Deadly Games Part 1

DEADLY GAMES.

by CATE n.o.bLE.

Acknowledgments.

To the ones who kept the faith when I didn't think I'd make it: Karen Kearney, always there Jenn Stark, always ready Lori Harris, always steady Nolen Holzapfel, always mine

To fellow writers Stephanie Newton and Milinda Jay Stephenson, for making me feel right at home in Panama City.

To the real pros: Editorial Director Alicia Condon, Kensington Publis.h.i.+ng; and Agent Robin Rue, Writers House.

And a very special thanks to my fans. Without readers, what would an author do?

As always, I own any errors, mistakes, and boo-boos. I frequently mangle the rules to fit the story.

DEAD RIGHT.

DEADLY SEDUCTION.

Chapter One.

Arlington, VA October 3, 11:50 P.M.

Rocco Taylor eyed the tiny digital clock on the video player, the only source of light in the town house's shadowy living room. Ten more minutes?

No way.

He checked his watch. Way Way. His Tag Heuer was never wrong.

d.a.m.n Sam. It felt like it had been ten more minutes ten more minutes an hour ago. The couch springs groaned as he rocked forward and raked fingers through his hair. an hour ago. The couch springs groaned as he rocked forward and raked fingers through his hair.

G.o.d, he hated waiting, doing nothing. Let him belly crawl across a minefield into an enemy stronghold. Or give him an MP5 and a load of clips and let him shoot his way in. h.e.l.l, hand-to-hand combat was better. Anything Anything was better than this: playing along while being f.u.c.ked with. was better than this: playing along while being f.u.c.ked with.

Oh, like you're really suffering. Compared to what Maddy was enduring right now- Compared to what Maddy was enduring right now- Jesus. Maddy. The gravity of her situation mingled with the molten guilt in his stomach.

After three days of nada in the search for missing CIA a.n.a.lyst Madison Kohlmeyer, the Agency had scored deuces today, even if they only knew half of it.

Earlier that afternoon, while busting his a.s.s to get to Dulles airport, he'd gotten word that Maddy's BMW convertible had been pulled from the backwaters of Chesapeake Bay, a two-by-four still jammed against the gas pedal.

Hearing this from a friend who'd picked the story up off a newswire had infuriated Rocco. After being shut out of the Agency's official investigation into Maddy's disappearance on grounds of "emotional involvement," Rocco had been promised that every stone would be turned, every angle examined, and that he would be notified personally of any big breaks. That he wasn't should have been clue one.

An illegal U-turn on the interstate had Rocco racing back to the CIA complex that housed his office, dreading the word that would come once they pried open the BMW's trunk. The relief he'd felt upon learning that the vehicle was empty eroded as the truth of how little else had been done to locate Maddy surfaced.

The Agency genius heading up the investigation had decided to let the police complete their missing-person investigation first. Except the locals had back-burnered the case as a low-priority after an interview with Maddy's roommate revealed that Maddy had seemed preoccupied.

Rocco would have jumped all over that. Preoccupied could mean scared, nervous. Upset. Had she been bullied? Threatened?

But to the jaded Virginia police detective, who claimed he'd worked "dozens of cases just like this," Maddy's failure to show for an all-girl weekend at Virginia Beach three days ago meant she had something better planned.

To the detective, "preoccupied" was code for "she'd met someone." "I figured she'd turn up for work on Monday, embarra.s.sed to find people worried," the detective had told Rocco by phone. "Happens all the time."

Yeah, well, as Rocco's grandfather used to say, the road to h.e.l.l was paved with bad a.s.sumptions.

In the end, Rocco had stormed out of his office in disgust after picking a fight with one of the supervisors. The official excuse offered, that Armageddon had broken loose at the Agency, was a crock. When was it normal these days, given the ever-expanding war on terror? The war on drugs? The war on wars?

"Hard choices call for tough sacrifices," the supervisor had parroted.

"You're saying Maddy was sacrificed?" Rocco had been livid. Did they really think that sounded better than the truth? That Maddy's case had slipped between the cracks as everyone a.s.sumed someone else was handling it?

And even though recovering Maddy's drowned car had escalated her case to "foul play suspected," it made little difference in light of the e-mail Rocco had opened just two hours ago. A game-changing e-mail that had languished in his spam folder-for an entire bleeping day-before he'd found it.

The message included a high-res photograph of Maddy, bound hand and foot, wearing nothing but bra and panties. She was curled in a fetal position in a nest of soiled straw at the bottom of what appeared to be a nondescript wooden s.h.i.+pping crate.

Foul play confirmed.

In the photographs, Maddy's eyes were closed tightly, as if she was wincing. Her upper arms bore bruises from a cruel grip. Someone would pay for hurting her, Rocco had vowed as he'd noted the slender, b.l.o.o.d.y cut that creased Maddy's rib cage. While a knife blade had likely scored her skin when her clothes were cut away, the inferred subtext of the wound was clear. Future snapshots would be more horrific.

