Operation Sheba (2 page)

Chapter Two

This early morning run was the least complicated thirty minutes of his typical twelve-to-fourteen-hour day. No ringing phones interrupting his thoughts, no political agendas manipulating his people, no strategic actions, timelines or security briefs to worry about. Most days the run was thirty minutes of unadulterated freedom and he relished every second of it.

This morning, however, his mind was troubled by a piece of information that on the surface appeared to solve a serious problem that had plagued the CIA for months. There was a mole in the Agency, one that had been irritating and choking his human assets in the field for the past year and a half as effectively as the required office dress-code tie irritated and choked his thick neck every day. Now, because of a simple airport security tape from two days ago, the mole’s identity was revealed…at least to those who were looking for an easy solution to cover their own asses if and when a congressional investigation was called.

Turning south, Stone resumed jogging easily along the lake’s edge, his mind stewing about what the day would bring. Once he and Abigail reached the office everything would change between them. The past night he had spent with her was possibly the last. Dread squeezed its fingers around his chest.

Michael Stone was a swift and accurate judge of people because of his uncanny ability to figure out what motivated them. He was rarely wrong and his gut instincts had carried him far. That’s why at thirty-eight, he was one of the youngest Director of Operations the CIA had ever known. He had trusted Julia Torrison from the first moment he met her but had been disappointed with her pairing with Conrad Flynn. Flynn was a cowboy, cocky and reckless and running one step ahead of the devil at every turn. As DO, Michael didn’t like cowboys in his group of spies, but Flynn produced results where others couldn’t.

Unfortunately after his death, Julia had arrived on Michael’s doorstep at Langley a basket case. “Tormented” was the word stamped on his mental file of her the minute she walked in. He knew the devil had finally caught up with Flynn, knew it was the cowboy’s own fault he was dead. But there stood Julia—her long brown hair pinned on top of her head, her beautiful eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and too much crying, her black linen suit outlining her figure perfectly as she crossed the room to shake his hand—blaming herself. Stone had debriefed her, put her through a lie detector and sent her to the company shrink, knowing the whole time she was innocent of everything except being in love with a cowboy. He had set her up with a false identity and taken her under his wing at Langley, never once doubting her intentions or her motives.

However, a shift in his thinking had occurred the previous day the instant he recognized the face on the tape. He didn’t trust easy solutions any more than he trusted rogue agents, but now he had to figure out where Abigail’s loyalties lay. Her reaction to the tape would tell him all he needed to know.

Michael shook his head, frowning as he turned west, away from the lake and back toward his home. He whistled at Pongo and the dog reached his side in seconds, falling into an easy run with his master.

In one swift movement, Julia rolled onto her back, raising her shoulders and gripping the Beretta with both hands. She brought the gun to bear on the shadowed figure in the corner of the room and without hesitation squeezed the trigger twice. The silencer coughed as the bullets were sent speeding across the room toward the man’s head.

A millisecond before her fingers released the bullets, he moved, dropping his upper body to the right and down. The bullets missed him and embedded themselves in the wall as he lunged at the bed.

The edge on Julia’s reaction time was dulled from too many months of sitting in an office. She felt a spurt of fear as she attempted to realign her gun with her assailant, but she wasn’t fast enough. As his body pushed hers back down on the bed, he deflected the gun and pinned her wrists up over her head. His thumbs bore into the center of each wrist, crippling her hands, and the gun dropped to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. She refused to cry out but struggled beneath the weight of his body, kicking at him as best she could. He continued to hold both of her arms over her head, shifting them into his left hand while wrapping his right around her neck.

“You missed.” He chuckled softly in her ear.

Her body went utterly still at the sound of his voice. She drew a sharp breath as her gaze snapped to his. Confusion and then crystal clarity made her swallow hard. He took a deep breath, as though immersing himself in her scent. Releasing his grip of her neck, he stroked her jaw line with the tip of his finger. “Julia,” he murmured, the husky voice caressing her.

