Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Ian went over the side and into the water without any of Dellarosa’s men spotting him.

They were all distracted by Phoebe doing her woman-scorned act at high volume, as she pretended to talk on the phone to her philandering fictional husband. Her hope was that she’d scare the men away, but Ian knew better.

He silently swam toward the stern of the yacht, where one of the three occupants of the skiff was attempting to board the larger vessel.

Judging from their uncertainty and low skill level at what should have been a fairly easy nautical act, Ian was pretty sure at least two of the men—a hulking giant, and a more normal-sized man wearing a backward baseball cap—were landlubbers. The third, the yacht boarder—wiry, slight of build, and clearly in charge—was an amateur sailor at best.

And none of them had a visible weapon in hand as they vainly fought the contrapuntal motion of the two bobbing boats. But then they stopped trying to board entirely as a light went on in the cabin. All three of them looked up and then stared, transfixed.

Phoebe had turned the battery-powered lantern to high, and she held it up and out with her left hand, as if to try to see who was out there.

It mostly worked to illuminate her.

How had she described that website picture of herself? As frumpy?

Her hair was a riot of curls down around her shoulders, and the T-shirt she’d pulled on, while oversized, was clinging to her body in all the right places. It was white and still wet and very nearly transparent and holy God.

Frumpy was not the word that leapt to mind.

“Who’s out there?” she called in a British-tinged accent as Ian took advantage of the spell she’d cast by silently swimming to the side of the skiff that was farthest from the yacht. “John? Is that you?”

She’d set a bottle of wine—obviously uncorked—on the counter, as a very effective show-and-tell. Look, I know it’s on the early side to be such a mess, but when I got here I started drinking heavily and passed out from too much wine and anger. My ringing cell phone just woke me.

Ian hoped the men in the skiff weren’t familiar enough with the yachting set to recognize how odd it was that she was there with no obvious means of transportation from the dock, i.e. a dingy tied to the anchor.

Phoebe set the lantern down on the counter to unlock the door to the aft deck, doing it all with her left hand.

Ian hated that she was leaving the safety of the locked cabin, but he couldn’t exactly shout cautions or instructions to her at this point. And while it was true that she was putting herself in peril, he had to admit that it was what someone might do: see what had bumped into her yacht in the darkness of the night. Because in most cases it would be a what and not a who.

And because she was using her left hand—to pick the lantern back up after she’d opened the door—and because she was keeping her right concealed behind her, hidden by the fabric of that T-shirt, Ian knew that her finger was on the trigger of the Glock. Where she’d tucked the cell phone, he had no idea.

“Oh my God! Who are you?” she called, with just the right amount of drunken indignation and surprise in her voice as the light hit the faces of Dellarosa’s men. “What are you doing out here?” She drew in a deep, disapproving gasp of realization that was damn near perfect for someone who was, allegedly, not firing on all cylinders. “Did John send you?”

She didn’t let the men in the skiff speak as she stood there, lantern still held high, her chest heaving in righteous anger. The fact that her arm was raised made the T-shirt ride up to expose the edge of her panties, and the full effect made her long, bare, shapely legs look even longer, barer, and more shapely.

She was statuesque. Magnificent. Goddesslike. One hundred percent frump-free.

“I know John sent you, but it’s my yacht now,” she continued her improvised monologue. “Mine! You can tell John that it’s my yacht, my house, my Porsche nine fifty-nine, my Upper West Side pied-à-terre. You tell John that I am going to make him bleed. Go on, get out of here! Get away from my yacht! Right! Now!”

And there it was, the moment of truth.

Giant and Baseball Cap and their leader, Skinny, were either going to make apologetic noises and push off, away from the yacht or …


“We’re the marina’s security patrol, ma’am,” Skinny lied as effortlessly as Phoebe had. Maybe he was a lawyer, too. “We’ve had reports of break-ins on the boats out in this part of the harbor. I realize this is an inconvenient time for you, and I apologize for that, but I’m going to have to ask to see some ID.”

Skinny finally managed to push himself up and over the lifeline, landing with an ungraceful thud on the deck.

But Phoebe saw him coming, and backed up, quickly setting the lantern on the hard plastic of one of the built-in seats.

