Operation Sheba (22 page)

“Not that there was anything wrong with that,” he backpedaled. “I’ve always respected your opinions and appreciated the assertive way you’ve shared them with me.”

A small laugh escaped from her throat. She studied him critically for a minute as he picked up the bar of soap and began washing himself. “I still don’t really understand why you left me out of the loop,” she said. “If I’d known what was going on, I would have never gotten involved with Michael. I wouldn’t have hurt him like this. I wouldn’t have spent all these months trying to get over you. Don’t you feel the least bit guilty for all of that?”

Julia didn’t want logical arguments this time around and somehow Con understood this. He shrugged and began rinsing. “Maybe I screwed up.”

Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “My God, did you just admit to being wrong?”

Conrad grimaced.
Wrong
was an inflexible word. A word he hated when applied to him. Admitting he was wrong was like admitting he was weak, and he had little tolerance for weakness. “Not wrong, exactly. I probably could have made better choices in how I handled the situation, but—”

“Ugh!” She took the soap from him and started washing herself. “You are such a…” Her lips moved as she tried to think of a name bad enough to describe him. “Man! Why can’t you admit you were wrong? Just once? You shouldn’t have left me in the dark about the shadow CIA or the fact my cover was blown, and you know it. That was the most stupid, idiotic, asinine thing you’ve ever done, Flynn. I ought to shoot your balls off.”

Conrad Flynn had been shot, knifed, beaten up and tortured to the brink of insanity. He’d taken the worst the world could hand him and used it to make himself stronger. But SEAL training and hunting terrorists from Britain to Indonesia had nothing on facing down Julia Torrison with a bad attitude, gun or no gun. He felt his precious jewels tuck themselves a little tighter into his body. “Crippling me in such a fashion would only give you short-term satisfaction.”

She dropped her gaze to his lower half and quirked her head to the side. “Oh, well.” She pursed her lips and casually waved the bar of Dial at his genitals. “I don’t have much to live for these days. Short-term satisfaction sounds pretty good.”

She was bluffing, but he enjoyed it. She’d had a really tough day, had to be exhausted and still she was making jokes and trying to take
his
mind off the mess they were in. He smiled at her. “I can think of more enjoyable ways to achieve short-term satisfaction with my…” he searched for a euphemistic term, “…equipment.”

Julia let several antagonizing moments pass before she spoke. “And, again, I repeat, you are such a man.” But she smiled at him and handed him the soap.

She did not however ask him for any satisfaction. As she finished washing herself, time stopped and started like a mouse moving through a snake and it became clear to Conrad, as the two of them moved through the common daily chore of showering, why he felt like he was losing his edge. It wasn’t age or frustration level or job burnout. He had felt he was losing it because he had thought he’d lost the one person in the world, besides his mother, who believed in him and his cause. His brothers thought he was crazy. His father had always been disappointed in him for not following in his footsteps and making the Navy his career. His previous girlfriends had found his hyperawareness, paranoia and long stints out of town too hard to handle.

The hell of it was, losing Julia had been his own fault. She was right—he had set her on this course, pushed her into a major clusterfuck of espionage and betrayal, robbed her of her identity and a normal life with someone she loved. He’d taken away her royal flush and dealt her a pair of twos.

It’s not about the cards you’re dealt
, Conrad reminded himself,
it’s about the people you play with
.

Now she was his again and, as he watched her step out of the shower and dry off, he fought his own demons. He wanted her back in the shower with him, wanted her body slamming into his, but she was vulnerable right now and smarting after the long day, and he knew if she wanted to have sex, she would have jumped him already. He would be patient. He would be on his best behavior.

On his top ten least-favorite-things-to-do list, behaving himself ranked right up there with listening to opera and playing dead.

After a return to trip to the laundry room to retrieve their clothes from the dryer, Conrad found the bedroom adjacent to the bathroom and turned on the bedside lamp. Dropping the towel from around his waist, he laid his gun on the bedside table and pulled on his briefs. His cell phone was still downstairs and needed a recharge, but the thought of one more trip down and up was enough to make him groan. However, he was still waiting to hear from Smitty. So he made the run to the kitchen to retrieve the phone and brought it and Julia’s upstairs with him. In his rush to rescue Sheba, he’d forgotten his charger. He checked the phone for messages, but found nothing. Either Ryan was still talking to Stone or Con’s half-dead cell phone didn’t like his choice of sleeping quarters. This area in West Virginia bordered the outer limits of tower range and was dotted with dead zones.

