DeliciousDanger (17 page)

“I guess I should thank you,” the voice told him. “This was
a sweet deal for both of us. Nice and clean.” He paused. “However, your
information that Rick Latrobe is not dead doesn’t make me very happy.”

“I have explained all that to you,” Zarife said, rubbing his
thigh nervously.“I’ll be happy to work on that again, if you wish.”

But not with that idiot Gabir.

“That’s being taken care of. But you’d better tell your
father that none of those weapons can end up in the wrong hands. We don’t need
anything coming back to smack us in the face. Certainly not while Latrobe is
still alive to put the pieces together.”

“I assure you,” Zarife told him, “nothing like that will
happen. My father is very, very careful.”

“He’d better be. I chose the buyer carefully for this
because I didn’t want any slipups. The kind I could run into selling on the
open market. If it comes back on me, I won’t hesitate to sacrifice whomever I
have to.”

“Understood.”

Without waiting for the man to close the conversation Zarife
hung up. His first instinct was to call his father but he knew the elder
al-Dulami was out of reach for two days, meeting with his advisors and
formulating their final plans. In any event, it would be an insult to tell his
father to be careful. All he could do was wait until it was time and he was
summoned.

* * * * *

The sound of car doors slamming told Kelly both her
assistants had arrived, fortunately at the same time. She looked at the clock
on the stove. Six thirty. Right on time. Good. If she could make this work she
could be at the airfield by late afternoon.

Swallowing the last bitter dregs of cold coffee, she headed
out toward the kennel. These were good people. She’d trained them herself. It
was time to let them know how much she trusted them and to feel confident they
could handle the clients. Then they could take some well-earned vacation time.

They fed and watered the dogs, then let them out into the
runs for exercise while Kelly sat down with the two people and discussed the
situation. An hour later she headed into the house with a clear head. They
could do this and whatever it cost her financially was nothing compared to the
chance to be with Rick.

Inside she opened her cell phone and called Harry.

“Kelly.” There was no disguising the pleasure in his voice.
“It’s always so good to hear from you, honey. You doing okay? Everything all
right?”

“Well.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Actually, Granddad,
not quite so good. I was wondering if I could come visit you for a few days.
Xena and I, that is.”

There was just a moment’s pause at the other end of the
connection. “Well, sure, honey. You know the two of you are welcome any time.
But you were just here. What’s going on?”

“Let me ask you something first. Have you heard anything
about Rick?”

Now there was a longer silence before Harry spoke again. “I
take it you’re not asking about that accident.”

“No, Granddad. I know what happened in Iraq. I’ve spoken
with Mr. Romeo.”

She could almost see her grandfather frowning. “You have?
For what reason?”

“It’s a long story and it started with Xena’s connection
with Rick at the airfield. Remember?”

“Yes, I do. Thought it was strange at the time, all things
considered.”

“I need to see him,” she blurted out. “I can’t stand just
sitting here, not knowing anything. Not when it’s my fault.”

“Your fault? Wait just a minute here. How the hell is Rick
getting shot in Iraq your fault at all?”

Trying to be as coherent as possible, stumbling over her
words in places, she explained about the visit from the Phoenix people, Xena’s
reaction again to Rick. His request that she accompany him on the trip. And
most of all, the dreams and Xena’s actions since then.

“First of all, Kelly, Rick Latrobe had one hell of a nerve
asking you to go into a place as risky as Iraq. If he wasn’t already in such
bad shape—”

“Bad shape?” she interrupted. “How bad? Mr. Romeo was rather
lean on details.”

“It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with,” Harry told
her. “Stay up there in Maine, where it’s…it’s…”

“Safe?” she finished for him. “Okay, fine. If I can’t come
stay with you, Xena and I will find the closest campground.”

“You don’t even know where Latrobe is,” Harry protested.

“No but you’re going to help me find out. Or at least, I
hoped you were. If not, I’m not without my own resources. I’ll just badger it
out of Mr. Romeo himself. Or his wife.”

