The Mercenary (13 page)

“Come to bed with me, Kirk. Make love to me one more time before we go out there and face the world. I want to take your scent and some of your strength with me today.”

He didn’t say a word as she led him back to bed. She had made the bed and the neat-looking room was a statement of her old life, she thought. Everything looked safe and secure and not a thing was. That had been a lie and this fierce-looking man had made her realize the truth.

She’d let herself grow dead inside and she wanted desperately to feel alive again. To feel alive the way she did in Kirk’s arms. The way she had only when his arms were wrapped around her.

“This place feels like it shouldn’t feel like home,” she said. “It’s nothing like my bedroom. Yet it does. What’s your place like?”

She had no idea what Kirk’s home would look like.

“Umm, it’s kind of empty. I have an apartment where I crash between jobs. It’s nothing special,” he said, sitting on the edge of her bed and drawing her closer to him between his spread thighs.

He hugged her tight and she realized for the first time that he had secrets of his own. She’d been so busy protecting hers that she felt a little silly just now realizing that there was a reason why Kirk was the man he was today.

He rolled onto his back, pulling her down on top of him. She slid her hands under his shirt against his skin. He urged her head back and kissed her like they had all day. Like he’d be happy to hold her and just kiss forever.

It was a sweet moment here in the bedroom and she let her mind drift away as a fire started to build inside her. She moved restlessly against him as he licked a path from her chin down the side of her neck.

He traced the neckline of her shirt with his fingertip as he kissed her there. She tunneled her fingers through his hair, holding him closer to her.

She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. He tossed it aside. She wrapped her fingers around his arms, feeling the flexing of his fingers in his strong biceps. She brushed her lips over his shoulder, licking lightly at his skin. She loved the salty taste of his skin.

His hands were under her shirt, moving over her back and undoing her bra.

He pushed her shirt up over her head and tossed it on the floor, then peeled her bra down her arms. He skimmed his hand over her torso before lowering his mouth and suckling at her breast. She squirmed against him, reaching between their bodies to unfasten his pants. His cock was hot and hard under her touch. She rubbed him through his boxer shorts until he grunted deep in his throat and shifted to his side.

He kept one arm wrapped around her waist and his mouth at her breast. She caressed his length, teasing him with alternating light touches and squeezing caresses. Cupping his sac in her hands, she rolled his balls against her fingers and then brought her hand back up his erection.

She felt a drop of moisture at the tip and she rubbed her finger over it, smoothing it into him. She had never felt a man’s cum hot and heavy on her body. She’d always had protected sex and no mistakes and she wondered what it felt like.

She continued to caress him with her hand until Kirk pulled back, taking her hand in his and holding it over her head. “I’m going to explode.”

“Good,” she said. “When we are like this I feel alive.”

“You are alive and safe with me, Olivia.”

His words made her pulse speed up and her center even wetter. She reached for the snap on her jeans, but Kirk’s hands were already there, unfastening her pants and pushing them down her legs. She shivered at the feel of his hands on her legs, so close to her center.

He pulled a condom from the pocket of his pants and put it on. He draped her thighs over his arms and lowered himself over her, pushing her legs apart and entering her in one long thrust. She held on to his waist and felt the fire building inside her. It was the same fire that she’d felt before, but this time, now that she knew she wasn’t fighting him as fiercely, it felt stronger, more intense.

This time, she didn’t hide from what he made her feel. Instead she reveled in the feeling of being alive. Because she’d been sleeping for so long, going through the motions of pretending to be alive, she needed this moment. By trying to kill her, Ray had awakened her to the fact that she was finally taking control of her life.

There was a great freedom in knowing that she was in control. She pressed her face into Kirk’s chest and breathed deeply. The scent of him made her feel so damned safe that she never wanted to forget it. She doubted she could ever explain to him just what he did to her. Beyond the sexual feeling he aroused in her, he found a way of making her life more complete.

That worried her because they were very different people who had led very different lives, and she didn’t see how they were going to merge the two. She simply couldn’t see him in a tuxedo at one of her parents’ dinner parties.

