Zach shrugged. “Thorn, I’d bet. He’s got the authority to ship stuff out of there. Who’s to know the destination isn’t what it should be? This country sends arms overseas all the time.”
“Wouldn’t Meditron’s quota come up short?” Raven asked.
Zach gestured disgustedly toward the computer. “You read that. Thorn’s been shaving the quota for months; he reports machine breakdowns and design problems. He could have a huge stockpile by now, and he probably does since it looks like he’s getting ready to sell the stuff and get out.”
“Then we don’t have much time,” Raven said.
“Less than you think,” Lucas said quietly. “My friend told me something else. Our renegade major has sweetened the pot. Along with the more conventional weapons, he’s offering a nuclear missile—with the warhead intact.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Raven said softly, “Dammit, I’ll bet that’s why Mallory’s keeping quiet if he isn’t in on this. Thorn must have threatened to use the missile.”
“That makes the timing more critical.” Josh looked at his wife and friends for a moment. “Zach was right. We can’t all go down there.”
“Teddy stays here,” the big man said definitely.
“Want to bet?”
They all turned to look toward the doorway of the computer room, where Zach’s small redheaded wife leaned casually.
“You stay here,” Zach told her in a voice that would have vanquished most armies.
Teddy smiled at him gently, an understanding smile that did nothing to dim the laughing triumph in her brown eyes. “I got the floor plan,” she said serenely.
Josh lit a cigarette, focusing all his attention on the matter. Raven studied her fingernails intently. Lucas gazed thoughtfully at his shoes while whistling softly under his breath.
“Where the hell did you get it?” Zach demanded.
Her eyes danced. “Think I haven’t been paying attention to how you commandos work? I spoke to a friend of a friend, and then I called in a few favors.”
“Then you’ll give it to me,” Zach told his wife firmly.
“If I did that,” Teddy said reasonably, “you’d refuse to let me come along. Besides, it’s in my head, and I think I’m going to have a hard time remembering it until I actually see Meditron with my own eyes.”
“This is serious, Teddy,” he said very softly.
Equally softly, she said, “I know it is. Another jungle. And you’re not going into it without me.”
Judging that the time was right, Josh said briskly, “Luc, you know General Ramsey, right?”
“Yeah. Kyle knows him too. Want us to run interference?”
“We’ll need it; try to keep him from throwing a battalion at Meditron before we have a chance to get in there quietly. And we may need a favor or two from the good general.”
“You’ve got it,” Luc said.
“Hagen needs to know,” Raven noted reluctantly.
Josh nodded. “We’ll let Rafferty and Sarah beard that lion, and keep him busy long enough to give us some time.”
Zach was still gazing steadily across the room at his wife. “The rest of us head south?”
“The rest of us head south, first thing in the morning,” Josh confirmed. He glanced at Zach, then took Raven’s hand and gestured to Luc; the three of them left the room.
Teddy crossed the room until she stood before her husband. “You knew I would,” she said gently.
“Dammit, Teddy!”
She didn’t resist when he pulled her down into his lap. And since there were always better things to do than fight …
Teddy loved storms.
“Why are we stopping?” Elizabeth glanced around at the location where Kelsey had chosen to park the car, puzzled to discover that they were in one of the worst areas of Charleston.
He was intently studying a small group of men several yards away on a street corner and answered absently, “Those guys are ex-military. They may know something.”
“Military? How can you tell? And—are you saying the military is involved at Meditron?”
He looked at her, his eyes still abstracted, then smiled. “I can tell because they have the look: bits and pieces of uniforms and a certain way of moving. And, yes, we think the military might be involved. My partner talked to a lady who saw a couple of soldiers at Meditron.”
She absorbed that, then asked, “Even so, how could those men know anything? Pinnacle is miles away—”
“If the military is at Meditron, they’re being quiet about it. Given that, I’d expect the personnel to spend their off-hours in the nearest city of any size. And that’s Charleston. They wouldn’t be noticed here by civilians, but other military or ex-military personnel would probably spot them. We’ll see.”
Elizabeth looked at him, rather unnervingly formal in his dark suit, and asked uncertainly, “Will they talk to you?”
Kelsey’s eyes flickered, then he smiled again. “Why don’t I go find out?”
But he didn’t get out of the car for a moment. First, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it into the back seat. His tie quickly went the same way. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled the sleeves up to show bronze forearms, loosened the tail of the shirt at his waist to give a baggy appearance, and then unfastened several buttons at his throat.
It took Elizabeth a moment to realize what he was doing, and it fascinated her. The only comment she made, however, was when she saw a flash of silver at his throat. “Dog tags? Were you in the army?”
“No.” His tone was absent, and he quickly ran fingers through his thick hair to make it curiously disarranged. “Wait here, all right?”
“All right.” Elizabeth watched him leave the car, her eyes widening unconsciously. And in that instant, she understood why Kelsey had been an agent so long and why it was so difficult for her to bring him into view.
