Diamonds Are Truly Forever: An Agent Ex Novel 2 (42 page)

The engine died. Staci grabbed her gun and scooted in with her back to the engines, facing the cabin, bumping up against the toolbox again. Cowering like a child, she trained her gun on the cabin door. Sam would have to come out to check the engines. She didn’t want to shoot him, didn’t know if she could.

She’d been so focused on her task, it took her a second to realize that it should have been silent, no engine noises except for the distant roar of other boats. Why, then, did she hear an engine humming beside them?

Drew!

She nearly called out for him as she poked her head out of the box. But it wasn’t Drew who climbed over the edge into the boat.

A muscular man, dressed in black and carrying a scary-looking assault rifle, climbed aboard from a black Jet Ski he’d tethered to them.

Staci ducked back into the fish box and pulled her knees against her chest, willing herself to become invisible.

SMASH has arrived.

Just at that moment Sam stormed out of the cabin door, cursing the engines. The intruder ducked behind the door.

Sam looked around the rear deck and froze. “Staci! Staci, where are you?”

He spotted the cling fingers and walked toward the railing. Staci took a deep breath and aimed her gun at him. If she was quick, she could shoot him
and
the intruder.

Her hands trembled. The gun wobbled in her hands.

Now all she could see were Sam’s knees and shins as he leaned over the railing to look for her.

She aimed at his kneecaps. She could shoot him in the kneecap like an old-time gangster, disable him until help arrived.

Footsteps echoed on the deck. The intruder’s legs came up behind Sam. She steadied the gun, aimed, ready to take a two-for-one shot.

She recognized the instant Sam realized there was someone else onboard. She swore she could smell Sam sweat.

“You can’t cheat us,” the intruder said in heavily accented English. He sounded Russian. “And live.”

Two pops sounded in rapid succession. Sam’s legs crumpled in front of her. Above her, she heard a
thud
and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She pictured Sam slumped against the back rail, dead, eyes glassy and unseeing. Horrible images from Ciudad passed through her mind. Not exactly the part of her life she wanted to see flash before her in what could be her last moments. Though her mouth was dry, she swallowed hard.

I’m next.

The Russian laughed, a genuine, deep, full-throttled sound of true amusement, and said something in Russian. She heard him moving around. Watched his legs retreat from the railing. He paused.

“Don’t worry, little American spy girl. I am not going to kill you. I was not given orders to do so. I only kill who I am told to.” He chuckled again. “Tonight I am your hero. He was going to kill you, no?”

She was glad he found her fear and near murder so amusing. She didn’t reply.

“Saved by rubber fingers.” He laughed again. “Very ingenious, Ninety-nine. Thanks so much for the help distracting him.”

The Russian tossed something in her direction. She jumped. One hand’s worth of cling fingers came to a rest in front of her, their manicure job shot.

She heard the roar of another boat approaching.

The Russian uttered what had to be, by the sound of them, some exceptionally foul Russian curses. She watched him walk to the cabin and reappear a minute later with a bag slung over his shoulder. He took two steps to the side rail and his legs disappeared.

A Jet Ski roared to life. He was gone.

Staci’s teeth chattered. She felt herself losing her grip on reality and her gun. It slid out of her hand next to her. She leaned her head back, trying to catch her breath and think what to do next. Which was when she heard the electronic ticking coming from behind her.

She turned and examined the toolbox.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

An LED display counted down from sixty. And she realized—Sam had been planning to ditch the boat and leave her to blow up! Damn him.

She must have tripped the timer when she was trying to free herself from the duct tape.

She had less than a minute to get off the boat. There must be a lifeboat. Sam must have had an escape route planned.

Just as she made a move to get out of the fish box, something bumped and jarred the boat. Staci covered her ears, preparing to be blown up. As if covering her ears would help.

“Staci! Staci!” Drew called her name.

Still on her butt, she scooted out of the fish box as Drew swung over the rail onto the deck. Noe boarded behind him.

“Staci!”

He sounded worried, scared, like she’d only ever heard him one other time in her life—Ciudad. The look of relief that crossed his face when he saw her was priceless and genuine.

She choked back a sob. The next instant Drew crouched in front of her, still wearing his suit and looking as if he’d just stepped out of a Bond movie.

Seriously, who went boating in a suit? Or an evening cocktail dress, for that matter.

At the same time, Noe went to the rail and looked at Sam. “He’s dead.” He pulled something off the rail.

Staci pushed Drew away and scrambled to her feet. “Sam planted a bomb! We have to get off the boat. Now! We have less than a minute before we explode.”

Without hesitating, Drew scooped her in his arms, and carried her to the waiting cigarette boat. He stepped in and pulled her into his lap in the passenger seat as Noe jumped in and unleashed their boat. A second later, Noe slid into the driver’s seat and put the boat into gear.

As they took off, Noe tossed something to them. “Apparently, these work after all.”

Drew caught what Noe had tossed and held it for Staci to see—the second hand of her cling fingers, its nail polish in not much better shape than she felt.

“Saved by cling fingers, Max,” she said, shakily, roughly repeating the Russian’s words. “And SMERSH.”

“SMASH,” Drew said. “RIOT’s death squad.” He slid out of his suit jacket. “Your arms are bleeding.”

She looked at her arms and shrugged. “I’m fine. They’re just scratches.”

Drew tucked his jacket around her shoulders, and pulled her into him, his arms tight around her. He kissed the top of her head.

“You don’t have to keep pretending,” she said, her heart breaking. “The mission’s over.” She looked at him through tears in her eyes. “Yes, I figured it out. Sam was your mission.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You didn’t have to use me, Drew. You could have told me the truth. I would have helped you. You didn’t have to pretend to fall in love with me again.” She groped around in his suit coat, looking for a tissue. She felt a bulge in one pocket, reached in and found a box, a velvet box. She pulled it out and stared at it.

