Hot Intent (Hqn)

by Dees, Cindy

  The woman in his arms went deceptively relaxed and then lurched violently, attempting to tear free of his grasp.

  As if he hadn’t seen that one coming from a mile away. He tapped her almost gently in the temple with the barrel of his pistol. Just enough to daze her but not enough to knock her out cold.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he chided. In the moment it had taken for him to subdue Claudia, Katie had managed to get herself turned around in her guards’ arms to face him. The voices were clamoring again in his head. He had a gun to his mother’s head. How fucked up was that?

  Katie looked equal parts relieved and chagrined to see him. “I told you to run. To save yourself.”

  “My mother. My problem.”

  She stared at him closely. Worry blossomed in her big blue eyes. Dammit, she knew him too well. She saw how hard he was having to fight to hold it together. She spoke slowly, carefully, as if willing him to hear her. “She’s not worth it, Alex.”

  His mother stirred in his arms, rousing to full awareness once more.

  He ordered grimly, “Call off the dogs, Claudia. I’d hate to have to kill this batch, too.”

  “It was a tactical mistake to call my ops center, Alexei,” Claudia said calmly. “It was obvious that you would make a run at me like this. You didn’t seriously think I would not take precautions to protect myself, did you?”

  As if on cue, a half dozen weapons safeties disengaged behind Alex. Sonofabitch. She’d had an entire backup team just sitting in the woods, waiting for him to show himself. Bastards had probably had him in their sights all along.

  “Disarm him if you please, gentlemen,” Claudia said pleasantly.

  Hard hands grabbed him, yanked the pistol out of his hands and searched him roughly and rudely. He was manhandled back into the living room, along with Katie.

  “Found this, ma’am,” one of the heavily body-armored men announced. Alex spied the flash drive of chemical weapons evidence in the guy’s palm.

  “I’ll take that,” Claudia announced triumphantly. She moved over to the rolltop secretary’s desk in the corner and opened a laptop computer. The tableau of armed men and prisoners froze in time as the computer turned on and booted up. His mother plugged the flash drive into the computer and quickly opened the contents.

  Photographs, the gas chromatograph readouts and his own case notes flashed onto the screen. “I’ll be quite the hero for bringing in this evidence,” Claudia purred.

  “Other people in the agency will know where it came from and who obtained it.”

  “Of course they will. The loving son shared it with his thankful mother just before an unfortunate accident claimed his life and that of his girlfriend. So many enemies my poor son had. One of them finally caught up with him.”

  He watched dispassionately as she typed out a quick email, attached the contents of the flash drive to it and hit the send button with a flourish.

  “Was Cold Intent really only about revenge against my father?” he asked curiously. “Did you love him so much, then?”

  “Love—” She burst out laughing. “I hated his guts.”

  He shrugged. “In my experience, love and hate are the two sides of the same coin. The opposite of love is apathy, Mother, not hate. If you actively hate Peter, you still have powerful feelings for him.”

  He felt everyone in the room gaping at him. Of all the stares, the one he chose to meet was Katie’s. She was the only person here who would truly understand what he was saying. After all, she’d both loved and hated him.

  Sure enough, she smiled wistfully at him just a little. Then she mouthed the words, I love you.

  “I love you, too,” he murmured back aloud. His gaze swung to his mother. “Thank you for that, Claudia. You may have been a complete failure as a parent, and I may have been raised in hate, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I was conceived in love.”

  “Love?” she screeched. “I despised Peter Koronov!”

  “He never got over you, either,” Alex said calmly in response to her enraged outburst.

  His simple words deflated her like a balloon. She collapsed into the same chair she’d been sitting in earlier. All of a sudden, she looked every year of her age and more.

  She stared at a spot on the carpet for a minute, or maybe even a little longer. And then looked up and said simply, “Kill them both.”

  Katie let out a cry of distress.

  Alex laughed.

  Claudia looked up at him sharply. “You think this is a joke? That I won’t do it?”

  “I think you’re a fool for underestimating your own son, Mother.”

  Claudia raised a hand to forestall the thugs from dragging him and Katie from the room.

  “You asked me if I thought you wouldn’t see my approach to you coming. Let me ask you a question. Did you seriously think I would barge in here without a backup plan of my own?”

  “You’re bluffing,” she scoffed. “I have access to every operational deployment order in the CIA. No team was sent out here to save you.”

  He threw back his head and laughed richly at that.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You thought I would call the CIA for help, knowing that you have the agency in your back pocket? That was a stupid miscalculation on your part. I guess we know which side of the family my brains come from, now, don’t we?”

  Katie gasped. Smart girl. She’d figured out what he’d done.

  Claudia half rose from the chair. “What have you done?” she demanded.

  “What else, Mother dearest? I called Father dearest.”

  The phrase Father dearest was the prearranged signal. Alex had just enough time to dive for Katie and knock her flat on the floor beneath him before every window in the house burst inward in an explosion of shattered glass, as a Spetsnaz team poured in, their AK-47s spitting death.

  CIA men leaped every which way for cover, firing back as all hell broke loose. Dozens of razor-sharp cuts from flying glass sliced his arms, back and face as he covered Katie as best he could.