Within three strides he had subtly altered his entire way of moving. There was a guarded slouch to his shoulders, and he walked with the careful, graceful stride of a man who had made it a habit not to be heard. There was something taut about his body, something leashed—and something that was very definitely lethal. Despite his snowy shirt and neat pants, by the time he reached the men he looked like one of them.
He was one of them.
Elizabeth rolled down her window and strained to hear, somehow unsurprised to find that Kelsey had fallen into the rough, coarse jargon of the streets. His tone was arrogant, his voice hard and harsh. His guarded posture eased a bit as the men responded to him almost instantly, and there was suddenly an atmosphere of camaraderie among all the men.
Utterly fascinated, Elizabeth watched and listened for nearly an hour. She realized that the men had recognized a kindred spirit in Kelsey, a man who had walked the same jungles and felt the same pain as they had—if not with them, then before or after them. Like a skilled actor, he had submerged himself in a role, and the result was so totally right that these men trusted implicitly that he was one of them.
She began to understand him then.
SIX
WHEN KELSEY RETURNED to the car, there was a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. He started the car and drove away, absently rolling his sleeves back down. “Well, now. I think we’re getting somewhere.”
“What did they tell you?” She was gazing at him intently, realizing that he had thrown off the role the instant it was no longer needed. He was relaxed again, his posture straighter but somehow looser, his face tranquil.
In a brisk tone, Kelsey said, “For years now, there have been soldiers billeted on the army base here, but they don’t work on the base. They work outside Charleston, in three shifts. All of them are single men, all career army, and a good half of them officers with scientific or technical backgrounds. None of the officers at the base are talking about it at all, but the grunts think weapons are being manufactured in a big way somewhere nearby.”
“Grunts?” She thought she knew, but wanted to hear his ex
planation.
Kelsey grimaced faintly. “Sorry; it’s hard to lose the jargon. A grunt is your garden-variety soldier or non-commissioned officer. A sergeant or below in rank. Got it?”
“Got it.” Elizabeth forced herself to concentrate on something other than Kelsey, something equally important—at least until Jo was safe. But she was so fascinated by him. “Then they may be manufacturing arms at Meditron?”
“It’s a good bet.”
“Legally?”
Kelsey shrugged. “I imagine the military made a deal with Mallory. Everything aboveboard, legal if not exactly ethical since the town of Pinnacle apparently isn’t aware of it. It’s possible they’re making something more chancy than conventional weapons, but, if so, I’d expect them to be making conventional weapons as well—probably rifles and handguns. Maybe one or two bigger guns; Meditron just isn’t large enough for much more. If they’re doing anything experimental, it has to be on a limited scale; security out there wasn’t entirely military until a few weeks ago, and if they were screwing around with some of the exotic stuff, it would have been military all the way. If it was authorized, that is. It’s obvious the military set up their little show years ago, so I believe it was intended for conventional weapons production. And everything went fine for a few years. But, recently, something went wrong.”
“What was it?”
Frowning a little, Kelsey said, “If I had to guess—and I do—I’d say somebody decided to go into business for himself. Guns are a very hot-selling item these days, and a man with the authority to ship them could make himself a fortune rather quickly. Those guys back there told me they thought a major was in charge of the off-base contingent; they’ve seen him, and they read him as being dangerous.”
“Would they know that?”
“Sure. When you’re in the army long enough, you learn to recognize a good commander. Soldiers almost always know. And the military has its rotten apples, just like any other large organization.”
Elizabeth was silent for a moment, then said, “Does that mean some army major is holding Jo? But, what reason would he have? Why would he do such a thing?”
“I don’t know why he picked her, but I have to believe he needed some insurance. If Blaine Mallory realized recently that something was wrong and had decided to report the matter to whomever was responsible for setting up the operation, the major may have thought a hostage would stop that, or at least give him some breathing room. What bothers me now …”
“Is what?”
Kelsey sighed roughly. “Hell, Mallory has the county cops in his pocket, and they outnumber the security at Meditron. Even if he didn’t want to risk alerting the military brass, he could have his boys surround Meditron and force the major to give up his hostage or face the kind of attention he can’t want. There must be something else, some other threat keeping Mallory quiet. If there’s some exotic stuff being produced out there, and if the major threatened to use it somehow—”
“You don’t think Blaine would be quiet just for Jo?”
“At first, maybe. Until he had time to think. He has a reputation for being highly intelligent; once he calmed down, he’d think it through. And it’s reasonable to decide that in this particular situation Jo’s best chance lay in as many people as possible knowing she’s being held. So why didn’t he sit tight and just blow the whistle? Granted, the military hates to wash its dirty laundry in public, but there are half a dozen bases in this general area, and they’d move fast to stop one of their own who’d gone bad.”
“Maybe he didn’t have any proof? How could he? Just his word and Jo missing.”
“That wouldn’t matter. In a situation like this, the military brass would be suspicious as hell, and they’d want answers fast. At the very least, they’d send …”
Elizabeth waited for a moment, then said, “Send what?”
Slowly, Kelsey smiled, and his eyes were suddenly very bright. “They’d send somebody to Meditron to check it out. I need to talk to Mallory.”
