Deep Breath (10 page)

2:40
A.M.

Harry made the return drive to the Waco area in record time. Stashing Morganna wasn’t hard, but he sure as hell didn’t like doing it—even if she wasn’t his car.

The Buick belonged to the Smithson Group. That didn’t make driving her over the cattle guard, through the gate he’d jimmied open, and into the pasture he’d chosen any less of a crime against Detroit and automakers everywhere.

He’d put up the top before leaving Dallas, and now flung a dark tarp over the body. He had a couple of hours, closer to three, before dawn. From the road, the car would be near to invisible until then. He just had to watch his time.

Hunkered behind her and wearing dark fatigue pants, he shucked out of his T-shirt and tugged on the black ski cap, long-sleeved pullover, gloves, and boots he’d brought with him, finishing off the camouflage with grease paint.

He glanced at his watch, pushed one of the four buttons on the side of the face. This one activated the wireless receiver inside his earpiece.

He hit the switch on the side of the headset to trigger the mike, spoke the code word to signal the SG-5 ops center, and waited for a response.

Tripp came on the line seconds later. “You’re good to go. No movement on the perimeter. When you’re close, I’ll walk you through the motion sensors.”

“Roger,” Harry said, adding a silent thumbs-up. Tripp’s satellite surveillance of Harry’s movements wouldn’t pick up such a small detail, but Harry felt better for the connection, and for knowing his partner had his back.

Contact made, he headed across the pasture toward the ranch house at a crouching run. He didn’t have a lot of time, but he did need to get this done. No lead left unfollowed, no stone left unturned.

Good news was that so far he’d had no transmission from Dallas. That meant Georgia was still asleep, or at least still in the room. Not only had he slipped the transmitters into her boots and bags, he’d set a trip wire alarm on the base of the door. He’d know if she opened it and walked out.

He’d left her a note in the bathroom, told her he’d be back by breakfast time, and asked her to order him up a double stack of pancakes and enough bacon to feed a platoon.

He smiled as he pictured her reading his backhanded scrawl, rolling her eyes as if following orders was the last thing she planned to do.

The sharp green smell of the new growth he crushed beneath his feet burst around him as he ran. Adrenaline fueled his sprint. His heart pumped. His thighs burned.

Getting from the car to the house and back was the easy—if physically grueling—part. All he had to do was keep his head down and his feet moving.

Getting inside and upstairs was going to be the mental challenge—one he would feel a whole lot better about tackling if he’d slept more than six out of the last forty-eight hours.

He’d learned over the years to survive on quick snatches of sleep, sure. He still felt a whole lot better about his work when he got more and knew he was in top form.

That was what he wanted to do when he got back to the room. Dig into the pancakes, bacon, butter, and syrup, then go lights-out. For about twelve hours. Of course he’d have to tie Georgia to the headboard to make sure she didn’t hit the highway while he caught up on his sleep.

Thinking of having her in handcuffs or silk scarves was not exactly a productive train to travel. Because then he started thinking about having her. And he was already running against the clock. He didn’t have time to stop and kick his own ass for not taking her when they’d been together in bed.

Thing was, he wanted to make love to her and with her because they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves—not because she was scared or cold or alone.

But making love would mean getting involved; he was an old-fashioned kind of guy when it came to intimacy. And he had no business taking personal side trips when he had a mission swallowing all the space on his plate.

He reached the fence line separating the nearest pasture from the house, and turned his full attention to the moment, triggering the switch on his headset to make contact with Tripp. “Rabbit at the gate.”

“I’ve got you on the scope,” Tripp told him. “The alarm’s wired in to the north. Two posts up. Three meters.”

Harry hunkered close to the ground, found the post, and went to work disabling the alarm without setting off the built-in warning indicators. That done, he held his breath and hopped the fence, waiting for Tripp’s all-clear.

“No movement. Stay low until you hit the patio. I’ll take you through the sensors.”

These external hurdles down, all he had left to deal with were the guards stationed inside.

