The Spy Who Loves Me
He’s taking their first date
to new heights….
“Do you want to fly her?” Finn asked.
She did, desperately. She hadn’t flown a plane since her last stint in an F-14. But that wasn’t the role she was playing. She shook her head. “I better not,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Nothing to it. It’s dual control. Your control stick is attached to mine, and I won’t let you do anything that would scare me.”
“Well, with an offer like that, how could I say no?”
She started to take control, then remembered that she was supposed to be clueless. “Um, so what do I do?”
“Just take a hold of the stick,” he said. “I know you can handle that.”
She grinned. “Right you are.”
“You want her to respond to the lightest of touch. Don’t force it. Just take it gentle.”
“We’re still talking about flying, right?”
“For now,” he said. “But hold that thought.”
Praise for bestselling author
Julie Kenner
and
Nobody But You
“Ever since Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man (1934) introduced detective Nick Charles and his wife, Nora, readers have craved crime tales where the snappy romantic repartee sets off more sparks than the gunshots. Kenner’s festive, fast-talking mystery satisfies that craving…. The protagonists’ sexy sparring infuses the narrative with wit and energy, as do their brushes with danger…. Kenner’s flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations could well make [her] wisecracking hunk and his deceptively ditsy client the Nick and Nora of the new millennium.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Oil and water have nothing on Jacey and Dave…. Kenner is on a roll!”
—Romantic Times
“Julie Kenner just might be the most enchanting author in today’s market.”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
More praise for
Julie Kenner!
“Julie Kenner does it again! Hilarious and amazing…Excellent reading!”
—Romantic Times
“Funny, witty, and unbelievably erotic.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Julie Kenner’s books [are] an autobuy for me.”
—All About Romance
“Marvelous antics and sparkling dialogue.”
—Cindy Penn, WordWeaving
“Just plain wonderful, a non-stop roller-coaster ride full of humor, emotion, action, and endearing characters.”
—Lauren Michaels, Heart Rate Reviews
“Julie Kenner’s imagination is to be applauded.”
—Road to Romance
“Deserves a place on any keeper’s shelf.”
—WordWeaving
Also by Julie Kenner
NOBODY BUT YOU
Available from Pocket Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Copyright © 2004 by Julie Kenner
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9392-5
ISBN-10: 0-7434-9392-3
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Acknowledgments
Once again, the Internet has proven to be my friend. It’s truly amazing what you can find out there in cyberspace (and just a little scary). More tangibly, I’d like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Ken Pruitt, for sharing his knowledge of helicopters, and Kate and Tom at Barnstorming Adventures Ltd., who so graciously provided me with information not only on the physical details of biplanes but on the joy that comes with flying in one. The help was much appreciated, and any errors or omissions are purely my own.
To some of the adventurous men I’ve known over the years: My dad, for actually letting me “fly” the plane at the ripe old age of ten; Rick Sullivan, who has had some amazing adventures lately; David Cohen, for sharing adventures in screenwriting (when are we going to sell that screenplay?); Steve Carver, for a lifetime of adventures; Sam Bernstein, for an assortment of memories and adventures in both New York and Los Angeles; and, of course, to Don, for all the adventures, including parenting—the biggest adventure of all.
Prologue
The tiny lightbulbs on the console winked, flickering like starlight in the dimly lit room. Drake allowed himself a tiny smile as the children’s tune danced through his mind—“When you wish upon a star…”
He’d wished all right. Wished and planned and plotted. Over two years of tracking down information, making alliances, paying off informants. All to ensure that his plan was absolutely foolproof. And soon it would all be over.
He paced in front of the console, his fingers folding the paper without conscious thought. Instead, all his attention was riveted to this one moment. A pivotal, almost sad moment. In fact, all that stood between him and a full-fledged bout of melancholy was the promise of revenge and several billion dollars wired to his Swiss bank account.
Oh, yes. Revenge was sweet. Even more so when it was profitable.
Diana moved closer, and he looked at his hands, realizing he’d crafted a swan. He gently placed it on the top of the console between the origami dragon and the nautilus shell, then he slid his arm around Diana’s waist and nuzzled her hair.
“Are we ready for a test run?” she asked, regarding him over the tortoiseshell glasses she wore when she worked. Right now, she was the consummate professional, her perfect body clad in a tailored suit he’d purchased for her during their last trip to Milan. The woman had a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and a libido to match his own. No wonder he loved her.
“We are,” he said, squeezing her hand. “What’s our target?”
She turned to face him, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t have something already picked out?”
He stroked her cheek. “Don’t be silly, my sweet. This moment is as much yours as mine.”
She kissed his fingertips, then turned back to the console, her face full of concentration.
