Dangerous Lover (17 page)

Finally, the tears stopped, and she lay still under him, trying to catch her breath. Slowly and so gently she wanted to weep, he withdrew from her and, still holding her tightly, turned them over. Now she was lying in his warm, tight clasp, her head on his shoulder. His very wet shoulder. She couldn’t control her muscles or her thoughts, as ravaged as if she’d been in a bad accident.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dazed.

He wiped her face with something. “I know about loss,” he said quietly. “Do you feel better?” He reached under her hair to massage her scalp.

“Yes, thank you,” Caroline said politely in a waterlogged voice, then stopped. She
did
feel better. It felt as if the crying jag had coughed up a ball of black bile that had been poisoning her system for a long, long time.

He wiped her face again. She gave a half laugh. “I can’t believe you came to bed with a handkerchief.”

“It’s not a handkerchief,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s the sheet.”

Caroline blinked, appalled. “I’ve been crying and blowing my nose into my
sheet?”

“That’s okay.” Oh God, how she loved his voice. So deep, so calm. If only it could be bottled and sold as a tranquilizer. Better than Prozac. “We can change the sheets.”

We
. One small word and it meant so very much.
We can change the sheets.

Caroline realized that it was the very first time since her parents’ death that someone acknowledged that she wasn’t alone with a problem. Friends and the occasional date—somehow they were always up for an evening out or a night at the theater, but she was always alone with her problems. This particular one was stupid and minor. She had plenty of sheets, but something in his voice told her he’d stand by her for more than sheets.

“You wouldn’t have run away from Toby,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“No.” His hand tightened in her hair. “I wouldn’t have.”

She lifted her head away from his shoulder to examine his face. “I wish I’d known you earlier.”

Something—some strong emotion—crossed his face. The grooves around his mouth deepened, and the skin across his cheekbones grew tight.

“I wish I’d been around earlier, too.”

Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach, a community of 150,000, is part of Brooklyn. Its nickname is “Little Odessa” because most of its inhabitants are Russian immigrants.

Deaver appreciated the irony because he’d met the man he was going to see in Big Odessa—the real thing. He’d first met Viktor “Drake” Drakovich in the late eighties, when everyone on the ground, with two eyes in their heads and working brains, knew the Soviet Union was going belly up.

The CIA hadn’t known—the CIA couldn’t find its ass with two hands and a stick—but anyone stationed east of the Elbe had known.

Drake at the time was the biggest arms dealer in the world, operating out of a nondescript high-rise in Odessa, supplying arms to the mujehaddin in Afghanistan as fast as he could funnel them in. Deaver’d been a young Special Forces soldier and had been tasked with supplying money to Drake, in briefcases containing half a million dollars at a time. He’d once calculated that the U.S. government had poured at least
$10 million into Drake’s hands.

It was value for money, too. Drake was known for his quality goods. He had four former Russian soldiers who’d been armorers on his payroll, and when you bought weapons from Drake, you got exactly what you had paid for, in good working order, clean, oiled and ready to roll.

Drake’s career stopped on 9/11. Actually, it stopped on September 10, when he got word that Shah Achmed Masood had been killed.

Deaver had been in Odessa that day, the day the shortwave radio gave the news, and he watched, astonished, as Drake immediately started packing up his gear, quietly, emotionlessly. “Bad things are coming,” was his only answer when Deaver asked what was going on. “This business is over.”

A day later, Deaver realized that Drake was right. And Drake was right to stop supplying the Taliban because the full weight of the U.S. government would have stepped in to crush him. Drake was smart, and he knew where to pick his battles. A month later, he was based in Ostende, Belgium, supplying arms to Ashad Fatoy, the Congolese rebel leader, where Deaver’d crossed his path again. When he could, he threw work Drake’s way, and once he was able to warn him that agents of the Belgian Flemish state security agency, the Staatsveiligheid, were closing in on him.

Since the tenth of September, Deaver had kept tabs on Drake, knowing he would always land on his feet, knowing he’d need him one day. That day had come.

