“Smells like his aftershave.” She palmed the buttery calfskin, then unwound the grosgrain ribbon securing the leather jacket Noble said he’d carried since college. “Noble loved old things. I think he was just born in the wrong century.”
“He’d have disagreed.” She looked up. “He loved technology, was very adept at it considering he grew up with a rotary phone. He liked his comforts, especially air-conditioning, and he said he wouldn’t want to miss out on the simple pleasures of a hot shower after a long day.”
“Me, either, and lugging buckets would have put such a damper on that.” The pages crackled as she opened the journal. The copy of the original was on the left, Noble’s handwriting on the right. She flipped to the last page. “He finished it.” She looked up. “It’s all translated.”
“Other than its historical value, why is the diary so important?”
“We think…it’s the only documented account of a legend.” She turned a page and found an envelope. She flipped it over. It was addressed to her. “It’s from Noble.”
She tore it open, a little cry escaping and she covered her mouth.
Olivia,
I am closely watched and I fear for my security detail. If we do not meet soon, follow the traders. If the worst comes, contact Sebastian.
Noble
She looked up, blinking back the sting of tears, then handed him the paper. As he read, a pained look passed over his face. He met her gaze, handing it back.
“Call whoever you need, now. Noble’s clock is ticking.” He left the room, taking the book.
Olivia stared at the empty doorway, then followed. “Now who’s not trusting who, Fontenòt?”
Before he could answer, a dark-haired woman wearing a headset strode down the hall. Middle Eastern blood, she decided, and smiled when she gave Sebastian a smack on the arm, and said, “Chill out. We have it under control.” She looked at Olivia. “Hi, Doctor Corrigan, I’m Safia Donovan. Welcome to Dragon One.”
She looked at Sebastian. He stared at her in the strangest way just now and she couldn’t decipher it. “And that is what, exactly?”
“Retrieval experts for hire, bodyguards, security.” She shrugged muscled shoulders. “Whatever.”
“Mercenaries?” She swallowed, annoyed with the screechy pitch of her own voice.
“It sounds so cheesy like that, but accurate.”
She cocked her hip, her hand planted there, and looked at Sebastian. “Same game, different club, huh?”
A smile threatened, but his eyes studied her. He had every right to be skeptical, considering their marriage split was over his covert operations and her need to know all about it.
“Don’t worry about your assistant, or your things,” Safia said. “I know it’s hard to trust strangers, but we’re very good at what we do.”
“Apparently.” Her gaze skated over the gear, then to Sebastian. He hadn’t moved, clutching the diary. He looked so deadly and sexy and she was ready to give up anything if he’d just come over here and kiss her.
Safia glanced between them. “Want to freshen up? Max and Riley shouldn’t be long.”
She looked down at her slacks and blouse, just noticing the blood and dirt. Her latte decorated her shoes. Damn. “That would be great.” It was hard to believe she was sneaking into China about this time the day before yesterday. Safia led her down a hall, and she glanced back long enough to catch Sebastian watching her retreat. He wiggled his brows, smiling, and she suddenly didn’t feel as bad as she knew she looked and gave him a show, working it. His dark chuckle followed her.
Safia led her into a bedroom. “The bath is there.” She pointed behind herself. “I’ll just be a sec.”
Olivia sat on the edge of the bed, then flopped back, staring at the ceiling, and tried piecing together the last few hours. Face it, girl. Dragon One was right behind her and she was alive because of it.
“Doctor Corrigan?”
“Call me Olivia, please.” She sat up. Safia handed over a stack of towels. “Thank you.” She clutched them, feeling a little rudderless. “What’s your part in all this?”
“I’m the Operations Commander.” Safia grinned at her surprise. “Yes, I get to boss them around. I’m a bit of a control freak, so it works.”
“I can’t imagine Sebastian letting anyone tell him what to do.”
“I was CIA. I’m skilled at getting my way.” She winked. “You knew Sebastian before today?”
