Atlanta Extreme Read Online Free Page B

Anger. Outrage. She whirled away from Hawker, yanked one of his jackets off the hanger, and covered herself. “There! Is that better? You really know how to put a woman out of the mood!”
    Hawker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “ Me ? Wellington Curtis tries to have me killed on my first night in Belize and you expect me to come in here, jump into bed with you, tell you any little secrets I might be hiding, and then act as happy as a lark? Come on, lady. I don’t know what jungle you crawled out of, but people aren’t quite so naive in the real world—”
    â€œWhy would Colonel Curtis have you killed?” she shouted, interrupting, her fists planted on her hips. “He honestly hopes you have come to help him!”
    â€œThen who in the hell was that guy waiting for me outside? He knew my name; he knew all about me. He wasn’t just one of your run-of-the-mill drugged-out island thieves. He was a pro. A dumb pro, but a pro just the same.”
    â€œJames, I told you that I am Wellington Curtis’s confidante, and I am. So I won’t pretend not to know something of your past. Any number of people could have arranged to have that man waiting for you. But my guess is that it was the CIA—aren’t they after you too?”
    â€œIt couldn’t be the CIA because—” Hawker stopped himself in mid-sentence, realizing that he was about to give away some important information. After a moment he looked at the woman. “Get out,” he said. “Now.”
    â€œBut my clothes … I’m not even dressed!”
    Hawker had taken her by the arm and was leading her to the door. “I’ll call the front desk and have them send a maid with a key to your room—”
    â€œI don’t have a room!”
    â€œYou will when I get off the phone to the front desk.”
    Hawker locked the door against the woman’s protestations. He opened one of the Belikin beers he had been keeping in the now empty ice bucket and drank half of it in a gulp as he sat by the phone. First he arranged for another room and then got through to the overseas operator. “That’s right, Operator,” he said, almost yelling into the phone, “Jerry Rehfuss, Washington, D.C.” He gave her the private telephone number of his former CIA connection, hung up the phone, and waited.
    Hawker was soaking his hand in ice water when the phone rang ten minutes later.
    The voice at the other end sounded cautious, reluctant to talk, and a million miles away. “James? James Hawker? Is that really you?”
    â€œIt’s me, Jer. Alive and well—no thanks to you.”
    â€œAh, James, a public phone line may not be the place to discuss our business—”
    â€œYou keep a voltage meter on your end, Jer. You tell me : Should we discuss our business?”
    â€œWell, no, probably not. But it depends, James—”
    â€œSomeone tried to exercise a contract on me tonight, Jerry,” Hawker said, cutting in. “He gave it a good try, but he fell a little short.”
    Rehfuss’s voice became even more cautious, and Hawker guessed that there was either someone in the room with him or the line, indeed, was being tapped. “I’m not surprised that they failed, James. You’re a good businessman. Tell me, what did this person look like?”
    â€œA big black guy with a beard. The beard might have been fake. He had an island accent, a deep voice. He knew too much about me. It sounds like one of your free-lancers to me. It’s a shame, too, Jer, because I had heard that our companies were going to be friends again. I was looking forward to the negotiations.”
    â€œYou said it was a large black man, James?” Rehfuss asked, pressing on. “Please be more exact in your description. And you haven’t even told me where you’re calling from.”
    â€œYou don’t really expect me to tell you after what