Bait (6 page)

“What
happened
?” Impatience tinged his tone.

“A lot of these birds are on the endangered-­species list,” she continued doggedly. If she was going to humiliate herself, she would do it her way and in her time. “The largest launderer of illegal birds is a company called Exotic Fauna Exports of Baghdad. It was run by two brothers, Yuri and Fedyenka Osinov, Ukrainian immigrants.”

She stopped walking, turning to admire the statue of a maiden pouring liquid from an urn on her shoulder. Water splashed from the urn, across her carved slippers, and into a shallow basin. Christina perched on the lip of the basin and trailed her fingers through the water. Gabe did not sit. She felt him, solid and imposing, at her left shoulder.

“Birds?” Disbelief laced Gabe's voice. “Your mission was
birds
?”

“Exotic birds aren't the only thing they handle,” she said. Her shoulders hunched as she looked anywhere but at him. “They also smuggle exotic animals for illegal—­and extremely expensive—­fur coats. Ermine and mink. Chinchilla.”

Gabe exhaled an unamused laugh. “Birds. Christ Almighty.”

He infiltrated hostile countries to fight terrorists, rescue hostages, train locals to defend themselves. Small wonder her mission seemed silly to him. She slapped the surface of the water, spraying droplets onto her expensive pantsuit. “Trafficking in illegal wildlife is a fifteen billion dollar a year business, second only to the drug trade. This is not a joke. Psittacines are highly profitable commodities.”

He moved into view. The several feet between them might have been miles. “Go on, then. Tell me about your birds.”

Instinct told her Gabe wanted as many details as possible. “This was information gathering only. Once we found what we were looking for, local law enforcement would go in for the takedown. We needed to find the holding area. The conditions in these places are awful. Rampant disease that then moves into the United States.” She glanced into his face, saw no encouragement, and sighed.

Gabe propped a foot on the lip of the fountain. “Exactly what happened?”

“Bobby Roberts and I arranged to meet with the Osinovs. Bobby was in charge of the whole operation.”

Incredulity colored Gabe's tone. “No way. Robert Roberts? What, did his parents hate him?”

Christina wiped her fingers dry. “Probably. Everyone else did, too. He believed in volume leadership. If he could say it the loudest, it must be true. He never admitted he was wrong, even when it was brutally obvious he was. Frankly, he was a bully. I think Customs assigned him this case just to get rid of him for a while.”

“Let me guess. He threw you under the bus.” A hard look crept into his eyes.

She cleared her throat and didn't answer. In fact, Bobby had vilified her. He'd blamed her for every aspect of the mission's failure. The others followed suit to save their own asses, leaving Christina holding the bag of stink. Ugly rumors spread through agency grapevines and shredded her reputation.

“Okay. Take me through it,” he said after a moment.

“The initial meeting with the Osinovs was productive. We agreed on price and delivery. The next day, we were blindfolded and taken to the holding area,” she said. “Yuri showed us samples of the merchandise. Everything seemed fine.”

A grin tugged at his mouth. “Samples of birds?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Two Amazons, an African grey, and a cockatoo.”

“So what went wrong? You said they made you.”

Christina thought for a moment. “I don't know what went wrong. Shay contacted the local police. They were supposed to be standing by to arrest the Osinovs at the warehouse during the transfer, catching them in the act. And liberating the inhabitants of those cages. They never had the chance to move in. Yuri and his men drew on us. Bobby . . . well, he escaped out the back way. I used Yuri as a human shield. They started shooting anyway. I made it out the way Bobby had and went to the hotel room where we'd set up. It had been sanitized, so I went to the airfield. We had a plane standing by to extract us to Italy.”

Would he care about the hours she had struggled to evade the smugglers? The terror when Yuri discovered her? Fedyenka's fury, his shouted threats?

No.

Christina's hand rose to her hair, remembered the styling gel, and dropped her arm into her lap. “The Osinovs knew about the airfield, too, because they arrived shortly after I did. There was a firefight. I . . . shot Yuri. Then a squad of SAS soldiers arrived and Fedyenka took off. I don't know how, but he escaped. The whole mission was a bust. Because of me, Fedyenka moved the holding cages and pens, and we lost the opportunity to shut them down.”

When he remained silent, she added, “Next thing I know, I'm in Azakistan doing paperwork.”

Her boss, Jay Spicer, had protected her by removing her from center stage to allow the rumors to die a natural death. Obviously that hadn't happened. She gave a deep sigh.

