Once in Paris (18 page)

“Why are you suddenly willing to credit him with noble motives?”

“Because we talked a little,” she replied honestly. “And his men talked about him. From the beginning he'd had his sights on me, as a means to get Kurt involved in the oil wells. He pretended an interest in me, and Kurt dangled me as bait to reel us both in, seeing a merger that would guarantee him financial security.” She laughed. “How stupid he must have felt when he discovered that it was all a farce, that Philippe wasn't a multimillionaire, that he only needed Kurt to approach the consortium and in
vest in his oil development.” She shook her head. “Kurt is a vindictive man,” she added quietly. “He'll kill Philippe if he can. He's lost his shirt. He may not even be able to buy guns on consignment to sell to people in the Middle East. If it gets out that he's hired men to invade and overthrow a sheikhdom, the international community will go after him. He can't afford to leave any witnesses around.”

“You're absolutely right,” Pierce agreed. “I'll do what I can for Sabon,” he added reluctantly. “But not because I want to. I just don't want Brauer to get away with it.”

“Neither do I.” She turned and stared at him quietly. “Philippe isn't at all what he seems. Despite his power and whatever wealth he realizes from his oil development, he has so little.”

“Tell me why,” Pierce demanded.

She shook her head. “It isn't my secret to tell.” She walked away from him and sat down on a boxed crate nearby. “How long will it take to get to Savannah?”

“I'm not sure,” he replied, distracted. “Why don't you try to get some sleep? I'm going to find Tate and Mufti.”

She looked around. There were some old
sacks nearby. She lay down on them and pillowed her cheek on her hand. She hadn't realized how tired she was.

“They won't get us, will they?” she asked drowsily.

“No.” He sounded supremely confident. She smiled and went to sleep.

 

The freighter pulled into Savannah harbor and the four passengers in the hold were suddenly confronted by men in dark suits.

The tallest of the three newcomers glanced from one tense face to another, then lingered on Tate's. A look passed between them.

“U.S. Customs,” the tall, suited man said abruptly, and flashed open a wallet, showing a badge. He closed it before it could be seen clearly. “Come with us, please.”

The four passengers were marched up on deck. Brianne felt for Pierce's hand and held on tight. She was seeing a lengthy trial while they tried to explain their predicament, followed by a jail sentence. She hated closed places. She'd never get to college. She'd never be a real wife and mother. She'd be a jailbird.

Once inside at the customs gate, they were stopped by other customs officials who listened
to the curt explanation the tall man gave them. There was some difficulty, but it was quickly sorted out, and Brianne and her companions were hustled from the building and out into the humid heat of Savannah with its perfect squares and live oaks and secret gardens. Brianne longed to see it all, but she wasn't a tourist.

Their escorts led them down the side of the building, into two waiting stretch limousines. Black, of course.

“We've been captured by the ‘men in black,'” Brianne moaned as they waited for the suits to get into the car. “We'll never be seen again!”

Tate chuckled. When the tall man was in the front seat and the car was moving, he opened the glass partition and leaned over the plush black leather seat.

“I damned near had to deck the customs guy,” the tall man muttered. “Why couldn't you just fly into Miami?”

“We were expected there,” Tate said. He held out a hand and the other man handed him an Uzi. He slid it under his jacket. He glanced at his puzzled companions. “This is Marlboro,” he introduced them. “He works for me,” he added. “So do the other two.”

“You're not customs officials?” Brianne burst out.

“No, but we did used to belong to the government,” the tall man said sheepishly. “I'd tell you which part, but then I'd have to…”

“Shoot us,” Brianne muttered. She sighed. “See?
Everybody
says that!” she told Pierce.

“That's true. But he isn't kidding, either,” Tate murmured dryly.

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

The tall man grimaced. “I don't like shooting women.”

Brianne actually gasped.

“It was only one woman, and she turned out to be a male foreign national with a pack of plastique hidden in her…his…well, never mind,” Tate muttered. “Anyway, it was a matter of national security and the ‘woman' drew first.”

“Where do we go from here?” Pierce asked, confident that his security chief would get them where they were going in one piece.

“Straight to D.C.,” Tate replied. “By way of a private airstrip.”

Trust Tate to know someone everywhere he needed assistance, Pierce thought amusedly as the car pulled off on a dirt road and stopped,
finally, at a deserted airstrip where a small jet was parked and waiting.

“Don't tell me,” Pierce murmured as they climbed aboard the small, neat aircraft. “Someone owed you a favor.”

“Well, he did,” Tate said enigmatically, and grinned. “So did this pilot.”

