A Kiss to Kill (20 page)

There wasn’t much she could say to that other than, “Language, Wade.”

“Was the asshole any good, at least?”

She choked out a half laugh, half sob.

From anyone else, the question would have been crude and insulting. But their relationship had centered around sex, and it had been a good one as far as that sort of relationship went. They’d broken rules together, climaxed together, and been able to do and talk about pretty much anything having to do with sex together. It was all the other stuff she’d had trouble with. Because she was in love with someone else. He’d known that. Hoped he could change her mind. And when he couldn’t, he’d graciously let her go. But still tried to provoke Alex at every opportunity. She suspected more out of loyalty to her than any real jealousy . . .

“That good, eh,” he observed.

Which only made her want to laugh and cry harder. “I am such an idiot,” she moaned.

“No. He is. A certified, class-A, clueless, obtuse dolt. What is his goddamn problem?”

“He has . . . issues.” She sighed.

“No fucking kidding.” Wade’s voice was gratifyingly aggravated.

“He insists we can’t be together.”

“So what the hell does he call fucking you? An accidental slip of the cock? Jesus, Rebel, if you want him dead, I swear to God, I’ll arrange it.”

“No!” She knew, of course, he wasn’t serious. But it felt really good to have someone on her side. “As tempting as the offer is, he’s not worth going to jail. I’ll get over him. I always do.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he drawled.

“Hey.” She punched his chest. But felt a little better.

He chuckled. “Go on, blame it on me.”

At least her world wasn’t coming to an end. Quite.

“Speaking of . . . um, slipping,” she ventured. “Are you hitting on that pretty detective? The one upstairs?”

His lips crooked wickedly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She looked up at him. “Don’t play dumb with me, SAC Montana. I know how you operate.”

“Do you, now?”

“Yeah. You’ll do anything to stay involved in Gina’s case. Including seducing a police detective . . . or a Bureau subordinate,” she added pointedly.

He kissed her temple. “Honey, you know it may have started that way, but—”

“I know.” She gave him a smile of understanding. “But what Alex said is true. We’ve found Gina. She’s with STORM and safe now, I promise. So there’s no reason to go breaking the heart of some innocent police detective.”

“I’m wounded,” he protested. “What gave you the idea I’d break her heart?”

“I saw the way she looked at you. Wondering why you were fighting with Alex over me.”

“I wasn’t fighting over you.” He sighed. “Okay, fine, I was. I can’t help that the man pushes my buttons. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Now she thinks you don’t deserve
her
.”

“All this from one look?” He made a face. “Damn. Anyone ever tell you you’re far too good at your job, Haywood?”

She smiled. “You did once.”

“Very funny.” He sighed into her hair. “For the record, Detective McPhee is a very sexy lady. I like her a lot.”

“But you love Gina,” she said gently. “Anyone with eyes can see you still haven’t gotten over her.”

For the briefest of seconds, his mouth turned down. He shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he returned. “I’ve told you. Gina moved on a long time ago. And so have I.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I get that. Just like me and Alex.”

GINA
stood before the door of the bedroom where Gregg was being confined and tried to work up the courage to go in. Quinn had said he wanted to see her. Alone. For two minutes.

Two minutes?

Not two hours. Which would be enough time to make love. Or two days. Which would be enough time to make love
and
talk about their future. But two minutes. That wasn’t enough time for anything . . . except to say goodbye.

With Gregg, the future had always been a big question mark. Or rather, the length of their time together had been a big question mark. The future? They had none, other than the occasional physical rendezvous. He’d made that plain as day. But she’d thought they would have a bit more of a present. To figure things out. At least until the traitor was found.

But it seemed two minutes was all she would get of him.

Why? What had changed his mind about her?

No mystery there.
Her own irresponsible actions
.

The knowledge sent shards of regret stinging through her veins. He’d counted on her and she’d let him down. If only she hadn’t gone out for ice. None of this would be happening. Quite so soon, at any rate.

She closed her eyes and reached deep inside for her strength. She knew it was in there somewhere. It used to flow so freely within her body and her soul. Before . . .

But it
was
still there. She’d felt brief flashes of her old self, strong and capable, over the past few days.
Since being with Gregg
. It was as if being with him was slowly healing the part of her that had been so thoroughly broken by her terrorist captors. Maybe it was his own awesome strength that somehow melded into her while making love. Maybe it was that he always made her feel so physically safe that she had time to work on other things. Maybe it was the profound relief that the man she had once loved
hadn’t
betrayed her, as she’d believed for all those months.

Whatever it was, her inner will to be strong was slowly returning—all because of Gregg.

She swallowed heavily. What would she do when she no longer had his sure, steady power to draw from? She didn’t think she was ready to stand on her own. She was afraid she’d fall apart.

She couldn’t lose him.

Not yet.

