Now You See Him(81)

No one bothered to remove Cardiff's body. The bright lights were turned off as Francey was dragged to the burned-out shell of a building where Caitlin made her headquarters, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she could see the weaponry, poised and ready, the motley group of men with sullen eyes and angry mouths. Someone shoved her down on the far side of a small campfire, and when she tried to move she heard the unmistakable warning click of a gun.

She still wasn't ready to die. When the time came she would face it, fighting all the way. But she didn't want to die for nothing but a madwoman's vengeance. She wanted a chance, one last chance, and she was going to do her damnedest to get it.

Caitlin sat next to her, watching her with gleeful anticipation, probably waiting for her to blubber and beg. She would do that if it would help, but Francey doubted her sister would react with anything more than amusement. Together they waited, Caitlin avid-eyed, Francey with numb dread.

At one point Francey must have drifted asleep, waking up with a jerk. "I must say, I'm in awe of your sangfroid," Caitlin said. "I doubt I'd be able to doze if I were waiting for judgment day."

"I've done nothing to be judged."

"Your life is an affront!" Caitlin shrieked suddenly. "All that money, that comfort, that safe, fat American life, while your father was bleeding to death on the soil of Ireland."

"Planting a bomb, wasn't he?" Francey said with a disdainful sniff. "Better him than innocent victims."

She almost died then; she knew it. If it hadn't been for the sudden distraction of the tall shadow at the edge of the fire, she would have breathed her last breath beneath Caitlin's clawlike fingers.

"I'm here."

The blind fury on Caitlin's face vanished in a ghastly parody of a coquettish smile. "How sweet of you to drop in," she murmured. "I gather you got my invitation."

He stepped into the circle of light thrown by the fire, and Francey stared up at him in shock. Once again he was a different man. Dressed all in black, with some sort of camouflage paint on his face, he looked like a savage. Cold, emotionless, brutal, he was a stranger, and far more dangerous than all the sullen killers who milled around Caitlin's ramshackle camp.

He didn't even glance in her direction; all his attention was focused on Caitlin Dugan. "It was delivered. What do you want?"

"I've got what I want. You and my sister. I have a taste for vengeance, Cougar, and you've more than earned it. You killed Patrick, you killed my baby brother, and you killed two other loyal soldiers on that little island."

"Don't forget Dex and his friend."

"Oh, I'm not forgetting. I figure we have plenty of time. You see, we know about your plans. We know you have twelve men waiting at Delbert Beach planning to intercept the arms shipment we've been waiting for. They won't dare come to your rescue—the mission is more important than the lives of two people, isn't it? Of course, they don't know that the arms have already arrived, along with a generous donation from some of our more militant, anti-British Middle Eastern friends. The British government didn't win any new friends with their participation in the Gulf War, Cougar, and that's greatly helped our cause."

"I imagine it has." His voice was low, cool. "What makes you think your information is correct?"

"Because it came from the top of your particular food chain. I don't suppose you noticed Ross Cardiff lying over there."

"I've seen a lot of dead men in the past few days, Caitlin. I admit I wasn't curious enough to investigate."

"He's been helping us out. Of course, he was doing it for money, not for politics, which made him a liability. But he's the one who makes the plans, you're simply the lackey. By the time your hand-picked little strike force realizes the shipment isn't coming, we'll be long gone." She cackled. "Of course, we'll leave your bodies behind. You would like a hero's burial, wouldn't you? Maybe you'll get to be buried next to your true love."

He still didn't look at Francey. She was listening to everything with numb horror, her eyes glued to Michael's tall, dangerous form. He walked closer, moving past her to squat in front of Caitlin, his back to Francey. If she hadn't been so mesmerized she wouldn't have noticed the knife he somehow managed to push toward her in the dirt as he concentrated on her murderous sister.

"What if I told you, Caitlin Dugan, that you were as big a fool to trust Cardiff as he was to trust you? That despite his title, no one paid the slightest bit of attention to him? That we know when the arms were delivered, and there aren't twelve men waiting on Delbert Beach, but more than one hundred of the most highly trained operatives the British government and their allies can afford, and they're damned close? What would you say to that?"