“Oh yes. In a wildly impulsive moment, I married him.”
Safia gasped. “Sebastian? Really.” Her smile turned mischievous. “That little stinker never mentioned it.”
Neither did she. Their breakup was by far the most painful time of her life. “It was such a long time ago. Almost Jurassic.”
Sebastian’s chuckle, deep and rich, gave her goose bumps and she looked up. Safia slipped out of the room, giving him a dig in the side as she went.
“I didn’t have a chance to say…” His voice dropped an octave, “You look really great, Livi.” He was the only person to ever call her that, and while she noticed his Southern accent had faded, the elegant hint of it was still there.
“Thank you.” The compliment did wonders for her ego. “You look good, happy. Still in one piece, I’m glad to see.”
He looked surprised. “Noble didn’t tell you?”
“He wouldn’t even work with me unless I agreed to never ask about you. He said if I couldn’t find out how you were before then, I didn’t deserve to know.”
“Whoa, that’s harsh, especially for him.”
“He wouldn’t even hint.” She shrugged. “He’s right though. I couldn’t bring myself to search. I was terrified I’d learn you were killed in action.”
“It wouldn’t have changed things. Your brothers made it clear that you were off limits, permanently.”
Her eyes went wide. “They didn’t!”
“Oh yeah.” He said it with a smile, then sobered. “I backed off. Their threats were meaningless. I just didn’t want them to talk trash about us and ruin your memory of the time we did have.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “It’s in the past. I’m not the same and you’re certainly not the wild rebel who ran off to Vegas with a Marine on leave.”
She smiled. “Oh, some of her is still here.”
His dark eyes pinned her, left her breathless. Then suddenly, he crossed the room and scooped her off the bed, holding her tightly. She stared into his dark eyes, felt the mesh of his body to hers, and the instant electricity that came with it. Then his mouth covered hers. Oh. My. God. It was like coming home. Intense and kinetic, a charge lacing around her like a cocoon, and she drank him in, molding her mouth over his, and urging him to paw her like she wanted. Needed. Then he did, and her body reacted with swift hot memory, pushing into him. She moaned, feeling devoured, and when he lifted her off the floor for a better fit, she fought the need to wrap her legs around his hips. Tumbling to the bed would be so much easier that way. He savaged her mouth for another second, then he drew back, breathing just as hard as she was. He set her down with a thump.
“What was that for?”
He smiled, palming low on her spine. “Just checking.”
He let her go, and she stumbled back a step as he walked out the door. She chucked the pillow at his bandaged head. His laugh echoed in the hall. She smiled to herself and dropped to the bed, then flopped back. Well damn, Sebastian. She licked her lips. They were a little numb, and somewhere in her mind, a little voice whispered it wasn’t bad to know some things hadn’t changed…then dared her to name the last man to kiss her like that. She failed miserably.
You are in such trouble. But then, she already knew that. When it came to Sebastian, resistance was futile.
With a long-suffering sigh, she reached for her phone.
FSB headquarters
Lubyanka Square, Moscow
Leonid Sidorov strode down the corridor, his thick heels clicking time with his urgency. He did not want to make this visit. Con
ferring with the directorate of counterintelligence was rarely pleasant. The tall wood door loomed ahead, and reaching it, he did not knock, pushing into the director’s offices. The secretary hopped to his feet, then recognized him and immediately sat. He ignored the people waiting to see the director.
Out of respect, he rapped once, then entered the office. The director glanced up, scowling, then signed a paper before handing it off to the man nearest him. Assistants and officers surrounded him, hovering like handmaidens.
“We are done,” the director said. He waved at the door, but it wasn’t necessary. The officers were in a hurry to leave. It was wise not to know all the secrets. His superior was a ruthless man, devoted to the party, to Putin, as he was, though Leonid felt the ruling elite had taken their power too far. He kept his thoughts to himself. Many of the opposition had died. This could begin a bloodbath, he thought, looking down at the red leather case, waiting until the last man was gone. Leonid didn’t particularly care for the director. In fact, the man repulsed him, not for his slovenly manners—atrocious—but that he thought there was no consequence to death warrants issued for anyone who stood in Putin’s way. The PM might have another office, but his presence was still here.