Skinny’s hands were both empty, but after he stumbled out of his landing, he moved to reach inside his jacket, which was never a good sign.

Phoebe apparently knew that, too. “Now, Ian!” she shouted, even as Ian yelled a slightly more efficient “Go!”

She had the Glock out and aimed at the center of Skinny’s mass, in a very fierce two-handed stance, even as Ian launched himself out of the water, grabbing Giant and hurling him back, over his shoulders, into the water with an appropriately monstrous splash.

“Freeze!” Phoebe shouted at Skinny, as Ian hauled himself up and over the side of the skiff. “Hands where I can see ’em! Now! Higher! Up and over your head! Now! Do it!”

He’d expected to have to deal with a somewhat frantic Baseball Cap, but the severe rocking motion caused by Ian’s throwing Giant into the water and then clambering up and into the skiff had apparently done the job—the man had already fallen overboard.

On the yacht, Skinny was reaching for the moon as Phoebe maintained her Charlie’s Angels pose.

Ian found himself grinning—God, he liked her more and more with each passing moment—but he was well aware that his jubilance was premature. They were not out of danger yet. It wouldn’t be more than another few seconds before the displaced men came up wet, angry, and shooting.

“Into the water, Pheebs!” Ian shouted as he grabbed the starter rope of the outboard motor and gave it a solid pull. It roared to life.

“What?” Phoebe shouted back. “Me?”

“Get him into the water,” Ian shouted back.

“Do it, mofo!” Phoebe ordered Skinny, who immediately joined his buddies in the Gulf, even as Ian brought the skiff around to the thug-free side of the yacht.

Phoebe tossed Ian the Glock, which he caught. But then she hesitated, because it was a daunting prospect, leaping down into a dingy from a much bigger boat.

But Skinny had gone so willingly over the side for one reason and one reason only: It allowed him to go for and draw his handgun without risk of getting a bullet in the chest.

Skinny’s first shot was wild—more into the sky than aimed at Phoebe, because he slipped during his attempted clamber up the starboard side of the yacht—but it wouldn’t take him long to be more accurate.

Phoebe knew that, too, and she stopped hesitating and jumped. But she went purposely wide, aiming for and hitting the water just in front of the skiff. There wasn’t enough time to pull her aboard, so Ian shouted, “Grab this, wrap it around your wrist, and don’t let go!” as he threw her the painter that was tied to the bow of the little boat.

She immediately understood. The nylon rope that he’d tossed her was long enough so that it wouldn’t put her in danger from the propeller of the outboard motor. She quickly called back, “I’ve got it! Go!”

So Ian opened up the throttle and the skiff jumped forward.

It took a few seconds for the line to go taut, but then Phoebe was pulled, like a water skier sans skis, bumping and jerking along behind the skiff, no doubt getting a face full of water, spitting and gasping for air.

But the range on most handguns wasn’t all that large, so it wasn’t long before Ian cut the motor and turned the boat. Her momentum brought her right up to the side, and he reached over and caught her, keeping her from crashing into the skiff. She was gasping and breathless, but she understood that this stop was only temporary—to get her aboard as quickly as possible so that they could flee more thoroughly.

She tossed her glasses into the skiff along with something else that was hard to see in the moonlight—apparently she’d been holding it all with her free hand—before she grabbed on to Ian. Together they got her up and over the side, where she lay like a landed fish in the briny water that sloshed in the bottom of the little boat, catching her breath, as he opened the throttle and took off once again, skimming north along the coastline.

“They might be working with a team on shore, who could have access to another boat, so I want to ditch this thing and go ashore as soon as we can,” Ian shouted over the motor as Phoebe coughed and spat and even retched a little.

Still she nodded and found enough of her voice to call back, “Good idea.” She pushed her hair from her face, squeegeeing the water out of it, before she started feeling around for her glasses. She found them, and put them on. And then quickly looked away from him.

Ah, yes.

“Sorry I lost the dish towel while I was saving our lives,” Ian said. He still had the stupid string tied around his waist—fat lotta good it was doing there now. But untying the knot would require both hands and his full attention. Plus, having a piece of string might come in handy, wherever they ended up.

