Dilaver put out a hand in helpless laughter. “Stop, you’re killing me,” he gasped. Then he laughed again, adding with amusement, “‘Killing me’…I said some stupid American phrase!”
Oh yeah, it was something Hawk dreamed about a lot, especially now, when the kingpin was behaving so damn normal, taking delight in a few slang terms like an eager student. It contrasted with the man Hawk saw beating the living shit out of a young girl a few nights ago because she dared to say no to him. He’d had to walk out of thekafenaor risk his cover. That one still haunted his dreams. He wondered whether the image would ever go away.
“Here’s my…bee in my…bonnet,” Dilaver continued, still wheezing with laughter. “Do you know who gives me free weapons? Your government. The United States of America. It’s all in big piles, dropped in shipments to arm the KLA, and I get first pick, of course, since they’re using my territory.”
“Dropped shipments. You mean, like you just said, they are dropped out of the sky?” Hawk pretended to look incredulous. “How can that be? The UN wouldn’t approve, would they?”
Dilaver shrugged. “Your government’s sneaky, Hawk. They negotiated to have the KLA take over what’s left of Yugoslavia, and they make the drops in big crates marked ‘Relief Aid.’ Some of these crates are actually filled with weapons and they’re dropped at specific locations for me.”
“How did they choose you? I mean, do you have a direct line to the U.S. armory?” Hawk affected a cynical look. “Come on, Dilaver. Don’t tell me you’re an agent for the American government.”
“No, you got it backward. I have an agent in the United States. Several, actually.” Dilaver sighed as his amusement subsided. “It’s a long story, and a good one. If I have the time I might even write one of those spy novels, but then of course my aunt will kill me. There’s that word again!”
“Your aunt?” Hawk prompted.
“She’s high-level,” Dilaver told him. “Got the authority to approve shipments or something. Of course, she and her people there are careful, so they only send out certain crates. She told me I can do anything I want with most of the weapons except for a few marked ones. Those are hers. That’s where you come in.”
Hawk knew that there had been a big blowup in D.C. the past year when several very important high-level CIA agents were indicted for selling information. Maybe this tied in somehow. “How?” he asked, getting up from the sofa to get a beer from the refrigerator. He activated a tiny recorder in his wristwatch.
“My aunt mentioned that conference before, you see, and that there’ll be some big-time dealers who would love to get their hands on these special weapons. She said there’s some problem moving them from her end right now and she might need my help.” Dilaver settled back comfortably in the sofa, nodding his head when Hawk offered to bring him a bottle. “Anyway, you have links through Stefan and others. Must be fate to have met you, huh?”
Fate. Hawk didn’t want to discuss fate with a man like Dilaver. He didn’t want to be here drinking a beer and shooting the breeze at all. Something ugly and dark reared its head inside him lately whenever Dilaver and he talked about certain things—like friendship and fate, for instance. Those subjects reminded him of his best friend and teammates; those things bonded him to his SEAL brothers.Not to a man like Dilaver.
He was going to need an outlet for all this violence growing inside. Soon.
“Ja sam gladna,” he said softly.
“Yes, I am, too. Let’s go eat. We’ll talk more about your future over a good meal.”
“Come on, Amber, tell me what he did. I’m dying here.”
Amber looked up from the rows of figures she was trying to add up. “Will you quit pestering me? I haven’t been able to get these numbers right for fifteen minutes now.”
Lily finished drying her hair with a towel as she headed to the refrigerator. “Well, tell me! I promise I’ll leave you in peace after you give me the details.”
“Nope.”
“Aw…come on. You’re not still mad, are you?” Lily poured some orange juice into a glass, then pulled out a bottle of champagne.
“Isn’t it a bit early for a mimosa?” Amber asked as she watched her friend adding the alcohol into her drink. “And yes, I’m still mad at you. I can’t believe you let a man into my room. What kind of friend are you?”
Lily took a big sip, licking her lips. “It’s never too early for a mimosa,” she declared, then took another gulp. She toasted Amber with the glass. “The man had you over his shoulder and he looked so intimidating.”
“Yeah, right.”
Lily fluttered her eyelashes. “He did. He was tall and handsome, Amber. I mean, really, really good-looking handsome.” She patted her heart. “I figure I did you a favor.”
Amber put down her pencil and gave Lily a wide-eyed stare. “How do you know he wouldn’t have hurt me?” She still couldn’t believe that her friend had stood by while that man carried her unconscious body into her own room. She wouldn’t have done that. But she wasn’t Lily, who tended to enjoy sick jokes. “The man had his hands up my skirt!”
She was still angry at the way she had lost that fight. She hadn’t even felt him in the office at all. The knowledge that she had the safe open and it could have been anyone was a sobering thought, but Lily had shrugged it off as if it were nothing.
“Well, you were armed. Besides, you’ve seen him naked. Tit for tat and all that.”
“So have you. Are you going to let him see you naked, too?”
Lily shrugged, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind, but I have a feeling Hawk was more interested in you last night.”
“Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with him now?” Amber shook her head in disbelief. “How long was this conversation you had with him?”
