"No. Yes. Oh, I don't know!" Thrown off kilter, she tried again. "You haven't had time to find your feet in the twenty-first century, much less find another woman to share your days—and your nights— with."
"That's true," he agreed. "But you have to give me a little credit here. I've been around the block enough times to know I don't want another woman. What I don't know is how you feel about this... What did you call it? This intense situation."
He'd tossed the ball right back into her court, darn it. Maybe he was right. Instead of trying to analyze his feelings, it was time she took a hard look at her own.
"I'm on the same runaway roller you are," she admitted slowly. "I keep plunging into doubt and uncertainty, then climbing to dizzying heights of lust and longing and..."
And love?
No! This crazy jumble of emotions couldn't be love.
Could it?
He must have read the question in her eyes. His smile became a swift, rakish grin. "Helluva ride, isn't it?"
"Yes!"
"Well, since there's no jumping off a roller coaster in midcourse, we might as well enjoy the ups and downs."
Bending, he planted another kiss on her mouth. There was nothing tender about this one, nothing gentle. It was hard and hungry and all consuming. Diana was about to go under for the final time when Charlie dragged his head up and swept the room with a frustrated glare.
''Did your friend activate her hidden cameras before she left?"
Oh, Lord! She'd forgotten all about the blasted things. Nothing like providing a first-class peep show for the folks back at OMEGA. If any of the other operatives happened to be in the control center, she'd never live this down.
"They're on," she confirmed.
"I'll take care of them. Channel 62 for privacy, right?"
"Right."
He got a knee under him and pushed to his feet.
Or tried to. Halfway up, he grunted. His entire body went taut.
"Charlie?"
Thinking that he'd spotted something that caught his attention, Diana scrambled to her knees and threw a quick look over her shoulder. She whipped back around just as he toppled over and landed on his butt for the second time in less than twenty minutes.
Tight white lines etched into either side of his mouth. Beads of perspiration popped out his forehead. Alarmed, she laid a hand on his cheek. The skin felt cold and clammy against her palm.
"Charlie, what's the matter?"
As quickly as it had come, the glazed look in his eyes disappeared.
"Guess I hit the floor harder than I thought a few moments ago," he said slowly.
Guilt swamped Diana until she remembered how he'd stumbled while they were dancing at the pier last night. White lines had cut into his cheeks then, too, but he'd shrugged off the incident. So had she.
Cursing herself for a fool, she snatched up his wrist and searched for his pulse. It galloped under her fingertips for a few seconds before gradually slowing.
"You'd better sit here and rest a little while." "I'm all right," he insisted, pushing to his feet.
He made it all the way up this time. Jumping up, Diana planted herself right in front of him.
"Don't go all tough and he-man on me, mister. Something's wrong and we need to find out what. How many of these dizzy spells have you had?''
"Three or four."
"Why didn't you tell the flight surgeon at Edwards about them?"
"Because I didn't attach any particular significance to them."
She gave a little puff of disgust.
"Occasional dizziness is an occupational hazard that comes with flying the U-2," he said patiently. ''Heat builds up in the flight suit during taxi, pattern work and landing. Once in flight, you're encased in rubber for nine hours plus at a stretch. I don't know a single U-2 pilot who wasn't a little dizzy and swimming in his own sweat when he finally climbed out of the cockpit."
"You're not wearing a flight suit now," she pointed out with a touch of acid.
''True, but forty plus years on ice could have generated all kinds of delayed reactions."
She didn't have an argument for that.
“I was confused and disoriented for days after I woke up," he offered in further self-defense. "If I experienced any black moments then, they got lost in the shuffle. The first time I really felt the punch was at the pier."
Chewing on her lower lip, Diana weighed the options. Her first impulse was to bundle Charlie into the Hawk, speed back to Edwards, and have the docs take another look at him. Her second, to get on the horn and find out why the flight surgeon hadn't e-mailed her the results of the first battery of tests as promised.
When presented with both options, Charlie voted for the second. "Might as well see what the tests show before we jump the gun."
Nodding, she headed for the bedroom in search of the purse she'd dropped when she'd dived through the sliding glass doors after Charlie. She found it on the floor and dug out the flight surgeon's business card. After a quick check of her notebook computer to make sure the information hadn't come in while they'd walked the beach, she put in a call to Edwards. She didn't have to worry about using the regular phone line. Mackenzie had made sure any calls originating from their unit wouldn't be intercepted.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," a harried-sounding med tech replied. "The doctor's with a patient. If you'll leave your number, I'll have him get back to you."
Frustrated, Diana rattled off the number of the resort. "Tell him I need to know the test results on Major Stone ASAP."
"Yes, ma'am."
* * *
The flight surgeon returned her call twenty minutes later and apologized for not sending the results earlier.
"There was an anomaly in the major's blood work, so I had the lab rerun the tests."
Diana's fingers tightened on the phone. "What kind of anomaly?"
"One of the blood gas samples showed a spike in the oxygen level, yet the other samples all fell within the normal range. Seemed strange, so I decided to check it out. I just got the report back a few minutes ago. Hang on while I skim through it."
