All The Queen's Men

"She won't be for long."

Cara was wearing a dazzling white tube gown, with her long blonde hair hanging straight down her back and rhinestones dangling from her ears. She knew she looked Hollywood flashy, but there was no way she could compete with these people in terms of jewelry and couture gowns, so she didn't try. California sexy was the style she tried for and achieved.

She flirted with several men, but the sexy Frenchman with whom she had played tennis that morning was safely anchored by his wife. Deciding to troll, she began moving around the room, stopping only to talk to likely prospects. She wasn't going to worry about Hossam's feelings one minute longer; he had no claim on her.

She didn't see it coming. Someone turned too abruptly, and a glass of red wine sloshed all over her white gown. She looked down at the awful stain in dismay, knowing she would probably have to throw the garment away. "I'm so sorry," the woman who had splashed her apologized, her face contorted with dismay "I don't know how this happened; someone jostled me."

"It's perfectly all right," Cara soothed, even though it wasn't. She didn't want to upset any of Louis's guests. "I'm sure the stain will come right out. I'll just run to my room to change." She brushed away the woman's offer to pay for the dress and kept a smile on her face as she left the ballroom. She seldom used the elevator, preferring the stairs in order to get in some exercise, but tonight she chose the fastest route to her room.

The smile was gone and irritation in its place when she got off the elevator on the third floor. The long hallways were deserted, with only indirect lighting from the sconces, but she was glad no one was there to see what a mess she was. Taking the key from her tiny evening bag, she jammed it into the lock and pushed her door open, her hand unerringly finding the light switch and flipping it on.

Light flooded the room at the same time a large hand clamped over her mouth and an arm around her waist lifted her off her feet. The door was kicked shut.

Panic screamed through her, making everything around her go dim for a moment. She heard her own muffled screams and knew the sound wouldn't carry beyond the room. She clawed at the hand over her mouth, kicking and squirming in an effort to escape.

"Hush, my love. There's no need to be frightened."

Hossam! Panic turned to rage in the space of a split second. She slammed her head backward in an effort to smash his mouth, but he only chuckled and tossed her onto the bed, then landed on top of her before she could control herself enough to scramble off the bed.

"You bastard," she hissed, no longer trying to scream.

He only laughed again, sitting astride her and capturing her fists. With no more effort than if he were handling a child, he looped a scarf around her wrists, then pulled her arms over her head and tied the scarf to the headboard.

"You bastard!" she said again, louder this time, shrieking it.

"Shhh, be quiet."

I'll kill you for this! Ill tear your balls off- ummmph!"

"I told you to be quiet," he murmured, tying another scarf over her mouth. He sat back, eyeing his handiwork, and a smile spread over his dark face. "Now, my love, let's see if the magician knows any new tricks."

He took a knife from his pocket and pressed a switch. A gleaming blade shot out, the light catching the razor-sharp edges. Cara's eyes widened as she stared at the knife, then at him. She began bucking, trying to throw him off, but he squeezed her body between his thighs and ruthlessly held her still.

Muffled screams came from behind the scarf as he slipped the blade under the clingy material covering her breasts and slashed downward. The two halves of the gown parted as if it had been unzipped, baring her breasts.

Hossam paused to admire the view. Still holding the knife in one hand, he fondled her naked breasts, cupping them and stroking his thumb over her nipples, admiring the way they tightened. Then he levered himself off her. "Be still," he commanded. "I might accidentally cut you."

She forced herself to stillness as he slit the dress all the way to the hem and pulled the rags away from her. She wore nothing underneath. Modesty wasn't her strong suit, but now she squeezed her legs together in a useless effort to protect herself. Oh, God, was he going to kill her?

He stepped back and began removing his clothes. Wildly she shook her head, hot tears burning her eyes.

"Don't be frightened," he repeated, stepping out of his pants and standing naked over her. His penis jutted out from his body, telling her how ready he was. Desperately she kicked at him, trying to catch him in the balls, though she had no idea what good that would do since she was still tied and gagged.

Clicking his tongue in reproval, he grabbed her by one ankle and gave it the same treatment he had her wrists. Another ten seconds and her other leg was bound, and she was lying with her hands stretched upward and her legs spread obscenely wide.

"What a wild thing you are," he crooned, crawling on the bed between her legs. "Sweet and wild and . . . mine. Never forget that. You're mine."

She expected to be swiftly, brutally raped and had already braced herself for the violation. It didn't happen. Instead he bent down and pressed his mouth between her legs, and began loving her.

The contrast between what she had expected and what he actually did was so great that she couldn't stop the soft moan that vibrated in her throat. She arched, and he cupped her bottom in his big hands to hold her still.

The bright overhead light dazzled her eyes. She stared upward as pleasure zinged through her body, unable to raise her head to see. This was ... this was so totally unexpected she couldn't quite grasp it was happening. He brought her to a hard, rapid climax that left her gasping, her eyes tearing from the force of it.

"That is just the first one," he murmured, leaning over her. "'You know I would never, never hurt you. Tonight we will discover all the ways I can pleasure you, as no other man can." His dark eyes twinkled at her. "And afterward, perhaps I will let you tie me to the bed."

She moaned and arched as his long fingers slid into her, stimulating nerve endings that were still sensitive from her climax. Her fear had faded, because his hands on her were loving instead of brutal, and in place of fear a deep excitement was blooming. This was different, and kinky. She had never been helpless before during sex. Usually she dominated, because that was how she liked it.

But she liked this too, she found. She was totally at his mercy, naked and exposed in the bright light. He could do anything to her he wanted, and her mind reeled at the possibilities. Hossam was so big and powerful, and he tended to be slow at sex anyway. This was going to be a long night-wonderfully, deliciously long.

"It's time," John breathed into Niema's ear.

Her pulse leaped. She took a deep breath and felt herself steady. She tilted her head back and gave him such a vibrant smile that he physically checked, staring down at her.

Who was she kidding? The moment of clarity was almost blinding as they left the ballroom and climbed the curving staircase to the second floor. She was a risk-taker. She loved every minute of this. She didn't want to go home and resume her job; she wanted to stay in fieldwork, where she belonged. She had paid penance for five years, but John had wrenched her back into the life for which she was truly suited and she never wanted to leave it again.

She felt almost breathless with discovery, with an inner joy that spread through her as if she had finally returned to life, to being herself.

The long hallway was empty. With no one to watch them, they walked briskly down to her room. She retrieved the wrap from the closet and held it folded so the tools and pistol were in a pocket of fabric against her body, with the loose ends draped over her arm. "How about this?" she asked.

"Looks good. Come on."

They hurried back up the hall, but instead of going down the stairs they went straight across into the west wing. "I prowled around and found a back way," John explained.

"Ronsard's private quarters are in this direction, too."

"I know. The back way is through his rooms."

She rolled her eyes, but didn't bother asking how he'd gotten into Ronsard's rooms. Locks didn't mean anything to him.

This route wasn't without risk. There were fewer people to see them, but anyone who did would be staff who worked in the private section, and who would know immediately they didn't belong there. Guests or not, Ronsard wouldn't allow anyone to disturb his daughter.

John pulled her to a halt in front of a wooden door burnished to a high gloss. He turned the handle, and they slipped inside the room. It was a bedroom, she saw-a huge, lavish one. "Ronsard's," John whispered in unnecessary explanation. "There's a private elevator going down to the hallway where his office is located."

The elevator was small, but then it was meant to carry only one man. It was also surprisingly quiet and arrived without the customary "ding" of a commercial elevator.

The hallway they stepped into was also empty, which was good because there was no logical excuse for them to be there, especially stepping out of Ronsard's elevator. John strode to a door, pulled a small recorder out of his pocket and held it to the electronic lock. He pressed a button, and a series of tones sounded. A tiny green light on the lock lit up, there was a faint but audible click, and he opened the door.

They slipped inside and he silently closed the door behind them, then did something to the lock. "What are you doing?"

"Disabling the lock. If we're caught, the fact that the lock isn't working will at least cloud the issue in our favor a bit, but I'd still have to come up with some reason for our being here."

"Boy, you have this planned down to the last detail, don't you?"

"I don't intend to get caught. Come on, move your pretty butt and get to work."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Niema looked around while John sat down at Ronsard's desk and turned on the computer. Another setup, far more elaborate, was hooked up on a desk on the other side of the room, but he ignored that one. She checked the jacks on what must be Cara Smith's desk; there were three separate lines coming into the office, but the phones themselves were only two-line phones. The computer was on a line by itself, then. She looked at the phone on Ronsard's desk; it was identical to the other, with two lines coming in. The first line would be the business line, she guessed; the second, his private number.

There was a closed-circuit television on Ronsard's desk, also, showing the hallway outside. She followed the line on it to the wall, making sure where it connected. She liked to have a room's wiring laid out in her mind, so she knew exactly what she was looking for and at.

Ronsard's phone jack wasn't behind his desk, probably because he didn't want it in the way. She followed the lines again; the jack was behind a long leather sofa that sat against the wall. Carefully she pulled the sofa out, lifting one end to make certain there were no telltale bangs and thumps.

Kneeling down on the floor, she unfolded her evening wrap and removed the black velvet pouch that contained her tools. Laying aside the SIG, she quickly unscrewed the jack, then disconnected the wires and stripped the plastic coating to separate the wires.

The usual wiretap had a receiver or recorder close by. In this instance, that wouldn't do any good because she had no way of retrieving a tape or listening to the calls. The CIA operative in place here didn't have access to Ronsard's office. John had slipped a digital burst receiver to him; he would trigger a signal to retrieve the audio data, which he would then send by his usual route to Langley. Even if he were discovered with the receiver, nothing could be made of it because the information was digitalized. It looked like an ordinary pocket radio; it even worked as a radio.

Quickly she attached the inductive probe tip to only one of the line terminals, which didn't make a complete circuit and hence couldn't be picked up by an electronic sweep. She interfaced the leads to the junction, keeping the leads less than three inches long. The short leads made the phone bridge impossible to pick up by electrical deviations. Next she hooked up two nine-volt batteries as a power source for the receiver/transmitter and began putting everything together in the receptacle.

"Almost finished," she said. She estimated she had been working about twenty minutes. "Are you in yet?"

"Still working," John murmured absently. "The files are password protected."

"Did you try 'Laure'?"

"It was my first shot."

"Nothing in the desk?" She had been aware of him opening and closing drawers, but thought he might be looking for paper files, too.

"No." He was swiftly examining everything on top of the desk, looking for anything that might contain the password.

She screwed the jack plate into place, then repositioned the sofa. "What if it isn't written down?"

"Unless he's a fool, he changes the password on a regular basis. If he changes it, then the current one is written down somewhere. If you're finished there, look for a wall or floor safe."

"Don't tell me you're a safecracker, too."

"Okay, I won't tell you."

Swiftly she checked behind all the paintings hanging on the wall, but there was only wallpaper there. A

huge, thickly woven rug covered the floor and she threw back the edges, but again found nothing. She got out a screwdriver and, moving around the room, examined all the outlets, because sometimes dummy outlets concealed small hiding places. "Nothing," she reported. She gathered her tools and the pistol, slipping them back into the folds of her evening wrap.

John picked up a book and ruffled all the pages, holding it spine up to see if anything fell out. He paused, looking at the well-thumbed book. Niema walked over to look at the book, putting her tools down on top of the desk: A Tale of Two Cities.

John flipped to a page with a down-turned corner. "It's here. Nobody reads this more than once, unless they have to."

"It's a classic," she said, amused.

