Gentle Pirate (24 page)

It was nearly four o'clock in the morning when Kirsten, hovering on the edge of sleep, mumbled, "I've just thought of something."

"Ummm?"

"What with one thing and another, I never heard the whole story of Hagood and his friend, Jensen. Was that what you called him?"

"I'll tell you all about it on the way to Coeur d'Alene," Simon promised and, hauling her against him, fell asleep.

When Kirsten opened her eyes to bright sunlight several hours later the heavy, comforting weight beside her was gone. She stretched, yawning widely, enjoying the sensation of wall-to-wall bed, and then waited. She didn't have to wait very long. Simon appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, a cup of steaming hot coffee cradled in his right hand.

"You've been very faithful to your promise of handling morning coffee," she laughed up at him as he towered beside the bed. She wondered how she could ever have thought she could go through life without having Simon about to wake up to in the mornings! She sat up to receive the saucer and then slid immediately back under the covers as she remembered that she didn't have a nightgown. It lay in a filmy, tattered pool beside the bed.

"Would you mind loaning me a pajama top or something, darling?" she asked politely.

"Don't own any," he informed her carelessly, dismissing the subject as he pushed the cup and saucer into her hand. He watched with amusement as she struggled to deal with the bedclothes and the coffee at the same time and then abruptly frowned, leaning forward to touch the side of her jaw.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded, fingering the bruised area gently.

Kirsten, lacking a free hand to raise to her face, smiled crookedly. "Is it starting to color badly?" she asked worriedly.

"Hagood hit you?" he growled.

"Well, I didn't exactly go along quietly," she explained. "What do you expect from the daughter of a Marine? There came a point during the struggle when the man apparently lost his patience with me."

"I'll kill him," Simon announced quietly and Kirsten, startled, believed him.

"Simon! Don't talk like that! I'm all right and Hagood is safely behind bars, isn't he? Let's just forget him! Please!" Kirsten was far too happy to waste time hating anyone this morning.

Simon stood still for a moment, considering, and then he shook his head slightly as if to clear it. "As long as he stays locked up and out of my sight, I'll let him be. But if he ever wanders back into our lives again, I'll definitely kill him."

Kirsten said nothing, knowing she would have to rely on the law and Hagood's own common sense to keep Simon from turning back into the cold-blooded warrior she had seen briefly last night.

"It's very late!" she said quickly. "What about work? Did you phone someone and tell them we're not going to be in today?"

"I told Silco that not only would neither of us not be in today, but that both of us were handing in our resignations at the end of the week!" Simon told her firmly. "You and I are going to make that vineyard support us from now on!" Period. The decision was made, Kirsten thought wryly.

"I picked up some things from your closet, and your contacts. I didn't realize you didn't have them in last night when I sent you home. Did you have any trouble driving?"

"Let's just say it's a good thing Richland rolls up the streets at night. There wasn't any other traffic on the road!"

Simon had downed his usual massive meal and was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when someone pounded on the apartment door. Kirsten set down the frying pan she had been drying and went to answer it before remembering that she wasn't in her own abode. She took in the smiling features of a pleasant-faced, dark-eyed man in his middle thirties and found herself returning the smile immediately.

"Rich Montgomery. You must be Kirsten?" he added, stepping into the room and extending one hand politely.

"Kirsten Mallory," she agreed, taking the hand. "Simon will be out in a minute, I'm sure. Won't you have a seat?" She examined their guest carefully. He grinned, catching her eye on him as he settled himself into one of the large, heavy chairs.

"Don't mind me," she told him cheerfully. "It's only that I've never seen a real, live government agent before! I've read so many novels…"

Rich Montgomery held up a hand, laughing. "Please, I'm not from the James Bond or Nick Carter school!" He glanced down at the neat suit he was wearing, which was doing its best to hide the slight paunch at his waistline. His figure together with his somewhat rounded face and happy eyes didn't go a long way toward making him look like a fictional undercover hero and his expression said he knew it.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Kirsten told him, knowing what he was thinking, "this is a much better disguise than if you wore an armory around under an evening jacket."

