Dangerous to Hold (21 page)

Despite herself, Maggie couldn't resist asking. “And?”

“And the other horses got wind of it whenever Willie strolled by. After being kicked halfway across Saturday by a mare in season who, ah…mistook him for an uninvited suitor, Willie was forced to burn that hatband. And his best black Resistol with it.”

“I'll try to avoid mares in season when I'm wearing this belt,” Maggie promised dryly.

Nate winked at her, then turned his attention to the director again. “So who's going in, Adam?”

“And when?” she added.

“You both are. Immediately. Because of the remoteness of the area and the lack of any organized host-country resources
to draw on, you'll back each other up in the field. Nate will deliver the president's gift to the new Karistani ruler, and Maggie…” Adam's blue eyes rested on her face for a moment. “You'll go into neighboring Balminsk.”

Maggie was still trying to understand exactly why that brief glance should make her skin tingle when the director rose, tucking the end of his crimson-and-blue-striped Harvard tie into his navy blazer.

“David Jensen's flying in from San Diego to act as controller. He should be here in a couple of hours.”

“Doc?”

Maggie felt a spear of relief that the cool, methodical engineer would be calling the shots at HQ during this operation. His steady head and brilliant analytical capabilities had proved perfect complements to her own gut-level instincts in the past.

“Your mission briefings start immediately, and will run around the clock. An air force transport is en route to pick up Three Bars Red, and will touch down here at 0600 tomorrow to take Nate on board. Maggie, you have an extra day before you join the team.”

“Team?”

“The UN is pulling together another group of experts to continue the inspections. You'll go into Balminsk undercover with them. Experts from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and the Pentagon are standing by to brief you.”

Maggie swallowed an involuntary groan. She understood the urgency of the mission, and was far too dedicated to protest. But she couldn't help feeling a flicker of regret that she'd be spending her time in the field with a clutch of scientists instead of the brilliant international designer whose work she so admired.

 

The next ten hours passed in a blur of mission briefings and intense planning sessions.

The initial area familiarization that Maggie and Nate received focused on topography, climate, the turbulent history of the nomadic peoples who inhabited the target area, and the
disorder that had resulted from the disintegration of the Soviet political system.

Maggie hunched forward, chin propped in one hand, brown eyes intent on the flashing screen. Her pointed questions sent the briefer digging through his stack of classified documents more than once. Nate sprawled in his leather chair, his hands linked across his stomach, saying little, but Maggie knew he absorbed every word. The only time he stirred was when a head-and-shoulders shot of Karistan's new ruler flashed up on the briefing screen.

“This is a blowup of Alexandra Jordan's latest passport photo,” the briefer intoned. “We've computer-imaged the photo to match her coloring, but it doesn't really do her justice.”

“Looks damn good to me,” Nate murmured.

“They all look good to you,” Maggie replied, laughing.

Not taking his eyes from the screen, he slanted her an unrepentant grin. “True.”

With his easy smile, rangy body and weathered Marlboro-man handsomeness, Nate never lacked for feminine companionship. Despite the very attractive and very determined women who pursued him, however, Cowboy made it a point to keep his relationships light and unencumbered. As he reminded Maggie whenever she teased him about his slipperiness, in his line of business a man had to keep his saddlebags packed and his pistol primed.

Once or twice Maggie had caught herself wondering if his refusal to allow any serious relationship to develop had something to do with the disastrous mission a few years ago that had left a beautiful Irish terrorist dead and Nate with a bullet through his right lung. No one except Adam Ridgeway knew the full details of what had happened that cold, foggy morning in Belfast, but ever since, no woman had seemed to spark more than a passing interest in Cowboy's eyes.

Which made his intense scrutiny of the face on the screen all the more interesting.

Studying Alexandra Jordan's image, Maggie had to admit
that she appeared to be the kind of woman who would prime any man's pistol. Her features were striking, rather than beautiful, dominated by slanting, wide-spaced golden eyes and high cheekbones Maggie would have killed for. A thin, aristocratic nose and a full mouth added even more character. Long hair flowed from a slightly off-center widow's peak and tumbled over her shoulders in a cloud of dark sable.

