ENTRAPMENT Read online

  "It hasn't seemed to thwart yours."

  He shook his head. "I'm trained to look beneath the surface. To see what others have missed. Even a trail with as many twists and turns as yours can be followed, given the right incentive."

  She stooped to pick up his jacket which had dropped earlier, and draped it again around her shoulders. He had no doubt she'd checked the pockets, surreptitiously, before she'd turned her attentions to him. "And your incentive would be…"

  "I want to acquire your services."

  This time she couldn't hide her reaction to his words. He took in her frozen expression with satisfaction. "We'll have to work out a different sort of arrangement than you're undoubtedly used to, but I think you'll find it to your benefit."

  It didn't take her long to recover. "As … intriguing as that offer sounds, I'll have to refuse. I don't provide any services that are for sale."

  The music started up again in the ballroom, and couples on the balcony began drifting back inside. "I'm not offering to hire you, actually. More like work out a trade."

  "And here I thought you couldn't get more offensive," Juliette said coolly. "How unfortunate to be proven wrong." She slipped out of the jacket and laid it over his shoulder.

  He watched her turn that slender bare back on him and start away. She got exactly three steps before he said, "Threats aren't really my style, but if you decline, the file I've accumulated on you could be turned over to the local authorities. I think you'd find it less inconvenient to cooperate than to be subjected to their questions."

  "Do your worst, Mr. Tremaine." She looked back over her shoulder, her face serenely confident. "I've got absolutely nothing to hide."

  He still hadn't adjusted to the time change. At least that was the reason Sam gave himself for being in the large well-equipped exercise room instead of upstairs asleep. He sank a blow into the body bag and danced away before it swayed his way again. Then, his actions a blur, he landed one blow after another, swift deadly jabs that would have rendered an opponent incapacitated.

  "I hope the pounding that bag's taking isn't an indication of your frustration over this evening's events."

  Sam didn't bother to turn around at the voice. He already knew who'd be standing there, and Miles Caladesh topped the list of the people he least felt like talking to right now. "I told you I'd report in the morning." With a studied movement he slammed his fist into the middle of the bag, sending it swaying.

  "It is morning. I heard you as I came in and thought I'd get an update now."

  He wasn't going away. Sam turned, resting a glove on top of the bag, and studied the other man. He didn't ask how Miles had spent the evening. He didn't need to. Too much alcohol had left his face flushed, and the fact that he'd returned to their borrowed quarters at all meant that his evening hadn't turned out as he'd hoped. A fact which renewed Sam's belief in the intelligence of the opposite sex.

  "I made contact, as planned."

  "And?"

  "And…" Sam tapped his other gloved hand against his leg. "Nothing. Yet. She isn't going to just fold. She hasn't gotten this far by lacking guts." Honor, perhaps, but not guts. And to him, there could be nothing more damning.

  "So we put the screws to her. If you'd listened to me you would have started out that way. When you're dealing with the dregs of society, you don't get anywhere by asking nicely. A show of force works quicker and is more effective in the long run."

  "Really? I didn't realize you had any experience in the field, Miles. Is that what worked on your assignments?"

  His words, delivered in a polite enough tone, had the man flushing even further. "I've pored over enough operation reports to know how things work."

  "Paperwork?" Sam didn't bother to keep the derision from his voice. "There's a big difference between what gets put in the reports and the actual fieldwork. Maybe before your next promotion you'll realize that."

  "I was just offering another possibility. Hotter than hell in here," the other man muttered. He reached up to loosen his tie.

  "Step one is to initiate contact. That's been accomplished." Nothing would be gained by allowing his distaste for Caladesh to show, Sam thought. They were paired for the course of this operation, regardless of his wishes. And being the nephew of the United States president's wife gave Caladesh a certain standing, however undeserved.

  Bringing one of his gloves to his mouth, Sam used his teeth to untie it. Shaking it off, he turned his attention to unlacing the other. "Whatever your opinion of Morrow, rushing things isn't the answer."

  "So you think she's going to come to her senses and cooperate?"

