Authors: Sandra Brown
She gave him a look that suggested he was simpleminded. “Their engineers will need a day or two to figure out the flaw. The minute I get out of their building, I’ll contact my boss who will call the FBI with all the details so they can take over. We have a plan.”
Sam slapped his hand over his eyes, so pissed he was vibrating. When he removed his hand he told her, “This is not corporate espionage. The real people behind Zydus are the most dangerous in the world, worse than any terrorist bunch you can imagine. They plan to kill you after the meeting.”
Her face turned ashen. “What? You’re serious about terrorists.”
“Yes, dammit.” He still couldn’t just go on her word even if his gut had ganged up with his heart in favor of her innocence.
“Do you believe me, Sam?” When he didn’t answer, she mumbled, “I don’t know how to convince you I’m telling the truth… .”
Then she went silent.
He cut his eyes to her. “What?”
She had that serene look she used to get any time she had a solution to a problem. “I know one way to convince you. I hope.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m telling the truth. Scout’s honor.”
Those last two words took him back through the years to when they both had wanted to be in the Scouts, but no one in their little town would organize a Scout group, let alone allow them to be in one together. So he and Danielle sent off for Scout information and practiced the skills. They agreed to be secret members and go camping when they grew up.
“Sam, I’d rather die than sell those plans to terrorists.”
There was a point when you had to make a decision and he made his.
He believed her. But proving her innocence would be tough. Joe had sent him because Joe figured that knowing Danielle’s weaknesses Sam could get answers quicker. If Sam pulled Danielle from this meeting she would be put somewhere by his agency where he’d never find her again and have no way to help her. Much as he hated it, she had to go to this meeting for any hope of proving she was not a traitor.
He produced a knife.
When she gasped and reared back, he said, “I believe you.”
“Thank goodness. What about the meeting?”
“Give me a minute.” Sam cut her loose then called Joe and caught him up. When Sam suggested pulling Danielle, Joe said, “We can’t do that. Heard Vestavia’s attending. Danielle set all this in motion. If she backs out now it’ll look like she’s protecting Vestavia from exposure. Can you prove she isn’t?”
Sam hung up and wanted to slam his fist into a wall. Vestavia had once been in DEA under a different name then disappeared and surfaced later as a key man in the Fratelli. B.A.D. would turn a city upside down to catch him. Sam had one option that might save Danielle. He said, “You have to make the meeting.”
She stopped rubbing her wrists and stood up. “Do they still plan to kill me?”
“Yes.”
Her legs folded.
He caught her before she fell. She gripped his arms, her face soft and open like the last time he’d held her close. She’d kissed him like there was no tomorrow, which turned out to be true because she’d left the next day before he could tell her about the ring he’d picked out. He’d known with that kiss he couldn’t keep her from leaving.
She was shaking now. “This is what I get for trying to do the right thing.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
A tear slipped down her smooth cheek.
Ah, hell. He kissed her just to calm her down, or so he told himself. She held back for a second then opened to him, loving him with her lips the way she had back before she’d been offered a full scholarship and he’d left for the military. He was breaking all the rules for his line of work, but Danielle was in his arms again.
Damn, he’d like to keep her there.
But even if everything went right and he got her out alive, she’d have to answer to the FBI.
They still might arrest her.
One hurdle at a time. When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes. If he could just put her somewhere safe, but the Fratelli were too careful to do a hit at Zydus. Sam would be close enough to step in if they tried.
“Sam, I—”
“Save it. We’re short on time and I can’t let personal feelings interfere.” And he needed to focus on protecting her. “We’ll talk after this is over. Get showered, and then I’ll put a wire on you and explain how we’re going to do this.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Danielle stood in the middle of the living room with nothing on from the waist up except her bra, but Sam didn’t seem to notice. Based on his all-business attitude that kiss hadn’t affected him the way it had her.
She’d been right to leave for MIT after high school. Sam hadn’t asked her to stay or come to see her. He’d joined the army. Getting irritated all over again, reliving the hurt, she snapped at him, “I’m ready, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed,” he muttered then proceeded to tape a small transmitter on her abdomen below her breasts.