“Hiring you was the best thing I ever did,” Pierce told him.

Tate chuckled. “I'm glad you noticed. I'll sit up front.”

Brianne found herself sandwiched in between the two security men, with an irritated Pierce and a silent but amazed Mufti across the aisle from them.

“You married?” the taller man asked Brianne expectantly.

“Yes, she is,” Pierce said tersely.

“Gee whiz, the best ones always are,” the tall man said. “Guess your husband will be glad to see you back home and safe, huh?”

“Her husband is sitting across the aisle from you,” Pierce said in a voice that was pleasant enough; it was his eyes that made threats.

The taller man unfastened his seat belt and got up at once, moving to a seat behind
Brianne. “Sorry, Mr. Hutton,” he said in a strained voice.

“No harm done.” Pierce didn't move to sit beside Brianne. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Brianne glared at him. Some husband, she thought angrily. Dog in the manger, more like. She closed her own eyes and shut him out.

 

As they suspected, the plane didn't land in Washington, D.C. It landed on a palatial estate in Virginia, which Brianne learned later was owned by a shadowy figure with ties to the world of espionage. He, too, apparently owed Tate a favor.

A car was waiting for them, and three more suited men were standing around it, also wearing sunglasses, and carrying automatic weapons.

“Aren't automatic weapons illegal?” Brianne asked worriedly.

“Of course,” Tate assured her.

“I saw the Uzi you were given in the limousine,” she remarked. “These look just the same.”

He nodded. “That's what they are, all right.”

She stared at him. His lean face drew into a smile.

“You aren't going to tell me anything, are you, Mr. Winthrop?” she asked.

He was still smiling.

“You might as well give up,” Pierce told her. “When he smiles, you've already lost the advantage. The hell of it is that he almost never smiles, and on this trip he's done little else.”

“I like tight escapes,” Tate said with a shrug. “Life has been mostly boring in the oil industry…until a few days ago.”

“Now that we're safely home,” Pierce replied, “we need to find the under secretary of the State Department and let Mufti tell what he knows.”

“No problem,” Tate said. “I've already had my men phone him and brief him on what's been happening. There's a group of intelligence people waiting for us even as we speak. Let's get rolling.”

“Brianne, you come with me,” Pierce said when she hesitated about which of the two limousines to get into.

She joined him, noting that he barely touched her arm to let her get inside first. Their adventure was nearly over, and she had no idea what
lay in store for them. All she knew was that very soon, Pierce was going to divorce her.

She spared a thought for her mother and half brother. She hoped that Tate could keep his promise about getting her family safely away before Kurt returned from the States. She also thought of Philippe. She hoped that he could retake his government. He might have a strange way of going about it, but he did care for his people.

She sat beside Pierce, aware of him, but not speaking as the big car ate up the miles heading north.

A
pparently the mysterious Mr. Winthrop had covered his tracks very well, Brianne thought as the big car sped toward Washington, D.C. They weren't being followed, he said, and he must know, because he had all sorts of electronic gadgets up and working. She understood why Pierce had hired him. Very likely the government agency these men had belonged to was connected in some way to the CIA. For all she knew, it might have been the CIA. They were quiet, very professional, and looked capable of handling any eventuality.

The one concession Tate made to comfort was to stop in Charleston at a small pink build
ing with wrought-iron balconies and palm trees and tropical vegetation all over the sandy lot surrounding it.

“Best seafood in Charleston,” Tate said as the other occupants of the car disembarked. “Mills, check around the perimeter and make sure we're secure.”

“Yes, sir,” the other agent said at once, and went to do as he was told.

“It's a family business,” Tate told them as they went up the wide steps into the restaurant. “I've known the owner for some years. He was with me overseas when…Well, never mind, he's a friend.”

It was something of a shock to see that the owner of a conservative little Charleston seafood restaurant was another Native American, almost as tall as Tate, with sparkling black eyes and a ponytail.

The two men shook hands and spoke in a language Brianne had never heard.

“This is Mike Smith,” Tate introduced them. “That's not his real name, but it's what he's gone by for several years. He and his wife and daughter run the restaurant.”

“You're a long way from South Dakota,” Pierce said with a grin as they shook hands.

“I like fish,” he replied, chuckling. “Nobody else in my family eats it, but a seafood restaurant sounded like a good deal.”

“He won it in a poker game,” Tate said, tongue in cheek. “That's why it sounded like a good idea.”

“Don't knock it,” the other man replied dryly. “I make a good living.”

