Danger Zone (24 page)

“I hope I didn’t interrupt what you were doing,” Karen said.

“You didn’t interrupt anything. It was just a tiresome brunch with my stepmother’s tiresome friends. Any excuse to escape them is welcome.”

“I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer you made for me to visit.”

“Darling,” Linda said delightedly. “But of course! When can you come?”

“Right now?” Karen said weakly.

“You mean today?”

“Yes.”

“How wonderful. Just tell me the airline and your flight number and I’ll send a car to pick you up at Heathrow.”

“I haven’t booked the flight yet, but I’ll be coming in from Dublin sometime later this afternoon.”

There was a slight pause. Then Linda repeated doubtfully, “Dublin?”

“That’s right.”

“Darling, it may be presumptuous of me to ask, but what on earth are you doing in Dublin, of all places?”

“I’ll explain it all when I get there, Linda.”

“Karen, does this have anything to do with that man who rescued us? That blond you lusted for—what was his name, Mustang or Pony or something like that?”

“Colter,” Karen said. Both men looked at her alertly when she said the name.

“That’s right, Colter. Well, does it?”

“Yes, but I can’t go into details just now. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there, okay?”

Linda, who was only slightly less clever than the average CIA agent, was beginning to smell a rat.

“Karen, are you in some kind of trouble?” she asked seriously.

“I’m fine,” Karen answered loudly, directing it at their armed companion, who was stirring restlessly. “I’ll call you when I land and you can send the car for me then, all right?”

“All right,” Linda echoed. “But you’re going to give me every last scrap of information about this when you arrive, do you hear?” 

“I promise I will. Thanks a lot, I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you then.”

“And Linda?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a lifesaver.” Karen hung up before her friend could react, and Colter took her arm.

“All set?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yes. You heard; it’s all arranged.”

“She suspected something, didn’t she?”

Karen darted a glance at the rebel, who was listening.

“She just asked me if it had anything to do with you and I told her I’d explain when I got there,” Karen replied casually.

Both men seemed satisfied with her answer, and they went to get their tickets.

They were on the plane in an hour; a regular shuttle ran from Dublin to London and flights were frequent. Their guard, or so Karen thought of him, sat behind her and Colter, and a few minutes into the trip he fell asleep.

“Looks like bullyboy is taking a nap,” she whispered to Colter, who was staring out the window.

“Why not? Where the hell can we go to get away?” Colter replied.

Karen leaned closer to him and put her lips against his ear. “What did he do with his gun? He got through the metal check with no problem.”

“He ditched it before we boarded,” Colter replied.

“I didn’t see that.”

“You weren’t meant to.”

“But then he’s unarmed,” Karen pointed out.

“Don’t worry,” Colter said, aware of what she was thinking. “They’ll have somebody meet the plane at the other end. They do this all the time and have quite a little system worked out.”

“Steven?” she said, in a tone that made him turn and look at her.

“Yeah?”

“What do they want you to do for them?”

He hesitated for a moment, then answered, “One of their comrades is being held in a government jail. He’s going on trial soon, and he’ll be convicted and sentenced to death. They want me to break him out.”

“Can you?” Karen asked in a subdued tone.

He lifted one shoulder. “I’ve done it before.”

“Was he arrested fairly? I mean, had he really done anything wrong?”

“As it happens, no.”

“Then you agree with their cause.”

“In this case, yes, but not always with their methods.”

“They seem like such... ruffians,” she said, shuddering.

“They’re desperate men,” Colter answered flatly. “Their situation doesn’t leave a lot of room to worry about civilized behavior.”

“You speak their language,” Karen observed.

“Well enough to get by. I spent a good deal of time in their country.”

“How many languages do you speak?” she asked, thinking again that she really knew so little about him.

“I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging. “Never counted.”

The plane hit an air pocket and Karen clutched her stomach.

“Uh. I hate that feeling,” she moaned, waiting for the falling sensation to diminish. The plane leveled off and she put her head on Colter’s shoulder, closing her eyes.

