Ironclad Cover Read online

  DANA

  MARTON

  IRONCLAD

  COVER

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  With many thanks to Denise Zaza,

  Allison Lyons and Maggie Scillia.

  Contents

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Coming Next Month

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Anita Caballo —Her life was torn apart when she was framed for embezzling from the family business. Now, with a chance to prove her innocence, will she survive long enough before someone tries to silence her forever?

  Brant Law —FBI special agent. Brant selected Anita for the mission, but is far from trusting her. Before long, Brant wonders if she’ll actually succeed in knocking down the walls around his heart.

  Nick Tarasov —Member of the Special Designation Defense Unit. He trained the women for the mission.

  David Moretti —The women’s legal advisor.

  Samantha Hanley, Carly Jones and Gina Torno —The other three members of SDDU.

  Tsernyakov —Illegal weapons trader. He is among the five most wanted criminals in the world.

  Philippe Cavanaugh —An international businessman who is up to his neck in dirty dealings.

  William Bronten —Anita’s old boyfriend.

  Chapter One

  She was bait, dressed in clingy red silk to attract the attention of every man in the room. The spaghetti-strap gown was sleek and sophisticated, the cut over her right leg revealing enough skin to be interesting but still acceptable for the serious businesswoman she was supposed to be.

  “I’ve got visual of target number two,” Gina’s voice rasped through the nearly invisible transmitter in Anita’s ear.

  “I don’t see him.” She spoke under her breath toward the flower-pin-slash-microphone on her shoulder as she turned in a slow circle, her body tensing. “Where is he?”

  “Upstairs to the left of the bar. Right under the chandelier.”

  She looked in that direction, but too many people were standing between her and the spot Gina had indicated. The lavish reception the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce was throwing in honor of its members was in full swing, the black-and-white checkered marble tiles of the floor barely visible under the feet of guests who were networking, scoping out new deals and drinking copious amounts of champagne.

  “I’m on it.” She moved through the crowd to get closer to Philippe Cavanaugh, target number two.

  Target number one, Jose Marquez, a high-ranking city official who had several retail shops on the island, had already left. But not before Gina had worked her charm on him and gotten a business card, along with a request for a presentation next week on what Savall, Ltd., the front for the women’s covert operation, could do for his company.

  One down, two more to go. They needed to get to all four of their targets. People were dying—the latest intelligence had linked Tsernyakov to the mine bombings in Africa. They needed results.

  She made her way to her target without any obvious hurry, as if she were simply meandering through the crowd, maybe searching for a friend. “Excuse me. Thank you.”

  The air was thick with the smell of money—expensive perfume and exclusive cigars. Her four-inch heels clickety-clicked on the marble tiles, the sound barely audible over the ebb and flow of conversation that went on in a half-dozen different languages, the ringing of glasses being touched together, the sudden pearls of laughter that bubbled above the din.

  She walked to the back of the gallery, through the glittering crowd. Philippe Cavanaugh, international shipping magnate, was where Gina had said he would be, handsome and debonair in his tuxedo, deep in conversation with another man and two lavishly dressed women. He had come, which hadn’t been a certainty—although they’d had high hopes, given that the man was one of the main supporting members of the Chamber.

  “I got him,” she said under her breath and let herself relax. “Where are you?”

  “Downstairs by the bathrooms.”

  That Gina would spot Cavanaugh first even though she was a lot farther from him and not even on the same floor, didn’t come as a surprise. She seemed to have a special sense for these kinds of things, probably left over from her cop days.

  Once Anita knew where to look in the giant room, she easily spotted her partner for the night. The cream-colored dress they had talked Gina into wearing looked striking on her petite figure. The idea had been for the both of them to attract their targets’ attention and the attention of other powerful men on the island—any of who might have had some kind of connection to Tsernyakov, an elusive weapons dealer who was at the top of a dozen most-wanted lists.

  The relatively new piece of intelligence that Tsernyakov had a connection on the island was a closely guarded secret about a man considered to be one of the most dangerous men in the world. The task of finding this connection and, through him, getting a location on Tsernyakov was the seemingly impossible mission that Anita and Gina along with Carly and Sam—who were staking out the house of target number three tonight—had agreed to a few eventful weeks ago.

  “Ready to make contact?” Gina asked.

  A man walked by too close and was watching Anita, so she couldn’t immediately respond.

  He flashed an interested smile. “Hi.”

  She nodded to him, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting to encourage him at the moment.

  “Are you here alone?” he asked.

  “No, but I think I might have lost my date.” She pretended to scan the crowd below. “There he is.” She waved at no one in particular, then shrugged. “I don’t think he sees me.”

  “If he could lose you, he doesn’t deserve you.” His smile widened, showing sparkling white teeth. “Can I get you a drink? I’m Michael Lambert.”

  “Anita Caballo.” She offered her hand and made a point to remember his name. “Thank you, but I think I might have had too much already.”