After propping himself on the bed in a half-sitting position, he rested his head in the crook of one arm and laid his gun on his stomach. A minute later, Julia came in with the Chivas and their shot glasses. She pulled on her shirt and underwear and climbed into bed next to him, pouring them both a round before setting the bottle on the floor. He tossed the whiskey into his mouth and let his thoughts drift.

Susan Richmond. Cari Von Motz. Michael Stone. Classified documents. Senator King.

But his mind kept turning in ever-tightening circles around the woman next to him. The way she’d outwitted Susan and defended herself against Raines. The way her body had moved against his two nights ago. Julia, wet and smiling, a few minutes ago, warm water and lots of soap mixed with her firm legs and…

And the combination of whiskey and exhaustion coupled with thoughts of her naked under the pouring water pushed his libido into overdrive.

He chanced a glance at her out of the corner of his eyes. Her head was on the pillow, her eyes closed. Goddamn, behaving was hell. He wasn’t going to make it if he kept entertaining soap-and-water fantasies about her. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he shut down his libido by running his mental exercise of cleaning his gun. Within seconds, he was asleep.

He woke some time later to find his gun on the nightstand and Julia curled next to him on the bed. Instinctively he reached for her and pulled her body to his. She spooned into him naturally and he smoothed her still wet hair with his hand, breathed in her clean scent and relaxed for the first time in months.

She’s mine
, he thought before drifting back to sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Senator King is here, sir.”

“Good,” Michael said. “Send him in.”

Titus pointed at a sleeping Pongo. “King doesn’t like dogs.”

Michael rose from his chair as Brad backed out of the room. “I’ll kennel him.”

“Hell of a night for a dog to be outside.”

“Hell of a night, period.” Michael found himself hoping Julia had found a safe, dry refuge somewhere. He refused to think about her with Flynn. Rousing Pongo from his dog bed, he said, “Come on, boy.”

A few minutes later, Titus and Michael shook hands with Senator King and Michael invited him to sit on the couch. Titus set him and King up with martinis, Michael declined.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you here,” Titus said.

King nodded and took a sip of his drink. “I assumed it was something important to call me out on a night like this.”

Titus smiled at him and raised his glass in salute. “Daniel, this may be the most important night of your life. Yes”—he glanced at Michael—“I’m sure tonight will change everything for all of us.”

Lightning cracked and twenty yards from where Fayez Raissi lay, one of his men cut the electrical power wire at the pole.

Michael Stone’s house went dark.

The security officer at the gate stepped to the door of the small guard house, cigarette in hand, looking at the main house. Raissi took his time, lined the man’s head in the sights of his scope and squeezed the trigger. He continued to watch through the scope as the man’s head snapped back and his body went limp, falling to the floor of the guard house.

With calm movements, Raissi sat up, removed the scope from his weapon and gave a nod to the young man at his side. Muammar sent the word to the others stationed around the house. Inside the Director of Operations was entertaining the CIA’s top man, Titus Allen. It was supposed to be a secret meeting, but what they were discussing was no secret to Raissi, although he didn’t care what had brought them together that night. Senator Daniel King had just arrived to join them, and Susan’s directive had been clear. No survivors were to leave the house.

Raissi moved the rifle to his back and snapped night-vision goggles over his eyes. For a moment, he enjoyed the feel of the cool rain on his face. The last rain he would feel.

Thunder boomed overhead and Muammar flinched. One of Raissi’s team was already at the guard house, removing the body and donning the dead man’s clothes. The terrorist would replace the guard for tonight. Tomorrow they would all die inside with the hostages.

Raissi motioned to Muammar and the two set off toward the house, melting into the darkness.

A peal of thunder shook the dark house.

“Damn weather,” Titus swore under his breath. “Florida was the same. Storms, rain, wind. A man can’t even have a decent vacation anymore.”