"I didn't say it wasn't good, but it isn't something you read over and over." He ran his finger down the page, looking for anything that jumped out at him. "Guillotine."

Turning back to the keyboard, he typed in the word. ACCESS DENIED flashed on the screen.

He shrugged and consulted the book again. "Dickens was damn wordy," he grumbled. "This could take all day." He tried "monarchs." ACCESS DENIED.

"Monsters" was rejected, then "enchanter."

The file list opened on "tumbrils."

"How about that," John said softly. "I was just shooting in the dark."

"Lucky shot." Except he wasn't just lucky, he was so highly trained that instinct and experience put him several jumps ahead of almost everyone else, allowing him to see the significance of a battered copy of a classic lying in the open on Ronsard's desk.

He slid a disk into the A drive and began calling up files and copying them onto the disk. He didn't take time to read any of them, he just copied them as fast as possible, one eye on the closed-circuit monitor the entire time.

Niema moved around behind the desk. "I'll watch the monitor," she said. "You copy."

He nodded, and the A drive began whirring almost continuously.

A moment later, watching the monitor, Niema saw the door at the end of the hallway open.

"Someone's coming," she whispered.

John glanced at the screen, but didn't pause in what he was doing. "That's one of the security team," he replied.

"Do they do door checks?"

"Maybe." The reply was terse. Since he had disabled the lock on the door, it would open if anyone tried it.

Niema put her hand in the folds of the evening wrap. The pistol grip felt cool and heavy under her fingers. The guard began walking down the hallway toward the office. Her heartbeat picked up and her mouth went dry.

The hallway was a long one; on the small screen, it seemed to stretch out endlessly, with the guard becoming bigger and bigger as he approached. Niema found herself counting his steps. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one-

"Don't lose your cool," John cautioned softly but didn't look up from the list of files. "Almost finished here."

The guard strode past, never even pausing outside the door. Watching him on the screen, hearing his footsteps pass by the office, gave her an odd sense of unreality because the sound came from a different direction than the activity she watched on the screen.

"That's it." Quickly he punched the release, and the disk popped out. He slipped it into a protective sleeve and put it in his inside jacket pocket. Then he turned off the computer, restored everything on the desk to its original position, and touched her elbow. "Ready?"

"I'll say."

She turned to go to the door, but suddenly he grabbed her arm, pulling her to a standstill. "More company."

She looked back at the monitor. The hallway door was opening again. Someone had stopped in the doorway, half turned away as if he were speaking to someone on the other side of the door. The tiny figure on the screen had long dark hair.

"Ronsard," she whispered, a cold twist of panic tightening her stomach. He wouldn't be in this long hallway unless he were coming to his office.

John exploded into motion, literally lifting her off her feet. In two long strides he was beside the sofa. He set her down and began stripping out of his tuxedo jacket, carelessly dropping it on the floor. "Take off your underwear and lie down," he ordered, his tone low and urgent.

They had only seconds, seconds before Ronsard would be coming through that door. Her hands shook as she pulled up her skirt and reached under it for the waistband of her panties. Pretending to have sex was such a cliche, trotted out in hundreds of movies, that no one would believe it, especially not someone as sophisticated and savvy as Ronsard. That was precisely why it just might work, because he wouldn't believe Temple would be so hokey.

Of course John, being John, wouldn't depend on a torrid clinch to give the impression he wanted. No, he wanted underwear off, clothes disarrayed, as if they truly were just about to make love.

Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel her pulse throbbing under her skin. She skimmed her panties down her thighs and let them drop, then hurriedly kicked them away and lay down on the sofa.

Leaning forward, John tugged her skirt up to her waist and pulled her legs apart, kneeling between them with one knee on the sofa while he tore open his trousers. She went numb with shock. Only the cool air washing over her naked flesh told her this wasn't a weird dream, but it had to be. This was carrying pretense further than she was prepared to take it. She couldn't be lying here half-naked with him between her spread legs and witnesses likely to come through the door at any second.

He bent down and licked her, his hard hands pushing her thighs wider as his tongue probed inside her, depositing moisture. Niema's entire body jolted and he held her down, his mouth pressed between her legs. She swallowed a shriek, her breath strangling in her throat. Oh God, he was going down on her-Ronsard would . . . She couldn't let herself think of Ronsard walking in on them now but this must be what John had planned, to be caught in an act so intimate no one would dream it was pretense-

How could it be pretense when he was actually doing it?

She whimpered and reached down, her hands sliding through his hair. She wanted to push him away but couldn't, her hands simply wouldn't obey. Bolts of sensation shot through her body, arching her in his hands. How long would she have to endure this? How long? Five seconds? Ten?

Time had become elastic, stretching beyond recognition. She shook her head in wordless protest, helplessly speared under the dual lash of fear and pleasure. Something hot and wild spiraled in her. She couldn't do this, couldn't bear it, not with his mouth on her body making every muscle tighten past endurance.

She found the strength to push weakly at his shoulders. He slid upward, his tongue swirling around her clitoris in a quick caress that nearly shot her off the sofa, but he quickly controlled her and shifted into position between her legs.

"Easy," he whispered and pressed himself to her opening.

No. He couldn't actually be doing this. Not here, not like this. She didn't want their first time to be like this.

Everything was happening too fast; her body hadn't had time to prepare itself, even with the moisture he had given her with his tongue. How could she be prepared, when she couldn't believe what he was doing, not now, not like this?

He pushed slowly into her and she wasn't nearly wet enough, her inner tissues yielding reluctantly to his intrusion. "Scream," he said, the word almost soundless.

Scream? That would certainly bring Ronsard-but that was what John wanted. The realization seared through her dazed mind. Anyone up to no good wouldn't make that kind of noise, which was guaranteed to attract attention, or be doing what they were doing.

He put no limits on what he would do to get the job done.

He withdrew a little then thrust again, forcing himself deeper, inch by inch. "Scream," he repeated, demanding now.

She couldn't. She didn't have enough air, her lungs were paralyzed, her entire body arching under the almost brutal lash of sensation. Every nerve ending felt electrified, her loins clenching as she fought the relentless swell of pleasure. She fought him too, not with her fists but with every muscle inside her, clamping down, trying to hold him, prevent him from going deeper and pushing her beyond control.

She wasn't strong enough. He thrust slowly past her resistance, bracing his hands on either side of her rib cage and leaning over her. Quick, shallow breaths panted between his parted lips; his eyes were narrowed, brilliant, the blue more intense than she had ever seen it before. With one swift movement he pulled down the left strap of her gown, baring her breast. Her nipple was already tightly beaded, flushed with color. "Scream," he insisted, thrusting harder. "Scream!"

Her head thrashed back and forth on the cushion. She choked back a sob and desperately struck out at him, trying to squirm away. She couldn't, she didn't want to, dear God please don't let her be climaxing as Ronsard walked through that door, she couldn't bear it. John caught her wrists and pinned them to the sofa, relentlessly probing ever deeper.

She couldn't stop it, couldn't contain it. She convulsed, waves of sensation pulsing through her loins. She sank into the climax, head thrown back and eyes closed, breath halted, everything fading around her until her only focus of existence was the searing pleasure. She did scream then, silently, beyond despair, as she waited for the door to open.

The door didn't open. There was nothing but silence in the hallway.

The sensual paroxysm began to ebb, the tension fading from her trembling flesh until she lay limp and pliant beneath him, her legs still open and her body still penetrated. She couldn't think, couldn't move. She felt hollow, emptied out, as if he had taken everything.

Humiliation crawled through her like lava. She turned her head aside, unable to look at him. How could she have climaxed in such a situation? What kind of person was she? What kind of man was he, to do this? Tears burned her eyes, but she couldn't wipe them away because he still held her wrists pinned.

Time stopped.

Ronsard wasn't coming into his office. She didn't know where he had gone, but he wasn't here. She waited for John to withdraw, waited for a moment that stretched on and on until the tension was more than she could bear and she had to look at him again, had to face him.

His expression was set in almost savage lines, his eyes so bright they seemed to burn her. He seemed to have been waiting for her to look at him. "I'm sorry," he said, and began moving-not away from her but inside her, thrusting, forging a deep, fast rhythm, and pierced her to her very core.

He came hard, gripping her hips while he plunged and bucked, his head thrown back and his teeth grinding together to hold back the hoarse sounds in his throat. He sank against her, panting, his chest heaving as he gulped in air.

She didn't say anything, couldn't think of anything to say. Her mind was emptied, dazed with shock. Nothing she'd ever read in Miss Manners covered this situation. The bizarreness of that thought almost made her laugh, but the laugh turned into a sob that she choked back.

Carefully he levered himself away from her; her breath caught at the drag of his flesh leaving hers. He pulled her to a sitting position. "Are you all right?"

She nodded silently, swinging her feet to the floor and pushing her skirt down to cover her thighs. He neatened himself with brisk movements, tucking in his shirt and fastening his trousers.

Her panties were lying on the floor in front of the desk. John picked them up and held them out to her. In silence she took them. Her legs felt too wobbly for her to trust them, so she sat on the sofa and worked the panties up her legs until she could lift her hips and tug the flimsy garment into place. She was very wet now, the moisture dampening her underwear and drying stickily on her inner thighs.

He walked around the desk until he could see the closed-circuit monitor. "The coast is clear," he said, as calmly as if nothing had happened. "I don't know where Ronsard went."

Shakily she got to her feet and gathered her evening wrap, fumbling with the folds to make certain they still held everything securely. John shrugged into his tuxedo jacket and straightened his tie, then raked his fingers through his hair. He looked cool and controlled.

"Are you ready?"

She nodded, and he checked the monitor again. "Here we go," he said, taking her arm and ushering her to the door.

Somehow she controlled her voice, and found the words. Somehow she sounded as casual as he did. "What about the lock? Are you going to fix it?"

"No, he'll just think it malfunctioned. This type does occasionally."

He opened the door and swiftly looked out, then ushered her into the empty hallway. He was pulling the office door shut, his hand still on the handle, when the hallway door abruptly swung open and a guard stepped through. He checked when he saw them, shouting something as he automatically reached for his weapon.

John was moving almost before the guard saw them. He pushed Niema against the wall as he went down on one knee, going for the weapon in his ankle rig. The guard panicked and fired too soon, the bullet plowing into the floor ten feet in front of him. John didn't panic. Niema saw his face, calm and expressionless, as his hand swept up. He fired twice, the first shot in the chest and the second, an insurance shot, in the head. The guard jerked like a puppet with broken strings as he crashed backward through the open door.

John gripped Niema's hand and with one motion pulled her to her feet. Screams rose beyond the open hallway door and running footsteps pounded toward them. "Come on," he said and shoved her toward the left exit, and people poured through the door behind them.

Upstairs, the three shots froze Hossam. He leaped off the bed and grabbed his pants from the floor, jerking them on as he ran for the door. He grabbed his shoulder holster as well, sliding the weapon free.

"Hossam! Don't leave me like this!" Cara's voice was sharp with panic-he had long since taken off the gag-but he ignored her and ran out the door. He did have presence of mind to slam the door closed as he went out, but that was all he took the time to do.

Barefoot, he raced down the hall to the stairway at the end and instead of using the steps he put his hand on the rail and vaulted down to the next tier, again and again until he reached the ground floor. The shots seemed to have come from directly below and to the right, which meant they were near Ronsard's office.

The long hallway was jammed with people, some of them Ronsard's guests who were exclaiming in horror. The security personnel were trying to clear them out of the hall, but the arrival of a huge, half-naked, armed man had the guests shrinking back.

