Femme Fatale (12 page)

“Actually, we’ll do that for you,” Chandler said. “After we get you and your friend to medical treatment.”

“After we get
you
to treatment,” Beth said, wiping off the last drip of blood from her own face. She could feel the bruises puffing up, hot and pulsing. “As for me…I could do with an ice pack.” Then she twitched the wig more firmly in place over rifle guy’s head and looked down the hill; time to grab the keycard and check the condition of the second man. If she hadn’t hit his femoral artery, he would be just about ready to curse her a blue streak.

But on her way she detoured by Chandler, wiped a clean spot on his face, and leaned over to give him a careful kiss. He grabbed her before she could move away, gave a blissfully admiring look to the wig-faced, vine-bound agent, and then pulled her down to take her mouth, a kiss as demanding as either of them could offer. When he let her go, he murmured, “Now
that
was teamwork.”

She went to get the keycard with a smile playing around the edge of her lips and wicked thoughts in her heart.

“O
h, he’s here right now,” Beth said, and looked up from her PDA to give Jason a little smile. “He’s dying with curiosity. Loves my toy.”

He made a face at her and sat upright against the head-board of the bed in their hotel room, his legs crossed and his lap covered with their notes about Egorov’s mole.
Their
hotel room, a new room in the Peninsula Hotel along Beach Road, with all of Beth’s cheerfully scattered belongings mined from the theater and her original lodgings, and Jason’s neatly stashed travel kit. She was back in her low-cut jeans and a cap-sleeved stretch shirt that kept inching up to show her lean, toned midriff. He was dying, all right, but not with curiosity. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed and decided it might be time to take one of the antibiotics he’d been given, and then couldn’t tear himself away from the conversation. Besides, his wound had been flushed clean, X-rayed and prodded while he sat in the back of a certain unprepossessing clinic
and soaked up IV antibiotics until he thought he’d pop. Now it was bandaged, in a sling, and fast on its way to becoming yet another scar.

Beth, too, bore the signs of their adventure together—bruises on her face and arms and even on that delectable midriff, just now coming to full bloom in an excruciating rainbow of colors. The cut under her eye had taken a stitch, and had already closed into a thin, barely detectable line.

She saw him looking and wiggled her toes at him. Her toes were quite fond of him, she’d said. He’d never realized he could gain so much power over a woman with the simple act of a foot massage, but he wouldn’t forget it. To her mysterious contact on the intriguing device she called a
toy,
Beth gave no sign of their exchange. “We’re waiting pickup now, don’t anticipate a problem. But about Egorov’s mole in the CIA…I want him.
We
want him.”

The response was muffled at this distance; Jason suspected Beth had the sound turned way down. But she got a wicked grin and said, “Hey,
you
were the one who suggested we work together if possible. Turns out…it’s possible.”

More than possible.

They’d already gotten the basic story from the two CIA agents, who remained nicely contained at that same clinic, their own needs tended. Egorov’s mole had gotten the authority to take his team into Cape Town and after that, the agents had received communication only through the mole. The man’s name was of little account; by now he had another. But Jason and Beth were building a dossier based on their interviews, and they were well and beyond ready to start the hunt.

“Oh,” Beth said, flicking her gaze at Jason and offering a smile to both her contact and to Jason at once. “He’s
free enough—he’s on sick leave. Turns out he isn’t allowed to come back to active duty just yet.” The smile turned wicked. “Rules have their uses, it seems.”

A gentle knock sounded at the door. Beth alerted to it and said, “K’s here. I’ll check back later,” before swiftly shutting down the PDA. She pointed a finger at Jason. He recognized it for what it was—I’m still worried about you. Stay where you are to make me feel better—and acquiesced. But when Beth opened the door she flung it wide enough to expose him, so her contact could see the entire room before choosing to enter.