Without letting herself think, she raised her hand and knocked at the door. No sound came from the bedroom. No
Come in
. Not even a
Go away
. From a nearby chair, Quinn nodded encouragingly at her. So she boldly opened the bedroom door and went in.

Gregg lay stretched out on the bed, ankles crossed, one arm under his head, the other alongside it. His wrists were handcuffed together. Seeing him bound like that made her want to throw up.

His eyes were closed. “Gregg?” she asked softly, in case he was asleep.

His lids cracked and he looked at her. He didn’t smile. Or answer. His only other movement was a tight bunching of his cheek muscles.
Oh, God
. He was furious.

Her heartbeat kicked up.
She had to do this
.

Coming in, she closed the door behind her and took a few steps toward the bed. “Gregg, I’m so—”

“Don’t,”
he growled.

Her lips parted. “But I—”

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I just want you to stand there and listen.”

Before . . .
before,
she would have stalked over, wagging her finger and given him an earful for not listening to her apology. But now she just stood there, cut to the quick and shocked by the palpable waves of anger coming off him.

“I took responsibility for what happened to you last year and tried to make up for it, Gina. I watched over you. I protected you. I saved your life more than once. I didn’t ask you to like me. Definitely didn’t ask you to make love to me. All I asked in return was for you to trust me.”

“I did. I do!”

But he didn’t seem to hear her declaration. He kept right on talking. “You prefer STORM? Great. They’re in charge now. But whatever happens, know one thing, Gina, and believe it with everything in you: I’m not working for al Sayika. It’s not me who’s the bad guy here.”

“I know that,” she said.

“Good. That’s it, then. We’re done,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Dismay seeped through her. She yearned for a kind word from him. One that would tell her everything would be all right. That they’d find the real traitor. Together. That they’d get through this somehow. Together.

“That’s it?” she whispered.

“No. There is one last thing.”

Her heart leapt. “Yes?”

“When you leave, Gina? Don’t come back. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

NINETEEN

BEFORE
Gina could even begin to react to Gregg’s brutal echo of her own cutting words from two days ago, there was a knock at the door and Quinn put his head in. “The others are here, van Halen. You’ve had your two minutes. Let’s go.”

With a curt nod, Gregg rose from the bed with his usual catlike grace. But his handcuffs caught on the quilt and he had to stop and disentangle himself.

Gina’s stomach clenched. “Are those really necessary?” she asked Quinn. “It’s not like he could escape even if he wanted to.”

Quinn gave her an oh-how-little-you-know-of-the-man raised eyebrow, but relented nonetheless. He tossed Gregg the key. “Your woman has faith in you, van Halen. Don’t fuck it up.”

Your woman
. Quinn’s unexpected verbal coupling of them sent an unbidden spill of hope spinning through her.

Gregg unlocked the cuffs and threw them onto the nightstand. “She’s not my woman.”

Hope curdled to humiliation. Why was he being so damned hard on her? All she did was go out for ice. She hadn’t done this on purpose!

As promised, the whole team was waiting in the sitting room. Gina had already spent time this afternoon with the others, so she now greeted Darcy and Marc warmly, and gave Kick a hug. “How’s Rainie?” she asked her best friend’s new husband.

“Very relieved we found you unharmed,” he said, scrutinizing her to make sure she really
was
unharmed. Rainie had been worried. Satisfied, he added, “I told her you’d call after Darce sets up a secure line.”

“No calls,” Gregg cut in. Gina looked from him to Kick and back again. “No calls,” Gregg repeated in a tone that dared to be disobeyed.

“Okay. No calls,” she agreed, disappointed but determined not to increase his ire with her. Rainie would wait until the bad guy was caught. Being married to Kick, she knew the drill.

Quinn clapped his hands. “All right, people, grab a drink, grab a seat, and let’s get started. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Everyone pulled the furniture around to face one another and settled in. A lamp was snapped on at one end of the couch. Gregg took a seat in a straight-backed chair as far as possible from the pool of light. And her.

Visibly uncomfortable at being the center of attention, for the next hour he told his side of the events that had unfolded over the past eight months concerning her and the terrorists. His expression was stark and forbidding, and though his narrative revolved around her, not once did he look at her where she sat on a tapestry love seat next to Rebel.

Half the team had already heard his story, half hadn’t. But everyone paid close attention and asked questions trying to trip him up. No one could. By the end, even Alex had grudgingly come around.

During the exchange, Gina had been truly humbled hearing of the efforts every person in the room had made to help rescue and protect her from the al Sayika terrorists who had targeted her. She knew Alex felt the same way. By killing her captors, the team had avenged him, as well. They both owed these people their lives.

Listening to Gregg talk, it was more than obvious he shared their hatred of the fanatical terrorists, and would do anything in his power to bring down whoever was helping them—and framing him to take the blame for their atrocities.

