CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

All right, so he couldn’t stop thinking about her, MacGowan told himself savagely. Nothing wrong with that. It was the first pussy he’d had in god knew how long, and it was no wonder he kept hearing her, seeing her, tasting her. The sex should have been lousy – she really was not much than a virgin, and he’d outgrown adolescent fumbling a long time ago.

But there’d been something irresistible about her shyness. Her surprise at her own reactions, and the way she’d held nothing back. Who the hell had she slept with, that they’d left her so cold and uncertain? Women were worth the trouble, Beth was worth the trouble, that and more. She deserved someone who’d take the time with her, who knew when to be rough and when to be gentle, to be hard and tender. For some reason the two of them had been in odd accord – she hadn’t flinched from anything he’d done. That responsiveness had fired his own, and he kept getting hard at the worst moments, thinking of her, confronting her in her room, talking with Dylan.

God, he needed to get rid of her, fast. He could look after Dylan. But Sister Beth … Beth … needed to be out of sight and out of mind.

The question was, how long would it take to get her out of his mind?

“Dude,” Dylan inquired with the sex-sniffing acuity of all randy teenage boys, “did you two fuck?”

They were already off the freighter, moving through the crowded docks at a steady pace, and he kept his expression impassive. One swift glance told him Beth was blushing, so he did his best to distract the little shit. “None of your business, kid.”

“It’s my business if that’s why you’re dumping us.”

He heard the note of strain in the kid’s voice, and realized he’d missed Dylan’s neediness. MacGowan had been on his own for years when he was Dylan’s age, in a much rougher world than Dylan had ever had to deal with. Dylan had always been cocooned by his parents’ money, even if they themselves had been missing. It was a far cry from his own teenage years in the slums of Belfast, trying to avoid his father’s martyrdom.

But the kid needed a reassurance that was simple to give. “I’m not dumping you. Beth has got money coming out her ass, and she doesn’t need us any more. All she has to do is make a phone call and she can be back in her mink-lined womb. You can hang with me if you want, until we figure out what you want to do.” He knew from the time they’d shared in captivity that the kid’s parents had abandoned him. MacGowan knew something about that. He was damned if he was going to dump the kid as well.

“Yeah,” Dylan said, his voice a little rough. He cleared his throat, gathering his bravado back around him. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

“Good.” He glanced at Beth. The color that had stained her cheekbones was gone now, leaving her pale and still, and he suddenly remembered her beneath him, that coolness vanished in heat and passion and blistering completion.

Stop thinking about it, he ordered himself, and his wayward cock. Not that his cock could think. Obviously, given that letting his cock take the lead only ended up with him getting screwed.

“What are you laughing at?” Dylan asked.

“The stupid-ass things I do,” he replied, not loud enough that Beth could hear him. She was trailing behind them, and he knew a sudden uneasiness. With any luck they’d left their trouble behind in Callivera. The Guiding Light was too disorganized to have connections in Europe, and Sully had been alone. He’d been careful about covering up their escape, but the CIA could alternate between being laughingly incompetent and almost as good as he was. There was always the chance they’d tracked them to the Martha Rose, though he was comfortably certain no one had been there when they docked.

The last time he was going to lead his little chicks to safety, he thought, steering them through the alleyways and side streets near the docks. He was reasonably sure they weren’t being followed, but he wasn’t a man to take unnecessary chances, and once they reached Mazza he could concentrate on his own plans. The Middle Eastern restaurant was small and unprepossessing, but the place was a safe haven for any Committee operatives in need of a quick exit or entrance into Europe.

The day was cold and overcast, winter closing down around Europe. He was relatively impervious to the weather after living through the night time chill and day-time steam bath with La Luz, and he barely noticed the cold, but Beth looked pinched, miserable, and he realized she was shivering. She was wearing a t-shirt and she still had on those damned flip flops. Without thinking he stripped off his heavy shirt and dumped it on her shoulders. She just as quickly shrugged it off, tossing it back at him.

“I don’t need it. I’m fine.”

Damn, she sounded so cool and impersonal. If it wasn’t so annoying he’d be impressed. “You’ll wear it,” he growled, throwing it back to her.

She caught it by instinct, then shoved it back at him. “No.”

He’d been looking for the excuse to put his hands on her, he realized. It was fast and it wasn’t pretty, but he was much stronger than she was. A moment later she was wearing the shirt, and he was fastening the buttons on the front, ignoring her glare as his hands brushed against her breasts. He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t had enough of her the night before. It should have been, but it wasn’t.

He gave her a surreptitious glance. Beth wasn’t a one-night stand kind of woman, and he wasn’t a relationship kind of man. His need for autonomy was stronger than his lust, or so he’d thought. Now that it was too late he was rethinking things, wondering if there was any way to get one last taste of her.

Put it out of your mind, boy-o, he told himself. Pissing her off and rejecting her was probably the smartest thing he’d ever done. There was no coming back from that.

