The Spy Wore Red (5 page)

But what he didn’t know was that all the other men who knew those same facts were dead. Every one of them. She had never had to look into their eyes after she’d given herself to them. Not an hour later, not a day or a year later.

Bjorn had changed the rules that night in Vienna. She hadn’t been able to confirm that he was an enemy, and then there was that technicality as to where they had sex—she could honestly say she’d never had a sexual encounter in the shower before that night.

She could say that’s what had altered the outcome of their night together—why she’d let him live—but she would be lying. From the very moment he had taken her hand and led her out of the alley, she had lost some of her ability to think rationally.

She hadn’t analyzed it at the time, but now, five years later, she knew what had made the difference, and she felt foolish—she’d been had by a professional, taken in by some of the most basic tricks a man could use on a woman—good old-fashioned experience.

She’d thought she was the one with all the experience, but Bjorn Odell was the master, his touch capable of lighting a thousand fires under a woman’s skin.

And the way he used his lips…

Even now the memory of him coaxing her into climax sent raw chills up her spine. Helpless in his arms—that was the only way to explain how she had felt. Helpless and willing to forfeit everything to feel what she had never felt with any other man.

No, she had never wanted to see him again, didn’t dare. Not after the way she had shattered in his arms. But that didn’t mean she would ever be able to forget the man with the hot hands and the sky-blue eyes.

She wanted to turn around and run from the airplane, but she wasn’t going to. She needed to visit Wilten Parish, and if Ruger wasn’t there… No, he
would
be there, and he would assure her that all was well—that their secret was safe.

Then he would prove it by saying the prayer that produced miracles and moved mountains. Ruger had saved her once before, and he would do it again.

She came aboard wearing red wool and snowflakes, and the memory it evoked tightened Bjorn’s gut. He watched her slip off the cape and toss it on a seat opposite him.

She was dressed all in black under the cape, and he sized her up. Her sweater moved along her curves as if it had been painted on. Her pants, too, fit like a sleek pair of expensive leather gloves. His eyes shifted to her narrow waist, then traveled to the flare of her hips. Then to the junction of her thighs.

He had boarded the Learjet ten minutes early. He had wanted to be seated, waiting for her when she arrived. He was glad he had; the memories of Vienna were making his pants damn uncomfortable.

She took the seat across from him. It required her to step over his legs sprawled in the aisle. He didn’t move, but he did inhale the scent of her as she stowed her carry-on beneath her seat. The Alpine heather hijacked another hot memory, and he cursed it and her.

She avoided looking at him, finding something out the window to focus on. That amused him and he shifted in his seat to scan the airport for what had caught her attention. He saw Lev Polax standing in a long coat and flambeau hat below a spotlight. He lingered for only a minute longer, then jerked his hat low over his eyes to battle the nasty weather and walked away.

Still staring out the window, she asked, “When and where do we land?”

“Vienna, in one hour, thirty-six minutes.”

His answer pulled her gaze from the window to look at him directly. He held his arrogant, relaxed posture, his legs angled and his ankles crossed, taking up the walkway.

He still wore what he’d had on earlier—his blue pants and sweater. In the seat across the aisle next to her red cape was his navy blue peacoat and a tan wool scarf. His elbow was propped on the arm of the seat, and his chin rested comfortably between his thumb and forefinger.

“Why Vienna?” Her voice sounded flat, and she directed her eyes back out the window.

“I thought it would be a nice way to start off the mission…on familiar ground.”

Her head jerked back around. “Is this the way it’s going to be with us the entire trip? At each other’s throat?”

Bjorn shrugged for lack of an answer. He didn’t know why he was pissed. Yes, he did. She had walked out on him that night, and he still felt cheated.

It was true that every man wants what he can’t have. That night what he had wanted was more time with Nadja Stefn. More touching and tasting. More holding her and hearing those unforgettable moans that she made.

“Let’s try to keep our minds on the mission,” she said. “We’ll be more effective that way. And for the record there will be no—”

“Heavy breathing? No moaning? No, ‘right there, yes…there. Don’t stop.’” Bjorn let the words roll off his tongue in his Danish lilt. The very words she’d breathlessly recited to him over and over again.

He’d played with those words in his mind a thousand times.

“Dreams are free,” he said.

Her nose lifted, bringing her chin up. She tucked a strand of pale-blond hair behind her ear. She was a true blonde. He knew that because he’d been privy to seeing her naked. He hadn’t been shy, no never. A shy man had regrets.

Polax mentioned a tattoo. He hadn’t seen it that night in Vienna, and that didn’t make sense to him—he’d touched every inch of her body…looked hard at everything. Remembered everything.

The memory of her body moving against his caught and held him, sending more blood pumping through his veins—through his phallus. They had been tangled in a knot of lust in that narrow shower, and he hadn’t ever been a part of anything that damn powerful in his life.

