License to Thrill (7 page)

“Excuse me—is this seat taken?”

Jo jumped, startled, at the sound of the deep, sexy, Italian-inflected voice. Her heart raced and her breath grew shallow as she looked up from her sandwich into the black, black eyes of her fellow translator Antonio. While he smiled down at her over his lunch tray, she soaked in his olive skin and glossy, curly hair.

“Uh, um, yeah—I mean, no, it's not taken,” she blurted, blushing slightly. Antonio wanted to sit with her! This was
definitely
enough to jump-start her afternoon.

“Thanks, Natascia,” he said, sliding into the adjacent folding chair and tossing his silk paisley tie over his shoulder. “I couldn't ask for a prettier lunch partner.”

Jo smiled. “Why, thanks. I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Only to translators with supermodel looks,” he said, fixing her with an intense gaze before biting into his sandwich. Roast beef, double stuffed.

“Speaking of supermodels,” Jo began, “what are you
doing translating? With that face you could be on magazine covers from here to Timbuktu.”

He smiled, mesmerizing her with his dimples. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But all that's holding me back from a glamorous life as a supermodel are my studies at Cambridge. International business.”

All those looks—and brains, too! Jo marveled with a silent sigh. “Wow, a Cambridge man—I'm impressed. Do you like translating?”

“Pays the bills.”

“Do you do a lot of translating for the Nicholsons?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Yes, some,” he replied, taking a bite of his salad.

“Which languages?”

“Italian, Spanish, some Portuguese,” he replied, an eyebrow raised. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. You know, I'm new to the job, so I'm interested in what goes on.”

He looked deeply into her eyes. “Well, business is not my favorite subject, especially when I'm in the company of someone as beautiful as you.”

Jo's face made like a candied apple. When she flirted with a scrumptious hottie, it usually didn't affect her like this—not at all. She'd heard lines like Antonio's before, millions of times. But the depth of his gaze gave her a completely unfamiliar sensation. He wasn't playing around, even though his words were. His eyes were compellingly serious.

“Well,” she said, “hate to dine and dash, but I have an important errand, so if you'll excuse me . . .”

She grabbed her tray and bailed before she could fall even deeper under his spell.

•  •  •

Caylin dragged her gear back to the storage closet, groaning all the way. Even though she thrived on all-out physical exertion, exerting herself while
cleaning
was a million times more backbreaking. She'd never felt so sore in her life. Not even the memory of bugging William Nicholson's suite without a hitch could raise her enthusiasm.

“This job really sucks,” she muttered, throwing her bucket in the corner angrily. It knocked over a bunch
of mops that had been leaning precariously against the fuse box.

“Blast it!” Caylin wanted desperately to turn around and leave the mess behind. Of course, if she ended up getting fired, Uncle Sam would be none too pleased. Her next undercover assignment would be mowing the embassy lawn or something.

She picked up the mops and leaned them back up against the fuse box. The door of it was hanging slightly ajar, so she pushed it shut. The problem was, it wouldn't
stay
shut.

Impulsively Caylin opened the fuse box to find out what the problem was. She found a leather-bound date book nestled inside.

“What the . . . ?” She grabbed the date book and began leafing through it quickly. No distinguishing names, places, or phone numbers could be found—not immediately, anyway. She closed it and noticed that the smooth finish of the cover was marred by some sort of indented scribble. Like someone had used it as a table to support a piece of paper as they wrote.

Her curiosity in overdrive, Caylin held up the cover to the light and tried to make out what the scribble read. It was a series of numbers: 2025550162.

“Oh . . . my . . . gosh,” she breathed. She recognized that number. Area code 202, 555-0162. The red line. Tower speak for the number to Uncle Sam's emergency phone.

•  •  •

“You're so lucky, Jo,” Theresa griped in the middle of a crowded pub down the block from the Ritz. “
You
get to work with a cute guy. The closest I got today was taking a call from some weird guy named Albert or Alex or something. He kept calling me Gwenna instead of Emma.”

