True Deceptions (True Lies) (22 page)

“The rotors are set up in a diamond layout. That’s preferable to a square. They’re similar to Aeryon Scouts. Those babies can hover in place so quietly, you wouldn’t know one was there until it smacked you in the head.”

“Any problems?”

“It had a slight balance problem, but I could fix that by tweaking the channel entries. I’ll have to fly all twenty to make sure they’re stable.”

“No problem. There’s a lot of room on my farm.”

“Your farm?”

“I bought it a few years ago. Don’t get too attached. I’ll need to sell it after this transaction. Too many people are learning about it.”

“Do you own any other properties?”

He paused. What could he tell her? Everything. “About ten.”

“Ten houses?”

“Houses, land, an apartment in New York. It enables me privacy wherever I am in the world.”

“All paid for by the British government?”

“I’m independently financed. I can eat what I kill.” And he ate well. Really well.

“What about me?”

“Technically, you’re my employee.”

“So you can give me a raise?” She lifted her eyebrows and smiled, like a child begging for an ice cream.

He leaned over and kissed her. “If you’re successful in programming the drones to our buyers specifications, I’ll give you the property in France as a bonus, although I recommend selling it and finding something more remote.”

“Deal.”

A
fter several days of making final demands on the Pelican transaction as prescribed by Cassie, Simon transported her to Europe, away from Dane and back to his own turf.

They arrived at his
isolated French farmhouse near the Swiss border on a sunny spring morning. The mountains around them provided an elegant backdrop to their dangerous job.

Simon had purchased the four-hundred year old stone building a few years before in order to guarantee privacy in his transactions. The British government had promised he could keep the spoils of his secret war, and after investing some away for retirement, he reinvested most back into his cover. His operation could out price and out maneuver any other dealer in the world. Even his nearly eight-month absence did little to affect his net worth or his ability to obtain clients.

Life in France held simple charms for Simon. While they waited almost a week for the shipments to arrive, he and Cassie went for daily walks through the countryside and spent hours sitting side by side, either reading or just enjoying each other’s company. He cherished this down time as the plans began to take shape for the transfer to the North Koreans.

The four explosive experts from Israel arrived with a shipment of potassium chlorate to arm the drones. Simon had used dealers of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the past, but countries monitored the export and import of that chemical, making it impossible to move without an international incident. Potassium chlorate was shipped in smaller quantities and had more stable properties. The odorless white powder became an explosive when combined with a fuel, cutting off several steps necessary to make ammonium nitrate into an explosive.

While the men set up their lab in the farmhouse, he checked on Cassie. He found her sitting at a small writing table in the bedroom, with a teacup on one side and a laptop on the other. Her fancy dress clothes had been discarded in favor of faded jeans and a gray T-shirt she’d picked up on the drive from Paris. Her hair was tied into a braid—one Simon wanted to pull back into him when he took full possession of her again. But she hadn’t begged, and he wouldn’t cross the line until she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He strolled across the floor and sat in a chair next to her. “You look comfortable.”

She lifted her legs and rested them across his thighs. “I am now. When are the drones arriving?”

“Tomorrow. Which gives me time to work with our Israeli friends.”

“Have they loaded explosives onto a UAV before?”

“No, but they’ve impregnated missile heads. I’m hoping the concepts are similar enough, and that your expertise will help us protect the Alps from an unfortunate incident.”

She shuddered. “Don’t joke about something like that.”

“I’ve worked with these guys for the past seven years. They’re the best. Are you ready?” He rubbed her legs.

“I can reconfigure the program to allow remote access and then place it behind a hidden firewall so the buyers won’t notice it.” She glanced back at the computer. A program in a language he didn’t understand appeared next to a schematic of the drone he’d purchased from Pelican. One of the many things she had in her computer.

“You’re sure?”

“Don’t you trust me?” She grinned with a confidence he’d never seen in her before. Perhaps it came from working in her area of expertise.