  Sam's lips curved a little as he thought of the defiant look Juliette had tossed him, the dismissive disdain in her voice. "Not willingly." She'd called his bluff, and he couldn't blame her. He'd have done the same thing in her position. And since there was no chance in hell of him giving his file to the French authorities, or anyone else, it was a safe enough move.

  "Not…" Miles stared at him, then jammed his hand through his meticulously groomed brown hair. "Need I remind you what we have riding on this operation?"

  Sam walked over to the weight bench and adjusted it for leg lifts, then sat down. He certainly didn't need any reminders. The memory of Sterling, his previous case officer, still burned. It had only recently been discovered that the CO had been a mole working for the very man Sam had spent the better part of two years investigating. One agent had already been killed, and sheer luck was the only thing that had saved Sam from the same fate once Sterling had revealed Sam's last assignment. With the former CO on the run, it was impossible to know just how badly the agency had been compromised. Which explained the change of rules on this mission.

  He positioned one foot beneath the bar, gritted his teeth and lifted. The muscles in his injured thigh screamed a protest. Ignoring the pain, he gulped in a breath and concentrated on counting the lifts. This investigation was too critical to national security to not move forward, but they were utilizing an unusual degree of inner agency secrecy. Sam reported to Miles, and Miles reported directly to Headquarters. The taint of corruption negated the usual chain of command, and their tactics had shifted accordingly.

  Belatedly, Sam realized Caladesh was waiting for a response. "She didn't respond to the threat I made tonight … she's too smart for that. So we'll move on to step two."

  The other man watched him for a moment, silent. Then he said, "How long before you get her cooperation?"

  "Not long." Despite the fact that his file on Juliette Morrow elicited more questions than answers, he'd come to know her on some level, long before they'd actually met. He'd begun to understand a little about how her mind worked. And become fascinated in the process. "She just needs more convincing, that's all."

  "I guess I'll have to assume you know what the hell you're doing here," Miles said, his voice doubtful. "At least Headquarters seems to believe you do. I'm going to allow you a little latitude on this assignment, Tremaine, but only a little. If Morrow slips through our fingers, this assignment is badly compromised."

  The weights descended to their resting place with a clatter. The muscles in Sam's leg were shuddering with strain. Tersely he retorted, "I don't need your reminders of what's at stake here. It was my agent who was tortured and killed, remember?"

  When the man turned and strode stiffly from the room, Sam cursed, long and inventively. He was capable of diplomacy, so there was really no reason for him to antagonize the man, despite his opinion of him. Miles's presence here was an irritant, but it wasn't contributing to Sam's insomnia.

  No, the cause of that could be traced to Juliette Morrow. He readjusted the bench for some overhead presses, a deep frown creasing his forehead. She fit into his investigation in a way he never would have predicted, and right now offered them their best opportunity to strike at their target. He'd discovered what she ate, what she wore, where she went, who she spoke to. Those details had been compiled with a painstaking precision that was no more or less
meticulous than every other assignment he'd worked.

  And that's all this was. An assignment. Morrow represented a means to an end, and he'd use her in the mission with the same clinical detachment he employed with any other contacts he recruited.

  Lowering the bar and weights slowly to his chest, Sam pumped it upward again. The repetitive motion should have soothed, but only proved to be a strenuous metronome to his thoughts. His greatest strength as an agent lay in the fact that he didn't grow confused by the shadowy areas his job strayed into. Honor was more than a code to him; it was a way of life. It allowed him to see black and whites where other agents saw murky shades of gray. Involving Juliette Morrow in this assignment wasn't going to change that.

  It wouldn't be allowed to.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Juliette entered her home with all the stealth of the thief Sam Tremaine had accused her of being. It wasn't until she'd closed her bedroom door behind her that she let her temper flare. She snatched the hairbrush from her dressing table and hurled it toward her bed.

  Damnez-l'à l'enfer! Damn damn damn him to hell!

  Her comb went the way of the brush, followed by a carved teak pin box and an antique pill bottle. Breathing heavily, she fisted her hands at her sides. If Tremaine had been standing in front of her, she'd have taken great satisfaction in landing a sucker punch right on his sexily dented chin.

