Читать книгу Dangerous Allies - Renee Ryan - Страница 12

Three. Four.

Five.

Jack counted each emotion that flashed in Kerensky’s eyes. Up to this point, she’d proven herself inventive, bold and cunning, all necessary qualities for a spy. But in the soft moonlight, with so many emotions running across her face, she looked fragile, and surprisingly vulnerable.

In spite of Jack’s distrust, a cold chill of fear for her took hold. If she were working for the British, which all the signs indicated, then she was playing a dangerous game with her life.

Why take the risk?

Jack had personally witnessed the hideous forms of torture the SS used to get answers. He’d watched in steely silence as the toughest men were utterly destroyed under the perfect blend of physical pressure and mental interrogation. The experience had cost him his soul. A reality he’d long since accepted, or at least lived with as atonement for his sins.

But now, as weariness kicked in, he didn’t know if he could watch this woman suffer the Nazis’ ruthless brand of interrogation. Unless, of course, she was working against him. Even then…he wasn’t so sure.

The woman confused him. She made him want to return to simpler times, when the love of a sovereign God was concrete in his mind. When Jack had dealt with situations beyond his control by tapping into the knowledge that the Lord was bigger than any circumstance man could create.

But that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago.

Jack knew better than to take anything for granted, especially the actions of a trained professional.

Still on his guard, he gave Kerensky a look a few degrees short of friendly and continued waiting her out.

One beat, two beats, three.

At last, she broke. “The British don’t,” she began as she sucked in a harsh breath, “they don’t trust me?”

Her reaction pleased him. The bitter resentment in her tone meant he’d actually shocked her. He had the upper hand now. Though he doubted she would accept the shift in power for long.

In his years as a spy, he’d never met a woman who could hold her own against him. Before Kerensky. Her determination was as forceful as his. For that alone, his gut told him to take a chance and trust her to do her share in the mission.

He restrained himself.

Until he discovered if she was an ally or a shrewd double agent he would not relax his guard.

“Look, Kerensky.” He pushed to his feet. “Let’s rid ourselves of this ridiculous power struggle and get on with the business at hand.”

In response to his frankness, her composure slipped just a bit, but not enough to give Jack a sense of her real motives.

She was good. Very, very good.

With practiced grace, she stood and then paced through the small, stylishly furnished room. “If what you say is true and the British don’t trust me, then it must be because they know about my…my mistake.”

Her voice hitched. Part of her act? Probably. “What sort of mistake?” he asked.

Before responding, she roamed through a set of double doors with a liquid elegance that spoke of her stage training. Jack followed her, taking special note of how she gained immediate confidence once she had the physical barrier of an antique wooden table between them.

“It’s not what you think,” she said.

He willed himself to remain calm. In his line of work, losing his temper got a man killed faster than bullets. “It never is.”

“You don’t have to be snide. The information I gave MI6 was correct.” She dropped her gaze to the table, drew a path of circles with her fingernail. “At least, it was at the time I sent it.”

“Of course.”

She slapped her palms on the table and leaned forward. “Your attitude is not helping matters.”

“Nor is your penchant for withholding valuable pieces of information.”

Head held high, she marched around the table and stopped long enough to let out a soft sniff of disapproval before she continued past him.

Keeping the woman in his sight, Jack trailed after her as she went back into the adjoining room and turned to face him. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the doorjamb.

Neither said a word, each silently assessing the other. Jack considered the tactical scenarios and possible outcomes. The only wrong questions were the ones he didn’t ask. “My patience is wearing thin. What mistake did you make, Katarina?”

Regardless of the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, she held his gaze. Brave woman.

“Karl Doenitz moved his headquarters this morning.”

Jack dragged a hand through his hair and resisted the urge to let loose the string of obscenities that came to mind. “How very inconvenient for us all. Except, of course, for the Nazis.”

“Now you’re being paranoid.”

“I was trained to be paranoid.” He drilled her with a hard glare. “And I’m very good at my job.”

She sighed. “I realize this sounds bad, but Karl Doenitz is still in Wilhelmshaven. He’s moved from Marinestation to Sengwarden.”

Jack caught the quick, guilty glance from under her lowered lashes. “Which means you don’t know where the plans are any longer.”

“I—”

“This trip to Hamburg has been a waste,” he said, more to himself than her. “For nothing more than countless hours of…games.”

