Looking for something?
Three words with a wealth of meaning. One, he needed all the locations where Dilaver hid his weapons. Two, he had to find out the latest delivered cache. Three, he had to find a specific weapon in the collection. And yeah, four, he was looking for the person who hung this note on his dick—the CIA tracker Jed had told him about.
It was just like Jed not to mention the sex of the CIA contractor working undercover. All he had said was that the contact would be in Velesta and that Hawk was not to make a move until Dilaver went there. Not that working with a woman bothered Hawk. Some of the women he admired had been very capable covert agents. In fact, now that he thought about it, he wondered whether this woman was another GEM operative.
His eyes narrowed. But of course. Hell, why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? The American woman who ran a café. Jed had told him the password between him and the contractor wasambrosia. Amber Hutchens…ambrosia.
His instincts told him he had just hit the right conclusion. All he had to do was prove it to himself. He got up and picked up the black telephone again.
“What’s the phone number to The Last Resort?” he asked.
Amber stared at her computer screen. Sending Brad to pick flowers at this hour should buy her some time. She needed it. Someone had called on her business phone just before he had reached her on the private line.
“Ambrosia,” a masculine voice had said over the phone. “Check your computer.”
He had hung up before she had recovered from her shock. That had to be—and Brad had interrupted with his call about dinner. She was dying to get back to her laptop and when Brad gave her an opening for some time, she had quickly thought of a way to delay him. She knew he would get the hint.
Brad and she had a very pleasant relationship, and their dinner dates were like a public stance and a private friendship both at the same time. She had cultivated this from the start and had been surprised by his silent agreement, even when he had found out what she was. They had an understanding—he didn’t ask her how she got her information, and in return she would give him some data that he might find useful.
Right now, though, it was another new person in town on her mind. He had found her in record time, way faster than any of the previous agents sent here.
She sat back at her desk and considered briefly, then shrugged. Why not? If he was that good, she would reward him. She reached out and turned her laptop on. Her tracer beeped, indicating that one of her tapped lines was active. She didn’t have to check to know it was Hawk McMillan’s cell phone. He had just called his online service. That meant he was using his computer with his phone.
Oh, trying to trace her, was he? She smiled. It wasn’t that easy to bypass her firewalls. Intrigued, she typed a few commands, bringing up a window to show what he was doing. From the size, he appeared to be downloading a rather large file over the net back to his laptop. Whatever it was, she could get it, since he was using his cell phone as connection. Since he already knew she was watching, she suspected that he wanted her to zap it.
Her finger hovered over the command to pull the file. She had ample protection and safeguards from hackers who might try to infect her system. But he wasn’t hacking into her system; he was luring her into his. That was just too much for her to resist. She clicked on the command key, then sat back to watch as her computer pulled in the program he was using.
Amber laughed in disbelief.
The man had connected with some sort of instant messenger and was…typing a note to himself—okay, really, toher,if she cared to reply, now that she had loaded the damn program into her network.
Hi Ambrosia. Found your note. Found you.
Oh, this was just too hard to resist.Good to know you checked yourself. You couldn’t have possibly missed my note, Mr. McMillan.
I’ll have to return the favor sometime, Miss Hutchens.
A shiver ran through her. She had a feeling Hawk McMillan hadn’t liked being the victim last night.You were careless. I was merely pointing out the dangers of being caught off guard. You want my help, you’d better be a lot more alert.
Was I not alert enough for you last night?
Amber rested her chin on her hand. Not only smart, but a smart-ass. Of course he knew she felt his…She shook her head. He was doing that on purpose, putting that image back in her head.Listen, hot stuff, I don’t have time to play.
Pity.
She admired his typing speed.You get the coordinates and maybe we’ll talk.
Our first meeting won’t be about talking. It’ll be about making a point.
Threats won’t make me cooperative. Remember you need my help, Mr. McMillan.
You tried to compromise me today. That’s not help.
It would have been nice if she had succeeded. That kind of information would be very valuable, especially if she had found out what Jed and his team wanted so badly from Dilaver. Or even to find out where Jed was…now, wouldn’t that be a coup?
Jed McNeil would understand it’s my job to test you.It was a half-truth. She needed to know how good this new man was before she would jeopardize her operation again.
My turn next. Signing out.
