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  “ Scotch and water.”

  Her silky hair whipped around as she spun on her heels. She put a spring in her step and she knew that Kevin was feeling lucky. She’d never bedded him in the residence before.

  In the kitchen she made two quick drinks, then started back to the guest bedroom. He was at the bureau, tapping out more of the white powder, dividing it into four white lines when she came back into the room. She set them down on the nightstand next to the bed, then came toward him.

  “ Did some while I was in the kitchen,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “ Small ones,” he said, like that made it all right to do more. Then he said, “There was a man on the plane claimed to be engaged to you, so it appears that I’m not the only heart that’s fallen under your spell.”

  “ Really?” she said, feigning surprise. “He said we were engaged?”

  “ Something like that. He said he was coming to Trinidad to marry you.”

  “ And you just assumed I’d say yes and jump into this stranger’s bed?” She curled her toes in an effort to keep the anger out of her voice.

  “ He sounded so sure.”

  “ Does he have a name?” Dani asked, still pretending ignorance.

  “ Broxton.”

  “ Bill Broxton?”

  “ That’s him,” he said.

  “ He’s an old friend.”

  “ He works for the DEA.”

  “ Yeah, I know that. He’s a systems analyst of some kind. We grew up together.”

  “ He thinks you’re going to marry him.”

  “ Then he’s wrong.”

  He smiled, that seemed to satisfy him. She was beginning to have second thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t for her after all. However, as she’d just admitted to him, he was the only man on the planet that could ever understand her. But she didn’t like it that he’d pinched some of the coke, the deal was fifty-fifty. He was making enough that he didn’t have to skim off the top. And she didn’t like him not telling her what happened on the plane. And she really didn’t like his smug, holier than thou attitude. This was not going to be a marriage made in heaven, she thought and she wondered if there was going to be a wedding at all.

  Then she thought of Bill Broxton. What would her life have been like if he’d married her way back then? Would she be a frumpy stay-at-home mom, or would she be an honest Josephine, balancing motherhood and career? But he’d never asked, he married someone else, and things were the way they were. She could never marry him now. It would be the end of everything.

  Still standing, he turned toward the bureau and picked up the mirror with the cocaine on it.

  “ I won’t do any more,” she said. She had strict rules and he knew it. Never do the drug, except when testing. She’d done her test, now she would have her drink.

  “ Relax, these are all for me,” he said, as she studied the four lines, little snakes of white powder, on the mirror. He looked toward her, like he was expecting her to hand over the rolled bill. When she didn’t, he reached into his pocket, took out the blue hundred, rolled it, and quickly inhaled two lines. Then he picked up the small mirror and offered it to her with hope dancing in his eyes.

  “ Why does it always come to this?” she said.

  “ What?” he said.

  “ You think if you get me high enough I’ll hike up my dress right here?” He was a better than average lover, but he was insatiable. He wanted more than she wanted to give.

  “ Come on, Dani,” he said, pleading with his eyes.

  “ Finish it, Kevin.” Why did she always give in? She was a strong woman, she didn’t have to spread her legs for him every time he snapped his fingers.

  “ But they’re for you,” he said, still trying.

  “ Finish it,” she said under her breath as she turned away from him and moved toward the bed. It was almost an order and, in the wall mirror above the bed, she saw his ears turn red. He’d been in Trinidad long enough to think like a Trini, and Trinis didn’t like women giving orders.

  He opened his mouth, but stopped as she reached her hands over her shoulders and took her dress by the straps and started to pull it up, revealing first pale pink panties, then her bare back as she pulled it over her head and dropped it at her feet. She turned to look at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes, he was captivated by her breasts.

  “ Do you like them?” she said. “So round, so perfect, nipples so hard, standing at attention for you. I’m hot for you.” She’d learned early on in their relationship that these were the kinds of things he like to hear. She didn’t mind saying them, it kept him excited and hard.

