Penni’s heart jumped like a startled rabbit as that one word stood out among all the Russian quietly rolling through the speakers. The familiar zing of adrenaline spiked through her system and was the equivalent of a bucket of ice over the inferno of her libido. All the lingering ache, all the liquid longing was gone. Just like that.
Her wide eyes swung to Dan. She saw his jaw harden. Nope. Scratch that. His entire body hardened. He marched stiffly over to the dresser to stare so forcefully at the digital recorder that she was surprised he didn’t melt it with his gaze alone. After Kozlov signed off with a gravelly-sounding do svidan’ya, the tinny music clicked back on, followed by the quiet but unmistakable crack-snick of a break-action weapon being loaded.
The hairs on Penni’s arms started crawling around like they were alive, and she sat in stunned silence as Dan quickly switched off the digital recorders before reaching into his hip pocket to extract his phone. As he punched in a number, a muscle twitched in his cheek.
“He was just on the phone,” Dan growled softly after his call was connected. He unhooked the recorder that was on the dresser and started for the bathroom, motioning for her to follow at the same time he snagged his jacket from the end of the bed. “I’m gonna put in a call to Vanessa back at BKI and have her translate his conversation.” Penni knew from her time in Malaysia that Vanessa was BKI’s onsite language expert.
“I’ll get her on speakerphone,” he continued. “You and Zoelner mic up so you can listen in. Call and tell him the plan. Oh, also…I’ve turned off the digital recorders so we no longer have ears inside Kozlov’s room. Make sure Zoelner keeps his eyeballs peeled in case the Russian jets.”
Penni grabbed a seat on the toilet lid and watched Dan lay the phone on the white marble bathroom vanity before reaching into his hip pocket and extracting the tiny flesh-colored earpiece. After inserting it, he shrugged back into his jacket and, with the edge of his thumb, flipped a switch no bigger than the head of a ballpoint pen behind the microphone made to look like the top button on his coat. Checking the time on his big, black diver’s watch, he closed the bathroom door to ensure as much privacy as possible and said, “Check, check. Either of you copy me yet?”
Dagan Zoelner must have already mic-ed up and copied him because Dan made a face and answered with, “That wasn’t an invitation for ass-hattery, Zoelner. And for your information, no.” He flicked her a glance that had her raising an eyebrow. “That’s a…negative. We didn’t have time to talk because we got…uh…distracted by other things.”
Distracted. That was one way of putting it. Another way would be to say that, just like anytime the two of them found themselves alone in a confined space, they were all over each other like cold on ice cream.
She was glad she didn’t hear what Zoelner said in response to Dan’s admission, because whatever it was, it caused the tips of Dan’s ears to turn red. She gave him the evil eye. She was Italian—well…part Italian anyway, on her mother’s side—so it was her right. And just in case her expression didn’t clearly convey her desire for him to ix-nay all talk of their, ahem, distractions, she sliced a finger across her throat.
He rolled in his lips, stifling a grin. But all the humor disappeared from his face when he said, “I copy you, Chels. I’m getting Vanessa on the horn.” Snatching his phone from the countertop, he dialed and held it to his ear. “Yo, Ozzie,” he said once the connection was made. He flicked her another look and added after a beat, “You know goddamn well she made it here safe and sound. You used her passport to reserve the very room I’m standing in. Now, stop dicking around and making stupid innuendos. Put Vanessa on the phone. We finally have a lead.”
When Dan lowered the cell, switching it to speaker, the sound of Meat Loaf wailing and Ozzie humming the chorus to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” issued through the little speaker and bounced around the white subway tiles that lined the walls of the bathroom.
A couple of seconds later, Vanessa’s deep, throaty voice thrummed through the phone. “Turn that racket off, Ozzie. I can’t hear myself think.”
“First of all,” Ozzie said, “Mr. Loaf does not produce racket. He is one of the preeminent tenors of the past century. Second of all, with a body and a face like yours, Van”—his voice was suggestive even through the cellular connection, but Penni would swear on a stack of Bibles that there was a slight edge to his tone—“you don’t need to strain yourself thinking.”
“What have I told you about flirtin’ with my woman, cocksucker?” Rock’s drawl issued from somewhere off in the distance.