“What? You can’t interfere with a plan in motion. It would screw everything up.”

“I won’t interfere.” The rain was pouring down his face, and his dark hair was already wet. His expression was alive with vitality and that excitement. “I’ll just be there on the spot and get them out of the garage faster.”

“And not be the invisible man,” she said softly.

“Right. Will you wait here and pick me up? Will you be there for me?”

She didn’t want to sit here and wait. She wanted to go with him.

He shook his head. “Not this time. I need you to be on call outside the hospital. Will you do it?”

She made a face as she nodded resignedly. “I’ll be there for you.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He smiled brilliantly as he turned and walked toward the garage. “I don’t know anyone who I’d rather have beside me, but this will have to do.”

“But you did it again,” she called after him. “Stop that snooping…”

He waved and disappeared into the garage.

The rain was falling harder again, closing out the sight of the garage entrance. She turned on the windshield wipers once more. She had to see, dammit.

She checked her watch. Forty minutes until the action started. Then it would probably escalate at warp speed. Cameron had said five minutes, if everything went well.

But she would be on the alert from this time forward. She had never trusted that every detail in an operation would necessarily go well. Cameron was brilliant, and his plan was probably just as brilliant, but there were usually slipups. She would watch and make sure that Cameron was not caught in one.

She had promised to be there for him.

CHAPTER

14

Catherine checked her wristwatch.

Forty-five minutes.

They should be in the garage by now.

Forty-six minutes.

She felt tension grip her.

Soon.

Unless something had gone wrong.

An ambulance tore out of the garage, tires screeching, as it turned and barreled down the street toward the light on the corner.

Yes.

She put the Mercedes in gear and stomped on the accelerator. The car jumped forward, and she drove toward the garage entrance.

Come on, Cameron, I’m here for you. Where the hell are you?

“Right here.” He ran out of the garage and jumped into the passenger seat. “Let’s go!”

She was already moving. She glanced sideways at him as she went through the light on yellow. His eyes were glittering, his mouth taut, and she could almost feel the tension and excitement. He was loving this. “Everything went okay?”

“Right on schedule. Blake did very well. And with me helping with the transfer, we had Sen out of the garage two minutes early.”

“It must have been like the pit team at a car race.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “We’re not being followed.”

“They’re still scrambling. There will be someone tearing out of that garage any minute. Turn left at the next street.”

She turned left. “Where do I go from here?”

“Set your GPS for Celia’s place. We should get off the street. Someone could have seen you scoop me up in that grand getaway.” He smiled. “You had a certain dash about you. Have you done this before?”

“Once or twice.” She set the GPS. “In Colombia. There always seemed to be a reason for a getaway down there.” She started following the GPS guidelines. “Were you really useful, or were you just enjoying yourself?”

“Both. They could have done it without me. But Kadmus’s local team had a man stationed down there waiting to see if someone would show. He came out from behind a car when he saw me disabling the security cameras in the garage and the elevator. He had a knife and an attitude. I took care of him and gave Blake a little extra time that bought them insurance.”

“And had a good time.”

“Life is always more exciting on the edge.” He glanced challengingly at her. “Isn’t it?”

She couldn’t deny it. She had lived on the edge all of her life. At one time, she had thought she wanted peace and normalcy, but that had faded into the background as life exploded around her. “As long as something is accomplished.”

“How very solemn and dutiful. But today you didn’t know exactly what could be accomplished, and you wanted to go with me anyway.”

“I don’t like to sit on the sidelines.”

“And I would have loved having you beside me,” he said. “Anytime. Any way. I usually have to fight alone, and I like it that way. But it would be different with you.”

It would be different with him, she thought. He wouldn’t try to keep her from doing what she’d been trained to do.

Or would he? He’d said he had highly protective instincts.

“You’ll have to see, won’t you?” he asked.

“Out,” she said succinctly.

He smiled. “I’m working on it.”

“And one other thing that’s puzzling me. Why didn’t you have one of Blake’s men come down earlier to disable those cameras?”

“I wanted to do it myself.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to make sure that those cameras showed what I wanted them to show. I disabled the ones that were trained on the elevator and the ambulance. I kept the one that showed me taking out Kadmus’s man and heading for the elevator.”

“That’s crazy,” she said, stunned. “You spend all your time trying to avoid being recognized or connected to anything that might have a police investigation.”

“There are exceptions to every rule.” He paused. “I had to show myself to distract Kadmus’s men when I was trying to get you off the mountain. A photo was taken, and by this time, he knows my face and name.”

“No,” she whispered.

“That’s what the committee says. They’re not pleased. But they can rectify the problem with a little high-priced erasure. But I might as well use the fact that Kadmus now knows who he’s looking for as bait.”

“You mean using yourself as bait.”

He nodded. “Before he had only Erin to go after here in San Francisco. But after he sees the security disks, he’ll know I’m here protecting her.” He glanced at her. “Don’t you think that might draw Kadmus out of his palace on the mountains to come here and go after me personally?”

“Yes. And he might not bring an army with him, but you can bet he’ll have enough firepower to be damn intimidating. Nagle will have to step up to the plate. But how’s he going to get hold of that security disk?”

“The police will pull the disks, and Kadmus will pay to get a copy of what’s on them. That’s what I’d do.”

“But you have unlimited funds for bribery.”

“Kadmus will pay whatever he has to pay to find Shambhala.” He tapped his chest. “And right now, he sees me as the key to Shambhala.”

“Does he really think of Shambhala as the proverbial pot of gold?”

“He sees the power, he’s been watching and knows that I’ve been plucking the brightest, the most talented brains in the world. That’s an incredibly valuable asset in itself. As for the myth that there are untold riches stored in a hidden city, perhaps he believes that, too. He certainly believes that he deserves to be emperor of his world, and the Shangri-La myth riveted his attention enough to invest a sizable amount of his ill-gotten gains in it.” He thought about it. “Yes, he probably does think there is an actual Shambhala.”

“And is there?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. “That’s been the argument for centuries. Is Shambhala an actual place? Or is it a mythical concept that philosophers developed of a perfect world that might save us all?”

“You’re not answering me.”

“No, I’m not, am I?” He leaned back in the seat. “Now chauffeur me back to Celia’s, and we’ll wait for Blake to call and tell me Sen is on a jet back to Hong Kong.” He added grimly, “And then we’ll start getting a plan together to bring Kadmus down.”