He stayed silent, even though a dozen perfect test locations filled his head, any one of them satisfying in both impact and simplicity. No, he would wait and have the satisfaction of having picked the final demonstration target. That was a moment worth savoring. His very own big bang, all packaged up with a nice pretty bow and ready to cajole the highest bidder.
Dollar signs flashed in his eyes, and he pictured Diana in diamonds and silks, lounging on a yacht anchored off Bali. He wondered just how many billions he needed to keep them in style.
He smiled in anticipation. In a plot straight from the comic books of his youth, he intended to hijack one of the government’s top secret weapons. Oh, yes. Drake was going to fund his retirement with a great big laser beam from space.
“Something unobtrusive,” Diana was saying, apparently running through a mental catalog of test sites. “Like this.” She leaned forward and punched a few buttons on the console. The projection screen in front of them crackled to life, displaying a satellite photo of the western United States.
“I think taking out a state might be a bit more than we need for a test run,” Drake said.
She ca
st a sidelong look, but otherwise ignored him, punching buttons until the image zoomed in. She made a few minor adjustments, scanning the image while she focused and refocused until, finally, she honed in on a lone vehicle on an abandoned highway. “That,” she said. “It’s perfect.”
Indeed it was. Out of the way. Miles from any signs of life. And as an added bonus, it was an SUV. He hated the way the gas-guzzling vehicles wreaked havoc on the environment. He met her eyes. “You may fire when ready.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She laughed, then started to punch a set of numbers into the keypad. “Okay. That gives us our targeting data. Now all we need to do is take control of the satellite.”
As she moved efficiently down the console to another keypad, Drake fisted his hand. Moment of truth time. He’d taken a risk bringing in a partner. Now he’d find out if the risk had paid off.
Her eyes met his. He drew in a breath, then nodded.
She licked her lips, her finger poised above a flashing red button. “Once I take control, they’ll know. Do you want to show our hand so early? The demonstration is almost two weeks away. If they find a way to lock us out once we’re in—”
“My darling,” he said, raising her fingers to his lips, “you have so little faith.” He glanced at the digital clock mounted on the far wall. Their timing was perfect. “I assure you, our little experiment will go quite unnoticed.” He tapped the end of her nose. “Trust me. They’ll never know.”
She kissed him. “You say the sweetest things.” Their eyes met, then hers darted down to the console. She took a deep breath and pushed the button.
He picked up the swan, cupping it in his palm as his gaze shifted to the projection screen. Any second now the surgically precise beam of deadly light would shoot from space and atomize the car.
Any time now…
But there was nothing. Zip. Nyet. Jamais. Nada.
No surgically precise laser, no giant pulsing beam of light, not even a pathetic little fizzle and spurt. Just…nothing.
“Shit.” Diana’s voice, barely a whisper, reached his ears. “They changed the code.”
In front of her, the readout flashed red, the liquid crystal display mocking him—Access Denied. Access Denied.
The veins in his neck tightened, and he felt the thrum of adrenaline rushing through his body. Double-cross!
Diana turned to him, fear in her eyes. “Are we compromised?”
He ran the pad of his thumb over the swan’s perfectly formed head. “I don’t know.”
Resolutely, he pushed the doubt away. He needed to have a little talk with his so-called partner. That much was certain. But in the end, Drake would prevail. This was a setback, true, but he’d overcome challenges before. This was merely an obstacle, not a barrier. And in the end, his ultimate victory would be that much sweeter.
“Drake?” she prompted, her voice tentative.
“Two weeks,” he said. “We have two weeks to get that code.” He closed his fist, crushing the swan in his hand. “And I swear I’ll lobotomize anyone—anyone—who gets in my way.”
One
Almost two weeks later…
With a practiced hand, agent Phineus Teague—code-named Python—adjusted the bow tie of his midnight blue Briani tuxedo, aiming the miniature camera toward the statuesque blonde seated at the baccarat table on the far side of the casino. Static hissed in his ear, then, “We got picture. You’re good to go.”
Finn tipped his head, letting his partner know he’d copied the message. But he didn’t move. Not yet. The timing needed to be perfect. This mission was just too damn important.
“Le Grande,” said the croupier. “Madam wins.”
The woman nodded, her face impassive. She slid a hundred Euro chip across the table, a tip for the dealer. Then she stood, her shimmering evening gown clinging to her extravagant curves. At least he knew she was unarmed; there was no place to hide a gun under that dress.
As she gathered her chips, her gaze met his. Her lips curved into a seductive smile, but it was her eyes that caught Finn’s attention—ice blue and treacherous. Tatiana Nicasse. A double agent, only she’d gone bad. Very bad.
There was no hint of recognition in her eyes, just a pure, sexual heat. Good. He needed information, and he was happy to extract it by whatever means necessary.
He stepped away from the wall, moving toward her, ignoring the appreciative glances from the other women in the room. A waiter passed, and Finn took two flutes of champagne, holding one out to Tatiana. She took it, then held the glass up in a silent toast before taking a sip, her lipstick leaving an imprint on the glass.
