by Vicki Hinze
“Right.” His lip curled. He knew she needed to get away from old pains and strong emotions. Focusing on her job would give her that.
They walked on, and, for the first time, she found herself wondering. How many times had Westford seen his friends and coworkers die? Men like Harrison and Cramer. And how many times had he hurt from the bone out and felt unable to mourn?
His work was high risk, so probably more often than one would think. And knowing he’d taken in all that grief and held it inside created an almost overwhelming need in her to touch him, to soothe and comfort and ease the ravages left by layers of grief and pain.
“Heads up.” He snagged her attention. “It’s slick through here.”
The ground had grown more marshy, the sand and mud softer and more slick. And the rain persisted. So did the high humidity and the damnable August heat. How could anyone stand to live here? The place had its own kind of beauty, but the weather made it hell.
“Let’s stop and rest for a few minutes. We’ve got a long day in front of us.”
“We can’t,” she said, fighting panic. Her defenses were too weak to risk a confrontation with the kissing-and-holding or not-kissing-and-holding dilemma. “Time is too precious.”
“Look, you’re so tired you’re about to fall down.”
“Let’s just keep going, okay? If I stop, I’ll sleep. If I sleep, I’ll have nightmares that we need a few more minutes later and I wasted them sleeping.”
“What is going to happen on the other end, Sybil? What’s this phantom deadline and security breach all about? And what’s in that damn case?”
It was time he knew the truth. They could die here, and if they did, he deserved to at least know why. “A key” she said. Her eyes filmed over and she blinked hard to keep the tears in her heart from falling. “Just one little key”
Westford frowned. “One little key to what?”
“An ICBM at A-267.” There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Westford knew all about intercontinental ballistic missiles and A-267, an installation that housed and operated so much sensitive information and technology the site itself had been classified top secret.
“Are you telling me someone has activated an ICBM inside A-267?”
It had sounded horrible the first time she had heard it from David, and it sounded even more horrible now with seven deaths attributed to it. The terror she felt inside shone back at her in Westford’s eyes. “Yes,” she whispered with tragic reverence.
“And the only key to disarm it is in that case?” He pointed with his index finger.
She nodded.
“Do we know who infiltrated the site?”
“Not yet.” She swallowed hard. “We’re working on it.”
“Without the key—”
“The ICBM launches.”
“We can’t shut it down?”
“Not at this time. The launch sequence has been reconfigured and the stealth system that would allow us to recapture control and deactivate has been disabled.”
“Can’t we just enable it again?”
“Not without blowing up A-267, Washington, and most of the surrounding states.”
Westford shoved his hands deep into his pockets in frustration. “The missile. Is it a Minuteman?”
Didn’t they all wish it were? “It’s a Peacekeeper, West-ford.” The deadliest of all missiles in the world. In thirty minutes, a Peacekeeper could take out a small country.
He blew out a long breath, raked his fingers through his dripping hair. “The eagle and arrows—the UN is blowing its cork.”
She nodded, revealing that the transmission he had been unable to decipher had been multilayered. “Any launch will be considered a hostile attack. Some of the members have already put us on notice. You can’t blame them. That position is essential to their own countries’ security. If the missile launches, they will retaliate.”
The color leaked from his face. He understood. No world leader would jeopardize his own country’s security and trust the United States’word that a launch couldn’t be avoided. Our allies were about to become our enemies.
“Where’s it going?”
“Before we left Geneva, to North Korea. Currently it’s China. Apparently, at random intervals, the target cycles to new destinations.”
Westford snatched at a thorny vine clinging to his pant leg, a deep furrow creasing the skin between his eyebrows. An armadillo scooted away, hid in the underbrush. “The bastards are deliberately trying to trigger World War III.”
“I’d give up my office to be able to dispute that,” Sybil said, and meant it. “But I can’t.”
The skin beneath Westford’s left eye twitched and his expression turned even grimmer. “You said we have to get back by Saturday night. Exactly how long do we have?”
She didn’t bother checking her watch. The crystal had broken during their fall. It wasn’t working. The terrorists had given them seventy-two hours. She swallowed a bitter knot of fear. “Midnight Saturday.”
Westford glanced at his watch then dragged his palm along his square jaw. The stubble scraped against his hand. She had been given seventy-two hours to save the world. Tough enough. But now they had just forty hours and they were still stuck in the swamp without transportation. “What happens if we don’t get there?”
Sybil kept her voice steady. “The missile launches, and whoever it’s targeting then, and their allies, strike back.”
Jonathan absorbed that with a sharp breath. “Well, then. We’d better tend to your feet and get moving.”
“My feet are fine.”
“Don’t waste time fighting me on this. You’re going to lose.”
She frowned at him and sat down on a tree stump. “You’ve got an attitude, Westford.”
“Terrible character flaw. I’ll work on it.”
She lifted her hand to his face. “Don’t.”
He smiled, turned and soaked his shirt in the creek, and then washed and inspected her feet. “Damn, Sybil. They’re raw” He grimaced. “Why didn’t you tell me they were this bad?”
“I didn’t know it.” She settled for a half-truth. “I can’t see through muddy socks, either.”
