LITMIR.BIZ

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      She laughed, and the deep, throaty sound made the small hairs at the back of his neck stand up. He enjoyed looking at the curve of her breasts beneath the tight, gray tank top, and then at the long legs exposed below her gray shorts. He forced his eyes to her lips. He sure wasn’t thinking about business and why he’d been sent here. He was thinking of sex.

      Gazing at those moist, luscious lips didn’t solve his thought problem, so he turned sideways and, staring out at the expanse of green foliage, said, “Look, I know you’ve turned down a couple of Company assignments. But this one, I promise you, is critical.”

      A man and woman approached from the other end of the deck. Nova said, “Joe Cardone, this is Hans Licht and his wife, Jennie. They pretty much make Treetops happen. Joe works with me at CAT.”

      He shook hands with them, and Hans Licht said, “Is there anything wrong? What is happening?”

      “It’s okay, Hans,” Nova said. “CAT has hit a snag and they think they need me. I’m quite sure they don’t, but Joe and I need to chat about it.”

      Sensitive hosts that they obviously had to be, given their exclusive clientele, the Lichts made a swift departure. Joe was again alone with a reluctant Dove.

      “I’m stunned they would send you all the way out here,” she said at once. “I’m finished with CIA business.”

      The irony of this scene struck him, momentarily interrupting the argument he’d prepared for her. Here he was, tasked to get Nova to work for the Company again on pain of professional discomfort, or worse, if he didn’t succeed. Yet during the last conversation he’d had with her, he’d asked why in the world she ever worked for the Company. He’d even said something to the effect that he didn’t understand why someone with her many gifts would spend any time dealing with the lowlifes of the world, even for her country.

      He shook his head. A smile must have accompanied the headshake because Nova said, “What’s funny?”

      “Sorry.” He leaned back against the sturdy deck rail—one guaranteed to keep distracted or tipsy guests from tumbling a hundred or more feet to the ground. He crossed his arms. “Not funny. Just ironic. I should be glad you want to quit, but here I am, and I’ve got to convince you to take just one more job. Just one more.”

      “No.”

      He waited. He’d let her wonder a bit just what they might need her for.

      “Look,” she said.

      She leaned against the rail beside him, close enough so that he felt the skin of her arm brush his forearm. Would she stand so close to a man she thought of as a kid brother?

      “I’m burnt out. I lost a man I loved. I had to kill people again. I hate it. I’m out of the game.”

      “Okay. You don’t need to convince me. I’m not someone who wants you…well, I’d just as soon you quit. But we’ve got a megaproblem, and we need you.”

      “That’s ridiculous. They can always find someone else.”

      “Someone else who speaks and reads, fluently, English, Italian, Chinese and Russian?”

      She snorted in disbelief. “Why in the world would they need…?” She studied his face. “You’re not authorized to explain unless I agree to take the job, are you?”

      “Correct.”

      “Does it really have to be one person with all of those languages?”

      “That’s what they tell me.”

      “I don’t want to do it, Joe.”

      She frowned in a way he’d never seen before. A look of true hurt. She wanted to be free to take her beautiful photos and spend her days in magnificent and exciting places with interesting and nice people. And why not?

      “When we were in Virginia training for the German mission,” he said, “someone told me that you never took jobs for the Company unless people had been killed. Not agents, and not bad guys, but ordinary people. I can tell you one thing. No one has died yet, but if we don’t succeed in this mission, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people will die.”

      “You’re exaggerating.”

      He said nothing. He waited a moment more to let that sink in, and then, “You’re unique, Nova. You are fluent in all the languages we need.” Another pause. “Just one more job.”

      “Why do they need me? Us? Why not use local talent? Use several of their own break-in specialists and translators?”

      “I wasn’t told that, but you can be sure they have their reasons. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe they need someone on-site to translate, for whatever reason, and to avoid leaks or generating suspicion by the target, they don’t want to have more people on location than is absolutely necessary. They require one person with heavy-duty language skills. And who knows about viruses. He definitely mentioned viruses. You know about viruses?”

      “I did a job several years ago in Pakistan that involved bioweapons.”

      “Well, a translator fluent in a bunch of languages who knows about bioweapons is an exceedingly rare bird. That’s you. Or maybe they think they need an on-site translator with a good cover who won’t obviously smell like security. We’re foreigners. We, as a team, would fit. Maybe they want all of those things.”

      “I cannot tell you how much I don’t want to do this.”

      “Look, it’s not going to be like last time. No wet work involved. This is a break-in and translation job, and I do the break-ins. I’ll even tell you where. It’s in Italy. The Amalfi Coast. What could be more beautiful? It’ll be more like a vacation. How’s that? A great, paid vacation for a little translation work and the potential to save thousands.”

      She remained silent. “You’d be lead agent,” he added with an encouraging smile. “In charge, just like in Germany.”

      Nova sighed and shifted her weight. She put her hand over Joe’s. She could tell from his tone that he was honestly reluctant to drag her back into this, but reluctance wasn’t stopping him. He believed she was, in fact, essential.

      Her stepfather’s sexual and verbal abuse had hardened her. Killing Candido to save her younger sister Star from that same abuse and the years she’d served in prison for the killing had toughened her still more. Being recruited for the CIA by a man she thought had loved her but who’d dumped her when she no longer served his purposes, had been the finishing touch. She was capable of taking out the bad guys, and if Joe was being honest—and she believed he was—then how could she turn down this job and live with herself afterward? All they asked from her was translations. Was she going to call Claiton Pryce at Langley and say, “I absolutely refuse to translate one word for you or the Italians no matter how many people might die if I don’t?”

      “Okay,” she said. A heavy weight descended onto her shoulders. “One more time.”

      Chapter 5

      The young man’s feet felt like great stones, every step requiring a huge effort. His palms were clammy and even though he had rubbed on massive amounts of deodorant to prevent perspiration in his armpits lest he be detected too soon, he felt some wetness there.

      Scarcely one block away, he saw his target, Madrid’s famous and busy Gaudi Galleria, a shopping and entertainment center that at this afternoon hour would be crowded with hundreds—no, thousands—of infidels. Although people were dashing across the boulevard, he crossed the street at the light. He must do nothing that might call attention.

      Half a block from the entrance, his vision of the glassy Galleria structure ahead momentarily blurred. He stopped, his legs shaking, and sucked in a breath.

      “Don’t stop,” Ahmad al Hassan had coached him repeatedly. “It will seem strange.”

      To cover the moment, he

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