by Dana Marton
A car door opened, then closed. Neither of them looked in the direction of the sound, but both were acutely aware of the shuffling footsteps coming their way.
“Does she love him?” He was looking at her now, his eyes swirling pools of darkness, their intensity freezing the words in her throat.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe she’s fighting it,” she said at last, her voice rusty. Were they still talking about some imaginary couple?
The man coming toward them was no more than twenty feet away.
Mike dipped his head, but stopped short of touching her. She wanted the reassurance of his lips. She wanted him to claim her, to make things easy for both of them. She couldn’t keep up this tug-of-war anymore. Did it really matter who won?
He hovered, watching her. He wouldn’t kiss her, she realized, and disappointment slammed into her at the thought. He would keep his promise not to push.
The footsteps slowed as they neared.
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, watched as his eyelids slid closed, his thick, dark lashes trembling. The first touch was a shock, sweet and blinding like the opening of heaven’s doors.
He didn’t move, but waited for her to do as little or as much as she pleased. She brushed her lips across his warmer ones, a slow pass then back again. A tentative nibble on his lower lip sent her blood rushing. Then he opened to her and she promptly forgot that all this was only for pretend.
She could never get enough of the taste of him.
They had kissed a hundred times before, a thousand, but never had it been like this. He didn’t try to arouse her, distract her, placate her or comfort her with this kiss. He was simply there, having given up all his power for her to do with him as she pleased.
Oh, he responded, and she felt the hunger under the iron control, but he made no move to get the upper hand, no attempt to master and to lead. It left her more breathless, more completely lost to him than if he had.
She explored him anew, learning him, sinking into his familiar places. It seemed they had been apart for a thousand years, or none at all, any thought of further separation all but unimaginable.
His mouth was soft and warm under hers, supplicant.
A challenge rose from inside her after a while. She mastered him because he let her. This was no true victory. The goal became then to snap that steel will, to take his control, to make him lose himself to her passion.
She tasted him, teased him, nibbled, bit hard, then stroked gently with her tongue. She was tearing down his defenses, could feel them crumble. Trouble was, her own were coming down, as well. As he was losing himself to her, she was losing herself to him.
She felt his hands fumble with the opening of her parka and arched against him, urging him faster, waiting for his hands to find her feverish body. But the caresses didn’t come.
She pulled away after a few moments to look at him, confused.
He was holding the fur trim that lined the zipper, his hands white-knuckled and trembling. Then she looked up, into his eyes, and saw the effort it took, the panic that he couldn’t hold much longer, the desperation of wanting to keep his word to her.
She felt childish all of a sudden, embarrassed. She leaned her forehead against his throat, her body weak with need.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have,” she said when she straightened and pulled away.
He flashed her a look that asked who she was kidding, then took a deep breath and looked around, reminding her why they were here in the first place.
The man was back in his car. He had likely walked to the other end of the harbor and back, passing by them twice without her noticing. Her embarrassment kicked up a notch.
“Look,” he said, and turned her gently.
The sky lightened over the sea, as if a painter had dragged his brush across black canvas, leaving a mesmerizing swirl of pale color behind.
“The aurora borealis,” she whispered.
The purplish pink magic grew as it ribboned through the sky. As many times as she’d seen the northern lights, its foreign beauty never ceased to fill her with wonder.
She felt Mike’s solid strength behind her and leaned back into it, her face turned upward. “Breath-taking, isn’t it?”
“More than that,” he said.
They stayed until the wind coming from the water picked up and chased them away. The man in the car watched them closely as they walked by him. She kept her gaze on Mike and didn’t have to pretend too hard that she had stars in her eyes.
They walked down the streets lined with strings of colored lights, hand in hand still. Her senses went on alert when he slowed.
“What is it?” She followed his gaze and saw the last row of houses that included their bed and breakfast. They were shrouded in darkness, some of them with dim, flickering lights coming from behind a window or two. At the bed and breakfast, two hurricane lamps flanked the steps.
“The power went out,” the owner said as soon as they entered, handing them each a flashlight. “Probably too much ice on the wires.”
“Thank you. We’ll manage.” Mike’s voice was cordial, but she could see the tension in his body, in the way his large frame moved up the stairs ahead of her.
She hung back a few steps, giving him room to maneuver should he need to, guarding his back.
He listened at the door before opening it, swung the light in a wide arch as he entered. Empty. He lifted a hand when she would have followed, nodding toward the bathroom door. She nodded and waited.
He made quick work of his search. “It’s okay.”
She let the tension drain from her shoulders as she stepped forward, catching too late the movement behind her. The cold barrel of a gun pushed into the base of her skull and an iron fist closed around her arm as she was thrust forward.
Chapter Seven
Mike was blinded as the beam from Tessa’s flashlight hit his face. He ducked at her call of warning, dropping his own light to grip his gun with both hands. He squinted, then froze the next second as he saw the outline of a man behind her and the gun at her head.
“Sit down,” the man said, and Mike didn’t need light to know who he was.
“Brady.”
