Secure Target (Elite Operators) (17 page)

The office was still cordoned off with police tape, and two bored-looking officers sat in a patrol car at the entrance to the parking lot. One of them stepped out of the car as Bronnik pulled in.

He flashed his badge. “Just bringing the lady to collect her vehicle.”

The officer nodded and hurried back to the car, his breath visible in the cold February air. Bronnik pulled up a few spaces away from where Lacey’s ten-year-old Chevy sedan was parked. He switched off the engine.

“So what now?” she ventured. She willed her voice not to break, willed herself to be tough. She wanted to prove to Bronnik that she was every bit the capable, independent woman he believed her to be. If she could convince him of that, maybe he’d want to be with her. Maybe he’d want to love her.

He sighed. “I don’t know. I thought I could take some time off, hang around for a while, but now everything is up in the air. I could be running after Hardy for another six months, a year, maybe longer.”

“Maybe I can visit.”

“Maybe,” he repeated hollowly, unconvinced. They both knew that would never happen.

“Well, I should let you get going.” She had to do this fast. Get it over with. Just say goodbye and go.

He nodded. And then, as if waking from a dream, he turned to her with eyes that were clear and intent.

“Listen to me,” he said with sudden urgency, taking her chin in his hand. “You’re a strong, intelligent, stunning woman capable of anything you set your mind to. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Her eyes filled. She swallowed hard against the hot sting of tears.

“Thank you. For everything.”

She didn’t dare look at him as she swept up her purse from the floor of the car, unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. She was drawing on all her strength now, every drop of iron in her blood, to stand up on the snow-dotted asphalt and dig her car keys out of her bag rather than to give over to her misery, to crawl back into the car and wrap her arms around Bronnik’s neck and wail, refusing to let him go.

She braced herself against the open door and pressed the button on her keychain to unlock her car. The familiar beep and flash of the headlights didn’t happen, so she hit the button again. She frowned down at the plastic remote in her hand.

There was a click, and she saw the flame and smoke before she heard it. By the time the noise of the explosion reached her ears, Bronnik had flung himself across the front seat and hauled her down behind the door, dragging her back into the vehicle. He reached across her to pull the door shut as smoking, mangled bits of glass and plastic rained over the windshield.

They sat in stunned silence for a moment, watching her car burn.

When he finally turned to her, his expression was thoughtful. “Do you have a passport?”

Chapter Twelve

Bronnik gazed across the concourse in JFK, watching Lacey pick up and put down various
I Love NY
-emblazoned objects in one of the airport’s many gift shops. She hefted a large snow globe featuring the city’s skyline, shook it with a grin, then turned it over, saw the price tag and returned it to the table with a horrified shake of her head.

“Thando,” Bronnik inquired. “Am I insane?”

His partner looked over the edge of his newspaper as Lacey held up a T-shirt. “Yes and no,” he answered ambiguously, and continued reading.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

Thando lowered his newspaper with a sigh. “Yes for insisting on guarding her yourself rather than leaving her in FBI protection when you’ve got an open case to work and you know she’s becoming a personal distraction.”

Bronnik winced. “And I’m not insane because?”

Thando tilted his head, watching the young woman across the concourse. “Hardy’s threat has escalated rapidly. He’s never bombed anything before. He seems determined for her to die just for the sake of thoroughness or completion, even if he’s not there to do it. In all likelihood his plan is to return to Cape Town just long enough to lure you back there, separating the two of you and letting the protection around her weaken until he sees his chance to dart back and take her out. If he managed to escape the FBI’s custody, there’s a strong chance he’ll be able to evade them again to attack her. Hardy won’t expect you to bring her back to South Africa, so he’ll be on the back foot. You’re invested in her safety in a way no one else seems to be. She’s safest with you.” He folded back a page and raised the newspaper again, signaling an end to the conversation. “Even if it means dragging her to the other side of the world.”

“Dragging” was certainly an exaggeration. Bronnik recalled the scenes of the afternoon, and how baffling it had been to see someone with an active threat against her life, who’d just watched her car go up in flames and narrowly escaped being in it at the time of the blast, so happy and excited.

After the bomb squad had swept Lacey’s house to ensure it was safe he’d sat on the bed, waiting while she bustled around the room, pulling warm-weather clothes from high shelves and peppering him with questions about the climate, the beach, the food, everything.

In the car on the drive to the Kansas City airport, he and Thando exchanged sidelong glances in the front seat while Lacey chattered away on her cell phone in the back.

“Cape Town. South Africa! No, it’s summer there—it’s the southern hemisphere. I’m not sure—I could be there awhile. Ah, I guess you heard from Tilly? Yes, with him. Bronnik Mason. He’s a cop, but a special kind. Like SWAT.”

After she hung up from one such call, he eyed her in the rearview mirror. “Why are you speaking to everyone now? Two days ago there was no one you wanted to call.”

She shrugged, already dialing another number. “Then I would’ve been calling with bad news that no one could’ve done anything about. Now that I have something good to say, I want to share it.”

“You’re still in a lot of danger,” Thando cautioned. “This is protective custody, not a vacation.”

“I know,” she replied, her cheerful tone belying her assertion.

Her upbeat mood persisted through the flight from Kansas City to JFK, faltering only in the first few minutes of a bumpy takeoff when she suddenly clamped her hand on Bronnik’s forearm, holding him tightly.

“It’s okay.” He put his free hand over hers. “It’s just the wind blowing against the plane. Nothing to worry about.”

She nodded, relaxing her grip slightly. “I haven’t flown in about ten years.”

And now she was on her way to the end of the earth. And he was the one leading her there.

He snapped back to the present as Lacey made her way over from the gift shop.

