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  Logan grinned and got to his feet. Sahara immediately felt the loss of the heat next to her and wished he could have stayed where he was. It would be nice to just stay together. Talk. Get to know this man who pulled on her senses. He was such a contradiction. He was in a job that involved guns and violence, yet he failed to behave the way she had assumed such men would. He was empathetic, warm, friendly….

  Then she gave herself a mental kick—she was just feeling the same gratitude and warmth toward her rescuer that anyone who survives a crisis feels. That was all.

  He leaned down and helped Tiffany to her feet. “Come on,” he told her. He looked at the stairs leading up from the mezzanine level. “Do you have an office up there?” he asked Sahara.

  “My apartment.”

  “Better still. You ladies need to relax and rest. I’ll see you up there, then leave you in peace.”

  Sahara bit back her protest, annoyed with herself. “I’ll have to unlock it,” she murmured as Logan walked Tiffany toward the stairs.

  She hurried up the stairs before them, unlocked the door and stepped through, looking around the studio apartment with fresh eyes. This was what he was about to see. It was old and in need of paint but clean and tidy.

  The miniature peach tree soaking up the sun in the corner by the big picture window was glossy and green. The basil and rosemary on the table were just starting to bloom and all the flower boxes on the window were planted and showing shoots but they looked fragile and bare, compared to the lush growth they’d be struggling to contain in a couple of months. The herb boxes were just fine, though.

  Her dishes from breakfast were on the draining board and the last minute bookkeeping she had completed before setting off to see Howard was stacked on the old Formica table. The bed was made but the counterpane fringing was pulled and uneven, thanks to her cat, Pippin, playing with the ends when he was a kitten. Pippin was curled up on the end of the bed now, asleep. He was a tight ball of silvery gray stripes.

  She held the door open for the pair and Logan helped Tiffany over to the sofa. “It’s just shock,” he assured her friend. “Have a cup of tea or hot chocolate with lots of sugar and a nap. You’ll feel fine after that.”

  “Thanks,” Tiffany croaked and lay down. Her eyes drifted closed. “I am sleepy,” she confessed.

  Logan pointed to Sahara’s shoulders. “I’ll need that,” he told her.

  Reluctantly, she stripped the soft suede from her shoulders and gave him back his jacket. She shivered at the loss of warmth.

  “So what happens now, Logan Wilde?” she asked. “Is there paperwork? Formalities?”

  “I’m not a policeman.” He slid his arms into the jacket. “We’ve got the one guy who knew Micky and saw you speaking with me this morning, so as far as you’re concerned it’s all over. You can go back to your…” he glanced around the apartment, “gentle life and forget you ever saw me.”

  Regret pinged through her. Sahara pushed it aside. “That would be best,” she said, trying to make it sound convincing. She added truthfully, “Especially for you.”

  He shot her a glance. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I know I look a lot like your Micky. Enough to have that Seoc utterly convinced I was her. I know Micky was important to you.” She shrugged. “For you, I think it’s a very good thing we will never meet again.”

  Logan tilted his head to look at her. “You’ve put all that together on very few clues,” he said and there was a touch of admiration in his voice.

  “I’m told I have a knack for it.”

  He smiled and for a moment there was a flare of warmth in his eyes. Sahara caught her breath. It felt like an unexpected reward to be thought well of by this man.

  He crossed his arms and spread his feet, taking up a comfortable stance in her living room. “You’re also making a couple of wrong assumptions,” he told her and his voice took on a quality that spoke of professionalism and hard-won knowledge. He was speaking from experience. “That happens when you don’t have enough information and you have to connect data that’s too far apart in the causal chain.” He reached into his breast pocket and brought out a pair of sunglasses. “Micky was dear to me. Once. And that was a long time ago.”

  “She worked in the same world as you do.”

  Logan shook his head. “She had a thirst for power and an inflated sense of her own abilities. She thought she could move into my world.” He put the sunglasses on. “She was wrong,” he finished bleakly.

  Sahara clutched her chest, appalled. “That’s how she died, isn’t it? Trying to move into your world?”