  “Then I’m definitely sticking around.” He winked. “Besides, you can never have too much good champagne.”

  He was tall and sexy—dark hair, dark eyes—with more than a hint of naughty to him. In coloring and body type, he looked a little like Brant Law, the FBI agent who had gotten her into this mess, except for that battle-hardened edge on Law. Michael’s infectious grin said his focus was heavily on fun. Nothing wrong with that. Law was entirely too stark and serious.

  “Michael. Hey, Michael! Stop pestering the lovely lady for a minute and get over here. I found a buyer for your boat,” a redheaded titan yelled toward them.

  Michael held up his index finger to ask him for time. “I would like to sell that miserable boat,” he told Anita with chagrin. “Promise you’ll be here when I come back?”

  “Promise,” she lied to be rid of him.

  He looked as if he only half believed her and flashed another charming smile before walking away. She would have to have been dead not to appreciate the fine figure he cut. He probably put in his share of time on the golf and tennis courts at his country club. His compliments felt good. It had been a long time since—She cut off that unproductive train of thought and refocused on her mission. Michael Lambert wasn’t why she was here.

  She turned back toward Cavanaugh and lifted her right hand to her throat, worked the tiny button o
n the back of her ring with her thumb and took a couple of pictures with the microscopic camera she wore on her ring finger. Hopefully she got everyone who was with the man.

  “You should probably move in before you get distracted again,” Gina said. “You might trip over one of those men falling at your feet.”

  “Jealousy is a very unattractive emotion.”

  “Bite me,” Gina responded with dripping cordiality.

  “No thanks. I don’t like bitter.” Anita glanced toward the group where Michael was standing. He was showing the group pictures—wouldn’t notice now if she slipped away, wouldn’t follow and get in her way. “Gotta go.”

  She made her way toward Cavanaugh, one of only five viable leads—four now, Alexeev had disappeared for good and was presumed dead—their team had been able to scare up after a month of hard work. And even those four…The evidence that tied them to Tsernyakov was circumstantial, at best.

  She stopped when she was close enough to Cavanaugh to hear him.

  “So he ran naked into the water, swam out to the closest boat and somehow got them to pick him up. Crazy, n’est-ce pas? But nobody can say that Monsieur Clavat is not a good sport.”

  His audience laughed with him.

  She stepped forward and opened her mouth to speak but, before the small group could take notice of her, an interruption came from the other side. A short, stocky gentleman with bushy eyebrows pressed up against Cavanaugh and murmured something into his ear. Cavanaugh’s smile turned grim for a second, then he pasted on a brand-new jovial expression.

  “I apologize, I must step away for a minute. Work, it finds me everywhere,” he said to his companions.

  “You know what they say, there’s no rest for the wicked.” The taller of the two women threw him a look of open flirtation.

  “And since I’m rather wicked, ma chérie, there’s hardly any rest for me at all,” he responded with a knowing smile before turning and following the guy who’d come for him.

  Picture. Anita remembered too late and was only able to get a shot of the other man from the back.

  She opened her mouth to call out then snapped it shut again. Right now didn’t seem like the right time to try to talk to Cavanaugh. He looked to be in a hurry. He might just brush her off. And she wanted to find out who the other man was, what he had said to put that look on Cavanaugh’s face. She swiped a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and followed them at a distance that didn’t seem necessary. The men were intent on their destination and never looked back as they hurried to the back of the gallery.

  A hallway opened from the inconspicuous nook the men had disappeared into, partially obstructed by heavy, fringed curtains in crimson brocade. She waited a few seconds before stepping in. The hallway ran parallel to the gallery in a half circle, coming out on the other side. She was in time to see one of the tall, solid-wood doors that lined the walls close behind the men.

  Now what? She strolled by, looked for cameras without being overtly obvious about it in case she was recorded, but found no evidence of security equipment.

  All the doors had mottos painted above them in Latin. She passed Fortior leone justus. The just man is stronger than a lion. The sign above Cavanaugh’s door said Vincit omnia veritas. Truth conquers all things.

  She would have liked to think so but she knew, better than most, that real life didn’t work like that. In her own life, truth had conquered nothing and it certainly hadn’t set her free.

  She listened by the door and discerned after a few moments that it wasn’t going to get her anywhere. The thick wood blocked everything.

  “Where have you gone?” Gina asked through the earpiece.

  “In the back.”

  “Need me?”

  “There’s a curtained-off opening to a hallway. Let me know if someone’s coming.”

  “Will do. Be careful.”

  Feeling better with Gina watching her back, Anita kept moving in case the men came back out. She didn’t want to be caught loitering right in front of the door.

  She needed to find a way to eavesdrop. She headed toward the next room as an idea occurred to her. All the windows were open downstairs to allow in the balmy night air. If the same were true for the upstairs, she might be able to listen in on what was said in Cavanaugh’s room.

