Trading Secrets (20 page)

“Don’t threaten me, Sabrina.”

“I’m not threatening you. You asked me what I thought and I told you. I just described the possibilities I saw.”

“You skipped the one I’m working on,” he snapped.

“The one where you come back to Dallas with forty grand, set up a bookstore, and we all live happily ever after? I think that’s a very distant possibility, Matt.”

“You once said you’d trust me with your life. You certainly trust me in your bed,” he said, with a note of exasperation in his voice. “Why the hell won’t you trust me with our future?”

“Probably because the risks have suddenly become very obvious!”

“And you’re getting real cautious again, aren’t you? The way you were in Acapulco after that first night, even though I think you knew how good it would be if you gave me a second chance. But you denied me that chance even though you had to deny yourself at the same time. You were mistaken then. Admit there’s a good possibility you’re mistaken now. Admit I might know exactly what I’m doing and that I might be completely honest about my intentions.”

“I’ve said I’ll take care of Brad for you while you’re gone. Don’t ask anything more of me, Matt. Don’t you dare ask anything more. You haven’t got the right!”

“I’m not using you as a free baby-sitter, damn it!” She refused to answer that, but her doubts on the subject must have been plain in her eyes.

“Goddamn it, Sabrina, if that’s the way you feel about it, if that’s the amount of trust you have in me, then forget the whole thing,” he exploded. “Brad and I will get out of your life tomorrow, I guarantee it.” He let go of her abruptly, whirling around to scoop up a pillow and the quilt off the bed.

A few seconds later he was gone, shutting the door to her bedroom behind him as he disappeared into the living room. Sabrina sat down shakily, willing herself not to cry. She would not cry because of Matt August. She utterly refused.

It had all been a mistake. Why did she insist on continuing to make one mistake after another with Matt? And now it was all so damn complicated.

She had seen the unrelenting determination in him tonight; known before she’d even started to argue that it was all hopeless. Matt was going to take Coyne’s offer. It was as if he were compelled to do so. Nothing she could say or do would stop him. She’d known that from the first and yet she’d continued to fight, struggling to salvage the situation.

But she had known from the first there was no possibility of success. Matt’s intentions had been clear from the moment he’d started talking. Sabrina traipsed over to the closet and found another blanket. Then she turned out the lights in her room and slipped into bed. Staring into the darkness, she tried to imagine what was going through Matt’s head in the other room.

What had it been like for him two years ago, she wondered, when he’d returned from that last mission and found himself disgraced? It must have been similar to what she had experienced in California when Sheffield publicly blamed his son’s espionage activities on her.

In all honesty, Sabrina acknowledged, she had to admit that if she were ever given a chance to clear her name she would probably leap at it. In her situation she would never be granted that opportunity. But Matt had found a way to erase some of the tarnish that had clung to his name since that failed operation two years ago. He had also found a way to make forty grand while doing it.

What right did she have to say he shouldn’t take the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? If what he was going to do for Coyne would mitigate some of the bitterness he felt over the loss of his career, maybe it would all be worth it.

He was an egotistical bastard, she thought grimly; wanting his cake and eating it, too. He expected to go off on this mission and return to find everything just as he had left it with her. And it was a cinch she wasn’t going to turn into an instant mother figure for Brad. No telling where they would all be emotionally or psychologically a month from now when Matt got back to Dallas.

If Matt got back to Dallas alive.

That last thought sent a shudder through Sabrina and forced her to face a fear she had been trying to repress. Nobody paid forty thousand dollars to a man like Matt August and then expected him to do a little minor consulting work. That kind of money translated into extremely hazardous duty pay. The fear simmered deep inside her, refusing to stay locked behind closed doors. How had women handled this aching fear during the past few millennia of intermittent warfare?

It was all so complicated.

Priorities, Sabrina thought. You had to know your own priorities. Sort them out and stick by them in your own mind or you’d drive yourself crazy in life.

Right now her number-one priority was sleeping on the couch in her living room.