“Everything’s so expensive.” She wrinkled her nose as she flopped into the plastic chair beside him.

“We’re boarding soon anyway.” He reached into the inner pocket in his jacket and retrieved their boarding cards, passing one to Lacey.

Her mouth dropped open as she read hers. “Business class?” she squealed, turning to him with a face so full of exhilaration, he couldn’t help but smile. Even Thando had a touch of amusement in his expression as he folded his newspaper.

“We’re public servants of the Republic of South Africa,” his partner informed her with feigned solemnity. “We travel in style.”

“Plus I’m six-foot-three and it’s a fifteen-hour flight,” Bronnik added. “Forcing me to sit in coach would defy the Geneva Conventions.”

A few hours later they were fed, watered and hurtling through the sky towards Johannesburg. The flight attendants dimmed the lights, and the passengers began reclining their seats into the flatbed position.

“Try to keep things clean,” Thando called from his seat across the aisle. “If you two get arrested for public indecency, you’re on your own.”

Bronnik rolled his eyes as he stretched out on the elongated seat. He and Lacey had two seats together and they faced each other now, both of them lying on their sides.

The cabin was dark and hushed around them. For the first time since that morning’s ominous phone call he let himself relax, putting his job and this unending manhunt aside. Immediately memories of his night with Lacey flooded the free space in his mind, and as he gazed at her sweet, heart-shaped face smiling beatifically at him from across the short distance between their seats, a heady mix of arousal and affection stirred deep in his core. He took her hand in his own, winding his fingers through hers, and brought it to his mouth, brushing his lips across the smooth skin over her knuckles.

Her emerald eyes were luminous in the dim cabin.

“I know I need to take this seriously, and that I’m still in danger,” she whispered. “But I’m so glad I didn’t have to say goodbye to you today.”

His heart clenched, and he fought the urge to gather her into his arms and press his face into her hair. He could still smell the hints of berries and vanilla from her bedroom.

But he couldn’t love her. Not while she was in his care—not while he was still guarding her life.

He shrugged on his professionalism like a heavy, burdensome overcoat. He put a quieting finger to her petal-soft lips.

“Shh. Try to get some sleep.”

He rolled over and stared, unblinking, into the darkness. Any joy at returning home or eagerness to show Lacey around Cape Town was eclipsed by bleak, crippling worry. He’d been lucky this last time—and really, it was Lacey who’d gotten them out alive. Would he be so fortunate a second time?

He was facing his greatest enemy, on his home turf, and the stakes were higher than he could have imagined possible. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished, absurdly, that the flight would never end.

By the time they boarded the flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, the novelty of international travel had worn thin for Lacey. She felt greasy and unclean, she was tired, and she had no idea what time it was. Landing at OR Tambo airport had been anticlimactic—rather than the exotic, verdant version of Africa she imagined, the plane touched down over a sprawling metropolis that looked smoggy and congested. The two Special Task Force officers whisked her through a special immigration line as they flashed their badges, and then it was another boarding gate on another sterile concourse, waiting for yet another flight.

Lacey spent most of the two-hour plane journey to Cape Town dozing against Bronnik’s shoulder. Shortly before they landed he shook her awake and pointed out the window.

“Look, we’re nearly there.”

She rubbed the grogginess from her eyes and peered out.

Unlike the urban sprawl that had greeted them in Johannesburg, the landscape beyond the window was varied and far more untouched. An enormous rock formation slumped across the green land below.

“That’s Paarl Rock,” Bronnik murmured over her shoulder. “This is the wine region.”

She gazed out over the diverse terrain. It was so much more complicated and rugged than the prairies she was used to at home.

“Is this where you’re from?”

He shook his head. “I grew up outside a town called Swellendam, which is east of here, at the foot of the Langeberg mountain range. We’ll have passed it by now. It’s a couple hours’ drive from Cape Town.”

As the plane banked toward the runway, the buildings and roads of Cape Town spread out before them, edged by the clear, turquoise water of the sea. A hulking, flat-topped mountain stood blue and hazy in the distance, standing guard over the city like a sentinel. She concluded it must be the famous Table Mountain, the one fact she picked up from three minutes spent flipping through a travel book in the airport in New York.

Then they were bumping on to the ground, the pilot braking as they sped down the runway. As the plane taxied toward the gate, she turned to find Bronnik grinning broadly.

He squeezed her hand. “Welcome to South Africa.”

Lacey waited while Bronnik and Thando stopped into the main immigration and customs office to discuss Hardy’s arrival into the country. The airport was smaller than in Johannesburg, although it was bustling and busy on this Saturday morning. The air was warm and humid, and she copied her companions by folding her winter coat over her arms.

“We’ve probably beaten him into the city,” Thando was explaining. “He’ll most likely travel through Europe, take advantage of the extra layers of immigration to switch up his identities, change passports. I’d expect him sometime this evening.”

“You say he has a bullet wound to the shoulder,” the immigrations official said. “Surely he can’t be that hard to spot.”

The two officers exchanged knowing glances. “You’d be amazed,” Thando said simply. “Anyway, we’ll arrange for some plain-clothes Task Force operators to observe the immigration queues around the clock. They’ll know what to look for.”

With this errand concluded they progressed through the airport. When they reached an indoor taxi kiosk, Thando drifted in that direction.

“I’ll grab a cab home.” He looked pointedly at his partner. “Have you arranged accommodation for Miss Cross?”

“I thought she could stay with me,” Bronnik replied, his tone bordering on sheepish. He turned to her. “Unless you’d prefer a hotel?”

“I’m happy to stay wherever’s easiest,” she said carefully, not wanting to get him into trouble. This reversion to a formal, police-and-target relationship after their long night as lovers was proving trickier than she’d anticipated.