Blue Knight (14 page)

They were herded into the foyer under gunpoint. For the first time the guards weren’t reluctant to lay hands on them. They were prodded, shoved and manhandled into two ragged formations along either side of the grand old stone foyer, with five guards apiece at their backs. Each guard had a submachine gun cocked and held at their hips.

The guards looked pissed. Clearly, they had been whipped this afternoon. Verbally, or possibly even physically. They would be looking for someone upon whom they could take out their bad moods.

Daniel could feel sweat wanting to break out on his temples and back just at the sight of the cocked guns, despite the thirty-foot high cavernous and airy ceilings and the cane ceiling fans circulating the air every ten feet, pushing it around over the cool marble tiles.

Serrano had definitely rolled up his sleeves and was getting down to business.

The big man was standing at the head of the two ragged columns of civilians, his hands on the hips of his ample khakis as he stared at them. His tiny piggy brown eyes, buried deep inside the folds of extraneous flesh, watched them all as they fidgeted in the two lines.

Even though he was just an army general with no specialized training, Serrano was no slouch when it came to human psychology. He was sizing them all up, looking for the weakest among them.

Daniel fought hard not to look at Olivia, because that would betray a weakness Serrano could exploit, too. But simply the thought itself made his mind tumble back to twenty minutes before.

Why hadn’t he just dropped her at her hotel room and gone to his own? She had been safe there. She could have quickly showered, changed and arrived here in time for the inspection, smelling squeaky clean and innocent.

But instead of letting her step inside and shutting the door, some perverse imp had made him step into the room with her and shut the door behind him. He’d taken twenty seconds to disarm the bug under her bed, then thirty seconds more to rip her clothes from her body and get rid of his. By the time she was naked and beneath him on the bed, he wasn’t sure who was trembling more.

He’d barely remembered in time to roll a condom on before plunging so deep into her he’d pushed up against her cervix.

All she had done was moan and wrap those incredible legs around his hips and beg him for more, her nails digging into his shoulders. Then her eyes had opened and she had watched him fuck her.

He had drowned in her blue, blue eyes as he came—came so quickly and powerfully he was shocked almost speechless.

Afterward she had not clung to him, or even kissed him.

Daniel frowned down at the cool white Terrazzo marble tile as he realized that it had been he who had leaned down and kissed her peach-tasting lips.

She had lifted his chin and looked him square in the eye. “And now we have only eleven minutes,” she’d said softly, but firmly.

Daniel shook off the memory and made himself look up and around the foyer. Being lost in thought was also a good signal to Serrano that you had secrets to delve into. He let his gaze pass over Olivia and move on, not lingering.

She was pale, but looked quite normal, otherwise. Nothing out of the ordinary marked her, or showed that a few minutes ago she had been pressed against the side of her shower, locked in his arms. Or that he had delayed her getting dressed so much she had forgone underwear. Or was wearing the minimum of makeup and that was why she looked so pale.

Why had he run it so close to the wire? He usually didn’t play it so tight.

He fought not to frown again, to keep his expression neutral.

Serrano was still watching, still weighing them up. Behind him, Ibarra stood erect and at attention, not a button out of place, his eyes shadowed by his peaked cap. There was an armed captain at Ibarra’s shoulder, standing at parade rest, an automatic rifle resting against his shoulder.

The silence and examination was making the civilians edgy. There were coughs. Shuffled feet. Clearing of throats. These people were diplomats, but they had been under high tension for far too long and these changed circumstances had thrown them. They were uncertain and fear was eating at them.

Serrano was letting that uncertainty and fear do half his work.

Finally, Serrano moved. With a squeak of boot leather, he began to walk very slowly down the line of civilians, pausing for ten seconds or so to examine the face of each one.

Daniel swore under his breath. The up-close-and-personal examination was guaranteed to unnerve the weakest of them. He scanned the line Serrano was moving along, assessing who was in it and came to Ernesto. His gut tightened.

Ernesto was already jittery. Licking his lips and shooting glances at the soldiers with their machine guns leveled and ready. His eyes were rolling and sweat glistened on his temples next to his graying hair. The aging diplomat had never been trained to handle this sort of pressure.