“It is urgent.”
Golubev waved him closer and Leonid dropped the leather envelope on his desk.
The director gave it a passing glance. “Tell me why.”
“Andre Molenko is dead. His neck was broken.” The director showed no emotion beyond the lift of a brow, and sat back to hear more. “His personal safe was opened.”
Now the director leaned forward, bracing his arms on the desk. “Do we even know what he had? What was taken?”
“Nyet, we do not, but he was, as you know, privileged to several cases of special importance.”
The highest level of classification made the director pale. He opened the leather case. “He had American contacts. You are certain they did not silence him?”
“Nyet, I am not certain. But he was not in active reserve.” Neither was Molenko fit for duty, Leonid thought, having seen the photos. The former KGB operative was found wearing only a robe, spread open to show more than his increased waistline. “His guard was killed as well. There are traces of activity.”
The director eyed him. “A woman, perhaps?”
Leonid didn’t know. “There were no prints, nor even a drinking glass.”
“A professional, then.”
He knew that, of course, and despised that this man treated him with such condescension. “They left everything as it was. Only his safe and the files were disturbed. Those”—Leonid nodded to the untouched stack on the desk—“were in his personal possession.” It was a violation. State secrets, copies no less, were never to leave the headquarters. He did not need to know how Molenko acquired them. He was high ranking within the party. Smuggling them out would have been simple. But from the lifestyle Leonid had examined in the last twenty-four hours, he was living well only by the benefit of blackmail. A cloak of a different color, he thought. More secrets to hide.
“You were aware of these files?”
The director shook his head as he stood slowly, a delicate teacup dwarfed by his palm. He brought it to the window and he stared onto an empty street. Cars were routed away from the square, never close enough to inflict damage.
“You must search then. Begin with his American contacts.”
He already had. “Only he knew their identities, comrade.”
The director scoffed, returning to his desk and drawing the files close. He opened one and read the first page, then went onto another. He stopped at the fifth and looked up. “You have read these?”
“I have.”
The director’s face flamed with anger. He was mentioned several times.
“I should not be kept out of these matters,” Leonid said, condemnation in his tone as he flicked his hand at the folders. The director started to chide him, but he would have none of it. “You did not notice they were still in chronological order? They were found in this same manner and brought to me.” No one would dare touch anything without an FSB officer near. The police did not even enter the apartment after the cleaning woman had found him. “Molenko’s killer was after one file, at least three years old.”
The director looked up sharply, his eyes narrowing. I have struck the nerve, he thought.
The director closed the file. “Do not delve, Leonid.”
This was an outrage, he thought, and stared at his superior, waiting for him to rescind. It did not come. “As you wish.”
Yet he could not ignore this. Not after reading the files that contained such detrimental secrets. He started to turn and the director put out his hand, stopping him. Leonid frowned when he opened his desk drawer and pressed a button, shutting off the recording. Keeping secrets from the gate-keepers, he thought as the director took a breath, stretching his white shirt tight across his torso. A moment later, he motioned him to the window near the heavy velvet drapes in Kremlin red.
“You must find this person.”
“Person or file?”
“It does not matter, both must be destroyed and all suppressed. All of it. It is of special importance, Leonid. The tragedy in the north seas.”
Leonid stepped back, his eyes flaring. Near Brønlundfjord. Three years ago. A special mission so covert even he was not privy to details. “It was not as we were told.”
The director scoffed rudely. “Is anything?”
SEVEN
An hour later, Sebastian was still feeling the effects of Olivia in his arms. Christ, that was a stupid move. She had the it factor, the ability to turn him on like a switch. Slumped in the couch, he knew he had to get some perspective before he grilled her. The question was, could he keep his hands off her?