Tate laughed, then changed the subject. “We need to get into D.C. unseen. Any ideas?”

The other man became somber and pensive. “Give me ten minutes. In the meantime, sit down and I'll have Maggie bring you a menu.”

“Thanks,” Tate said. “I'll owe you one.”

“You already owe me three,” Smith replied. “And when I collect, you'd better be in great shape.”

“I'll do my best!”

 

They had a quick lunch. It was, indeed, some of the best seafood Brianne had ever tasted. She loved the setting. Through the picture window, she could see something of the charming old city from whose harbor the first shot of the Civil War was fired. There were Southern mansions and small houses, palm trees and sand. It
was vaguely reminiscent of architectural styles in the Caribbean, and she said so.

“It is, isn't it,” Pierce mused as he sipped his coffee. “A lot of South Carolina planters settled in the Caribbean after the war, to avoid taking the Oath of Allegiance to the Union. Some eventually returned here. In fact, there were several pirates from the Carolinas.”

“I remember reading about them in school,” Brianne replied.

It was a reminder of how young she was. Pierce turned his eyes toward her and studied her with quiet remorse. She should be dating boys her own age, having fun, learning about life and the world around her. Instead, she was married to a much older man and running for her very life from a gang of cutthroats, not unlike the pirates he'd just mentioned.

She caught his intense scrutiny and turned to look at him. “What's wrong?” she asked softly.

“I'm counting my regrets,” he said. His black eyes narrowed. “You should never have been mixed up in this.”

“Blame my mother,” she returned. She grimaced. “She and I have had our differences,
but I do care about her and about Nicky, too. I expect she's scared to death.”

“I asked Tate about her while you were freshening up in the ladies' room,” he returned. “He said that his man in Freeport got her onto a ship, with the child, and they sailed for Jamaica. He's got family in Montego Bay. He'll hide her there until the threat's over.”

“Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed, wiping away quick tears of relief.

“Tate's resourceful,” he murmured. He glanced around him at the suited men at various tables and noticed that they had Pierce and Brianne completely enclosed without it being obvious. Nobody could threaten them without going through Tate's people.

“He is, indeed. He isn't married, is he?” she added, just to make conversation.

“No, he's not. There's a young lady in D.C. who'd give her right arm for him, but he won't let her near him,” he mentioned. “He put her through school and still keeps a careful eye on her safety. If there's a woman in his life, it's Cecily, but you'd never get him to admit it. Strictly a platonic relationship, you see, on his side. Or so he says.”

“Poor woman,” she murmured, thinking pri
vately that she and the shadowy Cecily had a lot in common.

“She's a forensic anthropologist, working on her doctorate at George Washington University,” he murmured. “Does a lot of work for the FBI.”

“How exciting!”

“I wouldn't call looking at dead bodies exciting,” he said quietly. “She's often called upon to identify people from skeletal remains.”

“I liked anthropology,” she replied. “I only had one course in it.” She pursed her lips. “Maybe I could study it in college.”

His face closed up. “Maybe you could.”

“But accounting is going to be my major,” she said. “I love numbers.”

“Learn it well and I'll give you a job.”

She glanced at him with a wan smile. “No, thanks. I expect to find a job as far away from you as I can get.”

He scowled. “Why?”

She put down her cup and wiped her mouth with the linen napkin. “Don't be dense, Pierce, it doesn't suit you,” she replied. “I won't spend the rest of my life eating my heart out because you don't want me. That will be easier if I'm someplace where you aren't.”

He clenched his jaw hard. “It was infatuation, coupled with the fascination of your first sexual experience,” he said bluntly. “That's all it was. You're very young. You'll get over it.”

“Of course I will,” she said, rising. “Just like you got over Margo.”

She turned and went toward the rest room.

Tate came and sat down beside him the minute she left. “There's a complication,” he said shortly. “Brauer has learned that we're in the States and he's got his men tracking us. It's just a matter of hours before they find us. Smith says he can smuggle us onto a shrimp boat in the harbor. It will be smelly, but we won't have to risk a gun battle—unless you want to.”

“Not with Brianne in the line of fire,” Pierce replied at once.

“That's what I expected. We'll go right to the boat. Smith's going to drive us there in his van. My men will get back into the stretch limos and continue to D.C.”

“They might be attacked.”

“They can handle themselves,” Tate replied. “And two of them don't belong to us. They're federal.”

“What?”

“That's ‘need to know.' You don't.” He got
up. “If Brauer's men jump them, they'll be on their way to prison immediately afterward.”

