Kiss Me While I sleep (20 page)

“So you’re planning on breaking into that lab and seeing what you can find?”

She nodded. “I don’t have a firm plan on how to do it; I’ve just started gathering information.”

“You know the security had to be upgraded after your friends broke in.”

“I know, but I also know there’s no foolproof system. There’s always a weakness, if I can just find what it is.”

“You’re right about that. I’d say the first step is finding out who did the security work, then getting your hands on the specs.”

“Assuming they haven’t been destroyed.”

“Only an idiot would do that, when the system might need repair sometime. If Nervi was really smart, though, he would have the specs instead of letting the security company keep them.”

“He was smart, and suspicious enough that he probably thought of that.”

“Not
quite
suspicious enough, or he wouldn’t be dead,” Swain pointed out. “I’ve heard of Nervi, even though I’ve been in a different hemisphere for ten years. How did you get close enough to him to use that peashooter of yours?”

“I didn’t use it,” she replied. “I poisoned his wine, and almost killed myself in the bargain, because he insisted I taste it, too.”

“Holy shit. You knew it was poison and you still drank it? Your balls must be bigger than mine, because I wouldn’t have done it.”

“It was either that or let him storm out without drinking enough for me to be sure it would kill him. I’m okay, except for some damage to a heart valve, but I don’t think it’s serious.” Except, yesterday she’d been gasping for breath in his car, which wasn’t good. She hadn’t even been running, though she guessed being shot at would get the adrenaline flowing and speed up her heartbeat just as running would.

He was looking at her in astonishment, but before he said anything else, there was a knock on the door. “Good, the food’s here,” he said, getting up and going to the door. Lily slipped her hand into her boot, ready to act if the room service waiter made a wrong move, but he wheeled in the cart and set out the food with swift precision; Swain signed the ticket and the waiter let himself out.

“You can take your hand off the peashooter,” Swain said as he pulled two chairs up to the cart. “Why don’t you carry something with some stopping power?”

“My peashooter gets the job done.”

“Assuming you put the shot right where it counts. If you miss, someone’s gonna be pissed and still able to come after you.”

“I don’t miss,” she said mildly.

He glanced at her, then grinned. “Ever?”

“Never when it counts.”

*    *    *

News that the director of operations had been critically injured in a car accident didn’t send ripples through the intelligence community, it sent tsunamis. The first possibility to investigate was that the accident wasn’t an accident at all. There were more efficient ways to kill someone than an automobile accident, but still, the idea had to be considered. That suspicion was laid to rest after swift but thorough interviews with the cop who had been chasing the florist van for speeding through a red traffic light. The driver of the van, who was killed in the accident, had an outstanding warrant for unpaid speeding tickets.

The director was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the security would be tighter, and rushed into surgery. Simultaneously, his house was secured, arrangements made for the director’s housekeeper, Bridget, to take care of Kaiser, and the deputy director stepped up to take Mr. Vinay’s place until, and if, he returned. The accident site was carefully combed for any sensitive papers, but Mr. Vinay was extremely careful about paperwork and nothing classified was found.

For long hours in surgery, his survival was very much in question. If Keenan hadn’t managed to angle the car slightly away just before the van collided with them, the director would have died on the spot. His right arm suffered two compound fractures, his collarbone was broken, five ribs were broken, and his right femur was broken. His heart and lungs were severely bruised, his right kidney ruptured. A shard of glass had pierced his throat like an arrow, and he had a concussion that had to be watched closely for signs of developing pressure in his skull. That he was alive at all was because the side air bag had deployed, shielding his head from part of the impact.

He survived the various surgeries needed to repair his broken body and was taken to SICU, where he was kept heavily sedated and closely monitored. The surgeons had done the best they could; the rest was up to Mr. Vinay.

M. Blanc wasn’t happy to hear from Rodrigo again so soon. “How may I be of service?” he asked somewhat stiffly. He disliked what he did anyway; to have to do it very often was salt in an open wound. He was at home, and receiving a call there made him feel as if he’d brought evil much too close to his loved ones.

“First, my brother, Damone, will be working with me,” Rodrigo said. “There may be times when he will call instead of me. I trust there will be no problem?”

“No, monsieur.”

“Excellent. This problem I asked your help with the other day. The report said that our friends in America had dispatched someone to handle it. I would like very much to contact this person.”

“Contact him?” Blanc echoed, suddenly uneasy. If Rodrigo met with the contract agent-at least Blanc assumed it was a contract agent, that was usually how a “problem” was handled-it was possible Rodrigo would say something that the contract agent would then carry back to his employers, and that wouldn’t do at all.

“Yes. I’d like his mobile phone number, if you please. I’m certain there is some way of contacting him. Do you know this person’s name?”

“Ah… no. I don’t believe it was listed in the report I received.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Rodrigo snapped. “Or I wouldn’t ask, would I?”

He actually thought, Blanc realized, that he had been sent everything Blanc received. That wasn’t the case, however, and had never been. To minimize the damage he did, Blanc always removed important pieces of information. He knew that if he was found out, the Nervis would have him killed, but he’d become very skillful at balancing on that high wire. “If the information is available, I will get it,” he assured Rodrigo.

“I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Blanc checked the time and calculated the time in Washington. It was the middle of the workday there, perhaps his contact was even having lunch. After disconnecting the call from Rodrigo, he walked outside so no one-mainly his wife, who was an insatiably curious woman-could overhear, then punched in the required sequence of numbers.

“Yes.” The voice wasn’t as friendly as it was when Blanc caught him still at home, so he was probably where someone could hear his side of the conversation.

