Operation Proof of Life (9 page)

A flutter of anxiety pinched Moira’s stomach. All the waiting, all the planning. Peter would be furious if this didn’t work.

She sighed, her attention caught by a foursome passing by the podium and the woman who was still talking. Three men and a woman approached the library doors, stopping as security questioned them. Just before they were ushered in, the woman turned to look out over the crowd.

Moira’s breath caught in her throat.

Brigit?

Moira’s patience with Peter Donovan vanished in a heartbeat.

SIS and their spy group, MI5, had been nipping at her heels for two years. Peter had promised her he’d protect her. He’d promised her this job was a simple, straightforward assassination. He’d promised her a clean getaway.

Brigit’s appearance changed everything. If MI5 was in town, Moira was dead the moment she pulled the trigger on O’Bern.

She swore under her breath and watched the EMTs reemerge from the building, the stretcher once again between them as they carried a blanketed form down the steps, flanked by security guards. Some of the crowd had already dispersed, but many of the remaining people crowded forward, gawking at the stretcher even as they were pushed back from it.

Too many people blocked her view of the stretcher, but Moira knew who they were gawking at. O’Bern wasn’t giving any speeches today.

Dropping the binoculars from her eyes, she surveyed her handiwork in the upstairs room. She could leave the rifle, scope and field meter behind. She could even leave Peter behind. What she couldn’t leave behind was her past or the fact Brigit was only two and half blocks away.

Her gaze fell on the rifle and an idea dawned. Moving behind the table where the tripod was secured, Moira took a deep, cleansing breath and refocused her attention through the scope. Adjusting the dial, she brought the library’s entrance into view.

Patience,
she told herself.
One good shot is all you need to bring her, and Peter, down.

Chapter Fourteen

A twelve-block area around the library was secured. SWAT units were slotted. Bomb-sniffing dogs were on standby. Undercover cops, Secret Service members and all available FBI agents were milling through the still-lingering crowd outside, looking for anything suspicious. Cormac O’Bern was on his way to a safe house over the Virginia state line.

Inside the hundred-year-old building, Michael watched Brigit as she scanned the crowd and surrounding area from a window on the first floor. She was as irksome as she was sexy. God only knew why he found that so damn attractive.

As if she sensed his presence behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. “We’re running out of time. Why isn’t the crowd dispersing faster?”

“You think he’ll still execute his plan?”

She started to speak, paused. “Taking O’Bern out of the picture changes things, but there’s no guarantee. Donovan’s gone to a lot of trouble to set this up.”

Flynn emerged from a hallway to Michael’s left, with Truman Gunn trailing after him. He nodded at Brad Kinnick as he stopped in front of Michael. “There are still four cars in the cordoned-off radius,” he said. “Two within a block of here. All have valid plates and only one is registered to an out-of-state owner. Maryland PD hasn’t been able to track down any of the four owners yet. SWAT tactical can send in their bomb bot or Rad sensor, but if Donovan is still watching the area, he’ll know O’Bern’s ambulance ride was for show.”

Bomb-detecting robots were highly accurate and used by most metro police departments but hardly covert. Bomb-finding sensors—metal arms attached to a vehicle which used radiation to detect explosives—were less obvious and just as accurate, but scarce, even in the D.C. area. Getting several of them to the library would take a dozen phone calls and hours they didn’t have.

“A remote bomb could be anywhere,” Brigit said, talking to the window.

Flynn frowned at Michael before glaring at her back. “You said it would be a car bomb.”

She did a one-eighty and stared Flynn down. “I know what I said. Now that I’m here, though, I can see how difficult it would be for him to get a car close enough to blow the front steps and take O’Bern out. The difficulty level is too high. If he was going to set off a bomb, he would’ve gotten closer.”

She turned back to the window and began pointing out possible hiding places. “Those huge planters, the base of the flagpole, the water fountain. The garbage receptacles beside the benches in the far corner. Any or all of them are potential bomb holders.”

Flynn put his hands on his hips, let out an impatient breath. “I’ll alert the undercover agents outside to be on the look out for flowerpot bombs.” He shook his head at Michael and walked back the way he’d come. Gunn raised an eyebrow at Brigit, and she motioned with her head for him to follow Flynn.

