Now You See Him (25 page)

And then he released her abruptly, flinging her wrist away, stepping back. "Goodbye, Francey," he said, biting the words off as if they pained him. And a moment later he was gone, the heavy door closing silently behind him.

She didn't move, wondering almost absently whether she was going to cry.

No tears came. No fury, no pain, no recriminations. Just a deep, thick calm, wrapping around her. Tinged with joy.

He loved her. She remembered the words from her drugged stupor, and she felt them in her heart, in his rage, his anger, his need for her. He loved her fully as much as she loved him.

And there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. To remain on Malta would be to put her life in danger and, therefore, his. The best thing she could do was leave, tomorrow, and wait for him to come to her.

He hadn't said he would. He had told her to forget about him. He might even have thought it was possible. But it wouldn't be for him. Sooner or later, he would have to come to her. And she would be waiting.

It had never been dark in the prison cell. Bare light bulbs had glared in her eyes all night long, and the thick, stench-laden air had sunk into her lungs. She'd come to cherish the darkness. The silence. A town that closed down early. Or maybe it was later than she realized. Only an occasional car drove by outside, beneath the small balcony, and there were no voices, no sounds of street quarrels or lovers' laughter. Moving around the room, she turned off the lights, plunging it into darkness. She didn't bother to check the door. She knew she hadn't locked it, and she told herself she didn't care. She stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers, and lay very still. It was as dark and silent as a tomb, with only the fresh salt breeze reminding her that she was alive. Alive. And it wasn't until she was almost asleep that she realized why she hadn't locked her door.

It hadn't been apathy, lack of concern that the people who wanted to hurt her, the members of the Cadre, the mysterious Cardiff, might hurt her. And it hadn't bad anything to do with her recent intense hatred of locks and keys.

It had to do with the deep-seated, unshakable hope that Michael Dowd would change his mind, come once again to her in the shadows, and make her feel alive.

Their plane was due to depart from the tiny Maltese airport at one-thirty in the afternoon. They were to change in Rome, then fly straight on to the United States without stopping, passing time zones and governments without even being aware of them.

Francey threw out the sand-washed silk clothes she'd walked the streets in, threw out the sandals that had carried her away from the embassy. She dressed without thinking, not noticing the texture of the silk this time, not noticing the flattering drape of the cloth. She left the hotel room without a backward glance, meeting Daniel in the lobby and accompanying him out to the airport in complete silence.

He still didn't look well. Whatever drugs Elmore had given him hadn't done the trick, and his color was just as bad as it had been before. He kept rubbing his upper arm in an unconscious gesture, and occasionally he stumbled. By the time they'd managed to check in for their flight at the tiny airport, he was sweating profusely in the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere.

"Boarding in half an hour, Miss Neeley," the flight attendant announced.

"Damned island," Daniel muttered as he sank into a chair. "The runway's too small for my jet. I hate flying commercial airlines. I hate it."

Francey tried to dredge up some sympathy and failed completely. "It can't be that long a flight to Rome. If you want, you can wait there for your jet while I go on ahead. I have no problem with flying commercial airlines. I simply want to get home."

"I'm coming with you," Daniel said, wheezing slightly.

"Why? So I don't get into any more trouble?" she asked tartly.

He shook his head, closing his eyes in sudden weariness. "I haven't done well by you, Francey. When your mother died, I promised I'd watch out for you, make sure you were all right. I've failed at that, failed miserably."

"You did your best," she murmured soothingly, the hard knot of her anger buried deep inside. It wouldn't do any good to accuse Daniel of betrayal. His motives, his beliefs were his own.

"I should have told you, warned you…" he said, rubbing his upper arm.

"Yes," she said. "But it's past that now. Shouldn't I be looking ahead? Shouldn't both of us?"

He sighed. "He told you, about Caitlin, didn't he? I'm glad. I wish I'd felt I could, but I promised your mother…"

"Let's not talk about it now," Francey said, putting a soothing hand on his arm, feeling the faint tremors. "She's gone, there's nothing she can do to hurt us anymore."

Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but instead a look of intense surprise passed over his face. He clutched his arm again, tightly. "Francey," he gasped. And then he pitched forward onto the tile floor.

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The man known by many names, including Michael Dowd, had been
furious when he'd walked into Sir Henry's office and seen Francey's slender
back. He'd been in a white-hot rage, so intense he was barely rational. How
someone would have been shortsighted enough to let Francey Neeley come to the British embassy, how all their failsafe systems could have shorted out, was a matter of complete mystery to him. He'd been a fool to think he could ever get away with it, simply fade out of her life without seeing her again. He was too old a hand at this game to have wasted his time on false hopes. But he couldn't rid himself of the blind rage that had swamped him as he saw the shocked recognition in Francey's eyes.

He couldn't understand why she hadn't denounced him. Why she hadn't launched herself in a furious attack, or at the very least told that old fool, Sir Henry, that he was no more a cultural attaché than Oliver North had been. Because she'd known. He understood her very well, better than he knew himself. And in her shocked, hurt eyes he'd seen a sudden wealth of comprehension. She knew everything, or just about. Knew the limits of his betrayal.

And she'd simply walked away. Without a word of reproach or threat. Simply curled in on herself and vanished.

She didn't know he'd followed her. He hadn't lost his touch enough for her to notice he'd been shadowing her as she walked aimlessly through the old town section, down by the waterfront, up past the rich houses of the expatriates, skirting the cafés and bars that were bright and warm with humanity. She didn't know his watchful shadow had kept any number of men from trying to strike up a conversation with the aimless wanderer.

He'd waited until she neared the hotel, slipped ahead of her in the shadows and waited for her in her room. He didn't know what he'd hoped to accomplish. He certainly hadn't wanted to touch her again. Had he?

But of course he had. He'd come within inches of taking her to that wide, empty bed and making sure nothing fogged her memory of what it was like between them. But something had stopped him. Maybe his last remnants of decency. Or maybe just the dazed pain in her beautiful brown eyes.

He'd left her before he could touch her again. And then he'd turned and walked to the nearest bar and proceeded to get just as drunk as he could afford to.

It didn't make the next day any better. He didn't have a headache or a hangover—his body was too well controlled to be prey to any such weaknesses. He showed up at work a fashionable forty-five minutes late, as his alter ego, Charlie, always did, and managed to look languid and unconcerned as he waited for his carefully constructed cover to come crashing down around him.

He had no idea what she was going to do. Whether she would leave with Daniel, quietly accepting that it was over. He'd told her the truth, or most of it, about her sister to shock her into acquiescence. But with Francey, nothing was a certainty.

There was no phone call. No outraged summons from Sir Henry, demanding an explanation. Not even a word from Daniel, warning him of the upcoming debacle. Nothing at all.

He was more than accustomed to the frantic tedium of waiting for all hell to break loose. He told himself that this was no different from keeping watch outside a terrorists' hideout, but he knew otherwise. For the first time in his life his emotions were involved. And in a matter of hours the first woman he'd ever loved would send his mission into oblivion. Or she would disappear from his life forever. And he didn't know which would be worse.

He spent the hours shuffling papers on his artfully messy desk, drinking very strong coffee and flirting with any woman who happened to walk by his open office door. Her plane was due to leave at two-thirty. If he could just ignore the clock until after that he would be fine.

But for the first time in his life his iron will faded. At a quarter of two he looked at the thin gold watch that belonged to a Charlie-type person and knew he had just enough time to make it to the airport. Not to stop her. But to watch her fly away, out of his life forever.

The ambulance was just pulling out when he arrived at the airport, and it charged past him, lights flashing, siren keening. He barely noticed it, so intent on finding Daniel and watching the plane take off that he almost didn't see the car following the ambulance. Almost didn't see Francey's pale, frightened figure in the back seat, sandwiched between two large men.

