Hidden Steel (29 page)

And enough was enough. Mickey found her feet, clumsy though they were, and propped herself up on her own power, swaying between the two men. She ignored their painfully tightened grip; it was nothing compared to the shards of pain in her ribs, over one eye, deep within …

She said, “Now, Steve.
Now
you call the cops. So long as you take Naia with you.”

“
Mickey
,” he said, looking at her with those deeply troubled eyes, agony of another sort. “Mickey, I—”

“It doesn’t matter what you think of me. Take her there. Get the CIA.” She winced as one of the men shook her, realizing the impact of her words yet unable to hit her again without losing Steve completely. But she saw Steve’s face, and she knew he was already lost to them. After a steady refusal to call on authorities, she had what she always said she’d wanted—Naia’s safety—and her demand that Steve find help undercut their entire scenario of Mickey the Mad.

And Steve knew it. “
Mickey
,” he said again.

“There is no need to involve—” one of the men started.

Steve turned on him. “You killed Anthony. You killed Mosquito. You shot at us all—you shot at
Naia.
No. It’s time to run away now.” And Steve started the bike. He gave Mickey an impossibly agonized look and turned away.

Good. Go for it. Go make it happen.

The men cursed; they dropped her as the bike skidded out across the parking lot, running a few futile steps after it. Mickey had made it to hands and knees when they looked back at her, and she found herself too bleary to do so much as quail before their mounting anger. “We can finish this later,” she suggested indistinctly. “You look like you could use some aspirin. Some nice band-aids. Would you like to hear a song? It’s the hey Mickey song. I’m pretty good at it—” But she broke off her babble as they headed for her.

The rising engine noise in the background didn’t catch her attention until the men were only a step or two away in spite of her floundering attempts to back away from them. Didn’t catch her attention until the motorcycle shot around the end of the building carrying only Steve—Steve, who came strafing past to grab their attention from Mickey.

They turned on him, grabbing for guns that were no longer there, then going for backup—and by then Mickey had enough wits and enough time to reach behind her, snatching up the slingshot from the outside pocket of the backpack, fingers searching the ground for—

There. Big and sharp-edged, gravel from the shrubbery plantings. She loaded the slingshot without unfolding the wrist brace; she pulled the sling back with shaky hands, all the way back—even as one of the men thought to check on her, to suspect that she wasn’t done with them yet.

She let fly. Up close and personal and full strength, she let fly.
No kids for you.

The man screamed. Loud and shrill, and barely pausing for breath. The other operative whirled, gun in hand, too close to miss and aiming directly at her mixed-up head. Mickey froze, halfway to her feet, the slingshot reloaded but not pulled back, looking down the barrel of that semi-automatic, thinking she had no chance of surviving a .45 caliber bullet to the brain, thinking that Steve wouldn’t get his happy ending at all—

Except Steve was still coming. And Steve came on fast, brushing the man hard enough so the bike wobbled and the man wobbled and in that split second of inattention, Mickey had him. She released the half-aimed stone and clipped the gun, a .38 revolver, and she surged to her feet with all her remaining strength, kicking the gun aside as it went off, burning a trail all the way up her leg.

This time when Steve came around, he just plain ran the man down.

He cut the engine and toed the kickstand down and leaped off the bike pretty much in one motion, while Mickey found herself on the ground again, not even quite sure how she’d gotten there. She’d acquired the .38 along the way, and had it trained on their new prisoner. “Naia?”

“At the Caltrain, calling nine-one-one as requested. God, Mickey, you look—”

“Alive,” she said, struggling for dignity when she could feel enough puffy heat on her face to know exactly how she looked. “I look
alive.
”

Steve hesitated next to the Irhaddan operative, who seemed as though he might try to get up until he saw the gun in Mickey’s hand. In the background, his partner still offered a high-pitched and unending whine. “What I
meant
,” Steve said, enunciating his words carefully, “was it was time for
you
to run away.”

And Mickey laughed, and pulled him down to sit by her, ready to lean her weary, battered body against him and wait for help.

No such luck.
They both jumped as a nondescript sedan swooped around the corner into the parking lot, coming to a stop with a squeal of brakes and still rocking with the motion of it when the two occupants jumped out, ready for action.
The CIA to the rescue.

“Tsk,” Mickey said. “That’s pretty active for native soil.”

The sturdy woman gave her partner a cranky look, and tipped her head at the sirens in the background. “See? Let’s go. We’ll grab her up at the police station, nice and procedural.”

“Wait,” Steve said, stopping them from a departure as abrupt as their arrival. “You were—you saw—” and finally his arm tightened around Mickey’s shoulder and he blurted, “How is Mosquito?”

The case officers exchanged a glance, and then the man said, somewhat guardedly, “It’s hard to tell. He seems to have been affected—”

“But he’s
alive
?” Steve said, sudden hope infusing his voice.

The agent relaxed. “Yes, he’ll be fine. His care is being covered.”

Mickey found she had her own questions. “And the woman?” she demanded. “Did you find—?”

The female agent offered grim satisfaction. “A specialized contractor,” she said. “Abduction and interrogation for hire, right along with her pet doctor.”

“Foolish man,” Mickey muttered, thinking of his callous naiveté. He’d burned out her memory—maybe forever—and if he wasn’t in the league of his employers, he still deserved everything that came his way.

The woman gave her a perceptive look, turning back to face her more directly if just as confrontational as ever. “You’re ready to come in, then?”

To face her past directly? To see who she really was, as others also saw her? Mickey would have shuddered if she wasn’t so wracked with the pain of the beating she’d taken. But Naia was safe and Mickey now understood the players of this game into which she’d been caught up. There was no reason to run any longer, aside from fear.