  He could only nod as she stepped out of her panties and showed herself to him. They stood like that, facing each other for over a minute. She shivered a bit as he drank in her body. Then she hopped onto the bed and pulled her knees up under herself till she was sitting in a full lotus position.

  “ Aren’t I just the most erotic thing you’ve ever seen?” she said, and using both hands she brushed her blonde hair, silky with a little sweat, off her breasts and back behind her ears. She looked at him, her full lips curved up in a half smile, her mouth partly open, her clear blue eyes, unblinking. He was hard in a heartbeat.

  “ Say it, Kevin, do you like what you see?” She’d turned her voice from the cool businesslike tone she usually used into an animal husky kind of thing that was like a razor shooting down his spine to his erection. He looked like he was going to explode, just looking at her. She was excited too, but she couldn’t get that stolen coke out of the back of her mind.

  “ Go on, say it, do you like what you see?”

  “ Yesss,” he hissed, sounding like the snake that tempted Eve. He couldn’t take his eyes from her breasts.

  “ Then finish it.” She nodded toward the cocaine on the mirror still in his hand.

  “ Yes,” he said, obeying her. She was still glorying in the rush she received from the two lines she’d done earlier, reveling in the electric tingles that danced on her skin and shivered down her spine. She took a deep breath, held it and lay back on the bed, arms behind her head, legs spread wide.

  He pulled at his clothes.

  “ Hurry,” she said, “I want you in me.” Now the words were for her as well as him.

  He kicked off his loafers, ignored the socks and pulled his trousers and boxer shorts down, shaking them off as he made his way toward the bed. He left the silk shirt on, but she ripped it off him as he climbed on top of her.

  “ In me now,” she urged, and she took hold of him and guided him into the heat of herself. She thrust up at him and he pounded down. Her nails raked along his back, drawing blood.

  Time stood still as he thrust himself at her, seeming to push himself in deeper and deeper. She was engulfed by pleasure, lost in it, surrounded by it. She was on the edge, straining, close to the mountain top, but unable to take that last step. She felt like he was going to burst inside of her, but she kept him on the razor, slowing her movement just when he was about to blast off, making it last longer for him and for her, until there was nothing she could do to stop him and he exploded with a sigh. But she wasn’t there yet so she dug her hands into his buttocks, pulling him into her, pumping, keeping him hard. She wouldn’t let him quit, and to her amazement, he didn’t. She was on the edge of exhaustion, panting heavily, every muscle taut, every nerve glowing, drenched in sweat and her heart was thumping, threatening to beat out of her chest.

  And then it happened.

  She screamed as the orgasm shot through her, lightning quick and thunder deep. Then it was over and she knew exactly why she was marrying him, but she had to get some things straight first.

  “ Good lord,” he muttered, as she rolled him off. He flopped over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, panting and gasping for breath as she willed her heart to slow it’s rapid breathing.

  “ Cocaine and sex, a powerful combination,” she said.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position. “It’s never been that
intense for us before,” he said.

  “ Darling, would you cut me a couple of lines.”

  “ But your rule?”

  “ I think I can break it today. What do you think?”

  “ Sure.” He hopped off the bed and went to the bureau.

  She reached a hand behind herself and snaked it under the pillow while he was tapping out the cocaine. When he looked up she was back in the lotus position, but his eyes were glued to the chrome-plated thirty-eight police special she held in her left hand.

  “ Don’t point that thing at me,” he said, stepping back.

  “ I give the orders around here,” she said. Whatever happened, their relationship was forever altered.

  “ Yes, okay.”

  “ Make four lines,” she said.

  “ Yes, sure, anything.” His hands were shaking as he tapped more cocaine out onto the small mirror. “Shit,” he said, “too much.”

  “ That’s all right. Now divide it up.”

  “ All of it? There must be close to a gram here.”

  “ Yes,” she said. “All of it.”

  He made the lines, licked his finger and tapped it into some of the residue on the mirror and then rubbed it across his gums. She saw his quaking shivers.