Daniel couldn’t help it. He glanced at Olivia.

She wasn’t looking at him. She was watching Serrano and as Daniel looked, her gaze flickered toward Ernesto.

She knew he would break, too, and she stood right next to him.

Serrano was two people away from Ernesto now.

Daniel wasn’t even remotely psychic and didn’t even believe in all that mystic shit. But with a sinking, heartsick feeling he suddenly knew Olivia was going to try to do something to shield Ernesto. He could see it written all over her, even though her face was utterly expressionless. It was in her posture and the way she was holding her shoulders.

When had he got so damned good at reading her?

But there was no time to figure that out. Serrano was in front of Ernesto.

The Spaniard was licking his lips again, staring down at Serrano, who was shorter than Ernesto by a good four inches. But the height difference made no difference at all. No one had any doubt about who was the superior man of the two. Serrano held the upper hand. Period.

When looking at the others, Serrano hadn’t bothered swiveling to face them full-on. He had barely turned his shoulders. Now, he sensed blood in the water. He turned completely. Shoulders. Feet. Hips. He spread his feet a good shoulder-width apart and planted them. He studied Ernesto.

“You wish to say something to me,
señor
?”

Ernesto shook his head.

“You have been here a long while, señor,” Serrano crooned, his voice dropping to a softer pitch. “You must be tired of all these silly games. Do you not want them to stop? To go home to your loved ones?”

Ernesto licked his lips again and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I-I…hardly know.” He sounded like he was about to cry.

Olivia put her hand on Ernesto’s wrist and squeezed.

Serrano looked at her. “Did I tell you it was permitted to touch him?”

“He is upset. I offer comfort,” she said simply.

“Who are you?” Serrano demanded.

“Olivia,” she answered calmly.

Daniel could feel the mental shout in his mind, though he kept his jaw clamped tight and said nothing aloud. “
Don’t say anything else!
” he begged her in his thoughts.

Serrano was staring at Olivia. She stared calmly back. She had taken the heat off Ernesto.

“Drop his wrist,” Serrano instructed.

Olivia dropped Ernesto’s wrist.

Serrano considered her for a moment more, then moved back a pace to study Ernesto.

Ernesto, the weaker one.

Ernesto seemed to have himself under control now. Perhaps Olivia’s touch had calmed him, after all. Daniel hoped so, for all their sakes.

Serrano considered Ernesto. He gave it thirty very long seconds. Ernesto began to tremble in that time, his hard-won calm deserting him again.

Daniel felt a tiny spurt of disgusted admiration for the general. He certainly knew enough twisted psychology to pull Ernesto apart.

Finally, Serrano held his hands out at his sides. “Your family, your loved ones. Do you not wish to see them again? Your lovely wife, your daughter?”

Even Daniel felt a spurt of surprise, until he realized that Serrano was stabbing in the dark.

But what a gamble!

Ernesto grabbed at his chest, a high-pitched keening sound emerging from his mouth. He slowly toppled to his knees, his fingers digging into the flesh under his shirt, as he began to babble in Spanish about his daughters, his wife, and his adored family that he thought he would never see again. How much he missed them all. He reached out for Serrano with his other hand.

It was exactly the sort of pleading, helpless gesture Serrano had been waiting for, the chink he needed to drive his wedge into. Daniel could see it in the gleam in Serrano’s eye.

He thought he’d won.

Olivia took a step forward, swiveled on her heel, lifted up her arm and swung it. It was a full-armed round-house slap across Ernesto’s face that jarred him to his knees. The crack echoed in the stone foyer with the shock of a rifle shot.

Ernesto fell silent, like he had been shot.

The armed guard escorting Ibarra and Serrano sprang forward, instinctively protecting Serrano, who was right next to Olivia as she raised her arm. He didn’t fire his gun but he did swing the butt, which took her on the jaw. Her head snapped back and a bitten-off cry jerked out of her. She was lifted off her feet by the blow and pushed through four feet of air, before she went skidding across the tiles, to land up against the shins and feet of the civilians in the other line.