Not that there wasn’t plenty of fear.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m ready to come in.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 21

Steve swam out of the depths of a foggy, hallucinatory sleep to a foggy, hallucinatory awareness. The bed, he slowly realized, was jiggling. Tiny little bounces.

Totally atypical of his bed at any time.

“
Ise gaiduri
,” he muttered at it.

The bed giggled. Just a little.

His eyes flew open. This time, he knew what he’d find.

“That door,” he said distinctly, “was
locked.
And it was a new lock. A really spiffy lock.”

“It was,” she agreed.

He sat up with much more dignity than the last time this had happened, and figured she was perfectly well aware of what he did or didn’t wear under the covers. Just the brush of the sheets woke him up with startling speed.

Or maybe it was Mickey, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed in some lightweight yoga outfit, the single light by the door—which he hadn’t left on—shining off the smooth lines of a new haircut. Shorter, spunkier, still framing her face and those bright, clear blue eyes. No bruises, no swelling. Healed and healthy.

“How’s things with our new friend Anna?” Steve asked. “Good enough to let you go, I guess.” Weeks, it had been. Weeks during which he’d settled back into his routine here, weeks that included a certain amount of grilling by the CIA. The clean-up done by both the Irhaddanians and the CIA along the way meant there was no evidence of his involvement in anything but that last confrontation, during which he’d done nothing but fire a convenient gun in self-defense. Once the agency wars swooped into play, that little fact had pretty much been lost in shuffle. He’d been grilled by the CIA—an amazingly thorough process that went deep into his background—and turned loose. Back to build his classes up again, ponder how to juggle the disrupted cash flow, and explain to Dawnisha and the other ladies where he’d been, and why he hadn’t come back with Mickey.

They’d liked Mickey, his neighborhood family had.

And here she was on his bed, making his heartbeat ratchet up as her presence truly sank in. He hadn’t expected—he’d thought he’d gotten over—

He took a sudden deep breath, making up for moments of holding it.

She said, “Yup, I’m on the loose. They’re going to keep me working in the background until I’m a little more solid, but I’m on the loose. And Naia …she’s a hero to her country. She won’t be working with us anymore, but … hey, now I can have lunch with her out in the open.” She shrugged, tossing back hair that really wasn’t long enough to toss any more. “And Anna … she’s okay, as it turns out. Not a bad person to be. Works pretty hard to keep this country safe …” she hesitated, a thoughtful tilt in her head. “That woman … the Irhaddanians hired her when they thought Jane A. Dreidler would be an easy catch.” She made a face. “Maybe I
was
an easy catch. I guess I’ll never know.”

“Somehow I doubt it.” Steve hit dry tones in spite of the distraction of having her
right there.
“Jane A. Dreidler.”

“My station name,” she said. “Well, it
was
.” She made another face, a wry one. “Maybe it’s a good thing I had all that training to draw on after I escaped, and none of the memories that I hadn’t actually been in a bad guy smackdown before. Lots of training, lots of scenarios … lots of clandestine stuff. But no smackdown.” She straightened, her voice brightening. “But hey, I do have a cat—and a neighbor who feeds her when I’m gone, so she’s fine! And I have the most amazing furniture. Turns out I’m pretty damn good at the antique thing. And I like it, too, which is a nice touch. I travel a lot … sometimes I play courier … sometimes I escort people from place to place. Never dull.”

“You were never dull just being you,” Steve said, rather fervently. “Even when you didn’t know who you were.”

“Oh, just wait,” she said. “Now that I remember most of me—hypnosis is a wonderful thing—I’m sure I’ll be even more fun than ever.”

Look at that, he’d forgotten to breathe again.

“Speechless?” she said. “Or just waiting for me to break into song?”

“Waiting for you,” he said.

“Oh, well then.” She stretched, enough to lift her cropped top, to reassure him that she’d filled out to a healthy weight since her abduction and their big adventure. Sleek, toned, just waiting to be touched. “Move over. I’ll teach you how to sing, all right.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About the Author

Doranna Durgin
lives in the high desert foothills of New Mexico with three dogs, with whom she competes in agility, rally, and obedience, and her Lipizzan, with whom she rides in the deep arroyos and juniper- & cedar-scented highlands. She has no spare time.

Other Works by Doranna Durgin

FANTASY

Changespell Saga:

Dun Lady's Jess (Winner, Compton Crook Award)

Changespell

Changespell Legacy

Barrenlands (prequel)

King's Wolf Saga

Touched by Magic

Wolf Justice

Stand-Alone Fantasies

Wolverine's Daughter

Seer's Blood

A Feral Darkness

ROMANCE

Action Romance

Shaken and Stirred (Femme Fatale Novella)

Chameleon (Smokescreen Novella)

Exception to the Rules

Beyond the Rules

Heavy Metal Honey

Survival Instinct

Hidden Steel

Checkmate: Athena Force

Comeback  Athena Force 2

Paranormal

Sentinels: Jaguar Night

Sentinels: Lion Heart 

Sentinels:  Wolf Hunt

Demon Blade

Dark Blade

The Reckoners Series:

The Reckoners

Storm of Reckoning

MYSTERY

Nose for Trouble

Scent of Danger

FRANCHISE BOOKS

Star Trek: Next Generation

Tooth and Claw, #60  

Earth: Final Conflict

Heritage

Angel

Impressions

Fearless

Mage Knight

Dark Debts

Ghost Whisperer

Revenge

Ghost Trap

SHORT STORIES

Harvest of Souls

Fool's Gold

A Bitch in Time

The Right Bitch

Bitch Bewitched

Mornglom Dreaming

Bummed out

The Yoke of the Soul

Feef's House

Hair of the Dog

Call from the Wild

Just Hanah

Emerging Legacy

The Scoria

Bitch Bewitched

Fountane Of