  “ Do two of the lines,” she said.

  He picked up the blue hundred, and made two of the white snakes disappear.

  “ I killed the last man who disappointed me. Do you believe that?”

  He looked at the steady way she held the gun, as if it was an extension of her left hand, and nodded.

  “ Look at my breasts.”

  He moved his eyes away from the gun.

  “ See how the nipples are hard. See how you make them stand up.” She pinched her left nipple with the thumb and index finger of her right hand. The gun never wavered. “They are very hard. I’m still excited. Do you believe that?”

  He nodded.

  “ Do the rest of it.”

  He hesitated.

  “ Do it,” she said and he quickly inhaled the rest of the cocaine. Now he would be flying and too shit scared to lie.

  “ This isn’t right,” he said. She knew he was trying to figure out what went wrong, trying to figure out an angle. He was slippery, but tonight he was out of grease. “What’s going on?” he asked, melting under her stare.

  “ My bomb went off on the plane.”

  “ I was going to tell you about that,” he said.

  “ When?”

  “ As soon as I got here, but you looked so good in that dress I forgot.”

  “ You said that wouldn’t happen.”

  “ I was assured,” he said.

  “ I don’t want to hear about your assurances. I want my bomb.”

  “ I’m sorry,” he said.

  “ When they start reconstructing things, they will find the bomb maker and through him, you, and through you, me.”

  “ Not a chance,” he said. The man I hired is first rate. He’s a stand up guy, from the IRA. I know him. He’d do the time before he ratted.”

  “ At least it wasn’t one of your Middle East terrorist friends. They give up their mothers the second someone shines a light in their eyes.”

  “ No, no, he’s IRA, those guys never talk. They won’t find him,” he said.

  “ I hope you’re right.”

  “ I’m right,” he said, sweating. “Come on, put the gun down.”

  “ You stole my cocaine.”

  “ Bullshit.”

  “ That’s why you stopped by your apartment.”

  “ I stopped by to pick up the rum and my neighbor. He followed me over in your surprise. The poor guy had to take a taxi back.”

  “ What are you talking about?”

  “ Go look out the front door. It should be parked behind my Mercedes by now.”

  “ You didn’t,” she said, lowering the gun.

  “ I did.” He grinned.

  She dropped the gun on the bed, put on her dress, and ran to the front door. “Kevin, it’s gorgeous.”

  “ Is the color all right?” It was bright red.

  “ It’s great.” She approached the new Porsche convertible.

  “ Now say you’re sorry about sticking that cannon in my face,” he said.

  “ Oh forget about that,” she said, turning toward him. “And get your clothes on so we can take it for a spin.”

  “ About the bomb,” he said ten minutes later as they approached the light before Western Main Road, “do you think that way is wise? You’ve been pretty lucky with a rifle all the other times.”

  “ Senator Rowland’s car went off a cliff,” she said.

  “ That’s different,” Kevin said. “You were supposed to make that one look like an accident.”

  “ I can’t shoot Ram,” she said, downshifting. It was a risk telling him. She hated to show weakness, but he had a right to know why.

  “ There’s too much at stake,” he said.

  “ I didn’t say I couldn’t kill him. I just can’t shoot him. I’ve tried. I had him lined up with the crosshair between his eyes, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. He’s a friend. Like a wise old uncle. I know him. I like him. I almost admire him. It’s not like the others.”

  “ We can’t back out now,” he said.

  “ I know that. That’s why I want to use a bomb and a timer. I’ll be long gone. It’ll be out of my hands.”

  “ There’s someone here that can do it. I can have you fixed up by tomorrow evening. I didn’t want to use him, because he’s so close to home. But now I guess I don’t have any choice.”

  “ Good,” she said. “Then we don’t have a problem.”

  Chapter Eight

  “ You’re looking fit, Warren,” Broxton said, holding out his hand. The handshake was strong, but not overpowering. Warren Street was a man who was sure of himself and his place in the world.

