The Medusa Proposition. Cindy Dees
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commander’s eventual response was only a bland question. “How did he die?”
“Don’t know. I found his body washed up on the beach in a bag. In pieces.”
Another long silence. “Where are you?”
“I’m on the west shore of the island about four miles north of the hotel strip.” The summit was being held on Beau Mer, a resort island smack-dab in the middle of French Polynesia. Neutral territory for all the interested parties. She glanced down at the bag on the sand. Not so neutral after all.
Vanessa announced, “I’m calling in some backup for you.”
Paige’s impulse was to protest. To argue that she didn’t need help. That she could handle this alone. Except, it would be a lie. A dismembered corpse lay at her feet. And she frankly didn’t know what to do next. A niggling feeling that she was missing something important plagued her. It was the same feeling she got when a big story was breaking under her nose and she hadn’t spotted it yet. But what? What was she missing?
Vanessa’s voice interrupted her turbulent thoughts. “The guy I’m going to send you will answer to the name Wolf. Stay put and don’t move Ando.”
Paige snorted. “Takashi isn’t going anywhere.”
“Report to me in an hour.”
Paige disconnected the call and stared glumly down at the gray-green bag. She became aware of fine tremors passing through her body, like aftershocks of a major earthquake. “Who did this to you, Mr. Ando? And why?”
You’re an investigative reporter, Einstein. How would you investigate this thing?
She’d try to track his movements for the last few days of his life. Find out who he’d met with. Called. E-mailed. She’d poke into his past. Into his business dealings. Look for enemies who wanted to see Ando dead. She’d check out everyone who wanted to see this summit fail. Of course, that wasn’t much of a stretch to figure out. Neither the North Koreans nor the Russians were thrilled to be here. And either group had the resources, resolve and mind-set to kill someone if that was what it took to put an end to the summit.
Paige started as the sound of an engine disturbed the rhythmic whooshing of the waves. Far down the beach, a speck was racing toward her. She glanced around quickly. No time to hide the body. She could push it in the water but might risk losing it in the capricious tides. Subterfuge, then. Quickly, she bent down and pulled shut the neck of the sodden canvas bag. Scuba gear. She’d claim it was diving equipment in her bag and she was waiting for a friend to pick her up.
She was surprised when her nerves calmed and her body fell into a state of relaxed readiness. Wow. All that training from the Medusas must have worked. Certainty that she could handle whatever happened in the next few minutes flowed through her. She’d feel better if she had an assault rifle in her back pocket, though. She made a mental note to carry a firearm from now on when she went for her morning runs.
The speck resolved itself into a blob of yellow, and then into a four-wheeled, all-terrain vehicle. Driven by a man. A holy-moly, ay Chihuahua, gorgeous man. Although his hair was dark, slicked back like he’d been swimming recently, and his eyes were dark as well, he looked Caucasian. Just with a really good tan.
A pair of surfboards stood upright in the passenger seat beside him. He wore a baggy pair of swim trunks that did nothing to disguise the sculpted power of his legs and showed off a tanned, muscular chest that frankly made her want to fan herself. Even his bare feet were sexy as he grabbed the roll bar over his head and swung athletically out of the vehicle.
He frowned as he looked at her. “There must be some mistake. I’m supposed to meet a guy called Fire Ant out here this morning. But you’re obviously not him.”
Paige grinned. It was an honored Medusa tradition to mess with male operators and fail to mention that the Medusas were women. She replied cautiously. “You Wolf?”
“Who’s asking?” he replied tersely, all traces of the casual surfer dude abruptly gone.
Ah, the joys of special operators dancing carefully around each other, afraid to blow their covers. She said quietly, “I’m Fire Ant.”
His frown intensified. “Come again?”
“I’m Fire Ant.”
“Sonofa—” He broke off. “Yeah, I’m Wolf.” He nodded at the canvas bag. “That your gear?”
“No. That’s the problem you’re here to help me with.” “What’s in it?”
“A dead man.” She watched carefully to gauge his reaction to the announcement. Interestingly enough, his expression barely flickered. Was he used to being around dead people or was he just extraordinarily self-controlled?
“What do you want me to do with him?” Wolf asked.
“Help me hide him until the right people can come and claim his body.”
He took that news calmly enough. “Who is it?”
Interesting that he should assume she knew the dead man. But then, what other explanation was there for why she’d want to hide the body? She hesitated to tell this guy the dead man’s identity. After all, she didn’t have any idea who he really was.
She shrugged.
He studied her all too perceptively. If she read him right, he didn’t buy for a minute the idea that she didn’t know the dead man. For all she knew, he might suspect she’d been the one to off the victim.
Wolf asked casually, “Any sign of chains or weights in or on the bag?”
“I dunno. I didn’t look yet.” Not to mention she hadn’t thought of it. She clamped down on the chagrin bubbling up in her gut.
“Help me check.”
They squatted in the sand near the bag and examined its exterior surface for tears, holes or other signs of attempts to weigh it down. The smell was worse this close to it. Paige held her facial expression perfectly still, particularly after she caught Wolf’s sidelong gaze on her.
She leaned back on her heels. “I don’t see any signs from the outside.”
“Me, neither. Let’s open it up, then.”
She clenched her jaw but held her position resolutely.
Her companion swore under his breath when he got his first look at the dead man and the condition he was in. Then he breathed, “Ando.”
So. Wolf was familiar with the attendees at the upcoming summit … or else he was conversant with Japanese businessmen and could recognize them on sight, even while dead and starting to bloat.
He commented, “Doesn’t look like any fish have been nibbling on him. Which means he was bagged before he went in the water.”
Wolf reached into the bag and around in the various—appendages—while Paige’s gaze slid away.
He rinsed his hand in the surf as he announced, “Nothing obvious in the bag with our guy. Odd. Who’d ditch a body and not weigh it down?”
Her gaze snapped back to him and she blurted, “Someone who wanted it found, obviously.”
He stared at her speculatively for several seconds. “Grab the bag,” he abruptly ordered.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Help me lift your guy into my ATV.”
Distastefully, she grabbed the wet canvas and, between the two of them, they heaved the wet sack onto the back of the vehicle. It landed with a sickening thud. Trying to hide her involuntary shudders, she helped Wolf lash the surfboards across the spare tire mounted on the back of the vehicle. The guy knew his way around ropes and knots. But then, so did she.
He swept his arm toward the passenger seat in invitation. As she climbed in, she asked, “What