Medusa’s Master

“Whoa!” he exclaimed. No wonder the Ghost had warned Kat this tape would put her in extreme danger!

Bloody hell.

Chapter 16

Kat leaned forward to peer at the image on the computer screen. It was grainy and shot from an odd angle, as if the camera were mounted high in the corner of the room. A surveillance camera, then. Not surprisingly, a bedroom came into focus. Even less surprisingly, the bed was occupied.

Kat murmured, “Bella, was the focus on that lens just adjusted?”

The team’s photo intelligence analyst murmured, “Yes. A live camera operator shot this footage.”

Kat’s eyebrows shot up. Which meant this little menage a trois was probably a setup. Which meant somebody was out to blackmail this man. Which begged the questions, who was he, and who would benefit by having this guy by the short hairs?

While she pondered those riddles, the camera zoomed in on the bed and its occupants came into plain view. A middle-aged man, reasonably fit for his age, but his skin loosening and his belly going to paunch, was cavorting with two young, naked men. Who was that?

The target of this little cinematic project turned his head momentarily. The camera caught a clear image of him, and Isabella sucked in a sharp breath.

Jeff murmured, “You know him?”

Isabella answered grimly, “That’s the Russian oil minister.”

Kat’s jaw sagged. The Russians might be entirely used to their government officials jumping in and out of the sack with women and turn a blind eye to it. But men with men? Her impression of Russian society was that it was not nearly so tolerant of that. Her thoughts leaped to the next obvious question. Who took the video? And what did they want from the Russian oil minister?

Jeff asked Isabella, “Can you tell anything from this video about who filmed it?”

“I’d need more sophisticated equipment than this. We’ll need to send the disk to our analysts for that. My first guess is that it’s not Russian. Frankly, their surveillance film quality is better than this.”

Kat snorted mentally. The benefit of a long and distinguished history of spying on one’s own people, apparently. Aloud, she said, “The next question is who were those guys chasing The Ghost? Is it a safe assumption that they were after this disk? If so, why do they want it?”

“Who are the possible players?” Jeff asked her.

Kat shrugged. “The Chinese might have filmed this and want it back. The Russians could be after it on behalf of Romeo, there. Or some other player may want to get their hooks into the Russian oil minister.”

Jeff huffed in disgust. “So we really don’t know a whole lot more than we did a few hours ago.”

Kat shrugged. “Sure we do. We know that CD was in the possession of someone the Ghost burglarized here on Barbados. That’s a list of only seven suspects. We know that once word got out that the disk had surfaced, a heavy hitter entered the scene fast to try to get his hands on it. Finally, we know the Ghost wanted to dump the disk-in particular to the U.S. government. The Ghost was obviously worried about what the last owner of the disk was going to do with it, which implies that an enemy of the U.S. had the disk until the Ghost took it.”

Jeff grinned at her. Even though his voice was teasing, the expression in his eyes was intimate. Personal. “That’s why I love you. You’re smart and optimistic.”

L-love? She gulped and had to use all her skill to disguise the shock coursing through her. Surely he’d said that purely in jest. He’d sounded like he was joking around, at any rate.

She managed to respond lightly, “Gee, and here I thought you were captivated by my tree-climbing skills.”

He laughed. “That, too. You’ve got to show me how you did that trick of running up the tree trunk sideways sometime.”

She winced. He’d seen that, had he? That was exactly the sort of move she didn’t like to advertise that she knew how to do. If Uncle Sam found out, she’d be stuck teaching ninja wannabes for the rest of her life. And not only would that drive her crazy, it would go against everything Hidoshi had ever taught her.

Jeff dug out his cell phone. She listened to his call with unabashed curiosity. “Raven, it’s Maverick. Just the lady I wanted to talk to. There’s been a development.”

In short order, Jeff had asked Jennifer and company back at the Bat Cave to do thorough background checks on all the victims of the Ghost’s robberies on Barbados. Why would one of them have a blackmail video of the Russian oil minister?

Aleesha commented, “I could get used to having a bunch like the H.O.T. Watch backing me up. They do the drudge work pushing paper while we’re out here having all the fun.”

Jeff nodded. “I can’t tell you how handy they are. They’ve saved my neck a dozen times and every mission runs smoother with their eyes and ears on my team. Of course, you ladies don’t seem to do too badly for yourselves.” He threw a sour glance over at Misty.

Kat grinned. “Speaking of which, can I have my shirt back? I’m tired of swimming around in this sack you call clothing, Sidewinder.”

Misty quipped, “You’re just jealous of the girls.” Then her voice dropped into a more serious vein. “I didn’t ask for them, you know. They were added when I was still out cold from the accident.”

Misty had been in a horrendous car wreck as a teenager and her mother had decided that during the reconstructive surgeries to follow that Misty should be turned into a walking Barbie doll. Her looks were actually a real sore point with her.

Karen commented idly, “Too bad we can’t just ask the Ghost where he got the CD.”

Kat lurched, her mind racing.

She caught Jeff’s intent gaze upon her and he leaned forward. “Talk to me, Kat.”

“Is it a good bet that, given enough time, the powers that be at H.O.T. Watch will figure out which of the Ghost’s victims would’ve had a use for, or connection to, that CD?”

Jeff nodded. “They’re very good at what they do.”

“But knowing that might not account for the guys who jumped us in the gully, right?”

Jeff nodded again.

Kat continued thinking aloud. “We have to assume our commandos reported back to whomever they’re working for. Worst case, even more thugs get sent in to help get the disk. The good news is they have no idea who we are and no obvious means of tracking us if we’ve done our job correctly to erase our tracks tonight. But the hostiles do have one link to that CD whom they can possibly track.”

“The Ghost,” Jeff said. “But surely after tonight, he’s run for the hills. He’s probably already off the island.”

Kat shrugged. “You’re most likely right. He didn’t strike me as having a death wish. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken such precautions when he met me. But our hostiles don’t know that for sure any more than we do.”

Jeff asked, “What do you suggest we do about it?”

Kat leaned forward eagerly. Suddenly it was as clear as a bell to her what her subconscious had been reaching toward. “We know of two more paintings that the Ghost was likely to steal-that last two from that catalog here on Barbados. What if I impersonate the Ghost and steal one of them? You guys can set up a trap around me and I’ll act as bait. We’ll draw out the hostiles and grab them.”

Jeff’s look was one of pure horror. “Absolutely not!”

Shocked at his response, Kat stared at him. “Why not? It’s a brilliant plan.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’m a Special Forces operative. How is it too dangerous? I do stuff more dangerous than that all the time.”

“You’re setting yourself up as bait for a force of unknown size and skill. It’d be a crapshoot. They might come in with six guys like before, or maybe they’ll come in with twenty.”

“That’s what I have the Medusas and H.O.T. Watch for. You all can take care of anything they throw at me.”

Jeff glanced around and a look of chagrin came over his face. Kat looked up to see that her teammates were riveted on the exchange between them. Crud.