Ironclad Cover

“I’m not Ivan Ivanoff, either.” Ivan, a famous Russian piano player about the same age as Tsernyakov, had recently married a model younger than Alexandra, the top news of TV stations around the country.

“No,” she agreed. “You’re much nicer. Do you ever think about remarrying?”

He shrugged and tried to look as modest as he could. “Who would have me, anyway?” he said before she could respond. “So shopping, then maybe a movie and dinner?”

“That would be really great.”

Yes, it would be. He hadn’t had the time to work on her lately, but tonight he would make sure she began to see him as something else than just a family friend. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so glad you are here with me.”

“Me, too.” Her smile was genuine. “Thank you for keeping me safe.”

“Nothing will happen to you, I swear.” Not as long as she pleased him. That’s what he had spared her for when he ordered the murder of her parents—something she knew nothing about.

He would end the year in style, with a new young lover and more money than he’d made on any one deal in his life before.

“Why don’t you wait for me upstairs?” He ran a finger down Alexandra’s face. “I have to make a few more calls then I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you.” She gave him a spontaneous hug and was practically skipping on her way out of the room.

“Your next appointment is here, sir.” His secretary’s voice came through the intercom.

He glanced at his calendar. “Last one for today?” he asked to double-check. Sometimes people got scheduled in at the last minute.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He would get through it fast. Alexandra was waiting.

BRANT LAW looked at Anita seated across the table, still not over the shock of how different she looked from when he had last seen her during their briefing at Quantico. She’d been a beautiful woman in the dark blue FBI training suit, but in this dress…Every man’s head turned her way when she had walked through the restaurant’s door.

Personally, he was into leggy blondes, but he could certainly see the attraction. He tipped his glass to his lips.

“Do you always drink decaf?” she asked.

“For the past week or so.” He could hear the pain in his own voice. “I’m trying to kick a bothersome caffeine addiction.” On doctor’s orders. Since he had his hip injury, he hadn’t been moving as much as he should have and his blood pressure had been inching up. He was determined to do whatever it took to pass his next physical. “It’s all about discipline.”

“How is it going?”

He groaned just as his stomach growled. “Excuse me.”

Her full lips stretched into a sympathetic smile. “Missed your lunch?”

He nodded. He’d gotten into George Town on Grand Cayman Island late on one of those no-meal flights. His bad hip hurt from sitting still for so long. He wanted two things before he’d gone to bed for the night: a good dinner and a report from Anita Caballo on how the analysis of the financial records of their targets was going. So as soon as he’d dropped his suitcase at the hotel, he’d gone in search of her, concerned with what he might find.

Bribing four convicts to join an undercover team to bring down the king of all criminals didn’t fill him with confidence about the operation’s success. Could the four women succeed where professionals had failed? Carly was a top hacker, Sam a whiz at breaking and entering, Gina an ex-cop who’d done time for manslaughter, Anita a resourceful embezzler of four million dollars. Maybe they would have some kind of edge, a deeper understanding of criminal reasoning or whatever. Or maybe they were heading straight for disaster.

“How is the consulting business coming along?” he asked.

“Pretty well.” She seemed to relax at his choice of subject. “We have a half-dozen clients and a couple of nibbles from others. Once we complete this first round of projects, I think we’ll be getting a number of referrals.”

Since Cavanaugh had left the party minutes after Brant had discovered Anita, they’d followed him to his compound on the beach. And as they weren’t equipped for breaking and entering, he’d decided to end surveillance for the night and take her to the nearest restaurant that was still open, the Reef Street Inn. He didn’t believe in wasting time.

She looked nervous.

Did she have a reason other than being caught with a man? Frankly, he would have preferred if she spent one hundred percent of her time and energy on the mission.

He chewed his beef—a steak and potatoes man through and through—and washed it down with some decaf soda. He poured some extra steak sauce on the next slice.

“I’m tempted to throw the poor thing a life jacket. You’re drowning it,” Anita said.

He made a point in sopping up as much sauce as possible. “Best invention since the cow.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“So what have you been up to lately?” He didn’t have a good handle on the woman yet and was impatient to learn more.

She gave him a detailed rundown on all the projects the team had put into place since they had arrived on the island.

He wasn’t surprised that the business was doing well. She was a hell of a businesswoman—competent, resourceful, dedicated. He knew as much from her file. She had a fine track record with Pellegrino’s, the company she had built from nothing before she had succumbed to temptation and neatly made four million dollars disappear. “And the other end of the business?” He was referring to the money laundering they did on the sly in order to get closer to a shadier clientele that could provide valuable leads to Tsernyakov.

“I wish things would roll faster,” she said. “I was hoping to make contact with Cavanaugh tonight.”

“Got sidetracked?” He drew up an eyebrow.

She shifted in her seat, but wouldn’t look away. Good, the woman had chutzpah. She would need it on this mission.

“I was doing surveillance,” she said.

So she was using the poor bastard. How far would she have been willing to go? He thought of her shoes discarded on the marble floor. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“I was trying to listen in on Cavanaugh’s meeting next door.”

“Find out anything?”

“Very little before I was interrupted. Cavanaugh is in some kind of a real-estate deal. He and a couple of friends of his are trying to rezone an area for building. They mentioned environmental setbacks and the possibility of losing a lot of money.”

“They?”

She shook her head. “Don’t have names. And I only saw one, other than Cavanaugh.”

“Got pictures?”

“Not a good one. But I have pictures of others Cavanaugh had been talking to earlier in the evening.”

“And your companion?”

“Michael Lambert, land developer.”

“What are your plans with him?”