by Cherry Adair
"Not particularly." Josh's tone was dry. "This little guy isn't going to kill thousands of people."
No. Just the most important person in Asher Daklin’s life.
"You were damn lucky to get out of Ben Tahla with only an injury. It beat the crap out of the alternative, right?"
"I lost operatives and friends that day." And he’d vowed to figure out how defuse that type of bomb before more people were killed or injured. He'd never considered his baby brother would be one of them.
"Once we knew what to look for, it wasn't long before we found half a dozen Nuts in the nest of a known terrorist cell outside Paris. We returned home with the Nuts in a lead-lined, titanium box for me to play with while I recuperated. And because of the Ben Talha injury, I was able to spend considerable more time in the lab working on a solution to what's rapidly becoming a tango favorite."
"Due to its small size, ease of transportation, and powerful impact, right?" Josh didn't sound quite as terrified now, which bothered the crap out of Ash. His brother had gone from fear to acceptance.
Asher, however, had not. From here to the lab was a straight shot. No curves or hills to slow him down even a millisecond. He pushed the engine as he methodically went through everything he knew about E-1x in his mind. Precious little. He had minutes to come up with a solution to a problem that he'd been working on with a full team of scientists and chemists for six fucking months.
"Boko Haram used it last week to annihilate a village in Baga, Nigeria," he absently told Josh as icy snow, kicked up by the tires, pelted the windshield. Keep talking, business as usual. "We suspect a suicide bomber carried one unnoticed on board that Russian airbus over Sinai the week before. More reports of its use come in every day."
"This shit's the tango’s explosive of choice internationally now, right? Tell me about it."
"Fuckit it Josh. You know all this shit."
Josh's pause was filled with a shaky breath. "Just wanna hear your voice."
His brother's words struck his chest like a physical blow. Ash got it. He needed to hear Josh's voice, too. His brother depended on him. He was the kid's fucking hero.
Go go go. Already flooring the accelerator, Asher couldn't make the truck go any faster. "That inner off-white core is high density crystal packed with similar characteristics to Cubane's eight carbon atoms arranged at the corners of a cube, with one hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom. Except this shit isn't manmade. We named it E-1x, based on its atomic structure, or the Nut, for its appearance similar to that of a Hawaiian kukui nut--"
"Keep talking."
"The high-density substance packed inside the hard outer coating is found in nature. Somewhere. So far, we haven’t ascertained its origins, or how the fuck to neutralize it. The methods in play to defuse and neutralize Cubane don't work worth shit on this natural substance."
Something else his brother knew; Every controlled experiment had ended with a big fucking bang.
Now Josh had opened Pandora's box. No going back.
"Are you geared up?" Taking the straightaway at high speed, his headlights sliced through the blackness. The tires shimmied before regaining traction.
"It won't protect me if it blows. I know. Love you, Ash."
"Christ. Don't get maudlin. I'll be there in two. I’ll figure something out." There was nothing to figure out. He knew it, Josh knew it. Dread welled like black acid through his veins. "At the tree now." The tree was a massive, fifty-foot tall, hundred-year-old Douglas fir. Two long fucking minutes away. The seconds ticked in his head like the detonator on a timed bomb. Go go go.
"Stay back there." Dead calm.
No, no, no, no. Ash's foot couldn't press on the accelerator any harder. "Fuck you, Joshua Daklin. Goddamn it, I'm almost there."
There was a loud pause before his brother said quietly, "Tell Mom I love her, and that I'm sorry about the whole grandchildren thing. You'll have to double up on that, big brother."
"Your mother doesn't want my grandchildren, bro. She wants yours. You'll give her plenty, and they’ll all be as hardheaded as their father. Hang on, almost there." Snow sprayed in an arc as he did a wheelie at the foot of the steps of the bomb lab. "Pulling up now. Be with you in less than thirt—"
The world suddenly exploded into a bright ball of orange flames.
One
Los Santos
Cosio
18 months later
If Asher Daklin wasn't on a time-sensitive op, if his career wasn't already FUBAR, seeing the long, shapely legs of a beautiful blonde emerging from a red sports car would've intrigued him. But seeing said blonde and the Mustang convertible—circa 1990—in a tiny village in Cosio, in the middle of goddamned nowhere, put him on high alert. He'd seen the woman three hundred miles away, and nine hours earlier, refusing assistance with her luggage at the Santa de Pores airport.
