by Sable Jordan
He consulted the iPad, checking both the weather and the time. They needed to leave before their window of opportunity passed and the airport really sprang to life. The early flights would push off soon, and then the sun would rise and travelers would flood the area. However, in what he was coming to understand as true Kizzie fashion, she’d insisted on doing it her way, in spite of the fact it would cut their own departure awful close. Xander would have to break her of that habit. Yet he had to admit, in her position he’d have done the same.
Twelve minutes later, the vehicle turned into the employee parking lot and Kizzie hopped in. “We’re behind schedule,” he said once the door shut.
Without responding, she stripped off the jacket, goggles and hardhat, and tossed them to the floor. Loose tresses pushed from her face, she leaned against the seat back, crossing her arms over her chest.
Dawn was upon them, the sky a light purple, brightening as the sun inched its way above the eastern horizon. Xander studied her expression in the rearview. The lack of rest was evident, and she wasn’t nagging him for details for a change. But he didn’t have to know her long to see something was wrong. He kept eyeing her, trying to pinpoint what was going on in that brain.
“Thought you said we’re behind,” she finally said, somber gaze on something outside the window.
The car sat idling.
“Having second thoughts, Kizzie?”
Whatever he’d seen was gone in a flash. She caught his view in the mirror. “No.”
The stare down lasted a few moments before Xander put the car in gear and headed toward the closed airstrip at Panama Pacificó.
* * * *
Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia
For the third morning in a row, Bill Connolly sat before a fire in a recliner chair, nursing a bottle of cherry flavored Mylanta. The pain in his gut was so fierce he was sure the ulcer would chew its way topside any day now. He took another slug from the bottle, the thick fluid slithering down his throat. And then he waited; not for the sun to rise—that event was two hours off. No, he was waiting for sleep to finally set in.
Thinking on it now, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept. He’d had a couple catnaps in the last forty-odd years, he was sure. But sleep? With a full-on REM-cycle? It had been a long while.
Chances were good it wouldn’t happen tonight, or this morning, rather.
Securing the cap, he tossed the container of liquid chalk onto the coffee table beside his cell phones and pushed out of the lazy boy, walking to a huge window to stare out at the still, dark waters of the bay. The two-story house at the end of the lane used to be a haven when Martha was around. They’d walk down their dock in the early hours of the morning and sit at the edge; feet dangling over the crisp water with coffee in hand—tea for her, two sugars—and talk about any and everything in the world. She’d laugh at his attempts at fresh water fishing; he’d marvel at her oil paintings of the surrounding seascape.
Martha. A woman talented both in bed and out. He hadn’t come to the home in years, but being there always made him think of their past and the future they never got a chance to share. He caught his reflection in the glass and wondered absently if her hair had grayed the way his had. Probably not. Hers was a brown so dark it bordered black. And her eyes; two shining blue beacons that guided him home through the darkest nights.
But then she found out about his wife.
Oh, he’d made an honest woman of her, giving her his grandmother’s ring and his assumed last name. But once she unearthed the truth about what Bill really did for a living, Martha Connolly knew she’d always be the mistress.
Shortly after discovering her husband was not the head manager at Franco Financial, and that his frequent trips out of town were not related to the aforementioned managerial position she’d been led to believe he held, Martha packed her belongings and left. No note. No phone call. Just ether.
And Bill came home to find she’d packed up sleep and taken it with her.
He could have tracked her down—he was an agent, after all—but what would he say? Sorry I didn’t tell you I’m an operative for a clandestine government agency? Yeah, that would have gone over well with his superiors. They’d have both been belly up and floating in the water within a matter of days. That clandestine agency didn’t play when it came to silence. Besides, with all the dirt and grime in the world, Martha was so clean as to actually be godly. He wouldn’t tarnish her with the mud flung on him while in the trenches protecting his country.
