Breaking Loose

CHAPTER FOUR

At a hundred feet from the gallery and closing, Dax’s day took another serious dive.

Fuck. A Paraguayan police vehicle, its siren wailing, was approaching the gallery, which could mean nothing or everything, but Dax’s money was on everything. When the squad car pulled to a stop next to Ponce ’s Range Rover, he slowed his pace.

Fucking perfect. Beranger was getting busted-and there wasn’t a doubt in Dax’s mind that it had something to do with the Sphinx and the people who had come to buy it. The Old Gallery was available to the cops 365 days a year if they wanted to shut it down. It was no coincidence that they’d showed up today, less than ten minutes after Esteban Ponce and Levi Asher. Or maybe Suzi Toussi was the guest of honor.

God, he hoped not.

He glanced up toward the rooftops, wondering if the police had overwatch on the gallery, some sniper team primed and ready. They’d obviously been getting their information in a damned timely fashion. He didn’t see anybody, but that meant nothing. There were a thousand hiding places in this block alone-multistory buildings on both sides of the street, dozens of canopied shop stalls on the ground floor, signs everywhere, some handwritten, some giant neon extravaganzas crawling up the fronts of the stores and warehouses.

His only consolation was in knowing he didn’t particularly stand out. He’d bought his clothes in the market yesterday, all local stuff, a pair of beige cargo pants, a dark gray short-sleeved shirt and a white T-shirt, a brown ball cap embroidered with the words Santa Cruz, and a pair of knockoff Nike trail boots making him look like everyone else in Ciudad del Este. Someone would have to be looking for him in order to see him.

Which, he realized, was never out of the question.

Two armed and uniformed policemen exited the police car with lockstep precision, weapons at the ready, both of them carrying Steyr AUG assault rifles. Another police vehicle turned onto the block and hit its lights, clearing a path through the crowds and making a beeline for the gallery.

There was only one thing to do, only one thing that made any sense at all-keep moving, cross back over to the other side of the street, and walk on by. Beranger’s place had turned into an unmitigated disaster. A smart guy would melt into the scenery and let the disaster unfold without him.

Two things kept Dax from being a smart guy-the Memphis Sphinx, and the long-legged redhead in the navy blue dress. He wasn’t going to let the police have either one-so he didn’t cross the street. Oh, hell no. If Suzi Toussi really was working for a United States congressman, there were some pretty damn big gaps in his information-scary gaps, the kind that could deep-six a guy. He needed to fill those gaps, and he needed her to do it. Failure was not an option. The Sphinx was his, one way or the other.

Another armed policeman with a Steyr AUG piled out of the second car, bringing the squad up to three, a little thin for a bust by anybody’s standards, but the police were well-trained, damned serious guys with enough firepower to take down half the block. If it came to a shoot-out, he was putting his money on the police, not the gallery full of gangsters, who were already down by two. The guys guarding the door had been quickly spun out by the first pair of cops and forced to sprawl face-down on the hood of the police car, with one cop cuffing them while the other covered them with his assault rifle.

In the grand scheme of Ciudad del Este, a bust in the market wasn’t going to make the news, and Dax knew that on any given night, the guys busting Beranger might be moonlighting in the smuggling trade, providing security for someone moving a container full of electronics or whiskey, or transporting stolen cars from Brazil into Paraguay, or exporting automatic weapons in the other direction. Paraguay was that kind of country, and Ciudad del Este was that kind of city-up for grabs.

Three policemen, though, that really wasn’t enough for a bust, not when Esteban Ponce’s daddy could have them all shanghaied, never to be seen or heard from again. Ten or fifteen cops disappearing was one thing; three was just too damn easy.

Walking along, looking like a guy minding his own business and not like a guy cataloguing the scene taking place at the Old Gallery’s front door, he ran through the frequencies on his receiver again and came up empty. He hoped to hell Beranger had someone on the inside giving a warning, but he sure wasn’t hearing one, and he hoped to God the dealer had more sense than to let the cops get ahold of the Sphinx. Dax did not want to have to go up against the official Paraguayan anything to accomplish his mission. It wasn’t a matter of scruples. He’d do whatever it took to get the Egyptian statue, but there were only so many hours left on this gig, and the clock was ticking. He didn’t have time to take on the Paraguayan police force.