The plane’s engine began to sing, and then they were taxiing onto the runway. The snow was blowing like hell and the temperature was steadily dropping.

He had been listening to the weather reports while waiting for her to come on board. It looked like they would be flying into a level-ten storm. That’s the real reason he had altered their flight plan and decided to land in Vienna. The airports in and around Innsbruck were all closed.

Once they landed, he would check out the weather reports and see if any flights had opened up. If not, they’d rent a vehicle and drive to Otz.

“In Polax’s office you said that you knew where Holic Reznik would head. Enlighten me.”

She had heard him, but instead of answering him, she dodged the question and asked, “Are you sure we should be leaving in this weather?”

“I’ve flown in worse. We’ll make it.”

He said the words with confidence, though he didn’t like the weather outside, or the fact that they could be flying into worse. He wasn’t much on flying anyway, although he had done his fair share over the past seven years.

The plane’s engine grew louder, and the reminder to fasten seat belts flashed overhead. Bjorn straightened and buckled up as the jet rolled out and headed down the runway. They turned, the plane’s engines winding up, and suddenly they were racing down the runway.

Bjorn closed his eyes, hating that someone else was in control at that moment. That was what it was all about for him—giving over his control to someone he didn’t know or trust, someone who might be having a bad day or just didn’t give a shit if he lived or died at that moment.

The minute the plane was airborne, he opened his eyes and caught Nadja studying him. Their eyes locked briefly and he held her gaze openly.

“You’re staring,” she said. “Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s not polite?”

“I never had a mother.”

She raised her eyes. “Everyone has a mother.”

“It takes more than giving birth to earn that label” was all he said, and all he was going to say on the subject.

Once the plane leveled off, Bjorn unfastened his belt and stood. “I’m going to have a chat with our pilot. When I get back, we’ll talk.” He paused, gave her a warning look that his comrades had named the “gutted glare.” “If you lied to me about knowing where Holic’s hideout is, I’ll ship you back to Polax the minute we land in Vienna.”

Chapter 5

T
he headache came on halfway back to Washington. He hadn’t had one for an entire week. Merrick pressed his fingers into his temples, the pain so severe he felt dizzy. He had taken a handful of prescription pain relievers, but it hadn’t touched the shooting pain. It was a good thing he was sitting down.

He was on his third bottle of Glen Moray, but all that was doing was making him see double on top of everything else. But he continued to drink until the plane landed.

Because he was too drunk to drive, he took a cab to his apartment in Washington. He collapsed once he got inside, and ten hours later woke up on the floor to the aftereffects of too much whiskey and the tail end of the worst headache he’d had since he’d been diagnosed five months ago with a brain tumor.

The first thing on his agenda when he picked himself up off the floor was to phone his doctor. Paul was a personal friend, as well as a damn good surgeon.

“Sorry, Adolf, you’re not going to want to hear this, but your time is up.”

“Can’t you give me something for a few more weeks? I’m in the middle of a—”

“You’re always in the middle of something, Adolf. You’ve stalled long enough. You’re gambling with your life and I can’t be a party to that any longer.”

“But—”

“I’m admitting you today.”

“Not today.”

“Then tomorrow.”

“Give me two days.”

“Two days, then. Get your affairs in order, Adolf. Then I’ll expect to see you in my office at nine o’clock Thursday morning. If you don’t show, I’m washing my hands of you. Those headaches are a warning. And they’ll keep getting worse. You said this one was bad, but it’ll seem like a walk in the park compared to the next and the next.”

Feeling worse was hard to imagine. “All right, Paul. Day after tomorrow. Nine o’clock, your office.”

When he hung up, he sat down and made a list of what had to be done before he admitted himself into the hospital. Sly was somewhere in the Greek Isles with Eva, and couldn’t be reached.

I’ll be found when I want to be found, Merrick. When there’s a good enough reason to come back.

For the time being there was no reason for Sly to return to Washington. Pierce was in Hungary and Ash in Mexico. That left Jacy. The half Blackfoot Indian was recuperating in the mountains in Montana. But while he was sitting on his ass drinking green tea there was no reason why he couldn’t become Bjorn’s controller.

His decision made, he headed for his office to see to the details, and by late afternoon, he was in the air again, his plane headed for Big Sky country.

“Are you sure that Jacy Madox is going to let us bring all this equipment into his house? I heard he’s kind of funny about people trespassing on his turf. Heard he was once in the Hells Angels or something like that.”

“They call it territorial,” said Vic Krandle, dusting a piece of lint off his dress pants. He was one of Onyxx’s top physical therapists, but he was also a connoisseur of fashion. “And up here they don’t call what he lives in a house. It’s a log cabin, right, Merrick? Most likely a twelve-by-twelve with an outhouse out back. Which brings up the question of how we’re going to fit all this equipment in such a small space.”