  The lights went out, and the chaos was complete as muzzle flashes exploded from every direction. Something hot slammed into his left leg, and he grunted involuntarily in pain. It took a little maneuvering to roll on his side and tend to the wound, but he managed to tear off a length of his undershirt and tie off the gunshot wound without getting hit again.

  “Can you move?” he yelled in Katie’s ear.

  “Yes!” she shouted back.

  He paused long enough to peel off one of the two cloth patches taped to the shoulders of his sweater and to slap it on Katie’s shoulder. The infrared marker cloth would identify her to his father’s men as a friend in the firefight and not a foe. His remaining shoulder patch would do the same for him. “Stay low and follow me!” he ordered as the worst of the gunfire moved outside the house.

  “Ya think?” she retorted.

  Grinning, he belly crawled toward the front door. Claudia’s men had made for the exits and were scattering to the woods as he looked on. Good call. The Spetsnaz team had superior numbers and the element of surprise on their side. The last thing the CIA team needed was to be pinned down in the confines of a house with wooden walls, entirely permeable to high-caliber gunfire. He’d have bugged out, too, if he were caught in the same situation.

  Black figures chased other black figures into the woods, and sporadic muzzle flashes were accompanied by increasingly distant sounds of gunshots. He sat up cautiously on the porch, leaning back against the wall of the house. Katie did the same beside him. He didn’t know if she was even aware of huddling tightly against his side.

  “Um, what was all of that?” she asked in a small voice.

  “The cavalry.”

  “Holy cow. That was impressive.”

  “My old man comes through in a pinch.”

  “He really loves you, you know.”

  “Yeah. He’s got a funny way of showing it, though.”

  “Those are some parents you’ve go
t,” she commented dryly. “They’re going to make the world’s worst in-laws.”

  He chuckled, and then it grew into a laugh, and then into uproarious hilarity. She joined him, laughing until tears ran down her face. They’d done it. They’d survived his first meeting with his mother.

  A black Hummer rolled up the driveway as their humor subsided.

  “Now what?” Katie muttered in disgust. “Do we have to run again?”

  “I’m shot in the leg. I couldn’t run if I wanted to,” he commented.

  “What?” She jumped away from him in panic. “Where? How bad is it?”

  “Bullet passed through my calf. It’s not life-threatening.” He jerked his chin at the man climbing out of the Hummer. “Besides, we’ve got company.”

  He recognized the bulldog silhouette of André Fortinay. Alex sighed. Time to face the music for this little stunt of his. “Help me to my feet,” he murmured to Katie.

  She leaped up and bent down to help hoist him upright. His leg hurt like hell, but that was a good sign. The nerves were operational. He tested the limb, and it held his weight without any new pain or numbness. Bone wasn’t broken, then.

  Fortinay strode right up the porch steps, not stopping until he was face-to-face with Alex and Katie, who’d wrapped her arm tightly around his waist. Protective little thing, she was.

  “What in the hell have you done, Alex?” André demanded.

  He shrugged. “I took what measures I deemed necessary to protect myself when I approached an armed and hostile target.”

  “That target was your mother. A high-level intelligence asset in the U.S. government in charge of an extremely important and classified mission that you have blown to hell and back.”

  “That asset tried to kill me and Katie.”

  “Speaking of which, where is Claudia? I have orders to bring her in for debriefing.”

  Katie piped up fervently, “Please tell me she’s in huge trouble for trying to kill her son.”

  André shrugged. “I’m just following orders. I have no idea what will happen to her.”

  Alex looked around the front yard and pasture. “She didn’t come out this door. She must have gone out the back.”

  “Or she’s still inside,” Katie added. “Did she get caught in that initial burst of gunfire?”

  Alex hobbled inside quickly, alarmed. He didn’t pause long to examine his feelings. For operational purposes, he hoped she’d been immobilized if not taken down outright. But in his heart, his feelings weren’t so simple. He’d loved the idea of her for so long it was hard to separate the reality of the woman from the fantasy of her.

  Katie wrapped her arm around his waist again, restraining him when he would have hopped over to the stairs to clear the upper floor of the house. “Let André’s men do it,” she murmured.

  “Clear!” someone shouted from upstairs. “There’s no sign of Claudia Kane, Mr. Fortinay.”

  André swore under his breath. Alex shared the sentiment. And yet...a breath of relief whispered down his spine.

  They waited almost another hour while André’s men did cleanup duty in the woods around the house. The Spetsnaz team disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. If any of the Russians had been injured or killed in the firefight, they’d carried out the casualties when they left.

  As for Claudia’s team, a number sported gunshot wounds around the high-tech body armor they’d all worn. One man had been killed by a head shot between the eyes. His body was loaded in the second Hummer that had arrived not long after André’s, and the vehicle drove away.

  Finally, the cleanup team reassembled at the house. A big, gruff man reported in to André. “There’s no sign of Ms. Kane, sir. She’s gone.”

  Alex snorted. Now there was an understatement. He had no doubt the Claudia Kane identity was dead. His mother would disappear to who-knew-where and not emerge again until she’d built a new legend, a new face, a new life. Just like he would have. His mother was back to being a nameless, faceless ghost who might or might not ever reappear in his life.