“Yeah, well, I was saving our lives, too,” she said. “But I kept my shirt on.”

“It’s my shirt,” he pointed out.

The look Phoebe gave him was so dark that he couldn’t help but laugh.

“But I’ll let you keep it as a token of my gratitude,” he added as he finally slowed, not wanting to attract attention as a too-loud boat going too fast in the darkness past a well-moneyed neighborhood.

The slower speed made it easier to talk without having to shout. Which maybe wasn’t a good thing, as she accused him, “You’re having fun again.”

What? “Fun? Not really. Not with Shelly grabbed by Berto Dellarosa, and Aaron out there doing God knows what to try to save him. Forget about the fact that after I take care of that goatf*ck, I’m supposed to engineer some magical rescue of two kidnapped children, in order to save the world.”

Phoebe immediately sobered. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking about … I’m so sorry.”

He could tell from the way that her face changed, and from the look in her eyes, that she was going to start up with the whole Everything you’ve done is for your brother conversation again. Allying yourself with Manny Dellarosa, prison time, risking your life—I know it’s all for Aaron and Shelly, which makes you honorable and heroic and worthy and sweet.

Sweet.

Jesus.

Ian didn’t want to go there. Not right now. So he needled her by saying, “It’s okay, though, if you’re having fun.”

It worked. She gave him an exasperated gasp. “You seriously think I’m—”

Ian didn’t let her finish. “To glass-half-full it,” he pointed out, “or to make the best of a bad situation, I will absolutely agree that a boat ride in the moonlight is not unpleasant. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out on the open water. I’m definitely enjoying that, too.”

Now she was looking at him as if he were crazy.

“Naked,” she said. “Naked boat ride on the very, very open water.”

“Some might see that as a negative,” he agreed. “Although really, you’re the one who should’ve grabbed more of our clothes, so …” He let his voice trail off.


But Phoebe wasn’t an idiot. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Wow, you are working hard to piss me off. What? To keep me over here, on this side of the boat? Are you really afraid I’m going to find your naked magnificence irresistible?”

“I am pretty freaking magnificent,” he said, well aware that that was the exact word that had come to his mind as he’d watched her earlier, in the lantern light.

Truth be told, it still pertained.

Phoebe didn’t realize it, but the soaking wet T-shirt she was wearing—his T-shirt—was a lost cause. It was glued against her. And in the moonlight …? She might as well have been naked, too.

And that added to the not-unpleasantness of the boat ride, despite his worries about his brother and Shel, and the upcoming rescue op from hell. Although Ian was forced to spend a large portion of his attention checking to see that they weren’t being followed, either by sea or by land, he still felt it was also his duty to keep glancing at Phoebe, to be absolutely sure that she wasn’t about to fall overboard.

She was half laughing, half shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure I made it crystal clear, back on the yacht—”

“I’m just being cautious. What’s that old saying?” Ian interrupted her. “Jump me once, shame on you; jump me twice, double shame on you …?”

She fully laughed her disdain at that. “That’s hilarious, coming from a man who’s completely shameless.”

He surprised her by agreeing. “True.”

Still, she wasn’t ready to accept her win—there was more she wanted to fight about. “I’m not the one who kissed you in the bathroom. In case you’re thinking I forgot about that, or somehow missed it, or …”

“Kind of hard to miss,” Ian again agreed. “Your lips, mine. A distinct smacking sound. Yup, that was me kissing you. Still, it was short—quickly over and done. A kiss good-bye. The subtext was I hope we don’t die, but if we do, it was nice meeting you. Not at all like that under-the-dock kiss.” He paused. “The one where you jumped me. The first time. So far.” He narrowed his eyes at her, much the way she’d done to him. “Naturally I’m suspicious. Did you intentionally leave my clothes behind?”

“If I’d known we were leaving the yacht—” Phoebe told him tartly, but then interrupted herself to ask, “And that was your intention after the cell phone rang, wasn’t it? To leave?”

Ian nodded. “Once they’d found us, taking their skiff was our only real option.”

“Thanks so much for sharing that with me,” she said. “And I’m not just being snarky. I’m serious. You really should have told me. It would’ve been far more useful than any allegedly subtext-laden good-bye kiss.”