The entryway grew quiet again. Moving to the window next to Brigit, Michael tried not to stare at her peaches-and-cream skin, or her thick, dark hair, free of its ponytail and brushing her shoulders. He tried not to examine the way her trench coat molded to her waist and flared out at her hips, emphasizing both. Her body hummed with energy and his happily tightened in response.

Forcing his attention away from her, he stared out at the empty lectern and the large concrete pots overflowing with fall mums and ivy on either side. As he watched undercover agents dawdle on the steps, synapses fired in his brain, followed by a niggle in his gut. The crowd had thinned considerably, and the dignitaries and Hollywood stars had been evacuated from the building. Still, the niggle told him he was missing something. Something obvious.

What if it isn’t a bomb?

Brigit gripped the windowsill. “Damn it. Why don’t those people go home?”

He understood her frustration, born out of fear, because it crawled under his skin too. “Why would a man who was willing to kill dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent people not kill my niece when this is over?”

She glanced at him, something unreadable in her eyes before she shut it down. “I told you, it’s not his MO. He doesn’t hurt the children he kidnaps.”

As a psychologist who had studied the asshole, she had to know what was behind Donovan’s motivation. “Why not?”

She drew in a breath and sighed, seemingly at war with herself, but her eyes were clear and steady as she spoke. “Would you think less of me if I told you I don’t know?”

Actually he thought more of her. It didn’t ease his fear about Ella or keep the idea at bay that this was somehow his fault for not personally keeping her safe, but at least Brigit Kent was finally telling him the truth. Admitting she wasn’t perfect, or better than him, or some mysterious woman driving him to the brink of insanity. She was human. A beautiful, smart, mysterious woman. “No.”

She turned her face back to the window. “That’s the one thing I’ve never been able to figure out about Peter.”

The way she said his first name made Michael’s scar itch. Her connection to this guy was weird. Almost like she knew too much about him. Like she was obsessed with him.

Her gaze darted around the area outside. “He’s elusive, compulsive and full of righteous certitude. A brilliant mind molded by religious beliefs and a core arrogance of superiority. He’s a rocket.”

“A rocket?”

She stepped back from the window and nodded once. “He’s crazy, but predictably so.”

Michael watched her walk away, unable to resist checking out the way her purposeful walk showcased her backside. Her scent, a vanilla and cinnamon combination that reminded him of his mother’s homemade tapioca pudding, faded away with her. She pushed open one of the library’s glass doors and walked out into the sunshine.

Through the window, he saw her step up to the lectern and scan the area, high and low, searching for what he didn’t know. Did Donovan know her as well as she seemed to know him?

He followed her line of sight, scrutinizing nearby buildings and duplexes. So many windows. Here and there a person’s face stared out from them, watching the street, the library…

The niggle in his gut jackknifed his brain and a fine-edged instinct dropped his focus to Brigit. All the hair on the back of his neck stood up like he’d been shocked.

He was running for the library door before he took his next breath. “Brigit,” he yelled as he threw open the door. “Get down!”

She jerked her head around at the sound of his voice, her body shifting to the right. As if an invisible fist hit her in the left shoulder, she spun and fell, eyes going wide, just before Michael caught her.

A bullet smashed into one of the planters, sending yellow flowers shooting up in a geyser. Shouts rang out.

Bear-hugging Brigit, Michael rolled with her, moving as close as possible to the only protection they had—the lectern.

As another bullet struck, wood splintered above Michael’s head. More shouts and the pounding of feet echoed over the ringing in his ears. Knowing he and Brigit were far from sheltered from the sniper’s bullets, he angled his prone body over hers.

The feel of her under him, the smell of her hair where his nose was buried, the jerk of her chest under his as she tried to draw breath, tried to speak, fired his senses, awakening something deep and remote inside him. He couldn’t describe it and didn’t want to. He wanted, needed, to protect her.

She made a sound in her throat, a hurt sound that chilled the blood in his veins. Lifting his head a fraction to look down, he found her soldier’s eyes staring back at him, blocking fear and pain. “I can’t move my left arm,” she murmured.