Silence settled between them. Not even the sound of the fountain broke the quiet.

“Thank you,” he finally said, “for going through it with me.”

Gabe straightened and took three steps back onto the path. Looking up, Christina saw a group of visitors wandering their way, chattering away in German. Their smiles dimmed as they took in Gabe's formidable posture, casting curious looks her way as they hurried past.

She waited for him to blast her, to disparage her as her own ­people had. When he remained silent, she finally dared to look up. He was examining her, brows furrowed, hands on his hips.

“How can you not know how you were made?”

She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her trousers. “That's the question of the hour. I've been over it and over it. I laid it out for Jay Spicer, my case officer. For Trevor, who led the team that got us out of Dodge. For the review board. I've examined every nuance of my behavior, and I just can't see it.”

He ran a hand along his chin, deep in thought. “It's not adding up for me. All right. Let's table it for now. Later I'll see if I can spot anything that might help you.”

Gabe wanted to help her? She blinked in astonishment.

When he held out his hand to her, she took it without protest. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible working with Gabe. For the moment, anyway, he was being almost nice.

She followed him back onto the path.

 

Chapter Five

“H
ERE
'
S
HOW
THIS
is going to work.”

The mild sun warmed Gabe. Even as his eyes flickered from place to place, group to group, he allowed himself to enjoy the magnificence of the gardens. His Glock snugged close and comforting under his arm, hidden beneath his suit jacket. He missed his boot knives, but at least the specially modified dress shoes would allow him to run, if needed.

“I'm going to be beside you when you make public appearances,” he told her. “Gavin will man the wheel, no exceptions. He's hands-­down the best driver I've ever known. Mace will have overwatch—­he'll find high ground with his sniper rifle. Tag and Alex will shadow us.” He glanced at her to make sure she understood. “We'll all be hooked together by Bluetooth. You'll also wear a wire as a backup, in case our comms fail. If you see anything that makes you nervous, sing out. Ditto if we do. We'll tell you exactly where to go and what to do.”

Christina hesitated, but finally nodded.

Something about her story nagged at him. Maybe it was simply that she seemed so ready to accept blame for a mission that, by her own account, failed from all sides, not just hers.

“Why can't I visit the children?” she asked. “They have leukemia and cancer, for God's sake. A visit from Princess Véronique would be the highlight of their miserable stay. Lifting their spirits also increases their odds of survival, you know.”

“I'm not willing to risk the children. It would be safer if we weren't there.” Her empathy inexplicably warmed him.

“I disagree. Also, it's the perfect venue for my first public appearance as Ronnie. Low-­profile, small audience. If your guys have the back end covered, nobody could get to me. Assuming, of course, they wouldn't blow up the hospital.” Her eyes widened. “They wouldn't, would they?”

He didn't think so. He and his team had, in fact, discussed that in great detail. The original assassination attempt had been a clumsy shot from a fair distance, indicating an amateur. Either the princess or her fiancé could have been the target; and, when the bullet went wide, the assassin vanished rather than start spraying bullets into the crowd. In fact, they had concluded the hospital visit would be safe enough for the patients. He'd vetoed the visit hoping Christina would change her mind and stay inside the palace.

Could he now afford to be seen as changing his mind?

Looking into her eyes, he decided that, yes, he could. After all, he needed her cooperation. They needed to be able to trust one another; and, at the moment, trust seemed an impossibility. His decision certainly had nothing to do with the soft plea in her eyes.

“Gabe? Would the children truly be at risk?”

Eyes colored green to match Véronique's. He found he preferred her own light brown color. He jerked his gaze away from her and focused, instead, on the rainbow spray created by another fountain up ahead.

“I believe this assassin will make a play for you in the most public place possible, with lots of ­people and even camera crews. I'm not ruling anything out, but if he tries again very soon, the Veteran's Hospital opening or the villa in Grasvlakten would be my picks.” Sweeping his gaze across the open space of the gardens, he added, “The first attempt happened in a public venue.”

“Princess Véronique attended a modern dance performance at Le Monnaie Opera House in Brussels on March second with her fiancé and his sister,” Christina said.

As he was well acquainted with every detail of the attempt on Ronnie's life, Gabe could only assume Christina wanted to impress upon him that she'd done her homework. She grew quiet as they passed an elderly ­couple sitting on a bench, heads close and hands clasped.

