SLEEPER (Crossfire Series) (24 page)

It was true she’d given money to her relatives. Many of them had needed it after the cold war was over. There hadn’t been many real jobs to begin with, and with the government shutting down, many government employees had gone without pay for a long time. Sometimes Greta had wondered how her relatives had fared after she’d gone off on her last operation.

“And what am I?” she asked. “I’m curious to see what you know…or don’t.”

“I’m sure Talia knows a lot, Greta, since she married a general and has access to a lot of powerful people,” Gunther chimed in. His eyes were admiring as he glanced at Talia. “You were rather low profile till recently, of course,” he said to Greta’s niece, “but you’ve grown into quite a legend yourself, especially with that last escape from the explosion.”

Talia touched the left side of her face, then shrugged. “Everyone brings that up,” she said in a bored voice. “It’s just a part of my life now. I’m good at what I do and am glad there are people jealous enough of my success to kill me. It’s a good sign.”

Gunther laughed. “A very positive outlook on life,” he said. “Most women would have been destroyed by the whole experience. And yes, I also meant the injury to your face. The plastic surgeon did a fantastic job, by the way, and if nothing else, the disfigurement is superficial at most and adds to the mystique of The Baroness.”

Greta watched as Talia laughed that smoky laugh again. She couldn’t quite decide whether she liked her chubby little niece growing up into this sophisticated adult. She could kill this woman.

“A new face, Gunther, is easy to get these days,” Talia said. “I’m blessed with great bone structure, so the doctor said, and he just corrected minor problems. I’m glad you approve.”

Her smile was too perfect. Everything was very practiced. “You’re very well trained,” Greta said.

Talia turned back to her. “Of course,” she said. “After you left and after my marriage, I found out where you went and what your real job was. I applied and went through the same training you did, Auntie. Can’t you tell?”

“Training doesn’t make one good, niece.”

“And practice makes perfect, Auntie,” Talia countered. “But I’m not here to argue about that. You obviously need something from me or you wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble contacting me.”

“I don’t need anything,” Greta briskly said. “That was Gunther’s idea. However, he invited me here so I could meet my niece. It’s been…enlightening.”

“In a good way, I hope? You’re my role model, Auntie. An independent woman who makes lots of money. That’s very hard to do back home, you know. I’m enjoying it very much, thanks to you.” Talia toasted her silently and drank from her glass. “Life has certainly been a lot better now that I’m in the business of moving government items about, I must say.”

“I didn’t do it to make life better,” Greta lied. It had made life better, but it hadn’t been her first reason for being an assassin for the government, and then a double agent. “I did it for love.”

Talia looked surprised. “Love? You view killing for money as a quest for love?”

“I mean, you must love your job,” Greta said. So young and so cynical already. No wonder these kids would never rise to her status. “You can’t do what I do without deep love, Talia.”

“Oh, indeed. Ten years in the bowels of the CIA as a dowdy secretary.” Talia shuddered. “I don’t think even I can do that, but of course, who knows? In ten years…no, no, I don’t even think I can do that in ten years. I don’t have your love, Auntie, for sure. I’m in it for the money, pure and simple.”

“And that’s why I like you, Talia,” Gunther interrupted smoothly. “The Baroness has a reputation for delivering, and you’ve promised to deliver a certain item to the government for a large sum of money. I have information that might be of help, but I need some of that money too.”

Talia looked at them both consideringly, a small, secretive smile on her face. “I’m greedy enough to listen but not dumb enough to believe you, Gunther. Now that you’ve trapped my aunt somehow to be used as bait to bring me here, let me really hear what’s on your clever little mind, hmm? And then maybe,
maybe
, I’ll think about this alliance.”

Greta couldn’t help smiling back at her niece, feeling just a tinge of pride. The girl had inherited her genes. Ambitious and beautiful. She would go places. But only if she didn’t get in Greta’s way. After all, glory could only belong to one woman. And it was her time, after all her sacrifice.

* * *

Reed snapped the GPS unit shut. She was heading toward the hotel. He released a sigh of frustration. Finally. He put his car into gear and took the shortcut back. That woman had the hardest head. He’d been following her the last few days as she’d driven around the city. Yesterday she’d found an old friend.

Reed hadn’t liked the way that guy had hugged her. And then later she’d gone to the bar. He was still mad about that. Didn’t she remember the last time she was in one, she’d ended up being shot at? He’d thought about it and had finally concluded she must have been meeting her friend. Still, it was a risk he wished she hadn’t taken….

The fact that he’d been right didn’t make him feel any better either. The woman was in grave danger, and she was wandering around alone.

Reed shook his head. It couldn’t be helped. She had to decide on her own to come to him. If she’d really found someone to help her, he’d have stayed in the shadows to watch what she was planning. After all, she didn’t have much money left. There was only one way she could raise quick money.

In the planning stages, one of the scenarios he had pictured Lily handing over the weapon to another dealer. This had actually been the ideal stage, with a cut-and-dried scenario. Target sighted, target shot. Weapon retrieved.

However, Amber’s stipulation—that GEM had to try to save Lily—made things a little more complicated. Reed liked the fact that GEM was keeping its side of the bargain. Some agencies, he realized, would just have agreed and done it their way. Llallana Noretski would have ended up another statistic, an accident.

But they’d picked a sharpshooter as the foil, just in case. Reed parked, pocketed the GPS unit, checked the area to make sure it was secure, then went to the elevator. He’d followed Lily long enough to make sure he was the only one tailing her, and then he’d veered off onto a side street. It should take her an extra seven or eight minutes to reach here.

It wasn’t long before his blue car pulled into the garage. She didn’t stop in front of him, driving by as if she hadn’t seen him. He waited as he watched her park.

