Dangerous Secrets (27 page)

“Yes, very clear,” she whispered.

He brought his mouth down to hers again, stopping at the last second, then pulling back. His eyes dropped to her mouth, then rose again.

“I can’t kiss you,” he said starkly. Deep grooves bracketed that beautiful mouth. “I can’t send you in there with your mouth swollen with kisses. We can’t make love, either, though I’m about ready to burst out of my skin.” He angled his lower body to rest against hers and she could feel his erection against her stomach, hot and hard. “I can’t. I can’t guarantee I won’t leave any signs on you. But when this is over I’m taking you to bed and I’m going to fuck you breathless.”

“Okay,” she whispered, watching his eyes.

As if it pained him, he let go of her neck, one finger at a time, and stepped back. It was like a force field suddenly switching off, or the planet’s gravity disappearing. She stumbled, in free fall.

Nick’s arms were around her in an instant, pulling her against him again.

She wriggled a little because her back was pressed against the wall and he was pressed hard against her. She felt his penis ripple as he drew in a sharp breath.

“Jesus,” he muttered. He stepped away reluctantly. One step, two. He turned to the briefcase and came back with the electronic doodads in his hands, wires dangling.

He reached his hand out and he slowly unzipped her track suit jacket, then stepped back, pulling in a deep breath, eyes closed.

She stood there, feeling the cold in a little strip along her chest where the jacket was open.

Nick opened his eyes again, face stark. He put his hands on her chest, watching her carefully, then slowly opened his hands. Up over the balls of her shoulders, sweeping the jacket down. His jaw muscles were jumping, his forehead beaded with sweat. He looked down at her for several long moments.

Charity stood straight, arms at her side, not knowing what to do. She’d been naked with Nick so many times and so joyfully. But that had been Nick Ames. She still didn’t know how to react to Nick Ireland.

He lowered his head until his forehead rested on her shoulder. She could feel the dampness and heat of his skin against hers. They stood there, unmoving, for five minutes, ten.

Charity couldn’t think with Nick so close to her, pressed up against her. He seemed to suck up all her emotions and
thoughts. Mind utterly blank, her body took over. As if she had no volition of her own, her hands rose hesitantly, up the outside of his black parka, to finally hold him in an embrace. His whole body shook, a long tremble that seemed to rise from his black boots and encompass his tall, strong body.

One big hand moved from her back to cup her breast. Such a familiar feeling, Nick’s hand on her breast. In an instant, all the feelings that had been kept at bay, somehow remote from her, flooded her in a wild rush. Arousal, anger, fierce joy, agonizing pain.

He thumbed her nipple and the pleasure was electric, bolting through her system like lightning.

His head pulled up and back as he watched his hand on her breast. “Do they feel different?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“A little,” she whispered.

His hand moved from her breast, down to cover her belly. It rested there, warm and large. Right over where their child was growing.

Finally, Nick moved, pulling away to get the electronic paraphernalia.

The body wire was complicated to strap on, and required several pieces of tape. Nick worked slowly and carefully, face intent. He was sweating so hard a bead dropped down his temple.

He disappeared into her bedroom and came back with a black cardigan and dressed her, slowly, carefully. A tiny video camera took the place of one of the buttons.

“I’ll be watching you,” Nick said. “Watching everything.”

She nodded.

He ran her through the precautions. Her head swam with frequencies and audio cones and battery life, though he made
her promise again, looking him straight in the eyes, that at minute twenty after entering Vassily’s house, she’d plead a headache and come home.

Finally, it was done.

Nick wrapped her in his arms and they stood there, both shaking, his head buried in her shoulder. She felt moisture on the bare skin of her shoulder. She pulled back, surprised.

Tears, not sweat.

She reached up to run her hands through his blue-black hair. Nick. Her husband. Who’d lied to her, who wasn’t what he said he was. But she loved him all the same, with everything in her.

A deep shudder rippled through his long body, then he straightened. He looked at her, not even trying to hide the tears streaking his cheeks.

“I’ll be close by,” he said starkly.

She nodded.

“Say as little as possible, get in, get out.”