  She whirled toward the dressing table to search for another missile and stopped short when she saw the figure standing in her bedroom doorway.

  "Well, darling, it's been a while since I've seen you throw a tantrum like that." Pauline Fontaine strolled casually into the room, wearing an elegant dressing gown. Even at eighty, her posture was straight, her movements graceful. Age, Pauline was fond of saying, couldn't negate breeding. "Don't tell me Lockhart beat you to that Monet you had your eye on?"

  "No, of course not. Lockhart lacks the imagination and the cunning. I'm sorry, Grandmama." Guilt pushed temper aside as Juliette went to her grandmother. "I didn't mean to wake you."

  "You didn't, child. I wasn't asleep, and thought I'd check to see if you'd returned yet. And you have, obviously." A smile tugged at the older woman's lips. "Mind telling me what, or who, has gotten you in such a snit?"

  "I'm not in a snit, I'm seriously pissed off." Juliette gave her grandmother a hug and ignored her sound of dismay at her choice of words. "I met a man tonight, and…" She stopped, and moved away from the older woman while she decided how much to tell her. Her grandmother's advanced years had weakened her heart, if not her iron will. There was no use burdening her with details that she would only fret over.

  "A man?" By her delighted tone, it was plain that Pauline had been successfully distracted. "Tell me about him. He must be unique, indeed, to have drawn this level of emotion from my cool, collected granddaughter."

  "Unique?" Juliette gave a short laugh, and turned to pace. "You could say that. There's certainly nothing ordinary about Sam Tremaine." He'd caught her attention the moment he'd made his entrance. Other women this evening had sent not-so-subtle admiring gazes his way, drawn no doubt by his bright shock of short blond hair, that angular poet's face, his wicked green eyes. But it hadn't been his looks that had elicited her immediate instinctive reaction. It had been the danger he'd radiated.

  It would have been hard to miss. He projected an aura of power, partially glossed beneath a suave handsome presence, but there, nonetheless. The elegant black tux should have contained the shimmer of menace that surrounded him, but had only showcased it. She'd spent the evening hoping that the threat she sensed from him was purely masculine. Discovering otherwise was as much a slap at her femininity as it was to her safety.

  "So. Tell me more about this not-ordinary-at-all man."

  Startled, Juliette looked back over her shoulder. She'd almost forgotten her grandmother's presence in the room. "He's an American. A lawyer, he says." Aware of the agitation in her movements, she slowed, walked to the bed to retrieve the things she'd thrown.

  "You say that as though you don't believe it."

  "I believe he's more." Crossing to the dressing table, she replaced the items neatly on its surface. She looked in the mirror to see her grandmother had followed her, and their gazes met. "He might pose a small problem for us."

  "What kind of problem?"

  "He seems to think he has discovered le petit voleur's identity."

  Pauline said nothing for a moment. Then she sighed. "Ah."

  "He has nothing but supposition to go on, of course." She was banking a great deal on that. But she didn't need to tell her grandmother how serious it would be if even a breath of his suspicion made its way to the local police.

  "Does he represent law enforcement? Insurance?" Juliette reached up and began taking the pins from her hair. She always thought best when her hands were occupied. "I'm not sure." She wasn't in the mood to mention that her attempt to answer that question for herself had met with failure. The memory still stung. "I don't think so. He offered me a job."

  "You don't think Jacques might have sent him to you?"

  She shook her head, and the hair she'd released tumbled past her shoulders. "Jacques would have informed me beforehand. And Tremaine didn't reach that conclusion about my identity based on anything Jacques would have told him." Dropping the last of the pins on the dresser, she pushed her hands into her hair, shook it out. "At any rate, I think it would be best to remain inactive for a while. At least until I can gather some more information on Tremaine and what he's trying to accomplish."

  "That's not acceptable. We can't afford to deviate from our time line." Pauline's voice was implacable, as it always was when this subject was discussed. "One doesn't duck in the face of obstacles, one finds a way around them."

