скачать книгу бесплатно
Iron Dove
Judith Leon
Mills & Boon Silhouette
They called her the Dove–her gentle beauty concealing a will of iron. But former agent Nova Blair never wanted to return to the world of spying. She'd started a new life…until her former partner came to her with a mission she couldn't refuse. Terrorists had threatened to release a deadly strain of the Ebola virus that could wreak global devastation. Going back to the shadowy, seductive life of an international spy was the price she would pay to save millions of lives–but could Nova save her soul, too?
Praise for Code Name: Dove by Judith Leon
“Code Name: Dove launches the new Bombshell line with guns blazing. Judith Leon’s hard-edged thriller is not your traditional series romance. She delivers an exciting, action-packed read with expertly drawn main characters, complex relationships, a lightning-fast pace and a truly creepy villain.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
“He said that if I injected one, it would make me immune.”
Ya Lin hurriedly opened the cosmetic bag and stripped back white paper, revealing three vials topped with stubby needles. “The minute he left I used one.”
“So you are immune?” Nova asked.
“If the man is right. But I’m not staying in Italy to find out. Here.” She pressed the vials into Nova’s hand. “Maybe they’ll make you immune. That might help you if you try to stop him. And I can feel less guilty.”
Ya Lin was right. If the drug conferred immunity, chances of stopping these madmen would be tremendously increased. Otherwise, approaching them without bulky and confining Hazmat gear would be a death sentence.
Nova stared, undecided, at the vials, her heart racing. The stuff might infect rather than create immunity. Was it worth the risk?
Dear Reader,
I’m often asked what inspires a particular story. With Bombshell books, the inspiration is virtually always based on four things, the same four that influence me in the creation of any story.
First, I love being in the head and heart of a brave, strong woman who can take charge and make a difference, so I am right at home in the Bombshell world. I’m not Nova Blair, but for a time I can dream as though I am.
Second, I want to explore places of beauty and interest that I’ve not seen before. I pick a setting where I think I’ll enjoy spending time, in the case of Iron Dove, the absolutely beautiful Amalfi coast of Italy, and a bit of Rome itself. I traveled to both places as research for the book. If I write well, my readers—you—get to experience those same things.
Third, I consider what kind of villain or antihero is a worthy opponent of my heroine: Who should she take down? What kind of mess in the world needs fixing? I spend a lot of time thinking about the nature of the evil she will confront, and I find inspiration in taking him or her out in fiction. We can’t always make things right in the real world, but why not in our imaginations, right?
And finally, and perhaps most satisfying of all, my heroines find love—if not right away, eventually. Love is the greatest force I’ve experienced in my life, and I thoroughly enjoy finding it anew in one fabulous hero after another.
I’d be delighted to have you visit my Web site to learn more about my other books: www.jhand.com.
Judith
Iron Dove
Judith Leon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JUDITH LEON
made the transition from left-brained scientist to right-brained novelist. Before she began writing fiction some twelve years ago, she was teaching animal behavior and ornithology in the UCLA biology department.
She is the author of several novels and two screenplays. Her epic of the Minoan civilization, Voice of the Goddess, published under her married name, Judith Hand, has won numerous awards. Her second epic historical, The Amazon and the Warrior, is based on the life of Penthesilea, an Amazon who fought the warrior Achilles in the Trojan War. In all of her stories she writes of strong, bold women—women who are doers and leaders.
A classical music fan, world traveler and bird-watcher, she currently lives in Rancho Bernardo, California. For more information about the author and her books, see her Web site at www.jhand.com.
To my steadfast friend, staunchest moral
supporter and talented writing partner—
a true visionary and a gifted editor,
Peggy Lang.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 1
“I don’t want to die!” Robin Scott’s quavering voice shot through the green canopy of Costa Rican cloud forest. A pair of Emerald Toucanets, in a flash of yellow and green, exploded from a treetop, taking flight into pearl-gray mist.
Every muscle in Nova Blair’s body tensed. Her youngest adventurer on this isolated birding tour, sixteen-year-old Robin, was dangling a hundred and fifty perilous feet above the ground.