  The sunglasses hid his eyes but the curl of the corner of his mouth was answer enough. “Now you know why I agree that you and I would have been better off never meeting.” He held out his hand. “Have a nice life, Ms. Taylor-Hughes.”

  She took a deep breath and shook his hand. “Take care of yourself, Mr. Wilde.”

  “I’ll lock the shop door on the way out,” he assured her and stepped out of the apartment and shut the door.

  Sahara stared at the door, letting her regret spill free and spread through her. But the regret was tinged with relief, for Logan was right—they moved in two different worlds.

  Chapter Six

  When Logan reached the van, Peter and Nelson were hanging around the back of it. They were supposed to be keeping an eye on whoever approached. Peter was solid enough but Nelson looked queasy and smoked a cigarette that jittered between his fingers.

  It meant that Elias and Brad were inside with Seoc. Logan pushed the door open and stepped inside. Elias and Brad had their backs to him but straightened up to check who was coming in the door.

  Brad visibly relaxed but Elias’ expression grew grimmer. “I can’t make a lick of sense out of him.” He stepped aside, making way for Logan.

  Seoc was sitting in the secretarial chair Nelson had been using and his arms were strapped to the metal frame at the back, using someone’s leather belt. Apart from a small drop of blood on the corner of his mouth, he showed no sign of suffering. But he was slumped in the chair, his long legs askew, like he was about to pass out.

  When he saw Logan, Seoc’s eyes rolled in their sockets and he grinned. It was a sickly expression. Some of his teeth were stained red. “Señor Wilde. I am a real player now, yes?”

  “What’s the communication channel, Seoc?” Logan demanded. “Did you set it up?”

  Elias cleared his throat. “He’s had no formal training. We could use just about anything on him and rip it out inside fifteen minutes but if he hasn’t set up the channel, we’re all screwed.”

  “I know,” Logan shot back.

  “If you hadn’t insisted on being a hero, we could have let him go his merry way. Get the channel set up. Then take him.”

  “I know,” Logan repeated, watching Seoc’s eyes. The man wasn’t listening to them at all. He was in his own little world, somewhere far away.

  “You’ve potentially lost to the west the world’s greatest scientific and political breakthrough.”

  Logan turned on Elias. “For chrissake, you think I don’t know that?”

  “Such a beautiful woman….” Seoc whispered.

  “What?” Elias shot back.

  “So beautiful. So tragic. How does she allow herself to live like that? I must make sure, make sure, he will—” Seoc halted and looked at them, his eyes rolling again.

  “Who’s he?” Brad growled, leaning over Seoc. Intimidation—both psychological and physical—was his specialty. “Who are you working for, you long locust?”

  “He’s snapping in and floating out,” Elias explained with a sigh. “Don’t think it’s chemical, though.”

  “Stress. Adrenal overload,” Logan judged. “You’ve seen how civilians react to this sort of stuff before. He’s really just a civilian with privileges.”

  “Privileges? Not anymore.” Brad spread his legs and pushed up his sleeves. “You hear that, maggot meat?”

  Seoc’s wan
dering gaze found Logan and focused on him. It was as if he hadn’t heard Brad’s threat at all. “She didn’t know me. Not at all.” He swallowed and Logan knew the man would be suffering severe thirst right now. The worst case of dry mouth in his privileged life. “I was always respectful, yes? Why does she treat me so? You were there to protect her.”

  Logan realized with a sinking feeling that because he had come to the woman Sahara’s rescue, Seoc was now utterly convinced that Sahara was actually Micky in disguise.

  He couldn’t help looking at Elias, who stared steadily at him, not letting him off the hook.

  He swallowed. Dry mouth.

  Fuck.

  He turned and headed for the door, the sick feeling sweeping through him. Behind him, he heard Elias’ soft order, “Find out what the channel is, first. Then go after who he’s working for. We must have the channel and fast.”

  Logan pushed out into the early evening air. It was damp and breezy. Nelson was standing ten feet away, watching traffic pass the far end of the alley they had pulled into. There were thick trees on either side, which meant they were well hidden, but anyone sneaking up on them would be just as hard to see.

