The Mercenary (6 page)

“Why not?” she asked, because she thought after the way he’d touched her that he was interested in her. Oh, man, what if she was reaching for him because she needed the distraction? The distraction from her memories of today, from the betrayal that Ray had inflicted on her.

“You’ve just been through a traumatic event and you aren’t yourself.”

“What makes you sure?”

“I’ve been a woman’s adrenaline lover before.”

“What a rude thing to say,” she said. She wasn’t going to pretend that she hadn’t been looking at him in a sexual way, but it was more than that. The attraction she felt for him stemmed from…she didn’t know what it stemmed from.

“Just calling it like I see it,” he said. He walked back over to her and tipped her head up toward his. “I don’t want you to regret anything, Olivia.”

There it was again—the way he touched her. “I can live with the consequences of my actions.”

“Can you?”

“Yes,” she said. Then to prove that she could, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him.

Kirk pulled Olivia more fully into his arms, tilting his head to the side and opening his mouth over hers. She held on to his shoulders as he kissed her.

He had wanted to do this since the moment he’d looked into those big wide blue eyes of hers. And now that he had her in his arms, he wasn’t in a hurry to let her go or to rush this kiss.

She was a woman to be savored, and that was exactly what he did. He swept his hands over her delicate shoulders and down her shoulder blades, simply enjoying the womanly feel of her in his arms.

His meditation had been for hell. All he’d concentrated on was her. She was a distraction and that was the one thing he couldn’t afford. Distracted men were dead, and Kirk hadn’t survived as long as he had by doing stupid things like picturing her in the shower naked. Imagining her soapy hands moving slowly over her body. He had been half tempted to go up the stairs and wait for her in her bedroom, but he’d resisted.

Ha! Barely. And now here he was with her mouth under his and her silky body pressed close to his, but not close enough. The layers of clothing separating their bodies frustrated him.

He slid his hand under the hem of her blouse just at her waist and felt her skin. It was what he’d wanted and she shifted in his arms, saying his name on a sigh. He kissed her again, sucking her lower lip into his mouth to taste her.

“What are you doing?”

“Stopping.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m on duty right now. And keeping you safe is more important than…anything else.”

She nodded. “Thank you. I think I’m afraid of being alone.”

“I’m here.”

She bit her lower lip and then looked up at him. “Promise?”

“Yes. Now where is the stuff you took from Lambert’s desk?”

She bent over and picked up the papers and files off the floor. “Here it is. It might be nothing, but he had it locked up and hid the key so I think it must be important to him.”

“I’d reckon it is. I’m not going to pretend I know what any of this stuff is, but we have a guy on our team who can put everything in the computer and make sense of it.”

“That’s great. I think I can help with this,” she said, pulling a small leather wallet from the pile.

“What is it?”

“An account book for a Swiss bank account. I didn’t know he had a Swiss accountant,” she said.

“There seems to be a lot about that man you didn’t know.”

“You’re right. The hard part is adjusting to the fact that the man I was about to marry could betray me so deeply.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Kirk said. Olivia didn’t strike him as the kind of woman that a man would betray. Not normally, so he could only suspect that Ray Lambert had always led two lives and he had asked Olivia to marry him to legitimatize his second life.

“I guess so. I mean I didn’t know much about him beyond what he told me. I’m sorry about kissing you the way I did when I came downstairs,” she said. “I needed to forget and…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, sifting through the papers on the table.

A sheen of tears appeared in her eyes. “I just don’t feel safe anymore. I’ve always had this innate belief that things were going to work out and now that’s gone and I don’t know how to cope. It’s not fair of me to lean on you this way, but I don’t know what else to do.”

“Trust me,” he said.

She was shaking and on the verge of losing it again. If it had been anyone else he would have walked away and let her deal with it on her own, but this woman was different.

He pulled her into his arms and offered the comfort of a hug. He hoped the strength of his body—the body he’d honed to a lethal edge for killing—could offer her more than just some reassurance. He wanted her to understand he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. He didn’t understand it, but he knew it was important to him that Olivia made it out of this mess alive and with her sense of security restored.

A
UGUST
1, O
NYX
D
IAMOND
M
INES
, C
ULLINAN

R
ay wasn’t the kind of man who dealt with incompetence well. When he was called to the police office to pick up Burati and his accomplice, it was all he could do to keep his tone civil.