"Where?" Hossam shouted.

"Out this entrance," a guard replied, pointing to the door. "It was Temple and one of the women." Hossam wheeled and plunged into the night.

Where would Temple go? Hossam briefly paused, thinking. He would try to get transportation, rather than get away on foot, but the guests vehicles were secured in a fenced area. The estate vehicles, however, were not. Hossam ran barefoot across the damp lawn, heading for the garage area.

Bright emergency lights flashed on all over the estate, lighting up the area like a football field. Armed men swarmed the lawn. Hossam yelled, "The guest vehicles! Check them!"

A large group formed, racing for the secure area. Hossam ran on toward the garage, his weapon held ready. Damn, this guy Temple had piss-poor timing! He'd had Cara ready to come for about the tenth time when he heard the shots, but he'd had to jerk out of her and leave her on the brink, still helplessly tied to the bed.

The long, shadowed garage was silent as he moved down the row of cars and Land Rovers and Jeeps. "Are you here?" he whispered.

"Here."

Hossam whirled as Temple stepped out of the shadows, towing a woman behind him. "Go, man," he hissed, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and tossing them to Temple, who released the woman to catch them with his left hand. "The green Mercedes there."

"Thanks. Turn around."

Sighing, Eric Covert turned around. He just hoped he wouldn't be out too long, or Cara would be hysterical with rage. He never heard Temple move or felt the blow that left him stretched out on the cold concrete floor.

>Chapter Twenty-Three

John bent down and scooped up the big man's weapon and tossed it to Niema. "Here, hold this."

She pushed that pistol, too, into the bundle of her evening wrap. It would look suspicious if they didn't take the weapon. He unlocked the car with the automatic lock release on the key ring and they got in. "Get down on the floor," he said, putting his hand on the back of her head and pushing to make sure she obeyed.

She crouched in the well of the floor as he started the car and hit the garage door opener. The door began to slide upward and the automatic light came on overhead. He glanced at her and smiled, and shifted into gear. The powerful car shot forward, tires grabbing traction so smoothly there was no squeal or burning rubber.

The first shot shattered the window above her head, spraying glass over the interior of the car. She bit back a startled cry, covering her head with her arms as a second shot went through the passenger door and the back of the seat not three inches from John's arm, the bullet making a funny whfftt sound as it passed through the leather and fabric.

He floored the gas pedal, smoothly shifting through the gears. With each new gear the increased G-force pushed her hard against the seat. "Stay down," he said, and ducked a split second before the drivers' side window shattered.

The gates. He was heading for those massive, steel-barred gates. She barely had time to brace her hands before the impact. Metal screamed and glass shattered, and she heard more shots, the rapid coughing of automatic fire. She was thrown sideways, her head banging the gear shift. One of the heavy gates, torn off its hinges, landed half on the hood.

"Are you all right?" John shouted as he shifted into reverse. The gate spun and slid to the ground. He shifted gears again and the car shot forward, bumping over the gate, metal bars clanging.

"Yeah," she yelled, but she didn't know if he heard her over the gunfire. He wasn't returning the fire, using all his concentration to drive. She fumbled for the two weapons in the folds of her wrap; the first one she touched was the big one the Company man had been carrying. She got to her knees as she thumbed off the safety.

"God damn it, stay down!" John roared, reaching for her as if he would shove her back into the floor.

"Just drive!" She jerked away, wrapped both hands around the heavy weapon, and began firing out the window. Even if she didn't hit anyone, return fire would at least make them duck for cover. If she didn't do something, the car, with them in it, would be shot to pieces.

The heavy weapon bucked in her hand, the deep cough deafening her as hot casings ejected into the car. One bounced off her bare arm, leaving behind a sting.

The car wasn't running as smoothly as before; it jerked and hesitated, the engine cutting out. Some of the bullets had hit something critical but at least they were off the estate grounds. More shots zinged after them, but they sounded like handguns, which meant the shots didn't have their range. "We have to ditch the car," John said, turning his head to check behind them. The rearview mirror was nothing but a shattered metal frame, the mirror blasted into tiny pieces all over them.

"Where?"

"As soon as we're out of sight. With luck, they won't find the car until morning."

Niema peered over the shredded remains of the seat back. The estate was lit with so many lights it looked like a miniature city. Dozens of lights bloomed as she watched, neatly spaced apart in pairs-headlights. "They're coming," she said.

They went around a curve, and a thick stand of trees hid the estate from sight. He drove off the road, slowing so the tires wouldn't churn up the ground, easing the heavy vehicle into the trees. They bumped over limbs and rocks, and bushes scraped at the once-pristine paint job.

He didn't touch the brake pedal, just in case one of the taillights was still working. When they were far enough off the road that passing headlights wouldn't glint on metal, he stopped and killed the engine. They sat in silence broken only by the engine pinging and hissing, listening to the pursuing vehicles roar past their hiding spot.

They were less than a mile from the estate. "Now what?" she asked, her voice sounding funny, but then her ears were still ringing from the gunfire. The car interior stank of burnt gunpowder and hot metal.

"Do you feel like a nice run?"

"It's my favorite thing to do in the middle of the night, wearing sandals and a two-thousand dollar dress, with a hundred guys chasing and shooting at us."

"Just be glad the sandals aren't high-heeled." He rapped his pistol barrel on the inside lights, shattering covers and bulbs so there wouldn't be any betraying light when they opened the doors.

Gingerly she climbed up from the floor. Shards of glass dusted the seats, her shoulders, her hair. It was very dark under the trees. The door on her side

wouldn't open; a bullet had probably hit the lock mechanism. She crawled over the gear shift, glass tinkling and gritting with every movement she made.

John got out and reached in, bodily lifting her out of the car and standing her on her feet. "Shake," he directed.

They both bent over, shaking their heads and flopping their arms and clothes to dislodge any clinging bits of glass. Her arms and shoulders were stinging a little, but when she cautiously felt them her fingers came away dry, so at least she wasn't bleeding. It was a wonder they were even alive; not being cut by that hail of glass went beyond wonder into miraculous.

But when they straightened, her eyes had adjusted more to the darkness and she saw that half of John's face was darker than the other half. Her stomach plummeted. "You're hit," she said, fighting to keep her voice even. He couldn't be shot. He couldn't. Something vital in her depended on his being okay.

"By glass, not a bullet." He sounded more irritated than anything else. He took the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it to his forehead. "Do you have both pistols?"

"They're in the car." She leaned forward into the car and retrieved both weapons. "What about my tools? Leave them?" She definitely didn't want to lug them around.

"Hand them here."

She gave him the velvet pouch, heavy with tools. He took the tools out and threw them, one by one, as far as he could into the trees and underbrush. If the bag of tools was found, Ronsard would wonder what they had been used for, and since they had been spotted coming out of his office he would then no doubt have a complete physical search done of all the wiring, and he would find the bug. A physical search was the only way to find it, but then no bug could be hidden when the wires themselves were examined.

"Got your wrap?"

"Why do I need it?"

"Because it's black and will hide some of that skin you're showing." She got the wrap and her evening bag out of the car, though she had to gingerly feel around until she found them. The evening bag was useless; there wasn't anything in there they could use, not even money. All her money-passport, everything, were back in her room. She wasn't worried about the passport; the name on it was false, and John would get them back into the country even without one, but money would have come in handy.

John took the bag from her, but instead of throwing it away he tucked it in his pocket. "Come on."

Running in the woods in the dark was too dangerous; they risked turned ankles at least, and possibly broken bones, so they picked their way through the trees and underbrush, pausing every so often to listen for pursuit. They could hear traffic on the road, growing more and more distant as they angled away from it. They couldn't hope that Ronsard's men would be stymied for much longer, though.

They came out of the woods onto a secondary road. "We'll follow this for a while," he said. "It's easier traveling, and while it's dark we can see them a lot sooner than they can see us."

"Are we going anywhere in particular, or just running?"

"Nice."

"Why Nice? Why not Lyon? It's closer."

"Ronsard will be watching the airport in Lyon, and all the car rentals. He'll expect us to go there."

"Then how about Marseilles?"

"Our yacht is in Nice."

"Really. I didn't know we had a yacht."

"The Company has a yacht, and the yacht has a computer with a satellite up-link. I'll be able to get this information to Langley and let them start work on it immediately."

"Nice it is, then."

He took a knife from his pocket and knelt at her feet. Grasping a fistful of fabric in his hand, he inserted the knife about level with her knee and slit her gown sideways, cutting off the bottom half of the skirt. "You have more things in the pockets of that tuxedo than Snoopy has in his dog house," she commented. "I don't see how it fits as well as it does."

"I have a very good tailor."

Now that they were out from under the trees, she could see that his head was still bleeding. He cut a narrow strip off the swath he had just removed from her gown and tied it over the cut. His tuxedo was torn and dirty, and when she looked down she saw that what remained of her gorgeous Dior gown was in the same condition. The remnant of the fabric he draped around his neck.

They began running in an easy jog, because they weren't wearing running shoes and the impact of the hard asphalt through the thin soles of their evening shoes jarred every bone and muscle as it was.

"Are we going to run all the way to Nice?" she asked after about a mile.

"No, we're going to steal a car."

"When?"

"As soon as we find one."

She tried to find a stride that was easier on her feet and legs, and tried to keep her mind focused on the present. While they were being shot at she hadn't had any trouble focusing, but now there was nothing but the rhythmic slap of their shoes on the asphalt, the easy sound of their breathing, and the night sounds surrounding them. With nothing posing an immediate threat, her thoughts zeroed in on what had happened in Ronsard's office.

She didn't want to think about it, but couldn't stop. Maybe it had been inevitable, given the tug of sexual attraction she felt for him, had felt from the moment she set eyes on him in Frank Vinay's office. He struck sparks off her, made her feel so alive she sometimes thought her skin couldn't contain her. Those kisses they had shared-maybe the setup had been pretense, but her response hadn't. With every touch, every dance, every kiss her anticipation had built until it was a wonder she hadn't climaxed as soon as he licked her.

If only it hadn't happened that way. If only he had been making love to her, instead of setting a scene for their cover story. For her, their coming together had been a cataclysmic event. For him, it had been a job.

Maybe that was what hurt so much. She wanted to mean something to him other than just another job, another means to an end. She was afraid . .. dear God, she was afraid she loved him.

She would have to be a Grade A fool to love John Medina.

Loving a man who traveled was one thing; thousands of women did. Loving a man who drew in danger with every breath was something else thousands of women did. Cops, firemen, high-iron men, oil-well riggers-they all had dangerous jobs and they were gone for long stretches of time. But at least they lived in the sunlight. At least their lives were real. John was always setting a scene, doing a job, working an angle. He was almost always someone else. She would never know if he was dead or alive, or if he was coming back even if he was alive.

She couldn't love like that. She couldn't live like that.

"Car," he said, breaking the agonized chain of her thoughts, gripping her arm and urging her off the road. "Get down." Headlights speared toward them through the darkness, the car moving fast.

She lay flat on her face in the weeds, with the evening wrap draped over her arms and shoulders and the remnants of her skirt covering her bare legs. John lay beside her, between her and the road. The car zoomed past.

Slowly they sat up. Until they stopped running, she hadn't been aware of how her feet and legs were aching. She rubbed her hands up and down her shins. "Maybe barefoot would be better than these shoes."

"On the ground, yes, but not on asphalt."

The thin straps were rubbing blisters on her feet. She eased the straps to a different position. "I'm developing a problem here."

He squatted beside her. "Blisters?"

"Not yet, but getting there."

