by Cindy Dees
“Sorry. The target didn’t cooperate. I hurt my ankle in the fight.”
“How bad is it?”
“My ankle? Bad enough. The mission? Shot to hell.”
“What do you mean?”
She nodded at the door behind her. “You’ll see.”
The shadowy figure was silent for a moment. “I’ll call in some backup. Stay here. Someone will come and get you.”
She nodded wearily.
“Don’t pass out on me, Phoenix. You’re going to have to walk out of here under your own power if you don’t want to draw attention.”
Amanda tried to smile, but it came out a grimace. Where in the world was she going to find the strength to walk one more step on the mass of gelatinous pain that was her ankle?
Taylor started as his pager began to vibrate in the breast pocket of his tuxedo. He pulled it out, tilting the beeper in the dim theater lighting to read the message that scrolled across its digital face: “Leave now. Walk around the block.”
Alarm coursed through him. No one had said anything about his being called out of the concert. He walked swiftly up the aisle to the glaring usher who guarded the exit. “I’m a doctor,” he improvised. “There’s an emergency.”
The usher’s scowl eased slightly, and she opened the door enough for him to slip into the lobby. He looked left and right as he stepped outside Carnegie Hall. Nothing appeared out of place. There must be some sort of crisis. But what? He walked all the way around the far side of the concert hall before a low whistle caught his attention. He glanced around at the wet street. Deserted. He veered into the alley on his right. And almost missed the group of shadows huddled against the wall.
“Falcon?”
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “What’s up?”
“One of our operatives was injured. Get her out of here.” The group separated into four shadows carrying a long, lumpy, blanket-wrapped object between them. It appeared quite heavy. In fact, it looked suspiciously like a body. Gut-punching fear slammed into him. Had the woman been killed? Were they about to hand him a corpse?
One of the shadows nodded behind them. “She’s back by the porch. Probably will faint if she tries to move on her own—she busted up her ankle pretty good. Sorry to interrupt your social debut, but we’ve already got our hands full.”
The guy sounded thoroughly disgusted. Taylor stepped aside as the men hustled out of the alley and disappeared with their burden. He moved deeper into the murky bowels of the cul-de-sac where the man had indicated. He didn’t see her until he was practically on top of her. She was propped up against the wall, one foot held several inches off the ground, her palms pressed against the wet bricks as if she were single-handedly holding up the structure at her back. The shadowed curves of her face were stunning with an unearthly beauty that was part of the night itself. He stared, thunderstruck. She looked wary as he approached, a fey creature that would bolt at the merest provocation. A need to soothe her washed over him.
“Who are you?” she asked in a low voice.
He missed a mental beat at the British accent but managed to answer calmly enough, “Apparently, I’m your designated Plan B. How bad are you hurt? Can you move?”
She pushed herself away from the wall. “Let’s find out.” She took a single step and her right leg collapsed completely.
With a grunt, Taylor caught her as she pitched forward into him. She felt surprisingly fragile, no taller than his shoulder and slender of build. What was someone like her doing working special ops for Devereaux?
A muffled moan escaped her.
“Well, I guess that answers that,” he remarked. He bent down and picked up the woman, cradling her in his arms. She made a sound of protest against his chest and he murmured, “Relax. I’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.” He retraced his steps toward the alley’s mouth.
After a moment, she shifted and placed her arms around his neck. The stiffness left her body, and she melted like warm, silky chocolate in his arms. A surge of protectiveness startled him, and he hugged her a little more closely. Down, Tonto. This is business.
They reached the end of the alley and he paused to peer into the street. Empty. No sign of the team that had left only moments before. Wow. He was impressed. He strode to the next corner and eased his companion to the ground. He kept a supporting arm around her, steadying her. She felt like pure sin pressed against him from chest to knee. He hailed several taxis with his free arm before one finally pulled over. The cab’s interior light touched her features as she climbed in awkwardly, and Taylor was brought up short. She was younger than he expected. Fair of complexion with rich, chestnut hair and dark eyes. Gray or possibly green—hard to tell in the lousy light. She was fully as lovely as his first impression, her beauty surreal against the dingy, stained backdrop of a New York taxicab.