“In the matter I spoke to you about before, is it possible to have the mobile phone number of the person who was dispatched here?“

“I’ll see what I can do.”

No questions, no hesitation. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a number, Blanc thought, walking back inside. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and he was shivering slightly, not having put on a coat

“Who was that?” his wife asked.

“It was work,” he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. Sometimes he could talk about what he did, sometimes not, so although she clearly wanted to ask more questions, she did not.

“You could at least have put on a coat before going outside,” she scolded in a fond tone.

Less than two hours later Blanc’s mobile phone rang. Quickly he grabbed a pen, but couldn’t find a scrap of paper. “This wasn’t easy, buddy,” his contact said. “Something about different cell phone systems. I had to dig deep to find the number.” He read off the number, and Blanc scribbled it on his left palm.

“Thank you,” he said. After hanging up, he found some paper and wrote down the number, then washed his hands.

He should call Rodrigo Nervi immediately, he knew, but he didn’t. Instead he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Perhaps he would call him tomorrow.

When Lily left his hotel room, Swain started to follow her back to her lair but decided against it. It wasn’t that he thought she would spot him; he knew she wouldn’t. She was good, but he was damn good. He didn’t follow her because it just didn’t feel right. It was crazy, but he wanted her to trust him. She had come to him, and that was a start. She had also given him her cell phone number, and he’d given her his. Funny how that felt the same as giving a friendship ring to a girlfriend in high school.

He hadn’t done what Vinay had told him to do. He kept putting it off, partly out of curiosity, partly because she was battling giants and needed all the help she could get, and partly because he was seriously interested in getting her into bed. She was playing a dangerous game with Rodrigo Nervi, and Swain was enough of a risk-taker to be intrigued and want to play, too. He was supposed to take her out of the equation, but instead he wanted to know what was going on in that lab. If he could find out, maybe Vinay wouldn’t demote him to desk jockey for not doing his job the first time he got close to Lily.

But all in all, he was enjoying himself. He was staying in a great hotel, driving a spitfire of a car, and eating French food. After some of the shit holes he’d stayed in during the past ten years, he needed some fun.

Lily was quite a challenge. She was wary and clever, with a streak of recklessness in her, and he never forgot that she was one of the best assassins working in Europe. Never mind that she’d had some pie-in-the-sky ideal about only making sanctioned hits until she’d gone after Salvatore Nervi; he was aware that he couldn’t afford a single misstep around her.

She was also sad, grieving for her friends and the young girl she’d thought of as her own. Swain thought of his own kids, and how he’d feel if one of them was murdered. No way would the murderer escape, or even make it to trial-no matter who it was. He was totally in sympathy with her on that score, not that it changed the final outcome.

He lay in bed that night and thought of her drinking the wine she knew was poisoned, just so Salvatore Nervi would continue drinking it. Damn, she’d skated close to the edge. From what she’d told him about the poison, how potent it was, he knew she’d had a very rough time and was probably still weak. There was no way she could get into that lab on her own, not in her shape, so that was probably why she’d called him. He didn’t care what her reason was; he was just glad she’d done it.

She was beginning to trust him. She’d cried in his arms, and he got the feeling she didn’t often let anyone get that close to her. She gave off a strong DO NOT TOUCH signal, but from what he could tell, that was more out of self-defense than coldness. She wasn’t a cold person at all, just wary.

Maybe he was crazy for being so attracted to her, but, hell, some male spiders willingly let their mates chew their heads off while they are going at it, so he figured he was ahead of the game in that respect: Lily hadn’t killed him yet.

He wanted to know what made her tick, what made her laugh. Yeah, he definitely wanted her to laugh. She looked as if she hadn’t had much fun lately, and a person should always have something to enjoy. He wanted her to relax and drop her guard around him, laugh and tease, make jokes, make love. He’d seen flashes of a dry sense of humor, and he wanted more.

He was well on his way to being obsessed, no doubt about it He might lose his head yet, and die happy.

A gentleman wouldn’t plan the seduction of a woman he’d been sent to take down, but he’d never been a gentleman. He’d grown up a rowdy west Texas shit-kicker, refused to listen to adults who knew better and married Amy when they were both eighteen and fresh out of high school, was a father at nineteen, but he’d never quite got the hang of settling down. He’d never cheated on Amy, because she was a great girl, but he hadn’t exactly been there for her, either. Now that he was older, he was more responsible and felt ashamed of how he’d basically left her to raise their two kids by herself. The best he could say for himself was that he’d supported his family, even after the divorce.

Over the years he’d traveled a lot, become more sophisticated, but good manners and knowing how to order off a menu in three different languages didn’t make a gentleman. He was still rowdy, he still didn’t like rules, and he did like Lily Mansfield. He hadn’t often met women who could hold their own with him, but Lily could; her personality was as forceful as his. She decided what she was going to do and did it, come hell or high water. She had a steel backbone, but at the same time she had a real feminine warmth and tenderness. Finding out everything about her would take a man a lifetime. He didn’t have a lifetime, but he’d take what he could get. He was beginning to think that a few days with Lily would pack more of a punch than ten years with any other woman.

The big question was: What would he do afterward?

Blanc tensed when his phone rang early the next morning. “Who could that be?” his wife asked, annoyed that their breakfast was interrupted.

“It will be the office,” he said, and got up to take the phone outside. He punched the
talk
button and said, “This is Blanc.”

“Monsieur Blanc.” The voice was smooth and calm, one he had never heard before. “I am Damone Nervi. Do you have the number my brother requested?”

“No names,” Blanc said.