Mazza was perfectly situated, seemingly at the end of a blind alley, with hidden tunnels underneath leading to the ancient sewers and the rest of the city. It hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been there. A little older, a little shabbier, the three-story building looked as if it were leaning against the other equally-decrepit buildings on the right side of the alley. It probably was.

 The place was dark and shuttered, metal gates across the front, but he knew someone would be there. By the time they reached the entrance a man was already pushing the gates open.

“MacGowan,” the stranger greeted him. “We’ve been expecting you.”

The unease blossomed, and he could have kicked himself. He’d been so distracted by Beth Pennington that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to his instincts, which were now on high alert.

“Who are you? Where’s Castalbo?”

The man was French, not Spanish, an anomaly, and he didn’t like anomalies. “I’m Leon,” the man said succinctly. “And Castalbo’s dead. This place has been shuttered for more than a year. They sent me to intercept you.”

Christ, why the hell did he have to be saddled with two civilians? If he’d been with Bastien, or even Peter Madsen, they’d know enough to edge into the shadows. Beth and Dylan were standing in the middle of the alley, sitting ducks for anyone who happened to be training a sniper’s sight on them.

He glanced up to the third story of the old building, and saw a shadow move past. “Who’s here?” he said casually.

“Just me and my brother, Remy. He’s in the kitchen, making you something to eat. You don’t want to be standing around in plain sight. Come in out of the cold.”

Shit, he’d caught them in a lie already. Which meant they weren’t that good, but he could get little comfort from that. Sometimes bad operatives were more dangerous than the good ones.

There was no way he could tell Beth and Dylan to get the hell out of there. If he tried, they’d be cut down as they ran. If they ran. Knowing Beth, she’d probably stay right there just to spite him.

“Sure,” he said. “What happened to Perrin? He was a great chef.” Perrin was Castalbo’s dog, a mutt of indeterminate parentage who kept the place free of rats.

“He took a job in Marseilles. You need to get in out of sight,” the man said again.

“Good idea,” MacGowan said, an easy grin on his face, moving toward the man so that he blocked access to his companions. He almost had his gun out when he heard Beth scream, and he started to turn, just as something came crashing down on the back of his head.

He had a hard head. He went down, but he could see two men as well as the first. They had guns trained on Dylan and Beth, and they were already shoving them toward the door to the restaurant, past his prone body. He let them haul him up, keeping his body a dead weight as they dragged him into the dank interior of the restaurant.

They were arguing in guttural French, so thick it took him a moment to understand it, no thanks to the bump on his head. “Take them upstairs and tie them up,” the one who’d answered the door, presumably the leader, said. “Barringer said he only wants MacGowan and we can do what we want with the others, but there’s no hurry. He may change his mind. The best way to break a man is to hurt a pretty woman.”

It was all he could do not to leap up and plant his fist in the man’s mouth. Talk about stupid. If he hadn’t turned at Beth’s scream this might be a different situation. He’d dropped his gun when he’d fallen, and through the blaze of pain he’d heard them kick it away. That didn’t account for the knives he carried, or the smaller gun in his boot, but he’d have to time his retaliation very carefully.

 The ancient smell of lamb and garlic still lingered on the air. Too bad – he’d been looking forward to some of Castalbo’s stuffed dolmas. If they’d killed him MacGowan was going to be extremely annoyed. You don’t kill an artist like Castalbo and get away with it.

They were shoving Dylan and Beth up the narrow stairs, and he heard Beth’s muffled cry of pain as someone hit her. Oh, the Frenchmen were most definitely dead meat, he thought grimly as they banged his limp body against the steps.

A moment later he was sent sprawling on a hard wood floor. The idiots left him alone – why they thought a simple bash on the head would keep him immobile for long was beyond him. They wouldn’t have much of a career if they made mistakes like this. There were times when the incompetence of the enemy was simply an insult. Though he was the fool who’d walked into this mess.

Dylan was glaring at their captors, full of bravado as always. “You can’t get away with this, dude,” he said, sounding oddly like his father in a save-the-world-action-hero mold. “MacGowan’s gonna kick your ass so badly …”

MacGowan was gonna kick Dylan’s ass first, he thought. They needed to think he wasn’t much of a threat. Fortunately they slapped duct tape on Dylan’s big mouth as they tied him to a chair before they turned on Beth.

It was all he could do not to move. They shoved her into one of the flimsy chairs, tying her wrists in front of her before threading the rope through the rungs of the chair. Another mistake, though whether Beth would be able to undo the knots with her teeth was another matter. One of them slapped a piece of duct tape across her mouth, their first smart move of the day, while the other moved over to her, blocking his view.

He couldn’t see what they did, but her heard her muffled cry, and fury shot through him. He controlled his instinctive jerk, but it was too late, as the men turned on him.

His reactions were delayed, probably because of the damned blow on his head, and he was fumbling for the pistol in his boot when they caught his arms, slamming him back against the floor, and this time he passed out, cursing himself as the blackness closed in.