“You’ll have to make it fit” was Merrick’s answer.

“I heard he’s one of those loner types,” Tommy the technician said, pulling his stocking cap lower over his ears. “The kind of guy you don’t want to piss off or feed red dye number sixteen to.”

Merrick glanced over his shoulder to the two men he’d brought with him to transform Jacy Madox’s mountain
cabin
into a high-tech information center. Thirty minutes ago they had landed the plane at the nearest airstrip, then climbed into a helicopter.

Merrick was hopeful that this was going to work. Bjorn and Jacy were as close as brothers, and he intended to use that to his advantage. Even in a wheelchair Jacy was mentally up for the challenge. In fact it would be good for him—get him back into the swing of things.

The last mission had left Jacy with his knee blown to bits. Five surgeries later the prognosis wasn’t outstanding, but he still had his leg.

He’d called Jacy and told him he was flying in today to see him. He’d made it sound like it was a social call—his commander checking up on one of his rat fighters.

“There, sir. I see it. Down there, in the trees.”

They had just come over a mountain range of treetops covered in snow. Merrick saw Two Medicine Lake, the landmark Jacy had given him. The cabin was a hundred yards back from the frozen water. The area was surrounded by giant pine trees, and there was one lone road leading up to it. But it was the kind of road that only an all-terrain vehicle would be able to maneuver.

The cabin was bigger than he had envisioned. It wasn’t anything elaborate, but it wasn’t a one-room shack with a couch that converted into a bed, either. Merrick smiled over that—the six boxes were going to fit just fine. A coil of smoke drifted from a rock chimney and there was a black pickup parked not far from the back door. He motioned for the pilot to take the helicopter down—there had to be a flat piece of ground somewhere.

This is the middle of nowhere, sir,” Vic said.

“Just the way Jacy likes it” was Merrick’s reply. “How’s he going to take us dropping in?” Tommy asked.

“We’ll know soon enough.” Merrick noted the worried looks exchanged between the two men.

“Maybe you should call him and tell him not to shoot us before he knows who we are.”

“He knows I’m coming,” Merrick assured them.

“But what about us?” Tommy asked. “Did you mention us?”

Merrick grinned. “You’re part of my surprise. You and those six boxes of equipment.”

“Shit,” Tommy said.

“Double shit,” Vic Krandle muttered.

He might be an asshole, but Nadja was being a royal bitch, Bjorn thought. She had refused to tell him the exact location of Holic’s hideout—the one she claimed she could find in the dark, drunk—her excuse being that once he knew the particulars he wouldn’t need her anymore and he’d ditch her.

Not only had she refused to talk about Holic, but she had refused to talk to him altogether, saying that she was too exhausted at the moment to think clearly. That she hadn’t slept well the night before and could use a nap before they landed.

She was either playing a game with him, or she’d lied through her teeth about where they would find Holic. He couldn’t believe she would lie to get on this mission, but he would never underestimate a woman who carried a custom-made .45 under her skirt.

She had reclined her seat and closed her eyes soon after telling him he needed more patience. No, what he needed was to stop remembering how well they had fit together in that goddamn shower.

Bjorn contemplated his situation. He was two days behind the other agents hunting Reznik. He had a partner he didn’t want, a lover he couldn’t forget, and they had just landed in the middle of a freeze-your-ass-off blizzard.

“The day just keeps getting better and better,” he muttered.

“Did you say something?” Nadja asked, unbuckling her seat belt.

She raised her arms and stretched, arching her back. Her breasts said hello, and the fitted black sweater moved upward high enough to expose her flat stomach and the shiny diamond stud in her belly button that winked at him.

Bjorn stared. That stud hadn’t been in her navel five years ago, and that made him curious as to what else was new. Again Polax’s words came to him.
She has an amazing tattoo. It’s in a place I call the dead zone.

The winter storm was still raging as they left the airplane. If it didn’t subside by morning they would be forced to rent an all-terrain vehicle, and hope that the roads between Vienna and Innsbruck were open.

Bjorn spied the taxi he’d arranged to meet them. It was a van of sorts meant to accommodate six to eight people. It was only the two of them, however, and two pieces of luggage.

He said to Nadja, “That blue van over there is ours.”

He saw her shiver, then pull her cape closer as a gust of wind swirled around them. It prompted another memory—the two of them on the run through the streets of Vienna. It had been snowing then, too. Damn cold as they had dodged flying bullets to stay alive.

The similarities prompted Bjorn to say, “A shower would sure feel good about now. It would warm me up, and in your case, thaw out that cold shoulder you’ve been giving me since we left Prague.”

His words caused her to stop abruptly and turn around to glare at him. It was the only thing that saved her from being shot in the head.