“I’m sure it was a misunderstanding with my fiancée. She was panicked by living in this city with all the security that’s needed.”

“I understand, sir,” police officer Monroe said.

“Do you have any information on the man who took her?”

“Nothing as of yet. We are going over the security footage from the airport and hope we will be able to identify him soon.”

“Very good. Are my men free to go?”

“Yes, Mr. Lambert.”

Ray walked out of the police station with Burati and his hired man behind him. He waited until Nels opened the door for him and they were seated in the back of his limousine before he reached over and slapped Burati.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I never expected anyone to be following her.”

Ray shook with rage. This entire situation was getting out of control. “I need this taken care of. Did you recognize the man who took her?”

“No, but she asked him a question,” Burati said.

“What question?”

“Give me a minute…Kirk? I think that’s the name she called him by. Does she know anyone by that name?” Burati asked.

“I don’t know. We will go through her computer files when we get back to the house.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did she ever meet a man while I was at work?”

“No. This man isn’t from your circle. He was rough and a hired killer.”

“How would she know someone who was a hired killer?” Ray asked.

Burati didn’t say anything and Ray let his mind wander. “She didn’t book a ticket, either, so she lied to me.”

“She didn’t have a lot of time at the airport,” Burati said.

“About an hour and a half after she left the house. I want a man to watch the airport. If she shows up there, I want to know about it.”

“I will do it myself, sir.”

“No, not you. Someone else. I need you to try to identify the man who took her.”

Burati nodded.

They drove through the darkening night of Johannesburg. Ray felt impotent with anger. He wanted to shake Olivia and mete out some kind of pain to her for the problems she was causing him.

He doubted she even realized that she had information that could cripple him. Those files she stole held more than just his private bank accounts; they also held his personal network of black-market contacts and details of every deal he’d done. It was the kind of information that the diamond consortium would use to fire him from the mines and probably have him prosecuted and sent to jail for the rest of his life if they didn’t decide to make a lot of trouble for him and probably kill him.

Ray rubbed the back of his neck. How could one little woman cause so much trouble?

They pulled into the garage and Ray got out, leaving the security guards to do what he’d asked them to. He went into his office and sat down, logging on to his PC so he could do a few searches of Olivia’s computer. When she’d come to live here he’d had his computer guy from the mines come out and rig up a home network.

He’d also had him add a shadow drive on Olivia’s computer so he’d know what she did. The first thing he did was open her e-mail account.

While that loaded, he looked at the picture of her on his desk. It had been taken in London. They’d had dinner at the British Museum and in the background of the photo you could see Big Ben.

He’d always felt like things weren’t going to work out between the two of them. He had believed the problems were class differences, because Olivia was every inch the lady and he was nothing more than a lad from Jo’burg who’d worked his way up the corporate ladder.

But being betrayed by her this way really pissed him off. He picked up the frame and threw it against the wall, unable to look at her smiling face one more minute.

The smashing of the glass as the frame broke apart was satisfying. So was the thought that he would find Olivia and she would pay for what she’d done to him.

He wasn’t a man who tolerated betrayal—something she’d learn soon enough. He picked up his cell phone and called Burati.

“Where are you?”

“In my office, sir. I have a message in to the police department. I have a friend who works in counterterrorism. He’s going to send over some mug-shot books for me to search through.”

“Good job,” Ray said. Burati might not be the idiot he’d proved to be this afternoon. “I want Olivia brought to me alive when you find her. I want to question her before you kill her.”

“Yes, sir.”

He disconnected the call and started searching her files. There was no mention of anyone named Kirk in the e-mails. Most of her friends were as shallow as she was.

Who was it she had said she was going to visit? Someone in D.C. Ray remembered. He typed in D.C. and found Anna Sterling…at libertyinvestigations.com. That didn’t seem like one of the normal bubbleheaded heiresses who made up Olivia’s circle of friends.

Burati was ready to quit. And he called Phillip to let him know that.

“This is Phillip.”

“Burati here. I didn’t get Olivia. Someone else took her. At first I thought it might have been a man hired by Lambert, but it wasn’t. I have no idea who has her.”

“I’ll work on finding out through my contacts,” Phillip said. “I believe it was your brother who was killed, Burati.”

“Me, too,” Burati said. It had been a long day and he was aching and tired and frustrated.

“I’m ready to quit,” Burati said.

“Don’t give up. We will get Lambert, but only with your help.”