Shifting, he glanced between them and saw blood blooming like a rose on her coat sleeve. A hole was torn in the material and the blood began to drip on the ground. The chill in his blood went arctic cold.

The bastard had shot her. By the location of her wound, he’d been aiming for her heart.

Fuck
. He had to get help but he couldn’t move until he was sure the rain of bullets had stopped. Forcing his voice to convey calmness, he stroked her hair. “Your shoulder took a hit, but you’ll be all right. Just hang tough, okay? I’ll get you out of here in a minute.”

She met his gaze, still struggling not to show any emotion, but it was there. Fear, shock, pain.

Nose to nose, he willed her to believe him. She swallowed hard and blinked. The fear in her eyes subsided, and she gave him a nod. The tight tug of her lips into a forced smiled conveyed gratitude.

Brad Kinnick came speeding toward them in full-blown bodyguard mode, barking orders into the radio in his watch. Still, Michael covered the length of Brigit’s body with his. Until he was sure the sniper was done, he refused to move a muscle.

In the next blink of Brigit’s eyes, though, he realized just how heavy his much larger and very tense body must be on top of her. She wasn’t tense, but soft and warm beneath him, their legs intertwined. Her right arm was wrapped around his waist, her hand on his back beneath his jacket and radiating warmth through his shirt.

Warmth that sent a jolt right to his groin.

Just the adrenaline
, he told himself, hoping Brigit didn’t notice his thigh pressed between hers or his hand still stroking her soft hair as if it had a mind of its own.

Through the haze in his brain, Michael heard Brad shouting orders above him to the cops and FBI agents. It truly was over. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he forced his attention from Brigit’s face and moved sideways to see Flynn racing across the open entryway to his side. Gunn was nowhere in sight.

Before Flynn could say a word, Michael eased himself off Brigit. “Get an ambulance.”

Brad spoke, his gaze scanning the area as he tried to shield Michael best he could. “Three were on standby already. They’re all three on the way.”

“You hit?” Flynn’s frowning gaze was on Michael’s shoulder.

Glancing down, he saw the blood on his jacket. Brigit’s blood. Looking back at her, there was suddenly too much blood. She was too still. Her eyelids fluttered, and she stared up at the blue sky, dazed.

“She’s going into shock,” Michael said, shrugging out of his jacket.

Flynn was one step ahead of him. He stripped off his cotton shirt and handed it to Michael. “Use this.”

Michael dropped his jacket and wadded up the soft cotton, still warm from Flynn’s body, before pressing the cloth against Brigit’s shoulder wound. A war of weird emotions convened inside him. It should be
his
shirt,
his
warmth, stopping Brigit’s blood, not Flynn’s.

“Goddammit,” he swore under his breath. “How the hell did this happen?”

Flynn took Michael’s jacket and laid it like a blanket over Brigit’s body below her shoulders. “Maybe Donovan wasn’t after O’Bern like we thought.”

Brigit’s gaze found Michael’s and she shook her head, just a fraction. “Peter would never hurt me.”

There it was again. A connection between her and Peter Donovan. Almost as if she knew him…intimately. Michael’s gut plummeted into his nether regions and his mouth went dry. Had they been friends? Lovers? Accomplices?

The implications of such a relationship to Brigit’s career, much less her state of mind, were serious, but he knew it wasn’t the implications screwing with his gut. The reason he recoiled at the thought of her and Ella’s kidnapper having once been friends or lovers was because it triggered emotions he’d buried after Julia had left him.

And if Brigit Kent could cause that kind of turmoil in him, who was he to question
her
state of mind?

Detaching himself from the anger, disappointment, and, yes, jealousy burning a hole in his stomach, he looked up at Flynn. “Where the hell’s that ambulance?”

Chapter Fifteen

Brigit gritted her teeth against the pain in her shoulder as she sat on an unforgiving gurney in the ER in nothing but her bra and dress pants. Her trench and gray jacket had disappeared and her shirt had been shredded by the EMTs to get to her wound on the way to the hospital. The injury was nothing more than a deep cut, thanks to Michael Stone. If he hadn’t yelled at her, startled her so she’d turned, the bullet would have hit her in the chest. She would now be in the morgue instead of the emergency room.