All that and talent, too, Maggie thought, repressing a sigh. Some things in life just weren't fair.

“Alexandra Danilova Jordan,” the briefer intoned, in his clipped, didactic manner. “‘Danilova' is a patronymic meaning ‘daughter of Daniel,' as I'm sure you're aware. Born twenty-nine years ago in what is now Karistan. Father an economist with World Bank. Mother a student at the Kiev Agricultural Institute when she met Daniel Jordan.”

The thin, balding researcher referred to the notes clutched in his hand. Maggie knew he'd had only a few hours to put together this briefing, but if there was any facet of Alexandra Jordan's life or personality that would impact this mission, he would've dug it up. The OMEGA agents didn't refer to him privately as the Mole without cause. Of course, the man's narrow face and long nose might have had something to do with his nickname.

“Ms. Jordan spent a good part of her youth on the steppes, although her father insisted she attend school in the States. Evidently this decision severely strained relations between Daniel Jordan and the old Karistani chieftain, to the point that the headman…”

The Mole frowned and squinted at his notes. “To the point that the headman once threatened to skin his son-in-law alive. Ms. Jordan herself held the chieftain off. With a rifle.”

“Well, well…” Nate murmured. “Sounds like a woman after Wily Willie's heart.”

 

When David Jensen arrived a short time later, the pace of the mission preparation intensified even more. With his engineer's passion for detail, Doc helped put together a contin
gency plan based on the situation in Karistan as it was currently known. True to his reputation within OMEGA as a problem-solver, he swiftly worked up the emergency codes for the operation and defined a series of possible parameters for mission termination.

Around midnight, the chief of the special devices lab arrived with the equipment Maggie and Nate would take to the field. After checking out an assortment of high-tech wizardry, the agents sat through another round of briefings. Just before dawn, the last briefer fed his notes into the shredder and left. Nate packed his personal gear, kept in readiness in the crew room lockers, and had a final consultation with Doc.

The long night of intense concentration showed in Maggie's tired smile as she walked him to the control center's security checkpoint.

“See you on the steppes, Cowboy.”

The tanned skin at the corners of Nate's eyes crinkled. “Will I recognize you when I see you?”

“
I
probably won't even recognize me.”

Maggie had earned her code name, Chameleon, by her ability to alter her appearance for whatever role the mission required. This skill, combined with her linguistic talents, had enabled her to penetrate areas no other agent could get into—or out of—alive. Still, she couldn't help eyeing Nate's well-worn boots, snug jeans and faded denim jacket with a touch of envy. She doubted her own working uniform would be nearly as comfortable.

“I can just imagine what the field dress unit has come up with for a scientist traveling to a remote, isolated site. Clunky, uncomfortable, and Dull City!”

“Maybe you can talk them into including some of Alexandra Jordan's horsetail jobbies in your kit,” Nate replied with a grin. “Just to liven it up a bit.”

“Right.”

“I'd wear some myself, just to get on the woman's good side, you understand, but the champion stud I'm delivering
from the president might mistake me for the competition and try to take me out.”

“I suspect that if you show up in Karistan wearing tassels, Alexandra Jordan will take you out herself.”

“Might be interesting if she tried.” Nate's grin softened into a smile of genuine affection. “It's going to be wild out there. And dangerous. Be careful, Chameleon.”

“You too, Cowboy.”

Settling a black Denver Broncos ball cap over his blond head, he swung his gear bag over one shoulder and pressed a hand to a concealed wall sensor. After the few seconds it took to process his palm print, the heavy, titanium-shielded oak door hummed open. Fluorescent lights illuminated a flight of stairs that led to the lower floors and a secret, underground exit.

Nate tipped two fingers to the brim of his ball cap. “Be talkin' to you, sweetheart.”

When the door slid shut behind his tall, broad-shouldered form, Maggie brushed off her weariness. Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the room where the field dress experts waited. She had a few ideas of her own about her disguise for this particular mission.

N
ate was driven to Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C. After showing a pass that gave him unescorted entry to the flight line, he walked across the concrete parking apron to the specially outfitted jet transport and met his charge for the first time.

