To Love a Thief
Merline Lovelace
Once he'd been known as Henri Everard, the fastest pickpocket in Nice. But the ensuing years had turned him into all-American Nick Jensen–aka Lightning–acting director of the Omega Agency.His most pressing assignment at the moment: heading to France to find out who was trying to kill him. And in that noble task he was assisted by Mackenzie Blair, Omega's communications director. This woman had gotten under his skin lately–and was turning even this assignment into a pleasure trip.But first things first. No use planning for the future until he was sure he had one….
“Get the Field Dress unit to fix you up with a wardrobe. You’d better take several gowns, a couple of cocktail dresses and bikinis. You’ll only need the bottoms, of course.”
“Of course.” Mackenzie tried not to bat an eye. She knew that everyone went topless on European beaches except prudish, self-conscious American tourists. No way she wanted Nick to know she’d fallen smack into the prude category.
“What about my cover?”
Nick made a show of pulling down his cuffs, and Mackenzie knew what was coming. The man had a tabloid reputation to live up to, after all.
“The best cover is always the simplest. When asked, we’ll merely introduce you as my companion.”
“Define companion.”
“Friend. Mistress. Lover.”
“I don’t think so,” Mackenzie drawled. “Let’s go with business associate.”
Amusement flickered in Nick’s eyes. “Do you really think the French will make any distinction between the two?”
“The French might not, but we will.”
To Love a Thief
Merline Lovelace
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MERLINE LOVELACE
spent twenty-three years in the U.S. Air Force, pulling tours in Vietnam, at the Pentagon and all over the world. When she hung up her uniform, she decided to try her hand at writing. Since then she’s had more than forty novels published, with over six million copies of her work in print. She and her own handsome hero live in Oklahoma. They enjoy traveling and chasing little white balls around the fairways.
Look for Merline in the Silhouette anthology In Love and War, coming in August 2003.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Prologue
Yanking open the passenger door of a nondescript gray sedan, a heavyset male dropped into the seat. He brought with him just enough of the crisp September breeze to stir the stale odors of old French fries and half-eaten donuts that permeated the vehicle.
His nose wrinkled in disgust. “I wish to hell you’d dump your garbage in a trash can instead of tossing it in the back seat.”
“Never mind my garbage,” the driver growled. “Did you get through?”
“I got through.”
“What was the message that was so damn important we had to call today?”
“Our client’s getting antsy. Real antsy.”
The driver crumpled his foam coffee cup and tossed it over his shoulder to join the rest of the litter. Scowling, he glared at his associate.
“Hell! This isn’t like taking down a two-bit pusher or some husband who can’t keep his pants zipped. We’ve been trying to set up the job for a week now. The target never takes the same route to work, never eats at the same restaurant two nights in a row and has a security system tougher to crack than Fort Knox, for God’s sake!”
“So tell me something I don’t know.”
The retort earned him a hard, swift look. More than a little afraid of the man beside him, the passenger gulped and delivered the rest of the message that had come through the phone via a voice synthesizer that completely disguised the speaker’s age, sex and nationality.
“We gotta do it within twenty-four hours or the deal’s off.”
His mouth set, the driver hunched his arms over the wheel. He’d been in the business long enough to know his reputation was on the line here. He’d accepted the contract, demanded and received a five-figure advance. If he didn’t deliver as promised, he could kiss off the rest of the hefty fee he’d been promised. Worse, word would soon get around. Before long, he’d be back to shooting out the kneecaps of gamblers who welched on their debts at a hundred bucks a pop.
“All right,” he snarled. “We’ll do it tonight.”
Chapter 1
From the outside, the elegant, three-story Federal-style town house looked much like its neighbors. It sat midblock on a quiet, tree-shaded street just off Massachusetts Avenue, in the heart of Washington’s embassy district. The last rays of the afternoon sun glinted on its tall windows. Ivy meandered over its mellow red brick and almost obscured the discreet bronze plaque beside the front door.
The plaque identified the town house as home to the Offices of the President’s Special Envoy. Savvy politicians and diplomats knew the position was created years ago to reward a wealthy campaign contributor with a yen for a fancy title and a hankering to rub elbows with the powerful elite. Like so many other fabricated posts in the nation’s capital, the position had since taken on a staff and a life of its own.
Only a handful of insiders knew the special envoy also served as director of an agency whose initials comprised the last letter of the Greek alphabet: an agency so secret that its director reported only to the president. So supercharged that OMEGA’s agents were activated only as a last resort, when other government agencies like the military, the FBI or the CIA couldn’t respond for political or legal reasons.
For almost a year now, Nick Jensen had served as acting director of OMEGA. The wealth and international contacts he’d accumulated as owner of a string of outrageously high-priced watering holes for the rich and famous—not to mention his hefty contributions to the president’s reelection campaign—had given him the necessary cachet for the special envoy’s title.
But it was Nick’s years as one of OMEGA’s field agents that had given him the expertise to run the supersecret organization. He hadn’t sought or particularly wanted the responsibility of sending his fellow operatives into harm’s way, but Maggie Sinclair, the previous director, had convinced the president that Nick was the best person for the job.
Few people could hold out against Maggie when she set her mind to something. Nick was no exception—as the present situation indicated.
“You can’t fail me, Lightning! I’m desperate.”
Her voice floated over the speakers in the third-floor control center where Mackenzie Blair, OMEGA’s chief of communications, had patched her straight through to the director.
“The woman stormed out the moment I walked into the house,” Maggie exclaimed in exasperation. “Didn’t give notice. Didn’t offer an explanation. Just grabbed her purse and rushed right past me.”
“Let me guess.” Tapping his twenty-four karat gold Mont Blanc pen against the console in front of him, Nick had no difficulty picturing the scene. “She had grape jelly in her hair, muddy paw prints all down her front and lizard spit decorating her blouse.”
A gurgle of laughter came over the speakers. “Actually, the grape jelly was on her shoes and the lizard spit was dribbling down her right cheek.”
Chuckling, Nick leaned back in his chair. “How many nannies have you and Adam run through in the past six months? Two? Three?”
He caught the eyes of the dark-haired woman on the other side of the console. Grinning, Mackenzie held up four fingers.
“The body count doesn’t matter,” Maggie answered loftily. “What matters is that I don’t have a baby-sitter available for tonight. I can’t miss this banquet, Nick. Adam’s worked too hard and too long. He deserves this recognition for his work with the International Monetary Fund. I may be eight months pregnant, but I’m going to pour myself into an evening gown and strap on high heels. If I can take those extreme measures, you ought to be willing to hold down the fort for a few hours. Can you be here by seven?”
Nick gave the computerized status board on the far wall a quick glance. He had one agent in Saudi Arabia. Another agent was on his way back to D.C. after weeks in Honduras and would need to be debriefed sometime tonight. Nick was also expected at a black-tie party thrown by one of Washington’s most sophisticated hostesses.
But this was Maggie Sinclair. Code name Chameleon. A young, scrawny Nick had once offered to act as her pimp. It didn’t even occur to him to refuse her this small service. Although he had to admit, the thought of spending several hours with the nonadult residents of her chaotic household daunted even OMEGA’s acting director. Once again his glance drifted to the woman on the other side of the console.