The line of white around her tightly compressed lips spurred him to motion, and he slid in beside her. “Where to, fair damsel? Your chariot awaits your command.”
She glanced around the cab’s interior, and a spark of humor momentarily lit her face. Taylor forced himself not to gawk like a hormonal adolescent. Good God, she was radiant when she smiled. She mumbled the address of a private home in a quiet neighborhood with a brief explanation that a doctor lived there who would treat her and not ask any questions. He relayed the address to the cabbie, then he leaned back in his seat and did his damnedest not to stare at his companion.
The taxi pulled away from the curb, and Amanda rested her head against the cushions. She closed her eyes.
It was over.
Now she could think. Feel. The tension she’d held at bay while she was working flooded her. The aftermath was always like this. She reeled with the power of its release. Pent-up emotions seared a path across her soul, leaving it charred and blackened. But there was freedom in the pain. It cauterized her emotions so they could not bleed.
The evening outside glittered like a diamond. Street lamps shone brightly off the wet pavement, and the city looked clean and fresh. As the blocks rolled by, Amanda huddled deeply in the seat, resting her head against the cold glass window of the taxi door. She did her best to ignore the presence of the man beside her. She didn’t have the energy to figure out what had happened to her when he’d picked her up. Her sense of being safe and protected was too confusing, too disorienting to grasp just now. She lived in a world alone. Depended on nothing or nobody but herself. The man’s help had been an intrusion. She should be grateful for it, she supposed, but for some reason it scared her to death.
She concentrated on blanking her mind and breathing deliberately, on trying to still the violent shaking that was setting in. The throbbing pain in her mouth was growing intolerable, and she felt her shoe becoming tight around her ankle. She needed medical treatment. But she couldn’t face anybody quite yet.
Her companion was blessedly silent. She felt his gaze upon her occasionally, but he didn’t intrude. Her mind spun in a riot of confused images: an old man’s open-mouthed snarl of agony, neon signs flashing on wet pavement, her own frantic heartbeat pounding through her fingertips against dead flesh, headlights rushing toward her out of the blackness.
Her thoughts skipped like a broken record, recycling the events of the evening in an endless screeching cacophony. The encounter with Grigorii passed before her mind’s eye over and over in microscopic detail. Eventually, it occurred to her that the aftermath was usually gone in a matter of minutes. She’d replay the job once or twice, dissect and critique her performance, catalog the emotions felt, and then file them neatly away. But tonight the aftermath was growing, spreading like a canker, threatening to engulf her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.
A soul-deep terror blossomed in her. Was this what it was like to finally lose one’s mind? To burn out completely? Was she going insane? She became aware of other feelings. Drenching guilt. Disgust at herself. Disgust at the institution that had demanded this night’s work of her. It left a bitter taste of bile in her
throat. Her stomach burned like a hot coal was boring its way through her stomach wall into her gut. She suppressed an anguished groan. How could she have taken this job? If she’d known it would end like this, she’d never have agreed to it. Even if Devereaux had sworn that after this one last job she could stand down for a good long rest.
But she hadn’t refused.
She’d betrayed a man she’d known since she was a little girl. A man who’d remembered her birthday when her father hadn’t. A man who’d been kind to her.
Why? Why did he kill himself rather than let himself be taken?
She’d driven Grigorii to suicide. She was responsible for an old friend’s horrible, agonizing death.
Gradually, her mind went blank as shock lowered a blanket of numbness around her. Sensing danger in the encroaching oblivion, she roused herself from her stupor. As the last of her adrenaline wore off, the tremendous drain of the evening’s events finally overwhelmed her iron self-control. She looked down at the object, still clutched in her hand, from Grigorii’s pocket. A single tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto an enormous, glittering diamond.
