by Cindy Dees
They scrambled to their feet, crouching low as another explosion rocked the air. Terrible screams erupted as flying shrapnel shredded everything in its path. Taylor snagged a blanket out of the back seat of a car, and then they ran for the gates with the rest of the fleeing workers. Everyone within fifty feet of the building was prostrate on the ground. Subov had sacrificed himself for them. She staggered, and Taylor pulled her along mercilessly.
“We’ve got to keep going, Amanda. Come on!”
The terrified mob ran out of energy about a quarter mile away from the factory, where they turned around to watch the inferno. Further explosions continued to rip through the fire-enshrouded building, sending barrels and pieces of concrete flying up into the orange sky.
The pyrotechnics were spectacular. Even this far away, heat baked their faces, illuminating them in the bright glow of the flames. Sparks whirled high into the night sky, spiraling upward in the hot vortex rising from the blaze.
Resolutely, Taylor turned his back on the sight. “We’ve got to get away from here.”
He was right. Amanda turned and followed him. They walked along the road toward town. The heat of the fire faded, and she was shivering violently in just a few seconds. Taylor must be half frozen with just that blanket around him.
An eternity later, they drew level with the spruce grove and ducked into the trees. The cold was even more intense as dark shadows wrapped around them. They headed for the hollow where they’d stashed their emergency gear. Taylor passed her a parka, which she pulled on gratefully. He donned a second one. He’d just reached into the hole again for the overwhites when abruptly, something cold and hard pressed against the back of Amanda’s neck.
“Freeze!”
She obeyed in stunned shock. She saw Taylor raise his hands slowly away from his body and stand up. Someone must be behind him, too.
Eerie, maniacal laughter echoed around the clearing, and icy shivers ran up and down her spine. The sound reminded her an awful lot of her father. The man behind Taylor spoke in a gravelly voice. “Step apart. Slowly. The girl to the left, you to the right.”
Amanda and Taylor obeyed. And something hit her. She recognized that voice. From where? She racked her brains frantically. A dark street in Caracas. Telling his name to a police officer. Nikko Biryayev. Oh, Lord. Not her father’s control officer!
The one behind her shoved her farther into the woods with the barrel of his weapon. “This way. Move.” Her unseen captor backed off and followed at a safe distance. Damn. No chance to turn and attack him. “That’s far enough,” the guy said. “Stop.” An American voice. Young. That must be Max What’s-his-name. The blond guy she’d jumped in New York.
Taylor spoke over his shoulder to his captor. “Who are you?”
“I’m your destiny, Taylor Roberts. You two have escaped for the last time. Tonight I will watch you die. You thought you were so good, but I caught you both. The KGB has triumphed against the insidious forces of capitalist imperialism once again.”
Amanda spoke up derisively. No way was she showing this lunatic fear. “The KGB is dead and gone, Biryayev.”
“I will kill you!” Nikko screamed. “Your father ruined me, and now I shall ruin you!”
She sneered. “The way I hear it, you were a mediocre, mid-level bureaucrat who killed your own career by losing the Udarsky Cache.” Amanda started toward Biryayev. If she could get him mad enough, he might hit her rather than shoot her. And then she could take him down. She’d worry about the other agent after that.
An arm went around her neck and a gun pressed against the middle of her back. “Hold still,” Ebhardt murmured in her ear. She stopped, arrested by the curious lack of malice in the guy’s voice.
Biryayev ranted, “Like your sham of a legal system, Soviet justice demands a trial before sentencing. You will confess your crimes before I pass judgment on you.” Biryayev rattled off a half-dozen Russian high crimes and then turned to Taylor. “How do you plead?”
Taylor shrugged. “You caught me. Guilty as charged.”
Amanda choked. What was he doing? He was trying to get Biryayev to kill him instead of her. But Biryayev was going to kill her, anyway, for being her father’s daughter. No way was she letting Taylor go down on her behalf.