"Okay, running is out. We need to get transportation tonight, though, because we'll be a lot easier to spot on foot during the day. I wanted to get farther away before I liberated a car, but that can't be helped."

"What difference does it make?"

"If a car is stolen practically in Ronsard's backyard, do you think he won't hear about it and figure we're the ones who stole it? Then he'll know what kind of car we're in and can have people watching for us."

She sighed. "Then we walk."

His hand dosed gently over her foot. "I don't think that's an option, either. We'll come across a farm soon, or a village, and I'll get whatever's there, even if it's a tow truck."

"Until then," she said as she got to her feet, "we walk."

>Chapter Twenty-Four

Ronsard was more coldly furious than he'd ever been in his life, but more at himself than anyone else. After all, in his business one could expect treachery. What he hadn't expected was that he would have been so completely fooled. Nor had he expected that as many security personnel as were on the estate wouldn't be able to stop one car from leaving. They were supposedly professionals, but they hadn't performed as such.

He had one man dead, and another, Hossam, suffering from a concussion. Hossam had been found lying on the garage floor, only half-dressed and unconscious. Having correctly guessed that Temple would try for one of the estate vehicles, he had evidently been taken from behind. Why Hossam had been wearing only his pants when he was supposed to have been working was a puzzle, until he noticed that Cara was nowhere to be found and sent someone to investigate. She was found tied to her bed, naked and furious. He had been wondering if he would have to kill Hossam for assaulting her until her concern, when she found he had been injured, reassured him that whatever had been going on in her bedroom had been consensual.

Ronsard's guests were shocked and uneasy. The violence of the night's events had forcibly brought home to many of them exactly what sort of world their host lived in. It was all very well to flirt with danger, to boast to their friends that they had been guests at the notorious Louis Ronsard's luxurious estate, to give him information that made them feel wicked and notorious too, but the reality of it was more brutal than they could have guessed.

He imagined none of them had ever seen a man who had been shot in the head. Then all hell had broken loose outside as Temple made his escape, with a hail of automatic fire that sounded as if a small war was being waged on his front lawn, the car crashing through his front gates, his guards scattering as small-arms fire was returned at them. It wasn't just his security that had been breached, but theirs. They no longer had the illusion of safety. Most of them were leaving come the morning.

As a host, his night had been a fiasco. As a businessman, it was worse than that.

Temple and Niema had been in his office. What Niema was doing there, he couldn't imagine. Perhaps she was Temple's partner, perhaps not. Witnesses to the shooting in the hallway had agreed he was manhandling her, shoving her around, dragging her outside. On the other hand, Temple had been driving the car; who other than Niema had been shooting at his guards? It was possible Temple had been both driving and shooting; difficult, but not impossible, and Temple was a trained assassin.

What had they been doing in his office? .

The lock wasn't working. It had been, however, when he left the office the last time, because he automatically, from ingrained habit, tried the handle every time he left.

He stood in his office looking around, trying to see what Temple could have seen. What would he have been interested in? The computers, of course. But there was nothing on Cara's that would have been of interest to him, and the information in Ronsard's computer was password protected.

The password. He walked to his desk and surveyed the items on top of it. Nothing looked disturbed; his copy of A Tale of Two Cities was exactly where he had left it.

And yet-

And yet, the instinct for survival that had stood him in such good stead told him that Temple had somehow breached the security in his computer as surely as he had breached the estate's security. Ronsard couldn't afford to assume otherwise. Nor could he afford to underestimate his opponent, a man who evidently appeared and disappeared at will, and who had access to government documents before they were made public. Such a man was a man with power either behind him, or in his own hands.

They had to be found. With one phone call to the authorities in Lyon he had immediately thrown a net over the airport, then, when one of his more observant men saw where a car had been driven off the road and found the Mercedes abandoned, extended that net to the car rental services also.

They were on foot, unless Temple stole another car. Ronsard arranged that he be told immediately if any thefts were reported.

He sat down at his desk, drumming his fingers on the wood. Lyon was the most logical immediate destination-but perhaps Temple would go in the opposite direction, for that reason. Do the unexpected. Keep your opponent off balance, guessing.

This would be like a game of chess, with moves and countermoves. The key to victory was planning ahead, anticipating every move his opponent could make.

Marseilles was to the south-a larger city than Lyon, with a huge, busy port. It was farther away, but once there, the chances of escaping went up dramatically.

The port. That was the key. Temple would escape by water.

* * *

The village was a small one, no more than fifteen houses loosely grouped on each side of the road. John selected an older model Renault that was parked in front of a cottage, as the older cars were easier to hotwire. Niema stood watch while he eased the car door open and felt under the dash for the wiring harness. The interior light was burning, but he didn't have a flashlight and had to take the chance of someone seeing the light. With his knife, he stripped the wires of their plastic sheath.

Three cottages away, a dog roused from its doggy dreams and barked once, then fell silent. No light came on in any of the cottage's windows.

"Get in," John whispered, moving aside so she could crawl in from that side and not make more noise by having to open and close the passenger door, too. She wasn't a four-year-old, and the Renault was small; she banged her knee on the gear shift, her head on the interior light, and her elbow on the steering wheel. Swearing under her breath, she finally maneuvered herself into the passenger seat.

John wasn't laughing, but his mouth wore a curve that said he wanted to. The small interior light gave her the first dear look at him since they left the estate, and her heart skipped a beat. The right side of his face was streaked with dried blood, despite his efforts to wipe it off. His once-snowy shirt was rusty with dirt and blood, his hair was tousled, and beard stubble darkened his jaw. With the black strip of silk tied around his head, he looked like a disreputable, Armani-dad pirate.

If anyone saw them the way they looked now, they were busted.

He twisted the wires together, and the engine began trying to crank. It coughed, the fan turning, and he slid into the seat and gently pressed the gas pedal. With a high-pitched hum like a sewing machine, the car started. Without closing the door, he put in the clutch and shifted into low gear; the car began rolling as he let out the clutch. Fifty yards down the road, he closed the door.

"What time is it?" she asked, slumping in the seat. Her feet were throbbing. She eased them out of the sandals, knowing she might not be able to get her shoes back on and not caring. Sitting down was such a relief she almost groaned.

He glanced at his wristwatch. "A little after three. With luck, we have two or three hours before anyone notices the car is missing. Why don't you try to get some sleep?"

"I'm not sleepy." She wasn't. She was exhausted but not sleepy. She was both hungry and thirsty, and really, really needed to soak her aching feet in cold water.

"You will be. When your adrenaline drops, you'll crash."

"What about you? Don't you have adrenaline?" she snapped, though she didn't know why she was suddenly crabby.

"I'm used to it. I've learned how to work through the crash."

"I'm okay."

She wasn't, though. She glanced at him. His strong hands were steady on the wheel, his expression as calm as if he were out for a Sunday drive. Maybe she looked that calm, too, but inside she was shredded.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," she said, appalled. There was no need to ask what "it" was. She didn't want him to be reasonable and logical and tell her to just look at what they'd done as part of the job. All she wanted was to get this over with and leave with some semblance of dignity still intact.

"We have to at some point."

"No, we don't. I just want to forget it."

He paused, and his jaw tightened. "Are you mad because you came, or because I did?"

She felt like screaming. God, why wouldn't he just leave it alone? "Neither. Both."

"That's certainly a definitive answer."

"If you want definitive answers, get a dictionary."

Another pause, as if he measured her resistance. "All right, I'll drop it for now, but we will talk."

She didn't reply. Didn't he understand? Talking about what happened was like touching a wound, keeping it fresh and bleeding. But, no, how could he understand, when it wasn't like that for him?

"How far is it to Nice?"

"A couple of hundred miles if we use the expressway, less if we go over the mountains. The direct route probably won't be the fastest, though, at least not in this car. It doesn't have the horses to climb the mountains at much more than a crawl."

"The expressway should get us there by six-thirty or seven, though."

"In the neighborhood. We have to stop and steal another car."

"Another one?"

"We're too close to Ronsard's estate. He'll hear about this as soon as it's reported. We need to ditch this one."

"Where?"

"Valence, I think. I'll look for something there."

They were serial car thieves, she mused. Well, she had wanted excitement. John Medina certainly filled the bill; there were no dull stretches while in his company. But home was looking better and better, as a refuge in which she could deal with the idiocy of having fallen in love with him. She thought of her peaceful house, with everything specifically arranged to her liking-except for the double hook-and-eye latches on every door and window.

"If I can get a flight out, I'll be home by this time tomorrow," she said, then remembered her passport. "No, scratch that. No passport. How am I going to get back into the States?"

"We'll probably take military transport home."

We? He intended to travel with her? That was news. "You're going back to Washington, too?"

"For the time being."

He didn't expand on that, and she didn't ask.

Instead she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Even if she couldn't sleep, she could rest.

"A baker reported his car was stolen early this morning. . . here." Ronsard put his finger on the map. The village was thirteen kilometers from the estate, on a small, narrow road that wound in a general southwest direction and eventually bisected the expressway. Several of his security people were gathered around the desk while he spoke on the telephone to a friend with the local authorities.

If Temple went south, he would have been in the same rough area as the village. "What make and color is the car? Do you have the license?" He wrote as he listened. "Yes, thank you. Keep me informed."

He hung up and tore the sheet of paper off the pad. "Find this car," he said, handing the sheet to his men. "On the expressway to Marseilles. Bring him back alive, if possible. If not-" He broke off and shrugged.

"And the woman?"

Ronsard hesitated. He didn't know the extent of Niema's involvement. He had personally searched her room and there was nothing suspicious there. Could Temple have kidnapped her? There was one thing of which he was absolutely sure: The man was obsessed with her. The intensity with which he had watched her couldn't be feigned. He could still feel that way if they were partners, but if they weren't, Temple was the type of man who wouldn't balk at kidnapping if she wouldn't go willingly.

The Niema he knew was funny, a little sharp-tongued, and kind-hearted. He remembered the way she had shown Laure how to apply the makeup she had acquired, the gentleness, the way she didn't talk down to Laure as if being ill had somehow stunted his daughter's ability to understand.

For Laure, he said, "Try not to hurt her. Bring her to me:"

>Chapter Twenty-Five

They reached Valence before dawn. John cruised down the streets, looking for a promising target. The city had a population of over sixty thousand, so he should be able to find another car without a lot of trouble.

He glanced over at Niema, sitting as erect as a soldier, and his lips compressed into a grim line. He'd almost gotten her killed tonight. He had been so certain this would be an in-and-out job, the sort he could do blindfolded, but instead they had barely escaped with their lives.

He was still taking risks with her life. He knew it, and yet he couldn't bring himself to make the call that would get them picked up, not now, not with what he'd done to her in Ronsard's office lying between them like a snake coiled ready to strike if he tried to move it.

One phone call. That was all it would take. They would be picked up within the hour and flown to Nice, where he would up-link the files and finish the job. But the way things were now, she would move heaven and earth to go home and get away from him. He couldn't let that happen, not with things the way they were between them.

He had gone to a lot of trouble to keep her from realizing how focused he was on her, and now that was working against him. She thought she was nothing more to him than a means to an end. What would she say if he told her the truth, that even though the love-making in Ronsard's office had started out as a cover, he had seen the opportunity to have her and ruthlessly used it. What was worse, he would do it again. He'd take her any way he could, whenever he could.

Everything he'd said at Ronsard's, everything he'd done, was the truth. That was why Ronsard had so easily believed the cover, because it was true. But Niema didn't seem to see it, even though he knew she wanted him, was so physically aware of him she had climaxed with startling speed. Maybe he was too damn good at his job, at playing a role. He was tired of role-playing; when he kissed her, damn it, he wanted her to know he was kissing her because he wanted to rather than because it was what was called for in some unwritten script.

