Pursuit (8 page)

But his Angel wasn’t a warrior, trained to overcome shock in a matter of seconds. She was a woman—a beautiful woman who’d been shot. By a 9-mm caliber weapon, judging from the entry wound.

Crazy as it seemed, it was a battle wound. It hadn’t been dressed, except in the clumsiest of ways. The only other kind of gunshot wound like that Matt had ever seen had been in the field, far from a hospital. And even then, a medic had at least stitched up the wound. One of Matt’s former buddies had gone into law enforcement in St. Louis and over several beers had given him a quick course in wound ballistics. Matt could read what had happened to her as clearly as if he’d been there himself.

She’d been very, very lucky. The bullet had caught her in one of the very few places on her slender body that wouldn’t shatter a bone, nick an artery, or penetrate a vital organ. Matt had taken a bullet through the fleshy part of his upper arm, but he had a lot of body mass in his biceps and it hadn’t done much damage, besides blood loss and pain. If a bullet had caught Charlotte in her biceps, the shock wave would have shattered her humerus, requiring amputation. Without medical attention, it would have turned gangrenous. As it was, the slug had penetrated the soft tissue of her left shoulder. The firing gun had been farther away than three feet, because there were no signs of stippling, which would mean muzzle contact. She hadn’t had medical treatment. Though the wound wasn’t infected now, he could tell it had been infected for a long time. There was only one possible reason for a young woman not to seek medical attention for a bullet wound.

His Angel was a woman on the run.

Matt had absolutely no idea what or who she was on the run from, but the running stopped right here, right now. She wouldn’t have to run anymore. Someone had hurt her, and badly. No one would ever hurt her, ever again.

She was still in a total state of shock, unable to react. There was no blood in her face or in her hands. At this moment, if she were cut, she wouldn’t bleed. The blood had pooled to the core of her body in instant defense.

If he had been her enemy, she would be at his mercy. He wasn’t her enemy, but she didn’t know that. Couldn’t know it. He probably looked like he was, though. Charlotte was so frightened of him, she was finding it hard to breathe. At the moment, he knew, she wasn’t reasoning. She probably didn’t even fully realize who he was. To her, he was a large, strong, dangerous man a hand’s span from her, a woman who’d known violence at a man’s hands.

Matt remained utterly still, moving only his lungs, a trick learned on the battlefield. He put on an expression so neutral it was as if he were alone in the room. He unfocused his eyes and looked past her. He had excellent peripheral vision, but she couldn’t know that. All she knew was that he wasn’t staring at her.

It worked. A tiny bit of color came back into Charlotte’s face and lips. She’d stopped breathing for almost a minute and resumed again, taking in great gasping gulps of air. She was shaking wildly, part fear, part the effects of the fall into the freezing water. The physical effects needed dealing with first. She was wet and freezing, and the longer she stayed in that state, the more dangerous it was. Later, he could take care of the psychological effects of her shock, but right this instant, she needed warming up, and fast.

“You need to change your clothes right now, sweetheart. You need to get into something warm and dry.” Matt kept his voice neutral and toneless, as if he were casually discussing the weather.
Nice day today, though it might rain later on. You will die of hypothermia if
you don’t get out of those cold wet clothes fast before your heart gives out.
He held the brightly colored blanket up between outstretched arms, curving it around her and providing a screen.

Charlotte stared at him for a long moment, white-faced. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to strip her himself. He would if he had to, of course, but in her panicked state of mind, she’d take it as an attack. But after a minute, she jerked her head in a nod and in short stiff movements, she slid her unhooked bra, pants, and panties off under the colorful blanket, wrapping it around her. The clothes lay in a sodden heap at her feet. Matt realized what an act of courage it was for her to strip while he was there in the room with her. Charlotte’s faith in men must have been shattered, yet something, some bond between them had been forged over these past two months, and it somehow held, because she trusted him. Enough at least to strip, even under the blanket.

Matt stepped back, almost imperceptibly, so she would have the sensation of space. Keeping his face and his movements smooth was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in a lifetime of hard things.

He wanted to howl, he wanted to punch his fist through the wall, he wanted to hurl things and hear them shatter. He wanted to kill him, the man who’d hurt Charlotte, whoever the fucker was.

None of it showed, in any way. He wouldn’t let it. It was damned hard masking his feelings, though, and he wasn’t used to it. Soldiers didn’t have to pretend. He was used to doing what needed to be done without second-guessing himself and without hiding anything from anyone.

“Where can I get some clothes for you?” He could see which room was the bedroom, but having her tell him would give her back some sense of control.

She bit her lip, watching him cautiously. A slim hand emerged from the blanket tightly wound around her. She pointed with a trembling finger. “There.” Her voice was low and shaky. Without a backward glance, Matt left.

In her closet was an unusually small collection of clothes for so beautiful a woman. In Matt’s experience, the prettier the woman, the more vain she was. But Charlotte seemed to be immune to normal female vanity. The bedroom closet held only basics and few of those, all clean and ironed and neatly hung. He chose wool pants, a light cotton sweater, and a heavy wool sweater to pull over that. She needed layers of clothing. In a drawer, he found a neat pile of clean white underwear. Nothing fancy. No lace, no spandex, no thongs, nothing sexy, just plain white cotton. He chose a bra, panties, and two pairs of warm socks and grabbed another big dry towel from the adjoining bathroom. She watched him carefully, out of big, wary gray eyes, as he crossed over to her. She was so friggin’ beautiful. That was part of the fascination he felt, but not all of it. He’d bedded good-looking women before—though none with Charlotte’s otherworldly beauty—

and left the bed without a second thought. There was something so special about her. That air of mysterious remoteness, a woman on a hill that had to be conquered. Matt had spent his days canvassing San Luis for news of her, though there was precious little to be had. She’d just appeared one day, a few days before his own arrival. Or rather, she just appeared one night, according to Mama Pilar, the woman who ran the Cantina Fortuna with an iron fist. After doling out that small bit of news, Mama Pilar clammed up tight, and what little charm Matt could muster wouldn’t work to make her open up. He had the distinct impression Mama Pilar was protecting Charlotte, and now he realized why. Charlotte must have been very sick when she arrived.