  And maybe that was as it should be. She’d been a ghost in his mind for so long he almost couldn’t conceive of a flesh-and-blood woman taking its place.

  In the meantime, Katie’s body was warm and vibrant against his side. Real and alive. Here and now. She was no ghost at all. She had substance and form. He could wrap his arms around her, hang on to her, tell her his fears and dreams, pour his love into her, and she would return all of it.

  Finally, at long last, the ghost of his mother had released its hold on his heart. He was tired of her cold comfort. Cold Intent had been well-named, after all. It had been all about her rage and desire for revenge.

  But Katie had banished all of that from his heart. Instead, she filled him with laughter and the heat of real love. A real relationship. As reluctant as he was to admit it, he might just need a relationship in his life. With a woman who loved him unconditionally.

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and deeply. She melted into him the way she always did, and for once, he didn’t fight the feelings she aroused in him. He embraced her heat, letting its promise burn away all the icy pain locked in his soul.

  “Let’s go home, Katie. To our daughter. Our family.”

  “Oh, Alex,” she breathed against his lips. “I love the sound of that.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know that, silly. I’ve always known it.”

  And that pretty much said it all. She’d known him better than he’d known himself, all this time. And she loved him, anyway.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he muttered as he tucked her under his arm and led her outside.

  A sleek, black limousine was just turning into the long driveway.

  “Yikes,” Katie exclaimed softly. “Now what?”

  “More like, now who?” André mumbled.

  The vehicle stopped and the driver jumped out to open the passenger door. A tall, portly, gray-haired man wearing an expensive wool coat stepped out of the limo.

  “Sonofabitch,” André breathed.

  Smiling, Alex started forward, dragging Katie with him. He spoke in polite Russian. “Ambassador Deryevnan. To what do we owe this honor?”

  “Alexei. Your father sends his greetings to you.”

  He bowed his head respectfully. “Thank you, sir. What can I do for you this cold evening?”

  “Cold? This?” The Russian ambassador chuckled. “We must send you back to Moscow in January for a visit if you think this is cold.”

  “No, thank you, sir. I’m afraid I’ve become a soft, coddled American.”

  The Russian ambassador to the United States looked around at the assortment of armed and alert men lounging deceptively around the yard. “The way I hear it, you are as tough and smart as your father. A great credit to Peter.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So. You nearly start a war this night. You have put many good Russian men at risk. What are we to do with you?”

  Frowning, he braced himself mentally. What in the hell was someone of this rank doing out here in person to clean up his mess? He answered carefully, “I gather by your presence here that you have something in mind, Ambassador.”

  The big man threw his head back and laughed. “Ahh, you are so much like him. I do, indeed, have a proposal for you.”

  And the guy was prepared to lay it out to him in front of his CIA handler? What the hell? Alex glanced over at André, who was listening in closely on the exchange as if he understood Russian fluently.

  “What might that be?” Alex asked cautiously.

  “Your mother. She works for CIA. Your father. He works for FSB. How are you to choose sides, then? And who will trust you? Neither, I am thinking.” The ambassador added shrewdly, “Or both.”

  “How’s that?”

  “From time to time, our countries need to exchange information. To share certain...sensitive...pieces of knowledge with each other. Discreet channels for such transfer of informatio
n are difficult to come by. We propose that you and your companion consider continuing your employment with Doctors Unlimited.”

  The Russian paused for a moment, and then continued carefully. “And we propose that you two also join the employ of a similar Russian aid organization. Doctors of such skill as yourself and your indispensable assistant—” the man glanced in Katie’s direction “—are few and far between. Surely the Americans will not mind sharing your talent with others. After all, your mission as a doctor is to help all patients, no matter what their nationality.”

  Alex’s jaw dropped. They wanted him and Katie to work for both the CIA and FSB...with the full knowledge and approval of both agencies? “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he blurted.

  “I think we can all agree that your situation is unique, can we not?”

  André interjected, “We most certainly can.”

  Katie muttered urgently, “What’s he saying?”

  Alex answered quickly, “He wants me to work for both the CIA and the FSB and act as an information conduit from time to time.”

  Her jaw dropped in shock. He knew the feeling.

  “Are you going to do it?” she breathed.

  Alex looked down at her. “What do you think? We’re in this together, after all.”

  “Really?” she asked in a tiny, hopeful voice.

  “Really,” he answered firmly. “Not only do I love you, I think I need you.”

  Her jaw went slack for a moment. Then she gathered herself. “Well, in that case, I’d say the two of us will make a heck of a tightrope-walking act together. And I’m all for open lines of communication between our countries.”

  Alex looked up at the ambassador and André, who were both staring back expectantly. “The lady has spoken. We’ll do it. Together.”

  *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HOT PURSUIT by Cindy Dees.

  Is redemption possible when the past won’t let go?

  If you loved Hot Intent by acclaimed author Cindy Dees, be sure to also catch her thrilling romantic suspense title Close Pursuit.

  Available now in ebook format.

  Order your copy today!