A police car was coming toward them in the other lane. He was so preoccupied he almost missed how it slowed as it approached. Then instinct kicked in and reflexes took over. "We're made," he said, downshifting and taking the next right on two wheels. There was no point in being subtle; it didn't matter if they knew he'd seen them. What mattered was getting this car off the street before they were picked up. He jammed the gas pedal to the floor, needing to make the next turn before the police were able to turn around and fall in behind him.

Niema jerked to full attention. "That fast?" she asked incredulously.

"Ronsard has a lot of money. He can make a stolen vehicle a matter of prime importance." He pushed the little car as hard as he could, its motor whining. The next turn was a left, and that one too was made on two wheels. He killed the headlights and took the next left, which brought them back out on the street from which they had originally turned off.

Niema was trying to brace herself against the dash, the door, anything to keep from being slung all over the car.

He took a right. They were now, with luck, going away from the police car. The narrow street he was on was winding, and dark; unless he touched the brakes, they shouldn't be able to locate him.

He was good at driving without using the brakes. He downshifted whenever he needed to slow to take a curve, letting the engine do the work.

"What now?" she asked. She had given up on trying to brace herself and was on her knees on the floor. In spite of everything, a hint of cheerfulness had returned to her voice. He remembered the way she had grabbed the heavy pistol and returned fire as they were crashing the gates; far from getting hysterical, she thrived on excitement.

"We stay with the original plan. Dump this car, get another one."

"Is there any chance of getting a little food while we're doing all this?"

"If we can find a stream where we can clean up. We're too noticeable the way we are."

She looked down at her bare feet and tattered gown, then at his bloodstained tuxedo, and shrugged. "So we're a little overdressed. I don't think washing our faces and hands is going to help much."

She was right about that. They needed a change of clothes before they were seen in public; they were too noticeable. And he'd forgotten about the black strip tied around his head, but he couldn't remove it until they found some water, because the dried blood had stuck the material to the cut and if he pulled it off he'd start the damn thing bleeding again.

On the other hand, if the next car he stole had a full tank of gas, he could also steal some food and water and they wouldn't need to stop again until they reached Nice. They could shower on the yacht and have clothing delivered.

"We also need to find a secluded area for other reasons," she pointed out. "Understood and obeyed."

He left the Renault parked behind a shop and removed its plates. The next car they came to, he removed those plates, replaced them with the Renault's, then they went back to the Renault and put the other car's plates on it. When the local police found the car and compared the plates to the ones on the car reported stolen, they would think it was a different car. They would eventually figure it out, but at least this would slow them down a little.

"Where to now?" Niema asked. She was tired, but at least John had found a bush behind which she had relieved herself, so she wasn't in any physical discomfort, other than her sore feet.

"We walk until we find another car."

"I was afraid you were going to say that. Why didn't we just take the car we put the Renault's plates on?"

"They were too close together. We would automatically be suspected. We need a car on the other side of town."

She sighed. The last thing she wanted to do right now was walk to the other side of town. No-the last thing she wanted to do was get caught. She bit her tongue to hold back any complaints that might slip out:

They walked for forty-five minutes before he spotted the car he wanted. It was a Fiat, parked at the top of a small slope, and it was unlocked. "Get in," he said, and she thankfully crawled in. Instead of hotwiring it, he put it in neutral, braced his hands on the frame, and started it rolling. He hopped in and they rolled silently down the slope, away from the owner's house. He let it roll as far as it would and then did the hot-wiring thing. The engine was another sewing machine, but it ran smoothly, and that was all they required.

Ronsard paced quietly. He didn't like leaving everything to his men. He understood Temple, he thought, at least he didn't underestimate him. His guests were gone; there was no reason for him to remain here.

The phone rang with another update. The Renault had been found in Valence, but there was no report of Temple or Madame Jamieson. The plates on the Renault had been switched with those from a Volvo, but the Volvo hadn't been stolen.

"What other cars have been reported stolen within the past twenty-four hours?"

"A Peugeot was taken from behind a house a kilometer from the Renault. A Fiat was also stolen, but that was some distance away. And a Mercedes was reported stolen, but the owner has been out of town and does not know how long the car has been gone."

The Peugeot was the most likely, Ronsard thought. It was the closest. And yet. . . perhaps that was what Temple wished him to think. "Concentrate on the

Mercedes and Fiat," he said. "I will be joining you by helicopter in two hours. Find those two cars." "Yes, sir," came the brisk answer.

It was noon when they reached Nice. Niema was so tired she could barely think, but somehow her body kept moving. They were met at the dock by a man in a small outboard, to take them out to the yacht that was moored in the harbor. He had to be Company, Niema thought. He was American, and he didn't ask any questions, just competently steered the boat across the harbor and brought it alongside a gleaming white sixty-footer.

She wasn't too tired to be amazed. She stared up at the yacht, with an impressive array of antennas bristling from its top. When John had said "yacht," she had expected something about twenty-five or thirty feet, with a tiny galley, a tinier head, and bunk beds in a cramped cabin. This thing was in an entirely different category.

John spoke quietly with the other man, giving him instructions on the disposition of the stolen Fiat. It was to disappear, immediately. There were other instructions as well. "Keep us under surveillance. Don't let anyone approach us without warning."

"Got it."

He turned to look at Niema. "Can you make it up the ladder?"

"Do I get to take a shower and go to bed if I do?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I can make it up the ladder." She suited action to words, setting her bare feet on the rungs and using the last of her energy to climb to the deck. John made it as easily as if he had just woke from a good night's sleep and started fresh. He looked terrible, but she couldn't see any sign of fatigue in him.

He opened the hatch door and led her inside. The interior was surprisingly spacious, with everything built in that could be built in, the design both sophisticated and luxurious. They were in the middle of the boat, in a large salon outfitted with pale golden wood and dark blue trim; a full galley lay beyond. John ushered her past the galley, into a narrow hallway, or whatever it was called on board a ship. If a kitchen was a galley, a bathroom was a head, and a bedroom was a cabin, then a hallway had to be something else too.

"Here's the head," he said, opening a door. "Everything you'll need is there. When you're finished, take either of these cabins." He indicated two doors in the hallway past the head.

"Where will you be?"

"In the office, up-linking to a satellite for a burst transmission. There are two other heads on board, so don't feel you have to hurry."

Hurry? He had to be joking.

The head was as luxuriously appointed as the rest of the boat. All of the cabinetry was built in, to save space. The glass-enclosed shower was spacious by anyone's standards, with gold-plated fixtures. A thick white terry cloth bathrobe hung on a hook behind the door, and a bath mat with a pile so thick her feet sank into it covered the glazed bronze tiles on the floor.

She investigated the contents of the vanity and found everything she could possibly need, as John had said: soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, a new toothbrush, moisturizer. In another drawer was a blow dryer and an assortment of brushes and combs.

She was so tired all she wanted to do was fall in bed and sleep for the rest of the day. They were safe, the job completed. She had done what she signed on to do.

She should feel satisfied, or at least relieved. All she felt was a great hollow pain that had started in her chest and now seemed to fill her entire body. It was finished. Over. John. The job. Everything.

"I can't let him go," she whispered, leaning her head on her hands. She loved him too much. She had tried to fight it for weeks now; loving a man like him was a tough thing to do. She had already loved one damn hero, and losing Dallas had nearly destroyed her. What she was risking now was too devastating to even contemplate, but there was no turning back.

Nor could she see any future for them. John was, essentially, a lobo. They had worked as a team on this job, but that wasn't likely to happen again. By necessity he had to limit the number of people who knew his real identity, and carefully control any contact with them. She still didn't understand why she was one of those few people, despite what he said about being taken by surprise and blurting out his real name. John Medina didn't blurt out anything: Everything he said, everything he did, was toward some aim.

So why had he told her? She was nobody, a low-level tech with a talent for electronic surveillance. He could have kept quiet and let her go on believing his name was Tucker, or he could have come up with some other name; God knows he had a list of them tucked away somewhere in that convoluted brain of his. She had no way of knowing the difference.

She would drive herself crazy wondering about him, what he was doing and why he was doing it. No sane woman could possibly love him, but if this job had taught her one thing, it was that she wasn't sane. She was an adrenaline junkie, a risk-taker, and though she had spent the past five years fighting her own nature, punishing herself for Dallas's death and trying to shape her life, her personality, into a more conventional pattern, she could no longer maintain the illusion. All John had to do was walk through a door and beckon her, and she would go with him- anywhere, any time.

It angered her that she could be so defenseless against him. If he had shown any corresponding weakness, she wouldn't feel so hopeless. He liked her, she knew; physically he had responded when they kissed, and he had certainly risen to the occasion in Ronsard's office, but a physical response from a man was so automatic she couldn't let herself read any importance into it. Men were, as he himself had pointed out, simple creatures. All they required was a warm body. She had filled that requirement.

She could stand there all day running the details around and around in her mind, like a rat trying to escape from a maze, but she always came back to the same end: She couldn't see a future with John. He was what he was. He lived in the shadows and risked his life on a daily basis, and kept his personal life to a minimum. She even loved that part of him, because how many people in the world could do what he did, make the sacrifices he had made?

All she could do was hope she saw him now and again. Even every five years would be enough, if she could just know he was alive.

Shuddering, she pushed away that last thought and at last moved into action, stripping off her filthy clothes and stepping under the warm shower. She put her mind in neutral, soaping and scrubbing and shampooing, scrubbing away at a stubborn dark stain on her thigh until she realized it was a bruise.

Getting clean made her feel marginally better, though the face she saw in the mirror was still pale and strained, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion. She took full advantage of the amenities provided, brushing her teeth, smoothing moisturizer into her skin, blow-drying her hair. There was even a tube of medicated cream, and she dabbed that on the raw places on her feet.

The grooming rituals had a sedative effect, easing the tightness of her nerves. She could sleep now, she thought, and even managed a smile to herself. As if sleeping had ever been in any doubt! She planned to spend at least ten hours horizontal, more if she could manage it.

She would deal with her dirty clothes later, she decided, and wrapped herself in the thick, soft robe. All she wanted to do now was sleep.

She opened the door and froze. John stood just outside the door, naked except for a damp towel wrapped around his waist. He had already showered; small beads of water still clung to the hair on his chest. Niema knotted her hands into fists, wrapping them with the robe sash to keep from touching him, flattening her palms against that warm, muscular wall and feeling his heart beat beneath her fingers.

"Are you finished?" she asked in surprise.

"It only took a couple of minutes. Load the disk in the computer, up-link to the satellite, and send a burst transmission. It's done."

"Good. You must be as tired as I am."

He blocked her exit from the head, looking down at her with an unreadable expression in his blue eyes. "Niema ..."

"Yes?" she prompted, when he didn't say anything else.

He held out his hand to her, palm upturned, utterly steady. "Will you sleep with me?"

Her heart gave a powerful thud that made her feel weak. She stared up at him, wondering what was going on behind that impenetrable blue gaze, and then realized it didn't matter. For now, nothing mattered but being with him. She put her hand in his and whispered, "Yes."

He put his arms around her and lifted her off her feet almost before the word was out of her mouth. His mouth closed over hers, hungry, devouring, hot. He tasted of the same toothpaste she had used. His tongue stroked urgently in her mouth and she met it with her own. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lost herself, pleasure and joy exploding through her veins.

