Читать книгу Prince Under Cover - Adrianne Lee - Страница 14

Javid blew out a taut breath and stepped from the dark interior of Finnigan’s Rainbow into the blinding afternoon on Michigan Avenue. Pretending to be Zahir was taking its toll. He hated lying, even necessary lying. Just now, he’d have sworn Miah knew, sworn she was going to expose him right there in the pub. He tugged sunglasses from his suit pocket and glanced around, but saw no sign of Redwing. This game of hide-and-seek he was constantly playing with that damn snoop was wearing thin.

Tomorrow. It would all be over tomorrow. Thank God. He’d survived more than one tight situation in recent days, but none that had left him this rattled…and that was her fault.

Heat sizzled off the sidewalk, several degrees cooler than the fire in his belly, a fire for a woman he didn’t want to want, a woman he wanted so badly he ached. He took long strides away from the pub, berating himself with every step, unable to abolish the image of her long luscious legs in that scrap of hot pink, her shapely feet in those high-heeled, mind-numbing sandals, the way that green top made her amber eyes shimmer like spun gold.

“Damn it all.” Miah Mohairbi was an assignment. The daughter of the devil himself. She was also a vixen. He’d never met a woman quite her equal, and he’d met a lot of women since he’d been old enough to pay attention to his hormones—women here and in the Middle East, women at Harvard during college, women around the globe at each stop on his worldwide travels as Anbar’s Goodwill Ambassador.

Miah was unique. Beautiful, yes, but she was so much more than that. She had a sharp mind, a wicked tongue, style and defiance. She could be hard one moment, tender the next. To his chagrin, he found the conflicting aspects of her personality endlessly intriguing. If only circumstances were different. If only she were not Sheik Khalaf Al-Sayed’s blood child.

Thank God this torment ended tomorrow. After that, he could guarantee Miah would hate him—once she discovered he’d been lying to her, posing as his twin; once he helped arrest the father she seemed to adore, once he exposed Al-Sayed to the world for the heartless bastard he was.

An odd tightness twisted his heart at the thought of breaking hers. He checked his watch, then glanced around for Redwing. That damn reporter had made him late, but he hadn’t dared risk being followed to the Langston Building. He’d ducked into Finnigan’s Rainbow to avoid him and had run smack into Miah. The memory of meeting her unexpectedly like that, of her dressed like that, threatened to distract him anew.

His beeper went off. He stepped out of foot traffic and into a shop doorway to view the readout. “They” were waiting for him. Keeping an eye out for Redwing, Javid walked past the Langston Building, then circled back, went inside and took the elevator to the penthouse. The automatic door slid open on Solutions, Inc., the fictitious corporation that fronted for Chicago Confidential, an elite division of the Federal Department of Public Safety.

The outer office smelled new, but had the ageless elegance of corporate lawyers’ suites—thick carpet, brocade waiting room chairs, cherry-wood receptionist desk, file cabinets and paneling. Picture windows framed the Chicago Harbor.

Liam Wallace, the building maintenance man, had one slender hip hitched on the edge of the desk, his head bent toward Kathy Renk, Solutions’s receptionist. Javid couldn’t see what they were doing, but when he cleared his throat, they jumped apart as though he’d caught them necking.

Kathy’s apple-size cheeks glowed pink, and Javid wondered if he had caught them necking. The idea amused him, since the two were usually bickering over some inane thing or other. Not to mention their obvious differences. Liam was all of twenty-two, with ambitions to strut fashion runways parading the latest designs by Armani and Klein. He had the looks, the sculpted body, the hollow cheekbones.

Kathy, some seventeen years his senior, smoothed her blouse over her generous figure, gave a nervous tug at her short brown hair that was flecked with blond highlights. She had Meg Ryan features and a smile that never quit.

She beamed at him now, her face still red. “Mr. Haleem, they’re expecting you. You want the usual?”

“Please.”

“You’ve got it. Diet pop. Rocks.”

As he headed to the inner office, Javid heard Liam hiss, “It’s not crazy.”

“No.” Kathy snorted. “You are what’s crazy.”

Vaguely wondering what this newest spat was about, Javid let himself into the special ops room. He’d have thought that by now he’d be used to this room, but it always amazed him, always made him feel as though he’d stepped into the cockpit of The Enterprise, the Star Trek spaceship, with its wall-to-wall blinking lights, switches, screens and dials. Every kind of electronic device imaginable. Even some unimaginable. Certainly things Javid didn’t understand, but that made chasing after terrorists a whole lot easier than the bad guys liked.

Andy Dexter, the tech whiz whose genius had assembled this room, was not present. In front of each chair at the round table was a built-in laptop screen for briefings.