But it was the tears on Maddy's cheeks, visible in the enlarged photograph, that haunted Rocco. The good news was corpses didn't cry. She'd been alive when the picture was taken.

Unfortunately, bad news was also visible. Blowing up the photograph exposed a symbol branded into the plank of wood just above her head. The telltale revealed the sender's ident.i.ty more succinctly than any signature line. A triple-headed dragon. The symbol of Southeast Asia's most notorious drug lord and Rocco's archenemy, Minh Tran.

That Maddy had been targeted because of her a.s.sociation with Rocco was clear.I'm sorry, Maddy.

YOUR EYES ONLY, the photo's caption had read. CALL THIS NUMBER OR YOUR GIRLFRIEND DIES.

That Tran mistakenly thought Maddy and Rocco were still a couple was a moot point. She was a colleague and a friend. And she was in trouble because of Rocco.

A quick search revealed that the publicly listed, international phone number belonged to a popular commercial messaging service based out of Latvia. For two euros, typically paid with untraceable gift or stolen credit cards, a forty-five-second message could be left. With layers of high-tech-scrambling security, across multiple servers, the system was virtually impenetrable, making it popular with illicit lovers and criminals alike.

The access PIN provided allowed Rocco to retrieve the recording and then punch in a callback number. The succinct voice message, playable only once, had been left by one of Minh Tran's English-speaking minions.

"We will trade this female for you and one other." The message went on to outline the two-for-one swap.

In recompense for the death of Tran's youngest son, a trigger-happy punk Rocco had killed during a recent mission in Bangkok, Minh Tran demanded Rocco's surrender. No surprise there. Rocco and Minh Tran had been stepping on each other's toes for years.

But it was the second part of Minh Tran's demand that was the kicker. In order to secure Maddy's release, Rocco had to bring along Dr. Rufin, the scientist Tran's dead son had shot during that same mission.

As the developer of the designer drug SugarCane, Dr. Rufin was key to Minh Tran's financial future. The sole distributor of SugarCane, Tran's empire threatened to crumble as his supply of 'Cane dwindled.

That Tran fed a growing segment of the illicit drug market in the U.S. typically fell under the domain of the Drug Enforcement Agency. The C.I.A. had gotten involved when Tran started wholesaling dope to terrorist groups who used the drug profits to fund their attacks on allied troops in the Middle East.

Rocco couldn't have dreamt up a more hopeless situation. If he honestly believed that Maddy's safety could be secured with such a swap, he'd have had Rufin hog-tied on the couch and been awaiting further instructions. Except it was never that neat, that easy.

The truth was, Rufin was recuperating on Uncle Sam's dime at a top-secret location, unknown even to Rocco.

As the perceived repository of the works of the late Russian scientist Viktor Zadovsky, Dr. Rufin was wanted by every country on the planet. His value was off the charts.

Though Rufin had been covertly granted asylum in the U.S., the Agency denied the fact and employed countermeasures ranging from offering rewards for Rufin's capture to planting rumors of his demise.

While those tactics were fooling others, Minh Tran seemed to know better. Precisely how Tran had linked Rocco to Rufin, and Maddy to Rocco, was to be debated another time.

Within minutes of his retrieving the voice message and leaving a callback number, Rocco's cell phone had rung. The conversation had lasted less than twenty seconds. Rocco had demanded to speak with Maddy, proof of life as well as an opportunity to buy time.

The reply, "She is not available," had rattled him. Please let her be alive. Please let her be alive. As difficult as it had been, Rocco had stuck to his guns, refusing to negotiate until he spoke with Maddy. The caller had promptly disconnected, only to call back a few seconds later with a promise to have Maddy available at 11:30. As difficult as it had been, Rocco had stuck to his guns, refusing to negotiate until he spoke with Maddy. The caller had promptly disconnected, only to call back a few seconds later with a promise to have Maddy available at 11:30.

But at 11:25, a different man had called, changing the time to midnight. Rocco looked at the clock again. Seven more minutes Seven more minutes. Would someone call at 11:55 and blow him off again?

Needing to move, dying to take action, Rocco pushed to his feet. Two steps brought him to the front window. The blinds were drawn, but the slight gaps at either edge allowed him to peer out. Beneath the moth-surrounded streetlights, the night appeared normal. Which didn't mean squat.

Living in a so-called gated community might give most residents a sense of security but Rocco had exploited that same blind trust more than once. Simply giving the gate attendant a name and an address earned you a visitor's permit.

Turning away from the window, Rocco let his eyes readjust to the town house's darkened interior. Then he began to pace.

Like a leopard prowling, he moved by instinct, focused. He had the layout of the spa.r.s.ely furnished town house memorized. Five steps put the coffee table to his left, the pole lamp to the right. A ninety-degree turn brought him to the hulking shape that was a recliner. The one Maddy had openly mocked, calling it "too awful for the junkyard." And she had felt terrible later, after learning the recliner had belonged to Rocco's grandfather.