Three Bars Red was everything Nate had expected, and then some. A compact, muscular animal, with a strong neck set on powerful, sloping shoulders, a deep chest and massive rounded hindquarters, he stood about fifteen and a half hands. Liquid brown eyes showed a range-smart intelligence in their depths as they returned Nate's assessing look. After a long moment, the reddish brown chestnut chuffed softly and allowed the agent to approach.

Nate ran a palm down the animal's sleek neck. “Well, old boy, you ready to go meet some of those pretty little Karistani fillies?”

At that particular moment, Ole Red seemed more interested in immediate gratification than in the promise of future delights. He nosed the slight bulge in Nate's shirt pocket, then clomped
hairy lips over both the pocket and the pack of chewing gum it contained.

Nate stepped back, grinning. “Like sugar, do you?”

“Like it?” The handler who'd flown in with Red grunted. “He's a guldurned addict. You can't leave a lunch bucket or a jacket around the barns, or he'll be in it, digging for sweets.”

Nate took in the innocent expression on Ole Red's face. “Guess I'd better lay in a supply of candy bars before we leave.”

“Just make sure you don't set them down within sniffing distance,” the man advised, “or you'll have twelve hundred pounds of horseflesh in your lap, trying to get to them.”

The aircraft's crew chief good-naturedly offered to procure a supply of candy bars, which were duly stored in the aft cargo hold, while Nate conferred with the trainer on Ole Red's more mundane needs. Just moments after the man deplaned, the pilot announced their imminent departure.

The stallion didn't bat an eyelash when the high-pitched whine of the engines escalated into an ear-splitting roar and the big cargo plane rumbled down the runway. Once they were airborne, Nate made sure his charge was comfortable and had plenty of water. Then he stretched out in a rack of web seats, pulled his ball cap down over his eyes and caught up on missed sleep.

After a late-night stop at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany to refuel and allow their distinguished passenger some exercise, the crew set the transport down the following noon at a small airport in the Ukraine, about fifty miles from the Karistani border. As had been prearranged, a driver waited with a truck and horse van to transport them to the border.

Two hours later, the truck wheezed to a stop at the entrance to the gorge guarding the western access to the new nation. Nate backed Red out of the trailer, smiling at the stud's easygoing nature. Quarter horses were famed for their calm dispositions, but Red had to be the most laid-back stallion Nate had ever worked with. He stood patiently while the foam stockings strapped to his hocks to prevent injury during travel were
removed, then ambled along at an easy pace to work out the kinks from the long ride. He was rewarded with an unwrapped candy bar that Nate allowed him to dig out of a back pocket. Big yellow teeth crunched once, twice, and the candy was gone.

Red whickered, either in appreciation of the treat or in demand for more, then suddenly lifted his head. His ears swiveled to the side, then back to the front, trying to distinguish the sound that had alerted him. He gave a warning snort just as a mounted figure rode out of the gorge.

“Your guide comes,” the driver informed Nate unnecessarily.

“So I see.” Hooking his thumbs in his belt, Nate eyed the approaching rider.

Slumped low in a wooden saddle, his knees raised high by shortened stirrups, the Karistani looked as though he'd just ridden out of the previous century. Gray-haired and bushy bearded, he wore a moth-eaten frock coat that brushed his boot tops and a tall, black sheepskin cap with a red bag and ragged tassel hanging down the side. An old-fashioned bandolier crossed his chest in one direction, the strap of a rifle in the other.

With his creased leather face and I-don't-give-two-hoots-what-you-think air, he reminded Nate instantly of Wily Willie. Of course, Willie wouldn't be caught dead with a gold ring in his left ear, but then, this scraggly bearded horseman probably wouldn't strut around in a gaudy silver bolo tie set with a chunk of turquoise the size of an egg, either.

The newcomer reined to a halt some yards away and crossed his wrists on the wooden tree that served him as a saddle horn. His rheumy eyes looked Nate over from ball cap to boot tip. After several long moments, he rasped something in an unfamiliar dialect. The driver tried to answer in Russian, then Ukranian.

