The Agent's Proposition

Packing was simple enough. She had said the source of this threat was not in country, so he ought to prepare for any contingency. He included his tux and accoutrements, his best suit and the expensive casual things he hadn’t used since his last undercover gig in London. He added the forbidden laptop. Had they really thought he’d abide by that directive?

On the off chance that Bradshaw wasn’t providing equipment for him, he tossed in a pack of disposable wrist restraints, a penlight, his knife and his Kevlar vest. The Glock went in the bag next, along with his .38 caliber backup.

He didn’t bother to change clothes, since she was in such a hurry. So was he, now that he’d agreed to do this.

She was sipping a glass of tea without ice when he reentered the living room. “Come on. Make it quick.”

“You’re in a rush all of a sudden,” she said as they walked to the car.

“Might as well get this show on the road. By the way, where are we going?” he asked.

“France. The Riviera.”

“That covers a good bit of ground.”

“Saint Tropez. Are you familiar with it?”

“Oh, yeah. Interesting beaches,” he replied with a suggestive smile, knowing full well she’d start picturing all the sunbathers nude. Some of them would be, maybe most of them. How would Miss Prim and Proper react to that reality? He had to admit he wouldn’t mind seeing her try to blend in with the locals on one of those beaches.

She seemed a little too “by the book” to be working for such an offbeat agency. The bunch at SEXTANT were supposed to have psychic leanings, at least according to the scuttlebutt at the Company. The agents had joked about it.

Cameron hadn’t joked. He had been raised in Savannah, where psychics lived on every corner and were nothing to laugh at. He was no fortune-teller or mind reader, but he had experienced a few premonitions himself, so he didn’t discount things of that nature. The government had been implementing special programs exploring psychic phenomena for decades. Maybe they had come up with something useful, after all.

However, he figured if Bradshaw were able to read his mind, she wouldn’t have had to ask so many questions.

Also, she wouldn’t be so worried about whether she could trust him to do what he’d agreed to do. She would also know the Cochran agenda stretched past protecting the power grid and establishing his innocence. Now that he’d made the decision to take this on, his former ultimate goal had returned with renewed determination.

Cameron wanted the guy he had almost caught, but that was just the first step. Somebody else was calling the shots. He was sure of it. An insider, an American, a traitor.

He looked at Agent Bradshaw more objectively than he had before and tried to judge how she might react to a life-threatening situation. She must be pretty well trained and fairly intelligent to get where she was in the business, but she looked so damned innocent and untried.

He hoped she would be able to handle what was coming, because traitors, when cornered, could potentially prove lethal. They had nothing left to lose by fighting to the death.

Then again, now that he thought about it, neither did he.

Chapter 2

Tess evaluated what she knew about Cochran. He looked a darn sight different in person than in his official photo. What had not been captured by the camera was the laid-back sexuality, which sort of drew you in if you weren’t careful. Like a spell or something…

Cochran scared her a little. Not physically, but he threatened her self-confidence when it came to judging men. He probably wasn’t what he seemed, so what was he?

The photo in the file showed a perfectly groomed, rather handsome government agent wearing a gray suit, a short haircut and a stern expression. In person, at first meeting, he’d been a half-naked, wildly attractive sea captain with a killer tan and a sun-bleached mane that needed a trim. That lazy grin, combined with his intense green-eyed appraisal of her, had raised the hairs on her arms. Still did.

He made eye contact readily enough, but she was the one uncomfortable with it, not him. And she couldn’t read a thing he was thinking.

Maybe this was the real Cochran. Maybe getting fired had changed him. It was impossible to know who she was dealing with here, and that bothered her a lot.

The Company had confiscated his computers and fearing he would retaliate against them by using his expertise, had ordered him not to replace them. She would bet he’d gotten around the directive in short order and really hoped he had. Technology changed so rapidly, he’d be well behind the curve now if he hadn’t kept up.

She noted he hadn’t bothered to change out of his shorts, Café Loco shirt and deck shoes. Once she’d told him about the private jet waiting for them, he had seemed eager get on with it.

They were in the air now, and Cochran had been on her cell phone with Mercier for the last half hour, working out the specifics of their deal and details on the case.

Tess felt a little out of the loop, but she was glad her first mission had been accomplished. When she’d made the call for Cochran, Mercier had congratulated her and wished her well on her first real assignment in the field. She had been on backup for three others since he had hired her, and apparently he now trusted her to go secondary on this one.

Six years ago Tess had felt confident enough in her skill, and admittedly curious enough, to volunteer for a small study in parapsychology sponsored by the University of Virginia where she was enrolled. She learned later that the study was actually a renamed and privately funded continuation of the CIA’s Star Gate Project, which had been officially launched in the 1970s.

The study primarily involved remote viewing, which could aid in producing intelligence data. But her particular skills must have been recorded, because four years later she had been recruited.

She had qualified her skill when describing it to Mercier, but he had seemed satisfied that she would be a valuable member of the team and had hired her.

This was her first time out without a fellow SEXTANT agent in the lead on a case. Tess wished she knew Cochran better than she did. She didn’t like not knowing exactly who had her back.

There was the sexual attraction, which she would have to deal with, too. She had felt something like it before, but that had come to no good in a great big hurry.

Brian had been her first and only, the perfect choice—or so she had thought at the time. Early on Tess had decided to wait for love to have sex. She had to make her own rules, and that one had seemed prudent at the time. As a result, she’d reached her sophomore year in college virtually untouched.

He had been so attentive, so persuasive and so handsome. She hadn’t even tried to read his thoughts, thinking that would be intrusive and somehow taking advantage of him. She should have asked herself why a great-looking, popular jock like him, with so many other choices available, would attach himself to a bookish little mouse like her.

Maybe in the back of her mind, she had questioned it. But she hadn’t wanted to analyze the way she felt or look any deeper into his intentions. Starry-eyed and infatuated, she had accepted all his words of undying love as absolute devotion. Until the day after she’d given in to it completely. He had told everyone, leaving her humiliated.

She looked up as Cameron returned to the seat beside her and handed her back the phone. “I got all the details of the investigation so far. Mercier’s arranging for a yacht we can stay on, a repo that’s small enough we can crew it, but big enough to impress.”

“A boat? Jack’s putting us on a boat? Why?”

“Because I suggested it. Our target is moving. Could be on water, so we ought to be prepared for that. He agreed it was a good idea.”

Tess hated boats. She had quailed at boarding Cochran’s back on Tybee. But she wasn’t about to reveal her nearly phobic fear to Cochran. That was no way to begin.

He pinned her again with that intense scrutiny, as if he were trying to read her thoughts.

She knew that look. Was he psychic? She couldn’t read him. That had bothered her when they met, but she hadn’t worried too much. She could read some people, but they had to be open to it, either willing to let her or clueless about her trying. He didn’t strike her as either willing or clueless.

“You don’t like boats,” he stated, guessing. Or maybe he knew.

“I don’t have any experience with them, that’s all. You’ll have to teach me what to do.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be an old salt in no time.”

That remained to be seen. “Why can’t we stay in one of the hotels?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because once we find this dude, we have to get him into international waters to arrest him.”

“No, we don’t. The French police will cooperate with us. They have before. Jack has influence, and jurisdiction shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

“Yeah, they’ll hold whomever we catch, maybe even let us interrogate him, but under their collective thumb. Trust me, we won’t have the time to cut through bureaucracy. We need to get this guy and find out who he’s working for immediately. His boss might have a backup hacker and go right ahead with his plan.”

“His boss?”