“Karen, there’s something I have to say to you. We probably won’t have time alone later, so I’d better say it now.”

Karen sat up and looked at him. There was a tone of finality in his voice that she didn’t like, but she was ready to listen.

“I want you to know that I’ll never forget you,” he said. “The time we spent together was the best thing that ever happened in my life, and you’ll always be with me, even if we never see each other again.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, frightened. “You’re coming back from this. You’re coming back to me.”

“I want to, yes, but it’s a very tricky job and I just don’t know how it will go. I wish I could promise you that everything will work out all right, but I’ve never lied to you and I don’t plan to start now.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered, clutching his hand.

He looked away. “I have no choice.”

Karen fell silent, tears of frustration welling up in her eyes. She had never felt so trapped.

They landed a few minutes later and passed through customs uneventfully. Karen tried to get a look at the guard’s passport, to see where he was from, but then realized it didn’t matter anyway. If Colter didn’t return, she wouldn’t care where he went, and if he did it was immaterial.

A second man joined them just outside of the arrival area, and Karen realized he was meeting the plane, just as Colter had said. He conversed briefly with their guard in close quarters, and then took off in another direction.

Karen called Linda from the airport and was told where to wait for the car. She clutched Colter’s hand like a child as they walked toward the double glass doors, and a feeling of unreality came over her as she accepted the fact that she would soon be parted from him, perhaps permanently.

They stood in silence on the central pickup island, looking for the black limousine Linda had described. There was so much Karen wanted to say, but the words dried up in her mouth, inadequate and wrong. When the Bentley glided to the curb almost at their feet, and the uniformed driver got out and asked if she were Miss Walsh, Karen felt like bolting back through the crowd and leaving the nightmare far behind her.

“Go on now,” Colter said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

Karen looked up at him, trying to memorize his bold, even features, the slight cleft in his chin, the way his sandy lashes shaded from light brown to gold at the tips. She wanted to imprint his face on her memory so indelibly that it would remain there, clear and unaltered, forever.

“You have Linda’s address,” she asked shakily.

He nodded. “Give me a hug?” he said quietly.

Karen flew into his embrace, and his arms came around her so tightly that she knew what he was doing: trying to retain the feel of her for the time when her touch would be only a memory.

“I love you,” she said against his chest.

“I know,” he murmured, smoothing her tangled hair. “I know.”

“Come back,” she pleaded again. “Come back to me.”

He disengaged her arms from his neck and held her off, searching her face.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “Forget what I said. I’ll be all right.”

She nodded, biting back a sob. She was not convinced. Only a full appreciation of what he was up against could have made him admit what he had.

“I mean it,” he added reassuringly. “It’ll take more than this mangy group to do me in.”

She nodded once more, unable to talk.

“Goodbye, sweetheart,” he said, touching her cheek. Then he turned and walked off, his rebel guard at his side.

Karen barely looked at the driver as he held the door for her while she climbed into the rear seat of the car. She watched Colter go back into the terminal as the limo pulled away.

The green English countryside rolled past her window, as gorgeous as she recalled, but this time she saw everything through a blur of tears. The driver took the direct route to London, and after a short tour of the autumn glory of the suburbs they were threading through the busy streets. Karen noticed the red “underground” entrances, the yellow double-decker buses, the signs directing traffic to “Give Way” rather than “Yield,” but this time they held no charm for her. As if in reaction to controlling herself during the difficult parting from Colter she could not seem to stop crying. If the chauffeur thought it was unusual to have his passenger sobbing and snuffling in the back seat, wiping her streaming eyes and nose ineffectually with a ragged tissue, he kept his distinguished British reserve and gave no indication of it.

Karen drew a shaky breath and glanced in the rearview mirror accidentally, then froze when she saw the man who’d met her plane driving the car behind them. She realized she was being followed and closed her eyes. Of course. They would have to keep an eye on their insurance policy while Colter was gone. It was the perfect ending to her horrendous journey, and she let her head fall back against the seat, her whole body slumping with despair.

