Defender (3 page)

Jimmy took three steps back, keeping his eyes locked on the speck of humanity bobbing in the ocean below. He gasped in air tinged with the scent of hydraulic fluid and sprinted toward the load ramp. His combat boots pounded metal then air. No kicking free shoes for a nice little dip. Warriors went into the water in full gear.

“Ahhhhh . . .” He hurtled through the battering wind and sea spray. “Fuck.”

She’d damn well better still be alive.

Chloe Nelson refused to die. The Mediterranean Sea, however, seemed determined to override her wishes.

She grappled through the wall of water slamming over her. A week of swimming lessons at the YMCA as a kid hadn’t prepared her for the open high seas. Her head breaking free, she gasped for air, her eyes stinging. She choked on a salty gulp and prayed hard, really hard that those rescue folks in the hovering aircraft wouldn’t abandon her while she worked her way clear of the debris.

The
whump, whump, whump
of the blades overhead churned waves faster around her, making it impossible to grab the harness they’d lowered for the rest of her group. Now she couldn’t see the thing, much less strap herself inside.

Could this be some kind of twisted justice for stepping so far outside her comfort zone as a classical musician? Never had she expected that years of nose-to-the-grindstone training would result in a gig as a backup singer wearing sequins, fringe and do-me-sailor pumps.

Those rhinestone-studded shoes were currently spiraling their way to the bottom of the Mediterranean. Chloe pedaled her bare feet faster underwater, determined to get out of there before she drowned or a shark made her his Happy Meal.

Something grazed her upper thigh.

She screamed, then choked on more water. Were there really sharks in this coastal region of Turkey? Too bad she hadn’t taken an occasional break from practicing to watch the Discovery Channel. She battled the current, even as her instincts told her to hold still. Who could stay calm enough in a situation like this to punch a shark in the nose?

Chloe flailed a half spin and found . . .

Not a shark. Her muscles went limp. She faced a helmeted person, a man, with big shoulders and a powerful sidestroke that kept him well afloat despite the roiling sea. The “Halleluiah Chorus” chimed through her head.

He extended a gloved hand for her, his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear as another swoosh tugged her away. She fought forward, stretched her arm, wiggled her fingers.

Finally she gripped warm, strong help.

Even the simple support of linked fingers gave her the edge she needed to move closer. He yanked her nearer still, until his arm banded around her waist.

“Hold on to me,” he shouted over the combined roar of the engines, wind, and waves.

Dark brown eyes peered back at her, intense, as if he could bind her up and free with just the strength of his gaze. She wished it were that simple.

“I’ll bet that’s easy”—her teeth chattered almost as fast as her rolling thoughts while she struggled not to push him under—“for most of the panting and soaking-wet women who throw themselves at you, but me?” She gasped in air, spat water, couldn’t stop talking even though he probably didn’t hear her. “I’m having a tough time right now.”

She pummeled harder with her feet as he towed her toward the dangling line, the same cable that had eluded her earlier. The harness swayed in front of them, and he plucked it from the air as easily as coaxing a note from a violin.

Water crested and splashed over his helmet, stealing him from sight. She bit back a cry, held tight, and kicked faster to keep up her end of this swimming deal. She hadn’t survived a kidney transplant last year just to lose her life now.

His head popped through again, his square jaw clenched tight.

God, she’d brought this man into danger because of her own ineptitude. “What do I do?”

“Nothing. I’ve got it.” His hands slid over her with brisk efficiency, tucking the seat between her legs, dropping the sash over her shoulder and under her other arm. He sat across from her, securing his harness, and grabbed the metal pole between them.

How was this awkward tangle of limbs going to work?

“Lock your legs around my waist.”

“Excuse me?” She choked on another briny swallow.

Okay, this was a life-or-death sort of thing. She would cuddle up to an angry grizzly bear right now if he could get her out of here.