  Her vehemence drew a half smile from her granddaughter. "You're not fighting the Resistance anymore, Grandmama. A slight delay in any step of our plan isn't a matter of life or death."

  Her teasing failed to soften the woman's attitude. Steely-eyed she retorted, "No, but it is a matter of honor. I know I don't have to remind you of that."

  The words raked at old wounds, renewed their throb. No, she didn't need her grandmother's words to remember. The specters that haunted her dreams were reminder enough. Taking a deep breath, she dodged the emotions that threatened to surface and reached for logic. Part of the woman's adamance came from a fear she'd never live to see fruition of the goal they'd worked toward for so long. But analyzing the risks of each job was Juliette's job. It wouldn't do to become careless now.

  "I can't stick too closely to our schedule. I don't know how much information he has on my activities." Just hearing the words out loud was infuriating. She'd come much too far to allow a mere man to interfere with her plans. And there was more than a little ego at stake, as well. If Sam Tremaine thought he could rattle her so easily, he hadn't discovered as much about her as he'd claimed.

  A tiny smile crossed her lips as a strategy began to form in her mind. She'd spent the past decade learning how to create illusions. The game plan this time called for nothing more sophisticated than the old bait-and-switch. And when le petit voleur struck elsewhere while Juliette was still in Paris, Tremaine would be forced to admit he'd been wrong about her. The prospect was delicious.

  The slim steel cable glinted in the shadows of the darkened exhibit room in Copenhagen's famed Gallery of Art. The floor's guard had passed by two minutes earlier. If he stuck to his schedule he wouldn't be back for another eight minutes. The display case in the middle of the room would be empty in six.

  The black-clad figure set the vent cover aside silently and snapped the buckle from the cable to the body harness. With quick movements, the body crawled to the edge of the vent and poised on the edge, hand outstretched.

  The red light on the palm-size remote winked rapidly as it was aimed at first one security camera, then the other. Within seconds the cameras' power lights faded. The remote was clippe
d back on a belt, and with a quick tug, the strength of the cable was tested. A tiny whir was heard as the pulley mechanism activated and the figure was carried, legs curled upward, toward the center of the ceiling.

  The red laser beams of the security system crisscrossed the space below in a random patchwork pattern. With the room rigged to be heat sensitive as well, it was thought by most to be impenetrable. They would soon be proven wrong. Every system, was vulnerable. It was just a matter of research and ingenuity.

  The Mylar suit the figure wore was stifling. It would successfully retain the body temperature, emitting a steady sixty degrees that wouldn't trip the alarms. Form-fitting, it allowed for maximum flexibility, a necessity for this job.

  The body bowed and twisted to avoid the slim beams. As one was evaded, another loomed. The technique was reminiscent of a strange ballet, fluid streams of movement, flexible arching and seemingly impossible contortions. Until finally, the body hung upside down, suspended between two beams, within arm's reach of the glass case in the center of the room. The position would have to be held nearly motionless for the entire operation, taxing both muscles and nerves. If something was going to go wrong, it would likely be now.

  A suction cup was taken from a pouch at the waist and affixed to the glass top. Next a vial was extracted, and dark gray powder shaken out in an outline atop the case, roughly the size of a basketball. That accomplished, one deep breath could be taken, but only one. There was far more to be done.

  The first vial was exchanged for another. The cap was carefully removed and tucked away. Acid was poured with excruciating care. It raced around the circle, devouring the tiny grains with rapid greed. In the process the glass would be weakened, while the chemical reaction with the ingredients in the powder would deactivate any alarm on the market.

  A cramp stabbed viciously, a blade between the ribs. A quick glance at an illuminated wrist watch showed five minutes remaining. So far so good. A slim glass cutter was taken from the pouch. The figure shifted a fraction. Both arms would be needed now. One was positioned with teeth-gritting caution between two red beams to grasp the knob on the suction cup. The other slid beneath a laser beam closer to the case. The cutter traced easily around the weakened circle in the glass, loosening it to be lifted and placed aside.