She locked the car, taking her time, then turned and approached him slowly. Reed slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. Damn it, didn’t the woman eat? She looked like a wind could blow her away.

“I’m back,” she said, uncertainty in her eyes.

“You should have called me. I might not have been here,” Reed said.

A small smile appeared. “Where would you be? Besides following a woman around and shooting at people?” She cocked her head. “Why did you do it, Reed?”

Reed reached out and pulled her against him. She tilted her head back, anticipating his descending mouth. He kissed her roughly, threading his fingers in her hair. He’d thought about doing just that the last few days. How could one woman get into his system so quickly?

She kissed him back ardently. Her response had always been explosive, but this time he sensed a desperate edge, as if she was very close to falling apart. He gentled his hold, slowing his own raging need.

“You’re exhausted,” he said, his gaze taking in the dark circles under her eyes. “You don’t take care of yourself, do you know that?”

“Well, I got spoiled, you see,” she replied. “The cheap hotel bed just won’t do after that decadent luxury up there.”

Reed turned, inserted the key card, and punched in the code. “Then you should have called earlier. It would have saved me some sleep too.”

The elevator door opened. She hesitated a second before following him in. “Because I like to think of you in one piece,” he told her as he pushed the button. “Because I was worried you might end up in a river somewhere in the middle of the night. Because I didn’t think you knew what the hell you were doing out there.”

Her chin tilted up defensively. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, Reed. I don’t need a babysitter.” The look in her eyes softened. “Not that I’m not grateful for what you did.”

The door opened. She hesitated again, peering into the semidarkness of the suite.

He didn’t want to make it easy for her. Why should he, when she’d prefer dealing with that scumbag who’d mugged her? “Afraid?” he asked softly.

Her chin tilted higher. “No,” she said. She took a deep breath, then stepped out of the elevator. “I came here because I need your help. Just like you said.”

That made him unreasonably irritated. He didn’t want her to need his help. He wanted her to need him. “I know that,” he said. “We can talk afterward.”

“Lily, I’ve been following you around. You haven’t eaten all day. You had two, maybe three, drinks at the bar.” He pulled out a T-shirt from the drawer. “Like I said, you don’t know how to take care of yourself.”

“I have things on my mind, if you haven’t noticed,” Lily said wryly.

“Come here,” he said.

She finally came into the room, her fingers unbuttoning her jacket. She paused when she caught sight of the T-shirt. “Was the hotel mad about the way the bathroom was left? There was dirt all over the shower.” She pursed her lips. “I guess I should have brought my stuff from my room.”

“The hotel hasn’t kicked me out yet. And you’d have your things here if you hadn’t decided to go off the other day,” Reed pointed out. “As it is, those three days you promised to give me were wasted.”

And nights, he added. He’d spent all of those following her around instead of having her here, safely out of the way, while things were being arranged. But her persistence was a remarkable thing to watch. She simply refused to give up.

He picked up the phone and ordered food, his gaze following her around the room as she put away the jacket, smoothed her hair in front of the dresser table, sat on the bed to pull off her boots, then went off to check the bathroom. How could a woman’s presence make such a spacious room so small?

She reappeared. “I want you to contact Nikki Harden,” she blurted out.

Reed frowned. He hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

She sighed. “She said someone has a price on my head. I know who it is. It’s the CIA.” She walked toward him with a serious expression. “I want you to go through Nikki and send a message that you want to collect the reward. Tell them if they want me, they’ll guarantee me safe passage for a group of girls, that they’ll give you these passports. As soon as my girls are out of the country, you hand me over to them. The money’s yours, Reed, and you, too, can get out of this place.”

Reed listened in stunned silence. This was one scenario that hadn’t been brought up during discussions. Lily was going to sacrifice herself.

CHAPTER 14

Reed was a trained sharpshooter, able to sit for hours, if necessary, waiting for his target to appear. His job had always required very little more than patience and absolute control of his weapon. He could aim and shoot at a Ping-Pong ball dangling from the end of a dummy positioned hundreds of meters away. He could pick out moving targets among moving objects with a scope and hit them in rapid succession from a distance.

Some of his targets had shot back. It was part of being in a firefight—when one was shooting at something, be prepared to be shot back at.

He stared hard at the woman standing in front of him. When had she become his blind spot?

Part of the reason was he didn’t view her as a target anymore. Instead of sitting quietly and watching, focusing only on that one job of pulling the trigger, he’d let his mind wander off. He’d become emotionally involved. And somehow, in so short a period of time, he’d convinced himself that he needed to save this woman, instead of letting that be only one option open to him.

Matters of consequence.
Of course, the stupid book that had been haunting him lately had to choose this moment to taunt him. Someone up there was messing with his mind, all right.

Arch was in heaven having a belly laugh over this. Because it was he who’d taught Reed life wasn’t just waves and sun with a hot Betty in his arms. There were matters of consequence, things that were important to people.

Dude, life’s sweet not because of the things in it, but because of the things that keep you going. Everyone’s got to find what matters to his heart or everything’s just going to wash away like the sand. And boy, are you going to miss it when it’s gone. I ain’t talking about hot sex either, although that’s one very important thing that keeps life going!

Reed could remember the belly-roll of a laugh Arch had given as he’d slapped him on the back. He’d assumed Arch had been talking about surfing. Everything had revolved around the sea for the older man, all the way back when he’d been the surfing champ in the area, to the travels to the best beaches in the world, to his own untraditional nuptials, standing with his bride in a humongous sand castle he’d built. He’d carried that photo with him wherever he’d gone and Reed had looked at it hundreds of times, though the significance of it had been lost on him until Arch’s last journey into the ocean.