Hot Intent (Hqn) (12 page)

An iron gate came into view, and Oscar ran to it eagerly. But only a bare concrete slab remained beyond where the child’s home had stood. He burst into tears and Katie’s heart broke for him. She sat down in the middle of the road and pulled the boy into her lap to hold and console while she cried with him.

*

A
LEX
STEPPED
AWAY
from Katie and the child. He felt bad for the kid, but as quickly as sympathy reared its ugly head, he slammed the useless emotion shut in a drawer in his mind.

Oscar’s life had just been irrevocably shattered. And the sooner the boy came to terms with that, the sooner he could pick himself up and go on. Alex knew that from personal experience. He’d been only a few years older than the kid when his own world imploded. Katie coddling him wasn’t going to do him a bit of good. As much as it sucked, Oscar was going to have to grow up fast.

While Katie calmed the boy, he mentally reviewed his college chemistry for chemicals and combinations of chemicals that could be lethal. He desperately hoped Katie was right and the cleaning supplies factory was the source of the deaths in the area. But his gut told him he wasn’t looking at something that simple.

Eventually, Katie extracted information from the boy that Oscar’s grandmother lived in Baracoa. He wasn’t surprised when Katie offered to take Oscar to the city to find her, but he really didn’t have time to play fairy godfather to some kid right now. They had a crisis on their hands, and they needed to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.

Before he could voice his objection to a Baracoa road trip, however, the boy ran toward some sort of shed behind where the house had stood and Katie followed the child. The structure looked largely intact.

Alex started when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket and pulled it out cautiously. He swore and answered in Russian, keeping his voice low. “What do you want, Peter? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Have you found anything?” his father asked without preamble.

“Like what?” he responded cautiously.

“You tell me.”

“What do you think I’m going to find out here?”

“Dead people,” Peter answered promptly.

“Good guess.”

A pause drew out between them. Alex finally murmured, “You’re draining my battery. I’m going to hang up now—”

“Wait,” Peter said sharply.

“What?”

“Have you found any...unusual deaths?”

Alex’s skin crawled. Literally. It felt like a million tiny insects were clawing across his flesh. “Why do you ask?” he asked sharply.

“If you should happen to run across anything...out of the ordinary...it would behoove all of us if you...removed...any evidence of such a thing. It would be a tragedy if something...contagious...were to be loosed upon unsuspecting people.”

Just which unsuspecting people was Peter talking about? Was he threatening Americans with a chemical attack if the presence of such chemicals were revealed here? Or was he merely talking about the Cuban government silencing the locals by whatever means necessary? Not that a localized massacre was that great an alternative, either.

“You’re going to have to speak plainly to me, Peter. You already seem to know what I’ve seen out here.”

“I need you to bury the evidence. All of it. Do you have any idea the international crisis that would ensue if word of what was there got out?”

“Is there more of it still in the area?” Alex demanded.

“I don’t know. If you could find out and let me know, I’d be eternally grateful. You’re a doctor, son. Think about the lives you will save if you do this thing for me.”

“And if I fail?” he asked carefully.

“You must not fail, my son. The collateral damage in your life would be...unthinkable.”

Alex stared at nothing as shock reverberated through his entire being. They would kill Katie and Dawn. If he didn’t betray the United States and commit treason by burying evidence of chemical weapons in Cuba, the only people in the world he loved would die.

CHAPTER SEVEN

K
ATIE
WAS
PERPLEXED
over why Alex had abruptly broken off their investigation of the Zacara factory to take Oscar to Baracoa. She didn’t for a minute think he’d agreed to the trip for altruistic reasons. He’d gotten a stubborn look on his face when she first promised the boy she’d take him to his grandmother. Then, that call had come in, and Alex had abruptly changed his tune.

The shed had yielded a waterlogged moped, but Alex and the boy worked some sort of magic on it and had gotten it running again. Alex had taken apart a wheelbarrow and rigged a makeshift hitch to turn it into a towable wagon.

She and Alex rode the moped while Oscar sat in the wagon behind it. The trip to Baracoa was slow going. They were fewer than thirty miles up the coast from the city, but it took them most of the afternoon to get there.

Baracoa had fared slightly better than the villages up the coast. A number of cinder-block and concrete buildings had more or less withstood the battering of Giselle. And it had public services like police, a fire department and a hospital. It appeared that much of the populace had been recruited to clear debris and shovel mud. The highest two-thirds of the city was more or less dug out from the storm and passable, while the coastal margins of the town were still under water.

A soldier with an AK-47 slung across his back waved them to a halt as they reached the edge of the town. Katie more or less hid behind Oscar while Alex explained in fluent Spanish that they were bringing the boy to his grandmother. On cue, Oscar burst into tears. Her limited Spanish led her to believe the child was telling the soldier a fractured account of his home being washed away and his family lost.