With a sigh she got up and went to the door of her bedroom. Briefly she thought about the yellow terrycloth robe but decided not to worry about it. Brad would be safely asleep in the guest bedroom, and there was no need to shield herself from Matt’s gaze. You’d almost think they were married, Sabrina decided wryly. They’d certainly fought like an old married couple tonight.

Now it was time to put the battle behind them. She had lost it, anyway.

The living room was in deep shadows. Half blindly she headed toward the sofa. There was no quilt-covered shape lying on it. Then she saw him dimly silhouetted against the window. As she watched he raised a glass and took a long swallow of what she guessed was whiskey.

“Please come to bed, Matt,” she said softly.

He looked at her, eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness. “Why?”

“Because I’ve lost the battle. I don’t intend to throw away whatever chance I might have of winning the war.”

He moved slightly and then was still. “Going to bed with me isn’t going to change my mind about going on that mission, Sabrina.”

“So hard,” she said wistfully. “So strong and tough and hard. And so stupid. That’s not the war I was talking about. I know I can’t stop you from going with Coyne.”

“Then what war are you talking about, Sabrina?”

“The one in which our future is at stake. The fighting has been temporarily postponed until you finish Coyne’s job and come back to Dallas.”

“You’ll be waiting for me?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

He set the unfinished whiskey down on a nearby table and reached her in two long strides. “I’ll be back for you and Brad. I swear it,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “And after this I won’t be going away again. But I have to go this time, honey.”

She speared her fingers lovingly through his hair, smiling gently. “I know, Matt. So come to bed.”

He didn’t need any more urging. A moment later, as he followed her down into the tangled sheets, Matt whispered tautly, “I’m glad you came to get me, sweetheart, but it really wouldn’t have made any difference in the long run.”

“No?” she questioned softly as he buried his lips against her throat.

“No. I was on my way back here just as soon as I’d finished the whiskey and had a chance to cool down. Considering everything else I’m going through to be with you, did you really think I’d spend even one night on your sofa?”

Sooner or later, Matt decided, the man ahead of him was going to realize he’d lost his quarry and turn back. When he did, he would find the quarry waiting right behind him. Matt had doubled back ten minutes ago, gliding through the heavy night-darkened foliage that paralleled the narrow dirt trail. Now he paced silently along behind the would-be hunter, studying the man he would soon be questioning.

American. He had to be from the States. He was dressed like a local Buena Ventura farmer in a pair of flaring trousers, sandals, and a wide-sleeved shirt that fastened with strings instead of buttons. But he walked like a man who’d been raised on city streets and trained according to a manual. Matt knew that look of military handbook training. He’d had to unlearn a fair amount of it before he had become effective in the jungles of the Caribbean and South America.

So the guy ahead of him was American and trained. That narrowed the possibilities when it came to drawing up lists of the man’s probable employers.

The moon was rising swiftly now, silvering the dark shadows along the old trail. There was no point trying for the rendezvous. Valdez wouldn’t hang around the shrine more than half an hour and Matt wouldn’t risk leading the asshole in the farmer suit to the meeting place.

Annoyed at having his plans changed by the incompetent ahead of him, Matt closed his fingers around the worn leather grip of the knife he wore as a sidearm. He liked the feel of it better than he liked the feel of the bulky .45 he also carried.

Ahead of him the hunter, who hadn’t realized he was now the hunted, came to an uncertain halt on a small rise in the trail. Peering ahead with the limited aid of the moon, he seemed to realize finally that there was no longer anyone to be followed.

Matt melted into the protective cover of a tall broad-leafed plant and waited. A few seconds later the man in the farmer’s outfit gave up and turned back the way he had come. When he was abreast of the tall plant, Matt moved. He slid out of the darkness, throwing his whole weight into the jolting blow that sent his victim to the ground. Then he let him feel the tip of the knife.

“You’ve just made a long trip for nothing,” he murmured as the man froze. “What’s more, you’ve caused me to make a long trip for the same reason. I’m upset. I want some answers. And I want them quickly. Do we understand each other?”

“August, for Christ’s sake. Put down the knife. We’re on the same side.”

Matt pressed the point of the knife a fraction deeper, just short of drawing blood. “Not likely. Folks on my side wouldn’t try to trail me when I’ve made it very clear I didn’t want any backup. Try again.”