He kissed her. “With my life.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of trust to place in an incompetent agent.”

“You convinced Dane you have nothing to do with my work, all while collecting data right under his nose. Impressive. Don’t downplay your skills. You make a great spook.”

“Coming from you, that’s the highest compliment.”

They kissed again. She tasted of mint tea and the promise of an intimacy so deep a man would give his heart, his possessions, and his life to attain it. He shifted a breath away from her. “Cassie, life is so unpredictable. I’ve always tried to be an optimist, but there are so many things in my past that weigh down on me. Memories and scars and wounds so deep, I thought I’d never smile again. And then you stepped into my life and made every moment so important. I love you.”

Their tongues met, and they pressed into each other, becoming fully absorbed in the moment. She moaned and clasped his shirt to tug him toward her. As much as he wanted her, he wasn’t convinced she was ready to be intimate again. At least not yet.

Her hands held his head. She pulled back for a moment and said with her lips still touching his, “I’m begging you. Now.” Her breathing was heavy.

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“Hands and knees begging?”

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“If you don’t get on your hands and knees and beg me, I guess you’re not emotionally healed enough to share such a mind blowing experience.” The chair scraped the floor when he stood.

Her beautiful, sexy mouth dropped open, and the blue in her eyes darkened. “Wait.”

He headed to the door.

“You better not leave this room,” she called out after him.

He should have kept walking and given her something to ponder. Instead, he looked back at her. A tactical error. She’d slipped her shirt off when he was walking away. His body reacted instantly. There was no way he could leave this tall, blonde goddess standing before him in jeans and nothing else.

Trying to keep his own jaw from hitting the floor, he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “I’m waiting.”

After a second of hesitation, she slipped her jeans off—still standing, but now she was wearing a minimal piece of red silk covering not much at all. He was tempted to ask her to turn around so he could see if it was a thong, but he didn’t want to risk her changing her mind. The minx lowered herself to the floor and crawled toward him, slinking like a cat burglar and exposing the most amazing ass highlighted by, yes, a very thin red thong. Nice.

She stopped at his feet and lifted her eyes toward his. “Simon Dunn, I’m begging you to make love to me, right here and now.”

A spider scuttled across the floor. He should have warned her, but he’d never had a near naked woman crawling toward him before. Then she noticed it. Her scream almost unmanned him. Jumping to her feet, she flung herself into his arms. He took advantage of her open mouth and possessed it with more passion and heat than he’d given to anyone in the past. He held her by her bare bottom, her long legs wrapped around his waist.

They made it to the bed in three steps. He was careful to avoid killing the spider, giving the arachnid full credit for getting Cassie into his arms quicker than he’d imagined.

He dropped her beneath him and stretched over her, careful to keep his weight from crushing her. His mouth pressed softly to her lips. “I saved your life. You owe me.”

“I was the one begging. You owe me.” She sucked in a few deep breaths and exhaled with a shudder.

One simple kiss and her sultry lips opened up to him. He could still taste the mint tea on her tongue—sweet mixed with Cassie’s own brand of temptation. The thrust of her slender hips dared him to take her quickly. Patience, however, would create rewards far more satisfying than a quick release.

He lifted his head away from her, and she followed, trying to keep her mouth on his. She linked an arm around his neck and attempted to pull him back down. Her hunger for him began to crack his resolve. He lowered himself back over her for a moment, giving her the feeling of victory, and then he rolled off her.

A beautiful pout formed on her lips. “Come here.”

“Not yet. If I owe you, I mean to pay up. Right now.” His thumbs pulled her thong down past her thighs, her strong calves, and the red painted toenails.

He knelt between her legs. Her muscles tensed as he began to taste between her inner thighs. She moaned. Her legs opened wider. No matter what she claimed later, he definitely received the better part of this deal.

