Deadly Valentine

by Davis, Justine; Davis, Justine

  “Federal agents, ma’am.”

  “What agency? I’d like to see your badges, if you don’t mind.” Although she suspected their giant rifles were all the badges she was likely to see.

  “That’s need to know only,” one of them retorted.

  “Yeah, well, I need to know,” she shot back. “If you expect me to talk without knowing who you are, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  They looked at her in unanimous surprise. Didn’t think she knew anything of value, did they? They were right, of course, but her life hung on convincing them otherwise. She glanced at Colt and declared, “I don’t know about you, Colt, but I’m not saying another word until these jokers identify themselves.”

  Thankfully, he followed her lead. “Me neither. Mum’s the word, boys.”

  A huddled conference followed. She watched closely for a moment to make a break for it, but one of the men always kept an eye on them. Given how weak Colt was, though, the two of them couldn’t exactly out-sprint these guys through the woods. Not that she could outrun any commando on a good day. And this emphatically hadn’t been a good day.

  Except for their brief respite in the makeshift shelter. That had been spectacular. Colt made her feel more like a real woman than anyone ever had. Made her feel beautiful and powerful. He’d been amazing.

  “Come with us,” one of the men ordered brusquely.

  “Where are we going?” she replied.

  “We’re the ones giving the orders,” the guy retorted.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “I happen to be a civilian, and I’m not obligated to take orders from anyone. Now, I want to see your badges and know who you are, or we’re not moving from this spot. We’ll wait for a car to come along and hitch a ride out of here.”

  Her mention of cars caused the men to glance nervously in both directions. Colt crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m with her. I’m not talking and I’m not walking until you guys cough up some ID.”

  Swearing under his breath, one of the men rolled his eyes and stepped forward, holding out an opened leather bifold wallet. “We’re with the Defense Research Agency, for crying out loud.”

  She had no idea what the Defense Research Agency was, but she had learned one very important thing. These guys weren’t prepared to kill her and Colt. At least not yet. She nodded stiffly and walked in the direction the nice man with the huge grin pointed.

  One man led the way in front of them and the other two fell in behind. The odd little formation marched down the road toward a bend ahead. They’d almost reached it when, without warning, a sharp pain exploded in her neck. It felt like she’d been stung by a wasp.

  “Oww!” she exclaimed. She reached up to bat it away and felt something hard and as long as her thumb sticking out of her neck. She looked over at Colt and saw what looked like a miniature dart sticking out of his neck, too.

  Her knees start to buckle, and then everything went black.

  Chapter 8

  C olt regained consciousness to the familiar feel of concrete beneath his cheek. He was an old pro at not opening his eyes, at continuing to fake being out cold. Anything to buy himself a few more minutes’ reprieve from whatever his captors had in mind for him next. He relaxed on the floor, listening intently. Someone was breathing lightly nearby. It sounded like the person was at floor level. Layla, maybe?

  One part of him hoped she was close for the comfort of her presence and so he could protect her. But another part of him—the part that had cold, hard experience with being a prisoner—wished desperately that she was nowhere near him right now. He wouldn’t wish the things he’d been through as a prisoner on his worst enemy, let alone on a woman he cared about deeply.

  When he heard no further movement nearby, he risked cracking one eye open a bit. The room was brightly lit, white on white and littered with computers and electronics at work stations scattered across the large space. It looked like a lab or research facility of some kind.

  He checked automatically for hooks in the ceiling or walls that could be used to restrain a person. None. No drains in the floor for washing away blood, either. At least this room wasn’t set up for torture. Not that a guy with a broomstick and a length of rope couldn’t have him screaming like a woman in under five minutes, of course.

  Peter’s implanted memory tickled at the edges of his consciousness, probing, pushing. Oh, now that damned memory wanted to reveal itself! It had to wait until the one moment when Colt dared not remember the stupid thing to emerge? It figured. He chanted to himself, Not yet, Pete. Not yet…

  Colt risked turning his head and spotted Layla lying on her side behind him. He swore under his breath. No wonder he wasn’t tied up. Her presence changed everything. Their captors could use her to force him into cooperating, and both he and they knew full well it would work as a tactic. No way could he stand by and watch her suffer torture because he refused to talk. After all, he loved her.