“Stop it,” she snapped at Taylor. “I’m done, anyway. Nikko, you fool. Taylor’s not an operative. He’s nothing more than my cover. What kind of numbskull are you to mistake him for a trained agent?”
“A pathetic try to save your lover, you bitch. I’ll kill you both, once and for all, tonight.”
Amanda suppressed a sob. This was a nightmare. Think. There had to be something she could do. But what?
Biryayev stepped behind Taylor and lifted a heavy pistol to the back of his head. She lurched against the arm around her neck, and it went slack. Surprised and more than a little confused, she eased away from Ebhardt.
Taylor lifted his head and looked across the short distance that separated them. He smiled quietly into her eyes and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
She flung herself forward. It was too far, but she was determined to take the bullet for him. “Nooo!” she screamed.
A single shot rang out.
Nineteen
Amanda raced toward the two bodies lying on the ground in a heap. “Oh, God. Taylor. No,” she moaned. She saw red. She’d tear Biryayev’s head off with her bare hands.
One of the bodies moved. Rolled clear. She staggered and came to a stumbling halt as Taylor pushed to his feet. Using his foot, he rolled over the body of Nikko Biryayev in disgust. A neat hole gleamed black in the center of the man’s forehead. She flung herself at Taylor, clutching him fiercely.
For just an instant Taylor’s arms tightened around her, but then he let go. “Step back, Amanda.” His voice was cold, devoid of emotion. Her arms fell away from him. She took one step back. Then another.
He looked over her shoulder. “You there. Drop your gun.”
Ebhardt complied, tossing it a couple yards away from him.
“On your knees. Hands locked behind your neck.”
Ebhardt did as he was told.
Taylor’s gaze turned to Amanda. So cold, his eyes. A trained operative at work. “You all right?” he bit out.
She nodded, tears beginning to flow.
“Er, pardon me.” Ebhardt cleared his throat, and Amanda turned toward him in surprise. “Mind if I get up? It’s a bit nippy down here on the ground.”
Taylor gestured at Nikko’s sprawled body. “Why did you shoot him?”
Amanda’s jaw dropped. She’d been so relieved that Taylor was alive, she hadn’t stopped to consider where the shot had come from that killed Biryayev.
The blond agent shrugged. “He lost it. Had to be stopped.”
Taylor looked briefly over his shoulder. “Nice shot. Thanks.”
Amanda took a tentative step toward Taylor. His silver-blue gaze was luminescent in the scant moonlight as he turned it on her. And then a click sounded off to their right. The distinctive click of a hammer being pulled back on a weapon. She froze. Taylor did the same.
A voice out of the dark. “Miss McClintock, Mr. Roberts, you are under arrest for tampering with a United States federal investigation.”
Sheesh. What else could go wrong in their lives? She was tempted to make a run for it and go out in a blaze of glory. But faint amusement gleamed in Taylor’s eyes. He asked casually, “Don’t you think you’re a little far from home for a line like that to work?”
Man, he’d become a cool customer.
Four men stepped out into the clearing. One of them snapped, “You two have been a bona fide pain in the ass for the last time. Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” He jerked his head toward the orange glow in the distance.
Taylor chuckled. “Yeah, we blew up a lot of shit. That fertilizer plant was about to corner the world market on it.”
Ebhardt grinned, but the Americans didn’t seem to find it funny.
“Down on your knees. Both of you.”
Taylor turned around slowly to face the talker, and Amanda followed suit, not obeying the order. “What are you going to do? Execute us with a couple shots to the back of the head?”
“Go ahead. Give me an excuse to do it,” the guy snarled.
Taylor still was unruffled. “Didn’t you get the memo, you asshole? Stunts like that were outlawed back in the seventies.”
“Get down!” the guy roared. His pistol swung up to eye level, and it wavered slightly in the guy’s agitation.