“Here,” he told the cab driver, thrust what the meter showed and a five-dollar tip over the seat and got out. It was early in
the afternoon, but the sky was so sullen with snow, it was as dark as evening. Inside a minute, Deaver had disappeared from the cab driver’s sight.

Five minutes and two city blocks later, he was ringing a bell in an anonymous high-rise, not unlike the building Drake had lived in in Odessa.

It didn’t matter what name was on the bell, he knew which button to press. The top one. Drake arranged little booby traps on the lower floors that would slow down any assault troops on their way up, and the roof was a helipad. It was his MO, and it hadn’t changed, in Odessa, in Ostende, in Lagos and now in Brighton Beach.

A security camera swiveled on its pivot when he rang the bell and Deaver raised two fingers to his brow in ironic salute. Drake had three levels of security, and it took a quarter of an hour to pass through the scrutiny of two very large, very efficient guards in full combat gear outside the nondescript door on the tenth floor. Frisked quickly and impersonally, Deaver was ushered into a large foyer, where he waited for a few minutes, certain that he was being subjected to a full-body scan.

Drake had a lot of enemies and there had been at least five assassination attempts, that Deaver knew of. None of them had even come close. Drake was a very hard man to kill.

Deaver was okay with the security measures and the body scan—he was clean. He’d be crazy to come armed with anything larger than a toothpick into Drake’s presence. So he waited patiently while whatever security protocol Drake had worked itself out.

Finally, another big, silent bodyguard motioned to him to follow, and they walked down a long corridor, stopping outside another nondescript door. The bodyguard knocked, then ushered Deaver over the threshold.

“Dear friend,” Drake’s deep voice said from the darkness, “please enter.” His English was excellent, as were his French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Arabic. Drake believed in doing his own negotiating, and to do that, he had to speak the lingo.

Dark-haired and dark-eyed, Drake was of average height, but he was immensely strong. He was a master of several martial arts, but more than that, he was an uncannily effective street fighter. His hands were the largest Deaver had ever seen, with knuckles the size of airplane bolts with a quarter of an inch of tough callus on the edges. His feet were lethal weapons, too, almost yellow from calluses. Deaver had seen him punch a man in the face with such ferocity that he did almost as much damage as a bullet would have. He’d seen Drake destroy a punching bag with one blow from his foot.

He was dangerous as hell, but he had his own crazy moral code. Drake had never been known to go back on his word, but by the same token you never went back on your word with him. If he became your enemy, you might as well start planning your funeral.

Drake was standing, pointing at a comfortable armchair.

The entire room was built for the comfort of a man. Despite the nondescript building and the barren walls and corridors, in here it was luxurious. Deep leather armchairs, thick luxurious carpets, a sideboard filled with bottles of expensive
spirits, a humidor full of cigars.

Legend said that the cigars came in monthly shipments directly from Fidel himself, as a thank-you for something Drake would never talk about.

The room had the look, the smell and the feel of money and power.

Deaver sat, unzipping his jacket with a sigh, knowing he could relax completely for the first time since Obuja. He was definitely safe here. The layers of security, the quiet
whump
the door had made closing which meant it was blast proof, the deep, quiet luxury of the room—oh yes, he was in safe hands. They’d spent the better part of twenty years technically on opposites sides, but Deaver was on Drake’s side now, and he liked what he saw.

A cut-crystal glass half-filled with an amber liquid was at his elbow. He sipped, appreciating the aged, single-malt whiskey.

“So,” he said finally, putting the empty glass down on the side table and turning to Drake. “You’re Stateside now. Is that going to be permanent?”

Drake shrugged. “Yes, I’m in the belly of the beast, now,” he replied mildly. “We’ll see how it works out. So far I have no complaints. What can I do for you?”

Deaver didn’t presume that any more small talk would be appreciated. Drake looked relaxed, but he ran an empire worth more than many third-world countries and he was a hands-on manager. His time was very precious. Time to cut to the chase.

Deaver leaned forward. “First off, I need a laptop to do In
ternet research on. A used one will do, I’ll have to throw it away. But make sure it’s got a hard disk with enough RAM to do some serious searching. No fingerprints, and I guarantee I’ll purge the search history before tossing it.”