She glanced at him and Truman standing in the corner. Both had grim expressions. She’d already given a statement to the police and been told a city-wide manhunt was underway. Truman’s eyes were focused on his BlackBerry as he ignored hospital rules about turning off cell phones and busily typed a text message. No doubt alerting her superiors about the situation.

Michael, however, stared at her with half-lidded eyes, a tiny tic below one betraying his calm demeanor.

“You’re safe now, but what about Ella?” he’d asked her as soon as the police had left.

It wasn’t a question she could answer with certainty. “Someone was targeting O’Bern, and Donovan looks good as a suspect. Even though things didn’t go according to his plan, we can still hope Ella turns up unharmed within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Why would Donovan shoot you?”

He wouldn’t, would he? Brigit shook her head. “First of all, Donovan’s not a professional sniper, and secondly, he has no reason to harm me specifically.”

“But somebody did.”

Moira
. The name flashed through her mind with the speed of a hollow-tipped slug. “The bullet was originally intended for O’Bern, I’m sure of it. Donovan probably hired a sniper. When O’Bern was carted away, perhaps the shooter became frustrated and shot at me because I just happened to step up to the lectern.”

Was it her imagination or was Michael again probing her mind with his intense blue eyes? “You were trying to draw Donovan out, weren’t you?”

A nurse interrupted any further questioning, relieving Brigit from answering. In a way, she
had
been trying to draw out her brother. She’d never guessed by bullet.

By ballot or bullet, our day will come
. Tory’s recital of the old IRA’s motto rang in her head as Michael’s x-ray vision burned her skin and the nurse checked her pulse. Heat rose in her cheeks, and with it an intense need to cover herself. She scanned the skinny bed and nearby cart for a sheet or her trench coat but found neither.

While Michael’s gaze was in no way solicitous—in fact, at the moment she guessed she could be sitting in front of him completely naked and he wouldn’t show one sign of attraction—she was exposed in ways she couldn’t explain. Just like in the Navigator, he seemed to be peeling away her carefully constructed layers and infiltrating her mind.

A female doctor slapped the white curtain aside, reading Brigit’s name from a chart in her hands before glancing up. “Brigit Kent?”

When Brigit nodded, the doctor scanned the chart again. Short, with dark hair and eyes, she introduced herself even as she read. “I am Dr. Lakshmi.” Her attention focused on Brigit’s face. “Gunshot wound, yes?”

“Yes.” Brigit glanced at the layers of gauze and tape forming a fat padding over her shoulder. “Just brushed the skin. A few stitches and I should be good to go.”

Michael took a step forward. “The bullet did more than brush her skin. It gouged out tissue, and since she has little fat on her arms, it probably took out muscle too.”

He was right and it would hurt like a bitch for awhile. “You make it sound life-threatening.” She tried to sound dismissive.

Challenge rose in Michael’s gaze. “It could have been.”

Dr. Lakshmi tossed the chart on the cart and grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a box. “I will judge that.” Her dark brows drew down in a frown as she addressed Michael and Truman. “You gentlemen need to step outside to the waiting area.”

For the first time in hours, Brigit saw the charming Michael surface. He smiled at the doctor and flashed his CIA identity badge in front of her face. The contradiction between his smile and his stiff, don’t-mess-with-me body language conveyed he was a man on a mission. He would play nice…up to a point. Then he’d go Batman on everyone’s ass. “We’re staying. Dr. Kent may still be in danger.”

The doctor studied his smile, his badge and his stance as she wrangled a glove on and snapped latex against one wrist. “Hospital policy—”

Truman ceased his texting. Her assignments always put her next to the bigwigs, but she was never, ever, to share the spotlight with them. “Hospital policy has been overruled for now by the Department of Homeland Security.” He probably already had her walking papers on his PDA, but no one would know it but him. “I can get Director Halden on the phone if you have questions.”