Someone nudged him. “Snap out of it.” Safia rolled her chair closer. “I don’t think the assistant knows, by the way.”
He glanced at the young Latino man talking with Max and hooking up the rest of the equipment. They didn’t have time for much when they’d arrived, but once again Max found outstanding digs for a secure location. Olivia was in one of the bedrooms, talking through the computer to God knows who. Sebastian just wanted his suspicions confirmed.
Safia eyed him, looking infuriatingly amused. “There’s something to be said about second chances.”
Sebastian scoffed. “I’m not looking for one.”
She’d left him. Though, he really didn’t blame her. He wasn’t around much and he’d brainwashed himself into thinking he could keep her waiting till he was ready to come home. After a while, he was just a paycheck, she’d said before disappearing from his life. The next time he heard from her it was divorce papers. But seeing her again didn’t bring back the pain and heartache, but the good. The fun they’d had and memories of her rushing to greet him as he stepped off a C-130. It’s just how he wanted it, and he mentally ushered the past where it belonged because on the other side of the house was the only woman he’d ever loved. Ever. A dangerous fact he wouldn’t reveal, or she’d have him under her thumb so tight he’d squeak.
It didn’t matter that he’d loved her over a dozen years ago and was already making the Marine Corps his career then. He’d enlisted at seventeen and when they’d met, he was twenty-three and so freaking gung-ho he scared himself. He’d been in Serbia and Panama by then, and couldn’t talk about the rest. She didn’t like any of it. The Corps, his deployments, the secrets, nada. But he’d admitted a long time ago that she really didn’t know what she was getting into when she’d eloped with him. The blame for that rested on him.
The irony that she was hiding her job from him wasn’t lost on him either.
He pushed off the sofa and crossed to the kitchen, pulling out pans and mentally fusing the past with today. Hands down, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. She didn’t think so, he knew, always a little tomboyish. It wasn’t just the dark red hair and Irish green eyes that set her apart, but her deep passion
for life and a nearly uncontrollable curiosity.
He opened the fridge, fully stocked as of an hour ago. At least he remembered her favorite foods, he thought, and started creating. Halfway through chopping, Max said the police were directing traffic around the accident. He could care less about the men trying to kill them, but no civilian casualties was always good. He shifted pans and sprinkled in a last kick of spice, listening to Max read aloud a part of the Maguire legend of a child stolen from the shores of Ireland by Vikings and made a slave. Some years later, she returned with her Viking stepfather and Mongol soldiers. Elf and the giant, he thought. The rest went as MacAwley has said, yet Dr. MacNamara had given him several accountings. One version told of wild animal attacks, rival clans, and the princess’s skill at reuniting the people. Another had the killer dogs and a myth about a glass globe that changed the appearance of things. Like a witch’s glamour, he thought, tossing a pat of butter in a pan and shaking the skillet. He wondered what version was in the diary and why Noble hadn’t backed it up.
Thirty minutes later, he heard, “Oh my God, that smells heavenly,” then saw Olivia enter from the hall. She’d changed into a jeans and a white T-shirt, and her hair was wet. Then he frowned at the laptop under her arm. When her gaze fell on him, she reared back a fraction, then crossed into the kitchen and slid onto the stool on the other side of a granite counter. God, she looked terrific.
“Hungry?”
“When am I not? I can’t believe what I’m seeing. You cook?” She lowered her voice, leaned over the counter. “I recall you doing some cooking before, but it was, ya know…guy food.”
He chuckled, and turned to the cabinet for plates, then laid out silverware.
“Sebastian is a god in a kitchen,” Safia said from her spot at the screens. “He owns a restaurant in New Orleans, the Craw Daddy.” From across the room, she winked at him.
He just smiled. “You’re telling all my secrets, woman.”
“I thought Dragon One was what you did for a living,” Olivia said.
“It’s not steady, and I can do it only so long.” He served up the honey-glazed chicken, then from another pan smothered it in caramelized onions.
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