The woman hesitated in the doorway a moment, just long enough to sweep the room with her gaze, and then sauntered in. Like Beth, she had confident and self-possessed demeanor, but the similarities ended right there. Blond to Beth’s espresso-dark hair, with a trendy, choppy shag haircut and eyes that were discernibly green even from a distance, this woman gave an impression of lushness next to Beth’s spare, aesthetic beauty. And although she moved like an athlete, the new arrival had curves that didn’t quit. Curves a man—
any
man—couldn’t help but appreciate. “Can’t linger,” she said to Beth. “Gotta stunt gag scheduled in an hour. Everything on track?”

Beth glanced back at Jason, giving him a wry smile. She said, “They all look at her like that, you know.”

The blonde gave him a cheerful grin, and Jason grinned back with no apology. “Everything’s on track,” he said, and nodded toward the small, gift-wrapped package near the foot of the bed. Just the size of a medium jewelry box, it held both the keycard and the mini CD, and was covered in a cartoonish child’s birthday wrap. MI6 hadn’t been pleased to know that neither Beth nor her mysterious organization would relinquish the prizes outright, but Jason had expected nothing less. He also believed Beth when
she said the pertinent details would be shared. But the truth was, Beth had taken the CD from Lyeta and hidden it from Jason the entire time. And Beth had taken down the agent who fled with the keycard on his way to meet up with Egorov’s mole, and been the one to retrieve it. Jason himself was just satisfied enough to know the information was in allied hands and would be put to good—and aggressive—use.

Beth handed the little box over to her counterpart and said, “We’re after the mole.”

“Got the go-ahead? Good.” The blonde gave the room another look, this time focusing on Jason’s things, and then on Jason. “The two of you? The odd couple, I’d call you. But whatever works…”

Jason didn’t blame her for the obvious curiosity and even her reservations. Not with free-spirited, creatively driven Beth on the one hand and his neat, crisp military approach on the other. But she’d learned he could be flexible, and that he would back her up in an instant even when he didn’t understand her immediate intent. And he knew she wouldn’t go haring off on wild, precipitous impulse…that she’d listen to other opinions while on the cusp of action, and even respond to them. Looking at her, thinking about her…

Made him very glad for the paperwork covering his lap. “Cor, yes,” he said to the blonde. “It works.”

Beth grinned back at him in a way that made him twitch happily, a look that said just exactly what he was in for when that door closed again. He caught a whiff of her scent, and couldn’t help but breathe deeply of its natural freshness. No more illicit sniffing of parkas for him—he had the genuine article right to hand. He barely believed it, but he had…

Beth.

Her grin took on a particularly wicked glint not meant for their visitor at all. Meant for him.
Oh, God, close that door and go away,
he thought fervently at the blond woman even as Beth told her in a gentle takeoff of his own Brit accent, “Not only does it work, but it works damn bloody well.”

The blonde laughed and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then. Happy hunting.”

By the time the door latched, Beth had pounced, tossing away Jason’s paperwork. About to get fiery and creative.

Jason flung away his rules and joined her.

Meredith Fletcher

Dear Reader,

I was talking to a writer friend just the other day, discussing the book you now hold in your hands (hopefully appropriately intrigued by the title!). She asked me what the book was about. I quickly replied that the book featured three mystery women.

Well, much to my chagrin, my friend took me to task over that attempt at a simple clarification. According to my friend, all women have elements of mystery about them. It’s part of our arsenal, along with being bright, resourceful, independent and having the uncanny ability of being right most of the time.

After having that pointed out to me, I resolved to be—like the three women you will meet in this collection of stories—more on target. The women in this book are all operatives of a supersecret agency. They lead lives of danger and deadly pursuit—being the hunter or the hunted, sometimes
both—
in the dark shadows of the world’s deadliest places while playing for the highest stakes.

Secret agent Kylee Swain uses her cover as a movie stuntwoman to travel around the globe while on an undercover assignment. In “The Get-Away Girl,” Kylee follows up on information passed along from a fellow agent. Her quest puts her on the trail of Krystof Scherba in Prague. Unfortunately, the action also puts her in the crosshairs of Scherba’s ace bodyguard and ex-CIA agent bad boy, Mick Stone, who takes his job very personally.

I hope you enjoy meeting Kylee and our two other lovely ladies, who will definitely acquaint you with a life of danger, introduce you to three of the sexiest and most dangerous men in the world, and will earn their designations as
Femmes Fatale!

