Kat nodded.
“Your friend will have to wait for weeks to get time on that puppy. It’s booked up solid.”
Kat grinned. “Not for her. Besides the fact that the Medusas can usually get time on the basis of operational necessity, Viper knows a bunch of the computer techs who work on the array. A couple of them owe her favors.”
Jeff nodded. Ahh. The ubiquitous favor owed. Special Forces types had a tendency to collect long lists of people who owed them one. When it was your job to save the world and help people out of impossible binds, gratitude frequently followed suit-along with offers to repay the favor.
He sat down at a computer terminal. It was an easy matter to look up an online catalog listing Monet’s works and cut and paste information about the newest theft into his existing list of stolen works. He glanced over at Kat. “Where do I send this file?”
She rattled off an e-mail address, and he hit the send button. He highly doubted this Viper person and her supercomputer would have any success, but he was grateful for any help he could get.
“Incoming call for Captain Steiger,” Carter Beigneaux announced from the next row of consoles over. “It’s General Wittenauer. I’ll patch it to your station.”
Great. No doubt the Old Man was calling to breathe fire down his shorts to get cracking on catching the Ghost. Sympathetic glances came his way from the people standing nearby. Wittenauer was a great guy until he didn’t get exactly what he wanted. And then, watch out.
The phone in front of Jeff buzzed and he picked it up. “Good evening, sir.”
“Evening. You hear about the latest theft?”
“Yes, sir. I’m in the Ops Center right now looking at a picture of the stolen piece.”
“Any idea who did it or how?”
“I assume it was the Ghost, but that has not been confirmed.”
“Time to take your theories operational, Maverick. Now that you’ve got Cobra to help, I want the two of you to take direct action to stop this guy. I’m catching all kinds of heat over this.”
Jeff grimaced. He knew the feeling.
The general continued. “I want you two to go to Barbados. Catch this guy, dammit.”
“This is a police matter, sir-”
“You and Cobra are smarter than the average bear. Use your heads. Be creative. Come up with a way to bag this guy that the police haven’t thought of. And do it fast.”
Gee. No pressure there. Jeff stared at the receiver as the line went dead. He glanced up at Kat. Her face betrayed not a hint of expression, but he knew without question that she was as surprised at he was to get this order to go operational. How he knew that, he had no idea. Maybe a few of grandmere’s psychic genes had come down to him, after all.
He commented to the gang in general, “Looks like our research project just turned into a mission. Who’s the lucky dog who gets to control it from this end?”
Jennifer Blackfoot spoke up. “I’ll take it. Knowing you, Maverick, you’re going to piss off the local authorities and need my special touch to keep your carcass out of hot water-or, in your case, more like boiling oil.” She glanced over at Kat. “If he ticks you off, you have my permission to kick his butt.”
Kat nodded with an outward serenity he doubted she was actually feeling while everyone else grinned widely. But then Kat startled him by asking Jennifer, “Which one of us is in charge?”
He started. He’d assumed he’d lead the mission since it had been his baby first. But now that she mentioned it, maybe that wasn’t such a straightforward assumption. He and Kat were both captains by rank. Both experienced field operators. Both capable of leading a combat team. Hathaway and Jennifer exchanged another one of those wordless looks of colleagues who’ve worked together for a long time and know how the other one thinks.
Hathaway looked over at Kat. “You okay with Maverick spearheading this thing?”
She shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”
Jordan Yokum, one of his guys in the gym earlier, snickered. “If you pick it by who can kick whose keester, the chick ought to be running the show.”
Jeff surged to his feet and had Jordy by the throat all in one move. “You wanna talk about her, you do it with respect, buster. She’s a hell of fighter, and she can rip your head off in a New York second. If you call her a chick again, I’m gonna order her to do it. She’s Captain Kim to you, or you can call her ma’am. Got it?”
The vignette froze in time as everyone went perfectly still around him. Theirs was a notoriously polite community because their capacity to cause violent harm to one another was so great. A confrontation like this was rare and dangerous.
Kat spoke quietly from behind him. “Thanks for the knight in shining armor bit, Jeff. But it’s okay. I’ll take care of what your guys call me.”
He realized in shock that the fury coursing through him was completely out of proportion to the provocation. Why in hell was he already so possessive of her? He’d known her for approximately eight hours. Yeah, they’d kissed, but he’d kissed plenty of women he’d just met and never roared to their defense like this. She was right. He had no business designating himself the official defender of her honor. Especially when she could, indeed, kick her own asses.
He turned Jordy’s neck loose and took a step back.
The other man mumbled, “Hey, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
Jeff shook his head. “No, I overreacted. My fault.”
Hathaway said grimly, “My office, Jeff. Now.”
Crap. He was gonna get a serious butt-chewing, and he deserved it, too. Even Jordy threw him a sympathetic look as he turned to follow his boss.
Kat said behind him, “If someone will show me to Captain Steiger’s office, I’ll pack my gear. I gather General Wittenauer wants the two of us to leave right away for Barbados. Who around here can arrange for our transportation?”
Gratitude flooded through him. Her comment, made plenty loud enough for Hathaway to hear, was a clear statement of support, an unequivocal announcement that she still wanted to work with him, despite his Neanderthal outburst of a moment before. It would go a long way toward making the upcoming conversation with his boss easier. She didn’t have to do it. But she had. Publicly.
Son of a gun.
Maybe the lady liked him for more than just his magnificent kissing, after all.
Chapter 6
Kat was surprised when the guy who’d called her a chick in the Ops Center poked his head into Jeff’s warehouse/office a little while later.
“Captain Kim? Captain Steiger will meet you at the boat dock in fifteen minutes. I’m supposed to take you down there.”
She rose easily out of the cross-legged pose she’d been sitting in, meditating in a futile effort to relax and re- center herself. If she were being brutally honest, she’d been trying to erase the memory of Jeff’s kisses and her reaction to them. And frankly…it was not happening.
In less than a day, one man had undone twenty-five years’ worth of intensive training and self-discipline instilled by one of the great martial arts masters of his time. She didn’t know whether to be intrigued as hell or scared to death of Jeff Steiger. Either way, she was horribly discombobulated and out of balance.
If she couldn’t actually be calm, at least she could fake it. She spoke smoothly to the nervous man before her. “You can call me Cobra if you like.”
He smiled gratefully, acknowledging the offer of her field handle as the gesture of forgiveness it was. “I didn’t mean anything by that comment, you know. Maverick can whup all our butts. And the way you took him down today, I figure you can whup all of ours, too.”
No doubt she could. But she wasn’t about to comment on it. “All’s forgotten,” she murmured. She picked up her gear bag and rifle case. “Lead on…” She left the sentence hanging.