  The thought stopped him cold. Since when did he love Layla? In truth, he’d probably loved her at least a little before he ever met her in person. Peter had described her so vividly it was as if Colt had known her for years. She’d been the girl next door, the perfect woman he’d never had time to meet after he joined the army and started running all over the world. The best friend and confidante, loyal and kind and caring.

  “Layla?” he whispered. “Are you awake?”

  She shifted slightly, and her eyes half fluttered open. She must just be coming out under the effect of the anesthesic. He tried again. “Layla. Wake up, honey.”

  She muttered, “Crud. It’s not a dream. I was hoping it was.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Welcome to my nightmare.”

  “What are we going to do?” Panic was creeping into her voice, now. She was conscious enough to realize they were in a very bad situation. “I think maybe you’re starting to remember. And the jar thing…I think I’ve figured it out. Peter liked to call you a jarhead, right? A jar without a lid?”

  Sonofagun. She was right. The twerp had merely been saying that his secret was inside Colt’s head. Then what was the damned trigger?

  He said grimly, “The first thing we’re going to do is remember we’re in the driver’s seat. We have the information they want. And if they mess with us too much, we’ll refuse to give it to them altogether.”

  She lurched in alarm. “We can’t give any of it to them! Peter’s discovery could annihilate people as easily as missiles, right?”

  Colt reached out and gathered her in his arms. “Don’t say any more about that, sweetie. We could be monitored right now. Just be patient and stand your ground. It’ll be all right. I promise.”

  “Promise?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Cross my heart. Don’t think about Peter. Don’t mention him.”

  “A good idea in theory,” she replied regretfully. “But that may not be possible.”

  “Why not?” he responded.

  “I don’t exactly have your iron self-control—”

  A door opened behind him and she stopped speaking abruptly. Which was just as well.

  “I see our guests are awake,” a male voice said pleasantly. “Excellent. It’s time to end this little game of cat and mouse.”

  Colt looked up at the speaker, a gray-haired man who appeared to be in his late fifties. The hired muscle, in the form of four thugs, stood behind him. “And you would be who exactly?” Colt asked.

  “I’m the person to whom you’re going to tell everything,” the man replied confidently.

  Colt snorted. Him and what army? None of these men had the same eager look in their eyes that Khan got at the prospect of causing pain. And shy of Khan, not too many people in the world could get to him.

  “Boys.” The man gestured and two men stepped forward to hoist him to his feet. He gave Layla a quick squeeze and let her go as the thugs ripped him out of her arms. Colt didn’t look down at her. He didn’t dare show any weakness where she was concerned.

  “Over her
e.” Gray-hair moved to stand by an elaborate computer with multiple monitors and a large electronic drawing pad beside it.

  Colt was shoved onto the stool before the setup.

  “Okay, McQuade. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get my hands on you. Time to cough up the big invention Peter Morrison came up with while he was in prison with you.”

  “What makes you think I have any idea what he cooked up in prison?”

  “You two were crammed together in a little box for nearly a year and you expect me to believe he didn’t share it with you?” Gray-hair snorted.

  Colt shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you, buddy. But he didn’t tell me a thing. Peter could keep a secret.”

  “Bring the girl over here,” Gray-hair directed.

  Colt’s jaw tensed. “If you mess with her, I guarantee you will never get a thing out of me. I’ll take whatever I know straight to hell with me.”

  “You don’t want to see her pretty little face wrecked, do you?”

  “Look. I just met her. She wanted to know what happened to her old friend Peter. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “You’ve been with her around the clock. You expect me to believe she knows nothing?”

  Colt answered casually, “Clingy female. Not my type if I do say so myself.” He dared not glance at Layla to soften his words in any way. These bastards had to believe she meant nothing to him.