All best,

Meredith Fletcher

K
ylee Swain stood steeped in the night’s shadows that draped the Charles Bridge as she surveyed her target. Excitement and anticipation sharpened her senses. And maybe more than a few of those feelings centered on the tall man in the dark suit who stood in the prow of the boat she’d had under close but distant surveillance since getting this assignment two days ago.

She didn’t know his name—there had been no way to identify him through the long-range lenses and all-too-brief snooping sessions she’d been able to put together during her present shooting schedule while working on the action film she was stunting in. Added to that, the man never appeared in public unless his employer, Krystof Scherba, appeared in public. Creepstof, as Kylee had taken to calling the man, rarely put in public appearances, even aboard his boat.

But the man in the dark suit was interesting. He moved
like a panther, always calm and controlled, always watching. Totally predatory.

Anyone who stepped into that man’s territory after something he protected was in for a fight.

Kylee knew that. And she was looking forward to the coming event. Creepstof Scherba was the chief computer-programming wizard behind terrorist mastermind Kapoch Egorov’s international crime cartel. Creepstof was the target Kylee had been assigned to by Stony Man Farm mission controller Barbara Price, and moving against him was going to put Kylee full in the sights of the mysterious man who protected him.

Me and you,
she mused, thinking of the man’s controlled and confident movement aboard the boat. She hated the immediate feelings of competition that seemed to spring up. But if all went well, she’d be into Creepstof’s computer before Mr. Mystery knew about it. All she needed was a few minutes with the encrypted disk she’d received as part of the assignment to download data concerning the terrorist network’s personnel and Egorov’s hidden agendas.

Getting a Stony Man Farm assignment always brought out the best in her, but it also brought out the worst. Being born in between four brothers who were competitive and physical, then stepping into her father’s stunt team against the best wishes of her mother, had sharpened her own competitive instincts. Her brothers and her male counterparts didn’t hold back so she could stay up—they struggled to keep up with the pace she set.

She turned her face into the cold north wind, feeling her senses surge in response. Her anticipation had a knife edge to it.

Below the bridge, the dark waters of the Vltava River cut through the heart of Prague, heading north till they
bent east around Josefov, the Jewish Quarter of the city. Tourists and residents crossed the bridge behind Kylee, the former taking in the sights while the latter made their ways home from their night jobs. A few entertainers with puppets and hucksters peddling trinkets and keepsakes stubbornly lingered, although most of their paying crowd had departed for clubs and hotels. Strains of music from a half-dozen guitarists threaded through the slight breeze that came from the south.

The three predators who’d followed Kylee from the disreputable bar she’d found in the twisting alleys of Old City on the east side of the bridge remained only a short distance away.

Talking it over, Kylee realized. Getting their courage up. She felt the adrenaline zooming within her, and she couldn’t help but smile. There was nothing like that feeling, like she was standing on the edge of a bottomless pit about to step off.

And tonight that analogy was true. Despite Barbara Price’s trepidation about Kylee’s plan, tonight was going to be a great goof.
Too bad you’re not going to get to tell anybody about it, Kylee.

Describing the situation to the stunt people and gaffers she worked with and considered her friends would have been fun. Her mother, of course, would have had a cow if she knew about the whole stuntwoman/secret agent career choice Kylee had made. Even if Kylee hadn’t been sworn to secrecy, she would never have told her mom.

“So,” Kylee said softly, imperceptibly, “have you figured out who our mystery guy is?” She wore an earpiece that connected to a satellite phone hidden within the big and warm but unflattering coat she wore. The coat was necessary to cover the gear she needed for the goof, but
the garment didn’t scream “tourist” the way the money she’d been flashing in the industrial metal club had.

“Not yet,” the Stony Man mission controller admitted.

The satellites used by the top-secret antiterrorist group peered down onto Prague from a distance of 23,000 miles. Looking down presented no profile possibilities. Identification of unknown subjects was difficult. Kylee had spent a short time earlier tagging the subjects aboard the target vessel before going trolling for potential muggers.