“I’ll be there by seven,” he promised, his blue eyes on his chief of communications. “But I’m not going in alone, unarmed and without backup. I’ll bring Mackenzie with me. We can get some work done after the girls are in bed.”
The grin fell off his chief of communications’s face. With a little squawk, she bolted upright in her chair and waved both hands in a frantic negative. Maggie must have caught the strangled sound. Hastily, she terminated the conversation before either Nick or Mackenzie could weasel out.
“Great! See you both then.”
The thump of her receiver dropping down echoed through the speakers. The communications techs manning their posts turned away to hide their grins as their chief shoved out of her chair, planted both palms on the console, and directed an evil glare at her boss.
“Thanks a lot! I’m still flaking green dandruff from the last time I baby-sat for Maggie and Adam. Jilly swore that spray-on hair paint would wash out with a good shampoo.”
“Serves you right for not reading the directions on the can first.”
“Jilly said they’d tested it on Radizwell.”
“Well, that explains the dog’s new shaved-to-the-skin look,” Nick drawled. “Normally his coat is so thick Adam has to use pruning shears to cut it.”
Realizing he was less than sympathetic to either her or the sheepdog’s misadventures with Jilly’s paint can, Mackenzie changed tactics.
“You might consult me before volunteering my services as a baby-sitter,” she huffed. “I could have plans for tonight.”
“Do you?”
He knew the answer before she pursed her lips and shot him another nasty look.
Everyone at OMEGA agreed their chief of communications was a wizard at all things electronic. Since taking over the job, she’d provided field agents with miniaturized devices powerful enough to drop do-wrongs with a single zap, capture the smallest images in stunning digital detail from miles away and detect sounds as soft as a sneaker tread two floors down.
Everyone at OMEGA also agreed Mackenzie Blair needed to get a life. A short, disastrous marriage to another navy officer had spurred her decision to opt out of the military. It had also left her distinctly wary of entanglements. Since joining the OMEGA team, she’d spent most of her waking hours on the job. From all indications, her social life was nonexistent. Nick knew for a fact her evening meals usually consisted of pizza or fast food scarfed down right here at the control center.
More and more of late, he’d found himself contemplating ways to add variety to her diet…and spice up her social life. Particularly after a recent mission in San Antonio, when Mackenzie had stepped out of her role of chief of communications and into the arms of an overmuscled building contractor who’d hired a hit man to murder his wife. She’d snuggled up to the bastard, wearing a low cut dress that spiked the temperature of every male within a fifty-yard radius. Nick’s temperature had shot off the charts, as well. So, it seemed, had his objectivity where this green-eyed brunette was concerned.
Not that she had any clue how much she’d come to occupy his thoughts. Nick was her boss. For the time being, anyway. His professional code of ethics wouldn’t allow him to hit on someone who worked for him. Hers, he knew, had been shaped by her years in the navy, where fraternization between the ranks was strictly taboo.
But when Maggie had her baby and returned to work, Nick thought with a sudden tightening in his groin, he fully intended to make his move.
If Maggie ever came back to work, that is.
The prospects were looking dimmer and dimmer with each passing month and additional project she became involved with. As she’d informed Nick on several occasions, he might just have to get used to serving as OMEGA’s director. Shoving that thought aside, he offered the still reluctant Mackenzie a bribe.
“Why don’t I fix us dinner at Maggie and Adam’s place? I’ll bring the ingredients. And the wine,” he added, remembering an especially fine white he’d just added to his private cellar.
She hesitated for several moments. Nick read the doubt in her eyes. Like him, she’d sensed the subtle changes in their relationship over the past few months. Unlike him, she hadn’t yet made up her mind what to do about it.
“Dinner sounds good,” she conceded, but in the next breath made it clear she intended to keep matters strictly professional. “As you said, we can use the time to get some work done. I want to wait for Ace to check in before I leave, though. He’s scheduled to transmit a status report at six forty-five, our time.”
Nick nodded. He’d spoken with Ace yesterday and knew the agent had as yet turned up no leads as to the saboteurs responsible for the explosions that ripped through several oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. The outraged Saudis had put a million dollar bounty on the person or persons responsible for the bombings. So far, the reward hadn’t produced any results. Nor, it appeared, had Ace, who was slogging it out undercover in the oil fields with his Saudi counterpart.
“Contact me immediately if the report doesn’t come through.”
At the whiplike command, OMEGA’s chief of communications snapped to attention and popped a salute. “Aye-aye, Skipper!”
Nick’s features relaxed into a grin. “As you were, Blair. See you at seven.”
The man moved like a lion, Mackenzie decided as he strolled out of the control center. All supreme confidence, sleek muscle and lethal grace. He looked like one, too, damn him. Forget the cashmere sports coats. Never mind the silk ties and Italian leather shoes. With his dark gold hair and tanned skin, he would have been right at home roaming the African plains.
Well, Mackenzie had let one too-handsome beast maul both her heart and her pride. She wasn’t about to let another get close enough to sink his teeth in.
She dropped back into her chair, her mouth twisting in wry acknowledgment. Okay, so maybe her pride had suffered more than her heart. Even before she returned early from a cruise and caught her ex in bed with their well-endowed neighbor, Mackenzie had accepted the bitter fact that their marriage was over. She would have chosen a more civilized way to end it, though.
The mere memory of the very hard, very swift knee she’d planted in David’s groin when he’d grabbed her arm and tried to force her to listen to his pathetic excuses was enough to produce a grin. Whistling cheerfully, she went back to work.
Later that evening, Mackenzie used the short drive to Maggie and Adam’s house to prepare herself. She respected Adam, who’d served as OMEGA’s director before Maggie, but her loyalty was to his wife, who’d hired her right out of the navy. Mackenzie considered Maggie her friend as well as her mentor. What’s more, she thoroughly enjoyed the tales of Chameleon’s outrageous exploits the other OMEGA agents frequently repeated and, she suspected, greatly exaggerated.
Friend or no friend, however, no one entered Maggie and Adam’s elegant Georgetown residence without putting themselves in a mental brace. Controlled mayhem was the kindest way—the only way!—to describe their chaotic household.
Maggie’s pet iguana was bad enough. The thing was the size of a small dog, had a foot-long tongue and devoured plants, newspaper and shoes indiscriminately. Making matters worse was a pony-size Hungarian sheepdog, a gift from the vice president who’d wanted desperately to get rid of the oversize, overfriendly beast.
Unfortunately, Radizwell had recently developed a bad case of the hots for the blue-and-orange, bugeyed iguana. He was always trying to hump the hissing, spitting lizard. His enthusiastic efforts wreaked havoc on nearby furniture, had Adam gritting his teeth and made Maggie’s small daughters shriek with laughter. Mackenzie didn’t even want to think about the stories four-year-old Jilly shared with her friends and teachers at nursery school.
When she pulled into the circular drive leading to Adam and Maggie’s two-story home, she saw Nick had already arrived. She pulled up behind his Jag, trying hard not to drool over its gleaming black beauty, and made for the front door. Adam Ridgeway, code name Thunder, answered the tinkling call of the chimes.
