Dana Marton (9 page)

He opened the vent cover and pulled himself up first before helping her up behind him. He signaled to her to keep a fair distance. Didn’t have to tell her to be quiet.

He could hear the guards talking, passed by them, reached the suspicious-looking package that he’d seen on the closed-circuit monitor before. Damn. He grabbed the capsule gingerly, signaling to Kate to back up.

He didn’t talk until they were back in the room.

“What is it?” she whispered, pulling her mask off, rubbing the red marks the tight rubber had left on her face.

Good, that meant she’d had a tight seal. He didn’t give her time to get comfortable. He tugged the mask right back over her face with his free hand.

“Some homemade chemical weapon.” His voice sounded strange through the mask. He turned the capsule over. Surprisingly well put together. Whoever had made it knew what he was doing. He didn’t think Piotr had this kind of expertise.

He took in the small sensor. “Remote release. It’s fine for the moment, but the second someone pushes the control button somewhere in the building…” He gave her a meaningful look.

Kate drew back several steps, her hands on the mask now, pushing it tighter onto her face. “Do you think there are more?”

“I’d be willing to bet my 1969 Camaro on it.” And he wasn’t the type of guy who’d say those words lightly.

He looked at Kate and considered seriously, for the first time, that they might not make it out of here.

August 11, 04:31

“How can you stay so calm with a bomb in your hands?” Kate was hyperventilating behind her mask. Not just any bomb, a chemical-weapon bomb.
God.

And he thought there was likely more.

“Practice,” he said easily.

“You’re nuts. Certifiable.” And what did that say about her? She was trusting her life to him.

She thought of the other hostages, grateful that Parker had thought to provide them all with gas masks, grateful that they were in the basement and so were Elena and Katja. She didn’t remember there being any vent openings down there. If anything happened up here, at least the hostages might yet be safe.

She hated the sight of Parker just holding the wretched thing. If it were up to her, she would have been running the moment they’d figured out what it was.

“In how many ways are they planning to kill the hostages?” The rebels could easily have shot the embassy staff. She’d already thought the explosives were too much. And now the nerve gas? “Isn’t this overkill?”

“Terrorists, in general, are not known for their restraint,” he said dryly.

“Can you disable it?” She was half holding her breath, not a fun thing since the gas mask was an impediment to her breathing already.

He hesitated, then looked her square in the eye. “Not without tools.”

Okay. He was being honest with her. That was what she wanted. What she had always wanted. But—
Oh God.
“What are you going to do?”

“Take it with us.” He was putting it under his shirt already so his hands would remain free.

She caught a glimpse of tanned skin and flat abs. She had to be insane even to notice something like that at a moment like this.

And damn if he hadn’t caught her looking. He arched a dark eyebrow.
Damn, damn and double damn.

A hint of amusement underscored his voice when he spoke. “We can’t leave it behind. We’re going to have to find a way to deal with it before someone decides to set it off.”

She so hoped he wasn’t going to say that.

“That sounds like a good idea.” Fear and anger at the unfairness of their situation bubbled up inside her, loosening something. “Why didn’t I think of that?” It was hard to sound sarcastic with a mask on. “Oh, wait, I know. I must have thought that carrying around two TNT belts while sneaking among armed terrorists was dangerous enough.” She was finally losing her cool, was aware of it, but couldn’t do anything about it.

Morning was nearly here. She hadn’t slept in two days. That and the constant danger had a way of making a girl cranky. And she wasn’t even going to bring up her ex-fiancé’s sudden and mysterious reappearance in her life. The kisses she was totally blocking. Indefinitely.

“I’m hoping to get it someplace where it’ll do less damage than in the vents.”

Okay, so there was some logic in that. The vent system was the worst possible place for a nasty-looking chemical weapon. “Like what?”

“A refrigerator or a freezer. Those doors are vacuum-sealed to keep the cold in. Not a perfect solution, but better than letting the airflow distribute all the poison through the whole building.”

“The kitchen is on the first floor.”

“I know. But they have diplomatic lunches on the back balcony when the weather is good. I’m betting there’s at least a pantry somewhere nearby, and if we’re lucky, there’s a good-quality fridge.”