But she could see him sitting on a couch in her flat, the two of them curled up enjoying their time together. And maybe that was enough, she thought.

For right now—it was.

A
UGUST
4, C
ULLINAN
P
OLICE
S
TATION

R
ay had his hands full answering questions from the authorities in Cullinan. They had been calling him to come down to the station since the day Olivia had disappeared.

“I don’t have any information on a murder on the mining property,” Ray said. Phillip and Lars were back at Onyx going through Ray’s office, trying to figure out what records had been lost.

“Very well, sir, but the man who made the call said your fiancée had witnessed the crime.”

“Are you aware that she was kidnapped that day?” Ray said. “I believe the man who made that call may be the person who is holding her hostage.”

“Have you received a ransom notice?” Charity Keone-Williams asked. She had been hired by Olivia’s parents to help with the investigation.

“No, we haven’t,” Ray said. “I don’t think that Mrs. Keone-Williams is adding anything here, officer. She should wait outside.”

“I’m sorry I can’t do that. I am actually working with the police on this matter, Mr. Lambert.”

He hated smartass women. “We haven’t found any bodies on our property, so as far as the Onyx Diamond Group is concerned, there hasn’t been any murder. We are concerned about a breakin last night in our corporate offices.”

“We are looking into that. Your head of security,” the officer looked down at his notes. “Mr. Jones, has supplied us with a security tape. Do you believe this is related to Ms. Pontuf’s kidnapping?”

“Yes, I do. I had a look at the tape this morning and the man who assaulted Olivia’s bodyguard appears to be the same man who kidnapped her at the airport.”

Ray left the police station a few minutes later with Charity by his side. “I would like to accompany you back to the mining offices and see if I can help in your investigation.”

Ray shook his head. “That’s impossible. Diamond business isn’t open to the outside. Please give my regards to Olivia’s parents.”

“I will,” she said, pulling on a pair of dark sunglasses and walking away.

Charity was the kind of woman he usually found attractive—tall, very beautiful, and blond. But there was an edginess to her that he didn’t like. She seemed to look right through him. He knew she couldn’t possibly see beyond his guise of concern to the panicked man underneath.

His mobile rang and he answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Lambert here.”

“Are you done at the police station?” Phillip asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“All of the missing files, according to your secretary, pertain to an abandoned mine. We want to go and inspect that area. Also we are shutting down production here until we can get control of these breakins.”

Ray balled his hand into a fist. “Don’t make any rash decisions, Phillip. We’ve got the situation under control now. The problem was Thomas and he can’t do any more damage to the mine.”

“Thomas didn’t break in here last night.”

“I know that. I believe this is tied to the men who took Olivia. Obviously Thomas must have hidden something somewhere in the office building for them.”

“Like what?” Phillip asked.

Ray had no idea. He needed time to think and come up with a plan. “I’m not sure. Let’s keep the mine going until we have time to find out what’s going on. I don’t want to lose the production time.”

“No one wants to see Onyx affected negatively by this, but we have to control our product.”

“It is controlled. We aren’t going to let anyone leave the property with as much as a fleck of diamond on them. I’ve doubled the security staff.”

“We can discuss this when you get back out here. When can we expect you?”

“Thirty minutes tops,” Ray said.

He walked to his car as he ended the call. He needed to get control of Phillip and Lars. He knew the other men would be driven to do what was necessary to keep the consortium happy, but he needed to keep the mine in production so that the diamonds he’d just sold didn’t enter the market after Onyx closed down. That would raise too many questions.

Questions that would lead straight back to him. Because there was no way one man could have taken as many diamonds as Ray had sold to his men on the black market. And that would lead the consortium to the conclusion that he’d been dealing under the table.

Kirk left Olivia with Anna and joined the rest of the Savage Seven. They were all sitting around a table for six dressed in desert camo and T-shirts. He took his seat, but there was still one spot that was empty and they all were aware of the man who was missing.

“Burati told us that Lambert is on the verge of making a big deal with a black-market arms dealer. He’s been supplying diamonds that the man uses to purchase guns.”

