SOCA. One of a thousand acronyms in international law enforcement. It’s new, right?”

“Fairly new,” McCrea said. “Formed in 2006 to throw customs, intelligence, and high-tech crime investigations in with the organized crime division.”

“Oh, that’s right. Supposed to be a new era of collaboration, or something.” A silver carafe rested on the low, intricately carved wooden table in front of her. She poured steaming coffee into an empty mug, ignoring the little pots of cream and sugar.

“Or something,” McCrea said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a slight smirk.

“S-O-C-A. Serious Organized Crime…Agency, right?” she asked, sipping her drink. The bitterness of the brew made her gasp, but she forced down a swallow. She’d need it for whatever was going on here.

“Bang on.”

Too tired to translate British idioms, she sighed. “What?”

“He means you’re right.” Mason leaned forward, the thin set of his mouth highlighted by the red light of a nearby silk-shaded lamp. “Agent McCrea has been embedded in a Glasgow-London gang for the last five years and has recently become their weapons buyer on the Continent.”

“Five years? That’s a long time undercover.” She knew how it felt to be clandestine that long. It wasn’t easy living in isolation,
lying to everyone but your handler, the one guy they let you talk to. Maybe that’s why she’d felt a connection with him.

He merely lifted his shoulders.

So he didn’t want camaraderie. Fine. But it cut at her, just a little bit, when he didn’t meet her smile. She slipped off her shoes and lifted her feet to rest on the table. She glanced at Mason. “So where do we go from here?”

“Plans have changed.” Mason’s pale eyes darted between the two of them. “You and Agent McCrea will continue your investigations, but as a team. Neither the CIA nor the SOCA is willing to sacrifice its progress on this case.”

Anticipation shot a fresh burst of energy into her limbs. “Langley is on board?”

Mason’s jaw pulsed, ever so slightly. She’d irritated him by asking for clarification. She still wondered what had changed HQ’s collective mind about pursuing Krai, but now wasn’t the time for pressing Mason for detail. He wouldn’t give it in front of another country’s agent, if he gave it at all. “Well, it’s about damn time,” she hurried on. “I’m on board.”

“Of course you are. Now, we’ll need—” Mason began.

“Unacceptable,” McCrea interrupted.

Mason turned. “I understand that you’re unlikely to want a partner, but as I explained earlier—”

“No.” McCrea scowled. “I know what we agreed, but look at her. She’s too green. This won’t work.”

“Green?” she said, surprised and offended. “I’ve been out for four years. Not quite your five, but let’s not be petty.”

“This is different from what you’ve been doing.” McCrea pushed his thumb and forefinger into his temples. “You’ve gotten to me, I’ll give you that, but clumsily. These men I deal with have no mercy. I won’t take you out there with me.”

“I’m already out there, with or without you.” She’d thought he’d understand—she thought they’d been alike, and could
understand each other—but he thought himself better than her. More experienced. Harder, maybe.

“You’re too green,” he repeated, with a touch of tenderness that made her think he might legitimately be worried for her safety. “You’ll get yourself killed, or worse.”

“Worse? What’s worse than me getting killed?” she pressed.
“You
getting killed?”

“No.” A tiny muscle under his right eye twitched. “That’s the least of my worries.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You aren’t ready. I won’t take you.”

Anger bubbled through her composure. Not only did he not think them equals, but he was refusing to work with her! “Don’t assume you know me. You don’t.”

“Don’t I?” He blinked once, slowly, and then his golden eyes fastened on hers and didn’t budge. “You want to know why I really don’t want you aboard? You want it too badly.”

Infuriated, she glowered right back. “Damned right I do. I’ve been busting my ass to get this far, and I won’t let you stand between me and my mission.”

“No. You’re behaving irrationally. You bug me? Follow me? Let yourself get caught? We both know that’s not standard operating procedure for the CIA.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s made you so reckless, but that kind of desperation makes you a liability in the field.”

“I’m not desperate. I’m
determined.”

“Then they read the same on you, and perception is reality.” He smiled, but it was a grim, tight-lipped expression that had her wondering what had happened to the half-drunk, exceedingly kissable man who’d danced the rhumba with her a few hours ago. He had no right to psychoanalyze her, but she had no pithy response to shoot back.

Mute frustration left her clenching her teeth.

Mason cleared his throat. “SOCA breaks down the mission in a week with coordinated raids. Your superiors have already agreed to include a CIA officer in the waning days, and she’s our best in-situ option. This isn’t up for debate.”

“I said I’ll do it,” she repeated.

“Good. And you?” Mason turned to McCrea, who shook his head.

“I can’t be responsible for her.”

“Responsible for me? What do you think I am? A child?” she blurted. “I’m the one who needs to worry about whether or not you can keep your hands to yourself.”

His eyes flashed. “That won’t be a problem.”

“Actually”—Mason looked away as he shuffled through his paperwork—“you two will need to stay close. You’ll be posing as lovers, of course.”

McCrea watched a pretty shade of pink color Evangeline’s cheeks.

“Lovers?” she said, her voice shaky. “You’re not serious.”