"Would you be dreadfully disappointed if I point out that this isn't a disguise, that it's the real me, and that I spend most of my working hours shuffling paper?"

"Terribly. So don't tell me. Would you like a cup of coffee? Simon makes very good coffee, although it's a bit on the strong side."

"I've had it before," Rich told her wryly. "And that's putting it mildly. It's the classic horseshoe-floating variety. Yes, I'll have some, thanks. I've been up most of the night!"

"I'll be right out, Rich," Kirsten heard Simon call from the bedroom while she poured coffee.

"Before he gets here and monopolizes you, I've got some questions," she told Rich, hurrying back into the living room with the thick, dark brew. She thought fleetingly of seeing if something metallic would float on the surface and changed her mind.

"I'm not surprised. I haven't had a chance to fill Simon in completely. I tried to tell him what I could on the phone, but he wouldn't listen properly. Said something about calling from a police station and not wanting to hang around because he had things to take care of at home!"

"That sounds like Simon! The overbearing manager type. Knew it the minute I met him," Kirsten nodded equably.

"Actually, he can be very good at it." Rich smiled reminiscently, a dark memory flickering briefly in the pleasant eyes. "I and several others owe our lives to his 'management' technique!"

"Vietnam?" she asked softly, not wanting Simon to overhear. "I saw the Purple Heart he substituted in the shoebox…"

"There's also a Navy Cross floating around somewhere," Rich told her gently.

Kirsten blinked. "Oh," was all she said, remembering the day she had come across the little case containing her father's Navy Cross from another war. "Awarded for extraordinary heroism in operations against an armed enemy." Kirsten shuddered.

"About Hagood…" she persisted carefully, not wanting Simon to know she had been talking about him.

"Yes, Hagood. And James Talbot. Are you certain you want to hear all the details, Kirsten?" Rich asked quietly.

"Yes, please."

"Well, as I tried to sketch out to Simon last night over the phone, Talbot and Hagood were partners in an interesting little enterprise, which had its economic base in the fact that it delivered certain very sophisticated electronics devices to governments that the United States has specified should not receive said devices."

"They were smugglers?" Kirsten asked, curious.

"On a very sophisticated level. There's quite a lucrative black market for high-level U.S. electronics. It's a field in which we still excel and there are countries willing to pay a lot of money for some of these items."

"But how? How did they get the stuff out of the country? How did they line up buyers?"

"Getting it out of the country was a very ingenious process. Were you aware, Kirsten, that James Talbot had spent some time as a mercenary after Vietnam?"

"No!"

"Well, he did. Primarily in Africa, as a matter of fact. He and Hagood went together and it was while they were there that they made the contacts they later sold to. There are a lot of nations seeking influence in Africa at the moment and it isn't all that difficult to contact them. Especially if you're in a quasi-military status as a mercenary is. In some of the countries the mercenaries come and go as near heroes. It's a minor problem for them to enter the country with whatever they wish and leave with a good deal of money."

"I see," Kirsten said rather blankly. "But Jim wasn't gone for very long periods of time. I mean, he disappeared, but not usually for more than a couple of days. How could he come and go that quickly?"

"Talbot had removed himself from the courier level of the operation. He ran the set-up. Hagood was his second-in-command. They simply lined up a few mercenaries who were open to a little extra adventure and a little extra cash. It wasn't hard to find interested men."

"And where do the lighter and the Purple Heart fit in?" Kirsten asked curiously, sipping her coffee.

"The lighter was the key. There was no fluid in it, you know. Just a tiny piece of microfilm rolled up inside." Rich Montgomery looked rather pleased with himself.

"I can't stand the suspense." Kirsten chuckled. "Please tell me what was on the film."

"The names of the foreign contacts and the codes used to reach them."

"Hagood didn't have his own copy?" Kirsten said, surprised.

"It would appear that James Talbot ran the show completely. He either didn't totally trust Hagood or didn't think he needed to know all the details. It would appear that Hagood had begun to resent his status. The authorities are rechecking the 'accident' Talbot had in his car."

"You think Hagood murdered Jim?" Kirsten whispered, unsettled by this new evidence of violence on the part of the man who had kidnapped her.