She nodded again.

They looked at each other in the silence of the room. Nick was panting, as if he’d run a race. His fists clenched tightly, then opened.

“Go get dressed,” he said, “before I change my mind.”

Parker’s Ridge
Vassily Worontzoff’s mansion

“My dear Arkady,” Vassily said, coming toward him. “My dear, dear friend.” They embraced, kissing each other’s cheeks.

“Vor.” Arkady’s voice was thick. He coughed to hide his emotion. He hadn’t seen his Vor in four years.

“Come my friend, you must sit down. You must be weary after such a long journey.” Vassily indicated a comfortable leather armchair next to what was obviously his desk and brought Arkady a glass of vodka himself, a sign of respect.

The Vor sat next to him, placing his shattered hand on Arkady’s arm. “You have done well, my friend. There will be many such trips, if you are willing to take them—” He paused while Arkady nodded.

No question. If the Vor needed him, he was at his service.

“Good.” The Vor nodded. “We will make much money and when we have finished, I will send you to look after my in
terests in Europe. Would you like to settle in Switzerland? France?”

“Italy,” Arkady breathed and the Vor nodded again.

“Italy it shall be. There will be work for you there. Our empire is growing. You will be my viceroy.”

Arkady bowed his head. “It would be a privilege, Vor,” he murmured.

The two men turned their heads at the sharp knock on the door. A man stuck his head in. A former zek. Arkady could tell. “He’s coming, Vor. We just got word. He’ll be here in less than an hour, in a three-car caravan.”

“He comes in alone,” Vassily said sharply. “Or not at all. Tell him I will be without bodyguards myself. There will only be the engineer in the room.”

The man looked uneasy. “Vor,” he said. “Is that wise? These are dangerous men.”

“Yes, they are. But we have something they badly want. And we have more coming. They won’t harm me.” He flicked his hand. “Now go and be prepared to greet him when he arrives.”

The man hesitated briefly, then bowed his head and withdrew. The heavy door made a soft
whump
as it closed.

Vassily gave a wintry smile. “This business will be over soon. Come, let us retire to the living room where we have tea waiting for us. And when this is over, there is someone I must introduce to you. You will be astonished, my friend.”

Outside Worontzoff’s mansion

Those were the last words they heard before Alexei pulled the plug. Nick knew Alexei had to—if you looked carefully,
you could see the laser beam as a faint line in the gathering darkness—but he had to stop himself from banging a fist against the wall in frustration.

He and Di Stefano were hunkered down behind a bush, to one side of the study windows, unable to see into the room. Essentially blind and now that Alexei had cut them off, deaf, too.

They were clad head to toe in a special uniform and balaclava made of Nomex that repelled thermal imaging.

Worontzoff’s security was shot to shit tonight, all his guards milling about, offloading the truck that had driven in a quarter of an hour before. He and Di Stefano had been careful and they were good. They’d had zero trouble infiltrating.

Nick knew that the SWAT team was deployed, ready. They’d spent the past hour getting into position. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. The comms system clicked steadily every quarter of an hour, ticking off men in position.

He’d been expecting a knock-down drag-out fight from Di Stefano about being down here where the action was and not up in the van, watching Alexei pace in frustration. But Di Stefano clearly realized Nick wouldn’t let anything get in the way between him and Charity while she was in Worontzoff’s house. Di Stefano had simply told Nick to suit up and that was that.

Di Stefano pulled out a small LCD monitor, holding it so that no one could detect its faint glow. It was a little miracle of technology, programmed for thermal imaging and able to tune into the frequency of Charity’s microcamera.

He studied it carefully and signaled to Nick that everyone had left the room. To Nick’s surprise, he drew out a tiny drill and proceeded to drill a hole through the wall, at the level
of the baseboard inside the house. It was high speed and utterly silent. As soon as the drill perforated the inside wall, Di Stefano threaded a combo microphone–fish-eye lens snake into the hole.

Di Stefano fiddled with the tiny handheld computer, and suddenly Nick had sound and could see inside the room. It was at foot level, but the camera had a good range. He knew it was a little miracle of optics.