“I was thinking on my feet,” he admitted. “Plus I thought it was obvious. Even if they bought your whole angry wife act, we couldn’t just let them go away—and maybe come back with reinforcements. I mean, we could’ve, but we’d’ve ended up swimming again.”

“Still, if I’d known, I could’ve taken more of the clothes,” she said. “Along with my bag—with my wallet. And all my credit cards. Which are now in the hands of criminals. Oh my God, what a pain in the butt.”

“A minor inconvenience,” he corrected her.

But she’d picked up whatever it was that she’d tossed into the skiff when he’d first pulled her in, and she held it up. He realized that it was the cell phone. “Instead, I have this—which, congratulations, is finally fried.” She laughed. “Nice job, by the way, for failing to set it on silent.”

“It was on silent,” Ian said. “It probably reset to default when I took out the battery. And better that it’s fried than left behind. I’m glad you took it—I was worrying about it.”

He could tell she didn’t quite believe him.

“I’m serious,” he echoed her words. “If you’d left it there, they might’ve been able to pull up some information from it that could’ve put Aaron and the others in danger. I’m pretty sure that was him calling—patience is not his strong suit. So, well done. And as far as your credit cards go, you’re working with the FBI. I’m sure you can get what’s-her-name—Deb—to cancel them for you.”

“First, we need to reconnect with Deb,” Phoebe pointed out.

“Won’t be too much longer now,” Ian said.

“What’s our plan?” she asked.

“I’m still working on it,” he said.

“Oh, good.”

They were approaching the lights of Sarasota’s main marina. The line of private homes—mansions, really—ended, and a public park claimed the shore, followed by several busy waterside restaurants. Ian could see, even from the distance, that people—many of them—were out in the evening air, strolling through the sculpture gardens, eating dinner on those open decks, sitting on benches, walking dogs …

And where there were that many people, there were always large, shadowy parking lots somewhere nearby.

They rode in silence for a few moments before Phoebe spoke again. “Look, I understand that it’s no big deal for you. But I know that you must often get mixed signals from women, and I apologize if I’ve done that, too. Because you are magnificent.” She quickly added, “I mean in your own arrogant, totalitarian way, of course.”

“Of course.” Ian aimed the skiff toward the edge of the park lights, and that last private dock, tucking the skiff in toward the seawall. On the far side of the wall, up a rolling lawn, the house was dark.

But the neighbors to the south were home. The neighboring dock was well lit, plus a full set of little sparkly white lights adorned most of the palm trees in that yard. Still, heading for the unlit house was their best option, since he hoped that its neighbor to the north was—bingo!—the parking lot for the park.

“I respect you,” Phoebe continued, and it was clear she was choosing her words carefully. “And despite having been unwillingly dragged into a frustrating, inappropriate, and highly dangerous situation, thanks to your less than conventional lifestyle choices, I really do want to be your friend. Without any fear or threat—from either of us—of inadvertent jumping.”

Friends.

Huh.

Ian knew damn well that he wasn’t the most handsome man on the planet. But he also knew how to make his eyes twinkle in just the right way as he smiled, and that, combined with the genes that had given him his impressive physique, made him enormously attractive to many women. It had been decades since he’d gotten the friends speech, in part due to his appearance, but mostly because he’d gotten really good at recognizing women who were ready, willing, and able to have a fling.

And there was no doubt about it. If he’d walked into a bar and seen Phoebe sitting alone at a table, he would have avoided her at all cost. Not because he didn’t find her attractive. And not even because she probably would’ve had legal files spread out across the table, along with an open laptop. A busy, hardworking woman was often a good target for a one-nighter.

But Phoebe gave off a vibe that screamed trouble. She was complex and intriguing, yes, but way too much work, even at very first glance. There was nothing simple about her.


And she’d clearly scared the shit out of herself by kissing him like that, under the dock.

Scared him a little, too, truth be told.

Here and now, Ian knew that the right thing to do would be to reassure her. Promise that he would be a gentleman, even though he was nothing of the sort.