"It's a possibility. Talbot apparently told Hagood that if anything ever happened to him, he would make sure Hagood could carry on the operation."

"The letter to me from Jim, the one in the shoebox with the lighter and Heart. He seemed to think something might happen to him, but he certainly couldn't have suspected Hagood or he would never have left instructions for me to give Phil the stuff," Kirsten noted, thinking about the strange letter she had received the morning after her apartment had been searched.

Rich nodded. "It's largely conjecture at this point, Kirsten, but it seems Hagood 'manufactured' some trouble with one of the contacts. Enough to convince Talbot to hide for a couple of weeks and also do his duty by seeing to it that the crucial information needed to run the operation was protected in the event anything happened to him. Hagood apparently thought Talbot would see to it that the lighter came directly to him. He hadn't counted on Talbot's using you as a go-between. It took Hagood awhile to realize what had happened. He had already searched the house you and Talbot shared before he located you and performed the same exercise."

"The car," Kirsten mused, "the one I thought was following me the night I, uh, had trouble getting home from a date. It was the same dark blue as the one Hagood was using last night."

"Hagood was probably wondering just how much you knew at that point. He hadn't found the lighter and was deciding how to approach you about it."

"How did he even know the information he wanted was in the lighter?" Kirsten demanded.

"Because of this," Rich smiled, producing an envelope from his coat pocket and unfolding the short note inside. "It's a letter to Hagood from Talbot, probably written at the same time the shoebox was put in the mail to you."

'Telling Hagood to contact me for a few 'mementos' in the event anything happened, right?" Kirsten guessed.

"Near enough," Rich confirmed. "After reading this, Hagood knew what items had been left to him and guessed the lighter was the only one which could contain anything useful."

Montgomery broke off as Simon appeared, striding briskly into the room.

"Glad you could drop by, Rich. As you can see," he added cheerfully, tossing a set of keys in the air, "we're on our way out the door. Trust we'll see you again soon, pal. In the meantime, be sure and make a clean sweep of this Hagood affair! Come along, sweetheart," he ordered, walking toward the door and obviously expecting Kirsten to follow.

"Simon! What's gotten into you! I haven't had a chance to brush my teeth, and furthermore," she snapped waspishly, "I might remind you we have a guest!"

"She thinks she'll make a nagging wife yet, even though I keep telling her its hopeless!" Simon explained kindly to a grinning Rich. Then he looked over at Kirsten and chuckled. "Run along and brush your teeth, if you must. I'll give you two whole minutes to do it. Understand?" He turned back to Rich, ignoring Kirsten and giving her only a large back to which she could direct her cutting remarks. She decided to brush her teeth instead.

Ten minutes later, having purposely taken more than the allotted two, Kirsten returned to the living room in time to see Simon putting into his coat pocket a strange object with a cord attached. It looked like the unusual weapon that had brought down Phil Hagood several hours earlier and it sent a chill down Kirsten's spine.

"You won't need it, you know," Rich Montgomery was saying quietly. "I've got Hagood and his friend Jensen sewed up very tight this time. You and Kirsten will be all right. I promise."

"I believe you, Rich. But the thing's a part of me now. I've carried it ever since that strange little man in Africa showed me how to use it. Last night was the first time I've ever had to put it to work, though, since those days."

"Do you ever hanker to get back into the business?" Rich asked very softly. "Harlan would give you your old job back at the drop of a hat." Neither man noticed Kirsten, who stood, frozen, in the hallway.

"Not in the least," Simon informed Rich quite readily, buttoning the pocket that held the little weapon. "I've known for a long time now that the only work I find truly satisfying is growing my grapes and making my wine. And when I met Kirsten, I knew she was the only other thing I needed in my life to fill it completely." He glanced over his shoulder, as if sensing her presence, and smiled at Kirsten.

"Ready, honey?" he asked easily. "We'll have to call your father and… Hey!" He laughed delightedly as Kirsten unstuck herself from the floor of the hall and practically flew across the room, hurling herself confidently into Simon's welcoming arms.