Matt hadn’t approached her yet, not until he was sure he could be more than a broken, futureless, jobless man. When he arrived in San Luis, he was a wounded wreck of a man, a former naval officer with a small pension, no job, no immediate prospects, not even a healthy body to count on.

So he’d bided his time—and he’d nearly lost her to the stormy sea. Well, now that he’d found her, he wasn’t going to waste another second. He’d been handed a second life, and he wanted Charlotte in it.

She was sitting on the couch, watching him. Matt was glad to see that the shock was diminishing, as was the wild shivering. Luckily, she hadn’t spent that long in the water. Once she was dry and he had something hot and sugary in her, she would start recovering.

He didn’t know whether she’d recover from his discovering her secret, though. She was perched on the edge of the seat as if poised to make a run, as if she could escape him if he chose to attack. The idea was so ludicrous he would have laughed if there had been anything even remotely funny about the situation.

He had her dry clothes in a neat pile and put them on her lap, making sure he didn’t touch her bare skin anywhere. “Here you go.”

She covered the clothes with a hand. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Dry yourself completely and put those on now.” If there was one thing Matt knew, it was how to put command into his voice. Charlotte nodded.

He went into the kitchen, taking his time preparing tea, making noises so she’d know he wasn’t looking. The kitchen was as tidy as the bedroom. She didn’t have much in the way of food supplies, but there was plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, neatly put away. When he came back in with two steaming mugs of tea, she was dressed, her hair was almost dry, and the worst of the shivering was over.

She was tougher than she looked, his little Angel.

“Here, drink as much as you can, as quickly as you can.”

Charlotte took the mug from him, but her hands were still cold and awkward. The mug shook. Matt placed his hand under hers, steadying it. “Drink now.”

She sipped, gingerly at first, wincing as the heat filled her mouth. By the time she’d finished the cup, her skin had lost that bone white color that had frightened the hell out of him.

Matt drank his own tea, fortified by a healthy dollop from the bottle of whiskey he’d found on a sideboard.

She’d avoided looking at him, but now she raised her eyes over the cup. Her expression was stark, white lines around that luscious pink mouth. “I can’t talk about it,” she whispered.

He nodded his head carefully, as if what she’d just said was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“Okay.” He kept his face bland, determined not to spook her. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, in flight-or-fight mode. She wasn’t going to flee and she wasn’t going to fight. He wouldn’t let her do either one.

Most people thought soldiers were wild, gung-ho types fueled by rage and hopped up on adrenaline. Not Matt’s kind of soldier. Toughness took many forms, and patience was one of them. He’d once slow-crawled for three days past an enemy encampment. An inch an hour with a seventy-pound combat pack on his back, with no food and a sip of water every four hours.

Right now silence and stillness were what were called for, so he didn’t talk and he didn’t move.

Warrenton

Barrett arrived exactly at midnight.

The Philippe Starck clock on the mantelpiece had just sounded the hour when the bell buzzed.

Taking a moment to straighten his tie in the pier glass in the foyer, Haine schooled his face to impassivity, then opened the door. Haine studied the man on his doorstep. No one had gotten it right.

The whispers in the dark of the night had all been of an extraordinary man, a man who looked like a predator, a stone-cold killer. The man standing before him now could have been an accountant or a low-level civil servant. The only hint at something extraordinary was the whipcord resilient thinness—the same build Olympic track runners or Tour de France bike racers had. Other than that, he was ordinary-looking. Normal, mild-mannered guy, you’d think, then you’d turn your back and forget him.

Only his eyes were frightening. Flat and a blue so pale they almost looked white in the dim light.

Haine had thought it would take at least a quarter of an hour to get down to business, starting with “how did you get my name?”. But the man didn’t bullshit around. He walked in with a battered leather suitcase, sat down on an armchair in front of the fire and waited, expressionless.

This wasn’t the normal business world Haine was used to. Haine knew that he was a natural predator himself, which was why he always won in business. But he operated in a tame business environment, where making a killing meant raking in a lot of money, not leaving shattered bone and spilled guts behind.

This was an entirely different arena.

The maid had laid on a fire that had burned brightly all evening, but had died to just a warm welcome glow in the stormy night. Haine brought two cut-crystal glasses of Glenfiddich and handed one to Barrett. Two men sitting in armchairs, one very fit, but other than that unremarkable. Two men sipping whiskey in silence.

“Who?” Barrett asked. It was the first word he’d spoken.

Robert leaned over to the Gio Ponti side table to get two files he’d prepared, then reached forward to hand the first one to Barrett. “This woman here. Her name is Charlotte Court. She’s probably using a pseudonym now.”

“Time line?”

Haine could remember every single word at the end of Lawrence’s e-mail.
General Norton says that if Court Industries isn’t in a position to move ahead with the
contract by the end of June, the deal is off, and they are going to Mason Technology in
South Carolina.

“June 1,” he answered. “Her body must be found by the first of June.”

He would need at least a month to clear things with the board. With Philip and Charlotte out of the way, legally dead, the board would be easily persuaded to make the deal of a lifetime, and the Pentagon contract could go forward.

Barrett nodded and opened the file. “Better get started, then.”

Haine sat and drank whiskey while Barrett carefully studied the file. It was a big one, most of it dating back to two years ago when Charlotte had moved back to Warrenton from Florence, Italy, where she’d been studying art, when Philip was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.