Mackenzie gulped. Nick Jensen in tan cashmere and navy slacks was enough to make any woman swallow her tongue. Adam Ridgeway in white tie and tails could make her forget she ever had one.
If Mackenzie hadn’t sworn off men for the foreseeable future…
If this suave, aristocratic Bostonian wasn’t married to her idol…
If he weren’t carrying one dark-haired cherub in the crook of his right arm and had another tucked under his left…
“’Kenzie!”
The squeal came from the youngest, a bright-eyed two-year-old. Thrusting out her chubby arms, she demanded an instant embrace. With a smile for Adam, Mackenzie gathered Samantha into her arms. Her smile took a quick downward tilt when an ear-shattering woof boomed through the hall. Whirling, Adam rapped out a sharp command.
“No!”
Radizwell put out all four paws and tried to stop. He really tried. Claws clicking on the slick tiles, he slid a good three yards before careening past Adam, who managed to dodge him at the last second.
The dog recovered and looked up adoringly at Mackenzie, who’d been known to slip him forbidden delights during previous visits. His near-hairless body quivered from nose to tail. Without his thick, shaggy coat, the poor thing looked more like a newly shorn sheep than a sheepdog, but he was still big enough to knock over a dump truck.
“Downstairs,” Adam ordered, pointing to an open door halfway down the hall. Radizwell gave a long, mournful whine.
“Now!”
Throwing piteous looks over his shoulder, the animal plopped down on his belly and inched across the tiles. He paused at the open door, gave another whine and slunk down the stairs.
Mackenzie watched him disappear with some trepidation. She knew the stairs led down to Maggie’s luxurious office, where her mentor had just finished revisions to her groundbreaking tome on infant phonetics. She also knew Terence the iguana considered the office his personal domain. Mackenzie only hoped the lizard wasn’t currently occupying his favorite perch on Maggie’s desk. The horny sheepdog would go nuts trying to get at him.
“Don’t worry,” Adam said, guessing the direction of her thoughts. “Terence is upstairs in the girls’ playroom. With the door locked. I promise you and Nick a little peace tonight. As much as you can hope for,” he amended, ruffling his eldest daughter’s curls, “with this demolitions expert-in-training and her sister to contend with.”
Jilly giggled at what she obviously considered a high compliment and raised only a token protest when her father firmly closed the door leading to the basement. The sheepdog was her willing slave. She’d ride his back, dress him in her parents’ clothing, spray paint his fur. Tonight, though, she had ’Kenzie to play with. And her uncle Nick.
“Nick and Maggie are in the kitchen,” Adam informed Mackenzie. “The unprincipled rogue is seducing my wife with wild mushrooms.”
“No, daddy,” Jilly protested. “Uncle Nick can’t s’duce mommy. She’s already got a baby in her tummy. You put it there, remember?”
“As a matter of fact,” he replied, grinning at his precocious child, “I do.”
Dodging doll carriages, umbrellas and the tumbled plastic walls of a medieval castle, they made their way past an exquisite bombé chest topped by a gilt mirror that had once reflected the image of a Hungarian princess. An inch-thick Aubusson runner in rich ruby tones absorbed their footsteps.
When they entered the kitchen at the rear of the house, laughter drifted out to greet them, along with a host of tantalizing aromas. Even Mackenzie, whose taste ran to pizza, tacos and the occasional well-done rib eye, sniffed appreciatively. Hefting Samantha higher on her hip, she paused to survey the scene.
As always, the warmth and elegance of the kitchen/breakfast room/family area reached out to grab at her heart. It ran the whole back of the house. Tall French doors opened out on an English garden, complete with brick walks, boxwood hedges, glorious roses and a Victorian-style gazebo where the girls held their tea parties.
Inside the kitchen, everything was blue, white and bright, sunshiny yellow. Delftware plates decorated the walls. Colorful chintz covered the seat cushions and draped the windows. Copper glinted, and a large brick fireplace made her long for cold winter nights and a bright, blazing fire.
Someday, Mackenzie thought. Someday maybe she’d have a home like this and bright-eyed imps like Jilly and Samantha to wrap her arms and her heart around. And a completely besotted husband like Adam, whose interests did not extend to his neighbor’s wife.
Or to supermodels and movie starlets.
A little crease formed between her brows as her glance went to the tall, broad-shouldered chef working his magic at the cooking island. Nick had shed his tie and jacket, but his deep tan, monogrammed shirt and knife-pleated gray slacks screamed wealth and sophistication. It was hard to picture him burrowing through mud and under concertina wire to take down a gunrunner. Harder still to imagine him giving up his string of pricey restaurants and globe-trotting lifestyle to become a stay-at-home dad, as Adam Ridgeway had done the first few years after Jillian’s birth.
Mackenzie could, on the other hand, easily picture him in the role he seemed so well suited for. If even half the stories in the tabloids were to be believed, Nick Jensen was a world-class lover. Every cover girl and screen goddess he’d been paired with over the years gushed about his seductive charm, his generosity, his solicitous attention. In and out of bed.
Not that she was the least interested in that particular aspect of her boss. Even if she wasn’t still cautious after her divorce, her years in the navy had conditioned her to avoid anything that smacked of fooling around within the ranks. She’d have to be crazy to even think about wrestling the man down to the floor and having her way with him.
Nick looked up at that moment and caught her frown. “Don’t worry, Comm. You’ll like it.”
For a startled moment, she thought he’d read her mind. “Huh?”
“The appetizer,” he said, nodding to a laden silver tray. “This is my own recipe for sherry mushrooms en croûte. You’ll like it.”
“Don’t believe him!”
Maggie rounded the counter. Eight months pregnant and stunning in a floor-length gown of royal blue, she held out a toothpicked appetizer.
“You’ll love it! Here, sink your teeth into this.”
The featherlight pastry melted on Mackenzie’s tongue. If those were mushrooms inside, they sure fooled her. The succulent morsels had a dark, rich flavor she’d never tasted before.
“And to think we’ll be dining tonight on under-cooked prime rib and overcooked broccoli.” Sighing, Maggie speared another pastry and popped it into her mouth.
Nick gave her an amused look. “You should have convinced the awards committee to hold the banquet at my restaurant, as I suggested.”
“Are you kidding? Despite your offer to feed us at cost, not even the International Monetary Fund can afford dinner for three hundred at Nick’s.”
Adam glanced pointedly at his watch. “Speaking of the IMF…”
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
Snagging another of the flaky tidbits, Maggie chewed, swallowed and rattled off last-minute instructions.
“The girls have had their supper and their baths. They’ll be ready for bed about the time Nick says your dinner will finish cooking. Jilly’s eardrops are on the nightstand beside her bed. One squirt in each ear. Don’t let Samantha have any more apple juice. It goes right through her. If Terence gets loose…”
“God help you,” Adam muttered.
Shooting her husband a quelling look, Maggie grabbed her evening bag. “We both have our cell phones. Call if you need us. Bye, Nick. Bye, Mackenzie. Bye-bye, sugar pies.”