“Damn,” Harry swore. “You’re just as headstrong as your
mother, god rest her soul.”

“Granddad, we have this connection, Rick and Xena and I. And
I don’t think the danger’s over just because Rick’s back in the States. Xena
needs to be with him.”

And so do I.

The sigh that Harry heaved was loud and resigned. “All
right. Come on down. I’ll call Dan and talk to him about the situation,” he
gave in. “But I don’t promise anything.”

“If you can just get him to come talk to me. Or have his
wife come. I can make them understand.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Just as soon as I hang up this phone and throw my things in
the truck. It’s a little over an eight-hour drive, so I should be there before
five.”

“Come straight to the field,” Harry told her. “I’ll have
made my calls by then. And drive carefully, you hear? Better to get here an
hour later and still in one piece.”

“I will,” she promised.

Chapter Eight

Janet Houseman had decided to name her very private clinic
Dogwood House for two reasons. It was in Virginia surrounded by dogwood trees
and it was the least likely name for a facility of its kind. Located just
outside the historical town of Warrenton, population about six thousand, it was
a little more than an hour’s drive from Washington, D.C., making it convenient
for government figures and the people who attended them. It was about the same
drive time from Baltimore. People looking for her patients—and there always
were, both good guys and bad—would have a hell of a time finding it. But just
in case they did, the five acres on which the facility sat were surrounded by a
twelve-foot-high brick wall with sensors embedded every twelve inches. Her
state-of-the-art security system was second to none and her guards were the
very best money could buy. The man lying in one of the suites on the second
floor had helped find and train them.

She had assembled a top staff of physicians and surgeons and
constantly updated her equipment, both medical and surgical. A visit to Dogwood
House didn’t come cheap but no one ever, ever complained about the cost.

Janet accepted her patients carefully, turning down those
she considered a danger either to herself or her country. It was not at all out
of the ordinary for someone like Rick Latrobe to arrive requiring the utmost
security.

“We need to hide him until he’s back to fighting weight,”
Dan Romeo told her. “We don’t know if the same person who shot him followed him
here, or has contacts. Any hospital or other clinic would expose him too much,
even if we posted armed guards. Plus the media has gotten hold of it and he
doesn’t need reporters badgering him.”

“Not a problem.” Janet smiled. “You know that.”

The Phoenix men were as important to her as family. If not
for them she in all likelihood wouldn’t have been alive to establish this place
or treat the people she did. She owed them everything.

“He’s stabilized,” she told Dan and Mark the day after
Rick’s arrival.“The surgery on the plane is what saved him. And a big thanks to
the medics who treated him too. He’s still in a lot of pain and he won’t be
doing any dancing for a while. Or running through jungles. But he’ll probably
be up long before the doctors predicted. Kudos all around to the emergency
medical care.”

“And the surgeon you sent with Troy,” Dan reminded her.

Troy Arsenault had arrived in Virginia with Rick and, under
doctor’s supervision, been solely responsible for Rick’s care. Not that the men
had reservations about Janet’s staff. But under the circumstances, they just felt
more comfortable with Troy at his side 24/7.

Rick’s other injuries were healing too. The hairline wrist
fracture was nearly mended, the bruising on the ribs minor compared to the
surgery for the chest wound and Troy had removed the stitches from the two cuts
that had required suturing. Everyone was happy to see how rapidly Rick’s
recovery was proceeding. But then, he’d never been a man to have much patience
with lying around, no matter how bad his injuries.

Mike D’Antoni and Ed Romeo had flown the Hercules C-130
deadhead back from Iraq, landing barely two hours ago. Tired and drained, their
first order of business still had been to jump in the SUV that Dan and Mark
were waiting in and get here as fast as they could to see Rick with their own
eyes. At the moment they were gathered in his room, watching him sleep under
the influence of the medication he was getting.

“God damn son of a bitch.” Mike, sitting in the big chair
near the bed, dropped his head into his hands. “It’s my fault this happened.
Every bit of it. No thanks to me we nearly lost a partner.”