He was quick and efficient. At one time he hadn’t been in a hurry when he touched her.
She waited silently as he went through the drill one more time on how she was to present the PowerPoint, agree to anything they offered and exit the building to a taxi Sam would prearrange.
She asked, “How do you know the taxi will wait on me?”
“Because my people will be behind the wheel.”
His people. Whatever he did was dangerous. How long had he been an operative? Since he’d gotten out of the army? She’d heard from a friend back home that Sam had been in Special Forces. And that he hated to fly.
She smiled to herself. A superagent afraid of flying.
“Let’s go,” Sam told her and headed to the door.
“Where will you be?” She couldn’t squelch the panic in her voice.
He turned around, took one look at her and came back across the room. Lifting his palm to her cheek, he said, “I’ll be listening to every word and close enough to keep you safe. Scout’s honor.”
When she reached the sixth floor of the Zydus building, Danielle met a businessman called Vestavia whose hard face and steely eyes gave her the creeps. When she asked about giving a presentation package to the other two men in the room, Vestavia said, “Not necessary. One’s security for the plans and the other is my helicopter pilot.”
Security to transport the laser component and engineering plans immediately to the international airport? Would that give Sam time to get into place?
* * *
Sam hurried up a flight of stairs in the Zydus building, listening to the meeting transmissions the whole time. He’d entered through the employee garage with an ID badge and a car Joe’s people had procured that morning. When Sam reached the sixth floor, the meeting was almost finished.
Slipping into a utilities closet, he watched through a slim opening.
Danielle’s voice came through his receiver. “Is there anything else before I go, Mr. Vestavia?”
“Not yet.”
Sam breathed again, glad he’d been right about nothing going down here. Or so he thought until Vestavia said, “My men will escort you and the plans to the helicopter.”
“Why?” Danielle asked with a tremor in her voice. “I gave you everything.”
“You said you’d like to work with us. We have a facility in Russia. My associates are waiting on the plans. You can walk their engineers through any questions. We’ll talk next week.”
What the fuck? Sam seethed as Vestavia, one of the most wanted men in the world, stepped from the conference room heading toward the elevators, away from Sam. Two men exited next with Danielle between them, her face as white as the blouse beneath her herringbone suit. The guy on her right, who was built to wrestle professionally, had a .45 automatic in a shoulder holster. The skinny one had to be the pilot.
Go for Vestavia or Danielle?
Sam didn’t have to think about it, but he didn’t want her caught in cross fire.
Once Vestavia disappeared inside the elevator and Danielle passed Sam’s hiding spot with her escorts, Sam followed her. At the next corner, he saw the trio heading for the stairwell door. Sam had one shot and couldn’t miss. He pulled out his knife and let it fly. The blade struck the bodybuilder in his neck. He dropped to his knees.
Danielle, bless her, rammed one of those deadly elbows into the pilot’s gut. Sam reached her next and slammed the pilot’s head into the wall. He stepped over the muscle guy and yanked Danielle to the stairwell. “Gotta go.”
“Where?” She kept pace with him as he raced up the metal steps.
“The roof. Cameras are all over the building. We’ve got maybe three minutes until security reaches us.” He shoved open the door to the roof, where a helicopter sat in the middle of a circle. He pulled her toward it.
“What’re you doing?” Her voice shrilled with panic.
“Get in and buckle up.” He lifted her up on the passenger side then ran around and jumped into the pilot’s seat. “Put on the headset.”
“Can you fly this?”
He started flipping switches and grinned at her. “I rode in one once. Can’t be that tough.” He’d battled his fear of flying by learning how to pilot a helicopter. The rotors caught air as a bullet pinged the fuselage, but Sam had Danielle’s side of the chopper turned away.
She shouted in his headset. “The pilot has the evidence we need to nail these guys. He’ll get away.”
“No, he won’t.” Sam looked down at the ground surrounding the building where sport utilities and armed agents swarmed the property. “My people are here.”