On the end table beside the chair was the now long-dead cactus Maddy had brought over during the I'm-gonna-put-my-mark-here phase of their relations.h.i.+p. Neither the plant nor the phase had lasted long.

The two-year course of their on-again, off-again relations.h.i.+p had been mostly off. The fact that deep down Rocco still cared for someone else had been the death knell.

"Maddy, I-" The apology had lodged in his throat.

"If you say 'I'm sorry' one more time, I'll kill you," Maddy had threatened more than once. "It's not what I want to hear and you know it!"

Yeah, he knew. All she'd ever wanted was a sincere "I love you." The same three words Rocco had permanently stricken from his vocabulary. Oh, sure, he was always up front about it, with Maddy and any other woman he'd dated for more than a week.

And in the beginning, Maddy had seemed okay with that, had even thanked him for being honest. Until she pieced together the why why after Rocco called her by another woman's name. Dumb-a.s.s, dumb-a.s.s, dumb-a.s.s. The Freudian slip became a noose. after Rocco called her by another woman's name. Dumb-a.s.s, dumb-a.s.s, dumb-a.s.s. The Freudian slip became a noose.

"You still love Gena, don't you?" Maddy had accused.

He wasn't going there. Not now. Whom he did or didn't love in no way diminished his responsibility to Maddy.

Reaching out, Rocco stroked the desiccated cactus. The dead spire was smooth, the last of the p.r.i.c.kly spines having finally dropped off. The symbolism hit like a baseball bat to the head. Rocco killed relations.h.i.+ps with the same callous lack of attention with which he offed his houseplants.

Maddy deserved better. But had she found it? Was there a Mr. Right lurking offstage, some new guy who had prompted Maddy's roommate to label her preoccupied?

Rocco had heard she was dating and had left her alone. Or tried. The problem was, he genuinely liked Maddy, would call her just to talk. They'd agreed to be friends, and that's what friends did.

Except not everyone got that memo. Which was also Rocco's fault.

He recalled the party in Key West they'd attended as "friends" not too long ago. Everyone a.s.sumed they were still a couple and Rocco had done nothing to correct those a.s.sumptions. Maybe the path to h.e.l.l was also paved with ego gratifications.

The bottom line was Maddy was in danger because of him. And Rocco was willing to attempt the impossible to save her. Because if not him, who?

The Agency's response would be 100 percent predictable. There were policies for this type of scenario, a set of procedures to minimize the fallout of lose-lose situations.

Plainly stated, from the Agency's perspective, Maddy wasn't worth as much as Rufin. Sure, they'd try try to save her. But not at the risk of revealing that Rufin was in U.S. custody. to save her. But not at the risk of revealing that Rufin was in U.S. custody.

And if Maddy was aware of the demand, she'd deduce that for herself. She knew the score. How many times had she and Rocco joked about how the Agency's unwritten "good-of-the-many" weighted hierarchy sucked when you were "the few" on the bottom layer?

Don't worry, Maddy. I won't forget you.

He moved his black rucksack closer to the door, mentally inventorying the contents. It was difficult to plan an offense at this stage, so he'd stuck to basics. Lots of cash stashed in hidden pockets, two sets of fake IDs and pa.s.sports, one for himself and one for Maddy.

While the packing crate wasn't proof positive that she'd been smuggled out of the country, Rocco felt certain that Maddy was being held at one of Minh Tran's strongholds in Thailand. Talk about a home-field advantage.

Frustrated, Rocco looked at the clock again. One minute, forty-five seconds. Call now, d.a.m.n you. Let's do this. Call now, d.a.m.n you. Let's do this.

To his surprise, his cell phone started vibrating, the ringtone delayed. Rocco hurried back to the coffee table and activated the digital recorder he'd wired to his cell phone, simultaneously praying this wasn't another delay tactic on Tran's part. If the caller said Maddy still wasn't available, Rocco would have to a.s.sume the worst.

Picking up his phone, Rocco groaned when he saw the number illuminated on caller ID. His former boss and friend: Travis Franks. That Travis was calling this late meant little. The man never slept. Travis had most likely just gotten wind of the fiasco at the office.

Rocco hit IGNORE and watched the screen fade to black. He would call Travis back in a few. For now, this line had to stay open.

h.e.l.l, Rocco had even ignored his sister's call earlier. If Adele needed money, Rocco would send it tomorrow. But if she'd broken up with another boyfriend and wanted a sober shoulder to cry on, she needed to look elsewhere. Rocco's sympathy for drunks had declined since their mother died of alcohol-induced cirrhosis last year.

He checked the time.

Fifteen seconds.

Ten seconds.

Five.

Two.

One.

"Blast it, ring," Rocco muttered.

Nothing. Then ... vibration. Buzz. Buzz. PRIVATE CALLER the display read. He snapped the recorder on. PRIVATE CALLER the display read. He snapped the recorder on.

"Taylor," he answered.