A
ND THERE WAS
. Unfortunately, they got very little time to spend with it, not even enough to grab some food. The rebels decided to go for a snack just a few minutes after Kate and Parker got there.

Six men were hanging out in the small indoor dining room in front of the balcony, coming and going from another room that was a pantry-slash-food-preparation station. They were eating and drinking, looking at the room’s decorations and chatting as if they were on a field trip instead of a murderous mission. They had the flat-screen TV tuned to a soccer game.

Kate and Parker were hiding in a small closet behind a few dozen crates of soft drinks and some top-quality vodka. They’d been forced in there when the men came, and now they had no way out. There were no vent openings in here to crawl through.

Trapped.

She wiggled in the small space.

“Hang in there.” Parker was watching her.

She focused on his eyes, which seemed to burn into hers even through the glass of the gas masks that were doing nothing to ease her sense of claustrophobia. She kept her gaze on him, trying to forget the lack of room, lack of air and the possibility that one of the rebels might get curious enough to look in there again.

The first one had nearly scared her to death. But apparently there were enough drinks available outside that he hadn’t gotten excited by the sight that had greeted him in here. And, thank God, he hadn’t looked too hard.

Her breath came in quick pants. She reached up to her mask. “Could we please take these off?”

He considered her for a long moment before he nodded. “Keep it at the ready.”

She let it hang around her neck and took a full breath, then another.

The good thing about having no vent openings in the storage closet was that if Piotr what’s-his-name activated the nerve gas and he had other capsules, the air wouldn’t blow it in here. And, thank God, Parker had managed to put the capsule they’d had into the freezer in the other room before the rebels barged in, had even thought of submerging it in a bowl of water that would, she hoped, soon freeze into ice. He’d said it might mess with the remote control mechanism. She could only hope the rebels wouldn’t find it as they foraged for food. They had no reason to look in there. They couldn’t eat frozen food, anyway.

She rubbed the side of her face where the mask had left dents in her skin. Having her face covered so tightly added to her sense of unease. She wasn’t an all-out claustrophobe, but she was very uncomfortable with small places, getting a rush of panic now and then that she fought with controlled breathing and sheer logic.

“You okay?” Parker whispered near her ear.

The TV wasn’t loud enough to make out much except the roar of the crowd whenever the game took an exciting turn, but it drowned out the rebels’ talking for the most part and Kate hoped it would mask whatever noise she and Parker might accidentally make in their hiding place.

They spoke in barely audible whispers, pressed against the back wall. Only a few inches separated them from each other. They were close enough for her to hear his even breathing, smell the familiar masculine scent of him.

What they said about scent being a potent trigger of memory was true. Memories flooded her. She fought back valiantly.

“I wonder how Elena and Katja are doing.” She hadn’t been able to get the two girls out of her head. Her thoughts cut back to them from time to time. They were tough little kids, hadn’t been spoiled by life. But they were still kids. She worried about them.

“They’re with people they know,” Parker said reasonably.

But from the way he looked away from her, she could tell he was worried about them, too. “They didn’t look like they knew that Ivan guy. Maybe he’s new on the job,” she said.

“I’m sure they don’t know every single person who works here. But they probably know the kitchen staff. I bet they’ve eaten plenty of meals here at the embassy.”

True. “And they would know Anna. She is…was…their mother’s secretary.” She couldn’t bear thinking of Tanya. If their circumstances were different and their meetings hadn’t been limited to a few diplomatic luncheons, they could have been friends. She couldn’t think of a nicer and more warm-hearted person.

“Those poor kids lived in an orphanage for years. Then they’re adopted by wonderful parents, and then—What do you think’s going to happen to them?”

“They’ll be saved. All of the hostages will be. They are in the most defendable location in the building. They have weapons. The rebels don’t even know where they are. And the Russians will keep these bastards too busy to go looking for anything.”

She sure hoped so. “I meant after that. Their parents are gone. Do you think they’ll have to go back to the orphanage?”

“You can’t help it, can you?”

“What?”

“You’re always worrying about everyone,” he said with a soft smile.

“
Worry
is the key word. Look what you’re doing. You are risking your life for them.” And had for countless others over the years, no doubt. “We didn’t have a choice in being taken hostage. You waltzed in here all on your own, right into danger.”