The only incongruous sight in the room was the antlers mounted on the wall, a gift from the head of Montana Confidential to the head of this new unit.

Javid closed the door. Four voices stopped in mid-discussion, all heads turning toward him. Javid greeted each agent by name. When not on undercover assignment for Chicago Confidential, the three men and one woman seated at the round table pursued successful careers, most unrelated to law enforcement. Javid took an empty chair, apologized for keeping them waiting and explained his delay.

“Redwing didn’t spot you coming in just now, did he?” Vincent Romeo asked, his tone as unrelenting as his frown. Javid had learned that the head of operations seldom cracked a smile. His mind ran at warp speed, always attending to business—and this unit’s business was serious. Vincent reacted accordingly.

“I doubled back on my route,” Javid assured him. “No sign of Redwing.”

“Good.” Whitney MacNair Romeo, Vincent’s gorgeous redheaded wife had been learning the ropes when Javid first met her. These six months later, she had earned her stripes and done the unit proud. Her family came from the same area of Martha’s Vineyard as his grandparents and mother, and her accent roused old memories. Not all of them good. “We can’t risk exposure at this point.”

Exposure. Javid thought again about Miah and flinched. “I’m damn glad this will be over with tomorrow.”

The agents picked up their discussion where Javid had interrupted it—something about the chief guard in charge of watching Zahir. At the mention of his brother’s name, Javid sat back in his chair, his mind rolling back to how it had all begun for him at about the same time the Chicago branch of Confidential opened its doors.

Their first assignment: stop a suspected terrorist attack on Quantum Industries, a multinational oil distribution giant, the largest buyer and seller of oil worldwide, whose home offices were based here in Chicago.

Since the inception of the war on terrorism, Javid had devoted himself to promoting goodwill worldwide on behalf of Anbar, on behalf of the decent citizenry of the Middle East, and to the pursuit and capture of suspected terrorists. He’d personally helped expose a few cells of the vicious fiends—which had led to his discovery that his own brother was behind an attack in Iceland on one of Quantum’s satellite offices.

He touched the spot above his heart where the scar remained, a raised and angry X, a “forever” reminder of the evil within his twin.

The attack had been a prelude, he’d learned, to something bigger targeting at Quantum’s home base, but ultimately, the target was Anbar, Father and himself. Quantum was the top buyer of Anbar oil. Javid had to do whatever was needed to ensure Quantum’s ongoing safety. He sat straighter in his chair and steepled his fingers. Zahir had the opposite agenda: he would like nothing better than to see Anbar go broke.

Javid had approached the Chicago Confidential agency in March, seeking their help to stop his brother from committing any other acts of terrorism against Quantum. He’d shared his information with the agents and had been working, on and off, with them to bring about Zahir’s capture, to try to find some way of stopping whatever Zahir and his henchmen had plotted for Quantum.

In the end, it was Zahir’s own men—mercenaries he hired—who’d tried to hijack one of Quantum Industries’s corporate jets and kidnap one of their vice presidents, Natalie Van Buren. Javid tapped his foot to the beat of the pulse at his temples. The evil plot was thwarted by one of Chicago Confidential’s own agents, Quint Crawford, who was now engaged to Natalie. At the time of Zahir’s arrest, the agents had suspected he was working with Khalaf Al-Sayed, but they had no tangible proof that would hold up in a court of law.

While connections were sought, Zahir had been incarcerated in a secret safe house. Earlier, Chicago Confidential had learned of Zahir’s betrothal to Khalaf’s newly found daughter. Since the time of Zahir’s arrest, Javid had been impersonating his twin, gathering what personal information he could on Khalaf. Javid had had as little interaction with Khalaf as possible, knowing he was the one who could expose him, he was the one who knew Zahir, he would spot the differences, know he was dealing with a fake.

But Khalaf had been as elusive as a desert breeze. Each time the agents had thought to arrest him, he’d failed to show up where expected. Since he would not miss Zahir and Miah’s wedding, the agents had decided to take him into custody there.

“I’d like it a hell of a lot better if you were getting married on land.” Lawson Davies intruded on his dark musings.

Law, as he preferred to be called, was a high-paid corporate lawyer who worked for Petrol Corporation, Quantum Industries’s closest competitor. His suit was a serious pinstripe, tie subdued, eyes intelligent, green. He yanked off his wire-rimmed reading glasses, eyeing Javid as though he’d just presented a distasteful brief.

“A yacht for God’s sakes. Makes this whole task more risky.”

“Unfortunately,” Javid said, “the ‘where’ of this affair was already set before I came on scene.”

