Page 73 of Slow Burn

“Words to live by.”

The plane hit turbulence, bounced, dropped. He felt his stomach hit the ground hard.

“I’m not just talking about the normal hazards of mystery meat. I think we may have picked up a couple of traveling companions who aren’t exactly tourists.”

“What?” He craned his neck in an attempt to see over the blue headrest. “Who?”

“Quiet!” She squeezed his knee for emphasis and let it stay, a light distracting pressure. “They’re behind us. Two men, traveling light. The flight attendant had a long conversation with them, and I didn’t like the look of it, so don’t eat anything, don’t drink anything, don’t even get up to go to the john, if you can help it.”

Her hand felt warm as sunlight on his knee. He stared at it and said, “What do we do when the plane lands?”

“You leave that up to me and Mr. Mendoza, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” The words sounded confident, but she looked tired, almost vulnerable. Her hand moved a couple of inches. Up his thigh.

“Are—” Martin cleared his throat and glanced around for the flight attendant, small lurking children, nosy grandmothers. “Do you think we could—stay together? Tonight?”

She cocked her head to one side, eyes luminous and controlled. He felt something bend in his fingers, and realized he was still holding the emergency exit procedures card. He missed the pocket twice trying to put it back.

“Is that a proposition?” She sounded amused. He didn’t dare look at her directly.

“Uh—” He cleared his throat again. “Yes. I think so.”

Hard to believe she was the same woman he remembered from the Washington basement—smooth warm skin, a hot hungry mouth, she’d been so completely real, so amazinglypresent.He wanted to cross the distance again, hear her say his name in a whisper like raw silk.

She leaned over, and the smell of her overwhelmed him—perfume, skin, hair, even the slightly stale smell of her clothes. Her lips brushed his, warm and moist. Her hand traveled further up his thigh.

“I think,” she whispered, and lightly kissed the skin just under his ear, “I think we’d better get some sleep, Marty. We’ll need it.”

She had just effectively zeroed his chance for sleep, and she knew it. He saw it in the flash of her eyes, the crooked half-smile.

He kissed her, felt her lips part under his. It only lasted a second, before she put her hand flat on his chest and pushed him a safe distance away. The air felt thick and hot between them.

As he gulped in deep breaths, he saw the flight attendant watching them like a nun. She hustled off down the aisle when he caught her eye.

“Let’s not do that,” Carling said, smoothing her skirt. “I need to keep a clear head.”

He nodded and turned face forward, staring at the headrest in front of him. The plane dipped down, descending, and a constellation of lights wheeled outside the windows.

“Won’t happen again,” he said to the headrest, and thought he heard her laugh just as the captain turned on the NO SMOKING and FASTEN SEATBELTS signs and announced the weather in Dallas. Cold, windy, expected freezing rain and sleet in the next few days.

“No smoking,” Carling said, and snapped her seat-belt shut. “Words to live by, Marty. Words to live by. Have you thought about what would happen if somebody flamed out in an airplane?”

He closed his eyes, opened them, and reached for the emergency exit procedures again.

“Who are they?” Martin turned to look over his shoulder at the headlights of the cab behind them. Carling nudged him none too gently.

“Quit staring. Want to know about Fathi el Had-diz?”

“Well, I assumed he was political. You know, an extremist.”

Their cab driver, obviously not a native Dallasite, was taking advantage of a long red light to consult a Mapsco. He muttered something under his breath, tossed the street map on the floor, and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“He probably started out that way, but he went commercial. He’s a businessman. If what we suspect is true, he’s going to take this technology—or this process—whatever it is, and sell it to the true believers for whatever he can get. He’s just as likely to sell to the IRA or the Neo-Nazis as he is to any Arab group.” Carling smiled grimly. “He’s very good. Also, he’s very well staffed, which is something of a problem right now. He knows we’re on his trail, and he’s going to be assigning people to cover us, if he hasn’t already.”

Martin resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder again. It didn’t save him from another nudge in his ribs, a harder one. He looked down and saw the handle of a gun.

“Are you going to shoot me?”

She gave him a disgusted look. “Just take it. If I wanted to shoot you, I’d point thebarrelat you. Keep it with you. I assume you know how to shoot?”

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