* * * Sam repressed a yawn and wished, for the umpteenth time, that Wetherton would just shut up and go home. Night-watch duty always took several days—or rather, nights—to get used to, and she was tired as hell.
Right now, it was two in the morning and they were in a nightclub situated right in the heart of the King Street club scene. The place was packed with wildly gyrating teenagers and adults, and the music was so damn loud her body vibrated with it. The air was filled with an array of perfumes—the source of which was both male and female. When combined with the odor of sweating bodies, the result was stomach churning.
The one thing the place didn't have was a watcher on her.
She'd spotted the man Gabriel had following her several times and had finally phoned Stephan about it. The big man had disappeared very quickly after that. As much as his presence had offered her some comfort, she'd be damned if she'd allow someone to risk their life to protect hers. Especially when that someone was the husband of a woman she liked.
She stood in a corner opposite Wetherton's table, squashed between a pole and the wall and trying not to breathe too deeply.
While uncomfortable, the position allowed her to watch both Wetherton and anyone who approached his table. Not that anyone had for the last four hours. She sipped on a juice and wished it was coffee. She had a feeling she was going to hit a wall soon when it came to energy, and at least the caffeine would have helped fend that moment off a little longer. But the bar didn't serve the hot stuff. And as much as she wouldn't have minded a mixer with the juice, her tiredness and the fact she hadn't eaten much over the day meant it would more than likely go straight to her head.
Not a good thing when she was supposed to be protecting the minister's back.
Although that was most definitely not the only reason she was here. She glanced at the other man at the table. Wetherton's "meet" was a tall, thin man who didn't appear to be another politician. His brown suit was rumpled, his face haggard and unshaven, and there was nothing polished or practiced about the way he spoke. On first sighting him, she'd thought "reporter"
but after watching him for the last four hours, she'd revised that to criminal. There was something very guarded about the way his gaze continually roamed the room.
There was also something oddly familiar about him, though she'd swear she'd never met nor seen him before. It wasn't even so much his looks as his "feel."
If that made any sense.
She'd managed to grab a couple of shots of him with her viaphone and, when she had the time, fully intended to do a search to see who he was. She figured the name he'd given her—Chip Braggart—was just a little too weird to be true.
And she couldn't remember him listed among Wetherton's known associates. Even as tired as she was, it was doubtful she'd forget a name like that.
And why was Wetherton, a government minister, meeting with the likes of Braggart? Was he a contact from the real Wetherton's past, or was he a part of the clone's very recent past? Or was he even, perhaps, the contact between the made- man and the creator?
Very likely, she thought, studying the cold wariness in his dark eyes. This man was more than just a petty criminal. And there was something very familiar in the way he moved, the way he reacted.
She frowned, trying to chase down the intuition, but at that moment, the presence of evil crawled across her skin like foul electricity, making it hard not to react instinctively and draw her gun. She placed the glass on a nearby table and casually looked around.
For quite a few minutes she couldn't see the threat. The main dance floor was too crowded, and the table-lined edges too shadowed. Then the strobe lights pulsed, briefly hitting a group on the far side of the room and illuminating the hair of one man, making it a gleam like a beacon of molten red.
The hair color of Hopeworth's creations.
The face of the man who had tried to kill both Wetherton and her last night.
Only it couldn't be the same man, because he was dead.
And although this man's features were almost identical, his nose was just a little bit sharper.
Unlike the rest of the people in his group, he was neither talking nor drinking, simply standing still as his gaze roamed the confines of the room. When his gaze neared where she stood, she ducked back into shadow, but she had an odd feeling he'd know she was there—that he would feel her presence as easily as she felt his. When she risked another look in his direction, he was gone.
Fear shot through her. The hunt was on.
She pushed away from the wall and walked across to Wetherton. "I'm sorry, Minister, but we need to leave."
Wetherton glanced up, his expression annoyed. "I'm not finished here, yet."
"Sir, I have reason to believe your life is under threat.
Continue this conversation in the car if you must, but right now, we need to move."
His scowl deepened. "It would be inopportune for Mr.
Braggart and I to be seen together right at this moment."
"Minister, you asked the SIU for protection. If you do not wish to follow my advice, I can only presume you do not, after all, wish such protection."