Rules of Revenge

by AJ Quinn

  The box had hit the steps when it had been dropped and lay partially open, but not enough for her to see inside. Taking a slow, deep breath, she reached for it with steady hands and gently eased it open. Not completely. Just enough to be able to see what it held without disturbing its contents.

  She blinked and froze.

  She was staring down at a timer, and as she watched, the green numbers slowly counted off the passing seconds.

  *

  “Oh God,” Jessie murmured, staring at the tableau in front of her. The blond man lay where he’d fallen at the bottom of the steps, an expanding pool of blood around his head and torso. There was no doubt he was dead. No doubt Darien had just killed him.

  But if that wasn’t enough, there was the bakery box Darien had just opened. A bomb, she thought numbly, licking her lips and trying to pretend her heart hadn’t just skipped a beat. She watched Darien cradle the box with extreme care, saw her sleek dark eyebrows draw together in concentration as she scanned the device. A bomb that’s set to explode in less than four minutes, if that timer is accurate.

  “Jessie,” Darien called to her softly. “Listen to me. I need you and Elle to go with Ben and get as far away from here as possible. Do you hear me?”

  “And what the hell do you think you’re going to do?” Jessie asked in disbelief, her voice barely a whisper.

  “I’m going to disarm this. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it before. But I need to be clearheaded and able to concentrate on what I’m doing, and that means I need you out of here.”

  Jessie understood all too well. She was no expert, but she’d had just enough explosive ordinance disposal training to know what was involved.

  She knew if Darien miscalculated in any way, if she moved too quickly, if she cut the wrong wire, or if there was a hidden motion switch, there would be no second chance. The bomb would go off as intended and it would take anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby with it. Clearly Darien didn’t want her or Elle at risk of getting hurt—or worse.

  Jesus. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt either. But what Darien was asking her to do was impossible. There was no way she was leaving her alone with the timer on the bomb rapidly ticking away the seconds. Darien just didn’t need to know that.

  “All right.”

  It took every ounce of willpower she had to do the only thing she could do. Conscious of nothing but her pounding heart, she stepped back into the muted shadows of the street. Out of the way and beyond Darien’s peripheral vision so as not to pose any kind of distraction.

  She knew Darien would believe she had done as she’d asked. Just as she knew Darien would be unhappy when she discovered Jessie had been less than honest with her. But there would be plenty of time to deal with the fallout of not having listened later. After the bomb was disarmed.

  She saw Nicola frown, looking at her with unspoken questions. But not for long. Darien, still studying the bomb she was holding, quietly called out to her. “Nicola?”

  “I’m right here, Dare. Tell me what you need.”

  “Something I can use to cut these bloody wires. You’re usually a walking tool kit. You wouldn’t happen to have—”

  “Wire cutters?” Nicola laughed softly and reached into her bag for a small leather pouch from which she pulled out wire cutters and handed them to Darien. “I’ve been carrying them since Jakarta. This will make the first time they’ve actually had to be used.”

  “Hopefully they’re still sharp then,” Darien said dryly. “Now make yourself useful. Get out of here. Go with Ben and make sure all of you are at a safe distance in case this thing does what it’s supposed to do.”

  Nicola rolled her eyes, turned her head, and cast a faintly amused glance at Jessie. “Darien?”

  “What?”

  “Be a dear. Shut up and cut those wires so we can deal with the body in front of your house. Preferably before one of your neighbors comes along and calls the police.”

  Darien remained silent for a moment. “All right, but if I mess this up and kill us both, you and I are going to have words.”

  Jessie choked back a nervous laugh, heard Elle mutter something between an expletive and a prayer, and watched over Nicola’s shoulder. She knew enough to be aware Darien would have to cut the wires in the correct sequence in order to prevent detonation. First the wire that led to the primer, then the reactor wire, and finally the wire that fed the ignition timer.

  She held her breath. As she watched the numbers continue to count down, she felt an icy calm wash over her. It would be any moment now. An endless heartbeat later, Darien cut the timer wire and the numbers stopped.

  Ben came around beside her where he could see what she was seeing—the timer, a set of snipped wires, and several thin cylinders of C-4 nestled in the box. “Nice job, Dare.”

  Darien nodded.

  Only then did Jessie place a hand over her racing heart, beating fast and hard beneath her palm. But as she swallowed dryly and closed her eyes, she tried not to think about how Darien’s face had become a blank slate. She tried hard not to think of what it might mean.

  To no one’s surprise, the dead man carried no ID. No markings or tags on his clothes. No cell phone. Even his weapon—a Makarov PM—was a standard Russian military and police issue sidearm. There was nothing that would help identify him. Still, Jessie had no doubt Darien would find him in one of her databases.

  Before her heart rate returned to normal, Ben had already arranged for a crew to photograph and fingerprint the body, and then sanitize the area, removing any trace of what had happened. Through it all, Jessie noticed Darien was unusually quiet. She could sense her withdrawal and knew instinctively that no matter how hard she tried to hold on, Darien had already retreated into the persona she had presented when they’d first met.