She wrapped her thighs around the military guy’s hips and locked her ankles. The cable pulled taut, then jerked. Her stomach lurched as they surged from the water. They spun in midair. She looked down, and her equilibrium went to hell in a handbasket.

Then she saw the sharks.

Every-freaking-where.

Even where she’d been swimming seconds before. She couldn’t stop herself from thrashing as she rocked backward. Her fingers twisted in his wet flight suit. The wind whipped clean through her skimpy costume.

“Be still,” he hollered. One arm still gripping the pole extending into the cable, he palmed the small of her back and flattened her to him. “Reach up and hold the treble hook.”

She stared at the helmet, the jut of his jaw just inches away. She was flipping out over seeing the sharks after the fact, yet he’d knowingly jumped into the middle of them for her.

“Sorry,” she bellowed back. She suppressed the instinctive need to wriggle and surrendered control. “I was taught not to plaster myself against strangers while half-naked.”

“Believe me . . .” His eyes locked on hers, his voice suddenly clear in their private pocket of space. “The last thing I’m thinking about now is what we’re wearing, Ariel.”

Ariel? Oh,
Little Mermaid
. Geez.

“Fair enough.” She relaxed against his chest, the waters churning all the faster below as they twirled on the thin wire.

Her champagne silk outfit turned clammy against her skin. At least the costume had held together. She sure hoped someone had a warm blanket up there. All flames from the explosion aside, she was freezing her tush off.

Explosion.
Now that she was almost safe, the magnitude of how close she’d come to dying punched her. Hard. Concerns about her scantily clothed body didn’t matter one whit. She was lucky to have cheated death. Again. Damn it all, she’d taken on this stint with the USO as a payback to the dead soldier who’d donated her kidney so Chloe could live.

The cable jerked to a stop just shy of the ramp. She stifled a scream and clamped her legs tighter around him. His wet uniform rasped against her bare calves. “At least I’m not afraid of heights. That would really suck.”

He grunted.

The cable eased into motion again, drawing them inside, and just that fast, they were both standing on blessedly dry metal. Now she couldn’t make herself let go of this guy who’d jumped into a shark pit. She gasped in air heavy with the scent of musky male and something akin to engine oil. She soaked up the heat of him because she must still be cold, otherwise why would her teeth chatter? The
whump, whump, whump
of the rotors synched up with his heart under her ear.

A blanket draped over her shoulders, and she forced herself to step deeper into the cavernous cargo hold full of equipment, soldiers, and soaked USO crew members. Adrenaline tingled away, almost as if dripping from her toes like the salt water pooling around her feet.

Her rescue guy grasped her arm. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my fashion sense.” She found her footing and grabbed for the blanket sliding from her shoulders. “I noticed nobody else is wearing sequins to the beach this year.”

No wonder everyone was staring at her. Especially the towering man who’d hauled her tookus out of the sea.

Like he would be as interested if she wore her regular wardrobe of white shirts and khaki, khaki, and more khaki, varied only by the donning of her black formal wear for orchestral performing. She wondered what he would do if she flashed him her favored Vulcan salute along with a salutation of
Live long and prosper.

And God, her thoughts were rambling. Must be shock in the aftermath of what she’d been through. How totally awkward. She needed to find a seat. Then people would look elsewhere.

She frowned. They weren’t just staring. They were gaping.

Had she suffered a costume malfunction? She didn’t normally need to think about wardrobe hazards in floor-length black taffeta or velvet, but she wasn’t used to regulating showy getups that were vintage Cher.

Chloe clenched her fists, restraining the impulse to flatten her hands to her chest and check on “the girls”; now wouldn’t that really get everyone gawking? She snuck a quick peek south instead as she leaned to scoop her blanket from the metal grate.

Her breasts were still tucked securely in the sequin-speckled costume. She blinked once, twice, and sure enough, her eyesight didn’t lie. Oh damn.

“The girls” were safely constrained inside sopping-wet,
transparent
silk.

TWO

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Marta Surac killed her first man at thirteen.