“Drop your gun and slide it toward me.”
He did. He would have put it to his own head and pulled the trigger if Brady had asked. He would have done anything to keep the man from hurting Tessa.
Brady reached with his foot and kicked the gun well under the bed, out of sight. “Your knife.”
“Let her go. She knows nothing,” he said as he complied.
Brady made some sound through his nose. “Well, if she didn’t before, she sure does now, doesn’t she?” He looked at the fancy switchblade and pocketed it.
There were two chairs in the room, a lamp on the nightstand and a metal garbage can in the corner. Mike did the inventory without taking his eyes off the man, trying to think of anything he could use as a weapon, any trick he’d ever learned that would help him save Tessa.
“We’ll do whatever you want us to do,” he said, keeping his shoulders down, assuming the look of the beaten, the very picture of compliance.
“Very considerate of you. My wishes are very simple. Die fast. That about sums it up.”
“You take your job too far. We weren’t involved in anything. She was kidnapped by the smugglers, I came to get her because she means something to me. You know me. I’m too pigheaded to sit back and let someone else do a job I’m invested in. We butted heads over that before, remember?”
“I remember all kinds of things about you, McNair.”
“Look, we are the least of your worries on this. We’re both military. She’s army, I’m in a—” he paused a second “—I’m in a special unit. My security clearance is probably as high as yours. We’re on the same team here.”
“Not for this deal.” His voice was as cold as the Arctic wind that tore down the street outside and rattled the windows. He’d made up his mind, that voice said, and
he wasn’t going to change it.
Mike’s heart slammed against his chest. “If you shoot her, I’ll reach you before you can squeeze off a second shot.”
“There’s that to consider.” Brady didn’t sound perturbed. He’d always been one cold son of a bitch. “I could, of course, always shoot you first and take my time with her.”
Rage flooded Mike at the barely veiled threat. The lamp. The lamp on the nightstand was carved of some local stone. It would be heavy enough. Mike shifted his weight toward it.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to provoke me?”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to shoot two innocent people just so you can look good at work and get your next promotion for cleaning up the Alaska mess?”
“Work.” Brady snorted at the word. “It’s not about the promotion. And as far as the authorities are concerned, you are hardly innocent. Your girlfriend here took off with the smugglers. The CIA took a nuclear warhead off your hands while you were shooting at their chopper.”
“In self-defense.”
Brady shrugged. “A point of view, isn’t it?”
“If we’re criminals, we should stand trial.”
“Upholding the law is not one of my priorities just now.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“You were in on it.” The words slipped from Mike’s lips as the sudden realization hit him. “You’re not covering for the government. You’re covering your own ass.”
Silence confirmed his words.
Fury filled him. “How could you? The other things, the money I could understand. But now this? Treason?”
“Shut the hell up! What do you know of treason?” Brady was losing his cool.
Good. Maybe he would make a mistake.
“I know selling nuclear weapons to another country qualifies.”
The man shook his head. “One day you’re fighting against an enemy, putting your life at risk, the next day the government tells you the people who’d tried their damnedest to slit your throat are now your friends and you have to make nice.”
The Russians. That’s what this was about. “Then why give the warheads to them?”
“Not to them,” Brady snapped at him. “The Chechens.”
And suddenly everything made horrifying sense.
“My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” Brady went on. “Remember Patrick?”
“Sure.” Mike inched closer to the end table and the lamp. Patrick O’Donnell was the most decent person he had met during his short stint with the CIA.
“He got his shoulder busted. The bone is shot to slivers. The insurance company wouldn’t pay for a replacement. They consider it cosmetic surgery. The man doesn’t have a freaking shoulder.” He shook his head. “You know how many times he’d risked his life for this country?”
“I’m sorry to hear about Patrick. I understand how you feel. You want to make sure whatever comes your way, you have enough money to handle it. Hell, I want the same. But do you really think this is the way to go about it?”
“Nobody gets hurt but our enemy.”
Mike nodded, as if coming to understand the man’s twisted logic. Trying to convince Brady that Russia was now an ally wouldn’t get him anywhere. The warheads had been sold, Brady couldn’t undo what he’d done. The only way out was to disarm him as fast as they could, then make sure they caught the boat to Uelen.
“Put these on.” Brady tossed a pair of handcuffs onto the bed.
“Come on. It’s not necessary. We were too late. We don’t know scrap. Even for the things we think we know, we’ve got no proof.”
He bristled against the idea of having his hands literally tied, the helplessness of it. No, he wouldn’t be helpless, damn it. Thinking like that was the worst thing he could do. He would just be at a disadvantage. He could handle that. The more secure Brady felt, the more likely he was going to overlook something, make a mistake. Mike slipped on the cuffs and clicked them locked.
“Let’s go.” Brady pulled Tessa with him. “We are going out the back door. You first.” He stepped aside.
Mike had no choice but to obey. As long as that gun was pressed against her head, nothing he could do would be as fast as Brady’s finger on the trigger. But the man was taking them somewhere. That was good. Delay would hopefully bring an opportunity, and he only needed one chance. He would be ready for it.