She planted noisy, smacking kisses on the cheek of each girl. Adam waited patiently, then took his turn. A few minutes later, the garage door rumbled up, then down. Before their vehicle had cleared the front drive, a low, mournful howl drifted up from the basement. Another followed, longer and louder than the first. The third rose to an earsplitting crescendo.
“Radizwell doesn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy go off and leave him in the basement,” Jilly informed Nick and Mackenzie between yowls. “He can go all night,” she added with some pride.
“I’d better let him up,” Nick muttered. “Brace yourself.”
Nodding, Mackenzie plunked Samantha on the countertop and took a wide-legged stance. Nick made sure she was ready before he opened the hall door.
Neither one of them could have known it at the time, but by that simple act he saved both their lives.
Chapter 2
The attack didn’t come until almost two hours later.
Looking back, Mackenzie would always marvel at how blissfully unaware she’d been her life was about to take a sharp turn into danger and international intrigue. Nothing in those hours leading up to the murderous assault gave any warning of what was to come.
The time was filled with nothing but noise and laughter. Shrieks of delight as Jilly and Samantha used the family room sofa as a springboard onto Nick’s prone body. Loud grunts when they landed feet first on his midsection. Earsplitting protests from Radizwell, who danced around the threesome wanting in on the fun.
Mackenzie kept a wary eye on lamps, books and silver-framed photographs and generally stayed out of the fray. She did, however, get suckered into playing the part of Bad Bunny when Jilly dragged out a set of plush hand puppets and a folding cardboard stage. With the air of a general marshaling her troops, the pint-size director issued orders to her cast and crew.
“You put the stage together, Uncle Nick. Fold the tabs over like this. See?”
“Got it.”
“’Kenzie, you sit here. Samantha has to sit in your lap ’cause she’s just a baby.”
Her sister’s rosebud mouth puckered at the disparaging remark. “Nuh-uh.”
“Yes, you are. A silly little baby.”
Tears welled. A chubby fist closed over a puppet in the shape of a bear. Before Mackenzie could stop her, Samantha swung.
Screeching, Jilly swung back. Radizwell set the windows to rattling with his bark.
It took a moment or two for Nick and Mackenzie to separate the combatants. They emerged from their brawl with sulky expressions that melted instantly into happy smiles when Nick suggested ice cream after they finished their theatrical production.
Finally—finally!—eight o’clock rolled around. Breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, Mackenzie rinsed out the ice-cream bowls while Nick carried Samantha upstairs on his shoulders. Jilly raced ahead to select the books she wanted to read before lights out.
A half hour later, the girls were ear-dropped, pot-tied, story-taled and snuggled in. Nick dropped kisses on their cheeks and went downstairs to stir his pots, leaving Mackenzie to deposit their various items of discarded clothing in the hamper.
When she opened the door to the bathroom, though, an ominous hissing sound greeted her. Evidently Terence the iguana had heard the sounds of the toilet flushing and decided to migrate from the playroom next door. He had now taken up occupancy in the bathtub.
Radizwell, who’d plopped down beside Jilly’s bed, went on full love alert. Hastily, Mackenzie yanked the door shut, separating him from the bug-eyed creature in the tub.
“Sorry,” she told the quivering sheepdog. “I don’t think he’s in the mood for love right now.”
She just wished she could say the same!
Only now, with the girls tucked in and Nick downstairs, could she catch her breath and put a name to this tingling, prickly sensation she’d been experiencing for the past few hours. The sensation had intensified each time Nick grinned at the girls’ antics. Or sprawled loose-limbed and feigning exhaustion while they climbed all over him. Or solemnly danced his grasshopper hand puppet across the cardboard stage.
Mackenzie had seen a different side of Nick Jensen tonight—gentler, funnier, more relaxed. The disconcerting glimpses of the man behind the handsome mask had totally skewed the image she’d constructed of him over the past years. As OMEGA’s chief of communications, she’d monitored Lightning’s operations in the field. She knew how good he was. And how lethal.
She’d also monitored his activities when not in the field. It wasn’t difficult to keep up with them. The paparazzi followed him like hounds after a sleek, handsome fox. According to the tabloids’ various “reliable sources,” he could have his pick of the half-dozen gorgeous beauties reportedly madly in love with him.
Although…
Mackenzie could have sworn she’d caught a speculative gleam in his eyes when he looked at her lately. Part of her wanted to believe it telegraphed a very definite male interest. The rest of her got clammy at the thought.
Nick Jensen was out of her league. Correction, out of her universe. And despite the fact he’d spent hours tussling with kids and their near hairless sheepdog on the floor, she’d be a fool to believe he possessed any more homing instincts than her philandering ex.
Or so she tried to convince herself as she and Radizwell made their way downstairs.
Seeing Nick in his natural habitat didn’t exactly reinforce her theory. He looked right at home at the stove, darn him! Far more than Mackenzie herself did on the rare occasions she attempted anything more esoteric than nachos or microwave popcorn. He’d even set the table. Candles flickered amid the blue-and-white crockery and tall-stemmed cobalt goblets.
“Almost ready,” he assured her.
“I know it’s a little late to ask, but what can I do to help?”
“Why don’t you do the honors with the wine? I uncorked it but was waiting for you to come down before pouring.”
Extracting the bottle from the crystal ice bucket, Mackenzie gave its label a curious glance. “Mt. Blaze?”
“It’s a small vineyard on New Zealand’s Gold Coast. Their late-harvest Riesling won Wine Enthusiast’s best vintage award three years running.”
“Oooh-kay.”
Detouring around the recumbent sheepdog, Mackenzie brought two filled goblets to the cooking island. “What shall we drink to?”
Nick swirled the pale liquid, savoring its light, fruity bouquet. His glance caught hers.
Dammit, there it was again! That indecipherable look. The message she couldn’t quite interpret. Mackenzie’s breath hitched and that damned jittery sensation returned with a vengeance.
“How about our first dinner together?” he suggested.
How about their last!
She wasn’t a fool. Or dead from the neck down. She could recognize healthy, old-fashioned lust when it shivered through her. She just wasn’t ready to deal with it.
“To dinner,” she echoed faintly.
He clinked her glass softly, took a sip and turned back to the stove to stir a thick, creamy sauce.
Mackenzie blew out a slow breath. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that little blip on her internal radar screen. Sliding one hip onto a cane-backed stool, she eyed the slowly bubbling froth he was stirring.
“What’s that?”
“Béchamel.”
“And béchamel is?”
“A seafood-based white sauce used in a number of Mediterranean dishes. I seem to remember promising you the real thing a few weeks ago.”
He had, she remembered. Right after hand-delivering one of the countless pizzas she’d ordered while working late at the control center.
“Want a taste?”
Mackenzie studied the little blobs in the sauce with something less than enthusiasm. She wasn’t averse to trying new dishes. She merely preferred to have a general idea what they were first. Still, he had gone to all this trouble to cook for her. The least she could do was be gracious.
“Sure.”
Tearing off a crust of bread, Nick dipped it in the sauce. Mackenzie gave the lumps another doubtful look, but leaned forward to accept the offering.