The guide turned his head and spit. Disdaining to reply in either of those languages, he jerked his beard at Nate. “I have few English. You, horse, come.”

With the ease of long practice, Nate outfitted Ole Red with the Western-style tack that had been shipped with the stud. After strapping his gear bag behind the cantle, he slipped the driver a wad of colorful paper money, mounted, and turned Red toward the gorge.

As they stepped onto the ledge hacked out of the cliff's side, Nate felt a stab of relief that he was riding a seasoned trail horse instead of some high-stepping, nose-in-the-air Thorough-bred. The chestnut kept his head down and picked his way cautiously, allowing his rider a good view of what lay ahead.

The view was spectacular, but not one Nate particularly enjoyed. Except for the narrow ledge of stone that served as a precarious track, the gorge was perfectly perpendicular. Wind whistled along its sheer thousand-foot walls, while far below, silvery water rushed and tumbled over a rocky riverbed.

A gut-wrenching half hour later, they scrambled up the last treacherous grade and emerged onto a high, windswept plain. Rugged mountains spiked the skies behind them, but ahead stretched a vast, rolling sea of fescue and feather grass. The knee-high stalks rippled and bowed in the wind, like football fans doing the wave. Karistan's endless stretch of sky didn't have quite the lucid blue quality of Wyoming's, but it was close enough to make Nate feel instantly at home.

“There,” the old man announced, pointing north. “We ride.” Slumping even lower over his mount's withers, he flicked it with the short whip dangling from his wrist.

After thirty-eight hours of travel and a half hour of sheer, unrelenting tension on that narrow ledge, Nate was content to amble alongside his uncommunicative host. The wind whistled endlessly across the high plains, with a bite that chilled his skin below the rolled-up sleeves of his denim jacket, but he barely noticed. With every plop of Ole Red's hooves, Nate felt the power of the vast, empty steppes.

Aside from some darting prairie squirrels and a high, circling hawk, they encountered few other living creatures and even fewer signs of human habitation. At one point Nate spied a rusted truck of indeterminate vintage, stripped of all remove
able parts and lying on its side. Later Red picked his way over the remains of a railroad track that ended abruptly in the middle of nowhere.

After an hour or so, they rode up a long, sloping rise and reined in.

“Karistani cattle,” the guide said succinctly, jerking his beard toward the strung-out herd below, tended by a lone rider.

Nate rested a forearm on the pommel and ran a knowing eye over the shaggy-coated stock. A cross between Hereford and an indigenous breed, he guessed, with the lean, muscled hardiness necessary to survive on the open range.

At that moment, a couple of cows broke from the pack and skittered north. The lone hand jerked his horse around and took off in pursuit. Almost immediately, a white-faced red steer darted out of the herd. This one decided to head south—straight for the edge of a deep ravine.

The guide grunted at about the same moment the powerful muscles in Red's shoulders rippled under Nate's thighs. He glanced down to see the stallion eyeing the runaway steer intently. Red's ears were pricked forward and his nostrils were flaring, his inbred herding instincts obviously on full alert.

“So you think we ought to stop that dumb slab of beef before it runs right into the ravine?” Nate gave the stallion's dusty neck a pat. “Me too, fella.”

He unhooked the rope attached to the saddle and worked out a small loop. “I haven't done this in a while, but what the hell, let's go get that critter.”

Bred originally for quick starts and blinding speed over a quarter-mile track, a quarter horse can leap from a stand into a gallop at the kick of a spur. True to his breeding, Red lunged forward at the touch of his rider's heels, stretched out low, and charged down the slope.

Nate ignored the guide's startled shout, focusing all his concentration on the animal running hell-bent for disaster.

Ole Red closed the distance none too soon. The ravine loomed only fifty yards ahead when he raced up behind the now galloping steer. Nate circled his right arm in the air, his
wrist rotating, then swept it forward. The rope dropped over the right horn and undulated wildly a few precious seconds before settling over the left.

Red held his position just behind the charging steer as Nate leaned half out of the saddle. With a twist of his wrist, he slipped the line down the animal's side and under its belly. Then he reined Red to the right, and the horse took off.