He moved to the center and continued his explorations, sampling her most sensitive area with his teeth. He felt her sharp exhalation, but his hand pressed her into the bed and kept her captive while he paid her back for making him crave a lifetime with her and the intense stress that came with it. With the precision of an expert, Simon controlled her ascent, higher and higher until she flew apart, head back, moaning his name.

Chapter Eighteen

T
he next morning, Cassie emerged from the farmhouse with her laptop and a pair of legs weakened from her marathon sex with Simon. She grinned. Definitely a control freak, but she’d easily persuaded him into positions that gave
her maximum power and maximum pleasure. Plus, he smiled more.

And she loved him more than anything.

She found him in the barn with his four Israeli colleagues, all of them dressed in jeans and T-shirts. The wooden crates were open around them with a few drones sitting on plastic tarps. Simon introduced her to the men, who greeted her with guarded expressions, as expected when introduced to a stranger.

“Just the person we need. Can you hook up one of these into your computer?” Simon wore a business face. He saved his smiles for his personal life.

“After I check to make sure they all fly right. No use setting them up if the balance is off.”

Pelican used a carbon fiber body to keep the weight to a minimum, combined with high tech components and a strong battery with another small backup that could withstand extreme hot and cold weather. She chose to work on four at a time. Pulling all twenty out would make it impossible to keep track of them all. She picked up a drone and inspected it. The hand control, the size of an iPhone, worked by a touch screen.

The men wanted to try their hand at flying them. It was all a game to them. She refused. Ben, their leader, helped her keep the frustration levels down by reminding them of the payment they’d receive in exchange for their handiwork. With a few grumbles, they backed off. Simon didn’t bother to ask if he could fly one, smart man. As the head of the technological side of the mission, she controlled how the drones would be programmed and who played with them. If they wrecked one, it could take another two weeks to convince Dane to send another, and they didn’t have two weeks. The North Koreans wanted the transaction to take place in only a week.

Flying each one with both a remote control and the GPS guidance system, she checked how long they each hovered without losing altitude. Almost all of them worked to perfection. She altered the controls on two of the drones to fix some problems with maintaining balance. Within a few hours, she’d adjusted the speed of the propellers and fixed the issues.

She remained in the barn through lunch and past the setting of the sun, completely in her element. The cameras mounted on the drones worked well. They had infrared technology and a color HD video system enabling them to obtain perfect visuals in both day and night time missions. The camera contained air vent systems to increase visibility when the infrared technology wasn’t turned on.

For the first time since leaving the protection of her office, she enjoyed her job. Her work could help stop a war. If the drones detonated in North Korea and the traitors were caught, the South Koreans would have no cause for retaliation. The plan seemed too good to be true. Therefore, there had to be a flaw. She stared at the components set out across the table. The symbol of Pelican along with an identification number had been carved into the body of the machines. U.S. designed and manufactured. U.S. drones exploding in North Korea would be like poking the regime with a cattle prod. Her empty stomach was crushed under the realization that she could be starting a war anyway.

Simon approached her with a cup of tea and some bread. “Here. You’re looking stressed.” He handed it to her. “You need to eat and drink, or you’ll be useless.”

She placed the mug on the table next to a drone she’d been programming. “We have a problem.”

Simon’s forehead creased, as it often did when he was thinking about something. “Tell me.”

“If the drones are detonated in North Korea, won’t the North Korean government think it’s under attack, examine any fragments found at the scene and learn they were manufactured in the United States?”

“We were going to detonate them in a remote, mountainous region. It was my understanding that the markings on the drones had been removed.”

“They weren’t removed. Look.” She flipped over the drone to reveal the Pelican markings in the body. “Also, you can’t remove certain technology markers. Pelican has a distinctive way of lining up the rotors. Even their landing gear is unique. If the North Korean army gets hold of even a fraction of one of these machines, they’ll know where it came from, but maybe not the group that launched it.” She paced back and forth across the barn, her breathing escalating, until Simon took her in his arms.