Secure Target (Elite Operators) (4 page)

She didn’t like the sound of this, but she supposed since the other tactic hadn’t worked, she wasn’t in a great position to object. “Which is?”

“Tomorrow, Miss Cross, you will be a lady about town.” Thando grinned. “Lots of public places, lots of opportunities for us to spot him.”

“You’re going to use me as bait.”

This seemed like a terrible idea, and she suddenly wondered if these two weren’t exactly the international policing elites they seemed to think they were.

Bronnik had dropped onto the bed, and now he interjected, “More accurately, tomorrow we’re using me as bait. Remember, Hardy won’t want to hurt you until Thursday, but he’d love to have a pop at me. So we’ll give him his chance.”

She looked from one to the other, not at all reassured. Finally she sighed. “I suppose I don’t have much say in the matter, do I?”

Thando shook his head earnestly. “That’s not true at all. We have no legal authority to hold you. Although we’d strongly advise against it, if you want to go home, you can leave at any time.”

Lacey stared at the nondescript hotel carpet, deep in thought. She had two options. If she went home, she might be fine. This could all be a big misunderstanding, these men with their strange accents and odd police badges would realize they’d got the wrong woman, and Dana would shake her head incredulously as Lacey recounted the whole bizarre story during a quiet moment at the reception desk.

Equally, there seemed to be a strong chance that going home could mean she would be brutally murdered in just two days’ time.

If she stayed with the police, the same might happen, true. But these detectives seemed convincingly knowledgeable about the killer, and maybe they could stop him. Detective Harris had seemed to trust these men. She supposed she had to, as well.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s try it your way.”

Thando smiled warmly, but behind him Bronnik nodded as if that was the inevitable conclusion. For some reason she found this incredibly annoying.

“So what do we do tonight, then?”

Thando shrugged. “Whatever you want. It’s about six o’clock now—we could order dinner when you’re ready.”

Something occurred to her. “Is there a gym in this hotel?”

Thando nodded. Bronnik frowned—he was definitely the bad cop.

“I’d like to go for a run on the treadmill before dinner, if that’s okay. I think it would help me clear my head.”

“Ah, you two have something in common,” Thando remarked merrily. He pointed his thumb at Bronnik. “Mr. Triathlete over here is mad for his running.”

“Oh really?” But she wasn’t particularly surprised. Bronnik had the sort of lean muscularity that came from endurance sports, not the weights section of the gym.

“I’ll get changed and come with you.” He didn’t look too excited at the prospect, but his swift move into the adjoining room offered no room for argument.

“Just don’t try to race him,” Thando warned. “He’s a sore loser.”

Lacey wasn’t particularly tall—maybe about five-five, Bronnik estimated—but when she emerged from the bathroom in her running shorts, he suspected at least half of that must be leg. With her thick, shiny hair pulled up high and a tight tank top completing the outfit, he briefly wished Hardy would choose a victim who was less likely to give him inappropriate dreams.

“Let’s go,” he said gruffly, preceding Lacey into the corridor. The Beretta was strapped to the inside of the windbreaker he’d worn over his T-shirt, and he touched it lightly as he checked the hallway.

“We’ll take the back stairs.” He put his hand on her elbow, moving in near enough that her hip brushed his thigh. Keeping her close to his side was an essential safety measure, but he found the intoxicating, fruity scent of her shampoo irritatingly distracting.

When they turned a corner in the hallway, a stout, older woman in a blouse and long skirt came trudging toward them. Bronnik slid his left arm across Lacey’s back, pulling her tightly against him. His right hand tensed in readiness to draw his weapon as they approached the woman, at whom he smiled broadly.

She returned his smile and continued past them.

“What are you doing?” Lacey whispered hotly, wriggling at his side. Satisfied there was no threat, he let her go.

“Hardy loves a disguise. In Italy he dressed as an office cleaning woman.”

Lacey’s expression was indignant. “I could feel your
gun
,” she spat.

“My apologies,” he replied dryly. “Next time just let me know which weapon you’d prefer I use to defend you against a serial killer. I could ask the front desk for a free toothbrush?”

Lacey crossed her arms sulkily, which he chose to ignore.

The hotel’s fitness center was a small room at the top of the tall building, with a handful of cardio machines and a single rack of weights. One wall was composed of floor-to-ceiling windows, which the treadmills faced, however the view was only of the roof of the low-rise strip mall across the street.

Lacey hopped on one of the treadmills and plugged in her earphones. Within seconds she’d cranked the machine up to a speed he had to admit was impressive, and he could just make out the sound of the music pumping from her iPod.

Bronnik slipped off his windbreaker and arranged it on the treadmill’s control panel so the Beretta was concealed by the jacket, but its butt emerged slightly into easy reach. The gym was empty, and the combination of the darkness outside and the fluorescent lighting inside gave the window in front of him a degree of reflection, so he could see if anyone came in the door behind them.

As satisfied as he was going to be, he punched a brisk speed into the machine and began to jog. Although the doctor had cleared him to return to exercise two months earlier, he still felt a slight tugging at the scar on his left side. He cursed inwardly—it seemed like there was no aspect of his life Hardy wasn’t intent on screwing up.

He rolled his shoulders, willing himself to loosen up, to step away from the tension and paranoia for just a minute. He thought about the ocean-side path where he ran in Cape Town, a strip of pavement between the road and the sea. Luxury sea-view high-rise apartment buildings lined the far side of the road, but on the path there was only a railing between the sidewalk and the rocky coast. Outside the snow had finally stopped falling, and he focused on remembering the salty sea air that often gusted over that railing. Waves crashing against the rocks, flocks of birds alighting from the scrubby trees, the muted tap of his footfalls in the early hours of the morning, the hours when all of the crime and violence that marred his beloved homeland weren’t yet his responsibility, and he was free to run, to revel in the raw, unapologetic beauty of South Africa.