Brigit glanced between Batman and the Boy Wonder and an unexpected grin worked its way to her lips. “It’s okay,” she told Dr. Lakshmi, even though she hated the thought of Michael watching while she got stitched up. Watching her, period. “They can stay.”

The doctor shook her head and began cutting away the padding around Brigit’s shoulder. Brigit turned her head away, wincing as needle-like pain radiated down her arm and up into her neck. She’d refused pain meds other than a couple of locals near the entry and exit wounds when the nurse had cleaned them and repacked the area with gauze, but now she wished she’d taken the Percocet the nurse had offered.

No drugs, though. It was her policy. While she hated pain, she hated being out of control even more. It was her first gunshot wound, but she’d been trained to handle it. She could do it. Even with Michael Stone watching her like a guard dog.

He was so quiet. Not the calculating quiet she’d witnessed before. This quiet was the type she’d seen in her father after her mother’s death. The kind of quiet she herself had known all too well.

Guilt.

As the nurse and doctor began the procedure to sew Brigit’s skin back together, his energy pulled at her. She let her attention drift to him, hoping it would keep her mind off her nauseated stomach.

He was wearing his jacket again. The dark stains caused by her blood had blended into the black fabric. Remembering the sensation of being under that jacket made her shiver. The softness of the silk lining had brushed her skin and the warmth lingering from Michael’s body had wrapped around her like a welcome blanket after she’d been shot. She’d just wanted to curl up under it, ignore the blood and pain, and close her eyes.

When the actual stitching began, Brigit couldn’t feel the needle working its way through her skin. Yet the nurse’s firm hold on her and the doctor’s brusque movements caused more pain to radiate up and down her arm. Keeping her face turned away from the needle, she wished she was under Michael’s jacket again. The irony struck her like a punch to her stomach. While typically attracted to power-hungry men, she was never entirely comfortable around them, and she’d certainly never wanted to hide from the world wrapped in one’s jacket.

Lifting her gaze to his, she sent him a smile to tell him…what? That she was all right? That it wasn’t his fault she was getting stitches? That she was grateful he’d saved her from certain death?

His gaze held hers with its usual reserve, but something flared in his eyes she recognized. Something that echoed in her blood, and suddenly she knew it wasn’t his jacket she was really interested in. He stepped to her side, and without a word, took her trembling hand in his.

She forgot the throbbing in her arm and neck and closed her eyes. What the hell had she gotten herself into? Someone had deliberately tried to kill her and all she could think about was how Michael Stone’s arms would feel around her instead of his jacket. How his hands would feel on her neck, her shoulders, her hips…

The pain, she could blame her pointless daydreams on the pain. Or the adrenaline crash from being shot. Or maybe she really was in shock…

Good rationalizing
, she told herself.
Keep it up.

Half an hour later, her need to bury herself in Michael’s arms firmly squashed and her hand reluctantly removed from his, she was ready to walk out of the hospital with her bandaged shoulder.

Dr. Lakshmi had other ideas. “Overnight observation,” she ordered.

“For what?” Brigit said.

Dr. Lakshmi set her lips as she signed a form on the clipboard. “Treatment for infection and possible shock.” She eyed Michael and Truman before giving Brigit a scolding look. “And you could still be in danger. Hospital is safe.”

Before Brigit could open her mouth to argue, the woman handed the clipboard to the nurse and left the small ER cubicle with a flourish, the privacy curtain swaying with her exit.

The nurse tucked the clipboard under her arm and handed Brigit a faded hospital gown. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need to stay overnight.”

Truman pocketed his phone. “Actually, it’s a good idea.”

The message in his eyes was clear. JOE insisted she lay low. “But really I—”

“Need to follow the doctor’s orders.” Michael gritted his teeth for a second, worry warring with impatience. He spoke to Truman. “I’ll order a guard be put outside her door.”

Truman, the traitor, nodded. The nurse opened the gown and began sliding it up Brigit’s arms.

Brigit narrowed her eyes at Michael. “If you were me, with nothing more than a flesh wound, would you let the doctors keep you overnight for observation?”

“I’m not you.”