The bread was warm and fragrant, the sauce a heavenly blend of cream, butter, garlic and shallots. The rubbery lumps took a bit of chewing, but their delicate fish taste wasn’t too bad. Not too bad at all.
“What do you think?”
“I think,” she announced, swiping her tongue along her lower lip, “I’m better off not knowing what I just ate.”
Laughter glinted in his eyes. “Coward.”
Her stomach did a little flip that had nothing to do with fishy blobs.
“You’ve got sauce on your chin.”
The glint in his eyes deepened. So did the timbre of his voice.
“I’ll get it.”
Before she could reach for the blue-and-white towel on the counter, he had it in hand and came around the end of the counter. She swiveled toward him, her back to the tiles, her knees bumping his thigh. Curling a knuckle under her chin, he tilted her face to his.
The gentle swipe of the dish towel raised goose bumps on Mackenzie’s skin. The brush of Nick’s firm, warm hand against her chin left her fighting to remember all the reasons why she’d decided not to jump his bones.
He was so close Mackenzie could see the gold tips to his lashes. So near she could feel his breath warm on her face. Her heart hammered. Her lips parted.
His thumb traced a slow circle on the side of her chin. The light, lazy touch set every one of her nerves to jumping. She knew she had to pull back, laugh off this crazy moment, or she’d do something monumentally stupid. Like flinging her arms around the man’s neck and attacking the mouth so tantalizingly close to her own.
“Nick…”
“Mmm?”
“I, uh, don’t think…”
“What?”
“This isn’t…”
Radizwell gave a low growl. The rumble barely penetrated Mackenzie’s whirling senses but Nick lifted his head and glanced over her shoulder. The next instant, he threw the dish towel aside and wrapped his right fist around her upper arm like a vise.
“Hey!”
“Get down!”
With a violent tug, he yanked her off the bar stool and threw her behind the counter. He followed her down. They hit the tiles a mere second before the wall of windows overlooking the garden exploded in a burst of glass and gunfire.
Bullets ripped into walls, cabinets, appliances. Raked the table, shattering dishes. Slammed into the stove. Sent boiling white sauce spraying.
Crushed against the floor tile by Nick’s weight, Mackenzie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The stuttering gunfire seemed to go on for two lifetimes. Burst after burst. Deafening. Terrifying.
Suddenly, there was silence. Blessed silence. For a heartbeat, maybe two. Then glass crunched and she heard the thud of running feet.
Nick rolled off her, sprang up. Mackenzie scrabbled onto her knees, trying frantically to get her feet under her. She lifted her head just in time to see Nick’s arm whip forward. A long-bladed kitchen knife flew across the room.
She heard an agonized scream. Another burst of gunfire. A feral snarl. Fangs bared, Radizwell streaked past her.
“Arrrgh!”
Bullets plowed into the ceiling, traced a wild pattern across plaster. Huge chunks rained down.
Nick leaped over the counter. Mackenzie raced around it a second later, horrified by the sight of Radizwell savaging a screaming, writhing figure dressed all in black. She was even more horrified when she saw the bastard still gripped his Uzi with one hand. He kept firing wild bursts while he tried desperately to fight off the dog with his other arm.
All Mackenzie could think of, all that pierced her frantic thoughts, was that the girls were asleep upstairs. Right above them. The stream of bullets could penetrate the flooring, plow through their mattresses.
Nick must have had the same gripping fear. His foot swung in a savage arc. The Uzi went flying. Only then did he attempt to drag Radizwell off the screaming victim. He got a fist around the dog’s collar and heaved.
Radizwell reared back, but was only gathering his muscles for another attack. Fangs bared, claws scrabbling on the tiles, he lunged forward once more. His size and fury carried Nick with him. The man on the floor frantically crabbed backward, kicking at Nick, at the dog, managing to get free of both. His hand went to his underarm holster.
Mackenzie didn’t stop to think, didn’t calculate the odds. She dived for the Uzi, got her hands around the grip at the same instant the bastard in black leveled a .9mm Beretta.
He pumped out one shot, only one, before she fired.
Chapter 3
The D.C. fire department, the police department’s crime scene unit, several detectives and a squad from the coroner’s office were already at the house when Maggie and Adam rushed in. Face ashen, Maggie took in the black plastic body bags on the kitchen floor. Her eyes were haunted as they locked on Nick.
“Samantha? Jilly? You said on the phone…” Her voice cracked, broke. “They’re okay?”
“They’re fine.”
Nick’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he crossed the kitchen and gripped both her hands in his.
“They were in bed, asleep. Jilly didn’t wake up until she heard the sirens. Samantha stayed down for the entire count.”
“A police officer is upstairs with them now,” Mackenzie put in. “We figured we’d better have someone keep them company until, well…”
She glanced at Adam. His jaw was set, his blue eyes arctic. He didn’t exude the charm of a handsome, wealthy Boston aristocrat now. He was Thunder, once OMEGA’s most skilled, dangerous agent.
“Until we figure out who was behind the attack,” Adam finished in a voice so soft and lethal it sent shivers down Mackenzie’s spine.
The idea that her children might need guarding in their own home drained the little color remaining in Maggie’s cheeks.
“I have to see them,” she got out. “Make sure they’re okay.”
Adam went upstairs with her. When they came back downstairs a short time later, Maggie’s face reflected the same savage determination as her husband’s.
“What have we got so far?”
“Two corpses,” Nick replied succinctly. “No identification on either. A near arsenal of weapons, all of which appear to have been stolen. A very sophisticated, very expensive electronic security bypass device. If Radizwell hadn’t heard them outside in the garden and given us a half-second warning…”
At the sound of his name, the sheepdog’s tail thumped the floor. Adam reached down to scratch behind his ear.
“You’ve just earned yourself a year’s worth of T-bones, pal. And free run of the house for the rest of your life.”
“Jilly will be happy to hear that,” Mackenzie said with her first smile since the bullets had started flying. Only now was the knot at the base of her skull beginning to loosen.
It kinked up again when the squad from the coroner’s office lifted the two corpses onto gurneys and wheeled them out. The carving knife that had gone through the throat of one of the gunmen tented his plastic body bag at neck level.
Adam’s glance sliced to Nick. “Your handiwork?”
“Yes. Mackenzie got the second bastard.”
“Good work, Mac.”
She accepted quiet words of praise with a small nod. She wasn’t one of OMEGA’s highly skilled field operatives, but she’d gone through enough training to hold her own in a tight situation. Hopefully, she’d never find herself in one this tight again!
“Mr. Ridgeway? Dr. Sinclair?”
Maggie and Adam turned to the two detectives, who introduced themselves and produced their credentials. The older and the paunchier of the two addressed Adam.
“I understand you were supposed to receive an award tonight.”
“That’s correct.”
“Was the award publicized?”
“There was mention of it in most of the papers.”
“And on local TV stations,” Maggie added.
The younger detective jotted the information down in his notebook.
“Are you assuming the gunmen knew my wife and I weren’t home?” Adam asked, eyes narrowed.
“We’re not assuming anything right now. Just getting the facts.”