“You're a strategic genius,” Pierce murmured.

“That's what my drill sergeant in the Green Berets used to say.” Tate grinned.

Pierce wiped his mouth and dropped the linen napkin to the table. “The food here really is first class.”

“I told you. Smith has his moments.”

“We won't be endangering his family?”

Tate looked around them and leaned closer. “The ‘family' is his cover. He's not related to anyone here.”

“Brauer won't know that.”

“Never mind. If he sends goons in here, they'll come out looking like fresh sausage. And that's all I'll say on the matter. Let's go.”

Pierce gave his surroundings another quick scrutiny. The waiters were tall and well built. The woman, Maggie, had short black hair and blue eyes and real muscles under that thin T-shirt. She was tall for a woman, too. In fact, she had a real military bearing. Something was mysterious here. Not unlike Tate himself.

But Pierce had no time for conjecture. He followed Tate to the door, where Brianne had
just reappeared. Mike loaded them into the van and took off for the harbor. The men in suits didn't even wave. They got back into their cars and followed the van out onto the highway. But when Mike turned off toward the bay, the others continued north.

“No offense, but I'm really tired of ships,” Brianne muttered as they sat in the hold of the shrimp vessel with the smell of its recent cargo all around them.

“I must confess that I am tired of them as well,” Mufti, who'd kept his silence for most of the trip, replied. He sighed. “My poor people,” he added quietly.

“Monsieur Sabon will protect them,” she assured him.

“We are enemies,” he protested. “He will want revenge because I spied on him in his household.”

“He said he wouldn't,” she reminded him.

He shrugged. “Things are unsettled. If the Americans come with their bombers, many will die. Even if my country is not blamed for the uprising, it will suffer.”

She put a gentle hand on his arm. “Mufti, things happen the way they're supposed to. It
may not be logical, but there it is. You have to accept what you can't change.”

He grimaced. “A hard thing to do.”

“For all of us. But usually, we have little choice.”

He nodded.

She glanced toward the other end of the hold, where Pierce and Tate were speaking in hushed whispers. She wondered why none of Tate's men had come with them. Surely they'd be safer under armed guard. But perhaps he thought that it would be less conspicuous this way.

As they chugged up the coastline, Brianne went out on deck for some air. Two crewmen who were mending the huge nets that the ship used to catch shrimp were watching her stealthily. She glanced at them, puzzled because they didn't really look like fishermen. They had clean, neat hands with trimmed nails and no dirt beneath them. Their shoes, deck shoes, looked brand-new. They were both wearing lightweight dark jackets, and there were bulges under them. They lifted their heads and stared at her with that same unsmiling, serious gaze she'd come to expect from men like Tate Winthrop. And that was when it all clicked into place. This was
no shrimp boat. It was a facsimile of a shrimp boat, but with a crew that probably came no closer to searching for fish than with a fork in a restaurant.

Her arm was grasped firmly by Pierce's big, lean hand, and she was led back down into the hold.

“We're within telescope distance of the coast, and helicopters can reach us here,” he said firmly. “Don't go out on deck again.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “This isn't a shrimp boat.”

“Clever girl,” he mused. “No, it isn't.”

“Who is Smith?”

“A professional mercenary,” he replied quietly. “And not one of those bloodthirsty assassins your stepfather hired. Smith only takes on a few jobs, and they have to meet a strict criteria. He's worked for our government a time or two.” He put his finger against her lips. “You didn't hear that from me. You know nothing.”

“I feel like a spy,” she mused, enjoying the touch of his skin against her lips when she spoke.

“Do you?” He framed her face in his big hands and bent to take her mouth tenderly,
gently, under his. “Try to stay out of trouble,” he whispered into her open lips.

“Who, me?” she replied unsteadily. “I never go looking for it, it just seems to find me.” She reached up with her arms. “Come back here,” she murmured, tugging at his neck.

He sighed with resignation, smiled and lifted her up to his waiting mouth. It was a long, hungry kiss that never seemed to end. But before it became urgent, he set her back on her feet with a jolt.

“I'm divorcing you tomorrow,” he said.

She searched his eyes, hoping for humor, but there wasn't any. He was serious.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I could make it worth your while to keep me.”

“Oh?”

She stared at his mouth, his chin, his thick wavy hair. She met his searching eyes squarely. “Pierce, don't you want a child?” she asked softly.

The reaction she got was unexpectedly violent. He jerked her hands down and pushed her away firmly. “No, I don't want a child,” he said through his teeth. “Not ever!”

She was a little surprised by his vehemence. “Why not?”