He dropped the towel where he stood. She lost the robe somewhere on the short route to the nearest cabin. She didn't know exactly how he got her out of it, but he did. They fell on the bed. Before she could catch her breath he levered himself on top of her and pushed his legs between hers.

His penetration was abrupt and forceful. She cried out, her back arching, her nails digging into his shoulders. His penis was so hot and hard it felt like a thick, heated pipe pushing into her unprepared body. His whole body was hot with urgency, his muscles shaking as he probed deeper, working his entire length into her. His mouth covered hers, swallowing her moans as excitement swirled through her. This wasn't part of a job. This wasn't pretense. He wanted her.

He was in her to the hilt, a heavy, stretching presence. He buried his head against her shoulder, shuddering with relief as if he couldn't have borne another moment unconnected to her.

This wasn't the John Medina she knew, this man with his desperate need. He was always so controlled, but there was nothing controlled about him now.

She smoothed her hands down his back, feeling the powerful muscles rippling just under his skin. "There's a concept I want to introduce to you," she murmured. "It's called foreplay."

He lifted his head from her shoulder, smiling wryly. Propping himself on his elbows, settling more comfortably on her and in her, he framed her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her mouth. "I'm a desperate man. Any time you let me touch you, I'm going to get inside you as fast as I can, before you have time to change your mind."

The words shocked her, hinting at a vulnerability, a need, she never would have suspected he felt.

He moved, a slow stroke that set off a small riot in her nerve endings. She gasped, her legs rising to clasp his hips. "Why would I change my mind?" she managed to ask.

"Things haven't always been . .. easy between us."

Things weren't easy between them now. There was tension and pain and uncertainty, an explosive sexual attraction, even a spark of hostility caused by the clash of two strong personalities. There was nothing serene about her relationship with him, never had been.

She slid her fingers into the damp strands of his hair, holding him as she lifted her hips and did her own stroking. "If I wanted an easy ride, I'd find a merry-go-round."

His entire body tightened, and his eyes burned laser blue. He seemed to lose his ability to breathe. She did it again, lifting to take him deep, then clamping all her internal muscles on him and holding him tight as she pulled back, milking him with her body. A harsh groan burst out of his throat. "Then hold on tight, honey, because it's gonna be long and hard." 'Actually," she purred, "it already is." The smothered sound he made was almost a laugh. "That wasn't what I meant."

"Then show me what you did mean." That look was back in his eyes again, that unreadable wall behind which something elusive moved. "A lot of different things," he murmured. "But for now, we'll concentrate on this one."

>Chapter Twenty-Six

Niema woke in his arms the next morning. She lay quietly, still drowsing, slipping back and forth between sleep and awareness. She was curled on her left side and he was a solid wall behind her, his legs tangled with hers and his arm a heavy weight over her hip. His breath was warm on her shoulder.

She hadn't slept with a man like this since Dallas, she thought sleepily, the name resonating gently in her mind. No-John was the last man she had slept with. The realization was a shock. She remembered that awful time in Iran, the way he had held her and gentled her to sleep, then held her the next morning while she wept, when she woke and realized he wasn't Dallas, that Dallas would never again hold her in the night.

She couldn't see the clock, but it was almost dawn; the sky was beginning to lighten. They had been in bed-what, sixteen, seventeen hours? Making love, sleeping, making love again. He had gotten up once and brought back a tray of bread and cheese and fruit, and that had been their supper. Other than that they hadn't left the cabin except to visit the head.

She felt lethargic, content to be right where she was. Her entire body was relaxed, sated, well-used.

His lips brushed the back of her neck and she realized he was awake. She made a slight nestling movement, sighing with pleasure. How she enjoyed this, waking in the early morning, held close by the man she loved; there were few things in life more satisfying.

His morning erection prodded her, rising insistently against her bottom. She started to turn over but he stayed her with a murmur, adjusting his position and guiding himself to her opening. She arched her back, giving him a better angle. He put his hand on her stomach, bracing her, and pushed. He went slowly inside her; she was morning soft, morning wet, but their positions made her body yield reluctantly to his intrusion. She breathed through her mouth, trying to stay relaxed. With her legs together there wasn't much room inside her; he felt huge, stretching her to the limit.

The sensation bordered on pain, but was also its own turn-on. She pressed her head back against his shoulder, struggling to contain the feeling and yet take more of him. Another inch pushed into her and she moaned.

He paused. "Are you all right?" His voice was low, smoky with sleep and desire.

She didn't know. Maybe. "Yes," she whispered.

He stroked his right hand up to her breasts, lightly rubbing his fingertips on the lower slope, the way he had learned she liked. The subtle caress lit a gentle glow of pleasure, prepared her nipples for more direct contact. That came from his thumb, slowly moving over them, circling them until they hardened and stabbed into his covering palm. It was scary how fast he had caught on to all the small subtleties of how she liked to be touched, scary that his attention had been so focused on her that he hadn't missed a single hitch in her breath. After just one night, he knew her body as well as she did.

He slipped his left arm under her, curving it around her waist and cupping his hand over her mound. His middle finger slid between her fold, pressing lightly on her clitoris. Not rubbing, just pressing, holding his finger there. Then he began to thrust, using long, slow strokes that moved her body back and forth against his finger.

She cried out, jerking under the lash of pleasure. He whispered something soothing and steadied her, then resumed the motion.

"I wanted you the first time I saw you," he murmured. "God, how I envied Dallas!" His right hand stroked up and down her torso, piling sensation on top of sensation. "I stayed away from you for five long, fucking years. I gave you every chance to settle down with Mr. Right, but you didn't take them and I'm through with waiting. You're mine now, Niema. Mine."

Her thoughts reeled with shock. He wasn't given to a lot of swearing: For him to say what he just had was a measure of the strength of his feelings. "J-John?" she stuttered, reaching back for him. She hadn't had any idea any of that had been going on inside him. How could she? He was too damn good an actor.

His hips recoiled and plunged in a steady, unhurried motion that was completely at odds with the way his heartbeat was hammering against her back. "I talked you into coming on this job because I couldn't let you go." His mouth moved on her neck, finding that exact spot between neck and shoulder where the lightest touch made her go limp with pleasure, and a bite would light her up like a Christmas tree. He licked and kissed, holding her quivering body as she strained against him. She tried to part her legs, to lift her thigh over his, but he anchored her leg and held it down.

Niema squirmed, almost frantic with need. As good as his finger felt between her legs, with her legs held together the contact wasn't quite enough; his strokes inside her weren't quite deep enough, or fast enough. He had brought her to the boiling point, with touch and words, but wouldn't let her go over it.

"You were right," he breathed, the words hot on her skin. "I could have found someone else to plant the bug. Hell, I could've planted it myself. But I wanted you with me. I wanted this chance to have you."

"Let me put my leg over yours," she pleaded, almost mad with frustration. "Move faster. Please. Just do something!"

"Not yet." He kissed her neck again. Her right hand, reaching behind to grab him, clenched hard on his butt. "In Ronsard's office-"

"For God's sake, confess afterward!"

He laughed and moved her hand, dislodging her nails from his ass. "I didn't mean to go that far. I've never lost control like that before." He nuzzled her ear. "I had to taste you, had to kiss you-and then I had to have you. I wanted our first time to be in a bed, with a lot of time to spend loving you, but I couldn't stop. I forgot about the job. All that mattered was having you."

He was saying things any woman in her right mind wanted to hear from the man she loved, Niema thought dimly. But, damn him, he was saying them when she was on the verge of dying. And maybe what he was saying was turning her on even more, because every word seemed to go straight to her very core.

"You seem to think the end of this job is the end of us. Not by a long shot, sweetheart. You're mine and you're going to stay mine."

"John," she gasped. "I love you. But if you don't start moving your ass this very minute-!"

He laughed, a deep-throated sound of pure pleasure, and obeyed her command. He lifted her thigh over his hip and moved hard and fast, going deep. She stiffened, her legs trembling, and erupted in a violent climax. He joined her before her tremors had ceased.

Afterward, she couldn't stop trembling. The pleasure had been too intense, too prolonged, and she still couldn't quite believe all the things he had said. She twisted around to face him. Immediately his expression became guarded.

She managed a smile, though her heart was pounding so violently she could barely speak. "Don't think you can get away with saying things like that only when my back is turned." She touched his face, cradling his cheek in her palm. "Did you mean them?"

A shudder wracked him. "Every word."

"So did I."

He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips, then folded them in his hand. For a moment he seemed beyond words.

She kissed his chin. "I don't expect more from you than you can give. I know who you are, remember? You have a job to do, and I won't ask you to give it up. I'll probably go back into fieldwork myself-"

"Why am I not surprised?" he asked in a wry tone.

She couldn't seem to stop touching him. All those long hours in bed with him had only made the yearning worse, instead of sating it. She stroked her hand over his rock hard chest, pressed a kiss to his throat.

"We'll work it out. We don't have to make decisions now, or even tomorrow."

His eyebrows rose and he rolled, tucking her neatly beneath him. Propped over her on his elbows, he said in amusement, "You're being very gentle with me."

"I don't want to frighten you off."

"After waiting five years to have you? Sweetheart, you couldn't frighten me off with an elephant gun. But you're right about one thing: We don't have to make any decisions other than what to eat for breakfast. We can steal a few days just for ourselves before we go back to D.C."

"Can we?" That sounded like heaven-nothing to do but sleep late, make love, lie in the sun. No roles to play, no disks to steal. They could just be themselves. She still couldn't quite take in everything he'd said: How could she not have known, not sensed his attraction to her? But maybe she had; maybe that was what she had picked up on when they were in Iran that made her so uneasy. She hadn't been able to tell what it was, because John was so good at hiding what he was thinking, but she had known there was some tension there. Would she have been ready earlier to hear what he was saying? She didn't know.

They were together now, and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

John made a call on the radio, and a couple of hours later the man with the outboard brought some clothes to the boat: jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks, and sneakers. "Have you heard anything on Ronsard?" John asked as he took the bundle of clothes.

The man shook his head. He was dressed much as he had been the day before, in cotton pants and a pullover shirt, with dark sunglasses that prevented anyone from seeing his eyes. "Nothing since last night. His men were all over Marseilles. Looks like you lost them there. We'll keep tight surveillance on the yacht, though, just in case."

Niema waited until the Company man left, then went out on the deck. "Clothes," she said with satisfaction, taking the bundle from John's arms. "Thank God. Being naked when you have clothes to put on is one thing, but being naked when you have no choice is nerve-wracking."

He reached out and fingered the thick bathrobe she had tightly belted around her after showering a few moments ago. "You look clothed to me-too damn clothed for my taste."

"That's the point. If you have to work for something, you appreciate it more." She stepped away from that encroaching finger and headed back below deck.

"Then you should consider yourself the most appreciated woman in the civilized world," he growled.

Maybe he hadn't meant for her to hear him, but she did. Her knees went a little weak. Every time she thought of the things he'd said that morning her heart started thumping hard and fast. She was so happy she was afraid she might fly apart.

They would face problems in the future, probably in the near future. She didn't know what form their relationship would take, whether there would be any formal commitment or just an unspoken arrangement as lovers whenever they happened to be together-which might not be very often. But all of that was in the future. For right now, for these couple of stolen days before they caught a military transport back to the States, all they had to do was love each other.

He hadn't said he loved her, but he didn't have to.

She felt it every time he touched her, with a wrenching blend of tenderness and almost savage lust that made his hands tremble, or when he looked at her with his emotions naked in his eyes. John was so controlled that the very fact he let her see what he was feeling told her more than words ever could.