They remained in Charleston for a while, however, since Elizabeth called Blaine Mallory and discovered he was “out of town” for the weekend. The information bothered Kelsey, but it was something beyond his control so he didn’t waste much time worrying about it.
He had taken his work as far as he was able for the time being, and even though his inner clock was ticking in a louder and faster rhythm now, warningly, he was grateful that there was time to be with Elizabeth and think about them almost exclusively. She seemed very thoughtful and quiet, gazing at him often with reflective eyes, and he had the unnerving feeling that he had done something he wasn’t entirely aware of doing. Something that was making her look at him in a new way. But she said nothing until they had finished lunch and were lingering over coffee in the restaurant.
“Where did you get the dog tags, Kelsey?”
He looked at her across the table, glad that his smooth tip to the headwaiter had produced this secluded table. He always found it difficult to take his eyes off her, but when they were alone it was even harder. And she was so lovely, dressed in a simple white blouse and dark blue skirt, her hair up. So lovely it broke his heart.
“Kelsey?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. The dog tags? Oh, I’ve had them for years. Props, you might say. They come in handy sometimes.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “And you just happened to bring them along on this job?”
Kelsey felt a little uneasy, and wasn’t sure if it was his professional or his personal instincts warning him. Alarm bells were going off somewhere. “Well, yes. In an unknown situation, you never know what you might need.”
Very softly, she said, “Different every time you look. Like mercury. Like a cat. Or a chameleon.”
After a moment, he said, “Ah. My role playing back there.”
“It was amazing,” she told him. “You took off your jacket and tie, rolled up your sleeves—and you were an ex-soldier. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “You looked like one of them, spoke like them, moved like them. Within a matter of seconds, they believed you were one of them.”
“An agent’s stock-in-trade,” he said lightly, growing more uneasy. What had she seen? And why had that bit of role playing by him sparked this reflection and curiosity? If he was right in believing that his changeable nature had confused her, why would one more change apparently settle something for her? And what had been settled? He felt a tightness constrict his chest, and recognized the feeling as fear.
Elizabeth was shaking her head slowly. “Completely instinctive. No one taught you how to do that; it isn’t something you can teach. You didn’t think about it, didn’t plan. You simply became someone else.”
After a moment, with difficulty, he asked, “And that bothers you?”
She tilted her head a little to one side. “I … I don’t know. I think I understand you a little better now. But you’re like quicksilver, Kelsey. I see you, and yet you’re never the same as you were the last time. I think I’m afraid that …”
“What?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“That it’s more than roles. That you’ve learned to be elusive to keep others from getting too close. And if that’s what it is—”
He reached across the table and took her hand. “If that’s what it is,” he told her steadily, “then I’m trying to change it because of you. I’m not doing it deliberately, Elizabeth, please believe that. I’m not trying to shut you out. That’s the last thing I’d do willingly. I want to be close to you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
“But, can you?” she asked quietly. “I don’t know, Kelsey. You’ve spent almost half your life in a very dangerous business, and I’d guess you learned to adopt that protective coloration out of extreme need.” She paused, then finished softly, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but it doesn’t make a difference to me. If you can’t let me get close, if you decide you just can’t be a part of my tame life, I’ll understand.” r />
Tightly, he said, “I told you—I don’t want a victim.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I’m not a victim. Haven’t you realized it yet, Kelsey? I’m in love with you.”
He could feel his heart stop and then begin hammering somewhere in his throat, and swallowed hard before he could speak, aware again of something moving slowly, shuddering, inside him. “What about everything you’ve been saying since we met? That there hasn’t been enough time?” His voice was rough.
“That was stupid of me, wasn’t it?” She was reflective. “I’ve never been in love before, you see. And I never expected it to happen so fast. But it has happened, Kelsey.” She gazed at him, her eyes incredibly gentle.
There was a tightness in his throat. He couldn’t swallow now, and couldn’t even begin to control the violent emotions tearing at him. Wild in passion, she was wondrously sweet and vulnerable in love, and he was desperately afraid that the violence in him would harm that. He was lost somewhere in her vivid eyes, realizing only then, in that moment, how lonely his autonomy had left him.
“I called home before I tried to get Blaine,” she told him. “The girls are spending the rest of today and tonight with friends. They’ll be in school tomorrow. The house is empty. Why don’t we go back there.”
He drew a deep breath, and his voice was strained when he forced words out. “Elizabeth … I want you so badly I can barely think straight, but I have to know that you know who’ll be in your bed.”
“I do know.” She smiled that incredibly tender and loving smile, her vivid eyes darkening. “A chameleon.”
“Dammit, I don’t—”
“Kelsey.” Just that, just his name, softly.
He swore, bitterly and under his breath. Then he made an economical gesture and a waiter appeared as if out of thin air with the check.
It was only sheer luck they didn’t get a speeding ticket.
Kelsey was driving with both eyes fixed steadfastly on the road before them, both hands on the wheel; he knew if he so much as glanced at Elizabeth, they’d never make it to the house. And when he spoke, his matter-of-fact words were belied by the hoarseness of his voice.