“Maybe while I’m on board I can get you a few pictures,” Kylee offered. “He’s a good-looking guy. We can share mug shots.”

“Don’t press your luck,” Barbara advised. “What we want is access to that notebook computer.”

Okay, Barbara, so maybe humor isn’t exactly your style, but some of us like to have a little fun with our spying.
In the same moment that she thought that, Kylee pushed the thought away. During the past year and a half that she had known Barbara Price, the Stony Man mission controller had never been as detached or overly demanding as the National Security Agency case officers Kylee had previously worked with. Barbara was money in the bank with an agent in the field, and she never backed away from a hard call or an op that turned into a busted play.

“Right, chief,” Kylee said. “I’m keeping my eye on the ball.” She adjusted the magnification of the Zeiss microbinoculars she used to spy on the ninety-foot catamaran striped in light green and white. She swept the boat’s three decks again and her gaze was magnetically drawn to the guy she’d been asking about.

Mr. Mystery stood on the top deck just where Kylee knew he would be. Never far from Creepstof. Mr. Mystery was tall and solid, but he was long bodied and didn’t give
the appearance of height until he was standing near other people attending Scherba’s gathering. Those times were seldom because he kept himself separate from the group of revelers that roved the catamaran’s three decks.

As Kylee watched him standing there, as implacable as a mountainside, she couldn’t help wondering if he had a voice as sexy and as daring as she imagined it would have to be to accompany the predatory roll that he used while moving through the crowd to stay close to Creepstof.

That line of thinking, she knew, was totally unprofessional. But she excused herself because she, and Barbara, knew how antsy she got if she had to wait around too long during an assignment. She wasn’t the waiting type.

Mr. Mystery wore a dark blue suit and a black turtleneck. His chestnut-brown hair hung in ringlets, and the deeply tanned skin offered mute testimony to the fact that he spent much of—at least, his recent—life outdoors. His face was square and chiseled, the face of a man who had been down some harsh roads.

The face of a man, Kylee had been thinking, that would be worth getting to know. Of course, she’d come across several handsome faces that had only run blocker for cheating hearts or served to mask a deep and abiding self-interest. Hollywood was full of guys like that, and so was the spy business.

Besides that, at this particular juncture, Mr. Mystery was definitely the opposition. Pulling off a get-away meant never getting too close to the fire or hanging around too long. If she pulled the mission off right, there wouldn’t even be a fleeting introduction.

“I believe he’s working security for Scherba,” Barbara said.

“Why?” Kylee checked on the three men who had followed her from the headbanger club. They were still
there, still talking.
C’mon, guys. We don’t have all night.
She was amped up and ready to go.

“We tagged him early after you pointed him out,” Barbara said. “We’ve been following him. I like to cover the variables. He never gets more than ten feet from the principal.”

The principal was Krystof Scherba, the man whose notebook computer Kylee had been assigned to steal. Scherba, who had been identified from the Intel Bethany Riggs had turned up on her mission in South Africa, owned the catamaran.
Guilty Pleasures
was registered in Prague and flagged for international waters. Scherba maintained a home in Prague, but he often entertained aboard the catamaran, as he was doing now.

Kylee was grateful that Scherba was presently on the catamaran. From the information package the Stony Man mission controller had sent her via e-mail, Kylee knew that Scherba’s home in the mountains outside Prague was literally a fortified castle. Breaking into his home would have been much harder than getting aboard
Guilty Pleasures.

The fact that the catamaran was currently crawling with people in full party mode would have normally been daunting. However, with the goof Kylee had planned, the number of people was going to be helpful.

Before she could stop herself, she wondered if Mr. Mystery would be impressed by her stunt. Of course, there was a better chance of him being impressed if he wasn’t going to be one of the main victims of the goof.

The party aboard
Guilty Pleasures
had been going on since eight o’clock. It was currently midnight, the witching hour. During those four hours, small boats had constantly carried caterers, food and drink to the catamaran. A five-piece band on the second deck pumped out bluesy
jazz music that spread out over the Old City and the Lesser Quarter. The music wasn’t something Kylee would have expected from her potential quarry.