“What about Vestavia?”
“Don’t know if he escaped. He’s hard as a greased lizard to catch.” Sam glanced at her as he banked away from the building. “But I got news on the way here that your boss contacted the FBI when he couldn’t reach you. He told them what you were doing so you’ve been cleared of any charges.”
Smiling with relief, she leaned over. Love shone in her eyes. “Where does that leave us, Sam? Am I going to lose you for another ten years?”
He took one look at the woman who had walked into fire based on trusting him and said, “How ’bout we take that camping trip?”
She kissed him and said, “As long as there’s just one sleeping bag.”
* * * * *
DEADLY FIXATION
Dianna Love
I adore the city of Savannah…but this story reveals a side of it I’ve never explored! With incredible imagery, Love has created not just another Savannah, but another world. ~SB
Devon Fortier eased forward through pitch-black passages where death waited for foolish humans in Savannah, Georgia’s forgotten underground.
He was neither foolish nor human.
Deep voices growled up ahead in what had once been a rum cellar. The argument echoed off the packed-dirt walls that seeped water. Dank odors of rot, urine and unearthly creatures clogged every breath Devon inhaled.
Creeping closer, he made out three shapes hunched around something on the ground that cast an orange glow across the trio of predators. Two were ten feet tall. One had scaly skin and the other had pointed ears that curled up to his bald head.
Trolls.
Devon’s informant looked to be spot-on about some black market deal going down with trolls in this coastal city.
The third figure appeared to be a human male of average height. But he was probably a glamour-concealed troll.
Whatever those three had pinned down snarled, “Let me go, you stinkin’ vermin!”
Devon sighed, recognizing the voice. He ought to let the trolls continue.
A fourth-generation leprechaun and pawnbroker, Coldfinger had just enough majik to be dangerous. A sick piece of work the world wouldn’t miss.
But Devon’s oath as a Belador meant he had to protect everyone—even slimy bastards with the integrity of a jackal—if those trolls decided to chow down on orange fast food.
He moved closer for a better view.
Curly-ears held his prey in place with a four-toed foot as wide as a briefcase. He shook his head at Coldfinger. “You think faerie dust is gonna cut it? That you can screw us?”
Trading faerie dust was illegal, but a petty infraction of VIPER laws. Not enough for Devon to risk his skin arresting three carnivorous beings. Besides, this didn’t fit his profile of a major VIPER operation.
Beladors served as one of the enforcement arms for VIPER, an international league of warriors that protected the world from supernatural predators…like trolls.
“How dare you accuse me of scamming,” Coldfinger whined in a voice bloated with insult.
Devon rolled his eyes. How could someone with no conscience be insulted?
All the trolls started yelling, threatening to dismember Coldfinger.
Baldy bared his fangs. “We got you the scrying dish. Where’s the spell?”
“You lying ’chaun.”
Devon used the cover of their voices to close thirty feet between him and the argument.
Coldfinger’s voice tiptoed up an octave with fear. “Calm down, I got it. I got the Noirre Fixit spell.”
Oh, hell, no
.
Noirre
majik definitely fit the profile of his investigation. Devon had no choice but to take all of them to headquarters now…
if
they didn’t kill him.
Trolls were a nasty bunch who ate their opponents, which left no evidence and made it hard to try them in a Tribunal court. Devon could attempt to call in Belador reinforcements, but he had faulty telepathic ability at best, especially underground. No worries. He might have gotten shorted in the telepathic department, but his other gifts were just fine.
Besides, lowering his personal shields to call Beladors would blow his element of surprise.
Murdering trolls had no business getting their hands on Noirre majik, especially a fixation spell that could freeze a person long enough to do harm. As the deadliest of black majik, Noirre carried a high penalty for dealing, even death.
Human law enforcement didn’t know VIPER or supernatural beings existed. Handling trolls, leprechauns and Noirre fell to agents like Devon.
He paused. Most trolls wouldn’t touch Noirre since few of them were powerful enough to control it.
Ah, hell. Could these be Svart Trolls?