Payback. Harper Allen
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edges of her sneakers into the dirt, kept her head down but her focus straight ahead and took her weight on her elbows.
It was the classic sniper position, and one that was second nature to her. She could wait like this for hours if she had to, but from the escalating decibels of the approaching whine the waiting would last only a few more seconds.
She didn’t want to hurt the rider, whoever he was. She couldn’t afford to damage the motorcycle. Precision was going to be key in this operation.
“When isn’t it?” she asked herself in a mutter. “If Mr. SAS hadn’t stormed into my room when he did yesterday morning, I get the feeling his uncle might have declined Dawn Swanson’s eager offer and kept his old chum Roger on in the position of lab supervisor. But if they have nothing else in common, London and his nephew seem to share the same determination to get their own way. It couldn’t have been more obvious that his insistence on giving me the run of his lab was just his way of jerking Ash’s chain. And talking about jerking chains…”
Transportation was one of the pesky little details Peters hadn’t seemed to consider when he’d insisted on this meeting tonight, she thought. Even though their clandestine rendezvous was to take place at a bar just outside the limits of the nearest town to London’s facility, it was still a jaunt of twenty miles. What had he been thinking—that she would simply hop in the hatchback, wave airily at the man who’d already warned her he suspected she was an imposter and drive off into the night before returning again hours later?
She tilted her head and listened. For the past few minutes the unknown motorcyclist had been tearing like a bat out of hell down the ruler-straight road just before the curve where she’d stationed herself. Now she heard him gearing down rapidly in preparation for the hairpin bend, his engine revs red-lining as noisily as they had the previous night when the loyal Roger Poole had been showing her to her quarters.
She’d fixed a Dawn Swanson expression of irritation on her features. “I was under the impression this facility was located miles from anywhere, not right next door to a motorcycle speedway. Half the staff on this floor must be awake with the noise.”
Roger had given an apologetic cough. She’d already learned that an apologetic cough was his one-size-fits-all reaction to most situations, and the thought had crossed her mind that he would be the perfect candidate to give lessons in being a real Englishman to Des Asher.
“I’m afraid we’ve just resigned ourselves to the racket. Really, it would be rude to complain.” He’d raked a hand through thinning brown hair. “After all, the chap riding that infernal machine is one of the military guards protecting our research from falling into the wrong hands. He must be on day duty this week, because he’s been roaring out of here for the past few evenings about eight and returning around now. I believe there’s what you Yanks call a ‘juke joint’ in the next town? Ah, here’s your room. Now, where did I put the blasted key?”
While Roger, coughing madly, had fished around in the pockets of his lab coat, Dawn had mentally filed away the information he’d given her. She hadn’t realized she would be using it so soon, she thought now, but since she’d been put in a position where she had to, she owed it to the hapless biker to do it right.
Stripped down to the essentials, this particular operation was simple physics, as so much of her training had been. Except this time instead of calculating the trajectory and velocity of a bullet, she’d had to figure out the path an experienced motorcyclist would take after swerving his vehicle to avoid a sudden wall of flames. She’d remembered the hairpin bend from her own drive here two nights ago, but until she’d arrived with her rope and looked over the location carefully, she still hadn’t known for sure whether it would do.
She’d been relieved to find the same dry and crumbling soil that had posed such a problem for the hatchback’s tires when she’d run off the road the night she’d arrived. It wouldn’t be like drifting into a feather bed but as a Ranger, the biker would know instinctively how to fall. Hopefully the worst of his injuries would be a bruised ego.
A single blinding headlight abruptly rounded the curve. Immediately emptying her mind of all else, Dawn focused on the swiftly approaching motorcycle. The biker, now that he had negotiated the turn and knew he had a straight run until the unmarked side road that led to his destination, wrenched back on the throttle to pour on more speed.
She struck the match she was holding and touched it to the chemical fire starter. Whoever he was, he was good. As the flames sprang up in front of him he reacted instantly, wrenching the Harley Sportster to one side with the obvious intention of going around the unexpected barrier. But as soon as the Harley’s tires hit the loose dirt it began fishtailing, despite the unknown rider’s efforts to keep it under control. “Dump it, buddy,” Dawn muttered under her breath. “You’re going to go down anyway, so you might as well choose your own moment.”
As if he’d heard her advice and reluctantly agreed with it, the Harley’s rider did just that. He’d long since eased off on the throttle and the rough terrain had further cut his speed, so the maneuver when he executed it was little more than a controlled stepping away from the falling bike. Jogging toward him, Dawn watched as he rolled like a paratrooper for a yard or so. He ended up on his hands and knees, shaking his helmeted head as if to clear it as she walked up behind him.
“But clearing your head is exactly what I can’t let you do, buddy,” she murmured regretfully as she stood over him. “I know I’ve already put you through the wringer pretty thoroughly, but…”
She slipped a stainless-steel cylinder from her back pocket as she spoke. As the biker began getting to his feet and pulling off his dark-visored helmet, she quickly twisted the cylinder into two parts. Reaching around him, she held the broken halves in front of his face.
The cylinder was one of Lab 33’s more benign gadgets. Although if it had been found in her luggage when she’d arrived it would have been dismissed by a searcher as a slightly oversize fountain pen, when the seal that kept it in one piece was broken it released a sickly sweet cloud of gas, similar in composition and effect to chloroform but much more predictable.
The hapless biker sank to his knees again, his helmet falling from his gloved hands. Taking care not to inhale the remnants of the gas, Dawn eased him to the ground.
“Believe me, buddy, if I could have worked this any other way in the time Aldrich gave me, I would have,” she told the unconscious man regretfully. “But you’ll come out of your little nap in a few hours. By then I’ll have returned your wheels and as far as you’re concerned, you’ll just have had a nasty spill that knocked you out for a—”
Instead of finishing her sentence, she inhaled sharply. Her mystery biker lay on his back, the moonlight shining full upon his face. Pitch-black hair brushed his forehead. His lashes were dense fans against his cheekbones. His breathing was regular and a faint smile softened his lips.
She felt a rueful answering smile tug at the corners of her mouth. On impulse she brought the tips of her fingers to her lips and kissed them.
“Wrong time, wrong place again, Lover Boy,” she whispered huskily as she blew her kiss toward him. “Maybe one of these days we’ll have a chance to get it right.”
Her smile disappeared as she checked her watch. Briskly turning away, she grabbed up the fallen helmet and hurried for the Harley without looking back.
“I owe you an apologetic cough, Rog, old chap,” Dawn muttered over the Harley’s rumble as she rode the heavy motorcycle into the dirt parking lot outside a long, low building. Peeling purple paint covered the rambling structure and its entry consisted of a spring-loaded wooden door with torn screening, but its slightly sinister air was dispelled by the glittering strings of Christmas lights that festooned it. “I figured your command of American-style English was a little shaky but it was spot-on, as you Limeys say. This here’s a juke joint, all right.”
She cut the bike’s engine and kicked its stand into position before using both hands to lift the full-face helmet off her head. She balanced it on the gas tank, shook her hair into some semblance of order and looked