He was so consumed by his thoughts, he almost didn’t notice the slight movement on the roof of one of the stores in the strip mall—but just as on his morning runs, on some level he was always alert to danger. He squinted into the darkness, one hand resting on his weapon, when the glint of metal in the dim light of a distant streetlight set alarm bells clanging through his mind.

“Down, down!” he shouted, and tackled Lacey to the floor just as the bullet hit the window.

Chapter Three

The force of the impact knocked the air right out of Lacey’s lungs, and she gasped like a beached fish for a few seconds before she managed to drag in a ragged breath.

The hard, warm heft of Bronnik’s body pressed hers to the floor, shielding her from the shards of glass that rained over them. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she knew it was very bad, and she was more afraid than she’d ever imagined she could be. She pushed her face into his collarbone, barely choking back a whimper.

It seemed like the sound of glass hitting the floor went on for an hour, but it must have only been seconds. He raised himself on his arms and looked down at her.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. There was so much adrenaline pumping through her veins that she felt dizzy with it. Bronnik’s legs were entwined with hers, and she could feel the soft hair on his calves, the solidity of his thighs. His gaze was intent but calm, and her heartbeat slowed as his body seemed to transmit strength directly into hers. His face was so close, she could see the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth—the mouth she had a sudden and almost overpowering impulse to kiss.

The door to the fitness center banged open. Thando burst in, aiming his gun at the windowed wall. “Come on, let’s go, move!”

Bronnik rolled off her, uttering a heated string of what she assumed were Afrikaans profanities. Clutching his weapon in one hand, he pulled her to her feet with the other and tucked her under his arm as he had done earlier—only this time she was grateful rather than offended.

They raced back to the room, and Thando stood at the door while Bronnik scrambled through the two rooms, collecting their bags.

The older man took half of them from his partner’s hands, slinging the bags over his shoulder as he nodded toward the stairwell. “Back exit.”

Bronnik nodded, and they took off down the hallway. It was a long way down seven flights of stairs, and her knees shook with exertion and fear. As they turned the corner to the third floor she stumbled, her sweaty palm sliding off the handrail as she tried to catch herself. Just as she felt her ankle begin to twist painfully beneath her, Bronnik’s arm was around her waist, yanking her upright.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there. Hang on to me if it’ll help.” His voice was gentle, and he extended his arm with the most genuine smile she’d seen on him yet.

We’re being shot at and he smiles
, she marveled, but wrapped her hand around his forearm and let him support her down the rest of the stairs.

When they reached the emergency exit at the back of the hotel Thando stepped outside first, giving the parking lot a once-over with his weapon raised.

Bronnik watched him closely, and when his partner glanced back at them he bent toward Lacey as though he’d been waiting for a signal.

“Here’s the plan,” he said in a tone so unbelievably reasonable, he might as well have been itemizing the weekly grocery list. “We’re going to run to the cars. Stay close to Thando, as though you’re going to ride with him. At the last minute, you slide into the backseat of the car I’m driving, and lie flat there. That way if Hardy manages to follow us, he won’t be sure which car you’re in. Sound okay?”

She was sure her jaw must be close to scraping the asphalt. “I guess so?”

“Right, off you go,” he urged, positioning himself behind her. Without warning Thando took off across the parking lot, tearing through the snow despite being shod in leather loafers. Lacey gathered her last knot of energy and sprinted after him, running like her life depended on it.

Which she supposed it did.

She heard Bronnik’s tread behind her, and then another shot cracked through the stillness of the parking lot. She froze, paralyzed with fear and uncertainty as the very last of her illusions—that this was all a mistake, that falling ice broke the gym window, that there couldn’t possibly be a lethally elusive serial killer intent on murdering a nobody receptionist from Kansas—slipped from her grasp and fell a long, long way before they shattered.

“Keep going,” Bronnik called, and she burst back into motion with the breathless terror of jolting awake from a nightmare. Ahead of her Thando had reached a car, and it was only then that she’d realized Bronnik must have parked his—an absolutely identical white sedan—next to Thando’s when they arrived at the hotel. As instructed, she ducked between the two cars, and even went so far as to open and shut the back door of Thando’s car. After another second Bronnik threw himself into the driver’s side of his own car, and with as little motion as she could manage she cracked the back door and slid onto the seat, lying facedown.

Both cars roared to life and sped out of the parking lot just as a third shot echoed across the snow-blanketed pavement.

Within seconds a stream of wailing patrol cars poured down the road, passing them en route to the hotel. Bronnik’s driving normalized, and Lacey assumed he was confident that there was no chance for Hardy to catch up.

“You all right back there?”

She pressed her forehead against the cloth seat and considered her answer. With her face in the upholstery she caught the trademark scents of a rental car—cleaning products, cheap air freshener and a never-quite-banished whiff of cigarette smoke. She closed her eyes.

“I feel sick.”

“You’ll be fine.” His tone was reassuring, but every time he said something like that she found she believed him a little bit less. “We’ll drive around town for a while and make sure we can’t be followed. Thando’s doing the same, and I imagine your friend Detective Harris will be on his way to the hotel to clean up that particular mess. We had a second hotel booked, so we’ll meet there eventually.”

He paused. “Nice work with the doors back there,” he offered after a thoughtful second, the respect plain in his voice. “Excellent diversionary instincts.”

“Thanks, I guess. Look, Bronnik, I’m going to be straight with you.” She raised herself slightly on her elbows. “I don’t think this marriage is working out.”

He laughed, and it was surprisingly light and boyish for such a serious man. “Just newlywed growing pains. I’ll pay for counseling.”