“Meaning what? Because I’m female, I’m weak and can’t protect myself?”

Batman bristled, hands on hips. “Being female has little to do with it. Being foolhardy does.”

Foolhardy? “Please give me credit for an ounce of intelligence. I never dreamed there’d be a sniper there today, nor that said sniper would take a shot at me.”

A flash of irritation made his narrowed eyes darken. She saw him mentally dig in his heels. “Intelligence is not the same thing as common sense.”

Footsteps sounded near the curtain. A male voice came from the other side. “Deputy Director? There’s a phone call for you at the desk. It’s the president.”

“Excuse me.” He nodded at Truman, some secret male message passing between them, and left the cubicle, sending one more challenging glance in Brigit’s direction.

Anger burned in her veins. The nurse smiled a knowing smile at her, which only made the anger rush faster and burn deeper. “That man is gorgeous,” she said in a murmured woman-to-woman voice.

Truman stepped forward as the nurse moved behind Brigit to tie the gown in place. He lowered his voice a notch. “Stay in the hospital at least for the afternoon until I decipher what happened and who was involved.”

Brigit glared at him. “Bring me fresh clothes ASAP.”

“Dr. Kent,” he said, his voice full of warning.

“Bring me fresh clothes or I’ll fire your ass.”

His eyes bore into hers as he tried to go Michael on her. “Two hours, that’s all I’m asking for. Take your pain meds and get some sleep.”

As the nurse guided her to lie down on the gurney, Brigit winced as pain shot up her neck again. “No meds. No sleep. You have one hour to get back here with my clothes.”

Truman stepped back and sighed, shifting back into his normal
I-can’t-do-anything-with-you
mode. “You’re the boss, Gidge.”

Brigit tugged at the gown and bit her lip in frustration.
For now, anyway
.

~ * ~

As Conrad hit the lock button on the Jeep’s driver side door, his work cell phone rang. He shut the door and half-jogged toward the hospital’s rear entrance before yanking the phone off his belt. Julia was already inside. She’d been part of the FBI team assigned to keep an eye on Brigit Kent and he’d dropped her off before returning to the library. There he’d attached himself to the FBI evidence response team.

It hadn’t taken long to pinpoint the origin of the bullets fired at the lectern. The sniper’s rifle was a beauty. The Mark 12 Special Purpose Rifle was built for the U.S. Navy special operations snipers to replace the SEAL recon rifle. SEALs didn’t like it as well, but it had been used by both Navy and Army special op marksmen with a high success rate. Clones of the rifle had made it into the public domain and even gamers could get their hands on one in
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2
. The Douglas barrel was curved to maximize efficiency and minimize weight. The semi-automatic shot 77 grain bullets, which were more effective at longer ranges than standard bullets.

The phone rang again and Conrad glanced at the readout. It wasn’t Julia but his best friend and colleague, Ryan Smith. “Smitty, what’s up?”

Ryan’s voice sounded far away. It was. The Chief of Station was calling from London. “I found out something interesting on the party you asked me to check into.”

Yes
. Smitty was a true genius when it came to uncovering information. It was one of the reasons he was Chief of Station. “Knew I could count on you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not gonna like it.”

Conrad’s hand tightened on the phone. The hospital’s automatic door slid open with a swish and he ignored the posted warning about turning off cell phones. “Hit me.”

“Box eight-fifty.”

Conrad stopped dead in his tracks. Box eight-fifty was the code Smitty used for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, made up of two branches—MI5 and MI6—in reference to the post office box the group had once owned. “You’re shitting me.”

“Not sure she’s full SIS, but she is a consultant. A very pricey, well-connected consultant. Her skills are varied and much in demand.”

There was that consultant crap again. “For Irish nationalism?”

“My source says she’s got high-level clearance, and her meetings include everyone from the Prime Minister on down, all classified.”

A passing nurse shot daggers at Conrad as he started walking again. “Turn the phone off, sir,” she said.

He gave her a wave and kept talking as he rounded a corner out of her sight line. “Why would Irish republicanism be top secret?”

“You got me.”

“She holds citizenship in Ireland, England and America. Anything in her past strike you as odd?”