His marriage with the nation’s defense began at an early age—ROTC in high school, graduating the Citadel and a stint in the Marines that eventually segued into a career with the National Clandestine Services. But it was his promotion to the Special Operations Group where he truly found his calling. The SOG was a highly specialized division of the NCS focused on covert, paramilitary operations. It functioned on results, and he delivered. Members were responsible for all the things America needed done but didn’t want credit for doing. “By the book” was a running joke. There was no book. There was only how and that you did the job.
Within the SOG there was an even more secretive group of agents, the Covert Response Unit, and this elite team was Bill’s own. He regarded CRU, or ‘The Crew’ as he called them, as the most unselfish and patriotic of the bunch, forfeiting the average American lifestyle—the two-point-three kids, white picket fence, and two cats in the yard—so that every other American, and would-be American, could enjoy those luxuries.
Yes, Bill was a man monogamous to both of his wives, the two marriages satisfying different ideas of wedded bliss. One was of comfort that he’d grown to live with; the other of passion he couldn’t live without.
Despite her disappearing act, Bill still loved the woman he’d claimed his own before God and the Justice of the Peace. And while they hadn’t seen each other for decades, they were still legally man and wife. Like normal married couples, they shared a secret: Martha knew who he really was. Intel like that could get him killed if ever she slipped.
Her knowledge of his identity was a secret he’d take to his grave, and he prayed she’d take his to hers.
Unfortunately, her confidence wasn’t what troubled him now. There were other leaks in the wall he helped build to protect America and her citizens, leaks that had much graver consequences than the lost love between Bill and Martha Connolly. He took an oath to protect his country, and would do that until there wasn’t breath left in his body.
3-19 would have gone a long way to doing just that.
How the hell did Baldwin screw up the Mauritius job? he wondered, forcing his thoughts away from his wife. Kizzie was his best agent by far, the first person recruited to The Crew when Bill got the all-clear to put his new team together. She thought on her toes, could kick ass with the best of them, and didn’t question his directives. It also helped that she made a nice honey trap. Miss Dependable for a decade, and then in clutch-time, she’d choked.
Debriefing Gale Freeman and Solomon Nevins, the other two members of that operation, had yielded little results. From what Bill gathered, the party Ri Nguyen had tipped them off about was not quite the affair the team was expecting. And Ri hadn’t resurfaced to be interrogated about his absence. But both Freeman and Nevins assured him Kizzie had made every effort to acquire the requested information. Kizzie’s version of the story was the same, and Bill was just biding his time before he contacted her again.
He knew she was pissed with him, but he’d let her stew. Nothing made an agent more indebted to you than when they botched a mission. After that, they were willing to go the extra mile and then some to please their handlers. And Kizzie was already deep in Bill’s pocket. She would go miles and miles to please him.
Connolly rubbed a hand over his thinning hair, and turned away from the window. He wouldn’t think about 3-19 now. There were more pressing matters to tend to.
A yawn broke free of his mouth and he strode to the fireplace, dousing the flame
s. In the darkness, he crossed the span of the living room and mounted the stairs to the bedroom he and Martha used to share. The sleep he’d been waiting for claimed him the moment his body hit the mattress.
As the first rays of dawn touched the waters of Halfmoon Bay, his cell phone danced a jig across the coffee table.
Bill Connolly slept on.
2
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
In the passenger compartment of a swanky Gulfstream-V, Kizzie sat in a plush leather chair, arms crossed, brow furrowed, breaths measured. An hour and change before she was staring out of a circular porthole watching the beauty of Panama fade away beneath her. She didn’t know when she’d be back. Since Xander had tracked her down, her home in Casco Viejo was no longer safe. She’d have to find a new one.
On the up side, she wasn’t starving anymore. Upon boarding, she raided the galley and found salads, sandwiches, and drinks. So she’d eaten her fill and waited, trying her damndest to keep her eyes open. A difficult feat in the comfort of the luxurious upholstery.
