Entrapment

“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 clipped 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.

Anticipation thrummed. Time suspended. In the near darkness, everything else faded to insignificance. This was the moment that never failed to thrill. With near awe, a hand was slipped into the opening, carefully freeing the necklace from its bed of black velvet.

The perfectly matched pearls shimmered like moon glow in the shadows, but it was the square-cut twenty-carat ruby hanging from the center that commanded attention. With hypnotizing brilliance it speared the darkness with shards of crimson. The Moonfire necklace. In the past five centuries, countless women had coveted it. An untold number of lives had been sacrificed for it. And now one man would be denied it.

That knowledge brought the greatest satisfaction of all.

Unhurriedly, the necklace was tucked away into the pouch. The cramping pain increased, and a feeling of urgency rose. Two minutes left.

A moment was taken, and then another. Then with slow, methodical movements, the black-clad body was unbent, twisted, sinuous grace and fierce concentration evident as the pulley was reactivated, inch by excruciating inch. It wasn’t until the figure was curled up against the cable that another deep breath was taken.

Forty-five seconds.

With a near silent hum, the mechanism carried its burden across the ceiling to the cold-air vent. As the hole grew closer, a feeling of relief was allowed. The whole operation would take less than the allotted six minutes. By the time the guard noted what had transpired, escape would already be well underway.

Thirty seconds.

The vent opening was within reach. The taste of impending success was sweet. A feeling of unnatural calm settled over the adrenaline. Hands braced against the wall on either side of the opening, muscles bunched.

And then a light snapped on in the hallway outside the room, spotlighting the figure, freezing it in shock and dismay.

“Impressive.” A slow solitary clapping accompanied the admiring statement. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. You’re every bit as good as I’ve been led to believe.”

The words, their meaning, didn’t register. The man’s presence did. The figure dove forward in one streak of motion, entering the narrow vent like an arrow fired from a crossbow. Panic licked at nerve endings, was beaten back. Cool logic was called on now. Near misses had happened before. They’d been infrequent, long, long ago, but they had occurred. Precautions were always taken. Alternate escape routes planned.

But never had this eventuality been considered.

There would be time later for second-guessing and self-recriminations. With the ease of long practice, everything but the primary goal was pushed aside. Escape.

The ventilation system was narrow. Movement was accomplished by wiggling forward while pushing off with the toes. Thirty feet ahead the pipes branched off into a maze of joints and tubes traveling to opposite corners of the gallery. When the time came, the figure bent an elbow, squeezed to the left. Another several feet, and a palm went up, felt along the top of the tubing for the hole that had been cut to allow entry.

At that point a body could stand, head and torso through the hole, a sense of freedom that should have relieved. But there was no time for relief. Once free of the ventilation pipe the figure could run, stooped but surprisingly rapid, along the crisscrossing tubing, moving from memory alone. Two rights then a left and a flying leap to the wall ladder. A speedy ascent and then a shoulder applied to the utility door with enough force that the figure stumbled out onto the gallery roof. The night sky had never looked so welcoming.

There was no time to enjoy it. It was one hundred yards to the edge of the roof. The time spent crossing it seemed interminable, but the thought of escape gave impetus. A cable was waiting on the east side, allowing descent to the alley between the gallery and the neighboring building. With the cable grasped in two hands, a body could rappel down the side of the building like a spider leaving its web.

The edge was reached. The figure leaned over, reached for the cable.

And found it missing.

“Looking for this?”

That dreaded voice came again, unbearably smug. Unbearably amused. Whirling, the black-clad figure faced the man, similarly dressed, who was already nearer than expected. The cable—that precious symbol of freedom—was looped around his wrist.

With his free hand, the man reached up, swept the black watch cap off his head. The moonlight painted his hair golden. And his eyes, those damned wicked green eyes, gleamed. “Le petit voleur. We meet again.” Carelessly he stuck the cap in his back pocket and approached. A slow, single-minded stalking that was meant to hypnotize or to panic. The figure did neither.

“Weren’t expecting company down there, huh?” Sam’s voice was conversational. “I’m not surprised. You work alone, right? And you don’t make mistakes often.” He’d halved the distance between them with deliberate steps. Anticipation grew, was barely reined in. “The only one you made this time was in underestimating me.”

Behind the mask, the figure smiled, a grim stretch of the lips. There had been an underestimation, all right. But Sam Tremaine was the one who’d made it.

He took a step closer. Another. And then he smiled. Slow and wide and devastating. “Whatever you’re thinking, forget it. We’re partners now. In case you haven’t noticed, your options have just decreased dramatically.” He stretched one gloved hand across the distance spanning them.

In a blur of motion a kick was aimed at his weakened thigh, a solid blow landed. Sam’s leg buckled and he cursed, but he didn’t go down completely, and he didn’t loosen his grasp on the cable. The figure ran several feet past him, then turned and sprinted by him again, flying through the air even as his shout sounded. “Dammit, no!”

There was a moment of euphoria, as air whipped by, then a second of fear as the roof of the next building failed to materialize as rapidly as anticipated. Arms were outstretched, fingers flexed. When contact was made, the body scrabbled wildly, grasping for purchase, and settled on the narrow ledge edging the rooftop. It took every ounce of energy to pull up, to throw first one leg over the ledge, and then the other. Once safely on the roof, a lightning pace was set toward the other side. There was a fire escape fairly close beneath. From there, it was just a matter of…

It was like being hit from behind by a Mack truck. The figure went down hard, rolled, a huge weight attached. Vision was blurred by a dizzying array of stars. Lungs squeezed of oxygen. Helplessly, the figure lay there, trapped beneath Sam Tremaine’s hard body, capable only of the fight for breath.

He recovered first. “Sonofbitch.” His voice was grim. “You damned near killed us both.”

Air resupplied oxygen, and with it came instinct. One leg was drawn up sharply, but he shifted, removing its intended target from range. “I’d just as soon you didn’t finish me off right yet. I’ve got plans for you, little thief. But before I get into them…” He reached out, pushed the black hood slowly up to reveal features that would be all too familiar to him.

“Juliette.” His gaze raked her form. “Your getup gives a whole new meaning to basic black.”

“Bastard.”

He caught her curled fist just before it clipped him neatly on the jaw. Drawing both of her wrists up above her head, he held them there with one hand. “It’s a little early in our relationship for endearments. But if it weren’t…” His teeth flashed. “I’d tell you that you look exquisite in moonlight.”

She seethed, bucking beneath him. “Get off me.”

Still grinning, he didn’t move a muscle. “Your accent tends to fade when you’re mad, did you know that?”

With effort, she stopped struggling. Despite her long-standing aversion to being held against her will, it was preferable to the indignity of being unable to move him an inch.

Dark gaze battled with green. Slowly the smile faded from his lips. For the first time she became aware of their isolation. It had to be close to two o’clock in the morning. Unlike New York, with its unending traffic and sounds of life, Copenhagen slept, at least in this business neighborhood.