Colin had adeptly been ignoring their attraction when she had been all the way across the bench seat leaning on the door. But the warmth from her body suddenly heated him up as she pretended to melt against him, and raised his awareness to an excruciating level. His heart thudded in his chest, and overtook his awareness of their surroundings and bang, banging until he realized that someone was tapping on the window.
"Out of the car, mon."
Colin started and blinked down at the young soldier. He murmured to Jess, "Slide out of the cab on my side after me."
"'Kay."
Thank God she was savvy enough to obey orders when it mattered.
Colin pushed open the truck's door, wincing at the squeal of metal hinges. "What were ya doin' inland?" The guard held the AK 47 loosely in his hand, strap strung around his neck in what appeared to be a casual manner, but Colin knew that with one quick jerk, he could have the weapon locked, loaded and firing.
"We delivered seed packets and water purification tablets," Colin said calmly.
"We want to see da inside."
"Sure thing." Colin feigned a casualness he definitely didn't feel. "Go ahead."
He held Jess's hand and as she exited the truck, then he casually twirled so that his back rested against the truck bed, hips canted out while Jess draped over his relaxed body. She figured out exactly what he wanted and wrapped her arms loosely around his waist, and burrowed into the curve of his neck, so that she was mostly only visible from the back, her face hidden by his arms and shoulders.
The soldier leered at Colin's hand on Jess's nicely rounded ass, which was exactly what Colin wanted, to divert the guy's attention from her face.
The military commander shouted and the harder, older soldier lost his grin and crawled into the cab of the truck. Colin ran his hands up and down Jess's back and prayed that the more experienced soldier didn't find the panel in the dash that hid the backpack with the sniper rifle.
Two more soldiers joined the search, one popped the hood over the engine and peered inside. The other opened the gate in the back of the truck.
Colin slid one hand into Jess's back pocket, the move smooth and familiar. She nipped at his earlobe in warning.
"You smell so good, babe." Colin pretended to ignore the soldiers and kept a running conversation with Jess. The position of their bodies inflamed him like gasoline on a sputtering fire. "How is that possible?"
He really did want to know.
He was sweating as he waited for the shout of the soldiers to indicate they'd found the backpack. His worry hadn't affected his erection though. His body was locked and loaded and ready to fire. Jess didn't say a word at the rod poking her in the stomach. But in retaliation she brushed her breasts against his chest. He should have his entire attention on the soldiers, but the hard points of her nipples diverted him again, splitting his focus between her effect on his body and the search going on beyond them.
"You're distracted by other things." She laughed huskily. "Pretty sure I stink."
She should and yet, she didn't.
"You are driving me crazy," he growled truthfully against her neck.
"Back at 'ya," she quipped back quickly but the simple duck of her chin and the squeeze of her arms around his neck told him she was telling the truth, feeling their strange and overwhelming attraction as well.
He opened his mouth and gave in to the wholly unexpected need to affirm she felt the same. But before he could speak, the soldier in front dropped the hood of the truck back into place and at the exact same time the soldier in the back pulled the door back down. Jess jumped at the noise and planted her head in his shoulder as if embarrassed.
"You're free to go."
And the intimate moment was gone.
Six
Now
Jess huddled in the debris of a church two blocks over from the President's mansion, and through the rifle scope, tracked both Colin and Keisha.
Colin was inside the mansion. He sat in a delicate brocade chair with his legs crossed and a bone china teacup cradled in his oddly delicate grasp. She shivered at the contrast between his rough fingers and the tiny cup as she recalled his dexterity with his hands.
Oil paintings adorned the walls, high ceilings dripped with ornate mouldings, Persian rugs covered the endangered wood floors. Maids poured tea from bone china pots and served tea sandwiches on etched, sterling silver platters.
About twenty men of varying ages mingled in the ornately furnished room. Not a single guest was a woman. The wait staff, all women, were dressed in formal maid uniforms with starched black skirts, a white apron pinafore, and a white peter pan collar.
"Misogynist," Jess mumbled.