“Oh, I promise you, this is no game. I know where the plans are. It’s just—” She broke off and looked away from him.

“It’s…just?” he prompted with what he considered heroic patience.

Apparently, he could control the work, the decisions, even the risks. He could not, however, control this…woman.

“The plans are locked in a newly built cabinet. My key will only open the old one.”

“That’s it?” Jack had to resist the urge to laugh in relief. “That was your mistake?”

He’d dealt with worse. Much worse. Missions were always more complicated than they first appeared on paper. Real life had intricacies that tended to create a powder keg of unexpected problems.

“Are you just going to stand there staring at me?” she demanded. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“I heard. You gave the British outdated information.”

“I gave them wrong information. I never get it wrong. Never.”

“Until now.”

She inclined her head slightly, her expression giving nothing away. “Until now.”

“So we make a new plan.”

He didn’t add that this was just the sort of tangle that had first led him into the heart of Germany two years before—the type of unexpected twist that ruled his every move. Disorder was so much a part of who he’d become, he’d long since accepted the realities of living without certainty. He didn’t especially like the ambiguity of never knowing the outcome of a mission or when the next twist would come, but he bore the pressure with steely grit.

He had no other choice.

“Make a new plan,” she repeated. “It’s that simple for you?”

“Nothing is ever simple.”

In fact, the possibilities were endless, but Jack was exceptionally skilled at finding the perfect solution inside the less perfect ones. “Tell me exactly where the plans are and I’ll come up with an idea. Or better yet, get me some paper and something to write with. I think better with a pen in my hand.”

She sank into a chair with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. “There is one more complication you should know about.”

Jack felt like he was free-falling without a parachute. His tight control over dangerous emotions was slipping, and that made him furious. Nothing shook him, and no one caught him by surprise. Even when the real Friedrich Reiter had come to kill him, Jack had kept his wits about him enough to prevail in the deadly clash. There’d been no time for prayer, no begging the Lord for assistance, just reflex.

And now…here…with this woman…he was in another situation where his control was being tested.

Enough. The feminine manipulation ended now. “Let’s have it,” he said, pure reflex guiding his words. “All of it.”

“As you wish.” Narrowing those glorious eyes of hers, she jumped up and planted a hand on her hip. “The admiral keeps the key to the cabinet on a ring he carries with him at all times, except when he sleeps. Whereby, he sets the key chain on the nightstand by his bed.”

The roll in Jack’s gut came fast and slick, surprising him. He didn’t take the time to analyze the emotion behind the sensation. “And you know this how?”

Taking three steps toward him, Kerensky pursed her lips and patted his cheek. “That’s my business, darling.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Not if it’s going to endanger my life.”

“Which it won’t.” She dropped a withering glare to his hand, waited until he released her. “Now, back to what I was saying. Since I alone know where the key is located, all I have to do is sneak into the room while Doenitz is asleep and—”

“No.” Whoever went in that building had to respond instantly if discovered. Jack was the trained killer. She was simply a mole who gathered information. He was the obvious person for the job. “I will break into the admiral’s private quarters.”

Her smile turned ruthless, deadly. The change in her put him instantly at ease. They were finally playing on his level.

He smiled back at her, his grin just as ruthless, just as deadly as hers.

She appeared unfazed.

“Here’s the situation, Herr Reiter, and do try to pay close attention. There are only two ways into Admiral Doenitz’s quarters. Through the front door or through a small window into his bedroom.”

The thrill of finding a solution had Jack rubbing his hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“The window leading into the admiral’s room is small.” She dropped her gaze down to his shoes and back up again. “Far too small for you.”

“Then I’ll go through the front door.”

She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “To get through the front door you would have to pass through six separate stations, with two guards each. They rotate from post to post on twenty-minute intervals, none of which are synchronized. Translation, that’s a minimum of six men you would have to bypass at any given time.”

“It’s what I do.”

She flicked a speck of dust off her shoulder. “Needlessly risky. Especially when I can get through the window and back out again in less time than a single rotation.”

Jack’s mind filed through ideas, discarded most, kept a few, recalculated.

“I’ll ultimately have to get past those guards the night I go in for the plans,” he said.

More thoughts shifted. New ideas crystallized, further calculations were made.