The familiar
pop
from a sniper’s rifle broke through the night. When the bullet whizzed past Nadja’s head, she immediately shoved Bjorn to the tarmac, then joined him, making herself as flat as possible.

She pulled her Springfield and raised her head to see that Bjorn had rolled and come to his feet. In a low animal crouch, he had drawn his weapon and was now searching his surroundings.

His unflinching courage was a rare thing, a visible sign why he’d been named a rat fighter, and she wondered how she had missed that five years ago.

He remained in the crouch, as if defying the sniper to take another shot. The sniper accepted the challenge and a shot rang out, sending a powder puff of the snow six inches from her left shoulder into the air.

Nadja heard Bjorn swear, then he came out of his crouch. Yelling at her, he ordered her to get her ass up and run like hell to the van. The words were barely out of his mouth as he spun on his heels and shot out the security lights leading to and surrounding the van.

She scrambled to her feet and sprinted across the tarmac, her red cape flying around her long legs. She never doubted for a minute that Bjorn was close behind her.

Two more shots confirmed the gunman was using a night-vision scope on his rifle. The second shot shattered the back window of the taxi van.

She reached out and slid the door open, and was scrambling into the back bench seat when Bjorn tossed his duffel inside. It bounced off the other side door and landed at her feet. A second later he was diving inside on top of his bag.

The door was still open, when he yelled at the cab driver,
“Schnell! Schnell!”

The cabby took off, as anxious to get out of the parking lot as they were. The van shot forward and made a left that caused the vehicle to careen around the corner on two wheels. The vehicle rocked back, jarring Nadja almost off her seat. Then they were racing out of the lot and past the glassed-in terminal at breakneck speed.

After Bjorn pulled his legs inside the van, Nadja leaned forward and shoved the door shut.

Once they were through the airport gates and settled on a route heading toward Vienna, the taxi driver asked, “Where are you staying, Frau Larsen?”

Nadja heard the question and recognized the name. Irritated that he would use the same name he’d used five years ago, she kicked Bjorn where he sat on the floor in front of her. He grunted in pain at the force of her boot connecting with his ribs.

“
Ja,
Frau Larsen,” she said in a heavy accent to mimic the driver, “where are we staying?”

“At a pension in the heart of the city,” Bjorn replied. “Nossek.”

“
Sehr gut,
Herr Larsen. Nossek, nice place.
Beeilen Sie sich?
”

“I think hurrying would be a good idea,” Bjorn agreed. “Unless you’re interested in early retirement. The permanent kind, if you get my meaning.”

“
Sehr gut,
Herr Larsen.”

The van picked up speed.

The pension Nossek was quiet, the rooms small but clean. The best news of all was that they had arrived in one piece.

Bjorn had had his doubts after the taxi driver had damn near rolled the van on his way out of the airport, and damn near put them in the ditch twice after that.

There had been no mention of the broken back window when the taxi driver dropped them off. He’d barely hung around long enough to collect his fare.

Bjorn had stayed at the Nossek before. When he’d called ahead and made the reservation, he’d asked for his usual room on the second floor. It offered a clear view of the street, and the second exit was less than a minute away.

Another reason he was fond of this particular pension was that each room had not only a shower, but a bathtub, as well. As soon as he checked out the place, and was satisfied it was safe to get buck naked, he intended to spend half the night in that tub thawing out his frostbitten bones—he had nearly frozen to death in the van with the back window shot out.

He felt old tonight. Far older than thirty-eight. He tugged on the collar of his coat and adjusted the duffel bag that weighed heavily on his shoulder as he followed Nadja up the stairway.

“Why didn’t you pick up my bag, too? You had time to grab yours, but not mine?”

They were the first words she’d spoken to him since they had climbed out of the van and registered at the desk as Mr. and Mrs. Lars Larsen.

“I guess I was too busy chasing your ass to worry about your makeup bag.”

She glared at him, swiped the key out of his hand and lengthened her stride as they cleared the landing. They were staying in room six, and he followed her inside after she unlocked the door.

He dropped his gear to the floor. “Don’t get comfortable until I make sure this place is all ours.” He unzipped his bag and pulled out a second gun—a Ruger target side. He attached a night-vision scope and walked to the window. Bringing the gun up, he searched the street using the scope, then the rooftops directly across from the pension. Once he was satisfied he lowered the gun, took a step back and pulled the shade, then the curtains.

He left his coat on while he checked out the room. He ransacked the place, searching for electronic bugs stuck under the corner table and behind the two scenery pictures on the walls. He checked for C-4 strapped to the bed springs. He even took the phone apart. The closet got the same treatment, as did the bathroom.

The sniper at the airport had been unexpected. He’d also been a lousy shot, but maybe that was part of his or her game, Bjorn thought. They weren’t the only ones after that kill-file. The race had started two days ago—the minute Holic Reznik had escaped—and the rules were, there were no rules.