  She remained off to one side, her body still, a wholly unreadable expression on her face, responding only occasionally to something Nicola said to her. So Jessie wasn’t surprised to see her disappear into the house once everything was done, heading straight to the computer room where she locked everyone else out.

  Entering the house, Elle raised her eyebrows, her lips compressed into a thin line. Jessie couldn’t miss the unspoken questions and sighed. It was clear from Elle’s expression that her original nervousness and distrust of Darien was back and stronger than ever, only now it was coupled with the horror of having witnessed her first killing.

  In that regard Jessie could relate. She had somehow managed to relegate her own shock at seeing Darien kill someone to a far corner in her mind. But she knew she would never completely erase the image and had no idea how to help ease Elle’s mind.

  Silence lengthened before Jessie gave in to her uncertainty and shrugged. “At a guess, it’s probably better that we don’t know what she’s doing. But if you really insist on knowing, I suppose we could always see if we can beat her security system.”

  “I doubt you’ll get very far,” Nicola said with a laugh. “Personally, I think the best thing we can all do is let her be.”

  She gave Nicola time to say more, but when she didn’t, Jessie pursued it. “You’re suggesting we just wait?”

  “You can take my advice or not, it’s up to you. But I’ve worked with Darien often enough to know she’ll come down when she’s got something, and she’s always come through. In the meantime, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I could use a drink.”

  “I think I like the sound of that,” Elle said weakly.

  Moving to a built-in bar, Nicola took a look. “I know there’s still some of the single-malt scotch Ben likes so much, but that’s because no one else will touch it. No ice, as I recall,” she added, pouring a healthy splash into a tulip-shaped glass.

  “Perfect,” Ben said.

  “Thankfully, there’s wine for the rest of us. We’ve got a cab, a merlot or two, and a couple of pinot noir. Elle?”

  “I’ll take whatever’s going, thanks.”

  “What about you, Je
ssie? Any preference?”

  Preference? Jessie looked over, grateful to have something to think about other than whatever Darien might be doing. “The pinot sounds good.”

  Nicola nodded, selected a bottle and stared at it briefly. “Interesting, don’t you think? Even though she lives in what is widely considered the world’s top wine-producing country, our Dare seems to favor American wines from California. I wonder what Freud would say about that?”

  Jessie laughed. It was impossible not to and she felt infinitely better for it. “I don’t know about Freud, but I think a taste of home sounds good right about now.” Pushing her hair behind her ears, she reached for one of the wineglasses Nicola had just filled, then sat down to quietly nurse her drink and wait.

  There wasn’t a lot of conversation, but it wasn’t really needed. Jessie was certain all of them were thinking about known and unknown assassins, ticking bombs real and metaphorical, and whatever information Darien was unearthing upstairs.

  *

  They didn’t find out what Darien had been doing until almost two in the morning. That was when Jessie got up to fetch another bottle of wine and saw a silent figure moving out of the dark hallway, just before Darien stepped into the light.

  Her hair was wet from a recent shower and she had changed into a white T-shirt tucked into a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged her narrow hips and traced the length of her long legs. Jessie couldn’t help notice how tired she looked and wondered what was keeping her upright. Possibly a connection to the laptop under her arm?

  She indicated the bottle in her right hand. “Hey, stranger, can I entice you with a glass of wine or would you rather something stronger?”

  “Wine sounds good.”

  Darien appeared reluctant to move and remained still for a few seconds longer before she made her way into the room. Once she did, Jessie was better able to see the shadowed remnants of the evening’s activities in her bloodshot eyes and the lines of strain on her face. Curiously, it lent her an air of vulnerability that seemed completely at odds with the don’t-touch-me vibe she was giving off.

  She waited until Darien was perched on a stool with a glass of wine in front of her before asking, “So what did you find?”

  Darien took a deliberately casual sip before answering. “In a hurry for show-and-tell?” Meeting Jessie’s gaze, she smiled wanly and shrugged, then set up the laptop. “Why don’t I start with what I’ve managed to put together on our visitor from earlier this evening? After that, the dots become fairly easy to connect.”

  While the others gathered around the laptop, her fingers tapped a few commands and conjured up an image. The blond hair was shorter in the photograph. But there was no mistaking the blue of his eyes or the face of their would-be killer.

  “His name was Sergei Korolev,” Darien said. “Russian born and educated, and until five years ago, he had made a steady if unspectacular climb in the military, including serving for a time in Russian special ops.”

  “What happened five years ago?” Ben asked.

  “Rumor has it Korolev was passed over for promotion and took it out on his commanding officer. Rather violently. He disappeared shortly thereafter. When he resurfaced, he was working as an enforcer for some heavy hitters in the Russian mob. After that, he branched out, doing work for anyone who needed and could afford his services, including some of the Colombian cartels.”

  Jessie leaned closer and stared at the computer. “You’re saying he became a hired gun?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t known to support any particular causes, had no ties or loyalties. He simply went where the money was, and going by the healthy bank account he had, he stayed rather busy. I was able to locate roughly twelve million before I took a break, and there’s likely to be more. I just need a bit more time to find it. But here’s the critical link.” Darien tapped more keys and the image on the screen morphed.

