Dangerous Secrets (15 page)

They rested against each other. If it hadn’t been for the wall, they would have both fallen to the floor. Nick rested his cheek against the top of her head and her lips curled in a smile.

Impossibly, his penis twitched and her vagina spasmed around him.

“No,” she said. “Can’t.”

“Me, either.” Nick let out a gusty sigh against her hair, ruffling a curl. “Like to, but can’t.” He shifted slightly. “As a matter of fact, I’d better do something before the rubber leaks.” He straightened slightly, starting to pull out.

“Charity?
Charity?
Where are you?”

Charity froze and looked up, appalled, into Nick’s amused gaze.

“Charity?” The tone was peremptory, her name pronounced in short, staccato syllables. Cha-ri-ty. A long stress on the last syllable.
Cha-ri-teee!
Only one person spoke her name like that. Mrs. Lambert, the former chief librarian.

Oh God, she couldn’t even pretend not to be here. The door was unlocked and her coat was hung on the coat rack. Mrs. Lambert knew this place like the back of her hand–she’d worked here for forty years.

The supply room would be the first place she’d check. And there was no place at all in the room to hide a six-foot-two handsome devil of a man.

Charity pushed at Nick. “Let me go!” she hissed.

With a little sigh, he pulled out of her and stepped back, penis bobbling at half-mast. Charity looked at it, then at him,
and with another sigh, he tucked himself away in his pants and zipped up, wincing, the zipper loud in the silence.

“Charity! Where are you, girl?”

Mrs. Lambert’s sensible boots made a clomping sound on the library’s ancient hardwood floor. Charity could follow every step she was making. She was checking the periodicals room, the reading room. A discreet knock on the lavatory door.

There was only one place left to check.

“Wipe that grin off your face,” she said in a fierce whisper, hopping over to her missing shoe, straightening her skirt, combing her hair out with her fingers. Nick obediently assumed a serious expression, biting his lips not to smile. His eyes were full of amusement, though.

It was quite all right for him to be amused. He’d be leaving soon. Charity was going to spend the rest of her life here, and Mrs. Lambert was the biggest gossip in town.

Charity even had a morals clause in her contract, which had amused her when she’d signed it, the idea of infringing the morals clause of her employment contract as remote as the thought of flying to Pluto.

Nick cleared his throat and she leaped to cover his mouth with her hand. His eyes gleamed at her. The devil.

“Not a word,” she said fiercely. “Not one word!”

When she dropped her hand, he mimed zipping his mouth. His smiling mouth, the scoundrel.

“Charity, my dear. Where on earth are you?” The boots clumped closer.

Charity checked her skirt, smoothed it out, fanned herself quickly in an attempt to cool down and winced at the thought of her kiss-swollen lips, and of being naked under
the skirt. She was sure the smell of hot sex surrounded her like a cloud.

Well, there was nothing for it but to brazen it through. She lifted her head and took in a deep breath.

Showtime
, she thought and opened the door, closing it quickly behind her.

“Why Mrs. Lambert,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?”

Vassily Worontzoff’s mansion
Thursday evening, November 24

The instant Nick walked up the granite steps and walked through the huge door of Worontzoff’s crib—
palace
would be a better word—every hair on his body stood on end.

There was no visible reason for it. No reason at all why his blood was running cold. No reason for the adrenalin dump.

Everyone streaming up the steps and into the house was elegant and wealthy. Solid citizens. Culture mavens.

The buzz of well-bred voices echoed around the huge foyer, mixed with the murmur of well-trained servants taking coats, offering drinks, pointing toward a big reception hall.

Nick recognized the governor of Vermont, two senators from big states, a high-tech tycoon, and a famous movie director. Everyone else looked like they were famous. Average age fifty, average income several million dollars per annum on up.

This was it.

He was in the belly of the beast.

This was when Nick shone. He was at his best in extremis, close to the heart of the danger. He’d been here before, often. It was the whole point of being undercover, to get close to the unprotected center, as an insider.

It was when that internal mechanism he’d been born with revved up, the one that gave him the moniker Iceman. It was like a sixth gear and once it kicked in, his thoughts, sight, and hearing were enhanced. He was preternaturally aware of his surroundings, his entire body turned into a quick-response machine. He could be cool and calm on the outside while on the inside, his head was working its way through the complex geometry of betrayal.

While all the smug, self-satisfied elegant folk were eating Worontzoff’s hors d’oeuvres and drinking his French champagne, congratulating themselves on being invited into the great man’s home, Nick took stock.

Ninety-five percent of the people here were as clueless as lambs right up to the moment of slaughter. They had no idea what they’d walked into.

They thought they were among their own kind. They weren’t. They were with monsters.

It was amazing to him. How people could be around predators and not
feel
that they were different.

One elderly gent with an ebony cane topped by a silver orb took a drink off a tray offered by one of Worontzoff’s minions. He didn’t notice the barbed-wire tattoo visible under the snowy white cuff or the slight bulge under the left armpit of the man holding the tray. No doubt the goon had a backup in an ankle holster and a knife in a hip sheath. Not to mention a garrote in the fancy cummerbund.