He didn't waste his time cursing; he jerked the wheel, heading after the ambulance and the gray car. Charming Charlie the indolent fop had disappeared. The man who'd taken his place had no name, no identity other than Cougar, only one purpose in life, and the willingness to use any means to get it. He'd recognized Dex, the man to the left of Francey. And he knew with a cool clarity that he wouldn't be able to get her away without killing on her behalf.

"I wish you'd let me ride in the ambulance," Francey said, squirming slightly. The two airport officials on either side of her were very large, cramping her on the small back seat of the Fiat.

"Sorry, miss, but you'd just be in the way," the kinder looking man on the right said. "Your cousin's suffered a massive heart attack, and the paramedics are doing their best to stabilize him. They don't need the likes of you getting in their way."

She thought she could hear the charming trace of Ireland in his voice, and she had to stifle her instinctive, distrustful reaction. She was so desperate to get away from the life her cousin had chosen, from lying, deceitful men. The airplane had been so close, freedom just a few steps away. If she'd been able to leave she truly believed she could have turned her back on Michael Dowd—or whoever the hell he was—forever.

But Daniel's collapse had changed all that. Through the exigencies of fate she was being drawn back into the spider's web of deceit. And there was no longer any way she could retreat.

The car took a sharp right, and Francey looked up, the first inklings of dread washing through her as she watched the ambulance continue barreling straight ahead. "Why aren't we following them?"

"We're taking a shortcut," the kindly man said. "They'll be going to the emergency entrance, and you'll need to go to the business office, fill out papers and the like. You know hospitals—bureaucracies like all the rest. Don't worry, we'll get there in good time."

She didn't believe him. He had such a broad, trustworthy face, such warmth in his blue eyes and ruddy smile, such concern in his voice. She wanted to believe him so badly, and she knew she'd made a major mistake in getting into the car with him. Not that he'd given her any alternative. The two men had come up on either side of her as the paramedics were loading Daniel into the ambulance, and she'd been too frightened and upset to put up more than a cursory argument.

"We're in trouble, boy-o," the previously silent driver announced in a voice thick with Ireland. "Someone's following us."

"Lose him," the man said briefly, patting Francey's limp hand.

"What's going on?" she asked, knowing full well she wasn't going to like the answers.

But no answers were forthcoming. "You want to finish her now? You know what happened to Niall—we wouldn't want to displease the powers-that-be."

"Killing her now would be the height of stupidity," the kind man said. "If whoever's following us has backup, we'll have nothing to bargain with. And if we get back with her already dead, the boss will cut our throats. Just shut up and drive." He turned and gave Francey an affable smile. "Sorry about this, miss."

"You're the Cadre."

"And you're not very careful. This time you don't have the Cougar to keep you safe. You're on your own, and no one's going to rescue you this time."

"I wouldn't count on that, Dex," the driver said, his voice tight with panic. "Who the hell do you think is following us?"

Francey tried to swivel around, but Dex clamped a hand on her arm, holding her in place while the silent man on her other side stared out the back.

She heard the crack of glass. The man slumped down beside her. A moment later she heard the whine of a bullet, and the driver swerved off the road, cursing, stopping at an angle on the side of the roadway.

Her seatmate had fallen in her lap. She pushed him away from her, and her hands were wet and sticky with blood. She wanted to scream, but she had no breath in her. Dex had grabbed her arm and pulled her from the stalled car. A moment later she was clasped against his body, a human shield, and she could feel a cool steel gun barrel against her temple.

The car that had followed them pulled ahead, stopping in front of the car, blocking their exit. The driver was already running, disappearing into the distance, but the man holding her was made of sterner stuff. He wasn't going to run away.

"Hey, Cougar," he shouted toward the dark car with the smoked windows. "You want to strike a bargain?"

Francey watched, numb, as the door opened. She knew who would step out, and yet she couldn't quite believe it. Once more he looked completely different. Charlie had vanished. So had Michael Dowd, and the dream lover from the boat. This man was closer to the drunken Arab who'd brought her out of purgatory, though this time it looked as if he were there to deliver his own taste of hell.