A ripple of clicks sounded from across the clearing. Everyone froze. A new voice from behind her. “Ladies and gentlemen, stay where you are.” A quick order in Russian, and a line of a dozen soldiers advanced, machine guns poised at their hips.
Max grinned. “Gotta love that cavalry. You got here in the nick of time, sir.”
The Russian officer nodded at Ebhardt, then turned and spoke to his American counterpart. “Before you make up an excuse to execute these criminals, Yankee, perhaps we should speak to them. I am given to understand that this pair should not be underestimated.”
The American agent scowled at the Russian military officer.
Amanda watched in disbelief as the Russian grinned back. “Never fear, my hasty friend. We shall be happy to help you execute them. We would simply like to extract a bit of information, first.”
Would this nightmare never end?
The Russian turned to Amanda and Taylor. “Please answer the American’s question. Do you have any idea what you just destroyed?”
The guy, in good Russian chauvinist fashion, was looking at Taylor. Amanda needed to deflect some of the attention to herself or Taylor would never stand a chance of getting out of here alive. When they made their break for it, all the force would come to bear against him.
She spoke up brashly, startling the Russian. “Of course we know what we just destroyed. Why else would we be here? We don’t give a flip for the price of shit in Kyrgyzstan.”
That put the guy back on his heels.
Amanda continued, “In fact, not only do we know what was buried under that factory, but the whole world’s about to know, too.”
Everyone lurched at that announcement, American and Russian alike.
She pressed on. “Do you really think we’d be dumb enough or amateur enough to barge into a situation like this without a dead man’s switch in place?”
“Shit.” The American agent-swore viciously off to her right.
The Russian’s eyes merely narrowed. “Go on,” he said curtly.
Amanda glared back at the officer. She spoke with careful precision. “We have, locked in a number of safe-deposit boxes far, far away from here, complete blueprints for this factory, sample diamonds that it produced and a detailed description of the diamond-computer-chip-making process.
If my friend and I fail to check in with any of our banks within the next twenty-four hours, and once weekly thereafter for the rest of our natural lives, copies of the contents of those security boxes will be sent to every major government in the world electronically and in hard copy. Ponyatno?”
The Russian glared long and hard at her and finally snarled, “Yes, I understand.”
She took a step toward the American. “Do I make myself clear?”
He spit out, “Crystal clear, you bitch.”
She threw a hard look all around the clearing. “The two of us walk out of here, unharmed. And nobody—nobody—harms either one of us. Ever. In fact, it would behoove both your governments to see to it actively that Taylor and I live long, healthy lives.”
“Or else what?” the Russian snarled.
She answered coolly, “Or else your precious computer-chip technology will fall into the hands of every government in the world with a capacity to produce them.”
A thick, charged silence settled over the copse of trees. Nobody moved for a long time. A puff of breeze whisked through, lowering the temperature another couple degrees.
Into the void, Taylor said quietly, “C’mon, Amanda. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.” He took her by the elbow. They turned and walked out from between the two lines of armed men.
Taylor calmly commandeered one of the American’s cars and slid behind the wheel. He drove in silence for a long time. He glanced over from time to time, but Amanda huddled in the seat beside him, saying nothing. The aftermath of the night’s work visibly rolled over her, taking its cleansing toll.
He felt nothing.
And that scared him worse than anything he’d ever experienced in his life, up to and including that moment when Biryayev put that pistol to the back of his head. Was this what it was like to finally lose one’s soul? To burn out completely? Was he going insane like Amanda’s father and Biryayev had?
Amanda jerked awake as the car phone rang by her left elbow some time later. She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear, but said nothing.
“Amanda, is that you?” It was a male voice, but she couldn’t tell much beyond that. It sounded almost metallic, maybe altered by some sort of machine.
“Who’s this?” she asked shortly.
“Devereaux.”
Her eyebrows shot up. How in the hell did her boss know she and Taylor were in Kyrgyzstan, let alone in this car, with this phone number? A sudden certainty rushed through her and she asked abruptly, “Did you engineer that Mexican standoff back at Udarsky?”
