Bare Nerve (12 page)

He rubbed the back of his neck. “If it’s one of my men…”

She hoped it wasn’t one of his guys, but frankly, with the team as big as it was, it had to be someone on the inside. And Anna knew it wasn’t Charity or Justine—not because of blind loyalty, but because she’d known the women for so long.

“Well, Kirk is undercover with Andreev’s men. You should find a connection between the two of them. He’s worked for Andreev in the past to demonstrate the weapons for potential buyers.”

“Thanks for that. Why didn’t you talk to us about this before you sent him out?”

“There wasn’t time.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it at all. I think you didn’t trust us.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “The point is moot because now you know.”

“Maybe we can use him to set up Andreev.”

“I’m sure we can. I’ll let you speak to him the next time we talk.”

“Not me,” Anna said. “Charity is the logistics person.”

“Then Charity. The next person you should look up is Tommy Lazarus.”

Anna typed Tommy’s name, and she heard Jack curse as the information started scrolling down the screen. She had access to Interpol and other law-enforcement agencies around the world, so there was little information she couldn’t access.

“His military record is supposed to be sealed,” Jack said.

“Dishonorable discharge…Did you know about that?”

“Yes. He had his reasons for what he did.”

“But that shows a flagrant lack of respect for authority,” Anna said.

“No, it doesn’t. It shows he has the sense to think under a tense situation and not just blindly follow orders. That’s the kind of man I want at my back.”

Anna realized this was more than a difference of opinion—they were philosophically on opposite sides of this issue. She had been upset with her supervisor for being a criminal, and she had turned him in, but she wouldn’t have gone into the office and kicked his butt.

Jack shrugged. “Most of my guys have something like this in their past.”

“Do you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think yes, you do. You aren’t the kind of man to blindly take orders.”

“You’ve got that right. I’m also not the kind of guy who can walk away from something like betrayal. If one of my guys leaked our location, they’ll pay for it.”

Anna wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but she kept working, pulling up background information on Jack’s team. At first glance there didn’t seem to be anything obvious about the men, but she kept digging. Somewhere there had to be a connection to Andreev, and she was going to find it.

J
ack didn’t like the fact that Anna was easily finding information on his team’s background, but he knew his own past was well hidden and that his secrets would stay buried.

His connections at the Pentagon owed him too much to ever allow found a connection to the man he used to be. Jack Savage, mercenary, was all the world ever needed to know. The man he’d been had been a necessary evil in another time and place. And his death and subsequent rebirth as Jack Savage had been well hidden from the world.

“This is interesting,” Anna said, pointing to her computer screen. He couldn’t help but notice that when she leaned forward, her breasts were outlined by the khaki-colored T-shirt she wore.

“What did you find?”

“Well, it might be nothing, but Harry Donovan isn’t an American. Did you know that?”

“Are you sure? He was in the military. I guess he could have been a permanent resident of the US.”

“Let me check on it. I think he was born in Europe and raised in the former Soviet Union.”

“What the fuck? I think I would have heard about this before now.”

“Why?”

“Because we work for the CIA.”

“Hold up…let me check one more thing.” Anna kept her fingers moving over the keyboard.

Jack stood back and watched. All thoughts of seduction were pushed to the back of his mind. If Harry had been lying to him for all this time…He didn’t let himself complete the thought. There was nothing to do right now except find the leak, if there was one, and stop it.

“Well, he became a citizen in nineteen ninety-seven. But he was raised in what is now Serbia in a boys’ home. That’s the connection I was following. I think Demetri and Maksim Andreev were raised in the same facility. Now, I don’t know how old Demetri is, but their paths could have crossed.”

“I can’t accuse one of my guys on a hunch, Anna. I need hard facts.”

“Okay, I can respect that. Give me a few more hours, and I will know for sure. Until then I think we should keep all information between us.”

“Agreed.”

Anna looked perfectly at home in this movie-set room. Jack knew they didn’t really have any time, but he wished he had time to make love to her on these cushions. In this lush room, Anna tempted as no one else ever had.

But he would probably screw up seducing her. He knew he had been too crude and probably too blunt last night. Even though she hadn’t minded at the time, he had had the feeling that in the harsh light of day he would come up lacking.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “How am I looking at you?”