  Peter was twenty yards down the alley, his head bent, listening for sounds inside the trees.

  Elias climbed down out of the van a few seconds later, his big weight making the steel steps groan and the whole back end of the van dip. He beckoned with his finger and Logan followed him to the front end of the van, out of sight of Peter and Nelson.

  Elias rested against the grill with a barely audible sigh, the first sign of jet lag Logan had seen. “When you left Seoc in the park, it was eleven minutes past eight, right?” he asked Logan.

  “Right. By the time I got back to the woman’s store, nearly ninety minutes had elapsed.”

  “During which time, he trailed you down Noriega, saw the woman—saw what he thought was Micky—went and got himself a gun and came back to hold up her store.”

  “Came back to confront her with her masquerade,” Logan corrected. “Seoc saw her die too and not just on an Mpeg file.”

  Elias glanced at him sharply, assessing. But his voice was level when he spoke again. “That leaves about fifty minutes unaccounted for. He could have set up the channel as well as find the gun.”

  “Shit, he might have had the gun on him the entire time. I didn’t pat him down,” Logan growled. “Would it have occurred to you to check him for weapons?”

  “Probably not,” Elias conceded. “We’ve all got used to the idea of Seoc.” His big barrel chest lifted with a gusty inhalation and dropped at the forceful exhalation. “Brad has to get the channel out of him. That’s what it comes down to. We have to have it. Whatever Seoc gives us after that is bonus material. This’ll be quick and dirty.”

  Logan swallowed again. “What if he doesn’t have it? What if he didn’t get it set up before he went and held up the woman’s store?”

  “Man, I don’t even want to go there,” Elias breathed.

  * * * * *

  Tiffany clenched the top of the taxi’s door and backed up a step. Their eighty minutes had evaporated down to twenty by the time Tiffany woke from her adrenaline-surge-induced nap.

  Sahara tried hard not to think about how she had been cheated of even a nominal few moments with her best friend in the whole world.

  “Are you sure you’re sure, S’ara?” Her voice was still hoarse.

  “I’m sure I’m sure.” Sahara pushed gently at Tiffany’s shoulder. “You have to go. So go. Go on, get in. You’ll miss your flight and Billabong will be mad at you and I’ll be mad at you too, for shooting your career in the foot.”

  “But you were held up, man!”

  “I told you, it wasn’t a hold up. That Logan Wilde guy will make sure it can’t happen again.”

  “You’re really sure you can get through the summer without me?” Tiffany’s eyes were troubled. “I know how close to the wire you’re running the money.”

  “I’ll survive,” Sahara assured her as breezily as she could manage.

  Tiffany just stared at her.

  “So I’ll keep longer business hours and go without sleep a bit. Honestly, Tiffany, if you don’t get on that plane, I’ll break all your boards in half with a sledgehammer.”

  Tiffany sniffed. “You’d only ding ’em with a sledgehammer, anyway.” She hugged Sahara, got into the cab and unwound the window. “I’ll be in Britain until June 25, then I’m on to Hawaii. All the usual spots. Call me, if you want to talk, okay?”

  Sahara waved and watched the yellow vehicle move out into the traffic on Noriega. Then it was gone, swallowed up by the congestion.

  She moved back into the store and found her hand was smoothing itself over the plate glass of the front door almost convulsively and her eyes were aching with the build-up of tears.

  She bit her lip. “Screw everyone,” she whispered and yanked the sign that showed hours of business off its suction hook on the back of the door and let the door slam shut with a brassy jangle from the cowbell.

  There was a magic marker in the drawer beneath the cash register. She’d change the hours right now. This moment. Howard and everyone could go to hell.

  * * * * *

  When Brad finally emerged from the van, night had closed in around the four of them as they waited restlessly.

  Logan tried to ignore the blood on the man’s knuckles and clothes as Brad held out a sheet of paper. “You’re to call this number at eight thirty p.m. local time.”