For a few seconds she lay there, dazed, before she finally, finally, eased herself up on one arm. Her hairclip was by Serrano’s feet. The guard had knocked her hairclip clean out of her hair. Her hair tumbled around her wrist as she pulled herself up onto her arm and touched her jaw.

Jenny, who was nearby, broke ranks to crouch down by Olivia and help her sit up. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the trickle of blood oozing from the corner of Olivia’s mouth.

And Olivia still didn’t look at him. Daniel shoved his hand into his trouser pocket, where he could hide the fist he was making. He needed to make a fist, so he could fight every urge and instinct to go to her.

He had the shakes. He knew the clinical diagnosis well enough. Adrenaline spike. Shock. But the problem was he’d never suffered through one before—not like this. Sure, elevated heart rate. That was normal. Adrenaline lift. He was human, after all. Get in a tense situation and that was to be expected.

But this? He’d watched the guard hit Olivia and the need to take action, do
something
, do one of the dozens of things that had occurred to him, do anything to get her out of this, it had all washed over him like a cold dump of ice water, making his gut churn in a way that had made him wonder if he wasn’t about to be physically sick with it.

Olivia
, his mind whispered.

Oh shit
, he whispered back to himself.

He let himself look at her again, as Jenny dabbed at her chin. At the tumble of hair, the long legs sprawled on the tiles, the breasts outlined under the silk shirt.

Then he deliberately turned to look at Serrano. The general watched Ernesto being picked up between two guards and walked away. Serrano had found his weak link. Ernesto was being taken away for questioning.

Serrano turned to study Olivia as she wiped the last of the blood from her lip with an impatient, angry gesture and got to her feet without help. Her hair hanging to her waist didn’t diminish the haughty
fuck you
attitude rolling off her and Daniel’s gut clenched again. Sick despair rolled through him.

Serrano was smiling as he watched her.

Olivia was at the top of Serrano’s hit parade now.

Olivia was expecting the quiet tapping on her door, but she didn’t answer it. After two sets of taps it stopped.

Then the door opened and the chain flew off the slide with a musical tinkle, proving it was useless as a guard.

Olivia turned in the armchair enough to confirm it was Daniel. “Of course you’d force your way in.” She turned back to the window.

She heard the door close and the sound of bedclothes moving.

“I’ve disabled the bug,” she said shortly.

“Of course you’d be sitting in the dark, sulking,” he said.

She was on the verge of saying “I don’t sulk,” and stopped. Because that was exactly what she was doing. So she amended it. “I’m allowed to be afraid.”

She felt his fingers under her chin, turning it so he could see it in the light falling through the window. He was checking the swelling, she realized.

“I didn’t think you’d show your fear by hiding in a dark room.” His voice was a breath across her cheek. Warm. Intimate.

“Daniel—”

His kiss was hot and soft. Designed to coax her past her fear. Her sulks. To seduce her.

His hands on her arms lifted her from the armchair to her feet and then wrapped around her. They told her without words that Daniel could be the safety she craved, the safe harbor that was nowhere to be found. The rock she needed.

She clung to him and kissed him like she believed it and let him seduce her. Why not? What else was there, really? She had learned today what Daniel had instinctively understood from the beginning: They were all doomed.

She might as well enjoy what time she had left.

When he reached for the tie on her robe, she let him pull it undone and she reached for the belt on his trousers and tugged on it. “Get rid of your clothes,” she told him. “I have less than you to remove.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, his lips against her upper breast. He stepped back and shed his shirt and shoes and socks, then kissed her, hard and deep, before sliding the rest of his clothes off and dropping them to the floor.

His cock was already hard and resting against his abdomen. She ran her fingers along it and it twitched.

With a smile, she shrugged her robe off her shoulders and let it settle on the floor behind her.

“Naked,” he said. “One would almost think you had been expecting me.”

“If I had been expecting to entertain you, I would have put on something more alluring in lace and satin.”

“You have something in that category here?” His voice dropped to a tight, hard, excited note.