When the interrogation was over, Quinn called for a vote. This time, not a single hand was raised in favor of turning Gregg over to Homeland Security.

“Welcome to the team, van Halen,” Kick said, unpropping himself from his spot against the fireplace to walk over and shake his hand.

The gesture seemed to break the dam of tension in the room, and everyone relaxed in a spate of welcomes, drink-fetching, and an outburst of relieved chatter.

Only Gina remained silent, still fighting her inner misery over Gregg’s categorical rejection. Although relieved at their decision not to turn him over to DHS, it was clear he was not pleased at having his hand forced to join the team. He blamed
her
for that. And rightly so. It
was
her fault. If only he’d let her tell him how sorry she was.

After a few agonizing minutes of self-recrimination, she was grateful when Quinn brought the group back to order. “Okay, sit rep, people. The whole damn thing. Let’s go around the room and see where we are. Kick, you’re up.”

Kick nodded. “Let’s see. After the attack on Gina two days ago in New York, Marc, Miles, and I checked out the three attackers who were killed. Two of them had entered the country illegally, no visas. NYPD found fake Saudi passports at the flophouse in Astoria where the two were living. That was pretty much all.”

“Where are the passports?” Darcy asked. “Our lab has a pretty good database of active forgers. They may be able to trace where they were made.” She was sitting in an easy chair with Quinn perched on its arm, his hand draped over her shoulder . . . the posture of a man in love and not afraid to show it. Gina sighed.

“NYPD has them,” Kick said. “DHS has requested they be turned over, but it could be days. You know government red tape.”

“Amen to that,” Rebel muttered. Everyone chuckled.

Gina wondered briefly how the FBI agent had managed to be included on the team. Not only was she an outsider and a fed—and everyone agreed the traitor most likely worked for the government—but it was common knowledge she’d had—was still having?—an affair with Gina’s own ex-fiancé, Wade—not that Gina minded terribly about that part.
And
that she’d been in love for years—unrequited until recently—with Alex Zane, with whom she seemed to be having some sort of explosion brewing at the moment, judging by the tension arcing between them like downed power lines.

“What about Ouda Mahmood?” Rebel asked Kick.

“Confirmed close ties to al Sayika, which we already knew,” Kick said. “Thanks to Darcy’s quick work with the fingerprints, Marc and I got to his apartment before NYPD and were able to search it thoroughly. We photographed everything, scanned his mail and documents before we had to bail.”

“No laptop?” Darcy asked.

Kick shook his head. “They must have been using a library or Internet café. Miles stayed in New York to continue looking.”

“They must have,” Tara put in, “because when Bobby Lee and I searched the cousin’s place here in D.C.—Asha Mahmood, the woman killed two days ago?—we found shredded evidence of online communication between them.”

“Please tell me you found her computer,” Kick said.

Tara shook her head. “I’ll bet that’s what the break-in was all about. Getting their hands on Asha’s computer or laptop, and destroying evidence that could link our traitor to her and al Sayika.”

“Did you find anything at all?”

“As a matter of fact,” Quinn said, “a statement turned up for an offshore account owned jointly by Asha and Ouda. They’d written a $25,000 check to the reelection committee of a certain Louisiana congressman.”

“Which one?” Gregg interjected, frowning.

“Lester Altos,” Quinn said.

Alex glanced up sharply. “Altos?”

“What is it?” Quinn asked.

“Altos was one of the politicians who sat in when the Pentagon debriefed me after my stay at Club Torture.” He looked over at Gina. “What about you?”

She tried to think back. That awful time was all just a blur. She’d been so out of it with the pain and the medication and the horror of it all . . . “I don’t know. Maybe. There were a few politicians from Louisiana. He could have been one of them.”

“I’ll try and find out through the Bureau,” Rebel said, writing his name down. “There should be records.”

“As soon as I get the mainframe computer station up and running here, I’ll dig up everything I can on the good congressman,” Darcy said.

“If he’s our guy, we’ll need to move quickly,” Kick said.

Darcy nodded. “But we can’t go after a U.S. congressman half-cocked. It would be a bad mistake if we’re wrong. We need to be very sure of his complicity first.”

“I’m still waiting to hear from my contact in the Caymans,” Quinn added, “to see if that’s the only large payout the Mahmoods made, and if they had any other accounts at the bank there. Altos could just be a smoke screen,” he cautioned. “Or laundering money into his campaign fund any way he can.”

Curled up on one end of the sofa, Tara glanced down at Marc, who was lounging on the floor at her feet. “Did you find any financial-type paperwork in Ouda Mahmood’s apartment?” she asked.

“There may have been,” Marc said. “I seem to recall seeing a bank statement or two.”

“I’ll look through your scans and check,” she volunteered, then exchanged a smile with her husband. Their expressions were filled with so much love that Gina’s heart literally ached.

