Free To Deceive Is To Love (Romantic suspense) by Lynne King

waiting for someone.
    In his gut, David knew they were waiting for him.
    “Do me a favor. Stay here and ask Julie to stay put also. Neither of you takes a walk outside until I give you the all clear . Understand?”
    “Not that I was about to go walk around on my own airfield, but what the hell’s going on?” Tony joined him at the window.
    David gestured angrily for Tony to stay back. “Keep away from this window. Make sure those men out there don’t see your face. Don’t worry. They won’t be staying long.”
    David walked toward the door, a muscle angrily twitching in his cheek, his lips pressed tight together. Holding the door open, he turned to Tony’s secretary. “Tony needs you to go into his office and take some notes.”
    She picked up her notebook, a puzzled expression on her young face as she walked past David and pulled a chair up to sit opposite Tony. David waited until Tony ruffled through some documents and then told Julie he had some letters to dictate, his eyes angrily cast in David’s direction.
    Closing the door on his friend’s fury, David knew it was well deserved. Never had he risked those close to him by having them around when he was working undercover. He had always made it clear that he set up the meet, time and location so he was in control, not the other way around. Contact would be established through his e-mail and no face to face meet would take place until the actual mission. Already it was going badly wrong; somehow they had tracked him down before he had even established initial contact.
    He glanced around Julie’s office, which was where private plane owners and instructors came to check in and leave their flight sheets. Luckily, it was mid-week and the only activity going on was the parachute club.
    Stepping outside, David reached into his leather jacket and removed a pair of wraparound sunglasses. The day was dull and cloudy, without a ray of sunshine in sight, but he felt more comfortable wearing them. Eyes had a way of betraying a person. And he could already feel the hairs rising on the back of his neck, something that usually only happened when things were about to go badly wrong.
    Approaching the three men, he cast a quick glance across the airstrip to the group all kitted out in their parachutes and jumping off wooden crates to practice their landings. They were too far away to distinguish faces and had their backs to him.
    The waiting party remained casually leaning up against their car smoking; cool suspicious eyes fixed on his face.
    “Are you looking for someone?” he addressed the one in the middle.
    There was little to tell the two outside men apart. Both were of Mediterranean decent with dark olive skin, sharp features and thick, curly black hair. The one in the middle had very short hair and though dressed in jeans like the other two, seemed more westernized in his appearance. He was also younger, in his early twenties, David guessed. But out of the three of them, he looked the most dangerous and the most arrogant. Dark hooded eyes stared back at him, cold and menacing, certain he was in control.
    “It depends if you have something we need.”
    English was obviously his second language, but he spoke it well. David guessed he’d been recruited into terrorism from the student ranks.
    “I don’t usually do business this way. Who told you where to find me and what do you want?” There was no use pretending he didn’t have a clue why they were here.
    “You seem to have been expecting us.” The leader took one last draw on his cigarette and then threw it to the ground and stepped away from the car.
    “No, but then we don’t get many tourists visiting us here. We don’t offer chartered flights and you don’t look like you’re about to join the parachuting club,” David replied dryly. Bringing his arms up, he folded them casually over his chest. “Besides that, I hear things.” He was working a hunch now and prayed Hendersson had gotten his facts