Two
Nikko Biryayev yawned and rubbed his eyes, which burned and were beginning to blur. He sipped at a tepid mug of coffee by his elbow and grimaced. These were the inglorious moments of his job—the price he paid for a plum assignment like the Russian consulate in New York. He scowled at the sumptuous view outside his window. Too much wealth out there. Too much power. Maybe he’d live long enough to see the whole damned American empire toppled. The thought cheered him. Nikko Biryayev was and always would be a man of the old order.
A knock on his office door interrupted his musings. “Come in,” he called.
The night desk clerk stood there, a manila folder in hand. “Sir, NYPD is downstairs. A man carrying a Russian diplomatic passport might have been kidnapped this evening from the dressing room of the pianist, Marina Subova. I’ve got the dossier on this man.”
As the station intelligence chief, something like this fell squarely under his jurisdiction. Biryayev reached for the folder. “Tell the police I’ll be down in a moment.” He glanced at the name on the dossier, then looked again. His jaw dropped. Grigorii Kriskin? Everyone from the old KGB days knew that name. He’d been the trusted henchman of Anton Subov—the brilliant chief strategist of the KGB Plans Directorate until the Komityet folded. Kriskin executed many of Subov’s diabolical schemes. What was the old warhorse doing in New York? Biryayev would have envisioned Kriskin and Subov sipping cognac and growing gray together in a Rublevka dacha. Biryayev pulled a stapled sheaf of papers out of his safe and thumbed through it. He found Marina Subova’s name and glanced hastily at the notations beside it regarding surveillance. He tossed the papers back in his safe and grabbed his coat.
Twenty minutes later, Biryayev stood in Subova’s dressing room. A team of men dusted the room for fingerprints while a detective beside him delivered a diatribe about bystanders contaminating crime scenes. Biryayev strolled over to the dressing table and unobtrusively pocketed the pianist’s silver hairbrush and the micro recorder concealed within it. As soon as he got that recording back to the office, he’d have a better idea of what had happened than the police would ever piece together. Anybody good enough to kidnap Grigorii Kriskin surely would not leave behind evidence for the police. Biryayev exited as soon as he could without arousing suspicion and headed for the consulate.
Amanda roused as their taxi pulled up in front of a gracefully aging brick home. She felt numb all over. Her rescuer leaned over and whispered in her ear as if to speak an endearment. His murmured words were more practical and sent a jolt of apprehension through her. “Our driver’s the curious sort. We’ll have to put on a show for him. Stay put. I’ll be around to help.”
She glanced up and met the driver’s intense gaze in the rear-view mirror. Why hadn’t she noticed his interest earlier? She must be in worse shape than she’d realized. Pull yourself together! She grasped to no avail at the bits and pieces of herself.
Her companion opened her door and offered his hand in a gallant gesture. Carefully, she swung her feet out and let him all but bodily lift her out of the cab. As he paid the driver, she watched him curiously. Ebony highlights glinted in his dark brown hair, and he flashed a toothpaste-commercial smile, even and white. As knights in shining armor went, he was doing fine so far.
An odd awareness of him thrummed through her. She felt his tiniest movement, caught every nuance in his expression, startled herself by anticipating the next time his gaze would light upon her. He wore a tuxedo strikingly well. Where had he been, dressed like that, before he’d been called in to help her? He looked as if he’d just stepped out of a fancy casino. He caught her gaze upon him and smiled intimately, as if he knew precisely what she was thinking. It took her aback and sent her heart racing before she remembered they were playing a scene for the driver. Sheesh. She returned the lover’s smile in kind.
He held out his arm, and for once, she found herself grateful there was a big, strong man around. She linked her arm through his and leaned on his rock-hard forearm, letting him bear almost her entire weight. He strolled casually up the sidewalk as if totally unaware of her fingers biting into his flesh. She concentrated on matching his even pace, clenching her jaw every time her injured foot made contact with the ground. If only the cab would leave so she could stop! They reached the front porch, and still the driver sat there, infuriatingly counting his money.