Drake nodded. “I have one here.”

Okay, first problem over. “Second, I need a new identity that will keep me for a while, until I finish my business. It might take a week, it might take a month. But not much more than that. I’m tracking someone down, and when I find him, I’m relocating permanently OUTCONUS. To Monte Carlo, I was thinking. So I’ll need a passport for later. Not U.S. And the identity has to be a little deeper. I’ll need a birth certificate that will withstand at least a casual scrutiny.”

Drake inclined his head gravely. “Consider it done. One of the guards will take you to my specialist. He has everything. He’ll set you up with a new identity that will withstand a casual check, and more. And he’ll get you a Maltese passport. Malta’s a member of the EU. With the passport and enough money deposited in a Monte Carlo bank, you can get a permanent
permis de sejour
. Keep your nose clean for ten years, and you’ll get citizenship.”

Now Deaver knew where the passports had gone. The Maltese embassy in Zagreb had reported 190 blank passports stolen, a fortune’s worth. So they’d gone into Drake’s hands. It was good to know.

Now came the hard part. “That’s not all. I’ll need FBI credentials and a number and someone sitting at the other end of that number ready to verify that I’m a Special Agent.”

Drake nodded. “For how long?”

Deaver’s jaw muscles jumped. “For as long as it takes. And I’m going to need some firepower, but I’ll need it where I’m going. I want to fly clean.”

Drake provided an essential service. He not only got you the weapons you wanted, “cold”—untraceable—and in perfect working order, but he could get them to you at a time and place of your choosing. Drake’s network spanned the world, and he could provide just about any weapon short of a nuclear warhead more or less anywhere. It saved trying to smuggle weapons onto aircraft, and it saved trying to track down local suppliers, particularly if you wanted to hit the ground running.

Drake sipped his whiskey and spoke calmly. “Tell me what you need and where.”

Deaver ticked them off. “A Beretta 92 with three clips and shoulder rig and a Kel-Tec P–32 for backup with three magazines, an M40 rifle with a 10X scope, carrying case and four boxes of ammo. They all need to be cold guns.”

“Of course,” Drake said, the even temper slightly ruffled. His reputation was on the line. “And where do you need them?”

The 20-million-dollar question. “I don’t know yet. When I do, I’ll let you know immediately. How much is this going to cost me?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” Drake said promptly, and Deaver barely kept from wincing. It would almost wipe him out. Finding that fucker Prescott became urgent. And when he did find him, Deaver was going to make sure he died slowly and badly, for all the trouble he’d put him through.

“Done. Give me a bank account number and I’ll e-mail the request through immediately. The bank’s open twenty-four/ seven. You’ll have your money within twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Drake said, his voice gentle. “I trust you.”

He could, too. Even though Deaver would be left with less than ten thousand dollars in his bank account, welshing on the deal didn’t even cross his mind. The last person who’d cheated Drake had choked on his own dick, which had been cut off and encased in the intestines that had spilled out from his slashed-open gut. No, Drake could trust him.

And anyway, when Deaver found Prescott, he’d be rich. Not as rich as Drake, but almost.

“Is there anything else?”

Even if there were, Deaver couldn’t afford it. “No, that’s it.”

“Then I think we’re done here,” Drake said, rising. “My men will accompany you to our ID facilities. It shouldn’t take long. Someone will be manning a phone number you’ll be given for a month, round the clock, ready to verify your identity as an FBI agent. If you require that service for longer than a month, it will cost you extra.”

“No, a month should be fine.” Deaver was a good tracker, the best. He’d find Prescott before the month was out.

“Then we have a deal.” Drake offered his hand, and Deaver took it. The hand was cool, dry, the grip strong. “Let me know where you’ll need your weapons.”

Deaver nodded. There was no overt sign, no button pressed, but the steel door suddenly opened, two bodyguards at the
other side ready to accompany him to where he’d get his ID.

“By the way,” Drake said in his cool, precise voice when they were standing on the threshold. “When you recover your diamonds, bring them to me. I can get you a very good price.”

