Now You See Him(70)
"Let's not talk about it now," Francey said, putting a soothing hand on his arm, feeling the faint tremors. "She's gone, there's nothing she can do to hurt us anymore."
Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but instead a look of intense surprise passed over his face. He clutched his arm again, tightly. "Francey," he gasped. And then he pitched forward onto the tile floor.
Chapter 16
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The man known by many names, including Michael Dowd, had been furious when he'd walked into Sir Henry's office and seen Francey's slender back. He'd been in a white-hot rage, so intense he was barely rational. How someone would have been shortsighted enough to let Francey Neeley come to the British embassy, how all their failsafe systems could have shorted out, was a matter of complete mystery to him. He'd been a fool to think he could ever get away with it, simply fade out of her life without seeing her again. He was too old a hand at this game to have wasted his time on false hopes. But he couldn't rid himself of the blind rage that had swamped him as he saw the shocked recognition in Francey's eyes.
He couldn't understand why she hadn't denounced him. Why she hadn't launched herself in a furious attack, or at the very least told that old fool, Sir Henry, that he was no more a cultural attaché than Oliver North had been. Because she'd known. He understood her very well, better than he knew himself. And in her shocked, hurt eyes he'd seen a sudden wealth of comprehension. She knew everything, or just about. Knew the limits of his betrayal.
And she'd simply walked away. Without a word of reproach or threat. Simply curled in on herself and vanished.
She didn't know he'd followed her. He hadn't lost his touch enough for her to notice he'd been shadowing her as she walked aimlessly through the old town section, down by the waterfront, up past the rich houses of the expatriates, skirting the cafés and bars that were bright and warm with humanity. She didn't know his watchful shadow had kept any number of men from trying to strike up a conversation with the aimless wanderer.
He'd waited until she neared the hotel, slipped ahead of her in the shadows and waited for her in her room. He didn't know what he'd hoped to accomplish. He certainly hadn't wanted to touch her again. Had he?
But of course he had. He'd come within inches of taking her to that wide, empty bed and making sure nothing fogged her memory of what it was like between them. But something had stopped him. Maybe his last remnants of decency. Or maybe just the dazed pain in her beautiful brown eyes.
He'd left her before he could touch her again. And then he'd turned and walked to the nearest bar and proceeded to get just as drunk as he could afford to.
It didn't make the next day any better. He didn't have a headache or a hangover—his body was too well controlled to be prey to any such weaknesses. He showed up at work a fashionable forty-five minutes late, as his alter ego, Charlie, always did, and managed to look languid and unconcerned as he waited for his carefully constructed cover to come crashing down around him.
He had no idea what she was going to do. Whether she would leave with Daniel, quietly accepting that it was over. He'd told her the truth, or most of it, about her sister to shock her into acquiescence. But with Francey, nothing was a certainty.
There was no phone call. No outraged summons from Sir Henry, demanding an explanation. Not even a word from Daniel, warning him of the upcoming debacle. Nothing at all.
He was more than accustomed to the frantic tedium of waiting for all hell to break loose. He told himself that this was no different from keeping watch outside a terrorists' hideout, but he knew otherwise. For the first time in his life his emotions were involved. And in a matter of hours the first woman he'd ever loved would send his mission into oblivion. Or she would disappear from his life forever. And he didn't know which would be worse.
He spent the hours shuffling papers on his artfully messy desk, drinking very strong coffee and flirting with any woman who happened to walk by his open office door. Her plane was due to leave at two-thirty. If he could just ignore the clock until after that he would be fine.
But for the first time in his life his iron will faded. At a quarter of two he looked at the thin gold watch that belonged to a Charlie-type person and knew he had just enough time to make it to the airport. Not to stop her. But to watch her fly away, out of his life forever.
The ambulance was just pulling out when he arrived at the airport, and it charged past him, lights flashing, siren keening. He barely noticed it, so intent on finding Daniel and watching the plane take off that he almost didn't see the car following the ambulance. Almost didn't see Francey's pale, frightened figure in the back seat, sandwiched between two large men.