Julia held her breath, refusing to blink as she stared at the apparition hanging an inch from her face. Was this another of her horrible dreams? She automatically did a mental inventory of his face—the short dark hair, the eyebrows so soft to the touch, the fringe of dark lashes around his eyes, the straight line of his lips…

“Who are you?”

Another quiet chuckle from him. “The man who would love to kiss you.”

Oh God, those words.
She had brought Conrad to his knees over those words. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her head of the images that flooded her memory, trying to clear the nightmare she was experiencing now. But when she opened her eyes again, the apparition hadn’t disappeared. It was no ghost. The man she was staring at was alive.

Her heart definitely pounding too hard, she whispered, “The price of a kiss is your life.”

He released her arms and gently touched her lips with his. “I’ll gladly pay it.”

Conrad glanced at his watch and back to Julia’s face. Light was seeping into the room, lifting the shadows as the sun rose higher. He had five minutes before Stone would return. The timer on his watch gave him three to clear the house.

Julia’s face was unreadable, her previous pain and shock veiled behind her unwavering gaze. She was sitting on the edge of the bed now, knees drawn up to her chest, hair spilling between her breasts and thighs as she hugged her legs. She was wearing a tight-fitting white T-shirt and a loose pair of men’s boxer briefs that looked vaguely familiar.

Conrad raised an eyebrow. “You’re wearing my underwear?”

“I didn’t think you’d care since you were
dead
. Apparently, I was wrong on all counts. However, if you don’t explain yourself this minute—and it better be one
hell
of an explanation—I will kill you right where you stand.”

“Sheba, you’ve never killed anyone.”

“First time for everything, Solomon.”

He locked eyes with her, his humor fading. “I’ll explain my actions later. I know you’re confused right now, but I need you to trust me. I need your help.”

Her full lips parted to let a bitter laugh escape. “Trust you? Trust is a gray area with you. I don’t work in gray areas anymore. Put it in black and white. I want a clear-cut explanation.” She dropped her legs and sat forward. “Why did you do it? Where have you been? And how in the world did you manage to get into Michael’s house without alerting security?”

He smiled at her interrogation. She always,
always
had more questions than he was willing to answer. Glancing at his watch again, he rose from the chair. “You need to stay at your place tonight.” He reached out to touch her, but let his hand drop to his side when she narrowed her eyes at him. “Expect me sometime after midnight. I’ll explain everything then.” He turned away from her, skirting the bed and heading for the door.

Her voice, barely more than an accusatory whisper, stopped him. “How could you? How could you do this to me?”

He hesitated for a moment as he stood in the doorway. That question he could easily answer.
Because I’m a mean son of a bitch.
Turning to look at her over his shoulder, he said, “This is bigger than you and me, Julia. You know I wouldn’t have left you if it wasn’t.”

He reached inside his black leather jacket and pulled out a slim CD case. “I brought this for you.” He tossed the case on the bed next to her. “Don’t let anyone know you’ve seen me. Especially Stone.”

Julia refused to acknowledge the gift or the demand. She watched Flynn’s back pass through the doorway, and continued to stare at the empty space for several seconds. Her ears strained to hear his retreat from the second floor. There was nothing.
Confused?
That was too mild for what she was feeling.

Hurt, devastated, mad as hell.

Relieved.
He’s alive.

Oh yes, overwhelming relief. Dropping her head into her hands, she began to cry softly. A minute later she ran into the bathroom and retched over the sink.

Chapter Three

He paused at the top of the stairs and listened for the sound of the shower in the master bath. Not hearing it, he continued down the hallway to the bedroom. Maybe Abby was still asleep. A smile touched his lips. Maybe he could slide between the sheets and wake her up before dealing with the reality waiting for both of them.