“Everything should have been over by now.”

“Indeed it should have, but we’ll get him yet.”

“I know we will. We’re going through mug-shot books from the local police to try to identify the men who took Olivia. And I believe that Lambert is going to announce her kidnapping to the media.”

“I suggested that course of action.”

“I did my best to keep her safe,” Burati said. His hand ached and was bleeding. He’d been bandaged, but he didn’t like getting shot at.

“I know you did. Olivia has a classmate who is a private investigator and bodyguard,” Phillip said. “Anna Sterling, she may be contacting you.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Burati said. “Lambert is already tracking that connection. It might be less complicated if I stay hidden for now.”

“I agree,” Phillip said after a few minutes. “I’m going to need you to go through Lambert’s office one night.”

“Tonight?”

“No, Burati. Take the night to grieve for your brother. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Just make sure that Lambert doesn’t kill any more of my kin.”

“That’s my goal.”

“Then we’re good,” Burati said, hanging up the phone. He worked on identifying the man who’d taken Olivia Pontuf from his office at the Lambert house, but his heart was filled with sad thoughts of his brother and the young life that had been cut short.

Burati didn’t like the man he was becoming as he kept working for both Lambert and Phillip. He did like the idea of the man he’d be once he only worked for Phillip. And he also pictured himself going back to his ghetto in Soweto and building houses, real houses with cement walls instead of cardboard ones.

A
UGUST
1, P
RETORIA SAFE HOUSE

O
livia sat between Laz and Kirk as they ate a supper of fast food. Neither man said much; they just sat and ate tensely. She knew they were there on duty guarding her and she wanted to say it made her feel safer but honestly nothing could.

The picture they were putting together of Ray Lambert scared her. In the file they’d gone through was an account of seven men who’d been killed by Ray. All of them had been part of his illegal operation. Ray was not the man she thought she knew.

“I can’t believe Ray would be selling diamonds on the side. The consortium is very protective of what goes out to the market,” Olivia said.

Kirk shrugged. He ate the French fries three at a time and she watched the methodical way he ate his food. She realized he ate for energy and not for pleasure.

She was scarfing down the fries like nobody’s business. A part of her realized she was eating because—well, because she could control that.

“Why would he do that?” Olivia asked. “He makes a very good salary, so it’s not like he needs the money. And he doesn’t live that extravagantly. He didn’t even offer me an allowance.”

Kirk put his burger down and looked over at her, obviously guessing she wasn’t going to stop talking. She wanted to sit quietly like these men both were, but she couldn’t. The silence was grating on her already raw nerves.

“Who knows?” Kirk asked.

“Everyone always needs a little more money,” Laz said. “I know I’d like a little extra so I can trick out my boat.”

“Really?” she asked. “What kind of boat is it?”

“It’s a nice little speedboat, but I’d like a cabin cruiser,” Laz said.

She tipped her head to the side. “I’m having a hard time picturing either of you in a normal life. How do you go home from a job like this?”

Kirk shrugged. Olivia rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt you to answer a question.”

He leaned forward, looking her straight in the eye. “My job is to protect you until the threat to you has passed. How is talking going to help that?”

Laz didn’t come to her defense or tell him to lighten up.

“Sorry. I’m going a little crazy and I need something normal. Talking helps me forget.”

Laz didn’t say anything, but Kirk nodded. “I don’t talk about my downtime.”

“Why do you think Ray would turn to crime?” she asked, after a few minutes had gone by.

“We see people who do all kinds of things for money. He might have an addiction to drugs you don’t know about.”

“It’s not drugs,” Olivia said. “I lost one of my friends to an overdose when we were in college. I know what that kind of addiction looks like.”

“Women, gambling. It doesn’t matter what he’s addicted to, just that he needs money to pay for it,” Laz said.

“I never saw any signs of that stuff,” she said. “But I didn’t pay close attention. We had a whirlwind courtship, and until I moved here a little over a month ago we lived separate lives. I can’t think straight.”

“That’s understandable,” Laz said. “I remember the first time I saw a man killed. I puked up my guts.”

“That’s a nice image, Laz,” Kirk said. “You might want to watch your mouth while we’re eating.”

“Sorry.”

There was such calmness in these men that it was helping Olivia relax. She really needed to do that, because deep inside she kept feeling that insidious panic working its way closer to the surface.