Of course, truth be told, if he was going to have to take them on, he’d rather take on three of them in the market than the whole organization at their headquarters and be trying to steal the Sphinx out of their evidence locker.

Three cops.

It didn’t make sense. If they’d been staking out the gallery, they knew how many men were inside.

Hell, this wasn’t a bust. It was a shakedown, and if Suzi Toussi was the target, he needed to get to her first. The Old Gallery was big, but not so big that he couldn’t find her pretty damn quickly.

Yeah, he’d play it straight. Grab the girl, shake her down himself. Tough guy, all the way.

He turned into the alley bordering the gallery and lengthened his stride, speeding up. Halfway down the narrow opening, the same pile of junk and garbage containers he’d used two days in a row was still in place, still granting him easy access to Beranger’s second story. He quickly climbed to the top of the containers and swung himself up onto the roof, and in less than a minute was slipping through the window he’d jimmied open his first night in town.

The room he entered was dark, dusty, and sweltering. If it had been a hundred and one in the shade at the cantina, it was easily a hundred and ten in the upstairs room. Below him, he could hear the commotion of the police entering the gallery: raised voices, barked orders, and shelves of Beranger’s tourist junk, the cheap stuff he kept by the front door, crashing. Guerrilla tactics-this was definitely a shakedown. Behind him, he heard the sound of someone running across the roof.

He leaned back and took a quick look through the window, just in time to see Jimmy Ruiz skid to a stop at the edge of the building and lower himself over the side, into the alley. He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder that he had not been carrying when he’d entered the gallery with Suzi. Dax was guessing Beranger’s.

Well, hell, so much for Suzi Toussi’s partner, and whatever anyone else thought, Jimmy Ruiz was obviously convinced that the cops were after him. Dax hoped the guy was right, and for the second time, he wondered what in the hell was in the bag.

Crossing the room, he put his ear to the door and heard someone heading his way, someone wearing blue-and-white-striped, handmade, leather spectator peep-toe pumps-he was putting the bank on it. He’d know the sound of a woman running in high heels anywhere, and this woman was running up the stairs at breakneck speed.

He was impressed.

He was also ready when she reached the top of the stairs and started to dash down the hall. With one smooth move, he opened the door, caught her hard into his arms, and swung her inside the dark and dusty room. While she still had the breath startled out of her, he clamped his hand over her mouth-not that she was likely to scream for help. She had definitely been running away.

She immediately started fighting him, squirming this way and that, her body twisting in his grip. When she tried to impale his foot with her spike heel, he lifted her partway off her feet.

Kee-rist. He tightened his hold on her, squeezing her hard enough to get her attention.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ms. Toussi,” he said close to her ear. “So don’t fight me.”

She jerked her head around, trying to see him, but he doubted if she could see much in the gloomy room.

“Yeah, I know who you are, Suzanna Royale Toussi, fresh off the boat from Denver, Colorado. If Ruiz was your partner, you’re on your own,” he continued, his voice low and hard. “He took a powder about thirty seconds ago and disappeared into the alley, so I strongly advise that you take my help in getting out of here.”

At that, she said something from under his hand, something short and vehement, and he didn’t blame her. Then she started to squirm again, really putting herself into it. Up against anyone except a trained commando, she might have had a chance. She was that good, pretty tricky with the moves-but she didn’t have a chance, not one. She was packing a pistol in a shoulder rig, though. At least that’s what in the hell it felt like, and nothing could have surprised him more, or pleased him better, except her not being here at all. Pistol or not, his standard operating procedure on a snatch and grab was to not give the snatchee a chance to bring any kind of a weapon into play and he’d followed procedure. She was securely restrained, her arms pinned to her sides. He could have had her on the floor in less than a second, or slammed her up against the wall and knocked her senseless in less than that, but he didn’t want her on the floor, and he was too good at his job to have to knock her senseless.

So he struggled with her, let her wear herself out, and he kept tightening his grip on her, keeping her a little off balance, making her work to stay on her feet. It didn’t take long in the hundred-plus heat for her to need a break.

When she went limp in his arms, breathing hard, her chest rising and falling, her shoulders slumped, he didn’t loosen his grip, not an ounce. He couldn’t take the chance.