As he approached the room, his nose picked up a familiar but out-of-place smell over the scent of the coffee. He would have dwelled on it if the sight of the room’s French doors, opened to admit the morning light, hadn’t distracted him. Abby was sitting on the balcony, her back to him, her white shirt accenting the graceful arch of her shoulders above the black wrought-iron chair. Her lime green Sony Walkman laid on the matching glass and iron table, its ear buds lost under her brown hair. Abby and her music. She took it everywhere, usually with her iPod. Running, target practice, in bed at night, her iPod was as much a part of her as her right arm.

Michael paused for a moment at the threshold, enjoying the sight of her relaxing in the open air. He had worked hard to get her there. In his mind, he remembered the first time he’d led her to the balcony.

“Come look at the moonlight reflecting on the hills,” he’d cajoled. It was a beautiful night and he had planned his seduction carefully. She had finally accepted an invitation to his house, but he knew she was only intrigued by that, by him. She was there because he’d been her friend, not because she wanted him as her lover.

“No.” Shying away from him into the shadows of the bedroom, she saw the confusion on his face, and tried to explain. “I would be an easy target.
We
would be an easy target.”

He’d mentally kicked himself for forgetting. Because of her past, she would never walk out on a second-story balcony to simply enjoy the moonlight. Not even in America. Not even with the security guard at the gate, the laser tripwires and motion detectors. And not even with the CIA’s Director of Operations holding her. After what happened to her partner, it could be suicide.

Months later, even after Abby was reading his books, helping herself to his best wine and sharing his bed every night, she still avoided the balcony like a child avoiding an unlit hallway. Only in the past few weeks had she begun sitting outside with him, enjoying coffee and the paper in the fresh spring mornings, a shot of brandy or a quiet dance in the shadows of the Virginia nights. She had finally relaxed into the security of his house and the protectiveness of his arms.

He set the coffee cups down on the table and studied Abigail’s face for a moment in the soft light. Her green eyes were closed, her focus tuned to the music she was listening to. She was pale this morning, and distracted. He couldn’t remember one time in their relationship he’d entered a room without her knowledge.

He quietly slid a cup toward her and laid the
Post
next to it. Almost absently he noticed her bare arm under the glass top, her gun hanging loosely from her hand. His eyes did a double take. Snapping his head up, he stared past the open French doors and into his bedroom.

The smell. Abigail had fired her gun.

Julia knew the song Conrad had circled by heart. A year ago, she had listened to Sting’s
A Thousand Years
echo inside her head long after she had taken the headphones off and thrown the CD in the trash.

In many ways, Julia was a prisoner of her mind. She had always been absorbed by thought. Analyzing details most people overlooked. The idiosyncrasy made her crazy sometimes—mystery novels, Clue, any Who Done It puzzle, was solved in a matter of minutes—but it also made her great at her job, whether behind a desk or in the field. She was good at troubleshooting, good at finding a common link and putting the pieces together. Good at figuring out who the bad guys were and more importantly how to nail them. She loved her job and had never sat back and watched the world go by.

But once in awhile, she needed to escape her left brain and enjoy her right. Music was the key in the lock that opened the door and freed her from overanalyzing everything—normal things other people didn’t worry about.

She had ached for Conrad in the days and months after the explosion. She had begged the powers that existed to bring him back. Offered her soul to any devil who could raise him from the dead.
Just let me watch him sleep again. Hear him laugh. See his eyes peek at me over a hand of cards. Please.

Wish granted. Conrad Flynn was alive. But he had betrayed her. Not a simple lie or a regrettable indiscretion. Those things she could forgive. No, Conrad’s betrayal had sent her to hell.

And now Michael was sitting three feet away. She’d felt the slight tremor of the balcony as he’d approached the table and sat down. Keeping her eyes closed, she wondered how she could face him. The man who had reached down into hell and pulled her out. The man who had created a safe, relatively normal world for her. Michael’s world. Comfortable and predictable, it was a fairytale world that offered vestiges of hope.

Under Julia’s closed lids, Michael’s face blurred into Con’s.