“Like you want to do more than kiss me,” she said.

“Maybe I do.”

She tipped her head to the side. “Jack—”

“You guys ready to roll?”

Justine looked like an ad for
Soldier of Fortune
magazine. She’d changed into dark desert camo pants and a khaki T-shirt and had a bandolier of bullets around her chest.

“Yes,” Anna said. She hit a few keys on her laptop and stood up. “We’re done here, for now. Is everyone else ready?”

“Well, Tommy and Charity are out in the truck talking to Kirk. I think we’re going to try to set up the buy with Andreev’s customer.”

“Good. We should get out there and see if there’s anything Anna can add to their plans,” Jack said.

He didn’t want to think how close he’d come to dropping his guard once again with Anna. He would have kissed her in another second if Justine hadn’t come in. And that would have left them both in a very awkward position. He wasn’t the kind of man who made those types of amateur mistakes.

He walked away from the women as they were talking. He knew it was rude, but he had to get his head around two things—that Harry might be selling them out, and that Harry wasn’t the thing that was really bothering him.

No, what really made Jack uneasy was the fact that he hadn’t wanted to leave Anna. That he wanted to spend as much time as he could by her side. Damn the consequences. And that was how men like him lost their edge.

Maybe he was already slipping, and that was why he’d missed the thing with Harry.

They drove most of the night. The Land Rover wasn’t as big as the Humvee, but there was plenty of room for everyone. Anna had taken the front seat again next to Jack. She was coming to like sitting next to him. She had her computer running, searching for information and connections on Jack’s team and on their own. In the backseat, everyone was quiet.

Anna wasn’t sure that someone on Interpol hadn’t leaked the fact that they were in Algeria and on the path to intercept Andreev. And as much as she wanted to believe that the information had been accidentally leaked, she couldn’t. She knew human beings were fallible.

She watched Jack’s face, illuminated in the lights of the dashboard, and regretted the fact that they wouldn’t be able to spend this night in each other’s arms. And not just because she still craved his body with an intense lust she wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but because she wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to take some comfort from that big male body of his.

“You’re staring at me,” he said, his voice pitched low.

“Yes, I am.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you make me think about stuff that has nothing to do with our mission.”

Good,
she thought, but didn’t dare say it out loud. “Are you always a single-focus guy?”

“Yes, without exception.”

She’d love to have his single-minded attention on her and only her. But she knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who wanted a man like that. That had never mattered to her before. But with Jack—she did want that. “Sorry.”

She turned back to her computer, reminding herself that she liked her life from the safety of her computer. She didn’t get close to anyone, because when she did, that left her room to be let down.

Even Justine and Charity had let her down. No one had ever
not
let her down. She didn’t want to have any disappointment from Jack, so that meant it was better to leave things alone between them.

“It was nice of Martine to lend us this vehicle.”

“Yes, it was,” Jack said. “How do you know him?”

“My father was an ambassador for a number of years. And we always met interesting people. Martine was one of them. He’s a missionary.”

“I know,” Jack said. “He told us before I had to leave.”

“That’s right, you did hear a little talk. He’s an interesting man.”

“Interesting is one word for it.”

“What word would you use?”

Jack shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t know. He’s not my kind of guy.”

“Why not?”

“He talks too much.”

“I can see how you wouldn’t be able to relate to a guy like that. I mean, you’re more of an action guy.”

Jack glanced over at her. “Yes, I am. Is that a problem?”

“No. I think your ability to take charge saved our lives this afternoon. I know we could have outfired those guys, but your quick thinking and driving made a huge difference.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Anna said. “You’re not what I expected.”

“I’m not?”

“No. And I know that comment makes me seem a little ditzy, but I just expected you to be all mercenary. And you’re not.”

Jack passed a bus on the highway and then again glanced over at her. “In what way?”

She felt silly starting this conversation, but she wasn’t going to back down now. “You really care about your guys.”

“That’s no big thing. We aren’t a group of mercenaries brought together for one mission, we’re a team. We function like a family.”

She had a thought and didn’t censor it. “Do you have any family?”

He shook his head. “Not for a long time. But the men on my team are like brothers to me. Some of them do stupid things, but I know when the chips are down that they have my back.”