He was an operator, no doubt about that. Steel gray crew cut, knife scar along the jawline, in his fifties and fitter than any twenty-year-old could ever hope to be.

And Clueless Geezer happily lifting a drink from the tray Crew Cut held, unaware that with one word from Worontzoff, Crew Cut would rip his throat out. Jesus.

Nick knew, though. He’d been around people like Crew Cut all his life and every sense he had was on high alert.

So he walked around with a hand to Charity’s back, not as a gentleman would, to guide her gently and stake his claim, but because he was ready at any moment to shove her to the ground and pull out his Glock at the first sign of danger.

“Charity! My dear, so good to see you.” Nick stiffened as Worontzoff pulled himself away from a little gaggle of politicians, rich men, and journalists across the room to limp slowly toward Charity.

Nick could see the men and women Worontzoff had been talking to craning their necks to see who could possibly be more important than they were.

Nick had watched Worontzoff through his spotting scope and had studied hundreds of photographs. The photographs didn’t do Worontzoff justice.

He wasn’t tall—Nick was a full head taller—but he had an animal, magnetic presence that turned heads and stopped conversations. If you didn’t look at his hands, he could even be considered a handsome man, with a leonine head of graying blond hair, light blue eyes, and high Slav cheekbones.

He made a beeline for Charity in his odd gait, ignoring everyone who tried to engage his attention as he crossed the huge room.

Charity was pink with pleasure, since she was so obviously the center of the Great Man’s attention. There was a little
buzz of
Who is she?
and then Worontzoff was right in front of her, bending to give her a little buss on the cheek.

Nick’s jaws clenched but there was nothing he could do about it without looking like a boor. It was a fatherly kiss, though there was absolutely nothing fatherly about Worontzoff’s face when he straightened.

“My dear, you’re looking positively radiant! More beautiful than ever. What have you been doing?”

The tone was coy, but the glance he shot Nick was sharp as a saber. He knew perfectly well what she’d been doing and why she was glowing.

Charity held on to Nick’s arm. “Vassily, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Nicholas Ames.”

Worontzoff smiled right into Nick’s eyes. They were clear as glass and just as cold. “Well, Mr. Ames, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Charity’s is a friend of mine, as the saying goes. You will forgive me if I don’t shake hands with you.” He held up one shattered hand, mottled red and crisscrossed with scars. “I had…a little run-in once with a prison guard.”

Don’t worry, you fuckhead. I wouldn’t shake hands with you, not even with a gun to my head
, Nick thought.

Whoa.

This was bad. Being undercover means believing. You have to believe your cover story with every fiber of your being. You eat, drink, and sleep your cover story. You never, ever break cover,
especially
in your head.

Nicholas Ames, New York businessman, would be absolutely delighted to meet a famous man, someone he’d never meet ordinarily. Stockbrokers lived off contacts and this was a good one. If nothing else, Nicholas Ames could dine out on having met a contender for the Nobel.

Nick had to get back into character
now
or he would endanger not only himself but Charity.

He breathed like when he sniped. Long, calm breaths, guaranteed to drop his heart rate ten beats per breath and assumed an expression so bland it was as if he were alone in the room.

He nodded at Worontzoff’s hands. “No problem, sir. I’m very pleased to meet you. Charity’s told me so much about you.”

Worontzoff turned to Charity. “Have you now, my dear?” He placed his claw of a hand on her forearm.

Nick had goose bumps so thick the hairs on his forearm brushed against his shirtsleeve at the expression on Worontzoff’s face when he looked at Charity.

Nick’s instinct—hot, immediate, primordial—was to attract attention away from Charity, the way a mother bear lures a hunter away from the den where the cubs are sleeping.
Look away from her, fuckhead! Look at me instead!

“Yeah.” Nick raised his voice a little, enough to carry. Enough to make Worontzoff instinctively look at him. “She said you were like a father to her. It’s really nice of you to let me tag along tonight, though to tell you the truth, I don’t know much about classical music. I’ll let Charity tell me what’s going on.”

He grinned, clueless businessman mainly interested in the woman whose waist he clasped. Tightly.

“Yes, indeed.” Worontzoff’s gaze fixed on Nick’s hand at Charity’s waist, then rose to his face. He nodded gravely. It wouldn’t have been out of place at an imperial court. “Well, all that remains is for me to wish you a pleasant evening, then. I hope you enjoy the music, Mr. Ames. Charity.”

He walked away, the emperor who’d summoned them to his court.

The plan had been for Nick to wander the house. The palatial mansion was too old for its blueprints to be on record. They had a general idea of the layout, but Nick’s task was to explore as much as he could.

A tuxedo ruled out a pen camera. He had a camera built-in to his wristwatch. They’d download the images in the van while Nick drew the floor plan of what he’d managed to see. Maps were his specialty.

So now what he needed to do was wander, but at the same time he was reluctant to leave Charity. He found a big group of boring-looking men and a few women discussing presidential politics and left her with them.