Great, now they had eyes and ears in the room and could see and hear what Charity was seeing and hearing. Better than he’d hoped.

There was no one in the study, but there was music in the background. One of those sad Russian songs that had driven him crazy when he was on listening duty.

The comm system was piping sound to everyone on the loop, including Alexei. If Russian was spoken, Alexei would give a simultaneous interpretation.

Everything was good to go. Now all they could do was wait.

Nick was usually good at waiting. Stillness and darkness were his friends. Right now, though, his insides were racing at a thousand miles an hour. He gripped his MP5 tightly, glad for the gloves because his hands were sweating.

Two clicks from the SWAT team members. Nothing happening.

Iceman hunkered down to wait. There was nothing else to do.

Nick had carefully picked her clothes. The black cardigan was loose and didn’t show the tiny mike taped between her breasts or the battery pack taped to the small of her back. Even she had difficulty in seeing the microcamera, it was so
well camouflaged. He’d also picked slate gray lightweight wool pants and comfortable boots. He hadn’t said it, but clearly he’d chosen her clothes not only to hide the camera and mike, but also for comfort if she had to move fast.

Nick had filled her head with instructions, but she hadn’t absorbed much beyond not turning her back, not letting material rub against the mike and not scratching herself.

She jolted at the sound of the front doorbell. Vassily’s driver, come to pick her up.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She was about to betray Vassily, something that she would have thought herself incapable of. She thought of the fake medicine, the counterfeit bolts, and what Nick had told her about the human trafficking Vassily’s organization engaged in.

And then she thought of Nick.

Two men. She’d loved both of them, in her way, and she never really knew either of them.

The doorbell rang again and she picked up her coat. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the door.

Showtime
.

Al-Banna was late. But Vassily had learned patience at a hard school. The hardest. He wasn’t worried. Al-Banna would come. He was too invested not to. Vassily had something al-Banna wanted very, very badly, with more on the way.

In the meantime, Vassily chatted amiably with his old friend, Arkady, over tea and vodka. They didn’t reminisce about days gone by, as old friends usually did. The past was much too painful. No, music and books wove their usual magic.

Finally, Ilya stood in the doorway. “He’s coming, Vor,” he said quietly. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Did you tell him to come alone?” Vassily asked sharply.

“Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s coming alone. Only the driver and him.”

Vassily didn’t care whether he was happy or not. All he cared about was that a new and safe route had been found and that al-Banna would be bringing ten million dollars.

And that afterward, he would be celebrating with Katya. Together. At long, long last.

Five clicks. The prearranged signal that someone was coming. A sentry was posted two miles up the road, well camouflaged, with powerful binoculars.

“Al-Banna,” Di Stefano mouthed. Nick nodded.

Word must have been given to Worontzoff, too. On the screen, Nick could see him and the Russian who’d brought the container and who was called Arkady enter the study.

They were speaking softly, calmly.

“They’re talking about books,” Alexei’s voice sounded clear as a bell in his ears. “Nothing important. Worontzoff just made a joke about Arabs being late. Used a term for Arab that is very politically incorrect.”

It was almost completely dark, which helped their concealment. The floodlights were on a timer, which hadn’t been changed since summer. They would be turned on in an hour. In an hour and a half, Charity would be safely out of the way and everyone in the mansion would be in restraints. Or dead. Nick didn’t much care either way, as long as Charity was safe.

Nick and Di Stefano held their position, barely breathing. Every once in a while Alexei would give them the gist of the conversation going on in the study.

With a loud clanking sound, the big front gates started
opening, exactly in time for a black Mercedes with tinted windows to pass through them and drive up to the front steps without slowing down. An act of pure arrogance.

Two men got out, the driver and a passenger. Nick stared hard at the man who emerged from the passenger side. He’d studied the fucker’s file until it was burned into his brain.

He looked older than the pictures in the file, thinner. There’d been some plastic surgery done. The nose was narrower, cheekbones higher. His hair was pewter gray instead of midnight black.

But Nick would recognize him anywhere.

Hassad al-Banna, the man who’d masterminded the attack against the USS
Cole,
once Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, now setting up a terror franchise all his own.