She'd followed him over the mountain.
It was a six-hour trip. Where'd she been for the other three?
Undercover, and in character from the moment he'd landed in Cosio, Daklin's disguise was that of a bishop, there to "authenticate" an "apparition" for deeply religious, and even more unscrupulous radical, Francisco Xavier. The “apparition” was one of T-FLAC's making. It should be interesting to see the FX in person later tonight.
In the meantime, Daklin was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey in layered liturgical vestments of cassock, white rochet, and over that the black Chimere. Even at dusk, the temperature in the valley hovered in the mid-nineties; humidity, eighty percent. Sweat ran down the small of his back, making the layers of fabric stick to him like a shroud.
Bringing his parish priest with him, Francisco Xavier himself had personally come to collect Bishop Daklin from the airport earlier that morning in an air-conditioned four-wheel drive replete with snacks and bottles of iced water. He'd done the twelve hour round trip just so he could talk to Bishop Daklin about his apparition in private. Nothing in this small, poor village of Los Santos was private. All of Franco's vehicles, his home and his private chapel, had been bugged since the other five T-FLAC operatives had arrived a week earlier.
The only reason T-FLAC had given Daklin this one last chance was because he was the resident authority on E-1x. If not for that, his out of control drinking after Josh's death would've gotten his ass fired.
He couldn't afford to be distracted. He'd figured he could lay off the booze for the three days necessary to do this job. Only he hadn't anticipated this new temptation.
His instant cockstand, just looking at the blonde, reminded Daklin how long it had been since he'd had a good fuck. Even longer since he’d had one while sober. Either way, sober or drunk, it had been too damn long, and now, if things went as planned, it was too damned late to have one more. Too bad his fucking days were over. Hot, unwelcome need buzzed through his body as she approached. She carried herself with the self-confidence of a woman aware of her sex appeal and comfortable in her own skin. Sexy. Confident. Ultra-feminine.
She was an unnecessary complication in an already problematic, volatile situation. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to travel all this way to a jungle-surrounded village of five hundred people. There wasn't even a stop sign in the mining town and the only law was Francisco Xavier, who was about as law abiding as any terrorist, which was not at all.
The country of Cosio, nestled in the Qhapaq Mountains between Ecuador, Columbia, and Peru, had been a hot bed of terrorism until recently. And, no matter that those tangos had been cleaned out of the country, it was still a dangerous place.
Daklin resisted the useless action of gripping his left thigh. No point. The pain was always excruciating and unrelenting. Standing, sitting, walking. Night and day. It hurt like the fires of hell had scored bone and muscle. A constant, unrelenting reminder he was alive. Josh wasn't.
No painkillers, no booze. He deserved to remember. Every minute.
"Were you expecting her?" he asked his host, Francisco call-me-Franco-Xavier. Five-eleven,
slicked back, silvering at the temples, black hair, religious fanatic. Xavier was seventy-two but looked fifty, thanks to two facelifts. In his crisp blue cotton shirt and black pants, he looked as refined and respectable as a bank president, not one of T-FLAC's top ten most wanted terrorists.
"I recommended she not come, Your Excellency." With a small, concerned frown, Xavier observed as the blonde exited the car and slammed the door. She gave a cheerful little wave to the three men waiting under the portico of Xavier's hacienda as she rounded the steaming hood of the vehicle. "I talked to her a few days ago. Her brother, Dr. Sullivan, was an employee. I informed her he left Los Santos several weeks ago."
Oliver Sullivan. He was the brainiac biochemist hired to do so much more than merely manufacture small explosives to aid in the mining of emeralds; because it wasn't emeralds they were pulling from the mountain at all. It was pure E-1x. Sullivan was just as culpable for thousands of deaths worldwide as Xavier himself. As yet, his bosses had no idea why Sullivan had left Los Santos.
