The Loch Ness Legacy Read Free

the small of her back and leaned in.
    “Any luck?”
    She drank half of the wine in three gulps and shook her head. “Why do you think I need this?” Her British lilt was tinged with exasperation.
    “What did the minister of the interior say?”
    “The French don’t think it’s a credible threat. He assured me that his forces have taken every precaution necessary. In his words, the outcome of this summit is too important to interrupt on the hunches of two US Army retirees and a private investigator.”
    Tyler was amused at being called a “retiree.” Both he and Grant were still in their thirties.
    Brielle took another drink. “He also said I shouldn’t even be here.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I told him one Jew wouldn’t wreck the bloody summit.”
    Tyler smirked. “What did you really say?”
    “I told him to take it up with the Turkish ambassador.”
    At least they hadn’t been thrown out, but Minister Jacques Fournier had been their last hope of cancelling the event. With the little they had to go on, Tyler couldn’t blame the organizers for going forward with the party in spite of their warnings. In Brielle’s latest case, her investigative partner Wade Plymouth had sent her a cryptic message that the artifact might have fallen into the hands of a white supremacist group, leading her to a deserted compound outside Oslo, Norway. There she found the destroyed metal framework, at which time she brought in Tyler and Grant to analyze it. What they discovered was much more than they expected. The evidence suggested an impending terrorist event, but Plymouth subsequently went missing, leaving the three of them to follow gut feelings and a thin thread of clues to the Eiffel Tower.
    One name from Plymouth, however, convinced Tyler that the threat was real. He had been stunned to learn that the leader of the supposed terrorist group was Carl Zim, a vicious white supremacist focusing his ire on Muslim immigrants. Tyler had testified at the trial that put his brother in prison for murder of a Pakistani five years before, perhaps stoking the flames of Zim’s hatred. With a background that engendered an intense fear and loathing toward the spread of Islam, Zim had great motive to kill as many Muslims as possible—the higher profile the better. The Eiffel Tower gathering was the perfect target, and because of his role in provoking Zim, Tyler felt some responsibility for preventing a tragedy. He just hadn’t been able to convince anyone in authority that the danger was imminent.
    Brielle’s eyes locked onto his. “No matter how this ends up, I’ve had fun with you this past week.”
    “Fun? We almost got killed twice already.” The week with her had entailed a shipyard firefight with Zim’s men in Copenhagen and a bar brawl in Amsterdam, during which Brielle had displayed her skill with a weapon. The training she’d received while serving as a Mahal foreign volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces was something Tyler hadn’t shared with the Turkish ambassador.
    She took a leisurely sip from her glass, then said, “Don’t you find that the ‘almost’ part is what makes it exhilarating?”
    “It does make me think about taking a rest when this is over.”
    “Where are you thinking of doing your resting?”
    Tyler grinned and leaned closer. “Do you have any suggestions?”
    “I know a nice hotel on Majorca.”
    “I thought your parents wouldn’t approve, me not being one of the chosen people.”
    “They only care about who I marry. I don’t share my flings with them.”
    “So I’d be a fling?”
    Brielle’s lips parted deliciously. “Would you mind?”
    “I don’t mind being flung once in a while.”
    Brielle looked as though she were going to get even naughtier when her gaze slipped past Tyler and the smile faded.
    “What is it?” Tyler asked and turned to see what she was watching. Fournier was being escorted out of the party by a young man with a military bearing.
    “He just whispered