  “Guess we’ll have to jog your memory a bit, then,” Gray-hair announced.

  Relief rolled through Colt. A little old-fashioned beating was something he knew exactly how to handle. Weird how comfortable it was. The old routine once more. Except this time, he had to find a way to hold off Peter’s damned memory implant.

  The fist to his left eye caught him off guard. His head snapped and he let it, absorbing as much of the power of the blow as he could with his head and neck. He’d give the sucker punch a B–for pain, but a solid B+ for surprising him. Another blow, this time to his jaw. Better power, but lousy aim.

  As the second man joined the first in using him as a punching bag, it became harder and harder not to reach for Peter’s memory. It was the key to making the pain stop. He must stay strong. For Layla. For his country. Protect Peter’s secret. Hell, Peter had died protecting it. The least he could do was take a beating in the name of protecting Peter’s discovery.

  But then a strangled cry from behind him had him twisting on his stool in spite of himself. A whale of a right cross took his exposed cheek by surprise. Layla. Was she okay?

  Her fist was all but stuffed into her mouth as tears streamed down her face. “They hur’ing you?” he croaked around his split and swollen lips.

  “Oh, God, Colt. Don’t let them do this to you.” She was untouched. They were apparently satisfied to make her watch.

  He shrugged, ignoring the stabbing pain from a couple of cracked ribs that the movement cost him. “I’ll live un’il these jokers figure ou’ we don’ know where Pe’er hid his secre’.”

  “Guess we’ll just have to do this the hard way then, won’t we, McQuade?” the gray-haired man snarled. “Go get the stuff.”

  One of his henchmen left and came back in a minute with a car battery, a pair of jumper cables, a pair of sponges and a bucket, presumably full of water. Reflexive horror rippled through Colt’s body. Funny how his nerves remembered even when his conscious mind did not.

  He must take this torture. Let it roll over him and through him and believe that when it was over he would still exist. It was all about simple survival now.

  Terror shivered through Colt. In retrospect, he’d taken much more of Khan’s abuse than he could believe. But everyone had a breaking point. Hell, he’d broken. The day had come when he’d been willing to tell Khan anything the bastard wanted to know. The only saving grace had been that he didn’t have the information Khan wanted. He didn’t know what Peter’s work had been about.

  He wasn’t proud of it, but the day had come when he’d begged Peter to tell him what he’d invented. But Peter had steadfastly refused. He might have been a civilian, might not have been much of a physical specimen. But the man had a will of steel. He’d never once wavered. Never once given in to Colt’s pleading. Not Peter. The guy had been a hero in every sense of the word.

  He owed Peter one last heroic stand of his own. No matter if he was shot. No matter if the woman he loved was distraught. He had to stay strong. For Peter and Layla.

  In the weeks immediately following his release, he’d gone through endless survivor’s guilt attacks, reliving every single time he’d broken under Khan’s torture. He’d wished each of those moments back. Wished he’d had a chance at a do-over. Wished he’d held out just a little bit longer. Apparently, his wish had come true.

  He would prevail this time. If nothing else, this time he would prove to himself that he wasn’t weak or a coward. He would be the hero Layla thought he was. Ahh, God, Layla. Dreams of her—her portrait painted vividly in his mind by Peter even before he’d met her—had sustained him for so long he barely knew where his dreams ended and the reality of her began. Peter had loved her. So he’d loved her. The two jumbled together in his head.

  Gray-hair and his boys continued their dastardly work and he fell into a detached state where his brain and body disconnected from one another. He watched from a distance as they abused his body, causing it horrendous pain. He noted that this bunch wasn’t half-bad at their work. They weren’t damaging him so seriously that he’d be too broken to continue torturing for a good long time.

  But then something odd happened. His memories of Khan’s torture and his current experience began to run together in his head, past blurring with present, forgotten tidbits of before surfacing and mingling with disjointed details from now.