“I did,” the voice answered evenly. “Nice work getting out of there. The dead man’s switch was inspired.”
“Thanks. It was Taylor’s idea.”
“You trained him well,” Devereaux replied dryly. “How’s he doing?”
She glanced over at her partner. “With time, I think he’ll be all right.”
“And how are you?”
“I’m fine.” And she realized she meant it. She’d walked through fire and come out intact. Thanks to Taylor.
“Then congratulate your partner on a job well done for me,” Devereaux replied.
So. That had been Taylor’s job, after all. To get her through this mission in one piece. “I’ll pass him the message,” Amanda said dryly.
There was a short pause. Then Devereaux asked quietly, “Are you satisfied with the outcome of this case?”
“The one thing we didn’t find is the Udarsky cache,” she replied.
“Don’t worry about it. Those early diamond chips are outdated and too small for today’s computer applications. The cache is worthless now. But for the sake of appeasing your curiosity, I believe your father hid it inside the oak tree on the cliff behind your house.”
She reeled from that casual revelation. Of course. The picture in her father’s journal of the day they’d planted the oak tree. Her father’s late-night visits to it whenever he returned from his mysterious disappearances.
The yellow ribbon in the safe-deposit box—her father had hummed an American tune about tying a yellow ribbon around an oak tree incessantly in his latter years. She asked, “So, if the Russians find out the Udarsky cache is worthless, does that mean they’ll stop chasing me over it?”
“I should think so. I can arrange for that information to become known in the right circles.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure. One word of caution, however. Your dead man’s switch will only protect you for as long as diamond-computer-chip technology remains relevant. Then all bets are off.”
“Taylor and I will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Call me when you approach that bridge.”
“I’ll keep that offer in mind, sir.”
“Please do.” A pause. Then, “Did you find what you were looking for in this case?”
Amanda frowned, considering the question. Devereaux wasn’t talking about diamond smuggling or even about high-tech computer chips. He was talking about her father’s legacy. “Is that why you put me on this case?” she asked suddenly. “To make my peace with my father?”
“It seemed the
least I could do for you after all your years of loyal service to me.”
She laughed in genuine amusement. “You sure know how to pick your retirement gifts.”
“One does one’s best,” Devereaux replied wryly. “Speaking of retirement, your severance pay, in the sum of ten million dollars, has been wired to your Swiss bank account. Have a nice life. And do enjoy Taylor. I picked him out especially for you.”
She gaped at the phone. Sometimes the reach of this mysterious man was downright frightening. She mumbled a goodbye, abjectly grateful that she’d worked for Devereaux and not against him.
Sunlight peeked over the eastern horizon before Taylor finally pulled the car over to the side of a deserted mountainous road. Amanda was glad to get out and stretch her back. Taylor joined her in looking out over the stark, jagged mountains before them. She felt him studying her in that analytical way he did when he was trying to suss out her mental state. She gazed back at him, assessing herself, as well.
For the first time she could ever remember, she was calm. At peace, even. All the way down to her soul. She smiled up at Taylor, letting it show in her eyes.
He shook his head briefly. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Her smile widened into a grin. “With a shrink like you on the case, how could I not come out okay?”
The beginnings of a smile impinged upon his serious expression. “I’d have bet a million bucks that first night I met you that you’d go up like a supernova before this case was solved.”
“I wouldn’t have taken that bet before I met you. I think you saved my soul.”
“You did that yourself. I just showed you the way.”
Together, they watched a thin sliver of sun crest over the mountains. Daylight burst forth in a blaze of glory all around them.
“Taylor?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you let me show you the way back? Out of the darkness inside you? The way you did for me?”
She looked up into his beautiful blue eyes and saw the moment when the hard shell he’d surrounded himself with these last few weeks cracked. Not a lot, but it was an opening.