Adam shared a glance with his wife. Mackenzie could see they were beginning to work through the possibilities she and Nick had been discussing since their hearts stopped pumping pure adrenaline and their brains reengaged.
If the attack was specifically timed for after Adam and Maggie left, the gunmen might have been intending to take the girls for ransom. Or exact vengeance against Maggie and/or Adam by destroying their home and family. God knew, both Chameleon and Thunder had taken down their share of scum in their days with OMEGA. Any one of those bastards could have been seeking retribution.
Then again, their target might not have been the girls at all. The gunmen might have been after Nick. Or Mackenzie.
The idea made her swallow. Hard.
She knew they wouldn’t narrow the possibilities until the coroner autopsied the bodies, the police followed up on every lead and OMEGA put its vast resources to work. Mackenzie suspected she had access to more databases than every city, state and Federal agency combined. She’d soon know if either of the scum who burst in tonight with guns blazing had been fingerprinted, DNA tested, given blood or peed into a cup any time in the past twenty years.
They hadn’t.
At least not that Mackenzie could determine. Once she received the autopsy results and crime scene analysis, she spent two frustrating days cross-matching the information with medical, dental and Red Cross databanks. At the same time, she followed convoluted trails to determine the source of both the gunmen’s weapons and clothing.
The first solid break came not from bodily fluids, fiber content or serial numbers, but from the trash littering the back seat of a nondescript gray sedan found abandoned a block or so from Maggie and Adam’s house. The vehicle had been reported stolen weeks ago in Atlanta. The license plates were also hot. But the back seat yielded a veritable treasure trove.
By running the list of fast-food containers and crumpled coffee cups through her computers, Mackenzie was able to plot all franchises selling those products within a fifty-mile radius of D.C. She then suggested the detectives handling the case e-mail pictures of the gunmen to the managers of each franchise. Within twenty-four hours from the time the car was found, they’d established a pattern that centered on Nick.
The gunmen had purchased donuts at a Krispy Kreme three blocks from his house. Bought chili dogs from a vendor located across the street from his pricey restaurant in Chevy Chase. Downed cup after cup of coffee from a Starbucks on Massachusetts Avenue, just around the corner from the Offices of the Special Envoy.
“According to one of the waitresses at this Starbucks,” Mackenzie told Nick in a voice laced with satisfaction, “they made a call on the pay phone located on the premises the morning of the attack.”
Plunking down a list, she hitched a hip on the corner of his desk. She hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning. She rarely did. But the way Nick’s glance shifted when she crossed her legs made her wonder why the heck she’d opted for a white blouse and a slim black skirt with a slit on one side instead of her usual slacks.
Ha! Who was she kidding? She knew why. That damned almost-kiss.
To her consternation, Mackenzie had relived those absurd moments just before the gunmen struck too many times for her own comfort the past few days. Just thinking about the way Nick’s mouth had hovered over hers got her all flustered. And irritated.
Particularly since Nick hadn’t appeared to have spared those breathless moments a second thought. Like Mackenzie, he’d devoted every hour not taken up with his social obligations as special envoy and his duties as OMEGA director to discovering who was behind the attack. She didn’t know how he could work such long hours, juggling so many roles, and look like he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ. Not even Ace’s secure satellite transmission from Saudi a while ago, reporting another dead end on the oil refinery sabotage, had ruffled his composure.
Nor should Mackenzie let him ruffle hers. This was Lightning, for pity’s sake! Her boss. The man she’d sensed could be trouble since her first day at OMEGA. If she had half a brain in her head, she’d go hard astern and put plenty of blue water between them before she made a fool of herself. Again!
Frowning, Mackenzie uncrossed her legs and gave him a rundown on the list. “These are all calls made from the Starbucks the day of the attack. I’ve crossed through the numbers that check to friends or relatives of employees. The rest appear to be calls to doctors’ offices, dry cleaners and the like. All except this one. Europol’s running it now.”
Nick eyed the number. He didn’t need the European Police Office’s aid to identify the country code. It was as familiar to him as his own name.
“The south of France,” he murmured. “From the area designation, I’d say the call was made to the Riviera.”
“You nailed it. It went to a phone booth in the city of Nice, to be exact.”
Images of an azure sea lapping a broad boardwalk and a flower market filled with riotous color flashed into Nick’s mind. He’d only visited Nice a few times. He’d always found the pickings in Cannes to be more than sufficient for his needs.
“It’s beginning to look like someone in Nice wants you dead,” Mackenzie commented, studying his face intently. “Any idea who?”
“No, but I certainly intend to find out. Ask Mrs. Wells to come in on your way out, please. I’ll get her working on travel arrangements, then come upstairs and brief you on the operations I want you to track while I’m gone.”
The vertical line between Mackenzie’s brows deepened. Not two seconds ago, she’d made up her mind to put some blue water between her and Nick. Not, however, an entire ocean. And not when it came to finding out why those bastards had opened fire on her.
“You’re not thinking about jetting off to France without me, are you?”
“There’s no thinking about it.”
Leaning back in his chair, he smoothed a hand down his red-and-navy striped tie. His nails were neat and trimmed, Mackenzie noted, his wrist banded by a thin gold watch. For all his reputed wealth, Nick didn’t go for big or flashy. The memory of how those strong, sure fingers had grazed her chin deepened her frown into a near scowl. Or maybe it was how close their mouths had come to doing a little grazing of their own.
“You weren’t the only one shot at,” she pointed out. “I have a personal stake in finding out who hired those thugs, too.”
“The evidence seems to indicate I was the target.”
“Seems being the operative word.”
Pushing away from his desk, Mackenzie paced the plush Turkish carpet. She’d done a lot of thinking in the past twenty-four hours.
“I did a Mediterranean cruise with the Sixth Fleet during my navy days. We home-ported in Naples, and I took a couple of shore leaves up along the Italian Riviera. Never got to Nice, but it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from San Remo. Maybe I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. Maybe I listened in on some ship-to-ship communications I wasn’t supposed to hear. This could be about me, Nick, not you.”
“The surveillance pattern you established for the two gunmen says otherwise.”
“I think I should go with you.”
He shook his head. “I work alone. I always have. Besides, you’re not trained for field operations.”
“Tell that to the guy at the morgue.”
The swift comeback earned her a hard look. Mackenzie took it without a blink. Roles and missions had become something of a sore point between her and Nick since that operation in San Antonio some months back. She really couldn’t understand why he still got steamed over the fact that she’d snuggled up to the country club type who’d hired a hit man to kidnap and kill his wife. Helping take the sleazy contractor down had provided Mackenzie intense satisfaction. It was hard to accept being relegated to mere staff work again.
Which was where Nick seemed determined to keep her.
Rising with the fluid, pantherlike grace that characterized him, he rounded the desk. Mackenzie found herself trapped between a solid block of mahogany and one hundred eighty-plus pounds of lean muscle encased in a hand-tailored Brioni suit.
“One of the first rules of survival in the field is to avoid unnecessary distractions. And you, Comm, are in serious danger of becoming a distraction.”