“Of course he’s serious,” McCrea growled, wishing she’d quit pretending that this idiotic plan should move forward. He couldn’t stand the thought of bringing her into the hell where he lived. He tried to think of an insult that would make becoming his partner the last thing she’d want to do. “Women don’t have equal rights in these trenches.”

“Trenches?”

“That’s right. It’s a battlefield out here, and women are nothing more than playthings.”

“Good.” She glared at him darkly. “Being a plaything’s worked just fine for me so far. It sure kept you sniffing around. Now tell me what we’re doing.”

Mason nodded. McCrea, feeling cornered, pulled out his phone and clicked into his text messages. The first was a note
from Ménellier to meet him outside the club, which he’d missed while dancing with Evangeline. The second was a set of directions to an unfamiliar location.

“Ménellier is sending me to an estate sixty kilometers east of Arles.”

Evangeline half-rose. “Whose estate?”

“Ménellier wouldn’t confirm. Says he’ll be killed if he does. I’ll find out when I arrive.”

She lowered herself, but her fingers continued to press deeply into the padded arms of the chair. “Lukas Kral lives up there.”

He’d have sworn she licked her lips before she’d said the name. “Does he?”

“You’ve heard of him, then?”

McCrea nodded. “Who hasn’t?”

“Good. I’ve seen satellite imagery that says he just sits up there in isolation while his peons do the dirty work.”

“Including America’s,” Mason added. “Our military couldn’t function without men like him. Few corporations are equipped to ship tanks and missiles, you know.”

“I
do
know. His contracts with the DOD are exactly why no one’s looking too hard at his deliveries to rebel warlords and terrorists. No one’s got the balls to go after him.” She glanced at McCrea, her lips tightly pursed. “Except you.”

You too
, he thought, but wouldn’t say it. She didn’t need to know that he admired her for bucking the Agency in her pursuit of one of the world’s most destructive men.

Mason sighed. “Send me those directions. I’ll task satellites and research for more information on where you’re going. If it turns out that you are going to Krai’s compound, then this mission becomes a great deal more complicated.”

“Why?” McCrea asked.

“Because we’ll need to find something huge to make it worthwhile,” Evangeline filled in. “Something too big for anyone to push under the rug.”

“Like him selling me Stingers?”

“Stingers?” Mason said. “That’s what you’re trying to buy?”

“Twenty of them.”

“Well, that might work if we get him in the presence of the missiles,” Evangeline said. “Words and paper trails aren’t enough. We’ve got that. No one cares. What we need is physical evidence directly connected to the man to make a charge stick, or enough paper evidence to force someone to get a warrant to search his facility.”

Mason shook his head. “Ms. Quill, the Agency doesn’t do warrants and arrests.”

“SOCA does,” McCrea pointed out. “That’s
exactly
what we do, and what I intend to do here.”

Evangeline gave him a little smile. She turned to Mason. “So what’s my Agency objective?”

“Gather intelligence pertinent to the pursuance of Agency priorities.”

She nodded as if she was used to such cryptic bureaucratspeak. “You want to know where Krai’s unsanctioned storage facilities are.”

“Absolutely,” Mason said.

“One must be close, if he could offer Stingers on such short notice,” McCrea offered.

“True,” she said. “Why’d you ask for Stingers, anyway?”

“It was a ruse to get over Penard’s head,” McCrea said. “It worked. Got over Ménellier’s, too.”

“Great, but your little street gang doesn’t use them,” she said. “What will you say when this mystery man asks you why your guys suddenly want antiaircraft missiles?”

“That’s it’s none of his business.”

“Yeah.” She gave a cute snort. “I’m sure that’s going to go over real well. Do you even know why this man has agreed to meet with you?”

“He wants my money.”

“Maybe. Probably. But what if he thinks that you’re homing in on his deals with other clients, like the African rebels who actually do use these types of missiles? What if he’s calling you up to his castle to kill you for stepping on his toes?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“I will worry about you. Your cover is my cover now. Think about it.” She leaned forward. The filmy red fabric she wore as a dress billowed down, exposing a lovely expanse of snow-white skin.

“Eyes up top, partner.” She snapped her fingers. “What are you going to say when he asks you why you need those missiles?”

He hated the fact that she’d noticed him looking at her breasts. It made him feel like a dirty little boy. “I’ll say the Real IRA’s heating up again.”

She frowned. “Thin. RIRA does car bombs.”

“They fired on MI6 headquarters in 2000 with an RPG.”

“I know. And that RPG-22 they used isn’t comparable to a Stinger. RPGs are antitank. Stingers are antiaircraft, and the RIRA doesn’t shoot down planes.”

“Yet.–

“No, not yet, but it’s unlikely. Everything those bastards want to destroy is already on the ground.” A thin wrinkle appeared between her brows as she scowled. “You’ll sound like a narc if you try to drop this sale in the RIRA’s lap. You need a more believable story.”

“I’ve got it under control. Focus on your own cover.”

“Mine’s fine.” She leaned back and examined her fingernails. “I’m the mousy, unremarkable plaything, right? No one will suspect I’m anything other than what I appear to be. A stupid American waitress who’s fallen for some lowlife.”