This wasn’t your usual tame, gray-haired birder tour, where senior citizens poked around with their binoculars into low-lying bushes and safe pathways. This was an entirely different tour where adventurers traversed distances of more than a hundred feet from one wooden observation deck to another, suspended on leather harnesses, fifteen stories above ground. Safe, yes. But scary as hell if you weren’t familiar with what you were doing. And Robin wasn’t.
With the mist the way it was, you couldn’t even see the ground. Nova had told Robin to focus, instead, on reaching the next deck. Now the young girl was flailing at the air and at the sling harness in which she sat supported on a small leather seat.
“I’m going to fall!”
Nova called back, “Robin, you’re okay. Just stop moving, love. Your security line is tangled. I’ll free it from the traverse line and you’ll be fine.”
Four other members of the tour, who had not yet crossed the traverse line to the next deck, stood beside Nova, holding their breaths. Through the misty green came the raucous who-who-who-whos of howler monkeys, an eerie sound that matched the girl’s own wails.
Two traverse lines were anchored to the sky bridge platform situated a short fifty paces from the Treetops Hotel’s canopy-level patio. Nova’s group would use seated slings to pull themselves across five such rope passages to reach today’s observation deck, a wooden perch overlooking the nesting site of a showy pair of resplendent quetzals, birds famous for their reclusive habits and long, fancy tails.
The quetzal observation deck—nestled among branches at the tops of figs trees, tree ferns and lianas—had been lowered into place two years ago by a blimp. Researchers needed a secure platform but couldn’t afford the cost of attempting from-the-ground-up construction in the heart of a jungle. By selling this tour to enough wealthy adventurers, Cosmos Adventure Travel was making the scientists’ quetzal research possible.
For Nova, this was a win-win-win situation; she loved sharing a life of adventure and travel with fellow daredevils, she admired field scientists who searched for truth in dangerous places and she loved the beauty of birds.
Yesterday, Jeeps had dropped her group here after a torturous four-hour drive from Costa Rica’s capital, San Juan. Aged sixteen to an athletic fifty-six, they pluckily climbed a 150-foot wooden ladder to the surprisingly elegant hotel, Treetops, named for its famous Kenyan predecessor. Nova’s adventurers would not touch Mother Earth again for ten days. Rooms were small for two people but fitted with comfortable beds and elegant native furnishings.
“Bruce!” Nova called out. Her assistant waited for Robin on a platform out of Nova’s sight at the other end of the traverse line. “I’ll untangle her security line. You pull her the rest of the way yourself.”
“Roger,” he called back.
If Robin would just hold still, she should be in no danger, but Nova’s heart went out to her. After a day of travel and another day of orientation with father and daughter, along with this tour’s eight other clients, Nova had concluded that Robin had, more or less, been coerced into coming on this trip by her father.
Charles Scott, a hard-charging CEO in the import/export business, wanted to share an adventurous vacation with his daughter in one of Costa Rica’s most beautiful rain forests. But not Monteverde, a secure tourist preserve with several miles of sky bridges. No. He’d chosen an isolated region of rain forest, used mostly for a Smithsonian-sponsored research project and, by special contract, also by Nova’s tour company, CAT. A trip here was expensive, exclusive, and not for the faint of heart.
As Nova snatched up an extra sling harness and stepped into it, she again called to Robin. “I’m coming across on the other line.”
“I’m dizzy.”
In a calm, this-happens-all-the-time-voice, Nova said, “Stop moving, hon, and just sit tight.” And please, PLEASE for love of your life, sit still. “I’ll be over to you in just a few minutes.”
The senior Scott, a veteran of seven CAT tours, had been acting as though he believed this experience would turn his aspiring artist and poet into a thrill-seeker like Nova. Robin was an only child. Dad had probably counted heavily on having a son.
Nova pulled the sling’s harness over her shoulders as James Padgett, a pudgy, nervous conservationist from Panama, finished his thought out loud. “I’m going to quit working for the conservancy after this trip.”
James, now is not the time to talk about quitting your work. Nova bit back the thought before it could escape her lips.
James had been talking about the encroachment of cattle ranchers onto a strip of pristine forest preserve he’d worked years to save. His failure was obviously eating him up. When a man got that burned out, it was hard to care about anything.
