Out of Control (38 page)
He’d probably kissed her because he knew she’d obsess about it. No doubt he’d figured it would keep her occupied until he got back.
Savannah opened Rose’s book to a chapter in the middle, determined not to think about Kenny Karmody for at least the next fifteen minutes.
Okay, five minutes. She’d start small.
“I need to borrow some money.”
“Of course.” Evelyn Fielding set down her cup of tea and reached for her pocketbook.
“No, Evelyn.” I stopped her with a hand upon her arm. “I need to borrow eight thousand dollars. I can’t tell you why. And it might take me years—decades—before I can pay you back.”
She laughed, but her eyes were dead serious. “Well, when you put it that way, how could I possibly refuse? Can I write you a check?”
She was going to lend me the money! Elation didn’t keep me from being cautious. “No, you better not.” In case something went wrong, I didn’t want my name showing up on one of Evelyn’s bank checks. “Thank you so much.”
“I’ll get you the cash right now if you want to take a ride to the bank.”
I nodded. “Please.”
We gathered up our coats and she didn’t say another word until we were in a taxi and heading across town.
Then she turned to me and said, “If you’re in some kind of trouble, Rose, I might be able to help. And if you don’t want to talk to me, there’s always Jon—”
“I know.”
“He told me you’ve asked for the next two weeks off—emergency medical leave.”
The words hung between us. She knew that was the code we used when I had to give one hundred percent of my attention to my FBI job.
“Yes,” I finally said. I coughed and tried to make it sound good.
Evelyn laughed softly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
The taxi pulled up in front of her bank, and she got out. “Wait here,” she ordered us both—the driver and me.
I hoped I knew what I was doing, too.
I’d gone to the FBI early that same morning and announced that I’d been contacted by someone I’d met while in Berlin. That got me in to see not just my immediate superior, Anson Faulkner, but his bosses, and their bosses, too.
They brought me coffee, and, still dressed in my evening gown, I told them that this man was a high-level Nazi, and that if he so much as suspected he was being investigated, he’d vanish. But he wouldn’t suspect me. I told them that he thought I was in love with him.
I didn’t tell them he was right.
I sketched out my plan to play along, to gain access to his room and his personal papers, to meet everyone he talked to and find out who was working for him. I told Anson and the others that I didn’t just want to bring this man down, I wanted to take out his entire network of spies.
They seemed to think this was a good idea, but they weren’t so keen that I should be the one to do it.
I tried to convince them otherwise. I told them all I would need to pull this off was some of that money I’d given back to the war effort. I told them I wanted eight thousand dollars to make this man believe that I’d been working for the Nazis for years.
They didn’t like that very much at all.
It was then that I told them Hank’s name was Dieter Mannheim. That was, of course, a lie, but I was convinced if they knew his real name, they would start following him, he’d become aware of it, and run.
They told me I’d done my part. Now I was to play it safe, to let them run an initial investigation. I was to make myself scarce, to take several weeks off from work, to make it hard for Mannheim to find me.
I demurely agreed. They weren’t going to give me the help that I needed, but despite what I told them, I would go through with my plan. I’d borrow the money from Evelyn.
Before I left the building, Anson Faulkner pulled me aside to say, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t,” I said, and he knew I was lying. He was a young man, and he’d later told me that, at the time, he’d fancied himself more than half in love with me.
“You’re willing to take this Nazi as a lover?” he’d asked. “Because that’s what he’ll expect, Rose.”
I’d looked him in the eye, trying my hardest to be cool as that proverbial cucumber. “There are a lot of people making sacrifices to win this war.”
The door opened and Evelyn climbed back inside the cab. She handed me an envelope. “It’s all there.”
I hugged her. “I’ll pay you back.”
“I know,” she said. “I have faith in you.” She paused. “Are you sure you can’t tell me what this is about?”
I nodded. “I’m sure.” What could I say? I’m about to attempt to pull off the impossible. I’m about to take the biggest risk of my life, to try to win a no-win situation. I don’t have a clue how I’m going to manage this, and I’ve never been so terrified in all of my life. I’ve been alternating between feeling sick to my stomach and wanting to burst into tears. If I tell you what I’m going to do, you’ll try to talk me out of it, and I can’t risk being swayed from this path. “Wish me luck,” I said instead.
“Women make their own good luck,” Evelyn hugged me, too, “by being smart and careful. And unafraid to ask for help. I’m here if you need me. For anything. No questions asked.”
Well, that was it for me. We just sat there then, hugging each other and crying.
I have faith in you.
I realized in that cab that I had faith in me, too. I would do this. I would not back down. I would not quit.
I would not fail.
I hoped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twelve
The three men in camouflage gear took forever, but finally made their way back to a camp where about eight other men were gathered.
Ken watched from the cover of the jungle as his three guys checked in and gave some kind of report to a man who was wearing a black beret. A frickin’ wool beret in this heat.
He didn’t even come close to speaking their language, but he listened to the tone of their voices and read their body language. His guys didn’t have any good news for Beret, who was clearly their boss. Beret wasn’t happy, but he sent them over to another man who gave them something to eat from a pack.
Holy shit, they actually had U.S. issued MRE’s—Meals, Ready to Eat, food rations given out to soldiers during times of war or conflict.