“It was for your own protection!” The man gasped. “Will you stop playing with that damn knife?”

“I use knives. I don’t play with them. And I’ll start using this one if you don’t give me some answers. Who are you working for?”

“I told you. I’m on your side.”

“Try a name.”

The man inhaled and said, “Rafferty Coyne.”

“Try again. Coyne knows I was going out alone tonight. He knew there was to be no one else on this little jaunt.”

“Jesus! Will you stop it with the knife already? I’ve told you, I’m here on Coyne’s orders. He didn’t want you wandering around Buena Ventura in the middle of the night without some kind of backup.”

“How thoughtful,” Matt replied, controlling his anger. “I guess I’ll thank him personally. Let’s go. Just keep walking until you get to the jeep. You can drive us both back to Coyne’s hotel.” He released his near stranglehold on the man and got to his feet. “Just keep moving until I tell you to stop. And keep in mind that you can’t outrun a knife any more than you can a bullet.”

“Coyne said you were good two years ago. But he thought maybe you might have gotten somewhat, uh, rusty.” Shrugging uncomfortably in an effort to straighten his farmer garb, the man started off back down the trail to where Matt had left his jeep.

“Always a possibility,” Matt agreed absently. He kept several steps behind the other man and considered the ramifications of the present snafu. Why was it that bureaucrats such as Rafferty Coyne assumed they knew as much about fieldwork as the people they hired to do it? If the joker ahead of him was telling the truth, and Matt had a feeling he was, then the delay caused by the fun and games on the trail tonight was strictly unnecessary.

The last thing Matt wanted on this job was unnecessary delays. From the moment three days ago when he’d stepped off the plane into the muggy heat and humidity of Buena Ventura Island, Matt had realized that everything he really wanted was back in Dallas. Getting off this jungle-covered rock that Ramon Valdez called home was the prime goal. To do that the job needed to get done.

Preferably without unnecessary delays.

An hour later, when Rafferty Coyne unlocked the door of his hotel room, he found a familiar face waiting for him in the darkness.

“Good Lord, Arthur, what are you doing here? How did you get inside my room and why aren’t you out keeping August company as instructed?” Then he seemed to notice that Arthur’s hands were strapped behind his back. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed, sullen and disgusted. “What’s the matter with your hands?”

“Ask him.” Arthur nodded angrily toward the shadowy figure seated by the window.

Matt had his booted feet propped up on the table and a glass of whiskey in his hand. He glanced at Coyne as the small man came through the door. “Someday, Coyne, I’d like to see what’s inside that briefcase. Then again, I suppose it would spoil the mystique of the dedicated civil servant if I opened it up and found your lunch.”

Coyne glowered at him, setting the briefcase down and walking over to the bed to examine Arthur’s bound hands. “All right, August. Cut him free.”

“Then he does work for you?”

“Certainly he works for me.”

Matt made no move to use his knife on Arthur’s bonds. Instead he took a sip of whiskey and met Coyne’s irritated gaze with a cool one of his own. “If he works for you, Coyne, why was he following me tonight?”

“I didn’t want you traipsing off to meet Valdez alone.”

“I thought I’d made it clear I didn’t want anyone tailing me.”

“I’m the one in charge of this mission, August. It will be done my way.”

“Then we have a small problem on our hands, don’t we?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Coyne fiddled briefly with the leather strap looped tightly around Arthur’s hands and then gave up. He looked pained.

“It means that until this communication problem of ours is ironed out, the operation gets no further assistance from me,” Matt said levelly.

“You were a good soldier once, August. You used to know how to take orders as well as give them.”

“I’m no longer a soldier. And I’ve lost the knack of taking brainless orders. I lost it two years ago. I don’t intend to relearn it. I told you I would go to the rendezvous point alone tonight, and I meant it. Valdez is expecting me to honor our side of the agreement. The rendezvous is just between him and me. No one else allowed. This gets done my way, Coyne, or it doesn’t get done. At least, not by me. You can find someone else to deal with Valdez.”