She didn't have to have any promises, any plans. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe losing Dallas had made her afraid to count on the future; all she knew was that she was happy just having John now.

He came below deck and leaned against the door frame, watching as she took all the articles of clothing out of the bag and placed them on the bed, dividing them into his and hers stacks.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"No, I just want to get dressed. I guess I can't believe Ronsard has given up, and if there's trouble I want to be wearing more than a robe."

John strolled forward and hooked a finger in the belt around her waist, pulling her against him. She went willingly, looping her arms around his neck. "We're safe enough here on the boat," he said. "The only way anyone can get to us without being seen is from underwater. We're under constant surveillance, and the boat has electronic countermeasures in place in case anyone tries to eavesdrop."

"So we have to stay on board until we're picked up?"

"I wouldn't mind a couple of days of downtime." A slight smile curved his lips. "On the other hand,

I'm not Superman, either, so we might as well get dressed."

He stripped off his tuxedo pants, which was all he was wearing, and was in shorts and jeans by the time she stepped into a pair of underpants. He eyed her feet. "You need Band-Aids on those blisters before you put on socks and shoes. I'll get the first-aid kit."

Niema sat down on the bed and examined her feet. The blisters didn't look bad and weren't bothering her; the antibiotic cream she'd put on them the day before had helped a lot, plus she had been barefoot since coming on board the boat. Still, he was right: They needed protecting. Runners learned to take care of their feet.

He came back with a small white kit in his hand and sat down beside her. "Feet up," he said, patting his lap.

Smiling at the luxury, she turned around and lay back on the pillows, lifting her feet onto his lap and giving herself up entirely into his hands. These strong hands gently cradled her feet, dabbing cool ointment on the blisters and covering them with adhesive strips. He performed the task with the same fearsome concentration he applied to everything.

Still holding her feet in his hands, he looked up at her: "Did you know the feet are an erogenous zone?"

Alarmed, she said, "I know they're a ticklish zone." She tried to regain custody of her feet but with very little effort he controlled the motion.

"Trust me." His tone was both soothing and cajoling. "I won't do anything to tickle you."

She was trying to jackknife into a sitting position when he pressed his mouth to her right instep. She fell back on the pillows, her breath tangling in her throat, spikes of pleasure shooting all the way to her groin. She sucked in a deep breath. "Do that again."

"My pleasure," he murmured, caressing her instep with his tongue and eyeing with interest her hardening nipples.

Niema closed her eyes. What he was doing was incredible: She didn't have the least inclination to laugh. His touch was firm, almost massaging. His tongue unerringly found the most sensitive spot on her instep, stroking it until she had to choke back moans of pleasure. Then he turned his attention to her left foot, shifting so he was facing her and a foot was in each hand. He divided his attention between them, kissing and licking and sucking until she could no longer hold back those moans. Her body twisted and arched, and her breathing became ragged.

She was scarcely aware of when he deftly slipped her panties down her legs, only that he was cupping her bottom in his hands and lifting her up to his mouth. His hair was cool on the insides of her thighs, his mouth hot as he stabbed his tongue into her. She was so aroused that she began climaxing in moments, the sensation so intense that blood roared in her ears and reality contracted until it existed only in the sensation between her legs.

When she finally managed to open her eyes, he was smiling at her. "See?"

"Wow." She stretched languidly. "Do you have any more tricks?"

He laughed as he stood up. "A few, but we'll work up to those."

He had taken the edge off her interest in getting dressed, but she did it anyway, then joined him on deck. The sun was bright on the water. She looked across at the crowded beach and the city beyond. "I wish we could go into the city," she said as she slipped her sunglasses on her nose.

"Maybe later. Let's see if we pick up anything else on Ronsard before we go into the city." He picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the beach.

"Looking at the topless women?" she asked, pinching his butt. "I thought you were too sophisticated for that."

"A man never gets too sophisticated for that," he murmured and laughed when she pinched him again.

Late that afternoon he got another report from the Company men on shore. Ronsard seemed to have pulled his men; though there was still surveillance in place at the airports, no one was actively beating the bushes for them.

"Looks like we can do a little sightseeing," he said.

She was aware he was indulging her. "You've been to Nice before, haven't you?"

He shrugged. "I've been to most places before."

"What do you do for relaxation?"

He thought about that for a moment. "Hide away on a boat on the Riviera and make love to you," he finally answered.

"You mean . . . you never just get in a car and drive? Rent a cabin somewhere in the mountains, go fishing, look at the scenery?" She was aghast, wondering how anyone could live under such unrelenting stress.

"Like a normal person? No."

Mr. Medina, that's going to change, she thought staring at him. When he had downtime, she would make certain he relaxed some place where he didn't have to constantly watch his back or keep up a cover. That would probably be the only way they could be together, somewhere so isolated they would have to make an effort to see another human being.

John radioed in that they were going ashore.

"Do you want surveillance?"

He thought about it. "How many men do you have?"

"We can keep the yacht covered, or we can cover you, but we'll be stretched thin if we try to do both."

It was a calculated risk, Niema knew. Just because Ronsard's men hadn't been spotted didn't mean they weren't there. But everything in John's life was a calculated risk-and lately, so was everything in hers. This was how it would be, she thought; this was the life she was choosing, the life she wanted.

"Put one man on us," John finally said.

"Will do."

He tucked his pistol into his waistband at the small of his back, then put on a lightweight jacket. Niema had found a straw tote in the cabin and she dropped her pistol into it.

The yacht had its own motorized dinghy, and they went ashore in it. The sun was low in the sky, the light mellowing, the shadows deepening. They walked for a while, strolling along with the other tourists. They stopped for a cup of coffee at a sidewalk cafe; she browsed through some lovely little shops and started to buy a six-foot long, sky blue scarf, only to realize she had no money. "I'm broke," she told John, laughing as she pulled him out of the shop.

He looked back. "I'll get the scarf for you."

"I don't want you to get the scarf. I want you to get some money for me."

"Independent hussy," he remarked, tugging free and going back into the shop.

She waited on the sidewalk, arms crossed and toe tapping, until he rejoined her with the scarf wrapped in tissue paper. He dropped the weightless package in her tote, and a kiss on her nose. "That's from me. As for operating money, I'll have more funds delivered to us tomorrow."

"Thank you." Over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of a man watching them. He quickly turned away and entered a shop. She said thoughtfully, "Do you know what our Company tail looks like?"

"I spotted him when we left the dinghy. Khaki pants, white shirt."

"A man wearing black pants, white shirt, and a tan jacket was watching us. He went in one of the shops when he saw me looking at him."

John moved immediately, though without haste, curving his arm around her waist and walking with her into the nearest shop. Once they were inside he walked quickly through the shop, with the owner sputtering after them, and out the rear entrance. They were in a narrow cobblestoned alley, dark with shadows, open at both ends. He turned to the right, so they were going toward the shop in which their unknown watcher had gone.

If the man followed them into the shop and out the back, he would instinctively turn left, in the opposite direction from which he had come. If they could get out of the alley before he decided he'd been made and came after them, they would shake him.

They almost made it. The man burst into the alley when they were two doors from the end. The shopkeeper was squawking in his wake, frustrated that people were using her shop as a shortcut. He ignored her as if she were no more than a mosquito, brushing her off as he drew a pistol from the shoulder rig beneath his jacket.

The shopkeeper screamed and rushed back into her shop. John shoved Niema into a recessed doorway and dove in the opposite direction, pulling out his pistol and rolling as he hit the ground. The first shot clanged into a metal trash can. The second shot was John's, but the man jerked back into the shop.

"Run!" John said, and fired another shot at the doorway of the shop. "I'll keep him pinned."

She was reaching in the tote for her pistol, but at his command she took off at a dead run, knowing any delay could hinder him. Ahead of her, people were scattering away from the mouth of the alley, screaming and rushing for cover.

She reached the end and whirled around the wall, flattening herself against it and peeking around. John was working his way back, firing carefully timed shots that chipped large chunks of brick off the building. When he was near he wheeled and grabbed her wrist and they ran down the street, dodging through confused and alarmed pedestrians.

"Do we head for the dinghy?" she gasped, setting into stride.

"Not until we shake them. I don't want that boat identified."

Meaning the boat wasn't just a place for them to crash. It had classified stuff on board; maybe the boat itself was classified.

As they ran she pulled the tote bag off her shoulder and dug in the bottom of it for her pistol.

"What are you doing?" he asked, taking a look behind them. "Right!"

She wheeled right. "Putting the pistol where I can get to it without having to dig," she growled, jamming the weapon under her waistband in back as he had done and pulling her T-shirt out to cover it.

A shout followed them. Unfortunately, the streets were still crowded with tourists, and heads turned to follow them as they ran and dodged. All anyone chasing had to do was follow the ripple of disturbance.

"Left," John said, and they turned left as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. "Right." They took the next right. If they could get people looking in different directions it might create enough momentary confusion for them to gain some ground and slip away.

They dodged onto a small side street, bright with flowers growing in boxes and in pots set on narrow stoops; the doors were gaily painted, and children wrung the last moments of sunshine from the day. John increased his speed; they had to get off that street fast, before any kids got hurt.

They turned right, down an alley so narrow sunlight never penetrated it; they had to run single file. The street ahead of them was purple with shadows, alive with people. Lights were winking on.

Someone barreled into John as soon as he emerged from the alley and they went crashing to the ground. For a split second Niema thought it was an accident, then arms grabbed her from behind and she reacted automatically, driving her elbow back into a gut that wasn't as hard as it could have been. The guy whooshed out his breath in a violent explosion. She ducked out of his hold, whirled, and poked him in the little notch beside his eye. She didn't have the proper angle, back to front, but he went

down anyway, writhing on the ground and vomiting.

John grabbed her wrist and yanked her into a run. She looked back and saw her assailant lying unmoving on the ground. The man who had tackled John was kind of half sitting, half lying against the wall. He wasn't moving either.

"Don't look," John still towed her by the wrist, so fast her feet barely touched ground. "Just run."

Her stomach turned over. "I didn't mean-"

"He did," he said briefly.

They dodged down yet another street and found themselves in a part of town where the streets seemed to branch off each other like tangled spaghetti. Ahead of them a trio of men cut across an intersection, weapons drawn. One of the men spotted them and pointed. John pulled her down the nearest bisecting street.

"How many of them are there?" she panted.

"A lot." He sounded grim. He angled back toward where they had seen the three men, hoping to come out behind them. They ran up a narrow, picturesque street, with flower boxes in the windows and old women selling a few wares on their doorsteps, from tatted lace shawls to homemade potpourri. One woman shrieked at the gun in John's hand as he and Niema ran by. A sharp angle took them to the left, and a dead end. Niema whirled and started back, but John caught her arm and pulled her toward him.

She heard what he heard. The street behind them slowly fell silent as the old women grabbed up their wares and vanished into their houses. The sounds of traffic came from a distance, but here there was nothing.

Louis Ronsard strolled into view, a slight smile on his sculpted lips and a Glock-17 in his hand. The big pistol was leveled at Niema's head.

John immediately moved at a right angle away from her. The gun didn't waver from her head. "Stop right there," Ronsard said, and John obeyed.

"My friends," he said lightly, "you left without saying good-bye."

"Good-bye," John said, without expression. He made no move with the weapon in his hand, not with that big 9mm locked dead center on Niema's forehead.