Di Stefano clicked once on his lip mike. Nick could almost feel the tension of the invisible team.

He watched al-Banna climb the big granite stairs, the driver right behind him, carrying a large suitcase. Big, beefy guy. Clearly a bodyguard doubling as driver.

A few minutes later, they were walking into the study and Nick and Di Stefano bent over the small screen, watching as if lives depended on it. Which they did.

Vassily got up to greet the Arab. Luckily, there would be no niceties, no pretending at social politeness. This was a business transaction between two men and two organizations that wanted nothing to do with each other, besides exchanging money for a commodity.

This suited him. The quicker this was over with, the faster he could be with Katya. He felt her presence very strongly, even if she hadn’t arrived yet.

There was power in this room, great power. In the hidden history of the world, what happened tonight in this small town in northern Vermont would change the course of human affairs. Vassily felt that fate had deemed that he should live, though he should have died a thousand times over in Kolyma. A powerful force had led him to this point, and to his reclaiming of his lost love.

From this day forward, there would be no more pretense. He and Katya would be reunited and rich and powerful. No one would ever—could ever—harm them, ever again.

Nick and Di Stefano watched it all on the small screen. Worontzoff limping across the study to greet al-Banna, whose bodyguard was wheeling in a large suitcase. Worontzoff stopped right in front of him and gave a brief nod.

Nobody offered to shake hands.

Al-Banna was followed by his bodyguard. The man was carrying. The bulge under his left armpit was clear. Nick could only imagine that Worontzoff’s bodyguard, Ilya, was also carrying. It was entirely possible that if Worontzoff had tried to have al-Banna disarmed, a firefight would break out. Both Ilya and the bodyguard looked tough and proficient.

Mutual assured destruction. It worked. For fifty years it kept the United States and the Soviet Union from bombing each other into oblivion.

There were five men in the room. Worontzoff, al-Banna, his bodyguard, Arkady, and Ilya.

“I don’t think we need to waste time,” Worontzoff said and Hammad nodded. “You go first.”

Hammad looked at his bodyguard. The big man lifted the huge suitcase onto Worontzoff’s desk and opened it. It was filled with bricks of dollars. Everyone in the room froze.

Hell, even Nick and Di Stefano froze.

The camera was at floor level, but the suitcase was so packed with money, it overflowed. The big bodyguard picked up one banded brick and rifled through it. Nick could clearly see Benjamin Franklin’s likeness. One-hundred-dollar-bill denominations. Nick tried to think how much money could possibly be contained in that big suitcase. Millions and millions.

“Ten million dollars,” al-Banna said, his voice tinny in Nick’s earbud. Well, that answered that question. “What does it buy me?”

Worontzoff nodded and the man called Arkady walked over to a large container. It had a complicated closure system, but finally he opened it and lifted the lid.

He stepped back and gestured with his arm at the contents. “A canister with one hundred kilos of cesium 137. Given the temperature, it is currently in a liquid state. There is enough cesium in this canister for one large dirty bomb or several smaller ones. You can irradiate central Manhattan, say the Wall Street district, or several military bases, as you please. We have more than one hundred other canisters, ready for shipment.”

A wintry smile creased al-Banna lips. “Excellent.”

Nick and Di Stefano exchanged grim, startled looks. This was way worse than Nick’s worst imaginings. Thank God they were here and were going to stop the transaction. The mere idea that one hundred canisters of cesium 137 were back in Russia, waiting for shipment to terrorists, was terrifying.

They weren’t going to take down a transaction, they were taking down a network. Ordinarily, this would have filled Nick with satisfaction, but his whole head was taken up with
worry about Charity. There wasn’t room for satisfaction, only room for terror that she’d be hurt.

The gate clanged open again and one of Worontzoff’s cars, a Mercedes, drove through. Nick whipped around, watching the car as it drove in. He could barely make out a small, pale figure in the back.

Jesus. Charity.

He broke out in goose bumps, angry that they’d had this half-assed idea of wiring her up and sending her into the lion’s den, scared shitless that something bad would go down.