The steel door closed on Deaver’s astonished face.

Summerville

“Oh yeah, baby, give it to me,” she purred. “Big and thick and hot.”

“You got it, honey.” Sanders McCullin obliged, holding the woman’s skinny hips and bucking up into her. It was pleasant enough. She was very wet and was enthusiastically bouncing up and down on his dick.

Sanders couldn’t remember her name. Karla—Kara—Karen. Something like that. They’d met last night at the Zig Zag. On Christmas Eve, the bar had been bouncing and loud. She had slid over to the empty barstool next to his after the girlfriend she’d been with dumped her for a guy.

They’d been fucking for the past twenty-four hours, breaking only to eat, shower and go to the bathroom. Not being sure of her name wasn’t that hard.
Honey
did just fine.

Kara-Karen threw her head back, eyes closed, hips pumping.

Sanders guessed her age to be about thirty. Except for her breasts and nose, which were probably about four.

Women with breast implants shouldn’t be on top. Everything wiggled except the breasts, which looked bolted to her chest. Fascinated, Sanders watched her breasts—big stiff things that didn’t move, like water balloons under the chest wall. She was skinny everywhere except for the balloons on her chest—tits on a stick. And with her head back, he could see the signs of plastic surgery on her nose.

And…on her
face
? Jesus. He hadn’t noticed that at the Zig Zag, and they’d been fucking in the dark ever since. So maybe she wasn’t thirty after all.

After pumping energetically for a few minutes, she came with a great howl, cunt pulling hard on him, startling him into his own climax.

With a cat that ate the cream smile on her face, she settled back down on top of him, clearly intending to stay there, head on his shoulder.

“Wow,” she purred. “That was fantastic.”

He could smell the sex on them.
Ugh. Cleanup time.

“Hey, honey, sorry. Nature’s calling.” Sanders nudged her off him and rolled from the bed, padding naked into the bathroom. As he walked past the dresser, he caught a glimpse of himself and stopped, pleased. Those hours at the gym sure paid off. He had a flat stomach and some good definition, except right now he looked…inelegant with the condom hanging off his dick. He pulled it off.

Not bad
, he thought.
Still holding up
. The ladies sure weren’t complaining.

In the bathroom, he threw the condom in the wastepaper basket—there were four of them on the bottom.

He loved his bathroom. He’d spent $30,000 remodeling and loved every inch of it. Next to the shower was a stand-alone bathtub carved from a single block of marble that weighed one ton. The floor had had to be specially reinforced before it could be winched into place.

Sanders stepped into the shower and felt his spirits lifting at the sight of the gleaming fixtures and pale cream Valentino tiles. It was a spa-quality steam shower with thirty shower jets, a foot massager, piped-in music and a hands-free phone system.

As he soaped up with his Clinique for Men shower gel, Sanders realized that he wished the woman in his bed would just disappear before he got out of the shower. He was all fucked out and didn’t like her enough to spend time with her not fucking.

She wasn’t the brightest tool in the woodshed and she had an annoying, screechy voice. She was good in bed and gave great head, though there’d been a shocked moment when he looked down at himself afterwards and seen a black cock, as if it had suddenly turned gangrenous. It was just Karla-Kara’s trendy Goth black lipstick all over his dick, but he’d had an ugly moment there.

Karla-Kara worked at an advertising agency and talked about music he’d never heard of, films he’d never seen and bars he’d never been to. It was tedious.

He wanted her gone, so he could enjoy the big jar of contraband Crimean caviar and the bottle of two-hundred-dollar Dom Pérignon in the fridge. They would be totally wasted on Karla-Kara, whatever the fuck her name was. At the bar where he’d picked her up, she was drinking some sugary drink and eating a club sandwich.

Maybe if he took enough time in the shower, she’d get the hint, get dressed and leave.

Fat chance. She looked settled, there in his bed, as if she didn’t ever want to leave. It was really annoying. He wished there were just a button he could press and hey presto!

No more Kara. Or Karla.

He was wishing that more and more often lately after sex.

