Sweat beaded his brow just as the room erupted in reaction to seeing P.J.
“Dayum!” Baker exclaimed. “Holy shit, P.J., you’re hot!”
She grimaced and Cole could see the nervousness in her eyes. Her discomfort was obvious. She didn’t like being in the limelight.
Dolphin whistled and grinned. “Van was totally right. You clean up good, girl!”
Renshaw added a catcall of his own.
“You look beautiful, P.J.,” Steele said in his calm, unruffled tone.
Beautiful? Hell, she was f**king gorgeous. But Cole liked her just fine in camo with face paint on. He’d fantasized more than a few times about taking her to bed, stripping off her fatigues and getting her face paint all over both of them.
“You got nothing to say, Cole?” Dolphin asked incredulously. “She looks sa-weet!”
Cole cleared his throat and then saw the desperate look in P.J.’s eyes. It annoyed him. She should know him better than to think he’d let on what had happened between them. Not that he gave a damn. Right about now, he’d like to have a stamp that said “Mine, stay the hell away” to put right on her forehead.
“You look killer, P.J.”
“Thanks, guys,” she said in a low voice.
“Okay, here’s how it goes down,” Steele said, snapping everyone’s attention back to him. “Donovan and P.J. will arrive together. We’ll be monitoring P.J.’s every move as soon as she breaks away.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Where the hell is her wire and how on earth is it going to hide in that getup? It doesn’t even cover her, much less anything else.”
P.J. scowled at him.
“Don’t mess up that lipstick, darlin’,” he drawled. “It looks too pretty on you.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Cut it out you two,” Steele barked.
“P.J. is wearing the latest of my tech toys,” Donovan said with a grin he reserved for any time he was talking about his high-tech playthings.
He lifted her arm and turned it slightly so the inside of her upper arm was visible.
“What you can’t see is the flesh-colored patch. It’s actually made from human skin and blends seamlessly with her own skin. Underneath is the chip that enables us to hear everything she hears.”
“For real?” Dolphin asked.
He got up and moved closer. He reached out to touch her arm, running his finger up and down from her elbow to underneath her armpit. Cole wanted to tell him to keep his hands to himself, but that wouldn’t go over well with P.J.
“I’ll be damned,” Dolphin said. “I can’t tell it’s there.”
“That’s the point,” Steele said dryly.
Donovan continued. “I have flesh patches with GPS locators as well, but her bracelet has a minicam that displays images in real time in high definition. With a simple touch of her cheek or a casual brushing of a piece of her hair behind her ear, she can give us a good view of everything around her. And it has a GPS locator in case we need to find her fast, so it kills two birds with one stone.”
Cole’s gut tightened. He didn’t want to think of worst-case scenarios.
“So let me get this straight,” Cole cut in. “You and P.J. go to this highbrow party. She splits off from you, hones in on this Nelson guy and comes on to him, tells him where she’s staying and then leaves and waits for him to come to her?”
The others looked at him oddly.
“We’ve been over this,” Steele said impatiently.
“Yeah, well, I just want to make sure.”
P.J. shrugged. “He may want to leave with me. Either way the result is the same. No one can predict what he’ll want or if he’ll even rise to the bait. But adapting to a changing situation is what we do and we’re damn good at it.”
“Hooyah,” Dolphin crowed. “I say we make her an honorary SEAL.”
Yeah, Cole knew he was being a total wuss about the whole thing. He just couldn’t get rid of the knot in his gut. He just wanted the night to be over with and for P.J. to be back where she belonged. Safe. With her team. Preferably where he could see her at all times.
“And that’s precisely why we have to stay on our guard,” Steele said. “We don’t know how it’s going to go down.”
He turned to P.J. “If you need out at any time, you know the word. Don’t hesitate to use it. At the party, Cole, Dolphin, Baker, Renshaw and I will be outside spread out over the perimeter. Once you leave, we’ll tag you and follow you back to the hotel. If anything changes, just make sure you’re talking about it so we know what’s going on.”
Donovan touched her arm. “I’ll be inside the entire time until you leave. Any problems, I’ll be watching.”
Then he turned to the others. “There’s a lot riding on this. Aside from the obvious need to rid the world of this scumbag and get those girls back to their homes, there are three governments offering a huge bounty if we deliver this ass**le. Dead or alive, they don’t care. Resnick wants him alive because he wants information on his network. As much as our resident CIA contact has annoyed the shit out of me in recent times, I’m inclined to agree with him on this one. Brumley is just the supplier. There are a lot of sick sons of bitches who are buying these girls out there, and I want their asses too.”
Everyone nodded their agreement, their expressions grim.
“Then let’s go nail his ass to the wall,” P.J. said. “I can flirt with the devil himself if it helps us save those babies.”