The plan was to poison LeRoy. No scent, no discernible traces for an autopsy, unless you were specifically looking for the drug, and slow acting enough that Colin and the other relief organization attendees of this little soiree would be long gone when LeRoy died in his sleep.
Keisha who was supposed to deliver the killing salts to the mansion had been trapped in another section of the city. A mob of citizens grew angry when the distributors of first aid kits ran out and so she was late to the servants' entrance at the back of the mansion.
Keisha had lost her comm device. She'd managed to let them know before the tiny transmitter got ripped from her shirt while she protected the poison. However Keisha could still hear Jess and Colin.
But now Jess tracked Keisha to the back door where she was trying, unsuccessfully it appeared to Jess, to get in. Of course, Jess couldn't hear her so she wasn't completely positive. Jess gave Colin a quick update.
Jess followed Keisha's movements. This was the one part of the plan that Jess had felt was tentative but Keisha had assured both Jess and Colin that she would be able to speak the magic words. Whatever they might be. She hadn't shared. Damn, three days in her company, and Jess wasn't any more thrilled with her than she had been in Monterey.
"Two turned away," Jess updated him softly.
Even as the cook at the back door refused Keisha entrance, a group of women dressed in very short dresses, flat sandals, big party hair and bright red lipstick crowded in the doorway.
"Are my eyes deceiving me or did this asshole get hookers for his party?" Jess snarled in disgust. "Holy crap, he did."
Her fingers were slick on the stock of the Remington as she contemplated options. Her objections to shooting him had shortened as she lay in the rubble, and the heat seared her skin through her clothes.
Jess observed the reception of the the relief organization officials in LeRoy's mansion. The tiny tea sandwiches made her stomach roil. The people of this country were starving.
Starving
. And he was serving sandwiches made with bread with the edges cut off? Where were those remnants?
"You should go for it," Keisha said angrily.
She had to make a decision.
Did she shoot LeRoy? Keisha had told her to take the shot. They had no other choice. But that wasn't exactly true. Jess thought about the poison that Keisha had. Now that she'd tried to get in and failed, Keisha was off the table. But no one had seen Jess.
If she took the shot, chaos would reign.
She thought about what her brother had said when he'd convinced her to take this job. He'd spoken passionately about their ability to make a difference in the world. There had been a moment when he'd gotten a far away look in his eyes, and murmured about how differences weren't always in the expected manner.
She slowed her breath and her heart rate, listened to the steady thud, getting into her Zen space, as her focus narrowed to the Medal for Humanitarian Relief pinned proudly to LeRoy’s chest. An obscene and deceitful display of qualities he didn’t possess. A false front he presented to the world.
LeRoy laughed heartily at some comment that Colin had made. With the high-powered lens she observed the slight tightening round Colin’s eyes. He was wondering when the hell he could leave. The signal for him to take off was after Keisha delivered the poison.
With deliberation, she counted her heartbeats, waiting, waiting, for the moment when she could squeeze the trigger and end his life. Jess knew if she killed LeRoy with her sniper rifle the country would be thrown into disarray.
The immediate chaos would throw the already disintegrating social situation into total anarchy. The military would be trying to keep peace rather than distributing the goods and the desperately needed supplies to the citizens.
Jess thought of the young children she'd handed seed packets to this morning. Their gaunt filthy faces as they looked to the packet, one very small pouch between them and total starvation. The grief and shadows in the faces of the people she'd helped today. Their gratitude submerged under the sheer weight of staying alive and staying healthy.
Her chest tightened, restricted by doubt. How could she pull resources away from the very needy?
She looked through the scope again. LeRoy smiled, his teeth white and polished in a shiny clean face. The polar opposite of the dirty, bedraggled people she'd served earlier this afternoon. If she killed him now, the immediate threat would be eliminated but the long term effects to the population would still be there and even more uncertain.
She hadn't asked the right questions earlier when she'd spoken to Colin. She should have asked more about LeRoy's successor. Sure he was a religious leader. But was he a zealot? Did he serve everyone or give special preference to certain religions?