Intel had put two on each floor until recently. Due to the increased interest in Duggin’s property since his death, the service had doubled the security staff.

With Tripp picking up the infrared images, Harry wasn’t worried about his own detection. He was, however, beginning to worry about the time.

It took Tripp twelve minutes to guide him from the yard across the patio. The next ten took him to the glass doors where he bypassed the second alarm and slipped into the first floor’s great room. Once there, he dropped to a squat behind a hulking billiard table.

He checked his watch again, timing the quadruple intersection of the first-floor patrols, then heading for the main staircase and creeping up.

At the top of the stairs, he took a left, listening to Tripp lay out the guard’s positions. The General’s study was at the end of the hallway straight ahead.

Harry drifted forward, an unseen shadow, the room’s dark interior swallowing him whole. He found the desk, dropped behind it, pulled a penlight from his pocket, and located the drawer Georgia had described.

Finding the dossier here and now would be about the best thing they could hope for. He could turn over the file to Simon Baptiste as soon as the SG-5 operative arrived, and have the analysis run without Georgia ever learning of the Smithson Group’s interest.

The only thing left to do at that point would be to rescue the bunch held hostage in the diner—a plan still in the early stages of development. Charlie Castro was going to be a very unhappy man.

Unfortunately, Harry realized, his own happily-ever-after was going to have to wait.

The false back to the drawer came away easily. But there was nothing behind it. He slid the pieces back in place and clicked off his light, rubbing the base of his neck as he hung his head, disappointed but already moving on.

And now he was really looking forward to—and needing—the sleep he was going to get when he got back to the room, because he might just have to do this again tonight.

Only this time he’d be doing it at Duggin’s Dallas estate.

7:30
A.M.

Head back, eyes closed, Charlie sat in his seat and listened. The waitress was curled into a far booth asleep. She’d spent most of the night sniveling. The cook had collapsed across his table at the diner’s other end.

Georgia’s brother had been sitting all night at the counter building log houses out of stir sticks. It had been quiet. Charlie liked that.

After Georgia and van Zandt left yesterday, Charlie’s men moved the vehicles off the lot. McLain’s truck to the Waco airport. The cook’s to Baylor University. The waitress’s to a shopping center parking lot. Lost in the crowd.

Charlie’s Mercedes now sat in a wrecking yard down the road. It was closed for the weekend. The car would be safe there until Monday.

The phone line had been disconnected at the building. Not cut. There was nothing pointing to anything afoul. He would be safe here until Monday.

As long as Georgia returned on time with the TotalSky dossier, he would be safe long after that.

The man paying him for the retrieval would be the safest of all, his participation in the TotalSky scandal wiped from the pages of history. Unless Charlie made him squirm.

Charlie had been thinking about that for most of the night. His client had made it clear that Charlie was to stop at nothing, that he was to succeed.

The latter wasn’t an ultimatum. Charlie never failed. But he had never gone as far as he’d been instructed to this time. He had never seen the need.

If a first attempt was unsuccessful, he made a second. If necessary, he made a third. As many as he needed. Doing so was a part of the game.

This client’s urgency had him curious. Too curious. Too interested. He knew never to let a job be more than a job. This one was different.

A chance to observe the human condition.

To witness the frustrated fear in those from whom he took.

To see the inevitable boredom in those to whom he gave.

He had yet to be hired by anyone content with what he delivered. He thought this might be the time. He’d spent the night weighing options. Considering courses of action.

There was nothing he could do until Georgia and van Zandt’s return. That was when he would decide whether to deliver the dossier without incident.

Or to look into its true value. Pit interested parties against one another for the sake of the show.

At the sound of a loud rumble outside, he opened his eyes, squinted between the slats of the blinds. A tractor-trailer rig shuddered its way to the soft shoulder on the far side of the road.

Charlie frowned. There would be a wrecker. There would be police. He sat up straighter. His men noticed the activity. He motioned them to keep the hostages down.