Not at all amused, he crouched down, then wrapped his shirt around her left foot as a makeshift bandage. “Give me your slip.”
“I’d rather not.”
He held out his hand. “I know, but we’re not moving until you do.”
“Why?”
“Infection. There are things out here you don’t want in your system.”
Facing him in bare feet wasn’t bad enough? Now she had to put her slip in his hands?
Crouched, he braced his arms on his knees. “The only other option we’ve got is my pants. You choose.”
Damn him and his logic. She stood up, reached under her skirt, and then pulled down the scrap of silk and lace and passed it to him.
He didn’t look at her, just focused on the task, then put his socks on over the bandages. She thought she might just love him for that small mercy.
“That’s the best we can do for now.” He stood up, turned, and then cut through the dense brush.
Sybil rushed to catch up, forced herself to thank him.
He ignored her. “If you can, stay in my footsteps. Two sets double the odds of us attracting enemy attention and make us easier to track.”
God, but she hated the sound of that. She rolled the waistband of her skirt, shortening the length to mid-thigh. That gave her more freedom to stretch her stride, but matching his steps would still require work. Batting at the million mosquitoes swarming her did, too.
He glanced back, raised an eyebrow, and mumbled something about his transmitter. He’d tinkered with it at dawn, and, intermittently since then, he had been receiving weird, nonsensical messages that she couldn’t decipher. He’d only transmitted once: a coded message about swamp buses, kids skipping school, and seniors at a rest stop.
“Why haven’t you transmitted more messages from us?” she ask
ed.
“Because I can’t control who receives them.”
Home Base and the terrorists. Considering his caution wise, she crossed a ledge with a deep dropoff on both sides, carefully monitoring his steps. He cupped his hand to his ear. Must be getting another update. “Is it Conlee?”
“No, Sayelle. Like the others. Bleed-over and coded.”
That Conlee had pulled Sayelle into this still set her teeth on edge. “What’s he saying?”
“Still feeding in. Give me a second.”
Something flew close, swooped low—a bird? Sybil ducked, misstepped, and landed on a sharp stone. Pain shot through her foot, her leg. Her knee gave way and she lost her balance, fell down a steep incline.
Every roll through the thorny brush clinging to the walls of the dropoff brought fresh pain to old bruises and sharp stabs that promised to leave new ones. She grabbed for a bush, curled her fingers around its leaves, but her forward momentum proved stronger than her grip. She clutched at another bush. Her arm jerked, nearly tearing loose from its socket, yet again she couldn’t sustain her hold. Head over heels, she slid and tumbled farther and farther down. A large rock stabbed into her side. Searing pain streaked through her armpit, her shoulder, up her neck, across her chest, down her right side, and suddenly there was nothing underneath her. She free-fell, and fell, and finally dropped into something that splashed. The abrupt halt knocked the wind out of her.
Stunned, she struggled to grab a breath, to stay conscious, to see if the briefcase remained intact and where she had landed. Gritty brown muck, dank and thick, surrounded her. In it, nothing grew. Sludge. Slushy sludge … Oh, God. “Jonathan!”
The man-made ledge was a solid twenty feet above her. He stood on a huge, protruding rock, staring down at her, and the horror on his face confirmed her worst fears. She hadn’t fallen into water.
She’d fallen into quicksand.
Chapter Eleven
Friday, August 9 * First-Strike Launch 39:31:00
Dark circles, sunken eyes; apparently everyone had had a rough night.
What had kept Cap awake? Austin Stone sat down on a visitor’s chair in front of the senator’s desk. Sybil being dead or alive wouldn’t do it, though Cap wouldn’t be sorry to learn she was dead. Certain of that, Austin found this summons even more mysterious. Cap rarely scheduled appointments before eleven. “Morning.”
“Morning.” Cap waited for Jean to set down their coffee cups and leave the office. When she closed the door, he went on. “This is a damned awkward situation with Sybil, Austin. I’m not sure what to say. Are you grieving or celebrating?”
“Neither, yet. I’m going insane, waiting for final word on whether or not she’s dead.”
“I met with President Lance this morning. It’s genuine. He’s grieving.”
An even earlier meeting? This was serious. “For Sybil, or for the others?”
“I think for Sybil.” Cap sipped from his cup. His hand trembled. “There’s no sense in pussyfooting around. Is there anything in Sybil’s past that would leave her open to blackmail?”
Austin didn’t need to reminisce to respond, but Cap expected serious consideration, so he gave it. His life would have been easier if there had been something he could have used as leverage to wrestle controlling interest in Secure Environet from her clutches. But even the best detectives money could buy hadn’t been able to find a thing on her.
Her refusal to sell him the stock baffled him and them. The divorce had been final for over a year, but she still wouldn’t sell or revoke that damned blind trust. One thing everyone agreed on was that money never had motivated Sybil. She’d always had more than she could spend, and she spent judiciously—mostly funding charities that helped kids anonymously.