"Drop your weapon," Ronsard said to John. His dark blue eyes were arctic. John obeyed, letting the pistol drop to the street. "You abused my hospitality. If the guard hadn't surprised you, you would have gotten away with it. I never would have known you got into my computer. You did, didn't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have been leaving my office at that time, you would still have been in there working."

John shrugged. There was no point denying it. "I got what I went after. I copied everything; I know what you know."

"To what point, my friend? Blackmail? Or did you want exclusive access to the RDX-a?"

It was Temple who answered. As Niema watched, John's face altered ever so slightly, his eyes taking on a flat quality. "Whoever has the compound will make a lot of money in a very short time. Plus ... I have some uses for it."

"You could have bought whatever amount you needed."

"And you would make the money."

"So that's what this is all about? Just money?"

"It's always about money."

'And her?" Ronsard indicated Niema. "I assume she's your partner."

"I don't have partners."

"Then she is . . . ?"

"She isn't involved in this. Let her go," John said softly.

In a heartbeat Ronsard had the gun off Niema and on John, his finger already on the trigger. "Don't play me for a fool," he said, his voice low and deadly.

Niema slipped her right hand up behind her back and gripped the pistol tucked in her waistband. Ronsard caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and started to turn, but she already had the pistol out and leveled at his head.

"Perhaps," she murmured in her best Medina imitation, "you should be asking me the questions. Drop the pistol."

"I don't think so," Ronsard said, still holding his weapon on John. "Are you willing to risk your lover's life? He wasn't willing to risk yours."

She shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "Just move over there beside him."

Both men froze. John seemed to have stopped breathing, his face going white. Ronsard stared at her in astonishment, then began laughing mirthlessly. Niema didn't dare take her eyes off Ronsard, but she was almost paralyzed herself by the risk she was taking. With John's history, a wife he had killed rather than let her betray two men, for another lover to betray him would be devastating, so devastating that not even his superhuman control could hold. His reaction was crucial, because Ronsard had to believe it.

"My apologies, Monsieur Temple," Ronsard said to John. "It appears we were both used."

"Sorry, darling." She gave John an insincere smile. "I have the disk. While you were sleeping last night, I sort of confiscated it." He knew that was a lie. Not only had she not left the bed last night except to visit the head, getting the disk didn't mean anything now that the information had already been sent to Langley.

She looked back at Ronsard, to keep his attention on her instead of on John. "I would introduce myself, but it's better if I don't. I'd like to put a proposition to you, Louis-one that would benefit both of us."

"In what way?"

She smiled again. "The CIA is very interested in ... reaching an agreement with you. We don't want to put you out of business. You could be very valuable to us, and vice versa. You have access to a lot of very interesting information-and we're willing to pay you well for it."

"So would other governments," he said, his eyes still cold.

Niema kept an eye on John as well as Ronsard, willing him not to spoil the setup. "Not as much as we can. And there's an added bonus."

"Such as?"

“A heart."

The softly spoken words fell into a silence that seemed complete. John started, then halted himself. Ronsard's face twisted with hatred. "You dare," he whispered. "You dare bargain with my daughter's life?"

"I'm offering the services of the United States government in finding a heart for her. Those are services you can't match, no matter how much money you have. Even a new heart might not save her, but at least she'll have a chance to hold on until other cures can be found."

He hung there, a father's anguish on his face. "Done," he said roughly, no haggling, no jockeying for position. His love for Laure was genuine and absolute. He would do anything, even sell his soul to the devil, to save her. Working with the CIA was nothing in comparison. He lowered his weapon and nodded toward John. "What about him?"

"Mr. Temple?" Niema shrugged as she lowered her own weapon. It was a risk, but one she felt she had to take to make this agreement work. "He's ... a bonus, so to speak. I wasn't expecting to have his aid in the job, but since he was there, and so good at it, I let him do it." She had to keep John's cover, she thought. His identity as Joseph Temple couldn't be questioned.

John bent down and scooped up his pistol. Niema couldn't read his expression. His face was still pale, his eyes as dead as she had ever seen them. He started toward Ronsard.

"Temple!" she said sharply, just as a sound drew her attention to the right.

Two of Ronsard's men came around the corner. Their gazes locked immediately on John; he was the prime target of their hunt. They saw the pistol in his hand, saw him moving toward Ronsard. Niema knew, in a nanosecond of stark vision, what was going to happen. She saw their weapons train on him. He was momentarily too focused on Ronsard to react as quickly as he normally would have.

She didn't hear herself scream, a hoarse sound of rage and terror. She didn't know she was moving, didn't feel her hand holding the pistol as it began to rise. All she could hear was her heartbeat, slow and ponderous, as if it pumped molasses instead of blood. All she knew was-not again. She couldn't watch him die. She couldn't.

There was a distant roar. A blue haze of gun smoke. The stench of cordite burning her nostrils. The buck of the weapon in her hand as she fired, and kept firing. A crushing force hit her, knocked her down. She tried to stagger to her feet, but her legs wouldn't work. She fired again.

Someone else was shooting, she thought. There was a deeper roar . . . wasn't there? John. Yes, John was shooting. Good. He was still alive. . . .

The lights seemed to go out, though maybe not. She wasn't certain. There was a lot of formless noise that gradually reshaped itself into words. Something was tugging at her, and it hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt in her life, pain so sharp and all-consuming she almost couldn't breathe.

"-damn you, don't you die on me," John was raging as he tore at her clothes. "Do you hear? Don't you god damn die on me."

John rarely swore, she thought, fighting through the pain; he must be really upset. What on earth had happened?

She was hurt. She remembered now, remembered that crushing blow that knocked her down. Something had hit her.

Shot. She'd been shot. So this was what it felt like. It was worse than she had ever imagined.

"Don't die," John was snarling as he pressed down hard on her side.

She wet her lips, and managed to say, "I might not, if you'll hurry and get help."

His head jerked around and he stared at her. His pupils were pinpoints of shock, his face white and strained. "Just hold on," he said roughly. "I'll stop the bleeding." He looked beyond her, and his expression was savage. "You'd better use all the influence you have and get the best doctors in Europe, Ronsard," he said in a low, guttural tone, "because if she dies, I'll fillet you into fish bait."

Washington, D.C., three weeks later

Niema carefully got out of bed and made her way over to the lone chair in the hospital room. Her legs were steadier, she was walking more every day now, though "more" in this case meant a few minutes longer, not any great distance. She had come to hate that bed, though, and was spending as much time as she could in the chair. Sitting in a chair made her feel less like an invalid.

The last IV drip had come out that morning. She was scheduled to be dismissed from the hospital the next day. She would complete her recovery at home; Frank Vinay had visited and said it had been arranged for her to have help at home until she was strong enough to manage by herself again.

Being home again would be nice, she thought. Excitement was one thing, but a woman needed peace and quiet when she was recovering from a gunshot wound. Too much of the past three weeks was a blur, at best, or a huge blank forever lost from her memory. She vaguely remembered being in intensive care in some hospital in France. Louis Ronsard might have been there. He had held her hand once, she thought.

Then she had been flown from France to the States, back to D.C., and brought here. She didn't remember the flight at all, but the nurses told her that was what had happened. She had gone to sleep in France and woke up in D.C. That was enough to disorient anyone.

Every time she surfaced it had been to incredible pain, but she had stopped taking any painkiller a week ago, when she was moved out of intensive care into a regular room. The first couple of days had been rough, but after that every day had been easier.

The last time she'd seen John was when she'd been lying in that narrow, dead-end street in Nice. He'd had to disappear, of course. He couldn't hang around, either as Joseph Temple or John Medina. She hadn't asked Mr. Vinay about him, either. John would either show up, or he wouldn't.

Only a small lamp was on in the room; after the bright lights of intensive care shining on her day and night, she wanted only dim lights now. She turned on the radio to an instrumental station and turned the volume low. Easing back in the chair, she closed her eyes and let her mind drift with the music.

She didn't hear any strange noise or feel a draft from the door opening, but slowly she became aware of John's presence. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, not at all surprised to find him standing in the shadows across the room.

"Finally," she said, holding out her hand to him.

He came to her so silently he might have been drifting on smoke, his gaze moving hungrily over her, darkening with pain as he catalogued each pound she had lost. He cupped her face, rubbing his thumb over her bloodless cheek as he bent down and lightly pressed his mouth to hers. She put her hand on the back of his neck, something in her easing as she felt him warm and vital under her touch.

"I couldn't stay away any longer," he said in a low, rough' tone. "Frank kept me informed, but I-it wasn't the same as being here."

"I understood." She tried to stroke away the new lines that bracketed his mouth.

"When you go home tomorrow, I'll be there."

"Someone is staying with me-"

"I know. I'm the someone." He crouched down in front of her and folded her hand in his.

"Good. You can help me get back on my feet. The physical therapists here won't let me do as much as I need to be doing."

"If you think I'm going to do anything more than let you sleep and eat, you're way off base."

"Really? I thought you'd have incentive to get me up to my fighting weight again."

"Why's that?"

"So you can show me the rest of your tricks." She grinned at him. "I can't wait. I've been lying here for the past week wondering what they are."

The tension in his face relaxed as a smile touched his mouth. "It'll be a while before you're in shape for any of that."

"Depends on how fast you get me into shape, doesn't it?"

"We're going to take it nice and easy. A ruptured liver isn't something you get over in a day or two."

She was also missing part of her spleen, and the bullet had shattered two ribs. On the other hand, John was still alive, and that was the most important thing. He'd have been shot down in front of her if she hadn't drawn their attention.

"What were you doing?" she asked, drawing back and frowning at him as she was finally able to ask the question that had been nagging at her since she'd regained consciousness. "Why were you going for Ronsard like that?"

"The bastard held a gun to your head," he said simply. "And I lost control. I do that a lot where you're concerned."

"This can't keep happening."

"I'll try to do better." The tone was dry now-very dry.

"The deal I made with Ronsard-I haven't talked to Mr. Vinay about it. Will it hold?"

"Hold? They're ecstatic."

"The whole thing seemed like a good idea at the time. All he wants is money to take care of Laure; he doesn't care where it comes from or how he gets it." She paused. "Can you find her a heart?"

"We're trying. The odds are against it, but we're trying." He sighed. "And if we find her a heart, that means a healthier child somewhere won't have that chance."

"With the information Ronsard can provide, a lot of other lives will be saved, though."

They were both silent, the ethical considerations weighing heavy on each side of the argument. Where one stood, she suspected, depended on whether or not one's child was involved. She understood Ronsard's single-minded devotion to his daughter; someone else whose child was waiting on a heart wouldn't be at all understanding.

She put her hands on the arms of the chair and slowly pushed herself to a standing position. John stood also, his face anxious, his hands outstretched to catch her as if she were a toddler taking her first steps. She grinned up at him. "I'm not that fragile."

"You are to me," he said, and remembered terror swept over his face. "Damn you, no more heroics, do you hear me?"

"Leave them to you, is that it?" He took a deep breath.

"Yeah. Leave them to me."

"I can't." She put her arms around him, resting her head on his chest. "Heroes are few and far between. When you find one, you gotta take care of him." How fortunate she had been, she thought, to have loved and been loved by two such men as Dallas and John-extraordinary men by any standard.

Slowly his hands stroked up her back, his touch light so he wouldn't accidentally hurt her. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

Niema turned her lips against his chest, breathing in the hot male scent of his skin. She had lost the thread of conversation as soon as he touched her. "What's that?"

"When you find a hero, you gotta take care of her." He tilted her chin up with his hand. "Partners?"

A slow, delighted grin spread over her face, dispelling the aura of fragility. "Partners," she said, and they shook hands on the deal.

THE END