Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(59)

The girl caught her and hugged her, murmuring endearments and covering Rachel’s face with kisses.

“You’re from Ukraina?” he asked in that language. “Rachel, too?”

She gave him a shy smile that struck him as very sad. “Rachel and I were cellmates in prison,” was her unexpected reply. She swung the child onto her hip. “Can I take her over to play with the other kids?” she asked Tamara, in heavily accented English.

“Fine,” Tamara said. “Bring her back when they start serving something you think she might eat or whenever you want a break. Thanks, Sveti. You’re an angel.”

Sveti walked away, her head bent over the toddler’s to listen to the child’s excited babble.

He gave Tam a questioning look. “Cellmates?”

She shrugged. “Just like she told you. They were locked up by organ pirates for months in a stinking basement room. Sveti’s the closest thing Rachel has to real family after that. I fly her over to visit as often as she can come. Excuse me. Since Sveti is watching Rachel, I’ll take this opportunity to run to the ladies’ room.”

Val followed her with his eyes until she vanished. He disliked taking his eyes off her, but Rachel was still visible from here, and he was sure that she would not run without the child.

He turned back to the people at the table. “Organ pirates?” he asked the table at large.

“You mean she hasn’t told you how she got Rachel?” asked the sultry redheaded beauty who sat next to Davy McCloud, wide-eyed. “It’s an incredible story.”

He shook his head. The women tripped over themselves to tell him the tale of the rescue of the orphans. Steele’s rush into the jaws of death dressed only in silver spandex. How she had pretended to be a stripper who had lost her way to a bachelor party to create a diversion while the rest of the team sneaked into the compound. How she had neutralized four guards by herself before they could sound the alarm, making it possible for Nick and the rest to charge in and stop the villains just as they were about to cut Sveti’s heart out.

He knew the story, but listening to these women tell it gave him a whole new level of information. These people admired Steele. They liked her too. Even trusted her—in a careful way.

“Impressive,” he murmured.

“Yeah, that she is,” said a blond man who Val’s surveillance had pegged as Sean McCloud. “Tam’s special. Not to be messed with.”

Val acknowledged the blunt warning with a nod. “I would not dream of it,” he said blandly. “Particularly not when she is surrounded by such a fierce band of loyal friends.”

There was a tense silence. The people at the table exchanged significant glances. Val smiled at them and sipped his wine.

“Mr. Janos is interested in marketing Deadly Beauty in Europe,” Erin explained, effectively breaking it.

That touched off a far less emotionally charged conversation that Val could handle smoothly with a tenth of his brain while the rest of it occupied itself with frantic planning.

As soon as the conversation shifted away from him, he excused himself and left the ballroom. He had to find a place to stage the scene that would take place this evening. The minicam was taped discreetly under his arm. It had to happen now, or else Imre would be…

No. He could not think of Imre at all. He had to be suave, relaxed. Not desperate. That woman would smell desperation from miles away.

He had to hide it under a layer of impenetrable charm. And still, the word pulsed in his head, like a strobe light. Now, now, now.

A long corridor of dimly lit administrative offices was a likely possibility. He strode down the hall, trying all the doors. One of them was open, a utilitarian staff kitchen. Sink, coffeemaker, microwave, cupboard, and small refrigerator for storing staff lunches.

This was it. His only option, he decided, lacking in atmosphere though it was. There was no time to look for someplace better.

A dismantled drip coffeemaker on top of the refrigerator gave him an idea. He stuck the vidcam into the glass pot, and added handfuls of miscellaneous objects from the drawers to hide it: sugar packets and Sweet’n Low, tea bags. He directed the lens so its field of vision was unobscured. He’d programmed it to be light-activated.

God help him. Imre’s only hope, at the mercy of a tense, nervous, frightened woman’s whim. What bizarre conditions under which to seduce the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. A blues tune began to play, pulsing from afar. The dancing had begun. That might help.

He ran into her outside the bathrooms on his way back. She looked pale. “Are you well?” he asked.

“Great. Perfectly wonderful, thanks to you.”

“Let’s dance.” He slid his arm around her waist as they went into the ballroom and swung her around into his arms.

She went rigid. “Let go of me, you tricky son of a bitch,” she said, through a smiling grimace. “Or I’ll open your jugular with my hairpin.”

“Do not be that way,” he wheedled. “We were doing so well. You do not want to upset all your friends, do you? Look at them, so happy for you, thinking that you are finally enjoying yourself. About time, no?”

She harrumphed, stiff as a wooden plank, shoving against his chest to put more space between them. “Little do they know.”

He jerked her closer as she stumbled. “Relax, for God’s sake.”