Kylee adjusted the binoculars, zooming out with the touch of a button, and picked up Scherba. Besides being powered, the Zeiss lenses were also packed with light amplification circuitry. Some of the things that she liked best about the spy biz were the toys. They were almost as good as those she got to play with in the movies she worked on. And Stony Man Farm always provided some of the best toys.

Pallid and grungy-looking, Krystof Scherba didn’t look like an internationally known and feared computer cracker. His razored black hair lay in disarray. Facial piercings along his eyebrows, nose and mouth glinted in the lights ringing the catamaran. A red dragon tattoo covered nearly all of the left side of his face. The fantastical creature’s head nestled over Scherba’s left eyebrow and its tail reached down to coil around his neck.

Shifting her view back to Mr. Mystery, Kylee wondered what connected the two men. Mr. Mystery had a certain rough charm about him, but he knew how to wear a suit. But why wear a suit?

Almost immediately, the answer dropped into her head: Mr. Mystery was creating distance. The suit was like armor, a posted warning to the rest of the party goers aboard
Guilty Pleasures
that he stood apart from them.

You didn’t have to do the suit, Mr. Mystery. You would have stood out from that crowd anyway. Or are you normally a suit-and-tie kind of guy?

Scanning the crowd aboard the catamaran again, Kylee decided that the man didn’t fit in at all with the young bohemians that filled all three of the vessel’s decks.

You’re the hired help, Mr. Mystery. Security, definitely. But how good are you?

The thought floated another smile to Kylee’s lips. The adrenaline inside her burned a little sweeter. She was a throwback, her mom had told her on more than one occasion and with more than a little mortification and ire, to the Highland rogues and rascals in her mother’s family tree. Sometimes Kylee acted chastened, but she secretly loved the thought that she was so much like her mother’s people.

Well, we’ll see, won’t we?

He presented a challenge because he kept watch over the boat. Taking the notebook computer Barbara Price said was aboard wasn’t quite the same as ferreting Scherba away from under the mystery guy’s nose. That would have been a goof worth pulling off.

Another time.

“He’s not going to be a problem.” Kylee shifted and put the microbinoculars away. From the way she had been standing in the middle of the bridge next to the statue of Saint John the Baptist, one of thirty statues of saints along the structure, no one could have seen the binoculars. “When this goes down, his first order of business is going to be to protect his boss.”

“If the principal happens to go belowdecks where the computer is—”

“He won’t. The show’s going to be out here.” Kylee checked the three men that were keeping her under surveillance.

All of them were young and gaunt, festooned with body piercings and tattoos, and wore thick coats that had seen better days. The three men turned and looked away, afraid of meeting her gaze.

Oh man. That is so not good.
Kylee felt exasperated.
Three guys, and you still don’t feel like you can take one woman.

Part of it, she was certain, was that the three men had wanted to take her in Charles Alley before she reached the bridge. She hadn’t allowed that and had stayed ahead of them.

The three men were hunters. Kylee was sure of that. During her travels on Stony Man missions, as well as working on films as a stunt person around the world, she had seen plenty of men like these three that had singled her out in the bar. She had sought them out for that reason. And like natural predators, they wanted the security of the dark and the advantage of their home ground.

“I’ve got to go,” Kylee said. “I’ve got to make this thing happen. I’ll be back in touch with you as soon as I’m on board.”

“Affirmative,” Barbara said. “Be careful. If you’re caught—”

“I won’t be—I’m never caught.” Kylee palmed the earpiece and shoved it into the waterproof pack she had strapped to her left thigh under the long coat.

The three men stopped talking and watched her.

Weaving a little, as if she’d had too much to drink and the effects were just starting to hit her, Kylee walked toward the three men. She hoped they didn’t turn and run.

“Hey,” she said. “Do any of you guys speak English?”

They all just looked at her.

Rocking on her feet, putting on a look of exasperated disgust, Kylee said, “English.
English.
I’m lost. I need directions. Man, you guys watch American TV over here on your satellite dishes. Surely you can speak the language.” Her words were designed to provoke, to push the men into doing now what they were waiting to do later.