  The sign above the door proclaimed, Fortuna audenes juvat. Fortune favors the bold.

  Anita put her hand on the old-fashioned brass doorknob and took a deep breath, prepared with an excuse if there was anyone in there. The place was empty. And the windows were open. She didn’t bother turning on the lights; enough moonlight filtered in through the giant windows.

  She took off her shoes so her heels wouldn’t click on the marble floor—pink marble up here to match the draperies and the frescos on the ceiling. The opulence of the building, which had been built during colonial times, was breathtaking on every level. She stopped near the window and focused on the low, deep voices of the men.

  “Then whambandot cor mantakna yesterday…”

  She pushed the hair back from her ears, but that didn’t help any. The sounds were too muffled to make out individual words—or not enough of them to put together any meaning.

  She thought of the old cup-to-the-wall trick she and her sister, Maria, used to spy on their brothers when they were kids, but a quick glance of the room didn’t net anything the like. She pressed her ear to the silk wallpaper and curled a hand around it. Something of an improvement, but not enough.

  She liked to think she was a resourceful woman. There had to be a way.

  The room didn’t have a balcony, but wrought-iron railings cupped the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows from the outside. They had a little bump-out on the bottom, six inches wide at most, just enough to hold some balcony boxes that overspilled with fragrant blooms she didn’t recognize. She’d grown up in Maryland and wasn’t familiar with the flora and fauna of the tropics.

  She didn’t want to step into the boxes—didn’t want dirt on her feet that might be hard to explain away, didn’t want to leave trampled flowers behind that someone might question later.

  She grabbed the railing and placed one foot onto an ornamental scroll in the design. Flat, square bars would have been so much easier. She wished she were wearing anything else but a long gown. She focused all her attention on the task, balancing her weight as she leaned out over the moonlit garden.

  Steady now. A tumble to the paved walkway below wasn’t in the plans. And I won’t. Not a good idea to be thinking about falling. Focus on the task. If the mission succeeded, she could erase the worst period of her life and heal the rift in her family, start new with a clean slate. To her, that was worth any risk.

  “You can’t get a building permit for that patch of land. I tried before. Environmental setbacks. Same as at Pirate’s Cove,” somebody was saying in the next room.

  She could see a sliver of their window and the light spilling from it, but no one stood close enough to glimpse. Not altogether a bad thing, since that meant they couldn’t see her, either. And in any case, she couldn’t have spared a hand to take a picture. Balancing on the curves of the ironwork was tricky enough already.

  Noise from the garden below caught her attention. A couple strolled by, holding crystal glasses, having a heated discussion in Italian. Anita held her breath, not daring to step down from the railing, fearing that one might catch the movement from the corner of an eye. She would have looked like a jumper as she was. She didn’t need that kind of attention.

  They stopped right under her window.

  Diosmio.

  The man fell silent. The woman kept on, breathlessly and with high emotion. Then the guy put his free arm around her waist and pulled her to him so suddenly that some of her champagne splashed from the glass. They were kissing the next second.

  She felt a small pang of jealousy. When was the last time a man had touched her with so much passion?

  “Zoning can be changed,” the words came from the other room
, drawing her attention.

  Was that Cavanaugh?

  Would the couple in the garden hear him and look up?

  Probably not, she decided after a second. She could barely hear as close as she was. She didn’t think the people below would catch anything but a low murmur, and even that would probably be drowned out by the general buzz of conversation filtering out from the downstairs windows that were much closer to them.

  “I sure hope so, I’d hate to lose all that money,” said yet another man next door.

  How many of them were in there besides the two she had seen entering?

  “Some guy is coming your way.” Gina’s voice sounded urgent in her ear.

  Anita glanced toward the door. There were at least a dozen rooms opening off the hallway. What were the chances that whoever was coming would come into hers? She could hear doors open and close. Whoever it was, he was looking for someone. Probably one of Cavanaugh’s friends coming late to the meeting.

  She stepped off the balcony railing, anyway, just in case. And not a moment too soon. Her door opened slowly, revealing a dark silhouette.

  “There you are. I thought I saw you come this way. Still alone?” Michael Lambert stepped into the path of the moonlight and strolled toward her with a satisfied smile.

  She took a slow breath and willed her clamoring heart to slow. She could have been caught. “The cigar smoke was starting to bother me. I thought I would grab five minutes of fresh air and some quiet.” She watched him. Was he buying it?

  He smiled like a man who did, so she relaxed a little.

  “May I just say that you’re the most beautiful woman here tonight?” He stood in front of her, too close, and held her gaze. His eyes looked black in the dark.

  She couldn’t remember their real color from earlier.

  “Thank you.” She accepted the compliment that would have felt even better if he weren’t interrupting her surveillance. Still, it had been a while since she’d been alone with a handsome man who found her desirable and told her so.

  “So what do you do on the island? I detect a lovely accent from up north.”