They had enough intel to know there was a ticking time bomb, one programmed for seventy-two hours, somewhere. Daklin and his men had barely three days to unravel this clusterfuck before half the civilized, and probably a good portion of the uncivilized, world blew up.
He was on shaky ground with this op. He'd been warned: One more fuck up and he'd be kicked out of T-FLAC for good.
Without T-FLAC, life as he knew it would be over. He’d be eighty-sixed. T-FLAC wouldn’t be writing letters of recommendation for him. He’d be blacklisted from the world of special ops. Reputable private security companies wouldn’t touch him. If he was lucky, he'd get a gig as a mall cop hoping to nab a fucking teenage shoplifter. With that kind of work, he wouldn’t make it to the food court on day one. He’d die by noon—by his own hand.
At least the issue would be resolved in seventy-two hours, because this was one job he would not fuck up. Still, there was a ninety-nine point nine percent chance he wouldn't make it out of this op alive. His vindication would have to be posthumous.
Hell. He craved a drink so bad; his tongue touched his palate and tricked him into believing he could taste the smooth burn of alcohol. God, he wanted to drink himself numb, and watch his ninety-inch television in his dark apartment.
Ever since Josh’s death, there hadn’t been enough alcohol to quiet his brain, or bring him any measure of peace.
And now her.
Go the fuck away, Barbie.
"If she's anything like Oliver--" Father Marcus said, "she'll be focused and driven."
Marcus Cawcutt was a kind, decent, God-loving man. Looking at him now, nobody would've guessed he'd been a T-FLAC operative in his youth. A kind man who loved his flock, Marcus would do whatever it took to save both their souls and their physical bodies. Now in his late sixties, his salt and pepper hair perpetually mussed, he observed the young woman's progress with kindly brown eyes. "I'll talk to her. It was a long drive. She must be hot and thirsty."
She was hot, and he was thirsty.
Fuck it.
Her wide smile was way too damned cheerful for someone who'd been driving a convertible, top down in this heat for hours. Big, soft eyes. Choppy, streaky, chin-length blonde hair and gorgeous, streamlined body. "Buenas noches, señores." Her accent was good, her voice husky and filled with warmth and good humor.
Wholesome, sophisticated, and downright lickable, despite the enervating heat, she looked as fresh as a dewy fucking daisy as she crunched across the gravel driveway in front of the portico. White shorts and thin, knee-high, crisscrossed straps on her flat-soled, gladiator-style sandals showcased her spectacular legs.
In any other city, at almost any-fucking-other-time, Daklin would've gladly undertaken the challenge to see whether her nod to bondage was merely a fashion statement or a promise.
As if there weren't enough explosive situations present, her appearance in this godforsaken pisshole of a village was guaranteed to work randy old Xavier into a lather.
Daklin exchanged a speaking look with Father Marcus before returning his gaze to Barbie.
A sheer, turquoise-colored, long-sleeved shirt, rolled up to her elbows, hung open over a white tank top that exposed the upper curve of her creamy breasts where a chunky turquoise necklace didn't quite fill in the area from throat to décolletage.
He wanted to fall on her like a starving lion and drag her off to his lair. Or toss her back in the car and order her to return to whichever fairy glade she'd come from.
Daklin considered the woman as dangerous as a heavily armed tango. He said mildly, "You have a flat tire."
Gray. Her eyes were a kitten gray with long dark lashes, and a gleam that told him nothing was going to get her down today. Not the heat, not the flat tire, and not a less than enthusiastic welcoming committee.
"I drove on it for four out of nine hours over mountain roads. There aren’t many gas stations around." When she tucked a blonde strand behind her ears, diamond earrings sparkled in the early evening sun, disappearing as a red streak over the mountains. "I'll have to have it repaired before I head back, Father."
Daklin would repair it himself right now if it guaranteed she'd turn right around and head back. Except the mountains were no place for a woman. Hell, they were no place for any rational person, especially when driving alone and at night. Marauding guerrillas and other dangerous elements prowled the jungle on either side of the treacherously narrow, winding mountain road. The trip was hazardous enough during the day, but at night it would be certain suicide. Shitfuckdamn.