“I’ll just take the key and the plans all at once.” He blessed her with a look of censure, testing her with his words as much as with his attitude. “Translation: we go to Wilhelmshaven tonight and finish the job in one stroke.”

She jabbed her finger at his chest. “You’re thinking too much like a man. Go in, blow things up, deal with the risks tomorrow.”

“Not even close.” If anything, Jack overworked his solutions before acting on them. It was the one shred of humanity he had left.

“Two nights from now Karl Doenitz will be in Hamburg, at a party given for him by my mother.” She raised her hand to keep him from interrupting. “And before you say it, that also means the key will be with him in Hamburg, as well.”

“Keep talking while you get the paper I asked for.”

She remained exactly where she was. Naturally.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” she said. “I get an impression of the key tonight, make a copy tomorrow, then go back the evening of the party and photograph the plans.”

“Why not just steal the plans tonight and be done with it?”

“And alert the Nazis that the British have discovered their secret weapon? No.” She shook her head. “We need to photograph the plans when no one is around and replace them exactly as we found them.”

Her plan had a simplicity to it that just might work.

“And while I’m inside Doenitz’s private quarters,” she continued, “you get to do what men do best.”

“And that is?”

“Protect my back.”

If Jack didn’t let his ego take over, he could see that her idea had possibilities. Perhaps, under all the layers of subterfuge, they thought alike. Maybe too much alike.

The woman was proving smart enough and brave enough that if he let down a little of his guard he might begin to admire her. Too risky. Emotional attachments, of any kind, were a spy’s greatest threat. Especially when he had no real reason to trust his partner.

“Your plan has merit,” he said. “But I only have two more days to get the plans and return to England. With the timeline you presented, there’s no room for mistakes.”

She nodded. “Then we make no mistakes.”

“We? Haven’t you forgotten something?”

Her brows drew together. “No, I’m pretty sure I’ve thought through all the details.”

“Your mother is throwing the party for the admiral. Your attendance at such an illustrious occasion will be expected. How are you going to pull off the last of our two trips to Wilhelmshaven while at a cocktail party in Hamburg?”

Her expression closed. “I’ll handle my mother. She won’t even miss me.”

“And her fiancé? Somehow, I doubt he’ll be so…inattentive.”

“I’ll deal with him, as well.”

He gave her a doubtful glare.

“You’re going to have to trust me.”

Trust. It always came back to trust. But Jack had lost that particular quality, along with his faith in God, the same night the real Reiter had come for his blood.

“And if you’re caught tonight?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

“I won’t be.”

“If you are.”

She lifted her chin, looking every bit a woman with royal blood running through her veins. “Failure is never an option.”

Jack’s sentiments exactly.

If he took out the personal elements running thick between them and ignored the fact that Kerensky was a woman—a woman he couldn’t completely trust—not only could her plan work, but it had a very high probability of success.

Her voice broke through his thoughts. “It’s getting late. The drive to Wilhelmshaven will take almost two hours each way.”

He glanced at his watch, looked at her evening gown and jewels then down at his own tuxedo. “We both need to change.”

“Yes. We’ll take my car, which is still at the theater.” Which they both knew was only three blocks from her home.

“Right, then. We’ll meet outside the theater at—” he began before he checked his watch again “—0130 hours. I trust that suits you?”

Head high, she moved to the front door and jerked it open without looking back at him. “Of course.”

He reached around her and swung the door shut with a bang.

She spun about to glare at him. “What are you doing?”

Reminding us both who’s in control.

With nothing showing on his face, he angled his forearm against the wall above her head and waited until her eyes lifted to his. “I leave the way I came.”

She took a hard breath but held his gaze. For an instant, he was struck again by her determination and courage.

The back of his throat began to burn.

“Then I drive,” she said without blinking.

“By all means.” He pushed away and headed toward the open window, but then he surprised them both by returning to her and cupping her cheek. “I’m warning you now, Katarina. At the first sign of trouble, we abort. No questions asked.”

“Whatever you say, Herr Reiter.” The mutinous light in her eyes ruined any pretense of compliance on her part.

Jack sensed he was in serious trouble with this woman. He had to get matters back in his control. “One more thing,” he said.

She angled her head at him.

“Make sure you dress warmly.” He shifted to the window, dipped and then swung his leg over the ledge. “It’s going to be a long, chilly night.”