He went down the stairs, careful not to make too much noise, not wanting the owner or any of the boarders to be involved. Brady wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if cornered. He’d gone too far to turn around now. Let him play out his plan, let him get comfortable, let him think everything was going just fine.
“There, sit in the very back.” The man nodded toward a minivan that waited for them outside.
Mike did as he was told, squeezing into the third row, scanning it immediately. Nothing but a blanket. Hardly a formidable weapon. And the distance to the front was too great, a whole other row of seats between them. Brady kept Tessa next to him, on the passenger side, moving the gun from her head and pointing it at her chest.
“Let’s not make this messy.”
“Drop us off somewhere outside of town,” Tessa said. “By the time we make it back, if we make it back, you’ll be long gone. The authorities are looking for us. It’ll be the word of two suspected criminals against a CIA agent.”
“Shut up.” Brady pulled out onto the road.
Patience. Mike sat back, resisting the urge to vault over the seats and rip the man’s throat out. If he’d ever had need of a clear head, it was now. No room for his temper, no room for anything but a single attempt at saving their lives. He wouldn’t get more than one chance, if that. He had to wait.
He watched the streets, relaxing a little when they passed the ones that turned down to the harbor. At least Brady’s plans didn’t involve the freezing water. Even a few minutes in the sea would be deadly this time of the year. But it looked like the man had another idea. He was driving out of town.
“Where are we going?” Mike asked when he felt he could do so without ticking him off.
“On the wilderness trail.” Brady’s voice was smug, with a smile in it. “They got three hundred miles of road just going off into nowhere for hunters and tourists and whoever else wants to see this godforsaken armpit of the world.”
The wind whistled outside the car, the darkness nearly complete once they were out of town, no streetlights here, no moon and stars, either. Snow clouds covered the sky. The van’s headlights illuminated the road twenty or thirty feet in front of them, but beyond that there was nothing, as if they were driving into the end of the world, riding on the dark road to hell.
“I didn’t plan on this. You got involved on your own. You could never leave well enough alone and mind your own business, McNair,” Brady said, then turned on the radio, flipping through the channels before settling on an oldies station.
Was he having a last surge of conscience?
“It’s not right. You know it isn’t. A child is a child, whether American or Russian. Those warheads will be used to kill innocents.”
“I have nothing to do with that. I’m not aiming any rockets.”
“No. You’re just tipping them with nuclear warheads. Is there a difference?”
“Damn right there is. I told you, it won’t be our worry.”
“Just drop us off.” Mike tried again. “We’re far enough now. The weather will kill us, anyway. That way you won’t have straight out murder on your hands.”
“Out of all people—” Brady raised his voice over the soft music. “You should know, that I always cross my t’s and dot my i’s.”
TESSA WRAPPED her arms around herself, shivering in the cold now that they had left the shelter of the car after a two-hour drive.
“Stop,” Brady ordered, and she obeyed.
They were standing a good ten feet in front of the van, their bleak surroundings illuminated by the headlights. Brady wasn’t hanging on to her anymore, prob
ably figured she wouldn’t be stupid enough to run. He was right. She wouldn’t leave Mike behind. She pretended to stomp her feet for warmth and in the process moved a yard or so away.
“Get out,” he directed Mike.
She watched Mike slide from the van and knew him well enough to know he would make his move as soon as he came close enough to Brady. She rolled her shoulders, prepared to lunge. If they jumped the man at the same time, he could shoot at only one of them before the other one reached him. Worst-case scenario: at least one of them would live. Best-case scenario: Brady would miss, or only wound with the shot.
Mike put his head down. He was ready. She lunged the same instant as he rushed forward.
Brady did get off a shot at Mike, apparently he’d judged him the bigger danger. But Tessa was on him, then Mike, too, the three of them rolling in the snow, trying to gain control of the weapon.
Pain shot up her arm as it got pinned under her, then the tangle of bodies rolled again and she was free.
The gun.
She got to it first, her hand on top of Brady’s while Mike twisted the man’s wrist to aim the weapon away from either of them. Her hood had come off, but she barely noticed the snow packing in the neck of her coat, stinging her cheeks. She fought with everything she had.
In the back of her mind she thought of Mike’s knife in Brady’s coat pocket. She couldn’t afford to let go of the gun to reach for it. Not yet.
Brady had the weapon in a death grip. She moved her hand up a little, thinking to empty the magazine by squeezing the trigger and shooting off into the air until she rendered the weapon useless. She put her fingers over Brady’s just as he and Mike heaved again, pulling against her. She’d had the trigger squeezed before she realized the whole mess of them were about to twist.
The gunshot echoed through the silence of the night, deafening in close proximity. For a moment she wasn’t sure if the bullet had hit anyone and, if so, which one of them it was.
She felt no pain. Mike was moving. She rolled away and the weapon came with her, pulling from Brady’s hand easily. His head flopped at the tug, and then she saw the hole in the side of his head and the blood spreading on the snow beneath it.