Ken’s stomach rumbled. Imagine that. He actually longed for an MRE.
Beret paced, hands behind his back, deep in thought, as Ken checked out the rest of the camp. It was a temporary resting place, that much was obvious. There was a single tent—for Beret, no doubt. The rest of the men slept in the open. There was no fire lit, and no sign that there had been one last night, either. Obviously these guys didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves.
There were at least two guards hiding in the brush, watching the camp’s perimeter. Ken had spotted them right away, and it had been ridiculously easy to keep them from seeing him. He suspected there were at least two others, maybe more, on the opposite side of the camp.
Beret had the military leader walk down pat. He paced back and forth with just the right amount of revolutionary swagger. But his troops left something to be desired. They wore the right clothes and carried big weapons, but clothes and arms didn’t an army make.
Whoever they were, they weren’t the ABRI, the Indonesian armed forces. They had no flags, no identifying insignia of any kind. When Ken had first started following them, he’d guessed they were part of some rival gun runner’s staff. Or maybe hired guns brought in by the men in the helo.
But Beret didn’t have the look of a man who was in this for the money. This group was political or maybe religious. Or both.
Ken wished he were wrong. He could handle gun and drug runners scampering around the jungle. He understood their bottom line: money, revenge, power. He could predict their response in most situations. But religious or political zealots weren’t quite so easy to second guess. They were often willing or even eager to die for their cause.
As Ken moved even closer, he saw that these men had had some training of some kind. But that almost made them even more ineffective than people with no training at all. These soldiers thought they were hot shit. They thought they had things under control. And maybe, if their targets were civilians, they did. But pit ’em against the SEALs or the guys from Delta . . .
They made the same mistake that people who had guards with big weapons stationed around the perimeter of their camp usually made. They assumed that as long as they weren’t on guard duty, they could relax. Close their eyes. Drowse in the afternoon heat.
Because of this, Ken waltzed right up to the bag with the MRE’s and helped himself to about a half a dozen of the packets and a canteen filled with some kind of liquid before blending silently back into the underbrush.
He could have taken a uniform shirt, too, but he suspected that might be missed. He didn’t want to tip these guys off to the fact that he was out here.
It was then that Beret stopped pacing and gave an order, and the camp came to life. They were moving out.
Ken got ready to follow, taking the opportunity to chow down on one of the packets labeled “chicken with vegetables.” Not his favorite, but he was hungry enough to love every gooey, body temperature mouthful.
As he ate, he thought about Savannah, waiting for him back in the blind. He’d already been gone for hours. Even without having to trail the three very slow tangos, even moving at his own top speed, it would take him close to three hours to get back to her. She was probably already worrying about him, probably starting to wonder if he’d decided to take her suggestion and leave her behind.
Shit.
It pissed him off that she still kept bringing that up as a possibility. What did he have to do to prove to her that he wasn’t going to ditch her?
He had to start by coming back. Preferably before the sun went down. And then maybe in a few days—by the time he got her to safety—she’d finally realize he’d meant what he’d said about not leaving.
But right now he wanted to see where these guys were going. It would be smart if he could at least get a sense of the direction they were heading, smarter yet if he could find out where they came from and what the chances were that there’d be more of ’em creeping around this part of the jungle.
Still, he kept imagining Savannah, alone in that blind as the sun started to set.
Worse yet, he imagined her assuming he wasn’t coming back and striking out on her own.
Jesus, he had to get back there right away before she did that.
Ken was out of there and halfway down the hillside before he stopped and forced himself to take a deep breath and think this through.
He was doing the very thing to Savannah that pissed him off so much when she did it to him. Just as he’d promised her he’d come back—it might take a while, but he’d definitely return—Savannah had promised him that she’d stay in the blind. And as long as she was hidden there, she was safe.
So why was he rushing back?
Because he didn’t trust that she’d do as she’d promised.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If he wanted her to trust him, he had to start by trusting her.
Ken headed back toward Beret and his camp, and when they finally moved out, he followed.
Molly went back into her tent after lunch, and Grady—Jones—was still asleep on her bed.
He’d brought her Double Agent, and it lay beside him. He must’ve been reading it before he fell asleep; his finger was still marking his place.
She let herself look at him—her lover.
In a few hours, just before sunset, she would go to his camp, and they would make love again. All evening and into the night. She couldn’t wait—she ached for the day to end.
Lucky Jones—he was sleeping it away.
She loved his eyes, she realized, as she gazed down at his face. As he slept, he looked so peaceful, so young and pure with those eyes closed, his eyelashes thick and dark against his cheeks. He was exceptionally handsome, with a mouth that looked decadently good no matter if it were arranged in a grim line, or stretched into a full grin, or relaxed in sleep. His chin was sheer perfection, and he’d shaved it again this morning.
For her.
Molly reached out to touch the smoothness of his face, just lightly, and he moved, reaching up to grab her wrist with one hand.
Just like that, he was awake, eyes open and completely alert, gazing up at her.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, losing herself for a moment in the midnight of his eyes. He was gorgeous when asleep, but when he was awake and looking at her with those incredible eyes . . . He had the power to make her heart pound.
“What time is it?” he asked, his voice rough from sleep.
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