Tara’s and Marc’s were the first faces she’d seen when STORM had burst through the door in Louisiana, guns blazing, to rescue her. Gina had been devastated when Tara nearly died from the hideous virus the terrorists had forced her to perfect. And was convinced it was Marc’s deep love and unflagging presence by Tara’s side during her tug-of-war with death that had pulled her through in the end. The couple would always have a special place in Gina’s heart.

How she longed to have a love as strong and true as theirs!

“Okay, what else?” Quinn asked.

Alex straightened from where he stood bookends at the fireplace with Kick, and outlined the search he and Rebel had done on
Allah’s Paradise
. “Haven’t heard back yet from forensics on most of the evidence we brought up from the wreck. Hopefully tomorrow.”

As Alex spoke, Rebel shifted restlessly on the love seat next to her, brushing nonexistent lint from her skirt.
They
weren’t looking at each other, either.

“But aside from the million dollars’ worth of diamonds Rebel found, I did notice one other interesting item: a preliminary agenda for a Military Defense Subcommittee meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, scheduled for this Saturday.”

Everyone sat up straight.

“Where’s it being held?” Quinn quickly asked.

“The Capitol.”

“Could that be the terrorists’ possible target in D.C.? The Capitol Building?” Tara asked, alarmed. She unconsciously reached for Marc’s hand.

“Unlikely,” Gregg said from his place in the shadows. “Security there is too strict. They’d never get any kind of weapon through.”

“Unless it was biological,” Tara reminded them.

There was a brief silence as they all remembered Louisiana, and how close a call it had been for every one of them.

“I’ll alert DHS,” Quinn said. “But I agree with van Halen. If they go to the considerable risk of penetrating such a secure target, why not release the weapon on the full congress? Why a small subcommittee meeting?”

“A statement?” Darcy suggested. “It
is
the Defense subcommittee.”

“Aren’t they about to announce a new program to fight terrorism within the country?” Tara said.

“Not al Sayika’s style,” Kick said. “Their targets have all been high profile. And what about the nuclear trigger we’ve been looking for? Doesn’t fit.” He shook his head. “Van Halen’s right. This isn’t it.”

“Speaking of which, any sign of the nuclear trigger that was supposed to be onboard the yacht?” Darcy asked Alex.

“Nothing,” he responded. “The good news is there was no indication of any nuclear material ever being onboard. Radiation levels registered zip.”

“Are we sure it was
Allah’s Paradise
bringing this trigger into the country?” Tara asked.

Sitting back in the shadows, Gregg was still frowning. “You keep mentioning a nuclear trigger. What’s that all about?”

Quinn leafed through a file and walked a paper over to him. “NSA intercepted this e-mail several days ago.”

Gregg read aloud, his deep voice resonating through the room, “ ‘Zero hour approaches! The garden of paradise beckons. The trigger will arrive tomorrow. Praise God and do His will!’ ” He studied the e-mail for a moment. “What makes you think this means a nuclear trigger?” he finally asked.

Rebel responded, “Chatter regarding an al Sayika attack on D.C. has been intercepted from multiple sources lately. They’ve used dirty bombs before, in Europe and Indonesia. A triggering device is always the most difficult part to get hold of, and it would have to be brought here from overseas. It just makes sense.”

Gregg nodded thoughtfully and passed the e-mail back to Quinn. “I assume from the discussion you don’t have anything on the attack plans?”

“We’ve got a whole lot of conjecture,” Alex said disgustedly.

“But there is definitely something going on in D.C.,” Rebel said. “There have been three murders here over the past forty-eight hours, all linked to al Sayika. I think if we . . .”

Gina should have been listening, she really should. But she felt in imminent danger of overload . . . from more than one direction. She lost the thread of the discussion completely and melted into the background, trying her best to pull her gaze away from Gregg. But it wasn’t possible.

Bathed in shadows, he was the dark enigma in the room, an unmoving chiaroscuro portrait who watched the intense team discussion from his cocoon of uncompromising distance. He spoke cordially when spoken to, contributing sharp insight when asked, but volunteered nothing without prompting. He soaked up the circling activity like a black hole in their midst, a powerful, magnetic force, pulling in and gathering, but drawing awareness only through his very invisibility. You knew he was there, saw the void of his shape, but not the actual man who filled it. Not really. And only if you paid attention . . .

She shivered at the analogy. At his dark beauty. At the force of his attraction over her flesh. She wanted to throw herself into the black vortex of his power and let herself be carried deep inside him, to his very soul, and banish the pain behind his shadows.

So when his midnight blue eyes slowly turned and sought her out, snakelike in their sinister focus, her pulse took off in flight. Was he finally going to acknowledge her presence? For an endless moment, his gaze bored into her.

He cleared his throat. As though at a signal, all conversation stopped.