She was okay in bed, but boring and vulgar outside of it. Sanders had had just about as much sex with her as he was willing to have. He looked down at himself, checking with his dick, seeing what happened at the thought of another round.

His dick stayed firmly down. So that was that.

The thought of more sex with her was actually just a little depressing.

Nope, Karla or Kara or whatever the fuck her name was, was shit out of luck.

He’d chosen the wrong woman with whom to spend Christmas Day.

He knew the right woman, though he’d have to wait until after Christmas to get her into his bed.
Back
into his bed. Back into his life.

Caroline Lake.

Their time had come, Sanders could feel it. He and Caroline had been dancing around each other since they were teenagers and the time had come to make it permanent. They’d broken up a few times, the first time in their teens. Well, he was going off to college back East, wasn’t he? And he couldn’t have a small-town girlfriend dragging him down, no matter how rich her family, no matter how pretty she was.

And then Caroline had come back East too, to Boston, an hour’s train ride away. And she’d become even more beautiful. They’d had a couple of tumbles in the sheets and he was seriously thinking of an engagement ring when her parents died in a car crash.

It was impossible after that.

Robert Lake had been making some bad investments when he died, and what with the medical bills and her father’s debts, Caroline had skated bankruptcy, surviving by a hair after opening that bookshop of hers. With that and her grotesque brother, there’d been no time for him.

When Sanders had returned to Summerville, he’d often thought about getting back together with Caroline, even though she didn’t have any money.

There were a lot of advantages to Caroline. She was beautiful, cultivated, and you could take her anywhere. As Sanders’s law practice grew, he often wished Caroline were by his side when talking with big clients. She had a magic touch with people that rubbed off on him by association. The few times
he’d managed to convince her to accompany him to an important event, his stock went way up.

But she made it clear that her first, second and third loyalty was to Toby and that Sanders came in a miserable fourth.

Unacceptable.

It never failed to appall him—that she’d prefer a writhing pathetic cripple to
him
, and to the life he could offer her.

He knew she was struggling, but that was her own damned fault. She insisted on holding on to that ancient pile of bricks that was falling down around her head and simply wouldn’t listen to reason, no matter how many times he told her to sell.

Sanders had quietly had Greenbriars appraised, and to his astonishment, though it was falling to pieces, it was worth over a million dollars. Something about the design. But still. Even more reason to sell it. It was at least seventy years old. She was sliding into genteel poverty, heading straight for ruin, and he could save her ass, give her the life she’d been used to, but she turned her pretty nose up at him and chose to stay with her crippled brother.

It still baffled him.

All she had to do was sell that damned house, put Toby in a home where he belonged and other people didn’t have to see him. Then get together with him—get
back
together with him, he never let her forget that she lost her virginity to him—and all her troubles would be over. He’d made that clear every way he could.

Well, Toby was dead now, thank God. This huge drain on
her finances was over, not to mention the ick factor. Even now, the memory of Toby—crumpled in his wheelchair, face so scarred he looked like Freddie, hands slowly retracting into claws—was enough to make him sick.

Sanders had a very clear memory of the last date he and Caroline had had. He’d taken her to Chez Max, over in Bedford. Hundred bucks a head, worth every penny.

Caroline had been particularly beautiful that evening, dressed in a black Versace. Sanders had no idea how she’d been able to afford a Versace, but there it was. And it looked terrific on her. She turned heads.

They were getting on just fine, too. Sanders could tell that she enjoyed the elegant surroundings and the superb food. He ordered a two-hundred-dollar bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, and they polished it off. Caroline was relaxed, so stunning he was finding it hard to keep his eyes off her.

This
was where a woman like her belonged—and on the arm of a man like him.

She refused to come home with him afterwards, so he drove her home and accepted her invitation for a nightcap.

Her creepy brother was up, in the living room, watching TV. Caroline poured Sanders a drink, talking calmly, and poured her brother a glass of milk. She had to hold the glass to his mouth, and even then half of it was spewed down the front of his pajamas. He slurred badly—half his mouth was scar tissue—and Caroline waited patiently for him to finish whatever nonsense he had to say.