“It’s that way with me and Justine and Charity. I always felt a bit of the odd man out until I was teamed with them, and then I realized exactly what I was meant to do. I fit with them. If that makes any sense.”

Jack reached over and squeezed her thigh. “That makes perfect sense to me. It’s the same with my team. Well, a little different because I’m the leader and your team seems to be more a group of peers.”

“Yes, we are. I think we all have issues with authority, but your guys need to know the pecking order. Probably because you all came from the military.”

“I agree. Chain of command is important to us. I think that’s why I didn’t consult you guys before I sent Kirk out. I’m used to being the final decision maker.”

“I can see that you are. When was the last time you took orders?”

“I take them every mission when we sign up for a job. There are always ROEs for each op.”

“Rules of engagement. You even talk like you’re still in the military.”

“It’s the only language that makes sense to me. I know you don’t like the gray areas in life and that you think mercenaries are a necessary evil, but we aren’t really gray.”

Anna saw that. She understood now that men like Jack and his team did a job a government couldn’t do. Like this job to apprehend Andreev. All governments wanted Andreev arrested and out of business, but no one would have authority to enter Algeria and track him down—only someone who owed their alliance to no government.

Jack pulled into the secure location—where the rest of his team was waiting in In Salah—at about three in the morning. Everyone in the Land Rover was alert and ready to move. They had guns drawn and were tense as they got out of the vehicle.

They was only one hotel in the city, and they made their way through the lobby. The desk clerk was visibly taken aback when they entered, but he helped them, and soon they were all upstairs in their own rooms.

Jack wandered around his room, wondering what kind of information Anna was going to find on Harry. A part of him wanted to go to the other man’s room and confront him tonight. Find out if the son of bitch really had sold them out.

But instead he was standing here in the moonlight wishing like hell he’d had an excuse to bring Anna to his room. He had never needed anything, but now he needed her.

No, that couldn’t be right. He didn’t need anyone. He didn’t even need his team. Not really. It was nice to have them because of the consistency they offered on the job, but he didn’t need them.

Hell, who was he kidding? He was almost forty and had crammed more living into those years than most people. He wasn’t going to sleep, and he wanted to be with Anna. He gave up pretending he didn’t and went down the hall to her room.

Jack picked the lock on Anna’s hotel room door using the key card he’d swiped from the front desk. He eased into the room. There was a glow from the computer in the corner, but otherwise the room was completely dark.

He kept his eye on the lump in the bed. Anna hadn’t moved since he’d entered the room. He knew he shouldn’t be there, but he’d needed to be with her, and somehow coming to find Anna had seemed the saner of his two options.

He felt the air stir behind him. Anna grabbed him around the throat with her left arm and took hold of his right wrist with her right hand. The barrel of her gun was wedged against his ribs. “What are you doing here, Jack?”

The cool cotton of her shirt rubbed against his back. “I thought we could talk.”

“And you couldn’t knock on my door?”

What was he going to say? The truth was that he hadn’t wanted her to turn him away. Wasn’t sure he would have left if she’d said she needed to be alone tonight.

“No, I couldn’t knock on your door,” he said, bringing up his left hand to grasp her left wrist, covering her moving fingers with his own.

She caressed his neck with her fingers, rubbing his pulse point.

He held her hand firmly in his grip and shifted his weight. He liked touching her too much to let go. “Do you really want to wrestle like this?”

“Not really,” she said.

He eased her down on the bed and placed his body on top of her. “Unless you want me to go,” he said.

“No. Stay with me, Jack,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as her legs shifted so he was nestled between them.

This was what he’d been wanting since they’d arrived in El Golea. He’d needed to touch her like this. He knew he had no right to her, no claim on her, but he’d needed it.

He bent and kissed her. She bit at his lower lip, sucking it between her teeth. He groaned deep in his throat, palming her breasts through the T-shirt. Her nipples responded immediately to his touch.

She gasped, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth. He captured her wrists and held them to the bed by her head. He undulated against her, using his entire body to stroke hers.

“Link your fingers together and put them behind your neck.”

“Why?” she asked, rubbing her toes up the back of his leg. She was so sexy with him, it was almost like she was someone he didn’t know. He wanted her like he’d wanted no other woman.