“They’ll probably go to the rest of their family. I bet they have a boatload of aunts and uncles and cousins.” He deftly steered the conversation back to the girls.

Of course they would have other family. Tanya had a large family and so did her husband. She hadn’t thought of that. Good. That sounded good. Those children didn’t need any more trauma.

“You didn’t want children,” she said without meaning to. The words just slipped out.

He looked at her in the dim space. The only light came from the inch-wide crack under the door.

“Just not right then. I figured we would have plenty of time. I wasn’t in the position to take on that responsibility.”

Considering the spot they were in at the moment, she could understand why he would have thought that. And this was what he did on a regular basis. It seemed almost incomprehensible. Who would do something like that?

Someone who cared deeply about others, who would risk his own life to keep others safe.

And she had thought him irresponsible when he hadn’t always called to let her know he would be late.

“I assume there are other people on this team of yours, whatever it is. Are any of the others married? Nobody has any kids?”

He nodded yes with visible reluctance.

“And none of their wives know anything?” She could sympathize with the women, with what they must think, how they must feel. She’d been there.

“Some do. Some are on the team, too.”

That had to make it easier for them. Or harder. They would know exactly what kind of danger their husbands were in when they left the house. If she’d known Parker was doing this while they’d been living together, she doubted she would have slept at night. She had worried plenty back when she had thought he was a foreign correspondent for Reuters.

She still felt betrayed and angry at the unfairness of life. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a regular guy instead of some special commando soldier? But no, she hadn’t fallen in love with Parker, she could see that with some clarity now. You needed to know someone to fall in love with him. She had fallen in love with the cover he presented.

This man was a lot more edgy, a lot harder, a lot more dangerous. He did things that barely bore thinking about. He killed. She’d seen that firsthand.

And he protected her. With his life.

She filled her lungs, trying to stop that thought from worming its way to her heart.

He slowly ran a hand down her arm, and she closed her eyes.

That was the same. The way his touch affected her. Nothing changed there. And how unfair was that, on top of everything else?

He pulled her against him. “Try to get some sleep. There’s nothing else we can do.”

He wouldn’t sleep. She knew that without him having to say it. He would guard them and listen to the rebels. He would wake her when they were gone.

She did need sleep; she was seriously dragging after two days of playing cloaks and daggers. But she didn’t want to sleep against him. She wasn’t nearly as impervious to him as she would have liked. She moved away.

He pulled her back again. “You are going to need your strength.”

The heat of his body seeped into her, his scent, the feel of his arms around her. This time, she stayed where she was.

His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. Just like old times. She swallowed. There had been good times. She couldn’t deny it. Fantastic times. She had been swimming in a surge of new love. What she’d
thought
was love. But there had been disappointments, too.

Or had she been too quick to judge? She wasn’t going to go there. Hindsight might have been twenty-twenty, but it was also worthless.

He quietly moved the box next to him a few inches forward and maneuvered her deftly so she would end up on his lap, her head remaining on his chest and his arms around her.

They’d sat like this countless times before. It seemed they’d been always touching. Except when he had disappeared on “assignments.”

But her mind was, at the moment, more inclined to drift over the good times. And then into dreams. Most were about danger, but Parker was there in every one of them, always on her side. Others were about naked bodies and breathtaking pleasure. Also with Parker in the starring role.

Her growling stomach woke her up. She felt disoriented in the small, dark space for a few moments, but registered Parker’s protective presence and relaxed. She pressed a hand against her stomach.

“Sleep well?”

Well, but not nearly enough. She still felt exhausted. “I really needed that. Thanks.”

The TV was still going outside. The game was over. Some woman was talking now. The news? She couldn’t make out her words. She sounded excited and outraged, but then again news reporters always did.

She had no idea what time it was or how long she had slept. It had been forever since she’d eaten. Her body needed sustenance.

“Here.” He must have heard her stomach growl, because he was handing her a can of soda.

Not much, but it had caffeine and enough sugar to keep her going a while longer.

She could feel the phone vibrate on Parker’s belt. He took the call and she pressed her ear to the other side of it so she, too, could hear what was said. He didn’t protest.