After, she put her hand over his, and the sight nearly made
Sanders gag. Her beautiful, slender hand over that monstrous…
thing.

Sanders downed his whiskey without sitting down and left, fuming. She’d essentially ignored him since they walked into the house, in order to fawn over that pathetic excuse for a human being.

Well, fuck that. Toby was finally dead. And Caroline was free.

And still poor.

“Hey, baby,” Karla-Kara whined. “Momma’s getting cold.”

Sanders rolled his eyes.

It was entirely possible he was getting too old to play the field. Hell, most of the clients he met were married, some on their second or even third marriage. He was starting to get odd looks when he said he was single.

He needed a wife. Not some bimbo who was good in the sack until it got old, which it usually did, very fast, but a
wife
. Someone who looked good on his arm, someone who would keep house for him. Bear him children. Good-looking, healthy, bright children.

Put that way, there was only one woman who fit the bill. Caroline.

Last month, he’d been called to Seattle to meet with a couple of businessmen who were active in politics. After a couple of hours of talk, after probing him about his opinion on some controversial issues, they’d asked whether he’d like to stand for representative in the midterm elections next year. No answer necessary, just think about it.

Sanders was made for politics. He had looks, brains, money and above all, he knew loads of people who had even more money than he did and who could be persuaded to back him. It wasn’t hard at all to see himself climbing the ranks. State representative, governor, senator. Hell, maybe even all the way up to the top.

That was his destiny. Sanders could feel the power of it tingling in his fingertips.

He was too old now to keep fucking around. Openly, at least. That part of his life was over. He needed the stability of a home life, wife and kids. A politician’s wife had to be photogenic and gracious and presentable. That was Caroline, in a nutshell.

Political wives needed stamina and loyalty. If Sanders was ever caught fucking an intern, he needed a wife who’d stand by him, cover for him. Well, if ever there was a woman who didn’t abandon her responsibilities, who had loyalty bred in the bone, who was almost
too
loyal, it was Caroline.

Yes, she was perfect. She’d keep him a beautiful home, make a charming hostess, bear him beautiful children, put her family’s interests before hers.

The time was finally right for them. It had taken them thirteen years to get to this point.

He’d steered clear of her over the Christmas holidays out of self-defense. Caroline got very glum and boring at Christmas-time. And she’d probably be mourning Toby—though any sane person would be rejoicing at getting rid of such a burden.

So he’d let her get all that out of her system.

Monday he’d visit the shop and get the ball rolling. How hard could it be? Caroline was alone now, and hurting for money. And probably a little lonely. People tended to avoid her. She didn’t complain, but everyone knew what her situation was. Nobody liked people with problems.

He’d be the answer to her prayers. They’d be engaged by Easter, married by June. Just in time to test the political waters for his candidacy.

He needed to get rid of Karla-Kara. She was just white noise, and now that he’d made his decision she was distracting.

Sanders dug his personal cell phone out and called his business cell phone number. A few seconds later, it started ringing in the bedroom.

“Hey, baby—the phone!” Karla-Kara shrieked.

Gritting his teeth against her voice, like chalk on a blackboard, Sanders walked into the bedroom, flipped his phone open and put it to his ear, listening to the empty sound.

“Uh-huh,” he said, listening with a frown. “When?…Does Bowers know about this yet?…Uh-huh…I guess so…It’s Christmas, in case you haven’t noticed…uh-huh…Oh, all right.” This last was said in irritation. He flipped the phone closed and picked her clothes up from the floor.

“Sorry, honey,” he told the pouting woman on his bed. “Business emergency. People are coming over in about half an hour, then we have to fly to Los Angeles.” Her bra and panties were red silk, slightly dirty. He tossed them to her. “Hurry up, I’ll call a cab.”

He was actually looking forward to Monday.

It was time.

New York

Waldorf-Astoria

Deaver had a Christmas dinner brought up by room service from Peacock Alley. Maine lobster salad, prime grilled sirloin, dry-aged for twenty-eight days, with a wild mushroom side dish and a forty-dollar bottle of Valpolicella breathing on a sideboard—150 bucks, including tip, and worth every penny.