Instead he found himself continuing to tease her. “From this point on, then,” he told her, “any jumping will be advertent.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know. We’re friends. I get it. But even friends have the right to change their minds. I’m just promising you that we’ll have a forty-five- or fifty-minute conversation before we engage in any incredibly hot, passionate, deliciously creative, triple-orgasm-inducing monkey sex. Which is absolutely what would happen if we ever hooked up. Judging not only from that kiss, but from other circumstantial evidence as well.”

Interestingly, Phoebe didn’t have anything to say in response to that, although she did look away from him, instead gazing pointedly down at the water moving past the side of the skiff.

Ian cleared his throat. He may have pushed it too far. “I just wanted to be honest.”

She looked up, her expression unreadable. “No, you didn’t. You wanted exactly what you got, which was to get me all …” She stopped.

Please say hot and bothered …

She didn’t. “Flustered. And embarrassed. Why do you do that? I’m making a genuine attempt to be an adult about what happened and—” She threw up her hands. “You know what? Forget it. I made a mistake, and I apologized. It’s over and done. If you want to keep teasing me about it, be my guest. You just keep living in your macho, misogynistic, pathetic little world where you can’t take an attempt at friendship from a woman at face value. Because if that’s who you are, I guess we have no chance of being friends anyway. So there it is.”

It was then, as they approached the lights, that Phoebe finally realized that the T-shirt she wore was transparent. She tried to wring it out and pull it away from her body, but that didn’t help and she soon gave up with a muttered curse. Instead she attempted to arrange her arms so as to keep her breasts covered. But that wasn’t going to work very well, either. Especially since it was nearly time to adios the skiff and climb out onto shore. She’d need to use her hands to steady herself.

Ian pulled them in close to the dock and cut the motor. He quickly tied the painter to a post—even though the dock’s owners would immediately realize that that was not their skiff, it was better to tie it than to let it drift free.

Nothing drew attention like a drifting, empty boat.

Except maybe a large naked guy carrying a handgun, and a pissed-off woman who looked like the grand-prize winner from a wet T-shirt contest, sneaking through a potentially busy parking lot and attempting to hotwire a car.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ian started to say as he attempted to give her a hand out of the skiff. But she both cut him off, and refused his help, scrambling onto the dock all by herself.

“Nope. Done talking about this,” she said briskly. “So. Where are we going and how are we getting there?”

“On the other side of those shrubs is a fence, on the other side of that is a parking lot,” Ian told Phoebe. “We’re going to move, quickly, up the ramp, and head straight for that shrubbery. Stay in the shadows, and be aware that your shirt is white.”

“I’m very aware of that, thanks,” she said dryly. “Are you sure you don’t want to check the house—maybe someone left towels or even a bathing suit on the deck.”

“We don’t know that they’re not home,” he said.

“If they are, even better,” she countered. “I can play mortified damsel in distress. I was skinny-dipping with my bullshit ass-hat of a now-ex-boyfriend, and he stole both my clothes and my car. Might I borrow some towels? Please. I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

God, she was good, standing there gazing up at him, wide-eyed behind those endearing glasses. Ian was suddenly intensely aware that he was naked. And that he’d just succeeded at making her not like him very much.

“I’m just disappointed,” he admitted. “That you’re so horrified by that kiss. I liked it. I think I’ve been pretty clear about that. And about the fact that I like you. A lot. More than what’s good for you.”

He’d surprised her again, that much was clear. “Shouldn’t that be my choice?” she asked. “As a grown woman? Deciding what is or isn’t good for me?”

“It’s not a choice,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a fact, Pheebs. And instinctively you know it. It’s a very good plan for us to be friends—to just leave it at that. Because, to be honest, keeping this weird thing between us to friendship is better for me, too. The complications and entanglements …” He shook his head again.

She nodded as she held out her hand. “Then it’s a deal. We’re friends.”

Ian made himself nod, too. And he took her hand. Shook. Should’ve let it go right away. But didn’t. Couldn’t. Damn it.

He also couldn’t stop himself from speaking, even though he had to clear his throat before he could get the words out. “Can we just make one conditional rule here? That if we get into a situation where we know—absolutely—that we’re going to die, we can have—”

She pulled her hand away. “Don’t say it!”

He did. “Sex.”

She glared her disbelief. “You are such an a*shole!”