“Bathroom break,” he whispered into her ear. “Be right back. Don’t move.”

She smiled up at him.
Okay
, she mouthed.

Nick checked each guy in the circle in turn, looking them in the eyes, sending the subliminal message—
Watch out for her
—and made for the back of the room.

He was good at scouting terrain. Their big break in the Gonzalez case had come when he broke into Guillermo’s office at midnight for the tenth time and hit the jackpot. Ten bills of lading where almost a ton of cocaine was going to be traded for ten thousand military-issue rifles, which the same night were going into the hands of Somali rebels, with a neat 100 percent markup.

The bills of lading told them what, where, and when and the Unit’s elite team had observed the first deal, confiscating the cocaine the next day, and had taken down the terrorists involved in the second deal.

Two for one. Head office had been ecstatic.

But making like a ghost through Guillermo’s household had been easy. The tone of an enterprise is set at the top. Guillermo had been almost totally without self-control and the nights he wasn’t shit-faced on tequila, he was stoned on his own product. The guards were the same.

Getting past them had been a piece of cake.

That was a 180 degrees from here, where the guards weren’t half stoned. They were sober and vigilant and everywhere.

Nick had barely crossed the threshold of the room when a servant came up. “May I help you, sir?” he asked in accented English.

Nick rocked back on his heels and put his hands in his pockets, jiggling some change. Making sure his watch face was exposed and focused on the man.

“Yeah.” He looked around admiringly. “Huge house. Beautiful, too. Lots of artwork.” He grinned foolishly and leaned forward, as if imparting a secret. “Looking for the bathroom, you know. Can you tell me where to find one?”

There. He had the guy on video now, full face. If the goon was wanted anywhere in the free world, the face would be matched up to a name.

The man inclined his head gravely. “Down the corridor, last door on the right, sir.”

“Great,” Nick said cheerfully. He could turn the corner, see what other rooms there were. He stepped forward and found himself staring into the man’s eyes, steely dark gray. Unblinking. Unyielding.

He’d just turned himself into a brick wall and Nick couldn’t get through without exposing himself.

“Allow me to show you the way, sir.” The man turned without waiting for an answer and walked ahead.

O-kay. That’s the way they were playing it. Nobody was to be left alone to wander the house. Not even for a second.

It might just be to guard against theft. God knows there was enough to steal. The place made Judge Prewitt’s house look like a Brazilian favela.

Spotlit antique vases on stands, paper-thin silk Persian rugs, silk tapestries, the odd Monet and Picasso…very civilized, indeed. The abode of a man of discernment and learning. The kind of house money alone couldn’t buy

The whole place gave Nick the heebie-jeebies, a sense of discomfort so great that for a second there, he thought he’d throw up.

Each item he saw was paid for in untold blood and suffering. Every stick of furniture, the walls full of books and paintings, everything there was the fruit of crime, bought with some victim’s body. Nick felt exactly as he’d felt in Guillermo’s house—as if he were walking over human bones.

Without lifting his head, out of his peripheral vision he saw tiny security cameras embedded in the ceiling moldings every five feet. In the bathroom, forcing himself to squeeze a few drops of piss out of his dick, he saw another.

There was no question of going roaming and no question of planting bugs. He was going to get a glimpse of a big receiving room, the bathroom, and, presumably, the room where the music was going to be played. And that was it.

When Nick emerged from the bathroom, the guy didn’t even pretend he wasn’t waiting for him. Wordlessly, he followed Nick back into the room still buzzing with upper-class ladies and gentlemen getting a high on proximity to literary greatness and champagne.

Veuve Cliquot, no less.

Nick couldn’t indulge in even half a glass. Not for security reasons—actually, not drinking a drop in an assembly like this one drew more attention and would compromise the mission more than getting shit-faced—but because the acid roiling in his stomach wouldn’t let him drink a drop of the bubbly. He’d just throw it up, and wouldn’t that be great for an undercover agent?

Nick barely recognized his own body. Danger didn’t freak him out, didn’t make him sweat or fill his stomach up with acid. Danger focused him, made him bright and hard, cool and controlled. Iceman.

Not now. He had a bad case of the jitters, for the first time in his life. The signals he was getting from the outside world—the armed guards everywhere, the cameras—weren’t doing it. Those signals just confirmed he was dealing with criminals. What was messing with him so badly was intangible, a constant buzzing vibe he found it impossible to ignore, and it had to do with Charity’s presence here.

Worontzoff had used the time in which he was outside the room to herd Charity away from the other guests and into a secluded corner. Nick saw them immediately, the instant he crossed the threshold, his eyes turned like a magnet to her.

Charity standing close to the wall with Worontzoff, his back to the crowd, cutting her off from everyone. Charity wasn’t reading it that way at all. She was smiling up at him, talking animatedly, that lovely face pink with excitement.

Nothing in her body language even remotely communicated distress, though she was standing a hand’s span from a monster. She hadn’t learned to recognize what he was because monsters hadn’t been a part of her life. She thought Worontzoff was human.

She sure as hell wouldn’t smile up at him if she knew half the things he was capable of.