“About damn time,” Hamm said. Hamm was outspoken and a bit of a loudmouth most of the time, but Kirk agreed with him. They needed a break in the information they were getting if they were going to close this mission. Hamm was a thick-necked redhead who, like Kirk, had spent most of his life fighting.

Next to him was Van. Van was quiet and the smallest guy on their team. But he was savvy in an eerie kind of way about knowing how to get inside their enemies’ heads. “It is about time. I think we can use this to our advantage. Kirk, can you use your network of black-market contacts to find who Lambert’s buyer is?”

“Sure. I’ll do it when we’re finished here.”

“How are we set for weapons and ammo?” Savage asked.

“I’ve already restocked on ammo for the team. We’re ready for anything we encounter,” Laz said.

Kirk put his hand on Laz’s shoulder. “Anything they encountered,” in Lazspeak, meant everything short of a nuclear attack. And even then Kirk wasn’t too sure Laz wasn’t prepared.

“Van, what’d you find out? Anything new at the police station?”

“Charity said that Lambert looked like he was sweating when the police questioned him. They aren’t too sure whom to believe. It’d be great if the body of the person Olivia saw murdered turned up,” Van said without glancing up from the computer in front of him.

“Do you want us to do a sweep of the area?” Kirk asked Savage, all the while mentally compiling a picture of the team’s readiness. They fairly vibrated with the need to be moving.

“No. That body is gone and we’ll probably never find it,” Savage said. The important thing right now is to break Lambert. He’s the threat to Olivia. And until we do we’re not going to get out of here.

Kirk nodded. “This isn’t our normal sort of job.”

“No, it’s not, but Olivia is a friend of Anna’s, and we take care of friends,” Savage said.

That made Kirk feel better. He knew he wasn’t going anywhere until Olivia was safe and he wanted his guys at his back. Kirk’s BlackBerry vibrated and he glanced at the screen to see he had a new e-mail. “I’m going to need to go meet one of my contacts.”

“What about?” Savage asked.

“I put out a few feelers when we first got here to see if anyone had heard anything on the dead guy. One of my contacts has some information.”

“How reliable is this source?” Savage asked. “Have you used them before?”

“Well I bought them, so I guess we can trust them as far as what I paid. He’s an Afrikaaner who’s got no love for Onyx Diamond Group.”

South Africa was in a dangerous position, what with so many rebels still fighting for rights that Kirk wasn’t too sure they’d ever get. The United States wasn’t the favored son here, but then that was true of just about every country the Seven traveled to.

“I say we take the little bastard with us and if his intel is wrong…”

Kirk shook his head at Laz’s comment. The men were tense, but not in a nervous way. They were ready for action. They wanted to do something instead of hanging out in this house and waiting for the intel they needed to move, and Kirk did as well.

“Kirk and Laz, go together to meet his contact. If the guy is trustworthy, pay him and then report back here,” Savage said.

The group split up a few minutes later and Kirk went outside for a few minutes alone. Until Olivia he hadn’t really thought much about the fact that he essentially did a young man’s job. A job for the type of man who had nothing to lose and thought he’d never die. But Kirk’s thinking had changed sometime over the last few days and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Sure, he liked what he had with Olivia, but she was the kind of woman he’d always pictured settled down. And he wasn’t that type of guy.

“Kirk?”

“Yes, Wenz?” Kirk asked. Wenz rounded out their team as their medic. Each man had EMT training, but Wenz was their designated medic. The man had calm hands during the most intense firefight.

“Just wanted to check on that scrape you sustained as we were pulling out.”

“It’s fine. I bandaged it myself when we got back.”

“You sure?” Wenz asked, but Kirk knew that the medic had something other than the injury on his mind. Lately he felt like it was going to take more than stubbornness to keep him alive. Olivia hadn’t distracted him last night, but he felt she was weakening him.

And if she was, how was he going to deal with that?

Would he be like Savage, trading action and the thrill of pitting himself against an unknown enemy to sit back at the command center? Could he live like that? Would Olivia want him if he did?

