Page 54 of Passion's Wicked Torment

She did not argue with him. Words would serve no purpose at this point. But she did make a decision, and even though she was seething with anger, she knew the decision would serve a dual purpose. It would allow her to strike back at Ironman for what he had done to Chad. And it would also show Dallas Hunter that she was once again the strong-willed, fiery woman she had been before—the type he could fall in love with.

Of course, she mused, that was if the plan worked. But if it didn’t, she wouldn’t have to concern herself with feeling distressed over its failure. She looked over the side of the plane, through the openings in the white clouds, at the ocean below. No, she thought, if the plan failed, she wouldn’t have to concern herself about anything. She would be dead.

When they landed in New York, Hunter was met at the airport by an agent from the Treasury Department’s east coast office, an agent named Lee Joel. Joel was a lean, salt and pepper haired man. Hunter and Joel talked for several minutes. Then Hunter excused himself to go to Grand Central Station to put Kristin on a train for California. Joel offered to do this for him, since Hunter had an appointment to keep in Washington, D.C. Hunter thanked him but refused in a somewhat cold tone of voice. Kristin could sense that Hunter either didn’t trust Agent Joel, or he had a personal dislike for the man.

“It was nice meeting you,” Kristin said to him politely as Hunter ushered her to a waiting car to take her to the train station. In the car she asked Hunter why he had been so brusque with the man.

“I wasn’t brusque. I just don’t want to talk to him right now. After I put you on that train, I have to come back to the airport, anyway. I’ll talk to him then.”

Kristin still suspected some sort of bad feeling between the two men, but she said nothing further about it. At the train station when her train was about to leave, she looked at Hunter, wondering how he was going to say good-bye to her. Was he going to kiss her good-bye? She would not initiate the kiss. He would have to make the first move. He stood stiffly for a moment as the conductor called out the final “All aboard!” Then he took her hand and squeezed it. “Have a good trip,” he said.

She turned and climbed aboard, just as the train began pulling out of the station.

By the time Hunter made it back to the airport, his plane was refueled and overhauled. He had a half-day’s wait, though, before he was cleared for takeoff, due to some mix up regarding his flight plan. He used the time to try to rest up. He talked to Agent Joel for a few minutes during that period. Then he took off for Anderson Field on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

A black limousine was waiting for him when he landed to take him to the Capitol. In it was Rogers, who was wearing a vested business suit and looking very professional. Hunter was dirty and rumpled from his flight, and he was still wearing a leather flight jacket. He was exhausted despite the half-day’s rest he had taken in New York. He had made two flights across the Atlantic, to Paris and then back again, in less than a week.

“You look like hell,” said Rogers in his usual deep voice as Hunter wearily settled next to him in the cushioned backseat of the limousine.

“You’re cute too,” Hunter said. The car started forward.

Rogers shut the window partition so that the chauffeur could not hear their conversation. Hunter grinned at this. It was typical of Rogers, who was a stickler for proper procedure and detail. The chauffeur had been cleared by security; closing the window was unnecessary. Rogers did not take chances however.

“All right,” said Rogers. “Let’s have your report.”

“I got her back. I packed her off to California, where she has some relatives. Just like I told you I would when I phoned.”

“Just in the nick of time, as far as I’m concerned. After that story broke in Life magazine about the decadent American beauty who was raising hell in Europe,Ironman probably sent half an army over there to track her down. Now that he knew where to look for her.

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s the decision on my plan to collar Ironman? Do I get the go-ahead?”

“You got it. But I don’t think it’s going to work. At least that’s my personal feeling.”

“It’ll work. Now that he can’t get his hands on Kristin, he has to worry about her testifying against him. We can’t make any of our charges stick, even with her testimony, but he doesn’t know that. That’s why he’s been trying to track her down. And it’s why he’ll have to go to his bootleg warehouse in New York to destroy the records of his operations when we let it leak out that Treasury agents are finally about to close in. He’ll think that if we have those records plus Kristin’s testimony that she entered the figures for him, we can bust him.”

Rogers seemed skeptical and moved uneasily in his seat. “No one’s ever put away a hood on tax evasion charges. I don’t know if he’ll really be that worried about it. And besides, how do you know he doesn’t have his records in Chicago, and that we won’t be waiting at the New York warehouse for nothing?”

“He moved them. Most of his revenues come from his gambling ship now, and he spends more time in New York than Chicago. To be near the Daisy.”

“Well, still,” Rogers persisted, “for your plan to work, he has to go to the warehouse himself, and we have to actually catch him with the records. What makes you so sure he won’t just send some lackey to bring him the books?”

“He’s the only one with the combination to the safe, and he wants to keep it that way. He keeps a lot of the Daisy’s winnings in there.”

Rogers nodded, seeming more convinced. “Well, it’s the best shot we’ve got. So long as he thinks your lady can testify about those figures she entered into his ledgers, he’ll have to destroy the ledgers when he hears we’re going to raid the place. That’s why I’m glad you got her on her way to safety. If he thought he could silence her permanently, he’d never fall for this bluff of ours.”

The limousine was no longer driving down a country road, but was now speeding through the bustling streets of Washington, D.C., toward Pennsylvania Avenue. “You’re not really taking me where I think you’re taking me, are you?” Hunter asked.

Rogers nodded.

Hunter gestured at his grubby clothing and greasy, dirt smudged face. Only the area around his eyes, which had been protected by the goggles, was clean. “You’re taking me to see him looking like this!"

“He wanted to see you as soon as you landed.” Rogers smiled reassuringly. “He doesn’t give a damn what you look like. He likes you. After all, he was the one who sent the orders down to recruit you to help put Ironman behind bars. He’s obsessed with the idea of stopping Ironman.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. He already told it to me when he talked me into this damn mission.” Hunter said it in a grumbling voice, as if regretting ever having anything to do with the mission.

Rogers laughed and slapped him on the leg. “You should be proud! How many former bootleggers get a personal request from the President of the United States to go on a secret mission for him?”

Hunter still felt rueful about the whole thing. Before this mission he had been a successful bootlegger enjoying an adventurous life, earning what would have amounted to a fortune had he pursued it. Rogers had approached him first. Hunter refused. Then Rogers told him about a highly placed man in government who had personally decided Hunter was the right man for the job. Who was this mysterious man? Hunter had asked. The next thing he knew, he was being ushered into a meeting with President Coolidge, just as he was being ushered into one now.

“A pep talk,” Hunter said, shaking his head in wry amusement. “He’s calling me in for a pep talk.”

“A report,” corrected Rogers.

“Bull! You can give him my report. He just wants to put the screws on. To tell me again how important the whole thing is.” Hunter sighed and leaned back in the seat as the car pulled up the drive to the White House. He glanced at Rogers and reflected on how Rogers didn’t think Hunter’s plan would work. Rogers thought Ironm

an would end up going scot-free. But Hunter knew something Rogers didn’t know. He knew that even if Ironman did manage to destroy the ledgers before they could nab him in the act, it wouldn’t matter. Because Hunter planned to kill Ironman. He would get him even if it meant shooting him down in cold blood and making it look like an accident afterward.

Hunter did not tell Rogers any of this, because Rogers was too much of a stickler for proper procedure. He’d never go along with it. He was too righteous and too soft. Hunter smirked. The President probably knew Hunter would take this tactic against Ironman, even if Rogers didn’t know. Maybe that was why the President had chosen Hunter in the first place. And why there had been that mysterious twinkle in his eyes when he explained the mission during their first meeting.

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