Down in the main gallery, Beranger’s junk was still crashing to the floor, voices were still raised, but no one else was pounding up the stairs. In between the shouted orders and interrogation, Dax could hear Beranger whining and wheedling, doing his best to placate the police. Pointedly, he didn’t hear anyone else. Beranger, Ruiz, and the bodacious Suzi Toussi hadn’t been that far from the entrance when the police had busted in. Ruiz had fled, Toussi had fled, albeit in different directions, and Beranger was holding the fort. The big bad boys on the deal were either still sequestered in the “viewing room,” or they’d found another way out of the rabbit warren of the Old Gallery-the plan currently holding the top spot on his own “To Do” list.

“If you’re ready to cooperate, we need to get out of here,” he said close to her ear again.

She shook her head no, the gesture absolutely adamant.

“You want to stay?” That didn’t make sense, but she nodded.

Well, hell.

“Not an option,” he said, and he meant it. She could hear what was going on downstairs as well as he could. “Come on.”

He was doing her a favor, and she had to know it, but when he started half carrying her, half plain old moving her along across the room, she began struggling again and trying to dig in her heels.

All well and good, he didn’t give a damn. She was the piece that didn’t fit here. She had information he needed, and he was taking her with him through the window and across the roof.

“Bull,” he said, when she mumbled something against his hand.

She repeated her threat, enunciating fairly damn well for someone with a hand clamped over her mouth-and he got the message. He got it loud and clear:

“I’m with Ponce…he’ll hunt you down…kill you, if you kidnap me.”

“Bull,” he said again, and he meant it.

It was a good threat, though, given her current circumstances, very imaginative, very quick, guaranteed to get a guy’s attention and possibly his cooperation, maybe the only thing guaranteed to get a guy’s attention. Esteban was a lightweight, but his father wasn’t, and nobody fucked with Arturo Ponce’s family, not without a very careful calculation of the odds.

Dax had calculated the odds long before he’d gotten to Paraguay, and Esteban Ponce, Levi Asher, Beranger, and anyone else who wanted the Sphinx, including any U.S. congressman or any long-legged redhead, were hell-and-gone out of luck.

He stopped at the window and looked out, holding her to one side, checking in both directions, his one arm still tight around her, his other hand still over her mouth. The coast was clear, but he was going to need her working with him to get to the alley. From there, it would be easy to disappear into the chaos and crowds of the market. Caveman tactics were a last resort, if only because they increased the risk of being noticed. Still, there was something about gagging her, tying her up, and just throwing her over his shoulder that appealed to him, probably the part about taking charge and getting the job done.

Yeah, that was probably it.

It probably didn’t have anything to do with getting his hands halfway up her skirt.

Nah, he wasn’t that kind of a guy.

He turned to tell her cooperation was really in her best interest, and maybe do a little placating of his own if the sheer common sense of his plan hadn’t yet sunk in-but the look on her face told him anything he had to say was completely beside the point.

Shock. Disbelief. Confusion. And recognition with a capital “R.” She had it all, and it was all in the stunned gaze locked onto his face.

Sure, he got it. He was feeling a little stunned himself-okay, a lot stunned.

Damn, he’d forgotten how beautiful she was. He truly had, but with the light coming in from the window, and him being real up close and personal with her, the cosmic freight train that had run over his heart the first time he’d seen her had instantly powered up and was taking him for another ride, at light speed. She was fucking luminous, her skin like satin, the curve of her nose so exquisitely elegant, her cheeks flushed with the heat, her mascara melting a bit, giving her a sultry, woman-coming-undone look. She’d lost her hat in the struggle at the door, and taken her sunglasses off somewhere between the entrance and the second floor, which left him face-to-face with the world’s most gee-fucking-gorgeous, whiskey-colored eyes-exotic, dark-lashed, a deep warm brown shot through with lighter streaks of amber, like sunlight streaming through a glass of single malt.

He was taken.

He was smitten.

Yeah, she knew who he was. It was written all over her face. And he sure as hell knew who she was-it was carved in his goddamn heart.

This was crazy. He was a man on a mission, not some callow nineteen-year-old boy-and she was the woman who had haunted his dreams for six long months.

He lifted his hand away from her mouth and loosened his hold, easing up on her a bit.

“You” she breathed.

Yeah, him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Great question, the obvious question, but the answer was totally unacceptable, something he’d be damned if he admitted to anyone, because suddenly, for just a brief moment in time, with her in his arms and his brain out to lunch, the answer sounded a lot more like “falling in love” than “stealing a sphinx.”