  He struggled frantically to hold the two apart. He wasn’t sure why he had to, but he was sure it was the right thing to do. He was failing. Failing like he’d failed before, breaking under the strain of the physical agony. Giving way. Slipping…

  The shroud hanging between his awareness and Peter’s implanted memory tore away all in a rush. He almost heard a rending noise in his brain as the mental barrier holding back Peter’s memories shredded apart. No longer was he divided in two. Only he remained. Raw. Naked. Weak. And dammit, he remembered exactly what Peter had planted in his brain!

  Withstanding what Gray-hair and company were doing to him had just become immeasurably harder. Now he held in his hands the means to stop the torture by giving in and giving them what they wanted.

  Dammit, he was supposed to be the tough one! The hardcore soldier. The one who could take anything and endure. But in the end Peter was the one who’d had the strength to take it. The strength to say no to Colt when he’d begged to know the secret. Enough strength for both of them.

  And now it was his turn to be strong for both of them. His turn to be the guardian of the secret. So be it.

  A distant voice threatened him. Told someone to hook up the battery. Cut his shirt off. Colt barely noticed. As memories tied up with the secret came pouring back, he suddenly remembered the night Peter had hypnotized him. His cell mate had been sick and badly injured. Pete had known somehow that he wasn’t going to live much longer. He’d asked a last favor of his friend, and Colt had not been able to turn down the last wish of a dying man. How could he? Peter had been so indomitable for so long, had been Colt’s rock through hell and back. He’d owed it to the guy.

  That had been the night Peter hypnotized him. The night Peter planted memory of the design for the ultimate missile killer system in Colt’s head and then hid it so carefully.

  Peter had beaten Khan at his own game. Only Peter’s body had eventually broken. But never his mind. Never that which had made him Peter.

  He could do the same, dammit.

  Colt chanted to himself, I am Colt. I will endure. I will hang on for Layla. I will turn my weakness into my strength. They think they’re hurting me by torturing me in front of her. But I will draw comfort and inspira
tion from her presence. A vision of her radiant smile and shining blue eyes swam in his mind’s eye. She was his own personal angel. And if he had anything to say about it, he was never going to let go of her for as long as he lived. Now that was something worth hanging on for.

  Something cold and wet slapped against his chest. He remembered the sound and sight of Layla’s pleasure ringing in his ears. He smiled. A jolt of agony seared through him, like a lightning bolt had just struck him. It shocked him out of his memories. But it didn’t erase her face. He’d done it. He’d found the key. A beautiful, stubborn, funny woman who maybe loved him a little.

  His eyes opened. He was at peace. A bright white room loomed before him. Layla sobbed somewhere behind him. An evil bastard with gray hair scowled, torturing him for information he would never, ever reveal. And none of it mattered. He had Layla in his heart.

  Layla had had enough. She surged forward, slamming into the guy with the jumper cables from behind. He fell forward, landing on the instruments of Colt’s torture and giving a thoroughly satisfying scream as he got a hefty dose of his own medicine. She spun, snarling, and leaped for the next man. She was prepared to rip his eyeballs out bare-handed. They’d attacked her man, her Colt, and she was out for blood, now.

  The thug threw up his arms, swearing violently, to ward her off.

  It took all three of the remaining thugs to subdue her, and all of them sported bloody scratches and were swearing freely before they finally pinned her arms at her sides.

  Gray-hair stepped close. “You want a taste of the battery, bitch?” he growled.

  “Leave her alone!” a strident voice declared from at her feet.

  Oh, Lord, no. Her stomach dropped violently. Colt mustn’t give up Peter’s secrets. Millions…billions…of lives rode on him not talking.

  Colt spoke calmly. “Get your goons off Layla and I’ll give you what you want.”

  Gray-hair gestured at the computer station. “You first, Captain McQuade.”

  “No!” Layla wailed as Colt climbed painfully to his feet and sat down in front of the computer. God, no. She wasn’t worth it! “Stop!”