“They left after the performance and were walking across the street to have a nightcap at The Dominican,” she continued, when they were alone again. “Princess Véronique had just stepped past the gate when the wall lamp next to her head shattered. The shot came from farther down Rue Léopold, where it crosses Wolvengracht.”

“From the roof,” Gabe confirmed, before she started describing the dimensions of the dome or the caliber of the rifle used. “Not far. Maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty yards. An easy shot for a professional. Since he missed, he either meant to, or is an amateur.”

They wandered along paths made of white crushed rocks. Ahead of them, an enormous globe of the earth rested atop yet another fountain, water bubbling up from beneath it. All the damned water made it hard for him to hear. He led her away from it, toward the wall separating the gardens from the groves of trees surrounding it.

“But the threat came when they were outside, not inside the theater.”

“Yes,” he said, giving in. “If you really want to go, the hospital is probably safe enough. We can corral the kids and keep the staff away.”

Her smile lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle. It took his breath away. “Thank you,” she said.

Since he didn't trust his voice in that half-­second, he merely nodded. “Do you have any questions?”

“Well, I have some obvious ones,” Christina said. “First and foremost, I need weapons. I'd like a subcompact for my purse, preferably a Sig Sauer, and a Baby Browning with an ankle holster. Also an expandable spring baton. A twelve-­inch one is fine.”

That brought him up short. How could he not have anticipated that she would want to be armed? Damn. The CIA didn't arm their employees in the States, of course, since they couldn't legally operate within its borders—­and she had no authorization to carry inside Concordia—­but neither of them were concerned with technicalities, Gabe realized. Arming her made sense. He had to stop thinking of her as a principal.

“I'll see what I can do. What else?”

Gabe heard the noises seconds before Christina. As her head swiveled toward the sound and her mouth opened, Gabe wrapped an arm around her waist and spun her behind him, holding her there with one hand on her waist. She squeaked in surprise.

“Quiet!” he snapped. He tugged her over to the relative safety of the wall, pushing on her shoulder to indicate he wanted her to crouch, relieved when she understood and obeyed. Giving himself two steps, he jumped and caught the top of the high garden wall, pulling himself up easily and crouching as he took quick inventory of the layout before dropping lightly to the other side. The sounds came from his left; grunting and rustling as though the person or persons were trying to be quiet but couldn't quite manage it. He drew his Glock, stepping soundlessly across a bed of pine needles from the previous winter, using tree trunks to mask his approach.

“I'm close.” The man's voice was a light tenor. “I'm almost there.”

“Hurry.” The other voice was pitched higher. “My parents will be looking for me.”

A reluctant grin tugged at Gabe's mouth as he caught sight of the two teenagers locked together in a clumsy embrace, the girl's back against a tree trunk and a leg on a rock, skirt up around her waist. He withdrew as silently as he'd come, leaving the young lovers oblivious to his presence.

Christina searched his face when he dropped back down beside her. “Well?”

“It was nothing. A deer. Let's keep walking.”

She accepted his explanation, following as he took them back the way they'd come. “All right. So back to our master plan. Obviously, this isn't going to be a standard protection detail. Say something happens.
When
something happens. You can't whisk me away, or leave me behind, as you did just now. That defeats the purpose. We need to draw him out, not hide from him.”

Gabe stopped and turned to her, forcing her to stop as well. “I will not let anything happen to you.”

She made an exasperated sound. “That's not what I'm saying. We need a plan to funnel the assassin into a trap. A pre-­determined net.”

“We have the beginnings of a plan. We've brainstormed a lot of different scenarios.”

Exasperation turned to anger. “And when are you going to fill me in?”

She wasn't being unreasonable, as much as he hated to admit it. Taking in a lot of air through his nose, he exhaled slowly, willing away his annoyance at being questioned by another damned CIA officer. “Before each appearance. I'll make sure one of us fills you in. Sound good?”

Christina nodded, apparently mollified. Jesus. He couldn't remember the last time he'd worked with an unknown entity. It was exhausting.

Rushing to put herself out there as a target made her either brave or foolhardy. She recognized that her mission in a nutshell was to be bait, and she hadn't balked or whined. That was the good news. On the flip side, she might fold under pressure. And he had to consider whether Christina or the CIA, or both, had their own agendas. Leanne had sold him out to the Reyes Cartel with the sweat of their lovemaking damp on his skin. Even four years later, it still made his gut clench.

The depressing truth was that he could not afford to trust Christina Madison.