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He sure as hell needed one. He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow, his internal temperature rising in direct relation to the way that damned gown shifted and moved against her body.
At the rate he was going his self-control was going to be shot where she was concerned.
“I’m not in the drinking mood, John,” she informed him.
She followed him to the short bar across the room, though, and watched as he poured himself a drink. He could feel her behind him, the warmth of her body reaching out and stroking the bare flesh of his back.
Hell, he wanted to feel her touch so damned much that he could almost imagine what it had once been like.
“So are you ready to talk yet?” He turned to her as he leaned back against the bar nonchalantly.
Her brow arched. “I rather think you know what I want to talk about. In what way are you wanting to work together here and what assurances do I have that you and your team aren’t going to move in and take this away from me?”
He shook his head. “There’s no way to take this away from you, Bailey, and you know it. You’re the key to the operation, as you said. You have access to the code, Warbucks needs you, as do we. But I won’t work blind.”
She tapped her fingers against the small silk purse she carried in one hand.
“When did he acquire CROSSFIRE?” she finally asked. “My sources haven’t reported any attempts to steal it, now that it had been taken.”
“This doesn’t surprise me.” He shrugged. “A cap was placed on the information going out until the they could be found,” he stated. “That’s how we managed to finally track the traitor back here. It’s a very unique weapon. One Warbucks couldn’t resist once a weakness was inserted in the security surrounding it. We were hoping to catch the thieves before they actually got away with it. Unfortunately, they slipped by us. But we manage to track the lines of information to four families: Waterstone, Grace, Claymore, and Menton-Squire.”
They were names she knew, families she had grown up with and had suspected herself. “I’ve come up with the same names,” she said. “But I’ve also placed Raymond Greer high within Warbucks ranks. And only he would know that I have that code.”
“That leaves Waterstone, Grace, Claymore, and Menton-Squire.” he pointed out.
Bailey nodded at that. “Raymond Greer worked for Ford Grace before marrying Grace’s sister. I know he’s been involved in the brokerage of the sales in several instances. Myron Falks is Samuel Waterstone’s head of security. I’ve compiled quite a bit of circumstantial evidence against him as well. I know the two of them are involved, I just don’t know who’s giving the orders.”
That was more than the unit had. Much more. She’d obviously been working on this at a deeper level than they had imagined.
John tipped back his drink, finished it, and set the glass on the table.
“How did you manage to tie Greer and Falks into it?” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and watched her gaze caress the naked flesh.
“Tying Greer to it wasn’t that hard.” She shrugged, and the full slope of a breast flashed within the folds of material draping over it. “He’s ex-CIA. He has the contacts to know about classified research-and-development projects. He still maintains friendships with very high-level individuals, and with his marriage to Mary Grace Altman, he has the power and financial backing to aid many of those individuals. Falks was easier, actually. His alias Mark Fulton was tagged several years ago during a sale of advanced electronics on the black market. We didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest or conviction, but we know he was there.”
“And each family has the power or resources for transportation and delivery,” he stated.
Bailey nodded at that.
He blew out a heavy breath before wiping his hand over his face and staring back at her silently for long moments. He had actually expected her to know what was stolen. She had her own sources, her own contacts and assets. The fact that rumor hadn’t made it back to her was in a way an indication that this operation was much more high-level that any of them had wanted to believe.
“When was CROSSFIRE?” she asked.
He nodded sharply. “It was stolen during transportation to a secret military base in DC several weeks ago. Word went out to terrorist organizations and nations days ago that CROSSFIRE was coming up on the auction block and that you would choose the broker. We have a major situation here with limited time to track the weapon, considering there’s a highly classified multinational meeting in the Middle East in three weeks to discuss a new peace initiative that has garnered surprising support.”
“So we have three weeks to ensure that Warbucks approves of my choice of John Vincent as the broker,” she stated.
John nodded. “Considering the item, the price that will be attached to it, and the level of trust that will be required in this trade, any broker will demand a face-to-face with Warbucks as well rather than his middlemen, whom they’ve met with before. This is our chance to identify him and to take him out.”
He watched her expression turn somber, her green eyes losing a bit of their brilliance as bleak bitterness filled them.
“Warbucks was one of Orion’s employers,” she said. “I suspect he was hired to kill Ford Grace’s wife and daughter fourteen years ago and I know he hired out the deaths of my parents. I want him, John. I won’t be pushed out of this one. Try to take me out of it, and you and your entire team will regret it.”
He shook his head slowly. “This can’t be just your operation any longer, Bailey. It has to be a shared venture between you and me.”
“And your Jerric Abbas look-alike?” The tight, sarcastic smile she gave him was telling. “I met him outside the elevators tonight—with several of Waterstone’s security team, by the way. He made a point of letting me know he was here, to have me verify his identity as Abbas.”
John grinned. The identity of Jerric Abbas was the best cover they could have come by. Jerric had only been rumored to have been killed in that explosion; there was no proof. Several times after that explosion Micah had made forays into the criminal underground as the terrorist. The unit had decided that morning that Micah would make certain Bailey verified his identity. She’d come across Jerric several times in the field and she was the best verification he could have had.