“I don’t know why he needed me to bring this information out to him,” she said, pulling the papers from the black envelope. They’d been over the papers a couple of times. There were names and numbers—but not phone numbers—in there, and also the names of the men he’d killed. Why would he need that at the mines?

Neither man said anything.

“Anna is going to run those names through the computer and see what she can find. But these numbers look like something specific. I wonder if it’s related to the raw diamonds that he was selling or maybe a location where they were taken from or the carat weight.”

“Who knows?” Laz asked. “Is there anything in that notebook?”

She pulled the thin wire-bound notebook that had been in one of the file folders closer. She opened it up and there were numbers in similar patterns in there, but until they knew what it meant it was all gibberish.

“I’m not much good at this sort of thing,” Laz said. “Getting transportation in the middle of nowhere, that I can do, but this stuff—nah.”

“Me, too,” Olivia said. “I know I’m not an expert, but working to figure this out makes me feel productive.”

Kirk just kept eating.

“I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter and catch some shut-eye,” Laz said.

“Go on,” Kirk said. “I’ll wake you at midnight.”

“Sounds good.”

Laz left the room and she watched him go. “He’s a good guy.”

Kirk didn’t say anything. She wondered if she should just give up on getting him to talk. But she couldn’t. It didn’t bother her when Laz left her alone, but she had been terrified when Kirk had.

“How long have you worked with him?” she asked.

“A while,” he said.

She turned around to face him. “You specialize in vague answers, do you know that?”

He shrugged.

“I want to know more about you and your team,” she said.

“Why?”

To make sense of who he was. “Just so I know. Who do you work for?”

“Right now—you.”

“Great, then if you work for me I want some answers.”

“My team is called the Savage Seven. We are mercenaries.”

She wrinkled her nose. She had no idea what mercenaries were really like. Hired guns to be certain, but Laz and Kirk didn’t seem like conscienceless monsters. “What does it mean to be a mercenary?”

“We work for whoever hires us.”

It was the most he’d revealed about himself and she ate it up, wanting to know more about Kirk Mann. “And there are seven of you?”

“There were. Armand died on a mission in Morocco a few years ago.”

“I’m so sorry. I guess that was hard on you guys?”

“Very. We haven’t replaced him…well, I don’t think we ever could. Armand was a big part of the team and each of us really took his death hard.”

“What happened?” Olivia asked. She couldn’t imagine a group of men making a mistake that would lead to the death of one of their own. Laz and Kirk had given her the impression that they were more competent than that.

“We were betrayed. We found the leak and plugged it, but it was too late to save Armand. We vowed to never let that happen again, and we haven’t.”

“How can you make sure it doesn’t happen again?” she asked.

“By being very picky about who we trust and who we work for.”

He walked away from her and she realized that she had been picking at his past and she hadn’t wanted that. She’d simply wanted to understand this complex man.

Kirk didn’t like talking.
Period.
There was something about Olivia that made him want to ease her fears. But he was trying to ignore it.

“Why are you still in this business?” she asked.

He’d forgotten she was still sitting next to him. How he’d done that, he had no idea, because she smelled so sweet and tempting he’d had a hard time concentrating on going over the papers she’d brought. But he was a professional and he wasn’t going to take a chance with her safety.

His mind was fried from the first job he’d pulled this morning. Was it only this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago. He needed to regroup because Olivia was rattling him. This itty-bitty girl he could bench-press was winding him up—making him feel things that he hadn’t in a long time.

Things like sympathy. She was trying so damned hard to act normal and pretend that her life was going to be the same. All the while, he wanted to warn her it never would be again.

“Kirk?”

“I’m still in the business because I’m not trained to do anything else.”

“But it must take a toll on you.”

“Not really. It’s just a job,” he said. Then looked at her. She held her hands tightly laced together and watched him with wide eyes. She was going to start crying or singing again, and he couldn’t handle either one of those.

“So. You’re a writer?”

She leaned forward. “Yes. I am. I love it. It’s such a fun thing to do. It’s a big adventure to make my life seem a little bit out of the ordinary.”

“I bet your life doesn’t feel ordinary now,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t. Is your life like that? Is this normal for you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “My job with our team is one that I’ve trained myself to do.”

“How do you become a mercenary?” she asked.

“I was a Marine sniper before I came to work for the Savage Seven.”

“I can’t imagine being able to do your job.”