“Maybe he got you confused with Gwyneth Paltrow, who
played
Emma,” Jo suggested.

“I wish—at least then I'd have kissed Brad Pitt in my lifetime.” Theresa sighed.

“Oh, come on, you get to talk to guys all day long,” Jo teased. “You probably take a hundred calls a day from beautiful people of the male persuasion.”

“Saying, ‘Hello, U.S. Embassy,' isn't exactly what I'd call ‘talking to guys,' ” Theresa said with a laugh. “What kind of
impact am I making on this investigation, anyway?”

“Logging all the calls that come in could be totally crucial to finding the list,” Jo reasoned. “And if Caylin was able to bug the Nicholsons' suites, your log will help us figure out who the calls are from and when they came in.”

“And if Caylin's phone bugs fail, I'll have backup,” Theresa realized. “Hey, speaking of Caylin, where is she? She should have been here fifteen minutes ago.”

“Not in trouble, I hope,” Jo said, biting her lip. “Do you think—”

“There she is!” Theresa waved toward the door, where Caylin had just burst in, her hair mussed and her face flushed.

“Are you all right?” Jo asked, worried.

“I'm great,” Caylin insisted as she took her seat. “You won't
believe
the day I had.” She leaned her head confidentially toward the others. “Not only did I bug the suites,” she whispered, “but . . . I think I found Frank Devaroux's date book.”

“Oh, score!” Jo cheered softly.

Theresa clapped her hand to her mouth. “Where? How?”

Before Caylin could respond, a waitress appeared with a full tray of fish-and-chips.
“
Bon appétit,
” she said, setting the mighty meal on the table.

Caylin leaned back over the plate. “Listen, I'll give you the specs later,” she murmured. “I had to run back to the hotel and stash that baby in the safe ASAP—that's why I'm late.”

“Well, we've got the guy's handwriting samples in the safe, too, so I can run a check on that after dinner,” Theresa suggested.

“Cool. I can't wait,” Caylin said. “I'm so excited, I can hardly eat.” She piled two pieces of fish and a handful of chips on her plate. “But I will, anyway,” she added quickly.

“Okay, the conference is taking place two weeks from next Monday,” Theresa began between bites. “It's the perfect place and time for Jonathon and his flunkies to announce they've got the lethal list—if they find it before we do, that is.”

“Well, now that we've got a real lead, we could have this mission wrapped up by tomorrow,” Jo pointed out.

“That'd be awesome,” Caylin chimed in.

“Not exactly,” Theresa said. “We shouldn't put all our hopes on this. We only have seventeen days until the conference, and we can't waste our time on false leads.” She twirled a strand of hair around her index finger thoughtfully. “Seventeen days. It's not much time when you think about it.”

Caylin gestured with a chip in her hand. “But if the world was made in seven days, we sure can solve this case in seventeen . . . can't we?”

•  •  •

“So Theresa compared the handwriting in the date book to the samples here in the safe, and it checks out,” Caylin relayed to Uncle Sam via videophone. “It's Frank Devaroux's book, definitely.”

“And get this,” Theresa burst in. “At the top of last week's page he scrawled ‘green disc' in big letters. So that probably means the list is stored on a disc somewhere. Was anything found on Devaroux when he was killed?”

“No,” Uncle Sam replied. “If he had been carrying a disc, his killer or killers would have taken it. Obviously they don't have it and are still looking for it.”

“How do you know?” Jo asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, I have big news for you, too, ladies. We picked up a phone conversation this afternoon between Jonathon Nicholson and someone known only as Alfred.”

Theresa's eyes lit up. “Alfred! That's the guy I was talking about earlier—the one who sounded like a weirdo.”

“Your instincts were definitely right,” Uncle Sam said. “Take a listen.”

There was a click, then some static. Then:

“Do you have the disc yet?”

“That's Alfred's voice,” Theresa confirmed. “Totally.”

“Negative.”

“Jonathon Nicholson,” Caylin identified. “No doubt.”