He shook his head and forced his mind back to the mission and away from a woman who was more distraction than she should be.

He was focused on finding the information he needed to make Olivia safe. Then he could figure out the rest of this stuff. Right now his only concern was keeping her safe. That was all he could do. Later…if she wanted to continue seeing him, he’d figure out if he could live with her and continue to be used as a weapon.

The capital city of Johannesburg wore its new government influences well. But the signs of crime were still present in the graffiti and the barbed wire around the moneyed neighborhoods. Kirk rubbed the back of his neck as he ducked out of the busy foot traffic and into a McDonald’s where he was to meet his contact.

This was the kind of city he always felt at home in because it wore its violence like a banner. There was a lot of war in this part of the world and he thought that this was more his home than anyplace where he might sleep back in the States.

Laz was down the street and connected to Kirk via their wireless earpiece/microphones.

No matter what he might want to believe, he knew that men like him had always been around and that fighting was something that had come naturally to this land in every age. There was something wild and untamed about South Africa that drew him. Something that made even the most determined atheist sense there was a higher force at play in this land.

Kirk ordered a Big Mac from the attendant in perfect Afrikaans. Most of the locals spoke that language. And he was dressed like a national. The disguise was hot and sticky and he couldn’t help but remember the distance in Olivia’s eyes as she’d seen him dressed like this.

He tried to shake off that feeling. He thought instead that no matter where he was in the world he could get a Big Mac, but there was still something a little weird about ordering one in a foreign language.

Kirk found a table in the back of the restaurant and sat down to wait for his contact. He reached in his bag of food to snag a fry, but the clerk yelled out to stop him.

“Wait, sir. That is the wrong bag.”

Kirk pushed to his feet and handed the clerk the bag he’d been given. The new bag was slightly heavier and Kirk glanced inside to see a small yellow capsule nestled in with his supersized fries.

“Thanks,” he said to the clerk and worked his way back out onto the street. The last time he’d had McDonald’s fries had been in D.C. before they’d left on their mission to help Anna and Liberty Investigations capture a terrorist in Algeria.

There was something very American about the fries and he wished he could share them with Olivia. Maybe tasting something of home would give her that sense of normalcy she was searching for.

He wanted that for her. He needed to know she was safe. She wouldn’t understand it and he wasn’t ever going to let her know it—but she made what he did worthwhile. Knowing that she was safe while he saved the world, or at least a small portion of it, made it easier for him to sleep at night.

“My contact left a package for me,” Kirk said.

“Great. I’m at the end of the street and going for the car,” Laz said.

He pocketed the capsule and made his way out onto the street, blending into the throng of people. He moved slowly and carefully. Although he wanted to examine the information he’d been given, he knew he couldn’t.

A late-model car pulled to a stop next to him. Kirk identified Laz quickly and slid into the car as Laz pulled away from the curb.

“How’d it go?”

“Smooth.”

“Does anything ever not go smoothly for you?”

“Yes. But only temporarily,” Kirk said. He had an image to keep up, especially around his men.

He palmed open the capsule and removed a tiny microdisc. He couldn’t wait to get back and give this to Van, who was the team’s computer expert and would be able to analyze it. “We should have brought a computer with us.”

“This should be a satellite tape of the murder on the Onyx Mining grounds.”

“Nice. Those rebels aren’t as unsophisticated as the nightly news would have the world believe.”

“No, they aren’t. Drug dealers and weapons brokers are good for a thing or two.”

“Until we have to go after them.”

Kirk didn’t take his eyes off the terrain. “That’s not our mission this time.”

“It’d be nice to have the upper hand a time or two,” Laz said.

“Hell, yes it would be,” Kirk said.

They left the city of Johannesburg and headed toward Pretoria. The lights of the city dropped away behind them as they rode out into the barren landscape. The night closed in around them as they sped along the highway. As they left the city, a round of fire ripped through the night. Laz kept on driving through the area and Kirk pulled his firearm and returned fire.

“Someone’s following us.”