Across the table in the seat facing her, Xander looked the picture of perfection—and still sexy as sin. Curly dark hair was neat on his head, and his dress shirt and slacks looked fresh in spite of the fact that he’d spent the last 12 hours in them. Even the scar over his eye was freakin’ perfect! That it was so early in the morning didn’t seem to bother him at all. Phil, either, seeing as how he was flying the plane. The chipper attitudes grated on her nerves.
“All right,” Kizzie finally said, “I’ve been patient long enough.”
Xander lifted his chocolate gaze from the laptop. “That you have, Kizzie.” Brilliant white teeth flashed in his handsome brown face, and he closed the lid of the machine. “And I know you’re not famous for your patience.”
“Don’t get cute,” she snapped. “I’m holding you to your word, Duquesne. You dangled Sokoviev and I bit. Now it’s time for specifics.”
“Sure you don’t want a nap first? You’re kinda cranky.”
She glowered at him through narrowed eyes. “Need I remind you I’m risking my career—my life—on the promise of a criminal? I’m on your plane, going god-knows where, my team doesn’t know what I’m doing and neither do I. I don’t have a single clue as to how I factor in to this game of yours. I’m tired, I reek of diesel fumes, I want a shower, and I want answers. So, yeah, cranky is a monumental understatement. Now, either you talk, or—”
“You hate not being in control, don’t you, Princess?”
His deep voice was soft-as-silk, and images she’d tucked away hours before came flooding back to the front of Kizzie’s brain. She held up a hand. “Stop with the ‘princess’,” then muttered, “That’s how I got my ass in this mess. In fact, do me a favor and let’s not rehash Mauritius, m’kay?”
“Answer me.”
The command was louder, firm, like when they were on the boat. Or, more precisely, when she was strapped to that bench being spanked. For a fleeting moment, Kizzie felt if she didn’t answer, she’d find herself over Xander’s knee. “I don’t like being unprepared.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“But it’s all the answer you get.” He sat there, just staring, and Kizzie’s resolve broke. She shook her head, remembered that nonverbal responses led to her ass stinging, and said, “No. I don’t.”
Xander grinned like he’d read her mind. “Good girl.” He reached across the aisle and pulled a manila envelope from a briefcase, slid it over to her. “A couple months ago, Nikolay Sokoviev disappeared. But you knew that, right?”
Pleased to finally be getting somewhere, Kizzie nodded and opened the package. “There were rumblings he’d gone missing. Didn’t give it much thought. As you know, Sokoviev was not my target.” She flicked her eyes up to his and removed the dossier. Then she studied the black and white picture of the Russian explosives dealer. “What’s your connection?”
“Been in business together the last few years. A good man.”
“‘A good man’?” Kizzie asked. “Forgive me if I consider the source.” She ignored the offended look on his face and flipped through the file, brain coming awake as it processed new information. “So, you and ‘Niko-the-holy’ are both card-carrying members of the International Club for Bad Guys. Poor Niko misses the latest ICBG meeting, which means you can’t get your regular shipment of…?”
“We’re not in business that way. I don’t ordinarily make a habit of blowing things up, Kizzie. It’s messy. At any rate, the details of my association with Nikolay are irrelevant. What is important is that he found something huge, and I was buying it.”
“An explosives buyer, are you?” She chuckled. “You’re a tricky one to pin down, Xander. My Intel says you’re part contractor, part consultant, part—”
“I’m a survivor,” he interjected. “Back to Nikolay. Have you ever heard of Project Harvey?”
Kizzie frowned, lifting her head from the pages she’d just scanned. It was mostly Nikolay’s history: age—68—birth parents, birthplace, schooling. The facts one strung together when writing a biography. Very little, if any, would be of use on this mission. But she would read it all and file away the tidbits in the event she needed them later. “Harvey…. No, can’t say I have.”
“Then I’ll start at the beginning. From the 1940’s to the 90’s, the Soviet Union and America were embattled in a cold war.”
“Men and their pissing contests.”