When Sybil was eighteen, her parents had crossed paths with a couple of lions on safari in Africa and lost. Being an only child, she had inherited their fortune. Before marrying, she had made some wise investments and had earned a second fortune. Her stock in Secure Environet wasn’t essential to her financial stability, it only added to the heap. Instead of being a member of the “have” class, his bitch of an ex-wife was one of the “have mores.” Austin had known she was filthy rich, but who could have predicted she’d be an ambitious, bleeding heart who wanted nothing more than to do altruistic things? Such a waste.
Austin had brought his own fortune to the marriage, though most of his assets had been on paper. Since then he had secured sufficient Department of Defense contracts for his security devices and systems to make him an extremely wealthy man. He also had done well at selling his secure-system devices to the private corporate sector, though they only accounted for about 17 percent of Envi-ronet’s gross income. The rest came from contracts only Austin knew existed—contracts facilitated through Gregor Faust. Austin had been in a position to buy back Sybil’s stock for years, but she had consistently refused to sell. Even his divorce attorney hadn’t found out why, and the judge had refused to order her to cite her reasons. Stone couldn’t force her to sell, short of murdering her. He felt certain her decision had nothing to do with spite; she wasn’t built that way.
“Austin?” Cap cast him a questioning look.
“I’d have to say blackmail is extremely unlikely. There’s nothing hidden in her past that could be used against her. Not that I’ve been able to uncover.”
Cap frowned. “Then why has she been passing envelopes to an old man at the Vietnam Wall every morning? Any insight on that?”
“You suspect her of treason?” Austin chuckled.
Cap didn’t appreciate the humor. Deep creases lined his face, nose to mouth. “It’s possible.”
“It’s outrageous, Cap.” Austin shifted on his seat. “Trust me. The only thing Sybil allows herself to love is this country. She’s a bitch, a pain in the ass, and she might do a lot of things, but committing treason just isn’t one of them.”
“So you have no insight to offer, then?”
“Only that whoever told you she’s crossed over is wrong.” Austin’s mind whirled. What exactly was going on here? The senator wasn’t sharing information, he was on a fishing expedition. “She wouldn’t do anything that even gave the appearance of any wrongdoing.” That was a safe bet. Otherwise he wouldn’t be crippled by her damn blind trust. “Think about it, Cap. Sybil? Jeopardize her precious career?”
“I agree that she wouldn’t, but she is giving him something, damn it.” The deep lines crept up his face and creased Cap’s forehead, and the tremor in his hand grew stronger. He set his steaming cup down. It chinked against its saucer. “Odds are slim he’s blackmailing her over anything like a secret lover.”
A lover? Sybil? The senator might permanently employ half the PIs in D.C. to dig up everything possible on her. He might have moles inside the White House and the inside track to her office through a source he refused to name. But for all his information, Cap Marlowe still didn’t know Sybil at all. Not at all. “Zero odds on that.”
Cap hiked a gray brow. “Is that your opinion, or Richard Barber’s?”
“It’s mine and Winston’s, actually” Austin revealed a secondary White House source.
“Winston? I thought Barber was your inside contact.”
“He is, and he agrees with us. She lives like a nun. No lovers, no discreet liaisons, no occasional dates. Not even an escort to professional functions.”
Cap picked up a paper clip, flipped it end for end. “Is she a lesbian?”
“No evidence of that, either.” Stone sighed. To maintain credibility with Cap, he had to give a balanced view, though defending Sybil irritated him. “For the past year, she’s had nothing that could even loosely be termed a personal relationship.”
“That’s abnormal.”
“It’s her fulfilling a promise,” Austin said, passing along White House, grapevine gossip. “When she filed for the divorce, she made Lance some promise about her personal conduct. Her only regular contact is with Gabby Kincaid. They still phone each other twice a
month.”
“Who the hell is Gabby Kincaid?” Cap shoved aside a stack of files, centered his cup on his desk blotter.
“Gabrielle Kincaid,” Austin said. “She’s a judge down in Florida, a righteous do-gooder like Sybil. They were roommates in college.”
“Any evidence of a relationship between her and Sybil?”
“Oh, yes.” And Austin had hated both of them for it, for making him feel like an outsider who would never be invited in. “A strong friendship—more like sisters. But nothing romantic, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So this Gabby could be involved in the Wall business.”
“I have no reason to believe that, but if Sybil’s ass is in a jam and she calls for help, Gabby is the only person she would call. And maybe Westford,” he amended. “But to call anyone, she’d have to feel she had no other option.” Sybil had always been maddeningly independent. That was one of her worst traits.
“Unless she’s dead.”
Austin agreed. “Unless she’s dead.”
Cap digested and seemed to have heartburn from the results. He paused a moment, as if working through something in his mind. “Before I discuss anything more, I want you to know that I’m counting on your complete discretion.”
Finally they were getting to the reason Cap had summoned him. Austin had been feeding him information to use against Sybil since she had been elected and had forced him into putting their assets into that blind trust. Most of Austin’s Department of Defense contracts were approved by the Armed Services Committee, which Cap chaired. Nothing in the defense budget got through appropriations without his seal of approval. Hadn’t Austin continued to feed Cap inside information on Sybil through his White House associates? By this time, shouldn’t his discretion be a moot point? It should be, but Cap evidently needed reassurance, so Austin gave it to him. “Discretion is a given between us.”