Vincent’s expression was as serious as a thundercloud. “And Khalaf’s insistence on security makes this a ‘do it their way’ situation.”

“Y’all are makin’ too much out of this,” Quint Crawford drawled. Quint, a long lanky cowboy, had Texas oil in his blood, and embraced the accoutrements of his ranch lifestyle—boots, big black Stetson, silver belt buckle. He never took himself too seriously. “If you want to brand a calf, you gotta go to the corral.”

“That’s right.” Whitney’s hand went to her bright red hair. “The wedding takes place on a yacht, so we’ll be on the yacht.”

Quint punched the brim of his black Stetson higher on his forehead, his blue eyes twinkling. “I, for one, can’t wait to see the prince say ‘I do.’ Seems like getting hitched is contagious.”

Vincent glanced at his wife, Whitney. Only then did his expression and his tone soften. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“I’m not knockin’ it.” Quint had a secret smile. “Heck, I’m all for it.”

“Hey,” Javid interjected. “There isn’t really going to be a ceremony, remember? So, make sure you take Khalaf into custody before I end up married to his daughter.”

“I’ve seen the charmin’ Ms. Miah,” Quint added, his infectious grin widening. “Worse things could happen to a man.”

“Just make sure you do your job, and everything will work out as it’s supposed to.” Even Javid could hear the peevishness in his voice. He cleared his throat and reined in his emotions. “Too much could go wrong. So far, I’ve avoided Khalaf as much as possible. But he’s no fool. If he discovers I’m not Zahir, our mission will be compromised.”

Vincent nodded grimly. “We aren’t underestimating the risks. We’re on top of everything.”

Andy Dexter burst into the room, slamming the door in his rush. His energy seemed to zing off the walls as though he were as electrified as his equipment. He didn’t bother with a greeting. He hurried to his chair, waving something that looked like a miniature floppy disk at the group. “Just picked this up from Ramses, my Egyptian informer. It’s a camera flashcard.”

He inserted the disk into his computer and directed all eyes to their individual monitors. A parking lot appeared in the first frame, followed by a quick sequence of others, moving like a slowed-down motion picture. A dark sedan occupied a deserted space before what seemed to be a park and an indeterminate body of water.

Javid asked, “What are we looking at?”

“Khalaf,” Andy answered. “Ramses has been following him since the sheik ‘disappeared’ last week.”

There were no people on the screen.

“So, where’s Khalaf?” Quint asked, his black hat dipping forward over his shaggy brown hair.

“In the car.”

“Who or what is he waiting for?” Law plunked his glasses back onto his nose.

“No one. He’s already in that car, meeting with someone.”

“Who?” Javid asked.

“Come on, Dexter.” Vincent groaned. “Don’t make us play twenty questions.”

“That’s just it.” Andy shrugged. “Ramses didn’t know or see who Khalaf was meeting. He thought we could figure it out.”

“What has this got to do with anything?” Whitney sounded as impatient as her husband.

They watched a white stretch Lincoln approach the dark sedan, saw Khalaf emerge from the sedan, but couldn’t see inside the dark car, couldn’t see who he’d been meeting. Khalaf got into the Lincoln and drove off. The taillights of the dark sedan lit up as the engine was started.

“This is all very interesting, Andy, but I’m already running late.” Law checked his watch, pulled off his glasses and shoved back his chair. As he started to stand, hands planted on the table, his gaze landed once more on his screen and his mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Vincent glanced between Law and his own screen. “What?”

“Stop the film,” Law barked, putting his glasses back on. “Can you run it backward, Dexter?”

“What the hell are we looking for?” Quint echoed Javid’s thought.

“The back license plate of that dark sedan,” Law informed them.

Andy found the desired sequence and freeze-framed it. They all saw it then. Petrol Corporation’s logo, a small world globe inside the loop of a giant red P. Khalaf had been meeting with someone in a car that belonged to Quantum’s chief rival, Lawson Davies’s employer.

Quint sat back and swore under his breath. Vincent demanded of Davies, “Whose car is it?”

“I don’t know. They aren’t assigned.” He peered closer at the screen as though he could find the answer written there in secret code. “Could be anyone in the upper framework of Petrol.”

“Which means if we take Khalaf tomorrow,” Quint said, “we won’t be cutting off the head of this nasty snake.”

Whitney glanced at Javid. “But if we don’t arrest Khalaf tomorrow, that means…”

Javid felt all eyes on him, felt the bottom dropping out of his stomach. “No.”

“Oh, yes, dude,” Andy said with his loopy grin. “Come tomorrow, you’re gonna have to marry the daughter for real.”