  “ And you. I’d ask about the flight, but I know about that.” The ambassador gestured toward two bamboo style chairs away from his desk. Broxton smiled. The office had a tropical flavor to it, and the bamboo furniture, the parquet floor, the indoor plants and of course the floral prints, all conspired to camouflage the century old oak desk that Warren took everywhere his office happened to be.

  “ A bomb,” Broxton said. “Too small to bring down the aircraft, but large enough to poke holes through the sealed baggage compartment and through the plane’s skin. We were lucky. The pilot was great.” He decided not to tell Warren about the accident and the car chase. Warren was a great friend, but he was also a great worrier.

  “ Who would do such a thing?”

  “ Someone who doesn’t care how many people he kills,” Broxton said.

  “ Have you made any progress?”

  “ Not really. A Colombian picked up during a drug bust wanted to deal. Miami heard what he had to say and called in the FBI. They believed the story and State issued an invitation to the prime minister to visit Washington where they laid it all out.”

  “ And?” Warren asked.

  “ As long as the government went after the users and the dealers, the drug cartels didn’t care, but when Prime Minister Ramsingh started going after the money they decided he had to go.”

  “ So they’ve hired a professional, someone like Carlos the Jackal?”

  “ They’ve hired Scorpion,” Broxton said.

  “ I’ve never heard of him.”

  “ Since Carlos’ capture the Scorpion is number one on the assassin’s hit parade. No political affiliation, an equal opportunity killer. He’s taken out a right wing presidential candidate in Uruguay and a left wing one in Chile. He’s even killed in the United States.”

  “ Who?” Warren asked.

  “ Senator Rowland.”

  “ That was an accident,” Warren said.

  “ It wasn’t,” Broxton said.

  “ How do you know all this?”

  “ Couple of guys from Langley came to the office and filled me in. Until then I’d nev
er heard of Scorpion and I certainly never thought of major drugs going through Trinidad. I was just a lowly DEA guy back from a year in Mexico.

  “ So why you? Is it because of me?”

  “ Sure it’s because of you. When Ramsingh turned down American protection they went scrambling around for someone they could send in that wouldn’t attract too much attention. Someone that could hang out where Ramsingh does, go to the same parties, attend the same functions, meet the same people, that sort of thing, and when they found out how close we are, well, all of a sudden I filled the bill.”

  “ You have backup of course?” Warren said.

  “ If I do, they didn’t tell me, but who knows? You know how they are.”

  “ And you’re supposed to prevent this Scorpion from assassinating the prime minister?”

  “ That’s what they said.”

  “ How are you going to do that?” Warren asked.

  “ I don’t know. I’ll figure something out, but it won’t be easy after what happened on the plane,” Broxton said. Then he told Warren about the silver flask that he’d mistaken for a knife.

  “ So you’re not very undercover,” Warren said when he’d finished.

  “ Not at the moment.”

  “ I’ll have Dani throw a party. You can meet Ramsingh under different circumstances, cozy up to him, make him like you.”

  “ Thanks,” Broxton said. Then he asked, “How is she?” He dreaded the answer. Sooner or later they were going to have to talk about the story on the front page of the Guardian.

  “ Just watch.” Warren picked a video tape from the bookcase. He went to a bamboo cabinet, opened it to reveal a portable television and a video player inside. He slipped the tape into the player and punched the play button.

  Broxton was drawn into the beauty that was Danielle Street. Flowing blonde hair the color of honey mixed with straw, sparkling blue eyes, flawless skin, like a child’s, and her beguiling smile.

  The camera cut away to reveal a small black child in her lap. The little girl had her hair in braids and wore a bright smile, her wide brown eyes stared up at Dani. The background could have been a village anywhere in Africa. The camera panned over villagers going about the daily business of living. Broxton saw a man herding scrawny cows in the background, a woman pounding grain with a mortar and pestle, another sat with her and they were talking. They seemed happy.