Tension crawled up Diana's neck. Toe tapping against the carpet, she clutched the phone in a sweat-dampened palm and counted the seconds.
"Well, this confirms the first test," the doc said a few moments later. "Major Stone's p02 levels showed significant elevation for that one sample, but not the others."
"How significant?"
"Enough to affect his capillary density. They'd have to contract to counter the increased oxygen flow to his brain."
"Would that cause him to pass out?"
"It could. Why?" the doc asked sharply. "Has he blacked out?''
"No, but he's experienced brief periods of dizziness."
"Well, I don't see any real cause for alarm at this point, but I'd like to overnight this lab report and the blood samples to a buddy of mine stationed at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio."
Brooks housed the air force's medical research center, Diana knew, a world-renowned center of excellence. Belatedly, she remembered that Dr. Goode had recommended taking Charlie back to Brooks in the first place.
"Lieutenant Colonel Murphy's our foremost expert on the effects of altitude on oxygenation. He's practically written the book on controlling body gasses during the aeromedical transport of critically ill or injured patients. If anyone can make sense of this spike, Murph can."
"All right, but ask him to get back to you as soon as possible, would you?"
"Sure thing."
Diana hung up, uneasy and dissatisfied. There were still too many questions, too few answers. A quick glance at her watch showed it was just past three in the afternoon. The courier should have delivered the rubber samples to the Lawrence Liver-more Lab by now, but the tests she'd requested would take some hours. It wouldn't hurt to hurry them along a little bit, though.
Moments later, she reached Dr. Sylvie Marquez-Jourdain, formerly Dr. Sylvie Dalton-O'Neil. Diana
and Sylvie had shared a microscope their second year of college before opting for different specialties. They'd kept in touch through grad school, Sylvie's three marriages, and Diana's erratic career moves.
"Hey, girl," Sylvie boomed. Larger than life and totally content with her two hundred plus pounds, the biochemist took no prisoners. "I got your package. My folks are slicing and dicing the rubber pellets now. Anything special you want us to look for?"
'”No. I just need to know what caused the rubber to crumble into bits like that. And I need it fast, Syl."
"When's the last time you needed something slow?" her friend drawled. Having helped Diana unravel the mystery of a paint solvent that poisoned a high-level diplomat some years ago, she was one of only two people outside OMEGA who knew about Diana's alter ego. The other was Major Charles Stone.
"Just call me as soon as you have something, okay?"
"I will, I will."
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
Charlie proved better at it than Diana. Restless and worried about his physical condition, she killed some time by rinsing out her slacks and top, which had stiffened from salt spray during their earlier walk. Hanging the wet clothes over the shower rod, she emerged from the bedroom wearing the last of the outfits she'd purchased during the hurried stop at the mall. The gray cotton tunic and leggings were whisper thin and snuggly soft, perfect for warding off the breeze that blew in from the sea.
Charlie's gaze zinged right to the slope of her shoulder, bared by the wide, comfortable tunic neck. She knew him well enough by now to know the appreciation that sprang into his blue eyes had as much to do with the absence of a bra as with the casual but elegant drape of the tunic.
He knew her well enough by now to refrain from any comment other than to advise her that he'd ordered dinner from room service.
"Guess we'll see how well all those security gizmos work when it's delivered."
The gizmos worked perfectly. The outside sensors sounded a silent alert. The cameras tracked the arrival of the small entourage with a wheeled cart.
They ate on the deck, witnesses to another glorious sunset. With the sky ablaze in red and gold, Charlie polished off his sea bass. Whatever caused his dizziness certainly hadn't affected his appetite, Diana noted while she picked at her red snapper almondine.
"Not hungry?"
"Not very." She eyed his empty plate. "You did pretty good, all things considered."
"U-2 drivers learn fast never to pass up a meal.
Sometimes we'd go ten, twelve hours between feedings."
"Tell me," she urged, laying aside her fork. "Talk me through one of your missions."
He hesitated, reluctant even now to reveal exact details of an operation he'd sworn to keep secret. Diana could only begin to appreciate the giant mental leap it required for him to open up.
''Getting ready for a flight took almost as long as the flight itself," he said finally. "We'd conduct all the usual preflight planning, study weather patterns, take intelligence briefs. Then, when we reported to the Life Support, we'd strip down and begin suiting up."
"I read that you weren't allowed to carry any ID or tags that might have identified you as Americans."
"They even snipped the labels off our skivvies."
"I'm sure that completely fooled the Soviets when Powers went down," Diana said solemnly.
"Hey, tell it to the CIA."
"Those amateurs," she sniffed. "Go on."
''Once we were suited up, we spent an hour sitting on our hands while one hundred percent oxygen was pumped through our life support equipment."
''To acclimate you to the pure oxygen that would come through the breathing apparatus in flight?"
"Right. I always hated that idle hour, but knew it was necessary to keep from getting the bends."
The bends!
Diana shot straight up in her chair. With an almost audible click, her mind began to spin frantically.