Her companion turned toward her and murmured apologetically, “Pardon me for what I’m about to do.”
His arms went around her and his mouth lowered toward hers. Good Lord, he was going to kiss her. A thrill of excitement raced through her, wildfire running before the wind. It left her trembling in anticipation of she knew not what. His head slanted toward hers, blocking the cab from her view. His lips paused, barely an inch from hers, his breath caressing her cheek like warm velvet. She steeled herself for the invasion of his mouth, but it didn’t come. He remained where he was, nearly touching, nearly tasting, nearly possessing her. Anticipation built inside her, and she fought a sudden inclination to lean into him, take the kiss and be done with it.
She could imagine what his mouth would feel like—warm, alive and virile. He’d taste male and musky, perhaps with a hint of Scotch whiskey. He’d be gentle at first, then the kiss would deepen. He’d explore her mouth, and his arms would tighten around her, molding her to him. She’d feel the unyielding strength of his body; she’d sense the tension beginning to build in him, matching her own. Sparks would leap between them, and she’d melt against him. It would be a sensational kiss.
But nothing happened.
She peered up at him. His jaw was tense, and he seemed to be concentrating on whether or not the cab had left. The anticipation whooshed out of her in a rush. So much for that shortlived fantasy. Up close like this, his eyelashes were dark and thick, and his skin had the smoothness of vigorous health about it. His mouth was mobile, expressive. Emminently kissable. Beyond all that, there was steel in him, unbendable self-control.
“Is he gone yet?” Taylor asked in an undertone.
Amanda peeked past his ear. “Pulling out now, the bleeding Peeping Tom.”
His lips curved into a grin, although not another muscle twitched. “Gone now?”
“Yes.” The syllable was exhaled on a breath of relief.
He straightened. “Well, that was almost fun.”
For some bizarre reason, she was disappointed as his arms fell away. She retorted, “Indeed. That was almost lovely. Until you almost got to the part where I almost decided you were getting fresh and almost flattened you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I almost consider making advances toward you,” he replied wryly.
The cab’s red taillights disappeared around a corner. Now that the immediate danger was past, the pain in her ankle came surging back full force. She couldn’t stop herself from sagging against the arm of the
man beside her.
“Easy does it,” he murmured. “Only a few more steps and you’ll be inside.”
“Not quite. This isn’t the house we’re headed for.”
He looked down at her, startled. “It’s not?”
“Certainly not. You wouldn’t want that cabbie to know our destination, would you?”
“Ah. A misdirection.”
Fabulous. They’d sent in a rank amateur to rescue her. A big, strong, gorgeous one, but an amateur, nonetheless. She needed Superman and Devereaux had given her Clark Kent.
“So where are we actually going?”
She pointed. “Three houses down and across the street. The one over there with the awnings and the yellow porch light.”
“Can you walk that far?” He sounded doubtful about it.
She shared his doubt but considered the idea. It would be best if she did walk in case the neighbors were being nosy. But waves of torment racked her whole body now, and she was starting to feel nauseous. That tipped the scales. She looked up at her rescuer and surprisingly, found herself vaguely embarrassed. “Do you suppose you could…well…?”
A smile crinkled the corners of his light, translucent eyes. “Want a lift?”
“If you don’t mind.”
He chuckled. “I don’t. It’d be my pleasure.” He bent down and placed an arm beneath her knees, then stopped abruptly. “This isn’t an advance, is it?”
“No. I won’t deck you.”
“Glad to hear it.” He straightened and swept her off her feet. Startled by the quick ease with which he lifted her, her arms went reflexively around his neck. He strode off down the sidewalk while she registered little things about him. The short hair at the back of his neck was silky soft against her fingers. His cologne was subtle and masculine. His chest was broad and muscular without being chunky—very solid. The hard strength of his arms supported her effortlessly, and his breathing was not increasing noticeably even though he was carrying her and walking at a fast pace.