“I thought we already got past that.” Dan’s voice was hard.
“The pity party’s long over. We have work to do.” He looked at Janet who had
just come into the room. “Bottom line. How long until we can move him out of
here?”

“I thought you’d want to know that, so I double-checked with
his doctor this morning. Even though he’s doing very well, you don’t want to
rush this. That was a very bad chest wound. I’d like to keep him another two
weeks, if we can hold him down.”

Mike gave a short laugh and glanced over at the bed. “If I
know Rick, the minute he cuts back on the pain meds he’ll want out.”

“Which is why you’re all going to help me shortstop that. He
needs as much time as we can force him into so he doesn’t rip open his stitches
and do more damage to himself. He’s one lucky man, I’ll tell you. Between the
accident and the shooting he should be dead, not recuperating.”

Dan raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t I know it.
All right, Janet. Thanks. We’ll do our best to keep him tied down.”

She smiled at them. “Just don’t let him yell too loud when
you tie him to the bed, okay? Troy will still be handling his care but I’ll be
around if you need me.”

The moment she walked out of the room the men all looked at each
other. Finally Mark spoke.

“So,” he said to Ed and Mike. “Nothing in Baghdad, right?”

Mike rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the fatigue. He
checked again to make sure Rick was still asleep before he answered.“I can’t
even get my mind around how many people had to be paid off for this. No one saw
anything out of the ordinary. Anyone who saw the trucks moving things out of
the warehouse assumed it was a GC operation of some sort. No one asks about
anyone else’s business.”

“Besides,” Ed put in. “There are other contractors fighting
to preserve their piece of the pie and they don’t want to get involved in
something that sounds messy.”

“And the power outage?”

Mike made a rude noise. “Some ‘malfunction’ that only
affected the outside lights, they said. Somehow the control tower and landing
lights were untouched.”

“What a surprise,” Mark bit off.

“Yeah, right,” Rick commented, his voice slurred. “Tell me
another one.”

“Hey buddy.”Troy was instantly beside him, checking the
monitors and his IV. “We thought you were still in fuzzy land.”

He wet his dry lips with his tongue. “I’m fuzzy too much. I
think you guys like having me knocked out.” He turned his head. “Dan, I’ve got
to get back there…”

“Not in your shape,” his partner told him. He shifted his
gaze to Mike and Ed.“What about the locally hired guards? What’s the situation
there?”

“Some never showed up again. Others seemed completely
bewildered. And nobody knew anything. About anything. Period.”

“What about any chatter outside the area?” Mark asked.

Ed leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “We talked to
every contact we had over there and some we dug up out of nowhere. We thought
we were getting somewhere when a cousin of a cousin told us that some big
operation had gone down, that it was very secret and involved millions of
dollars. Then the two cousins disappeared and everyone else clammed up.”

Mark shoved his hands in his pockets and began pacing. “All
right. We’ve got some work to do from here. This was no simple snatch and grab.
This was well-planned and well-orchestrated. And think about this. A shipment
this large never made it onto the open market or we’d have heard about it.
There was a waiting buyer. Everything under the radar. We’ve got to find Greg
Jordan. He’s the key to everything.”

“I don’t think Rick’s out of the woods yet, either,” Ed
pointed out.

“What do you mean?” Rick asked, groaning as he tried to
shift his position.

“They wanted you dead, whoever
they
are. You’re still
alive and that’s going to make them very unhappy. My guess is they believe
somehow you can pull all the pieces together.”

“Maybe if I could remember what’s banging around in my
head.” His voice was still thick with the effects of the medication and pain.

“You need to be out of sight until you do. Bringing you here
was the smartest move to make. In a hospital anyone could get at you.”

“So you know we need to get you some extra protection,” Mark
pointed out. He rubbed his neck. “The media are hopping all over this and I
have this nasty feeling that you were supposed to be the fall guy all along.”

“Then why kill me?” Rick asked.

“If you’re dead, you can’t defend yourself. Or give out
information that might lead to someone else.”

“But I don’t know anything about that,” he protested. “All I
know is what I know.”