The truck driver jumped from the cab. Climbed up and released the hood. Pulled it forward. Dug around. Returned twice for tools. The minutes ticked by.

When the waitress stirred in her seat, he motioned for one of his men to have her put on coffee. He slid from the booth, checked his weapon, took up position behind the counter near McLain to wait.

Thirty minutes later came a knock on the door. It rattled and echoed like a gunshot. Charlie moved to the last booth, knelt on the seat, leaned against the wall, peered through the window.

The truck driver. He wore dusty boots and dirty jeans, a plaid shirt untucked, sleeves torn out. Muscles bulged in his shoulders. Matched those of his biceps in bulk.

His hair was long and black, worn in a thick tail bound at his nape. The straw of his cowboy hat was crushed. His sunglasses held Charlie’s attention.

He knew those sunglasses. They did not fit a big rig trucker dressed like a woodshed hick. The man drove a lot. The glasses would be an investment. That didn’t ease the itch at the base of Charlie’s throat.

The driver knocked again, leaned one hand against the side of the diner, waited, finally slapped the metal in frustration when he received no response.

Charlie watched him walk back to the rig, scuffing up clouds of dust on the way, and tried to figure what the man could want.

If not a cell phone, he should have a radio. Unless the electrical system was the source of the rig’s breakdown. He could have wanted water, use of the rest room. Neither fit a man who made his living on the road.

He watched the driver set out safety triangles behind the truck. The man was going to be here a while. He punctuated that by parking himself on the step to the cab.

Charlie moved back to the counter, poured a cup of coffee. He ignored the waitress as she skittered out of the way.

“Didn’t count on that, did you?” McLain took the coffee the woman returned to pour and hand him. “Puts a definite kink in keeping a low profile when you’ve got an audience at your front door.”

“I’m sure you’re more worried about that than I am.” He wasn’t going to be drawn into this conversation. “Discovery would be more painful for you than for me.”

“Not really worried, no.” McLain lifted his mug, held it with both hands, blew over the surface. “I’m getting more of a kick out of seeing you squirm.”

He never squirmed. He never had cause. “Someone will stop soon enough to assist. The audience won’t be around long. There is nothing here to see.”

“If you say so,” the other man said with a shrug, setting his mug in the center of his stir stick log house. The narrow red straws scattered across the counter. He leaned forward, blew them further away.

Charlie ignored McLain and his big bad wolf demonstration. But he could not ignore the sudden tic at the corner of his eye. He was not worried. He had no reason to be.

And he reminded himself of that as he returned to where he’d been sitting, paying no attention to the laughter coming from the man huffing and puffing and drinking coffee at the counter.

9:00
A.M.

When Georgia pushed open the bathroom door, Harry had just zipped his text messaging unit into place in his shaving kit, having checked in with Tripp and learned that Simon Baptiste was in position at Waco Phil’s.

“Well, thank God I’m not naked” was the only thing Harry could think of to say. The truth was that he was pretty damn close considering all the goods were swinging free beneath his towel.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked, probably unaware her demand didn’t have a lot of impact, coming as it had from a woman wearing camo short shorts. Her legs were everywhere Harry looked.

“So, you didn’t see my note?” He nodded toward the paper propped between two water glasses on the counter, directing his gaze there instead of from her shorts to her top, which didn’t cover much more.

She’d been asleep when he’d returned. He’d walked into the room, glanced from the entryway around the corner toward the bed before heading to the bathroom.

Once there, he’d shucked off his clothes and hopped into the shower to get rid of any face paint he’d missed when he’d wiped down before driving back.

“No. I didn’t see any damn note.” She barged into the steamy room, snatched it up and scanned it. “Pancakes?”

“Yeah. I’m starved. You want to call room service?” he asked, scrubbing a hand towel over his face and head.

She slapped the paper down on the countertop. “I woke up at four and you weren’t in bed. I figured you were in here so I went back to sleep. I woke up at six-thirty and realized the bathroom door was open and the light was off.”

