News and then more recently at ActionNews7.”
A deep V mars her otherwise smooth forehead. “You ran my name through the CIA database?”
I feel myself relax. She still believes that nonsense. “Something like that. Missing a bit of information, though. Like, what in shite’s sake you’re doing on this ship?”
She exhales sharply. “I’m here for the same reasons you’re onboard.”
“Feck’s sake but I was worried you’d say that.”
“If your organization had made the bust, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” she reminds me. Though of course we’re speaking different languages when it comes to which organizations.
“I’m asking you nicely what you know. As compensation, I’ll put you on the first plane out of Cork.”
I feel her stiffen beneath me. “No.”
I lift an eyebrow at that. “No?”
“Get off me and I’ll tell you what I know. But I won’t be going anywhere.”
“We negotiating?”
“Whatever you Irish call it.”
I move but not in the way she’s expecting. Instead I drop my hands to the sides of her arms and lower myself so my face is a breath away from hers. My intention is to intimidate. She needs to understand who is the boss. I’ve a job to do and she’s got to buy into this nonsense about the CIA if she’s going to be any help.
The plan is to feed her some bullshite in a whispered voice. The CIA doesn’t negotiate with naughty minxes. It’s her patriotic feckin’ duty to share information.
But as I draw in close, she gapes at me in surprised horror.
“Listen up. We’re going to do things my way—”
“Oh. My. God. Your eye.” She pauses, and being the clever thinker she is, puts two and two together. “It was you, wasn’t it? The crew member the captain assaulted?”
“Yours truly.”
“He hates you with a passion.”
“That he does.”
“I should have known.”
“Given how we left things between us, you should have.”
Her eyes go wide then narrow. “I’ll have the special of the day,” she hisses. “The woman running the tortilla stand in Acapulco called me a prostitute then called the police.”
I grin. The horror.
She pokes me in the chest with her free hand. “You lied.”
“I warned you you’d remember me.”
“We had an agreement.”
“The CIA doesn’t make agreements. Against company policy, or didn’t you discover that during yer time abroad?” I add the last part on a wing and a prayer. The CIA must have been on the ground in Aleppo. No way did she spend months in a city under siege without protection, right?
“How do I really know you even work for the CIA?”
I blink. “Eh . . . what?”
“I mean how could you, with that accent? Do you have dual citizenship? American and Irish? To work for the CIA . . .”
Right-o.
I lightly tap her on the forehead, and she gasps. “Yer thinking too hard.” Damn it. She’s good at catching me off guard. “Tell you what. I’m going to climb off you now. Then we’re going to have a heart-to-heart about the uranium.”
Her eyes light up like I offered her a lick of me lucky lollipop. Good to my word, I roll off her and come up to stand beside the bed.
I take a seat on a small wooden chair and gesture toward the other. “Whenever yer ready.”
She’s out of the bed in seconds.
Ready.
Eager.
Mine to use. Mine to manipulate.
7
Clarissa
There are nightmares and then there are nightmares. Antonio, bending over me with whiskers a half inch from my face, is as horrible as they come. It took me a few seconds to realize I was awake, and that somehow, someway, he was onboard the ship.
In my cabin.
In my bed.
He’s quiet as we sit at the small table. Shaking off a lingering sleep, I decide now is as good a time as any to get to the truth.
“What’s your real name?”
“Antonio.”
I roll my eyes in an exaggerated way.
“Name doesn’t matter. We’re not going to be mates.”
Ouch. I feel the sting, though his assumption is spot on. “No, we’re definitely not. Not friends, not anything resembling friendship. I don’t take kindly to liars.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to argue with me but then changes his mind. With a shake of his head, he looks away to do a slow survey of my cabin. I feel slightly nervous. It’s a subtle thing, the difference in the energy between us. He no longer seems like the man I knew in Mexico City. He’s different, a far cry from the bumbling barbarian. More capable. More intense.
And he’s a hot mess. Hair longer and sticking up at