Thirty years later as she writhed to the pulsing electronic techno beat, she still didn’t feel guilty. She wouldn’t have even wasted a thought on the past except for the popping of a cork in her new pub.

She plunged her hands in her hair, raising her arms higher until her bracelets hitched on her elbow. She pumped her hips closer to her young military dance partner. His eyes swept down her with an appreciation that didn’t affect her in any way other than the power it provided. Marta stared right back, smiling, because this trained soldier didn’t know she’d already taken down one of his own tonight.

He could be next, if she gave the word.

Glasses clinked while people at a nearby table toasted with the freshly decanted wine. She swayed faster in frenetic synch with the strobing lights and flashing thirty-year-old memory.

Her uncle had ripped off her clothes, unzipped his pants, and straddled her in the dank storage room behind her father’s tavern. She’d learned how to defend herself after watching her family for years. She’d taken a corkscrew and jammed it into the bastard’s back, pushing, twisting until she found his heart.

Quite symbolic, now that she thought of it, teasing her breasts against the soldier’s chest. Didn’t the American military men who frequented her bars call “the act” screwing? Uncle Radko had been trying to screw her, and she simply got to him first.

Dimly registering the American’s hands sliding to her hips, she eyed the blue-tiled entrance to her newest pub on Istanbul’s Nevizade Street. This crossroad of world cultures offered the perfect place to expand her international network. The boy keeping step until sweat sheened his face might be here for pleasure, but for her, it was always about business.

The door opened, and her senses tightened. Two familiar men pushed through the haze of unfiltered cigarette smoke that perpetually hovered in the air, returning to give the report she’d been anticipating. She made eye contact.
Stop. Wait.

Music faded, a slower Turkish folk tune spinning up. She eased free of her dance partner.

“Thank you for a lovely time. Your drinks will be on the house this evening, so stay, party. It is early still,” Marta offered up to soothe any rejected feelings. These boys always cheered over free alcohol. “I hope you enjoy your temporary leave.”

Weaving around couples and tables already packed with locals and tourists even before sunset, she strode toward the duo waiting by the bar. She nodded, and Baris and Erol followed. Both were strong, ambitious, and best of all, amoral.

Her high-heeled Manolos clicked along the wood floor as the hallway narrowed in the renovated old building. Sconces on the walls vibrated from the music up front.

She selected the key on her charm bracelet and unlocked her office. “Come in and close the door behind you.”

After the door snicked shut, Baris passed her a video-disc labeled only with a number. “It’s done.”

“Of course it is.” She never doubted her orders would be followed. She evoked that sort of quiet fear. But she understood the wisdom of stroking their male egos. “I only hire the best.”

Since Uncle Radko, she had taken more lives. Of course now she rarely wielded the corkscrew, gun, drugs, garrote, or whatever weapon the occasion warranted. She paid others. Not because of a lack of stomach for the task, but rather because she could afford it.

Marta sidestepped an oversized chaise covered with gold tasseled pillows on her way to the minibar and opened the false bottom of a cigar box. She thumbed the disc in her hand one last time before storing it away with the others. The captured image stayed imprinted on her mind as well as the DVD, since she’d been there when they taped beating the American soldier.

Now his lifeless body lay in a back alley.

The soldier hadn’t proven as helpful as others they’d taken, and certainly not as valuable as another she still held. What world-altering secrets a tangle of gray matter could carry.

Baris pressed deeper into the room, his partner holding back. “We placed an empty condom wrapper with his fingerprints inside his wallet as you ordered, and a woman’s strand of hair on his uniform.”

“Perfect. We held him such a short time, they probably haven’t even reported him missing yet.” She’d quickly determined he would be worthless. She locked away the discs, positioning the wooden box precisely beside the brass cigar clippers. “That should provide a timeline for the missing hours between when he left his drinking friends and his death hours later.”

Authorities would conclude he picked up a woman or prostitute, then met with muggers on his way back through the bustling Nevizade Street, narrow and crowded with pubs. Tables spilled out onto the stone road, pickpockets were rampant.