  Nelson delved into the Big Mac meal he’d just brought and grabbed a handful of fries. “He wouldn’t be lying, would he?” he said, concentrating on the contents of the bag.

  Logan shook his head as he glanced at his watch. “Too easy to verify. If Malik doesn’t contact us in thirty-three minutes, Seoc knows Brad is going to head right back into the van with him.”

  He looked up, his attention pulled by the silence and saw Nelson drop his fries back into the box and push it away. He brushed the salt off his fingers carefully, not looking at any of them.

  “Brad has to go back in there, anyway,” Logan added.

  Brad answered, in his soft voice. “We’ve got time to go at it more delicately now. Who Seoc is working for is merely a side issue.”

  “No, it’s not. Not now.” Logan lifted the sheet. “You think for a second that Seoc didn’t tell his master about this, days ago, when Malik first hired him to set up the meeting? Seoc knew what was in the notebook. He understood the gravity of it. So would his master. Now if he’s just running for the CIA or MI5 or another friendly, then we don’t have a major problem. But if it’s the Chinese or, god forbid, someone like the Iraqis or North Koreans, then that presents a severe complication, because they’ll sit back and watch us ferret out the notebook, then kill us all. I’d rather know it’s coming and plan around it, wouldn’t you?”

  Elias jerked his head toward the van. “Go,” he told Brad.

  The man took a breath. Let it out and nodded. Then he climbed back up into the van.

  “Nelson,” Logan said, as gently as he could. “I’m going to need a secure cell phone—or as near as you can get to secure in thirty-three minutes.”

  “No such thing as secure when you’re talking about cell phones,” Nelson said, watching the door that Brad had just closed behind him. He sounded miserable. “Anyone with fifty bucks worth of gear from Radio Shack could pick up the conversation if they know where to point the gear.”

  Elias crossed his arms. “Then do what you can. Move it, Nelson! Thirty-one minutes and counting.”

  Nelson jumped like he’d been goosed and looked at them both. “Right.” He blinked. “Best cell phone to have is one they don’t expect you to have. I’ll see what I can do.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be back.” And he trotted into the night, heading for the mouth of the alley.

  “What the fuck is he going to do, steal one?” Elias groused.

  Logan hid his smile. “I think he’d call it a tempora
rily loan.”

  * * * * *

  Nelson was back with three minutes to spare, carrying a plastic shopping bag that glowed white in the deep darkness. He produced a battered, grimy slide-phone model with a scratched screen. “Guy didn’t even miss it. He was just tucking into his appetizer, so chances are I can get it back before his dessert and he won’t even know it’s gone.” He was swiftly pressing buttons with both thumbs as he spoke, watching the screen. “Here’s the number, if you need it. It’s 555-0194.”

  “What’s in the bag?” Elias asked.

  “Speaker phone system for the cell phone, so we can all hear the conversation. I got a digital recorder I can hook into it, so we can keep a record and play back later too.” He dug into the bag.

  “Who the hell did you steal that from?” Elias asked sharply.

  “I bought it.” Nelson looked up and grinned. “Radio Shack. There’s one just up the street a little.” He was hooking together wiring and electronics, moving confidently despite the darkness.

  Logan glanced at his watch. “Ninety seconds.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Nelson said coolly. He stood up and thrust the phone at Logan. “Ready to rock and roll. I dialled the number. You just have to hit the green button there—” He pointed at the right button. There was a wire plugged into the side of the phone, running to an eraser-sized plastic box. From there two wires emerged. One led to an earpiece and voice pickup combo that Nelson was holding out to Logan. The other wire ran down to what looked like a small pair of computer speakers. Sitting between them was a flat square black box, showing red and green LEDs glowing softly at the front of it.

  “You’re going to have to keep the voice pickup facing away from the speakers, or he’s going to hear himself speaking and know something weird’s up. ’Kay?”

  “Right,” Logan said heavily, inserting the ear bud.

  “Ten seconds,” Elias warned.

  Logan rested his thumb over the green button, then hit send when Elias nodded. He made a quarter turn, so his shoulder was shielding the phone from the speakers.