All The Queen's Men cs-2 Read online

  "Because I asked him to keep tabs on you."

  The bald admission astonished her. "Why would you do that?" She didn't like the idea of someone constantly checking up on her.

  "I wanted to know if you were all right, plus I never lose track of someone whose expertise I might want to use again."

  A chill ran up her spine. Now she knew why he'd driven her home; he wanted to draw her back into that world she had walked away from when Dallas died. He was going to figuratively wave a shot of whiskey under an alcoholic's nose, lure her away from the straight and narrow. He couldn't do it unless she still had the old urge to find that adrenaline rush, she thought in growing panic. If she had truly changed, nothing he could say would entice her away from the safe life she had built.

  She thought she had changed. She thought the hunger for excitement was gone. Why, then, did she feel so panicky, as if the smell of adventure was going to make her fall off the wagon?

  "Don't you dare ask-" she began.

  "I need you, Niema."

  Chapter Seven

  Damn it, why hadn't she remarried? John thought savagely. Or at least gotten herself safely involved with some steady, nine-to-five bureaucrat?

  He had stayed away from her for a lot of very good reasons. His job wasn't conducive to relationships. He had brief affairs, and nothing resembling an emotional attachment. He was away for months at a time, with no communication during those times. His life expectancy sucked.

  Moreover, he had thought he would be the last person on earth she'd ever want to see. He was staggered to realize she didn't blame him for Dallas's death, had never blamed him. Even though she had never trusted him, she didn't lay that at his door. It took a person of excruciating fairness to absolve him of all blame as she had done.

  He had learned not to agonize over the choices he had to make. Some of them were hard decisions, and every one of them had left their mark on his soul, or what was left of it. But other people seldom saw things the same way, and that, too, he'd learned to shrug off. As his father's old friend Jess McPherson once said, he was hell on people. He used them, exploited them, and then either betrayed them or simply disappeared from their lives. The very nature of his job demanded that he not let anyone get dose enough to touch him emotionally. He had forgotten that once and let a woman get close to him; hell, he had even married her. Venetia had been a disaster, both professionally and personally, and in the fourteen years since he had been strictly solo.

  Several times during the past five years he had been relieved that Niema Burdock probably hated his guts. That put her safely out of his range and killed the occasional temptation to get in touch with her. It was better that way. He would just check on her now and then, make certain she was all right-after all, he'd promised Dallas he would take care of her-and that would be that.

  He had expected her to find someone else. She was young, only twenty-five when she was widowed, and both smart and pretty. He had wanted her to find someone else, because that would put her forever out of reach. But she hadn't, and he was through with being noble.

  He wasn't giving her any more chances.

  But she would run like hell if he simply asked her out. He would have to play her gently, like taking a world-record trout on gossamer line, never letting her feel the hook that was reeling her in until it was too late for escape. On his side was her own nature, the adventurousness she seemed determined to bury, and a very real situation that needed to be finessed. Weighed against him was the fact that, despite the uneasy bond forged between them in Iran, she didn't trust him; he'd always known she was smart.

  Frank had asked her to his house on a bogus excuse, in a well-meant but awkward attempt to do a little matchmaking. Well, maybe it had worked. And maybe the excuse wasn't so bogus after all. John's mind raced, weighing risks and benefits. He decided to go for it.

  "Delta Flight 183 was sabotaged. The FBI labs have turned up traces of explosive, but no detonator. The stuff seems to be a new, self-detonating compound, probably based on RDX and developed in Europe."

  She put her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear this."

  John moved around the island and took her hands down, holding her with his fingers wrapped around her slender wrists. "Anything in Europe goes through an arms dealer named Louis Ronsard. He lives in the south of France."

  "No," she said.

  "I need you to help me get into his files and find out where the stuff is made and who has already gotten a shipment of it."

  "No," she said again, but with a touch of desperation in her voice. She didn't try to pull away from him.

  "Ronsard is susceptible to a pretty face-"

  "Good God, you want me to whore for you?" she asked incredulously, dark eyes narrowing in dangerous warning.

  "Of course not," he snapped. No way in hell would he let Ronsard, or anyone else, have her. "I want you to get an invitation to his villa so you can put a bug in his office."

  "There are probably a thousand people in this city alone who could do that. You don't need me."

  "I need you. Of those thousand people who could do the work, how many of them are women, because I can guarantee you no guy is going to catch Ronsard's interest and get invited to his villa. How many? Twenty, maybe? Say a hundred. Ronsard is thirty-five; how many women out of that hundred are roughly his age? And out of that number, how many of them are as attractive as you?"

  She jerked on her wrists. John merely tightened his hold, while taking care not to hurt her. She was so close he could see the velvety texture of her skin. "You speak French-"

  "I'm rusty."

  "You'd pick it up again in no time. I need someone who's young, pretty, speaks the language, and has the skill. You meet all the qualifications."

  "Get someone else!" she said furiously. "Don't try to tell me you couldn't find a contract agent who met all your criteria, someone who wouldn't know your real name. You make it sound like I'm some Mata Hari, but I've never done any undercover work at all. I'd probably get us both killed-"

  "No you wouldn't. You've been on other ops-"

  "Five years ago. And I just did technical stuff, not any role-playing." She added coldly, "That's your forte."

  He let the slam roll off his back. After all, she was right. "I need you," he repeated. "Just this once."

  "This once until something else comes up and you decide you 'need' me again."

  "Niema..." He rubbed his thumbs over the insides of her wrists in a subtle caress, then released her and stepped away to pick up his coffee cup. He had pushed her enough physically; now was the time to back off and give her back control of herself, so she wouldn't feel as threatened. "I've seen you work. You're fast, you're good, and you can build a transmitter from pieces of junk. You're perfect for the job."

  "I went to pieces on the last job."

  "You had just heard your husband die." He didn't mince words and saw her flinch. "You're allowed to be a little shell-shocked. And you kept up anyway, we didn't have to carry you."

  She turned away, absently rubbing her wrists.

  "Please."

  Of all the words he could have used, that was the least expected. He saw her spine stiffen. "Don't try to sweet-talk me."

  "I wouldn't dream of it," he murmured.

  "You're so damn sneaky. I knew it the first time I saw you. You maneuver and manipulate and-" She stopped, and turned back to face him. Her throat worked, and her big dark eyes looked haunted. "Damn you," she whispered.

  He was silent, letting the lure entice her. Danger was as addictive as any drug. Firemen, cops, special forces personnel, field operatives, even the emergency department staff in hospitals-they all knew the rush, the incredible thrill when your senses are heightened and your skin feels as if it won't be able to contain all the energy pulsing through your muscles. SWAT teams, DEA agents-they were adrenaline junkies. So was he. And so was Niema.

  He did what he did partly because he loved his country, and someone had to be in the sewers t