“That’s when you sent out the search parties?” he asked, wondering if it had occurred to her that they were both nearly naked. It had certainly occurred to him.

“I was tired.” She crossed her arms. “I went back to sleep.”

“But you promised yourself you’d be mad at me when you got up.”

She tightened her arms, pushing up her breasts even further. “Yes. I mean, no.”

“I think you mean yes.” He looked away, finished closing up his kit.

“Where were you?” She jabbed a finger at the note. “‘I’ll be back for breakfast.’ What does that mean?”

“It means I’m hungry.”

She said nothing, just stared, jaw tight, shoulders back, before spinning to leave the room.

He reached out and snagged her by the wrist. “Georgia.”

“What?” she snarled, but she didn’t pull away.

He didn’t get her reaction. She couldn’t really think he would abandon her—even though she’d given him permission more than one time. “Stick with me here for a minute. Think about the last eighteen hours. Have I given you any reason not to trust me?”

She didn’t answer. But she did shake her head. And she turned her hand in his.

He laced their fingers, pulled her out of the doorway and into the room. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I just didn’t know where you were.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “And trust or not, I didn’t know if you were coming back.”

He wanted to know what was going on. And then he remembered last night. What they’d done. The change in the dynamic of what they shared.

He really was dense at times. “I won’t leave you again without telling you. I promise.”

She seemed to settle. “Are you going to tell me where you were?”

Did she need to know? Would it hurt or hinder the mission in any way? That had to be his first concern, his first consideration. “I went to Waco.”

She gasped. “To check on Finn?”

That much he couldn’t explain. That one of his partners was in place to do just that. That Finn was going to be fine. “No. I went to Duggin’s ranch.”

“What?” Her eyes grew wide. “Are you insane?”

He shrugged, released her hand, and tightened the knot of his towel. “I wanted to check the desk, see if the dossier was still there. Save us a lot of mileage on a possible wild-goose chase.”

“And?” Her voice shook. “Was it there?”

He shook his head. “Sorry. No. It must be in the lockbox.”

She turned and backed up to lean against the counter, her pulse popping in her throat, her adrenaline still high. “Unless Duggin destroyed it.”

Harry’s heart blipped. “Would he have done that?”

“I don’t know why.”

He could think of a couple of reasons. “To keep it from hitting the media that the dossier had been in his possession all this time. To keep from having to deal with the fallout if it ended up that he was involved, and it was discovered all these years later.”

“He knew. Oh my god.” She blew out a heavy breath. “He knew what I was going to do.”

“What? Georgia? Talk to me,” he said, stopping himself from asking what it was she was going to do.

She talked, but not about what he wanted to know. “The dossier has been missing for over twenty years, right? The general’s assistant would know what it was. So would the cataloging team. If they had come across it while going through his things, the discovery would’ve hit the news.”

He followed her line of reasoning, but…“Meaning they didn’t find it.”

“No. Meaning he destroyed it. If it wasn’t in the desk, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

He didn’t agree. He couldn’t agree. “Or they didn’t find it. Sometimes a cigar
is
just a cigar.”

She thought for a minute. “He could’ve moved it, I guess. Hidden it. Buried it inside a file going to one of the universities.”

“Or inside a file going to the auction.” Knock out the obvious explanation first. “We’re going ahead with the original plan.”

“We have one?” she asked with a snort.

“Tomorrow night.” He raised a brow. “The auction. The lockbox. Or have you already forgotten?”

“No. I remember that part,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Between now and then, though. Is there anything else we can be doing?”

“Pancakes first. Then sleep. For me.”

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re sleeping?”

“Well, you could buy another dress. One for tomorrow night.”

She rolled her eyes, pushed away from the counter, moved into the doorway. “That will take all of thirty minutes. How long of a nap are you planning?”

Longer than that. “Once you’re done with that, boot up my laptop. You can do some research.”

“On what?”

He put all he had into his grin. “Everything you ever needed to know to be a member of an auction house cataloging team.”