Marta flattened her palm to the carved lid on the cigar container depicting a windswept sultan. No news media would see the recording. This little scene would be played for his fellow American aviator who she still held, a man she’d taken a week ago from a base in southern Turkey. Her remaining captive appeared more stubborn but also potentially more valuable.

She’d already kept him long enough that he could never be released without jeopardizing her anonymity; still, she had hopes of prying information free. She could afford one more week to work on him. His body’s reappearance would simply require more creativity to hide his injuries. That also gave her more latitude to toy with him.

Erol and Baris started toward the paneled door, which reminded her of the rest of her agenda for the night.

“Baris,” she called. “Stay with me awhile?”

She phrased it as a question even as she knew he wouldn’t say no. The lure of laying the boss would be too appealing. Not a great hardship for him, either, because she knew full well she didn’t look her age.

Erol’s eyes snapped with jealousy, quickly hidden. He would have his turn, but he didn’t need to know that yet. The employee backed out the door, leaving Baris alone with her. She waved him over to the chaise.

“Sit.” She poured a glass half-full of raki mixed with water and placed it on a mosaic-covered side table. “You’ve worked hard today. You deserve to celebrate.”

“I only did my job.”

Marta opened the carved box, the regular lid this time. The scent of expensive tobacco swelled upward. She plucked a cigar free while scooping up the clippers and snipped the end as precisely as removing a fingertip.

She passed Baris the first-rate Cuban smoke and a lighter before sitting on the edge of her desk.

He hesitated. “Aren’t you going to have one, too?”

“No, you go ahead.” Leaning back on her hands, she inched her knees apart, not too far, just enough to pull her short skirt taut. “My turn to celebrate will come soon.”

He lit the cigar and inhaled a puff. “How lucky we will celebrate together then.”

Ah, boys. Always so full of promises and pride, but she wanted him to stay, so she kept that thought to herself. “You proved yourself loyal and efficient. I value that.”

In her early days, she would have enjoyed the power over men, when she still savored the thrill of the kill. She knew better now. Emotions affected business, and control was everything, which brought her back to the dark-haired male in front of her. After her mother had learned about Uncle Radko, she’d taught her daughter about the power gained from sex. A power best wielded without the distraction of emotions and the mind-numbing joys any other woman might foolishly find with a strong man between her thighs.

Marta arched to sit upright, straining the buttons of her satin blouse. She slipped one open, then a second, enough for a peek at the crimson lace of her bra that matched the hint of panties. “Let’s see how efficient you really are.”

Baris drew hard on the cigar, but his eyes never left her.

Power. Here, with him, and a different sort of control than she had over her high-value American target. “I have an important job for you down in Adana.”

“I am honored at your trust.” Smoke swirled around his bearded face.

She had learned an important thing about her prisoner in the basement below. He might be proficient at his military job, but he was not as perfectly invincible as he thought. Already he’d let a name slip, just a whisper on a groan. Only his first name, but still she had her people looking into it while she gave him his final week.

Tossing aside the cigar clippers, Marta took in Baris’s dilating pupils and handsome face. Not that it mattered to her if she screwed an ugly underling.

No thrill. No highs
or
lows. Thanks to years of careful practice, tonight she would only exercise the power to take her games to the next level.

* MEDITERRANEAN SEA:
USS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

As the sun dipped into the horizon, Chloe had never been more grateful for level flooring in her life.

She stepped down the side hatch steps of the CV-22 onto the overcrowded deck of the aircraft carrier where she was supposed to have made an ocean approach full of fanfare. She plucked at her now-dry, saltwater-stiff costume. The silk may have been see-through earlier, but thank goodness the fabric dried quickly.

Some sailors in yellow jerseys hustled everyone off the plane and over to a designated safe area on the packed flight deck. Navy personnel in uniforms and numerous colored jerseys raced around in concert with one another, a synchronicity that could turn dangerous in a heartbeat.