From the brutal underwater escape and evasion training OMEGA put its agents through, she knew all too well the rapid reduction in surrounding pressure could cause nitrogen bubbles to form in the blood. These bubbles...or beads, as they were called in the diving community...led to decompression sickness, a potentially fatal condition.
But in its more benign state, nitrogen gas comprised seventy-eight percent of the earth's atmosphere. All living things required N2 to live. A relatively stable gas, it was composed of two atoms held together by a tough triple bond. Once broken down, these atoms formed the "amino" in amino acids—the major component in DNA, RNA and proteins.
Breaking down the bond was the key. That only occurred at extremely high temperatures. Or through the magic of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Suddenly, all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. The faulty readings on the laser scanning microscope Dr. Goode had ordered flown up to the Arctic. The sluggish protein regeneration in Charlie's blood cells. His dizziness. Even the inexplicable oxygen spike.
Damn! The answer had been right in front of her the whole time and she hadn't seen it.
"I've got to call my friend at Lawrence Liver-more!"
Bolting out of her chair, she dashed for the phone.
Chapter 12
"Sylvie, this is Diana. Have you...?"
"It was a bacterium," her friend broke in triumphantly. "A rare variant of the nitrogen-fixing microbial consortia. I found traces of several in the samples you sent."
"I knew it!"
There was a ponderous silence at the other end of the line. Sylvie broke it with a disgusted huff.
"Well, hell, girl. If you knew what I was supposed to be looking for, you could have told me up front and saved me all these hours at the lab."
' I just figured it out ten seconds ago, Syl. Listen, you said this was a rare variant. How rare is rare?"
"It's a mutant, actually. Best I recall, this strain was originally developed as part of an experimental attempt to speed conversion of nitrogen gas to ammonia."
"Thus boosting the manufacture of amino acids and proteins in living organisms," Diana murmured.
"Exactly."
"Do you know who developed it?" She had an idea, but asked the question anyway.
"I'd have to research the little critter before I give you a definitive answer, but I think it was developed in a lab right here in California. I remember reading that the U.S. Army appropriated it for use in their early biological warfare studies."
The sick certainty that Charlie had been right formed in the pit of Diana's stomach. Dr. Goode's early work had contributed heavily to the army's biological warfare program. And he'd retained an adjunct professorship at UCLA during the years he worked with the U-2 cadre.
She had to get access to those CIA files! With a wrench, she tuned back in to what Sylvie was saying.
"This little stinker proved too volatile even for the germ warfare guys. It wreaked havoc on blood gasses of living organisms, but the effect was transitory. Too transitory to make it an effective weapon, anyway."
Bingo! That explained the sporadic spikes in Charlie's blood oxygenation levels. The mutant microbes he'd breathed in during his last flight were still in his blood. Like Charlie, they'd gone to sleep when his blood circulation ceased and his body froze. Now, they'd come alive again.
"What's this variant's life cycle?" she asked urgently.
Most of the common bacteria she was familiar with lived anywhere from two hours to two weeks. There was no telling how long this mutant could exist.
“About twelve days, as I recall, but let me check it out and get back to you."
Diana hung up a moment later, her heart thumping like a brassbound kettledrum. Twelve days. How many days had passed since Charlie woke up? She did a frantic mental count and came up two days short.
Oh, God! What if this microbe was just coming to full strength? What if it sucked in nitrogen from the air and caused beads to form in Charlie's bl
ood? What if he got the bends, died right in front of her!
"What was that all about?"
Whirling, she faced the man standing at her shoulder. The fear that seared through her in a single, blinding flash triggered an instantaneous chain reaction.
The scientist in her acknowledged that she'd lost all detachment where Major Charles Stone was concerned.
The woman in her acknowledged that whatever she felt for him had slipped the point of lust and flirted perilously close to a fierce, desperate love.
Only the undercover agent retained any semblance of control over her emotions. Hanging on to her cool by her fingernails, Diana answered as calmly as she could.
"We know what ate through the rubber seals on your pressure suit...and what's causing your dizzy spells."
He lifted a quizzical brow. "Something tells me I'm not going to like what I'm about to hear."
"It's a bug. A mutant microbe."
"I was right. I don't like it."
"I don't like it much, either."
Using layman's terms whenever possible, Diana recounted what Sylvie had uncovered so far. Luckily, Charlie's training and experience as a high-altitude pilot gave him a ready grasp of the dynamics of atmospheric gasses.
"I don't know why we didn't pick up any sign of this bacterium in the serology samples we took at the oceanographic station." Gnawing on her lower lip, Diana sorted through the possibilities. ''It might have been dormant. Or maybe stored in certain root cells, like the shingles virus. My best guess is it only became active after you regained full circulatory function. I'll bet it shows up in the blood sample the flight surgeon at Edwards sent down to Books, though. In any case, we'd better get you back to the base so we can track this sucker.''
She started for the bedroom, intending to throw their things into the shopping bags and hustle her charge to a controlled hospital environment. Charlie pulled her up short.
"Wait a minute. We know this bug caused my life support system to fail, but we don't know how it got into the system in the first place."
"We can worry about that later, Stone. Right now, my main concern is your health. We're going back to the base."
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