Very few men could do his job and fewer women. It was pride that made him confident of that. Distancing himself from his humanity had been his only saving grace. The only way he could continue to do his job and still survive.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked pulling her hand away from him.

“Wait for Savage to get here.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Keep you alive.”

She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Shouldn’t we set a trap and catch Ray?”

“How?”

“I don’t know…maybe I could call him and offer to give him back his stuff if he calls off his guard dogs. Then we can set up a trap for him and capture him.”

Kirk didn’t say anything.

“Is that not a good idea?” she asked.

He didn’t know. His job was to protect her for right now. When Savage got here, he could go in and figure out what the best solution to the Lambert problem was. If that meant killing him, then Kirk would take the shot.

“Maybe I should call the police,” she said. “Or mention my plans to them when I talk to them tomorrow about the murder I witnessed.”

“The local cops’ hands are tied because the murder you witnessed happened on diamond mine property and they are a law unto themselves,” he said.

“This is more complicated that I ever imagined it was. Ray’s not going to just let me disappear, is he?”

“Not until you’re dead or he’s in jail. He’s not going to rest until he gets this information back and can be assured you aren’t going to talk to anyone about what you know.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “To think my biggest worry before this was if my marrying Ray was going to be too boring.”

Kirk said nothing to that. He glanced at her hands and realized she wasn’t wearing an engagement ring.

“You’re staring at my ring finger,” she said.

He scratched his head. “I was wondering about your fiancé.”

“What about him?” she asked. “He never gave me a ring. I’m not really into big jewels. I know that seems counter to everything else I stand for, but I’m not a fussy person.”

“I was thinking that it must have pissed you off to realize that your soon-to-be-husband tried to have you killed.”

“I don’t get pissed,” she said. “It scared me.”

“Because he waved a gun at you?”

“Yes.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m tired, but I don’t know if I can sleep.”

“I will be on duty; no one will get to you while you sleep.”

“I don’t know if that will be enough to help,” she said.

“I’m on guard duty until midnight.” He wondered if she was getting tired but didn’t know how to tell him she wanted to leave. What if she had guessed that he liked her and she was staying just to make him feel better?

“I’ll sit up with you,” she said softly. “Unless you want to be alone.”

“I do,” he said. He doubted he’d be a decent guard with her by his side. He sent her up to her room and set about patrolling the empty house. Olivia was awake with her lights on and each time he passed her room she called out to him.

Kirk just kept walking and focused on his job. At midnight Laz relieved him and he went upstairs to catch a few Zs in one of the bedrooms.

Olivia had left her door open. She was lying on the bed fully dressed, with a book in her lap.

Olivia didn’t have any pajamas with her, something that was distressing to her. But then she figured she wasn’t going to sleep. Kirk walked by her room several times and finally she realized that he was still here and he was watching over her. She got a book from the shelf, a biography of Nelson Mandela. She started to read it, but drifted off to sleep.

Olivia woke up and got out of bed. She walked down the stairs
when she heard a noise. She got to the bottom of the stairs and Burati was waiting for her. He had a gun in his hand and held it aimed at her head.

“Come here, Ms. Olivia.”

She shook her head and turned to run. But Ray was behind her. How had he gotten behind her?

“Now, Olivia, that’s not very polite,” he said.

She screamed.

Bolting upright in bed, she couldn’t stop shaking.

Kirk appeared in the doorway with his gun in one hand. He scanned the room and then looked at her.

“I’m sorry.”

“She’s fine. Just a dream,” Kirk said.

It took her a minute to realize he was talking to Laz on their wireless earpieces.

He walked into her room and crossed to the bathroom. He appeared a minute later with a glass of water.

He handed it to her and she sipped at it. There was no way a drink of water was going to make her feel better.

The aftereffects of her day were getting to her. She hoped at some point she’d be able to use these feelings constructively, but right now she was simply tired and overwhelmed.

She looked up from her water.

Kirk stood there. He was big, tall, and almost scary-looking in the dim light provided by her bedside lamp. But to her he was a welcome sight.

Kirk Mann had come to represent her security. It was funny because Pretoria had fences and guards and she felt safe with Kirk. Something she’d never felt with Ray.

He tipped his head to the side watching her. “Are you comfortable sleeping in your clothes?”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ll get a T-shirt for you,” he said.

It was the first time he’d reached out to do something for her. Something that wasn’t saving her life. And she knew that his job was to keep her safe and that was what he was doing, but this small kindest melted her.