When he hit the end of the line, Three Bars Red showed his stuff. He never flinched, never skittered off course. His massive hindquarters bunching, he leaned into the breast harness with every ounce of power he possessed. At the other end of the rope, the cow's momentum dragged its head down toward its belly. In the blink of an eye, a half ton of beef somersaulted through the air and slammed into the earth.

Fierce satisfaction surged through Nate. It was a neat takedown, one of the best he'd ever made, and far safer for the charging animal than simply roping it and risking a broken neck when it was jerked to a halt.

He dismounted and moved toward the downed steer, planning to signal Red forward and loosen the tension on the rope when it stopped its wild thrashing. Intent on the indignant, bawling animal, he paid no attention to the thunder of hooves behind him.

But there was no way he could ignore the sharp, painful jab of a rifle barrel between his shoulder blades.

“Nyet!”

The single explosive syllable was followed by a low, deadly command that sliced through the steer's bellows. Although he didn't understand the dialect, Nate had no difficulty interpreting the gist of the woman's words.

He raised his arms and turned slowly.

Squinting against the sun's glare, he found the business end of a British Enfield bolt-action rifle pointed right at his throat—and the golden eyes that had so fascinated him during his mission briefings glittering with fury.

 

On the screen, Alexandra Jordan had stirred Nate's interest. In the flesh, she rocked him right back on his heels.

Narrowing his eyes, he tried to decide why. An impartial observer might have said she was a tad on the skinny side. Her slender body certainly lacked the comfortable curves Nate usually enjoyed snuggling up against.

But long sable hair, so rich and dark it appeared almost black, whipped against creamy skin tinted to a soft gold by the wind and the sun. Thick lashes framed tawny eyes that reminded Nate forcibly of the mountain cats he'd hunted in his youth. In high leather boots, baggy trousers and a loose white smock belted at the waist, Alexandra Jordan looked as wild and untamed as the steppes themselves.

Wild and untamed and downright inhospitable. The rifle didn't waver as she rapped out a staccato string of phrases.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Nate drawled, “I don't par-lay the language.”

Her remarkable eyes narrowed to gleaming slits and raked him from head to foot. “You're the American! The one I sent Dimitri to meet!”

Nate lowered his hands and hooked his thumbs on his belt. “That's me, the American.”

“You fool! You damned idiot!”

With a smooth, coordinated movement that told Nate she'd done it a few times before, she slid the rifle into a stitch-decorated, tasseled case.

“Don't you know better than to come charging down out of nowhere like that? I thought you were raiding the herd. I was about to put a bullet through you.”

“You were about to try,” he said genially.

The laconic response made her mouth tighten. “Be careful,” she warned. “You're very close to learning how to dance, Cossack-style. If this steer has been lamed, you might yet!”

She swung out of the saddle and stalked toward the downed bovine. Pulling a lethal-looking knife from a sheath inside her boot, she sawed through the taut rope tethering it to Red. The
animal scrambled to its feet, gave an indignant bellow, then took off.

“Hey!”

Nate jumped back just as it dashed by, its horns scraping the air inches from his stomach. His jaw squared, he turned back to face the woman.

“Look, lady, you might at least show a little appreciation for the fact that I kept that hunk of untenderized meat from running headfirst into that ravine.”

“That ravine is where it's
supposed
to go,” she informed him, scorn dripping from every word. “There's water at the bottom.”

Nate glanced sideways, just in time to catch the irritated flick of a tail as the shaggy-haired beast stepped into what looked like thin air. Instead of plunging into oblivion, however, he stomped down a steep, hidden incline and disappeared, pound by angry pound. Almost immediately, Nate heard the slow rumble of hooves as the rest of the herd moved to follow.

“Well, I'll be—” He broke off, a rueful grin tugging at his lips.

One dark eyebrow notched upward in a sarcastic query. “Yes?”

Still grinning, Nate tipped a finger to the brim of his ball cap. “Nate Sloan, at your service. Out of Wolf Creek, Wyoming. I run a few head there myself, when I'm not delivering stock for the president of the United States.”