“You know the way to a woman’s heart,” she said, her accent alluring.
Her gaze drifted down, then back up again, and his body fired in response. She might be the enemy, but he wasn’t dead. Far from it.
“What else do you know about women?” she asked, the invitation in her voice unmistakable.
“I think it’s fair to say I’m an expert.” He drifted closer, brushing his fingers over her bare shoulder and down her arm. The woman was pure danger, all wrapped up in a silky black dress.
“And modest, too.” She raised one delicately shaped eyebrow. “I like that in a man. Perhaps we can determine the extent of your expertise, no?”
She reached between her breasts, extracting a thin, gold-plated case. She clicked it open and pulled out a cigarette, clearly expecting him to light it. He didn’t disappoint, and her hand curved around his as he held the burning match. The tobacco glowed red, and she leaned back, exhaling toward the ceiling. “Merci, Mr….?”
“Teague,” he said. “Phineus Teague.”
Finn rubbed his palms vigorously over his face, pulling himself out of his fantasy and trying instead to concentrate on the pile of work stacked up on his kitchen table. It wasn’t easy. The work was deathly dull, the blonde across the courtyard so much more intriguing.
He didn’t know one damn thing about her, but in the single week he’d been watching her, she’d sparked his imagination. She rarely closed her curtains, and her patio door was right across from his kitchen window. Fair game. Especially since he enjoyed watching her move a hell of a lot more than he enjoyed answering interrogatories.
The woman was spectacular. Tall, like a model, but not stick thin and flat chested like so many of the magazines liked to hawk these days. The kind of woman a man could get his hands around.
He imagined she knew her appeal, too, and used it to her advantage. Probably smuggling something into the country, using her feminine wiles to bribe customs agents, kissing them with poisoned lipstick if other means didn’t prevail.
Not that he had any real reason to think that. From what he could tell, her life never veered from the normal. She worked out every night in a skintight black leotard, then popped a movie into the VCR. Every once in a while, she’d practice some kicks—like she thought she was Buffy or something. Once in a while she dressed up, and Finn could only assume she had a date. If so, she met him somewhere, because lover boy never came to her door.
Overall, pretty standard stuff. Compared to him, though, her life was a mile-a-minute thrill ride. His was a slow ride on a kiddie train.
Law school. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d fantasized about pacing a courtroom, a modern day Perry Mason, and winning the day for truth, justice, and all the rest of it. Not hardly. Instead he was pulling seventeen-hour days trapped in a tiny office researching bullshit procedural points, answering discovery, and summarizing depositions.
Damn it all, he should have just been a bartender.
When he was younger, he’d have simply packed his bags, moved to Florida, and worked a few weeks as a scuba instructor. Or headed up to Silicon Valley and signed on with a couple of his buddies to design computer games. Or set out cross-country in his car, stopping to flip burgers for minimum wage whenever his cash ran short. But none of those options appealed anymore. Or, more honestly, they appealed, but they just weren’t p
ractical.
He was thirty-seven years old, and it was time to buckle down and have a life. The trouble was, he still didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He frowned. That wasn’t exactly true. He knew. But it was too late to do anything about it now. He’d made a choice, and from what he could tell, he’d made the wrong one. But he was stuck, trapped by three years invested in a career he didn’t want, and thousands of dollars in student loans he needed to pay down. Until his weekly attempts to play the lottery paid off, he had no choice but to follow a paycheck. And that, frankly, was his own damn fault.
He snorted, disgusted with himself, and got up to inspect the contents of his refrigerator. Nothing except a bottle of Gatorade, a three-day-old burrito from Taco Bell, and a jar of dill pickles. Not exactly appetizing.
He grabbed his keys off the microwave, mentally debating between a full-blown grocery run and another trip to Taco Bell. Then he headed for the door, yanking it open with more force than he intended.
The woman on the walkway jumped, turning to press her back against the shrubbery that lined the sidewalk. “Oh!” she said. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” He stepped outside, squinting against the bright light of day. “Amy, right?”
“Amber,” she said. “Amber Robinson.” She was decked out in sweatpants and a T-shirt topped with a hooded jacket. A backpack hung casually from one shoulder. She wore no makeup, and her long brown hair was pulled back from her face, a few tendrils, damp with sweat, curling around her hairline.
She’d lived next door to him for five days now, and he’d never seen her in anything but baggy jeans or sweatpants, her hair always pulled into a ponytail, her face usually shadowed by a baseball cap. She could probably be pretty, but she didn’t seem like the type who cared.
“Going out?” she asked. Her voice held a sensual undertone that seemed out of place in such a laid-back woman. He wanted to say something clever, something that would provoke a response, just so he could hear those soft tones once again.