“I am,” Ian agreed. “I’m afraid that accepting me for who I am comes with the territory when talking friendship.”

“Stay in the shadows, a*shole,” she said, then turned to stalk up the lawn toward the deck.

“Thank you,” he said as he headed for the shrubs. “I appreciate your open-minded acceptance of my a*shole-ishness.”

And he wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn that he heard Phoebe laugh.

* * *

“The stupid thing,” Francine said as they all waited for the software to upload on the computer she’d pulled out of a heavy-duty lockup in this crazy, secluded Batcave-type place that she called Zebra, “is that Sheldon could get this to work in about four seconds, blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back.” She glanced up at her brother-in-law, who’d changed Rory’s diaper of doom and now stood, bouncing and rocking the baby who’d finally decided that it was time to cry. Noisily. “That’s not helping.”

It truly wasn’t.

Martell straightened up, intending to throw himself on the grenade and offer to take the shrieking kid into the other room so that Aaron could stay here and help. But Deb shot him a look that screamed don’t from beneath her black-dyed bangs.

That’s right. She wanted him to grill Blondie. How silly of him to forget.

“I’d offer to, you know,” Martell said to Aaron instead, making a loser-appropriate gesture that might have meant take the baby on some distant planet where babies were shaped like basketballs, “but I’m not very good with kids that little, and I don’t want to scare him—or you, by, I don’t know, dropping him or something, so …” He shrugged expansively. “Sorry, man.”

“Just tell me when the program’s up and running,” Aaron said tersely, then took the kid into the larger of the two bedrooms and shut the door.


Deb, too, faded back toward the kitchen area, phone to her ear as she took another call from her man, Yashi, who was still in Tampa.

Turned out they hadn’t had to wait for ol’ Yash to bring back a computer in order to monitor the surveillance at the safe house—because Zebra here was stocked with a variety of equipment.

If you could call a hefty amount of C4 explosives and the contents of a rather large, holy-shit-worthy gun locker equipment.

Yes, there was a shortwave radio among the gear, as well as a generator to power the place in the event of blackout.

Or zombie apocalypse.

There was also this slightly outdated computer, and yes, the hardware needed to create a wireless hotspot.

Which allowed them to upload the software that allegedly would let them sneak a peek at Sheldon and his half-bro captor, Berto. That allegedly was because so far they hadn’t been able to get the damn thing to work.

Several phone calls to Deb ago, Yashi—whose excitement level was permanently set to comatose—had instructed them to uninstall the software and then reinstall it. And yeah, listening to him do his slow-talk thing over the speaker on Deb’s phone nearly made Martell go blind with frustration. Or maybe it was envy that was causing that icepick of pain above his left eye.

Dude got to get some from Deb, as often as he wanted it, and he probably saved all of his whooping and hollering for the nights that she got out her handcuffs and whips and—

Sweet baby Jesus, what was wrong with him?

Thinking about the potentially molten hot, kinky sex life of two people Martell barely knew was not helping in any way.

Not when he had a job to do.

“So Shelly’s the computer specialist, Ian’s the brains, Aaron’s the brawn,” Martell said to Francine who was glaring at the computer message that announced the program’s uploading. “That makes you in charge of … B&E?” he guessed. Although a beautiful woman like Francine wouldn’t have to break anything to enter, at least not in most instances. There was a wide variety of ways to enter a locked building, and picking a lock, crawling through an air vent, or even breaking a window were usually last on the long list of options that usually started with conning or seducing a guard.

Francine shot him a deadeye look, similar to the ones she’d given him back in the coffee shop, where they’d first met. Other than that, she didn’t respond.

“Must be nice to have the trust of a man like Ian Dunn,” he tried.

“I’d prefer not to talk while I’m doing this.”

“It’s still only forty percent uploaded,” Martell pointed out. “Not a lot of doing right this sec. And I thought as long as we’re going to be working together—”

“Fine,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me more about this bullshit no-win mission you and Little Debbie Cupcake are forcing Ian to pull off?”

“It’s not a no-win—”

“Breaking into the K-stani consulate?” she interrupted with a scornful exhale. “With the kind of paranoid security they probably have?”