“To put it mildly.” He smirked. “Decades of mistrust filled with espionage, propaganda, and competition in every facet of life; from sporting events to technological advancement. The most pivotal being the nuclear arms race.”
“The Manhattan Project,” Kizzie bobbed her head, leaned back in the seat, “We’d been working on nuclear weaponry since the 30’s. That’s why we were able to bomb Japan in, what—‘45?”
“True, and that event did nothing to help already tenuous Soviet-American relations. At the time, the US was the only country with specific information on the raw materials needed to make a nuke; and they thought that secret ingredient—uranium—was limited.”
“We hoped since we held all the cards, everyone else would fold.”
He nodded. “Except the Soviets had an ace or two up their sleeve. Aside from the fact that there were spies in the Manhattan Project feeding sensitive Intel back to Stalin, the USSR upped the ante and beat America to space. In ’57 they launched Sputnik, took the US completely by surprise, because now there was a satellite that could potentially spy on and launch ballistic missiles at America. Which brings us closer to the crux of our current venture.
“In one of the responses to Sputnik, the US founded what is known today as DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agen—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard of DARPA,” Kizzie interrupted. “Not-so-secret secret agent, remember? Basically the tech engine for the Department of Defense. How do they relate to Harvey?”
Xander held up his hands in apology. “In the early 70’s, DARPA went from being an open source for brilliant scientific minds to being specifically tasked with military applications. During that shift, information regarding this assignment—Project Harvey—was leaked. It was an idea with roots in the end days of the nuclear arms race.
“Your standard nuke,” he explained, “generally gets high energy yield from a small amount of fissile matter—plutonium…uranium. Upon detonation of a nuclear warhead, there’s the initial blast and then there’s radioactivity from the fallout—but that usually disperses within the first 72 hours post-incident. The majority of the loss, in terms of human life and property, is caused by the explosion.”
Kizzie shook her head. “Why are we so intent on our own annihilation?”
“Idle minds?”
“All right, what makes Harvey so special?”
“What if you sacrifice the size of the blast, but exponentially increase the radioactive fallout?”
She thought on it a moment. “You’d
still have a massive death toll on impact, but a lot more casualties would come later from the secondary effects of the radiation…the area would be uninhabitable for decades if not centuries, totally destroying the ecosystem of the target and miles around it. It would crash an economy—depending on where it’s detonated you could wipe out a population….” Her eyes widened, realization dawning. “Harvey’s a salted bomb?”
“‘Harvey’ is the acronym for H. R. V.,” Xander smiled, “Highly Radioactive Variant. Remember, it’s just a theory: Wrap your nuclear-grade plutonium in a casing of cobalt, or gold, or any other metallic, high-intensity gamma ray emitter. Drop the bomb—some of the radioactive energy from the explosion gets transferred to the casing; that newly energized casing is vaporized and scattered, but the atoms are heavy enough to fall out of atmosphere and keep emitting harmful rays for years. The bomb that keeps on killing.
“The scientist who thought it up was actually using it as an argument to stop nuclear proliferation by bringing attention to the very fact you just mentioned: If we kept at it, eventually we’d wipe out mankind. No salted bombs have ever been tested, because reportedly none were ever built.”
“But that’s a lie?” Kizzie said. The question was rhetorical. That they were even discussing it meant Harvey was a scary reality.
“The Soviets took the idea and ran with it. Even though they signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the 70’s, apparently they still didn’t trust the US and wanted to be prepared.
“Enter Nikolay. Sokoviev wasn’t into the heavy stuff, dabbling more in plastics and—” Xander held up a hand, halting Kizzie’s rant. “I understand plastics are heavy, but nuclear they’re not. Mostly he supplied various rebel factions with guns and a special version of RDX he’d modified with the help of a Japanese engineer to make more…impactful. In the grand scheme of things, it was slow money, unsteady pay, and didn’t justify the risks. But Nikolay was a lucky man; never got jammed up. A couple of years ago, he stumbles upon Harvey—and not just the theory, the actual bomb.”