Mackenzie waffled between feeling flattered and insulted for all of two seconds before deciding on insulted. She’d experienced plenty of sexism in the navy, some unintentional, some not. She hadn’t put up with it then. She wasn’t about to now. In her characteristic way, she laid the matter right on the line.
“If you’re referring to how close we came to a lip-lock the other night, we both know it wouldn’t have happened. Neither one of us is the type to indulge in an office affair.”
He cocked his head, measuring her through a screen of ridiculously sexy gold-tipped lashes. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.” She looked him square in the eye. “I’m sure. You’re a professional, Nick. You take your work very seriously. So do I. I could send one of my technicians over to work communications for you, but I prefer to go myself. Like you, I’ve got a score to settle with whoever hired those bastards. And we both know I’m the best in the business when it comes to comm.”
She was. Nick couldn’t argue that. In all his years with OMEGA, he’d never encountered anyone with anything close to this woman’s uncanny ability. She could coax a signal from a dead satellite or milk data from supposedly secure, protected sources. He’d also spent enough years in the field to know how vital good comm was. You never knew when you might need an alternate escape route or an emergency on-scene extraction.
But his gut still kinked whenever he remembered how close Mackenzie had come to taking a bullet the other night. Everything in him shied away from the idea of putting her in the line of fire again.
For the first time since taking over as OMEGA’s acting director he understood how Adam Ridgeway must have felt whenever Maggie went into the field. Sending men and women you considered your friends into harm’s way was gut-clenching enough. Sending the stubborn, irritating female who’d somehow managed to get under his skin was infinitely worse.
The only plus that Nick could see to taking her to Nice with him was that he could keep an eye on her. They were both operating under the assumption that he was the target, but, as Mackenzie had pointed out, they hadn’t nailed that down yet. They wouldn’t until he worked out this French connection. Nick couldn’t discount the possibility that she’d been the intended victim, that someone who knew her connection to OMEGA wanted to eliminate her. Or, as she’d suggested, maybe the attack stemmed from her days in the navy.
“All right. I’ll have Mrs. Wells reserve two seats on the Concorde, with connecting flights to Nice. We can leave early tomorrow morning and be there in time for dinner. In the meantime…”
His glance roamed her neat white blouse and slim skirt. They represented a significant departure from her usual jeans but wouldn’t hack it at one of the most exclusive resorts on the Côte d’Azur.
“Get the Field Dress unit to fix you up with a wardrobe. You’d better take several gowns, a couple of cocktail dresses, a selection of resort day-wear. And bikinis. You’ll only need the bottoms, of course.”
“Of course.”
Mackenzie didn’t bat an eye. She knew from her Mediterranean cruise that everyone went topless on European beaches except prudish, self-conscious American tourists. No way she was going to admit she’d fallen smack into the prude category.
“We’ll stay at the Negresco,” Nick told her. “The owner has put out tentative feelers about the possibility of opening a Nick’s at the hotel. That will give me the perfect cover for a visit.”
“What about my cover?”
He made a show of shooting his snowy cuffs and Mackenzie guessed immediately what was coming. The man had a tabloid reputation to live up to, after all.
“The best cover is always the simplest. When asked, we’ll merely introduce you as my companion.”
“Define companion.”
“Friend. Mistress. Lover.”
“I don’t think so,” Mackenzie drawled. “Let’s go with business associate.”
For the first time since the attack, real amusement flickered in Nick’s eyes. “Do you really think the French will make any distinction between the two?”
“The French might not, but we will.”
With that firm pronouncement, Mackenzie left his office and plunged into her own preparations for the mission. Her first stop was the control center, where she had the communications tech on duty call in the rest of her crew. While waiting for them to arrive, she zapped out a few queries and began compiling a complete social, economic and geopolitical history of the French Riviera in general and the city of Nice in particular.
That done, she zipped down to the basement and consulted the magicians in Field Dress Unit. Field Dress had more experience outfitting OMEGA’s agents with Kevlar body armor, jungle fatigues and the latest in Arctic survival gear than designer originals. But as soon as Mackenzie explained her needs, the frizzy-haired genius who headed the unit sent his team to scour Washington’s most elite boutiques.
Within hours they’d decked Mackenzie out in sinfully decadent silk lingerie, the latest fall lines from Versace and Armani, shoes by Ferragamo, and handbags from Prada and Chanel. As Nick’s “associate,” she had to exude at least a degree of the same wealth and sophistication he did.
If an entire new wardrobe wasn’t enough to make her feel like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality II, the haughty, self-important genius Field Dress brought in to tame her shoulder-length mane would have done the trick. As Mackenzie explained to the stylist, she usually just twisted the mink-brown mass at the back of her head, anchored it with a plastic clip, and went about her business.
“Obviously,” the artist sniffed.
When finally released from Field Dress, a gelled, manicured and pedicured Mackenzie escaped to control center. Her communications technicians greeted her with a barrage of grins and wolf whistles.
“Whoooo-weee!” the oldest of the group exclaimed. “That’s some new look, boss.”
Mackenzie tossed her head, flipping a glossy swirl over one shoulder, and returned John’s grin.
“Like it?”
“What’s not to like?”
She’d worked with the happily married father of four long enough now to accept the compliment as intended.
“You may change your mind when you realize we have to stuff a suitcase load of electronics into this little number,” she told him, dangling her Prada handbag by its strap.
Her group of experts instantly focused on the envelope-size bag. There was nothing they loved more than a challenge like this one.
“Good thing we’ve acquired those new, miniaturized circuit boards,” John murmured. “What are you thinking you’ll need, chief?”
Mackenzie had worked the list in her mind while Field Dress attacked her body. She had no idea what she and Lightning might run into in France, but she intended to be prepared for just about anything.
“I want secure satellite voice transmitters for both me and Lightning, NAVSAT directional finders, biochemical sensors, a sound amplifier that will let me listen to conversations up to fifty meters away and the sharpest high-resolution surveillance cameras in our inventory. Plus the new Taser we’ve been testing.”
John gave another whistle. The Taser was the latest CIA version of a stun gun. No larger than an ordinary ballpoint pen, it packed a powerful punch. A quarter-second contact caused instantaneous muscle contraction. One to two seconds short-circuited an attacker’s neuro-centers and brought him down. Three would leave him staring at the ceiling in a daze.
Given that an agent’s life could well depend on the equipment he or she took into the field, Mackenzie and her people thoroughly tested every de vice they added to their electronic grab bag. She and John had both endured only a half-second zap. That was more than enough to convince both of them of the effectiveness of this particular device.
“Hope you don’t have to use that baby in an operational mode,” John commented, remembering how he’d snarled like a bear with a sore paw for days after the test.
“Not to worry,” Mackenzie returned with a shrug. “I’ll save it for the bad guys.”
Chapter 4
Mackenzie and Nick left for the Riviera early the next morning. She’d never flown aboard the Concorde before and firmly squelched memories of its horrible crash outside Paris some years ago. The sleek, needle-nosed jet represented the ultimate in luxury and speed. A three-and-a-half hour transatlantic flight took them into Paris, where a short connecting flight ferried them to the south of France.