“Any progress?”
Alfred's recorded voice continued.

“I'm trying, but it's hard with everyone around.”

“Well, time is ticking here.”

“I know, I know,”
Jonathon replied, his recorded voice urgent.
“You'll get your disc, I assure you.”

“If I don't, you don't get the two million dollars wired into your account. You have until the conference.”

There was a click, then silence.

After a few seconds Caylin exhaled shakily. “Man, that was—
whoa
.”

“What a slimeball to put the world's safety in jeopardy for a few lousy Benjamins,” Jo spat out in disgust.

“Yeah, and for way less than Jim Carrey gets for one measly movie,” Theresa joked halfheartedly.

Uncle Sam cleared his throat. “Well, Jim Carrey aside, that's all we've got so far.”

“Between this call and the date book, we know that the list is on a disc—and that's major,” Theresa offered.

“And Devaroux probably stashed it somewhere in the embassy, just like he did with the date book,” Caylin suggested.

“Speaking of which,” Uncle Sam began, “you should courier that date book to me immediately.”

“But what if there's more information in it?” Caylin complained.

“If you didn't find more tonight, there probably isn't any more. But I'll have my staff go over it with a fine-tooth comb and report back to you if they find anything. You don't have time to be analyzing that book. Anything else?”

“Tell you what,” Theresa said. “If Alfred calls again, I won't put him through. That way maybe we can stall their operation.”

“Good idea. Anything else?” Uncle Sam asked.

“Tell Uncle Sam about those pics you shot,” Caylin urged Theresa.

“Oh yeah!” Theresa said, hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I totally forgot—I took some pictures with my lipstick cam this morning. They're of this woman who appears to be trailing us. We've seen her two times now, and I have a bad feeling about her.”

“Brown short hair?” he asked.

“Yes—how'd you know?” Theresa asked urgently.

“No reason,” Uncle Sam said, voice smooth as silk. “Send the film along with the date book, and we'll investigate. But in the meantime concentrate first and foremost on finding that disc.”

“But this woman could be the key to finding it,” Theresa persisted.

“As I said, we'll investigate.”

Theresa's brows knitted in confusion. Something very
fishy was going on. Was Uncle Sam aware of Short Hair's identity and withholding information to protect them? Who cares, Theresa thought. All that matters are my instincts. And my instincts tell me this woman is really, really bad news.

“Hey, I heard you were a wild one,” Caylin sang off-key as she made her way to Jonathon's suite Friday morning. She'd been singing all morning, possibly because her whole outlook on cleaning had been changed after her discovery of Devaroux's date book. Today she found herself experiencing a sort of inner peace, as if she'd just had a good aromatherapy massage. But her chakras were quickly unaligned when she was practically knocked over by someone barreling out of the suite.

“Cor blimey!” she exclaimed as she looked up into the nearly unrecognizable face of Jonathon Nicholson. His once friendly smile had been replaced with a nasty scowl. “You almost knocked me over, there,” she finished weakly.

“Well, you should watch where you're going,” Jonathon growled, shooting her an icy glare.

“Looks like some bloke got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Caylin said, her heart pounding anxiously. Deep inside, she was certain his mood had nothing to do with a bad night's sleep. The veins bulging at his temples and the white in the knuckles of his close-fisted hands told her only one thing: that he had found the bugs. Operation On The Rag was a bust, pure and simple.

“I don't have time to talk to the hired help,” he said, his eyes slits.

“What's your bloody problem?” she asked, drop jawed.

“I don't have a problem. Just stay out of my way!” he warned, stomping down the hall.

“Don't worry—I wouldn't want to be within a hundred feet of your rude self,” she muttered. But he was already gone.

She opened the door slowly, holding her ragged breath. With tightly crossed fingers she tiptoed into the bathroom. When she spotted the tiny black bug, she breathed a sigh of relief. She checked for the bugs one by one, only to find each firmly in place.

“What's Jonathon's deal?” she muttered. If he hadn't
found out about the bugs, he must have found out
something.
But what?