She’d been warned during a preperformance briefing about the hazards of being mowed down by prop wash or swept overboard by jet exhaust. Not to mention the possibility of getting sucked in and spat out by an engine. The whole day was scary—and exciting.

Who’d have thought she would ever land in a plane on a navy ship? The thrill of the wind whipping, the roar of a fighter jet landing on a tiny patch of metal almost managed to wipe away the fear from nearly dying today.

Perhaps the near-death moment had reminded her to savor every second of this adventure she’d undertaken. She’d spent so much of her life yearning to experience the world outside hospitals and practice halls. She’d gotten a bellyful today.

She should make tracks to the backstage area, but the hubbub was so flipping amazing. Aircraft parked close together with their wings folded up like massive metal bugs. Sailors mingled with entertainment legends.

How cool to be a part of this, thanks to her connection with Livia Cicero, a big-time Italian pop star currently signing autographs for a cluster of drooling swabbies. Last winter Livia had come to America to make her crossover breakthrough. She’d performed at an Atlanta Falcons halftime show along with Chloe’s orchestra. When Livia spoke to the crowd about her upcoming USO engagement, Chloe finally had her answer to how she could offer tribute to the soldier who’d saved her life with an organ donation.

Now she was only an hour away from beginning her week of performances for the troops. The sailors and soldiers on the USS
Theodore Roosevelt
off the coast of Turkey were expecting a show, and by God, apparently the USO intended to deliver in spite of the fact that half their cast had nearly been blown up.

That reminded her how this day could have turned out so differently. Her gaze gravitated toward the air force aviators who’d rescued them. The four-man crew strode down the stairs leading from the side hatch with matching desert tan flight suits and cocky struts. She slipped out of the line of performers to get a better look at the guys who’d saved her life.

And of course the fab four all wore cool shades.

She recalled reading in some article once that fliers’ eyes were light-sensitive from too much time tooling around the skies among all those unfiltered UV rays. But somehow she knew that, even if they weren’t, these self-proclaimed zipper-suited sky gods would shade their peeps all the same. Their choice of eyewear, however, revealed interesting details about these jet jocks.

The first guy wore classic Ray Ban aviators, signature of the more seasoned, older sort. Sure enough, as he drew closer, she could see he was the boss who’d checked on them all after they’d strapped into their seats.

Moving on to number two, he was someone she hadn’t seen during the flight: ominous tinted wraparounds and a shaved bald head. His badass look was tempered by a huge smile and booming laugh.

Third up, the guy who’d flirted with every female, wore tortoiseshell squared-off shades, compliments of Christian Dior eyewear, if she wasn’t mistaken. Given the way his flight bag was all beat up with a dented thermos sticking out, the expensive glasses—ones apparently picked to match his golden brown hair—must be a gift from a woman.

Finally, her eyes settled on the man who’d pulled her from the water. This flyboy wore sport performance sunglasses, rimless and looking like something from the next century. Her gaze lingered on him. How could she not be curious about a person who’d jumped into shark-infested waters to save her?

Now that he’d removed his helmet, she could see his angular face more clearly. Dark-haired with a standard military fade cut, he walked away from his aircraft with a lean, whipcord power. She couldn’t see his eyes but remembered the dark and vibrant energy from when he’d been inches away from her.

Chloe figured she had at least fifteen free minutes to thank the guy before the show started. Who knew if she would ever see him again, and all embarrassment aside, she owed him a huge debt. She padded across the hot metal deck in the borrowed shoes the navy had supplied upon landing. The acres-big boat sat so still and impervious to the churning sea she could have sworn she walked on dry land.

She stopped beside the airman who’d pulled her out of the water, and yeah, she couldn’t help but think of the soldier whose kidney now rested inside her. She really would have to keep a rein on the whole hero-worship vibe.

“Hi, I didn’t get a chance to properly introduce myself before with the whole sharks and dunking deal.” She thrust out her hand. “I’m Chloe Nelson.”