“That’s funny,” Martell said, “because I was just thinking about the B of B&E, and how Ian won’t have to actually break—”

“How do you even know these kids are there?” Francine demanded. “Every hour that passes, it’s more and more likely they’ve been moved to—”

He interrupted her this time. “They haven’t been moved. We know this. We know where they are, we’re watching the consulate, and we’ve put safeguards in place to make sure they can’t be moved until we’re ready to send Ian in after them.”

“Safeguards,” she repeated, heavy on the disbelief.

“You really want to get into weeds on how—”

“Damn right I do, and Ian will, too, so if you don’t know—”

He cut her off again. “U.S. intelligence has warned the Kazbekistani government that there’s an assassination plot brewing against their prime minister.”

Francine snorted. “Prime minister? He’s the f*cking dictator.”

This woman had a problem with almost every word Martell spoke. He stopped trying to hide his impatience, giving some of it back to her. “Yeah, well, this dictator wants to be called prime minister,” he pointed out. “So that’s what we’ll call him. Obviously the plot is fabricated, and includes a laundry list of reasons for the K-stani Imperial Guard to search, extensively, all diplomatic pouches and packages going from the U.S. to K-stan. Since only a few people in the K-stani embassy are involved in the kidnapping of these children, blah, blah, blah. You get it? The kidnappers can’t move ’em until the searches stop, aight? And TSA and the Coast Guard have bumped their threat level up, so the bad guys won’t try to take ’em out via other means, for fear of getting caught. Plus, we’ve got a BOLO, with a sketch of the perp—unidentified—we don’t want him to know that we know his name. It’s just enough to make him cautious about boarding a plane. Ergo, the kids are still in the Miami consulate. We know this for a fact.”

“You’ve implied that Ian’s not going to break in to get them out,” she surmised. “That means he’s going to walk right in. And since you’ve just said you’ve IDed the perp—the kidnapper …”

“And now I see why Ian trusts you,” Martell said. “You pay attention.”

She brushed aside his attempt at a compliment, her eyes intense as she gazed at him. “So who is it?”

“You ever hear of a guy, goes by the nickname the Dutchman?”

“The Dutchman?” She repeated it with a touch too much disbelief in her tone. Hells yeah, she’d heard of him, but she was playing it like her answer was a great big no. “Seriously? Does he wear, what? Wooden shoes? And live in a windmill?”

Her skills were gold-medal-worthy, but Martell knew she was lying.

“Georg Vanderzee.” He gave her the man’s real name. “Rumor has it he’s a sociopath. So if you have any information that you can share that will allow me to provide more effective support for Ian while on this mission …” He let his voice trail off.

Francine had returned her attention to the computer screen, where the download was closing in on 95 percent complete. She was managing to keep her face devoid of the oh shit that Martell knew she was feeling. But then she surprised him by looking up. Meeting his gaze.

“Total sociopath,” she admitted. “I’ve never met him myself, and I’m pretty sure I only heard part of the story from back when Ian had to deal with the son of a bitch. I’m certain there were parts that Ian thought were too terrible for me to hear.” She shook her head. “And that’s not him being sexist. He told me more than he ever told Shelly or Aaron. I know that for a fact.”

“Can you tell me what Ian said?” Martell asked.

“It’s been a while,” Francine said, and she wasn’t bullshitting him. Her face was somber. “Years. I think it would be better—more accurate—if you got the information directly from Ian.”

“Fair enough.” He paused. “Thanks for being honest with me.”

She looked at him again. “This has nothing to do with you. In fact, f*ck you.”

Martell had to smile. “Wow, Deb was right. You really do like me.”


Francine actually laughed as the computer beeped. But then her face changed—it hardened and her eyes flattened, almost as if she were shutting herself down.

And Martell saw that the surveillance program was running. A variety of boxes were up on the screen, each showing a different viewpoint of the former safe house. Some of the rooms were dark, but lights were on in the kitchen and the living room—which had a TV blaring. A bathroom was lit up, too.

A slender, dark-haired man with scrapes and bruises on his face stood in that little pink room, in front of a sink, while another significantly stockier man with a receding hairline loaded beer into the fridge in the kitchen.

Francine sharply drew in her breath. “Get Aaron,” she said, her eyes glued to the screen. “Now.”