Stranded with a Spy Read Free

boarded the transport that would take the passengers out to the aircraft. Don’t think about the ugliness or smut or vicious lies.
    Think about France. Undulating vineyards. Fairy-tale castles. Crusty bread and melt-in-your-mouth pastries.
    And anonymity. Blessed anonymity.
    Ten whole days with no reporters hounding her, no microphones shoved in her face. She’d lose herself on back roads. Put the awful mess behind her.
    Nine hours, she thought as she found her seat and buckled in. Nine hours flying through the night, then freedom.
    As soon as the jumbo jet reached cruising altitude, she plugged in her earphones, slipped on the eye mask provided by the airline and reclined her seat.
     
    Ms. Dawes was one cool customer, Cutter decided, watching from a few feet away at the baggage carousel.
    He’d tracked her from the moment she exited the aircraft. She’d looked straight ahead as she stood in line at passport control, didn’t so much as nod or speak to any of her fellow passengers. Same here at the baggage carousel. Below the shield of her sunglasses, her mouth was set in a line that warned off all comers.
    With seeming nonchalance, Cutter pulled out a slim cell phone. Mackenzie Blair, Nick’s wife and OMEGA’s guru of all things electronic, had packed the slim case with enough gadgetry and software to make Bill Gates drool.
    She’d replaced the built-in camera with one so powerful she swore it would capture a mosquito in flight a block away. With a flick of one button, Cutter could reverse the lens and activate an iris scanner. The digitized image identified him instantaneously to his controller at OMEGA headquarters. Voice-recognition software provided additional security, as did the satellite encryption transmissions. Not even the spooks at the National Intelligence Collection and Processing Center could intercept these calls.
    What interested Cutter most at the moment was the embedded GPS transceiver that caused the phone to vibrate when the compact disk tucked into Mallory Dawes’s suitcase moved so much as an inch.
    It was moving now. The vibrations tickled Cutter’s palm and had every one of his nerves jumping in response. Screwing in an earpiece, he flipped up the phone and made like the other half dozen or so passengers busy calling home or confirming reservations now that they’d landed.
    “I’ve got movement.”
    He didn’t bother to identify himself. The phone took care of that. Mike Callahan’s reply came through the earpiece.
    “Roger that, Slash. I’m tracking the case via the airport’s security cameras. It’s on a baggage cart, headed your way.”
    Cutter acknowledged the transmission and tucked the phone back in his pocket. As the vibrations grew stronger, his instincts went on full alert.
    His gut told him the most likely spot for the Russian or one of his cohorts to make the pickup was right here at the airport. Odds were it would happen shortly after Dawes claimed her bag.
    He was right on her tail when she exited through passport control, had the woman and her roller bag firmly in his sights when she strode through the terminal, felt the phone vibrating like hell in his shirt pocket as she marched up to a rental-car counter.
    It was still vibrating when he tossed his briefcase and carryall in a rental car some minutes later and trailed her midget Peugeot out of Charles De Gaulle Airport.

Chapter 2
    M allory was amazed that she could still function with semiefficiency.
    The long flight across the Atlantic should have wiped her out, especially coming on top of all the weeks of stress. Not to mention the sleepless nights wondering why she hadn’t just quit after Congressman Kent had grabbed her ass the first time.
    Dillon Porter, Kent’s senior staffer and Mallory’s closest friend on the Hill, had smoothed things over that first time. Dillon had agreed with her that their boss was a throwback, a total Neanderthal. He’d also warned that Kent was so slick, any charges Mallory brought