Right now D'Aramitz was the probably the best choice. But who would they chose to take over for him?
Jess didn't know the answers but she did know that the people had no hope with LeRoy in power. A flicker of movement caught Jess's eye as Keisha walked around toward the main street and suddenly she realized there was another way.
And she knew what she had to do. "Two, meet three at the zero site."
She had told both Colin and Keisha where she planned to set up. She was two streets over from the mansion. Keisha acknowledged Jess's order with a nod of her head. Jess had the means to carry out the mission as they'd originally planned, only the execution would be slightly different.
She stared at the mansion, calculating how she could get the poison to LeRoy's bath. Jess was only supposed to provide protection for both Colin and Keisha and in the event that that their plan failed she was supposed to shoot LeRoy and then get back to the tent compound ASAP.
But now that Keisha had bombed, Jess could get the poison in.
"Three will fill in for two."
Colin smiled faintly as if amused at his companion's joke. Then he turned his head so that it seemed almost as if he was staring straight at her. His light gray eyes glittered with heightened intensity and annoyance as he shook his head slightly.
"I am a party girl." Jess tried to get her meaning across without actually explaining. They hadn't come up with code for 'Keisha couldn't get in and now I'm going to take her place'.
The plan was crazy. She was crazy. Adrenaline coursed through her. The natural high a familiar and welcome fizz in her bloodstream. Dammit. She'd missed this. The edge. The excitement. Even the element of danger felt like coming home.
What the hell did that say about her?
With calm deliberation, Jess began disassembling her sniper rifle. Her hands trembled as she placed the weapon's pieces in the specially fitted backpack and then calmly pulled out the LBD she hadn't worn since the night she'd hooked up with Colin.
Night was almost completely upon the city. She needed to get going.
She managed to shimmy out of her relief worker clothes and into the little dress. Then she swiped blusher on her cheeks and a layer of shiny gloss on her mouth. The little thong flats would have to do since she didn't have any heels.
Her backpack lay next to her. For a moment, Jess wondered at her instincts. Now the reason she'd felt compelled to shove a black knit jersey dress that took minimal space—the same dress she'd worn the night she'd hooked up with Colin six months ago—and the small bag of cosmetics in her backpack, just in case, seemed like serendipity. When she'd been in the FBI it had been standard operating procedure to be ready to change her appearance with a few quick moves and the habit had stuck.
Unfortunately she'd have to take her transmitter off, but she still had her earpiece in. Fortunately Colin couldn't yell at her since he was otherwise occupied.
Jess slid quietly down the debris pile and met Keisha at the base of what used to be the courtyard of the church. They quickly exchanged burdens, Keisha took Jess's backpack and Jess took the poison and taped it to the inside of her thigh.
Keisha gave her head a gentle pat. "Good luck...and thanks."
Jess headed for the back door of the mansion. She knocked on the back door authoritatively. When the cook opened the door, she shoved in, chattering away. "Oh goodness, thanks, I'm so sorry I'm late, can you tell me where I'm supposed go?" she beamed at the rotund cook. She was a large woman with a head full of cornrows and a bemused frown.
She opened her mouth as if to tell Jess to get out.
"I know, I know. I'm late. I got stuck at the security checkpoint." She pointed down at her feet then leaned in and whispered in the cook's ear. "They took my damn shoes. But luckily I had a friend close by who totally wears my size and I could borrow her shoes and then I practically ran all the way here."
The cook still hadn't said a word.
"Please, please let me in." She put her hands together in the prayer position, index fingers to her lips, as she begged. "I need the money." Jess let a little bit of sob trickle through her voice.
Finally, the cook pulled her into the kitchen and shut the door behind Jess. She looked Jess up and down and whispered. "Be careful, milady."
A shiver ran over Jess's spine as she realized that the cook knew something was up. And she was letting her in anyway. She grabbed the woman's hand, and said fervently, "Thank you so much."
"Kat-a-rine." A burly security guard stomped into the kitchen. "What'choo doing?"