  The picture that now filled the screen was clearly taken from a distance. But there was no mistaking the two people in the photograph. Standing near a massive ship berthed at a shipyard were the recently deceased Sergei Korolev and Nadia Petrov.

  “How the hell did you get this?” Ben asked. “No, never mind. I don’t need to know. Do you have any idea when it was taken?”

  Darien nodded and drained the rest of her wine in one tense swallow. “Two days before the Guild brought down the three jets.”

  “Boy howdy,” Elle said quietly. “Ben may not want to know, but I’d sure like to know how you got this information so quickly when we’ve been searching for Petrov around-the-clock for weeks and haven’t been able to find anything.”

  “Believe it or not, we caught a break—through him.” Darien indicated Korolev’s image with a finger. “I got a hit when I ran his face through the database, and that led me to a contact I’ve used on a number of occasions. At the time the photo was taken, he was tracking Korolev, not Petrov. He knew Korolev was arranging to move weapons to support some mercenary action in the Ivory Coast and was only interested in following the weapons that came off that ship. He didn’t know or care who the woman was.”

  The room grew quiet while each of them stared at the image and processed the information they’d just been given.

  “I still don’t get it,” Elle said. “What’s the connection? Why would Nadia Petrov choose to meet with Korolev just before launching a major offensive? He’s a mercenary, a hired gun, as you said. Not someone you’d need when you’re attacking passenger jets and—” She fell silent when Jessie put her hand on her shoulder. “What is it? What am I missing?”

  “Petrov wasn’t hiring Korolev to be part of her large-scale plans, was she?” Jessie said softly, her eyes seeking and finding Darien’s. “This was personal. She knows you—knows exactly who you are. She knew bringing down those planes would draw you into the investigation, and she hired Korolev to take you out, which he tried to do in Germany, and then again earlier this evening. She’s got big plans. She’s finishing what her father started and is settling old scores along the way. But you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you?”

  Darien nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s also what we’re going to use to bring her down.”

  Jessie chewed her bottom lip, suddenly fearful she knew where this conversation was going. But in spite of the nerves, she pressed on, keeping her voice light as she asked the question. “What are you saying, Darien?”

  “She’s targeting me. So I’m going to offer Petrov the one thing she seems to want badly enough that she’ll be willing to come out into the open to get it. I’m going to offer her the chance to get me.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Darien shivered, pulling her arms closer and wrapping them protectively around herself. But as always, the gesture proved useless and she remained caught in a struggle she had no hope of winning. The nightmare was on her again and there was no way she could fight her way out of it. She forgot who she was, where she was, forgot everything except the memories of childhood as they crowded around her.

  She was thirteen.

  Surrounded by the smell of blood. The stench of garbage and urine. The scent of death. Trapped in a cold, dark alley in Prague with her mother’s rapidly cooling body only a few feet away. Close enough to see. Too far to touch.

  It was all too familiar and she wept. She could feel the wetness of tears mixing with the blood on her face, but she couldn’t move. She wanted to scream. No, please. Not again. And perhaps a sound managed to escape her constricted throat. Because in that moment, from the battered ruins of her beautiful face, her mother’s eyes suddenly opened. Her mouth opened and she started to make a sound.

  Darien jolted out of the dream, throat straining around the scream she wouldn’t voice, swallowing it before it could escape. With her heart pounding wildly and mind in disarray, she fought for self-control and tried not to trip over the last vestiges of memory and nightmare. But it still took her a minute to push through the fog to register where she was. Not
in an alley in Prague, curled in a fetal ball of pain and misery, but on an Air France Airbus, flying through the darkness over the Atlantic bound for New York.

  “Bad dreams again?” Jessie murmured beside her, lightly stroking her arm.

  Her eyes were open but it made no difference. She still saw her mother lying on her back, her ruined face turned toward her. The image was as real as her own heartbeat. For the space of several breaths, she found herself unable to speak and felt Jessie’s hand close around hers, holding it tight.

  “Just relax. I’ve got you. Take deep breaths, nice and long and slow.”

  One breath. The words made her feel tenderly stroked, and for a moment, she allowed herself to savor the scent and feel of having Jessie near her. Close. Warm. Real. A second breath. She breathed her in and wasn’t surprised to discover Jessie’s presence and whispered reassurances began to soothe and calm combustible emotions. She could almost take a full breath again.

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth was bone-dry and she reached for the bottle of water she’d left in the cup holder by her seat. The water had become lukewarm and she grimaced, but she drained it anyway. By the time she finished and was cradling the empty bottle in her hand, she had worked the knot out of her throat and had shaken off the chill of memories.

  “Do you want to talk about it—about your nightmare?”

  A sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan escaped her. “Why bother? It’s always the same—the same nightmare, the same pain. An hour spent talking about it is an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

  “I can’t help you if you close me out, so I guess I’ll owe you an hour.” Jessie’s slow smile pulled Darien closer. “Was the dream about the alley in Prague? Where your mother was killed?”

  Darien let out a sigh. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. She could still feel the residual tension and tried to sort through the images lingering along the dark edges of her mind, only to find herself fumbling when the usual pieces didn’t fit. But the feel of Jessie’s hand holding hers kept her anchored.