The driver turned on a quiet tree shaded street. It was graced by widely spaced Georgian homes with lush front gardens enclosed by black wrought iron gates. He entered the drive of the most elaborate mansion on the avenue, a two-story white stucco colonial with wide marble steps. The red door had a polished Regency knocker and brass kickplate, with a carved oak lintel. Lustrous dark emerald ivy trailed down the sides of the long, shuttered windows, and twin carved lions flanked the Greek revival portico, which was supported by four Ionic columns. A row of etched glass lanterns mounted on hanging posts lined their way as they drove up the circular gravel path, and the car glided to a stop at the foot of the entry stairs.

Karen got out when the driver held the door for her, and he bowed slightly as she hurried past him and ran up the steps. As if by magic, the red door was opened by another uniformed servant, and behind him stood Linda.

Her friend took one look at Karen’s reddened eyes and tearstained face and grabbed her arm, ushering her into a side room. Linda dismissed the servant and yanked the door closed behind them. Karen hardly got a look at the high, vaulted ceiling of the entry hall, the Baccarat chandelier or the antique furniture before she found herself confronted by an angry, exasperated Linda.

“I knew it!” she said. “I knew something nasty was afoot, and you wouldn’t tell me. You just present yourself on my doorstep in this condition. I mean to say!”

Karen fell into a brocaded Louis XIV armchair that was probably worth more than her entire life’s earnings and sighed heavily.

“Don’t holler at me, Linda; I don’t think I can take any more today,” she said wearily and blew her nose.

“Oh, give me that,” Linda said imperiously, snatching the disintegrating tissue and shuddering delicately as she tossed it into a lacquered wastepaper basket at her feet. She went to a carved armoire in a corner and returned with a freshly laundered, scented linen handkerchief.

“Here, have this. They’re supposed to be for guests and I assume you qualify. Wipe your face properly, and then you can tell me what’s been going on.” She grabbed a velvet bell pull behind Karen’s head, the like of which Karen had previously seen only in Sherlock Holmes films, and seconds later there was a discreet knock at the paneled door.

“Come in,” Linda called.

A maid in a gray dress with a sheer ruffled apron presented herself.

“Please bring a pot of tea and some sandwiches for us, Doris,” Linda said. “We’ll take the tray right here in the study.”

The maid disappeared as silently as she’d entered, and Linda uncapped a crystal bottle on a silver tray sitting on one of the side tables. She poured two fingers of dark amber liquid into a glass .

“Drink this,” she said to Karen, handing her the tumbler.

“What is it?”

“Brandy.”

Karen grimaced. “I don’t want it.”

Linda put her hands on her hips. “Drink that this instant. I am losing patience with you very fast. If you don’t calm down every one of the boring matrons my stepmother is entertaining down the hall will shortly be in this room. And you don’t want to deal with them, that I can promise you.”

Karen took a sip obediently and made a face as the searing warmth spread through her body.

“Tastes awful,” she said.

“Good, you’re not supposed to like it. Only riverboat gamblers in those dreadful historicals like it. Ladies drink lemonade.”

“If those books were so awful, how come you read every one I gave you in a single night?”

“May we get back to the subject, please?” Linda said, arching one aristocratic eyebrow and tapping her foot. “Which was your dramatic arrival ten minutes ago in a state of semihysteria. I repeat, what happened?”

“Colter is gone,” Karen said sadly.

“Well, since he isn’t here, and much to my regret I might add, I gathered that. Where is he?”

“On his way to someplace I don’t know, with this group of revolutionaries, to break one of their comrades out of a government jail.”

At this news Linda didn’t look so well herself and sat hastily on the settee to Karen’s right, her expression blank.

“I beg your pardon?” she finally managed to say.

“You heard me. They brought me here so he would go with them.”

“You mean they were blackmailing him into it?”

“Sort of. It was an old debt that he owed them, and when they arrived to collect on it I was there. So they seized the opportunity, you might say.”

“And you were in Ireland?”