"Your Excellency," Daklin corrected, his tone cool, and just this side of ‘fuck off, lady’. "Father Marcus here is called Father. As a bishop, I'm called Your Excellency or Bishop Daklin."
"River Sullivan." The open, friendly smile didn't dim. Fuck. She extended a slender, ringless hand. "I've never met a bishop before. And you must be Father Marcus and Senor Xavier?" She paused before shaking hands to wave away a fat, iridescent bug hovering over her sweat-dampened cheek. Her gaze was direct and curious as it rested on each man's face. This woman clearly didn't have a nervous bone in her body. Would she be as bold in bed? Dumbass. Focus, for fucksake.
"I've heard so much about both of you."
Xavier extended his hand. "Call me Franco, please."
Daklin wanted to lick the sweat from her skin. He wanted to screw her until they both went blind. Damn it to hell, he had to get rid of her. Thank God his robes covered a multitude of sins. His weapons, and now, his inappropriately animated dick.
He stuck his hands into his pockets and left them there.
Shake, shake. Smiles all around. Franco and Marcus were clearly charmed, Daklin thought sourly. Marcus liked everyone. And Xavier, when he wasn't a psychopathic tango, was a lecherous dick, which Barbie would soon discover if she stayed long enough to spend any time alone with him.
"Come." Xavier offered his crooked elbow and she trustingly slipped her hand through it. "I'll have Ramse show you to your room." He snapped his fingers for his bodyguard. Ramse Ortiz was one of the T-FLAC operatives in town, and someone Daklin needed to talk to ASAP. "Since I wasn't expecting you, I'm afraid the only room available is the one your brother used on the rare occasions he came into town. Would you prefer refreshments sent up, or would you like to come downstairs for drinks? We don't eat for another hour."
"If I may, I'd like to take a shower first. Then I'd love to join you."
Dear God, was she fucking offering herself up as a goddamned sacrificial lamb? Why the hell would she willingly put the image of herself wet and naked into any red-blooded man's brain?
Barbie wanted a shower.
Well, fucking good for her.
Now all Daklin saw when he looked at her was her naked body under a transparent sheet of water. One glance at Xavier, who was licking his lips as he looked down at her and murmured, “Of course, you’d like a shower,” told Daklin that Xavier’s thoughts were boomeranging in the same direction. "Your arduous trip was in vain, I
'm afraid. Your brother is no longer here, Miss Sullivan." Tension made his voice harsher than he intended. "I'd suggest you shower and get refreshments to go so you can get back on the road before full dark."
Yeah, he wanted her gone so badly that he'd have her put her life in jeopardy on the mountain roads. Because the chances of her survival here in Los Santos in the next few days were slim to none.
She turned her head to give him a puzzled look over her shoulder. "I've been driving on a tire rim for hours. Is there a mechanic in town, Your Excellency? Or perhaps, you can change the tire for me before I turn around and make another nine-hour trip in the dark, on my own, traveling on dangerous mountain roads with which I'm unfamiliar. When I'm this tired?"
Sassy. "It's a six-hour drive, Miss Sullivan. I'm sure Señor Xavier has someone competent to change your tire while you freshen up and pack a meal to take with you."
Oh, shit. Daklin had seen that stubborn jaw tilt before. From his brother, Josh. The lady was about to dig in her heels.
"It's a six-hour drive to someone familiar with how to get to and from the airport," she said pleasantly. "Unfortunately, my map and I had a difference of opinion. I'm sure if Señor Xavier wants me to leave, he wouldn't be so rude as to expect me to leave in the dead of night." She cast big, inquiring gray eyes up at Xavier.
Xavier patted her hand, which was still hooked over his arm. "Of course not, my dear. Mi casa es tu casa. Rest. Refresh yourself. I'll have your car in good repair by morning."
Yeah, good old Xavier didn't want her poking around either. That made Daklin's job easier.
She'd be easily dispatched come morning.
#
"Are you sure this Bishop is who he claims to be? His arrival, now, is highly suspect."
Franco's skin heated with annoyance. The disembodied voice had the effect of making his balls clench, which both annoyed and turned him on. He wished he dared activate the jamming signals so that he couldn't call. Yet he waited for the infrequent calls like a damned puppy being given a treat.