Senator King chuckled, but it had a nervous edge to it. “Weather’s been pretty good here the past few days, Titus, except for a minor storm the other night. I’ve been out golfing every day. You must have brought this rain back with you.”

Letting his vision adjust to the darkness, Michael glanced at the video monitor. He hadn’t been paying attention to it since Allen arrived with his squadron of security people. Now he felt a twinge of anxiety. The battery backup hummed to life and the screen showing the four quadrants around the house flickered. Everything looked normal. The guard was in the guard house, the grounds were empty. “I lose power once in awhile during storms.” He moved toward the office’s French doors. “Generator’s in the basement. I’ll have the lights back on in a minute.”

Michael and Titus’s security details were alert outside the doors. “Director?” Brad said as Michael emerged from the room. He and Tad Carmichael, Titus’s favorite security officer, had been instructed not to interrupt the meeting for anything short of a nuclear explosion. The two other members of Titus’s group were stationed at the front and back doors.

Michael grabbed a flashlight out of the antique buffet in the hall. “Storm’s knocked out the power. I’m headed to the basement to turn on the generator. Let the other officers know so they don’t panic and shoot each other or me.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad answered, and Michael heard the screech of the man’s radio behind him as he made his way to the basement stairs.

“Is anyone watching your cameras, sir?” Carmichael called after him.

“The monitor’s in the office. Keep an eye on it until I get back.”

Michael automatically reached for the basement’s light switch and then cursed himself down the carpeted stairs for forgetting. He found the generator, hardwired into the house’s main electrical current, and flipped the switch. The engine buzzed to life. Light came on at the top of the stairs.

Before he could take a step toward those stairs, he heard what sounded like a shout, then running footsteps. Instinctively, he crouched and stared at the basement’s ceiling, his ears on alert. Something was wrong.

After his years in the military and the following time with the CIA, Michael was comfortable carrying a gun whenever he left his house. Inside it though, he left his favorite handgun in the gun safe in his office along with his hunting rifles that had barely seen use in the past five years. He had never felt the need to be armed inside his home. At that moment, however, he would have given anything to have his favorite S&W in his hand.

Still straining his ears, he flexed his hand on the Maglite he was carrying and crept on silent feet to the bottom of the stairs. The generator was buzzing along off to his right and he wondered if he dared turn it back off. He heard another loud voice—not familiar—and all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A man rushed past the landing above him and Michael drew back into the shadowed basement just as he heard three shots fired succinctly.

His pulse double-timing it, he hit the generator’s switch, throwing the house into darkness again. Commotion over his head followed and then ceased. Silence enveloped him.

A minute later, a man’s voice called to him from the top of the stairs. “Michael Stone.” A Middle Eastern accent laced the syllables of Michael’s name. “CIA Director of Operations. Am I correct?”

Michael didn’t answer, his brain trying to figure out who had invaded his home and why.

The man tried again. “We have much work to do tonight, Director. Please come upstairs.”

Michael stayed quiet.

The man disappeared. Michael wondered who the man was, what he was doing there and who was dead.

“Director Stone.” The man was back. “I am holding a gun to your security agent’s head. If you do not show yourself in the next five seconds, I will kill him.”

Feeling like Tom Clancy’s character Jack Ryan in
Air Force One
, Michael quickly and damnably considered his options. Stay hidden, which might be Titus and King’s only chance of surviving, but killing his security guard, or giving himself up and, in the process, screwing them all over.

The logical answer was to stay hidden. Make the man at the head of the stairs come down to the dark basement and get him. But would the man stop at Brad? Were King and Allen already dead?

Michael knew the man at the top of the stairs meant business. Three people, probably the security guards at the doors and Tad, were already dead and Michael assumed the man was taking the DCI, a well-known senator and himself hostage. The terrorist was not a person to challenge, and Brad’s life would not be the only life forfeited if Michael forced his hand.

In good conscious, Michael could not let the security guard die for him. Not when there was a slim chance he could save them all.

Ryan Smith was on his way. His unexpected arrival could give Michael and the others the slim chance they needed.

“I’m coming out,” Michael announced clearly.

“Turn on your generator first,” the man instructed.

Michael flipped the switch and climbed the stairs with the flashlight stuck down his pants.