Drew took the box from her hands, tipped her face up to his, met her eyes, and opened the box in front of her. A band of diamonds sparkled in the last rays of light as the sun slipped over the water’s edge into night.

“Staci Fields, knowing everything you do about my mission, will you stay married to me?”

“Are you serious?” She couldn’t believe it—Drew was proposing? Proposing a real reunion?

He may have grinned, but beneath it, he looked nervous, as if he wasn’t certain what her answer would be. “You said the same thing the first time I asked you to marry me. When will you believe me?”

“Never. It’s too good to be true,” she said.

“Well? Are you going to leave me hanging on our anniversary?”

“Yes.” She smiled through tears of joy. “I mean yes, I’ll stay married to you. I don’t have much choice, do I? I know too much now.” She couldn’t help smiling and yet she felt like crying.

He took the ring out of the box, took her hand in his warm, safe, strong one, and slid the ring on. It was a perfect fit.

She held her hand out and admired it. “It’s lovely.” She grinned at him. “But nothing compares to knowing you love me. I love you, Drew.” She slid into his lap, wrapped her arms around him, and then … he kissed her.

She closed her eyes and melted into him, opening her mouth to him, opening her life to him.

Through closed eyes, she saw a brilliant flash of light. Yes, when she kissed Drew, she felt fireworks, but never quite so literally.

An explosion cracked through the peace of the night air. Waves bounced their boat as they continued to speed away from the
Limit Out
. Her eyes flew open.

Sparks and bits of burning debris rained down around them from the sky like a celebration of pyrotechnics.

Staci pulled back from Drew. They stared at where Sam’s boat used to be and where a fire now danced on the water, casting tongues of yellow and orange into the night sky.

“Nice night for a bonfire,” Noe said, drily. “Too bad I forgot the marshmallows.”

Staci had almost forgotten he was there. She clutched Drew’s arm. “What will we tell my mother?”

“Not the truth, that’s for sure.” He hugged Staci tight. “How about a lie of omission? Think you can handle that?”

“Sam died on a fishing boat, in a tragic accident, doing the thing he loved best.” She slid her arm around Drew and leaned her head on his chest, hearing the reassuring, steady beat of his heart. “We just won’t say that what he loved best was counting his money, the selfish, greedy man. See how well I’ve learned to lie?”

Noe grinned. Drew squeezed her.

“It would kill Mom to know everything Sam did, especially that he was going to kill me, had already tried three times, and that he was dumping Mom without a word to live out the rest of his life somewhere as a rich man. Yeah, I think I can handle telling a lie or two for the common good. Mom never has to know.” She looked at Drew and then Noe.

Drew’s jaw developed a tic. “Damn Sam. I figured it out after you mentioned the name Jasper Bradford. You accidentally saw the new identity he’d created for himself. Right?”

“Yes,” Staci explained how Sam had hired assassins who bungled through three attempts on her life because of what she knew and how she didn’t even know what she knew until she’d blurted out the name Jasper Bradford to Drew at the Empress.

“Which led us to you and solved the crime. You’re safe now.” Drew squeezed her. “And we’re good with the secret.” His voice shook, and he sounded as if he’d kill Sam himself if he were still alive. He looked as if being shot and incinerated was probably too good a fate for Sam.

Noe nodded and grinned. “Obviously, I can keep a secret.”

“Good, because I have another one for you,” Staci said. “On the boat, Sam told me he’d double-crossed something called RIOT. That Attitude never had the technology RIOT needed. That he wouldn’t be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.

“The SMASH assassin retrieved a bag from the cabin of Sam’s boat before he left, but I’m sure all he got was the cash Sam had tricked his employers out of.

“Sam wasn’t all bad. He knew SMASH would hunt him down. But he was cocky enough to think he could escape.”

“Good to know. We’ll put it in our report,” Drew said. “Staci?”

She turned to him and gave him a questioning look.

“I may be a world-class liar, but there’s one thing I’ll never lie about again—I love you. I never stopped. I only let you go because I thought then you’d be safer without me.”

“I can’t live without you, either. We were both crazy, each trying to save the other, and only hurting each other,” Staci said. “My life may be shorter because I’m married to a spy. Or maybe not. But it will definitely be fuller. I love you, Drew.”

Just as Drew bent to kiss her again, a helicopter came out over the water and circled overhead. A beam of light surrounded them from above.

Emmett Nelson’s voice boomed down like God’s. “Good job, men and Staci. Good job. Mission accomplished. Drew, if you’d like your own life raft, for a little privacy Bond-style, that can be arranged.”

Noe snorted and tried to hide his grin.

Drew waved Emmett off. “Emmett has a terrible sense of timing,” he whispered to Staci.

“And an even worse sense of humor. Poor Em,” Staci said and kissed her husband, her real husband.

STINGER

Emmett Nelson smiled and leaned back against the plush leather seat of the helicopter as it headed back to Victoria. He watched the
Limit Out
burn as they flew over it and felt a sense of satisfaction.

“Missions accomplished,” he whispered to himself.

RIOT hadn’t gotten anything. The Gardener was dead. Sam had sold them a bill of goods and—of all the audacity—stolen it back. Which was why he was so hot on disappearing. Attitude confirmed that it didn’t yet have the technology Sam had conned RIOT into believing he could sell them. Crazy man. He wouldn’t have outrun SMASH for long.

And on the other mission, well, there was a reason the Agency advertised they had an extremely low divorce rate. Emmett never allowed divorce to happen. Never.