Given the five-hour time difference, Mackenzie and Nick stepped out of the Nice airport into a late afternoon drenched with the scent of honeysuckle and bougainvillea. She pushed her Chanel sun glasses up the top of her head and breathed in the perfumed air. With it came a pungent tang that mariners the world over immediately recognized.
The sea was close, so close she could almost taste its salt. She was still savoring the familiar scent when Nick slid a hand under her arm and guided her toward the mile-long limo idling at the curb. Its short, stocky uniformed chauffeur jumped to attention at their approach.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Jensen. I am Jean-Claude Broussard, your driver. Welcome to Nice.”
“Merci. Je suis très heureux d’être de retour.”
The reply earned Nick a look of respect from the chauffeur and a curious glance from Mackenzie. She knew Lightning had been born somewhere in France, but that’s all she or anyone else at OMEGA knew about his life before he was adopted by Paige and Doc Jensen and brought to the States. He’d grown up in California, graduated from Stanford and joined OMEGA not long after a tour in the military. In all the time Mackenzie had worked with him, he’d never used any gestures or slang that would mark him as anything but American.
Yet she’d sensed the change in him almost from the moment the Concorde had touched down in Paris. He seemed more casual, yet somehow more cosmopolitan. As if he were changing his spots to suit his environment. A leopard blending into the dry, brown African veld.
Only this veld wasn’t dry or brown. As the limo rolled out of the airport and sped past the more industrial areas, a landscape filled with brilliant color began to unfold. Red-tile-roofed villas stair-stepped down sheer cliffs. Palm trees waved lacy fronds against the early evening sky. Orange and pink and purple blossoms climbed walls, spilled from flower boxes, twined along wrought iron balconies.
And the Mediterranean! She’d forgotten how beautiful—and changeable—it was. At its deepest, the waters were a dark, unfathomable navy. Here, closer to land, waves of alternating shades of turquoise, lapis and aquamarine teased the shore. Sighing at the sight, Mackenzie used the drive in from the airport to reset her mental clock and run through the data she’d pulled up about Nice.
Native Ligurians had occupied the steep hills above the sea for thousands of years before conquering Greeks established the “modern” city of Nikaia on the site. The Romans followed the Greeks, constructing a forum, extensive baths and an amphitheater. In medieval times, rival armies from Provence, Tuscany, Savoy and Turkey all battled over the city at various times, until the French finally took permanent possession.
The next invasion occurred during the Belle Epoque of the late 1800s, when Nice became a fashionable winter retreat for aristocrats from all over Europe. Queen Victoria visited regularly. So did the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. The onion-shaped domes of the cathedral they’d built in honor of their oldest son, who died suddenly of an illness while vacationing in Nice, were just visible over the sea of red-tiled roofs.
Along with the rich and titled came the artists and actors. Matisse lived and painted here until his death in 1954. Picasso, Dali, Chagall were all seduced by the dazzling light and shimmering colors of the coast. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda held court at their favorite table in the Negresco. Rudolph Valentino, Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, and Gary Cooper, to name just a few, strolled the Promenade des Anglais, named for the English visitors whose wealth brought such prosperity to the little seaside resort.
Nice was just as popular today as it had been at the turn of the century. With neighboring Cannes only a few miles to the east and the principality of Monaco just around the bay to the west, new royalty in the form of rock stars and sports figures now patronized its very exclusive and very expensive boutiques.
No computer-generated report could prepare Mackenzie for the actual impact of the famous resort, however. Lowering the shaded window, she gawked like any tourist as the limo swept down the Promenade des Anglais. Hotels and palaces bordered one side of the broad, palm-lined thoroughfare, the Mediterranean the other.
This was the famous boulevard where aristocrats once paraded beneath straw boaters and lacy parasols. Where the eccentric American dancer, Isadora Duncan, choked to death in 1927, when her long scarf caught under the wheel of her automobile as it sped along the promenade. Where lovers of all ages still strolled hand in hand.
The sun worshippers were out in full force on the pebbled beaches, soaking up the slanting rays in blue-painted wooden beach chairs. A good many of the women, Mackenzie noted, had opted for bottomless as well as topless. Heads tipped back, legs outstretched, hands clasped over their bare middles, they indulged in the serious business of doing nothing.
Sunbathers weren’t the only ones enjoying the golden glow cast over the sea. Yachts and cabin cruisers of every size bobbed in the exclusive marinas sprinkled along the promenade. Bikini-clad nymphs and paunchy boat owners in Zorba the Greek hats lounged on the aft decks, sipping aperitifs. Larger craft drifted at the ends of their anchor chains farther out on the bay.
Halfway down the Promenade des Anglais the marble statue of a large woman in what looked like peasant dress sat perched atop a tall column. Leaning forward, Mackenzie squinted up at the curious figure.
“Who’s that?” she asked the driver through the Plexiglas divider.
“Ahhh, that one.” Jean-Claude kissed his fingertips to the statue. “She is the patron saint of our city. A laundress who saves Nice from the Turks many, many years ago.” He grinned at his passengers via the rearview mirror. “She is fat, no?”
“Well…”
“And ugly. So very ugly.”
Mackenzie had to admit the woman wouldn’t win any beauty contests. With her fleshy jowls, overlapping chins and great, humped nose, she scared off even the pigeons. Jean-Claude seemed to take great pride in her repulsiveness.
“When the Turks come,” he explained, “this laundress climbs to the city wall. She bends over, lifts her skirt, and wiggles her so fat, so bare…Uh… How do you say…?”
“Derriere,” Nick supplied dryly.
“Mais oui! Her derriere. The Turks, they take one look and retreat immediately. The laundress, she becomes our patron saint.”
Laughing, Mackenzie snuggled back against the leather. She wasn’t sure whether to believe the outrageous tale, but the idea that the citizens of Nice would erect a monument to the woman who mooned an invading army gave her a whole different perspective on the city and its people. The Niçois, it appeared, had a lively sense of humor.
She was still chuckling as the limo glided to a stop at their hotel. When the driver handed her out, she couldn’t hold back a gasp at its turn-of-the-century splendor.
“C’est magnifique, oui?” Jean-Claude asked, beaming with proprietary pride.
“And then some.”
A monstrous copper-topped dome crowned the hotel’s corner entrance. Elaborate mansards decorated the wings that swept out to either side. The gleaming white marble structure had to take up a full city block! The interior beckoned through revolving brass-and-glass doors, as plush and Victorian as the exterior.
Leaving the chauffeur and bellman to attend to the luggage, Nick slid a hand under Mackenzie’s elbow and escorted her inside. His touch was light and just casual enough to raise little goose bumps all up and down her arm.
For Pete’s sake! She had to get a grip here.
She was the one who’d argued her way into this mission. She’d insisted the little interlude between her and Nick a few nights ago didn’t mean anything, that they were both professional enough to separate business from pleasure. Still, she couldn’t help remembering his cynical remark that the French didn’t differentiate between the business as sociate and the mistress of a virile and very wealthy executive. As if to prove his point, the hotel manager gave her an admiring once-over before turning to Nick with a look that conveyed approval, deference and just a touch of envy.
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