Once Alex assured the soldier that he and Katie would be leaving Baracoa as soon as they found the boy’s grandmother, the soldier let them pass.

The irony was not lost on her that Alex was doing to Oscar exactly what his father had done to him—using a child as a cover for espionage. For surely, this trip to Baracoa was about their mission in some way.

A frisson of ethical discomfort tickled her spine. She ought to object to this whole thing. Except the boy really did need to get to his family and really was too young to get there by himself. And it wasn’t like they were endangering the child.

The boy tearfully directed them to a thankfully high and dry part of town. Grandma’s windows were still boarded up, but the front door was open and there were signs of life.

Oscar leaped out of her lap and ran for the front door, shouting. A middle-aged woman came out and scooped the boy into her arms tightly. As the boy sobbed, the woman’s face crumpled and the pair shared their grief. It was hard to look at, and Katie turned into Alex’s shoulder for comfort.

His body was rigid, his face set in stone. She didn’t care how tough he tried to be. He was affected. He was just conditioned to act closed off and unfeeling. His arm came up around her shoulders for a brief squeeze. Hah, she was right!

He said tersely, “Time for us to be on our way.”

Oscar’s grandmother barely got a chance to murmur her thanks before Alex climbed on the moped and waited impatiently for her to clamber on behind him. With just the two of them, they were able to ditch the wagon. They pulled away from the house and she wondered sadly how many more personal tragedies just like that were playing out all around them.

Alex pointed the moped toward the middle of town with purpose, like he had a destination in mind. She leaned forward to ask over the noise of the motor, “Where are we going?”

“The hospital.”

She frowned. What did he want with a hospital? They couldn’t just stroll in and announce their presence in Cuba to the authorities. But apparently, that was exactly what he had in mind. They parked in front of a decent-size white building that appeared to have weathered Giselle reasonably well, and Katie followed him hesitantly as he marched into the emergency room.

“Let me do the talking,” he muttered low.

Ya think?
She made a face at his back as he headed for a man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. The Cuban doctor got a surprised look on his face, but in a few seconds nodded in agreement with whatever Alex was murmuring to him.

Alex returned to her side, shedding the backpack of their emergency gear as he came. “Take this and find a spot out of the way to get comfortable. This will take a while.”

“
What
will take a while?”

“I’m trading my surgical skills for the supplies we need.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “We need supplies?”

“To get clean samples,” Alex bit out. And then he was gone, turning to join the doctor who called out something about being ready behind him.

Chairs were in short supply, so she found a corner and hunkered down in it. She leaned against the backpack both for comfort and so no one could take it while she dozed. They’d gotten precious little sleep since they’d arrived on the island, and the warm, muggy waiting room knocked her out.

It was dark when she woke and the waiting room crowd had thinned considerably. The backpack was still behind her and there was no sign of Alex. She wandered the halls in fruitless search of him and eventually stumbled across the cafeteria. She took the mug of soup someone handed her and nodded her thanks. It was some sort of thin broth with canned vegetables floating in it, but it was hot and quieted the growling in her stomach.

Bored, she returned to her corner to wait for Alex. She slept on and off through most of the night before a hand on her shoulder jerked her awake. It was Alex bending over her in surgical scrubs, looking exhausted.

“Time to go,” he said low.

“Don’t you want some sleep?” she mumbled, groggy.

“Later.”

He doffed the scrubs, hung a light, bulky bag on the back of the backpack and passed the whole thing to her. He’d become more of an order-giver in the past year. More willing to take charge. That, in and of itself, wasn’t bad, she supposed. But it could be a little irritating being ordered around. Katie had to laugh at herself a little for falling for a guy just like all the other men in her family.

How did her mother tolerate six men who were all just like this? The woman must have the patience of Job not to haul off and coldcock one of them now and then. Katie sighed and climbed to her feet, stiff and sore from sleeping on a hard, cold floor.

Since she would be sitting in back of Alex, she got to wear the backpack. The night was cool. The ocean chuckled and murmured nearby and its briny odor hung thick in the air. The moon was high overhead, a lopsided disk throwing cold light down on them. Shockingly, the moped was right where Alex had left it.

They climbed on and he pointed their ride to the north. His body was warm and vital against hers, and she snuggled close against him. His presence was reassuring like nothing else on earth to her. She probably shouldn’t feel so safe given where they were, but she did. Alex could handle anything that came their way.

They ran into two military checkpoints, but the sleepy soldiers let them pass when he identified himself as a doctor heading north with medical supplies to find and treat victims of the hurricane. At the second checkpoint, the soldier opened up the bag hanging from her pack and seemed satisfied with what he saw inside. He waved them through.

The sun was rising by the time they reached the iron gate leading to Oscar’s ruined home. A thin layer of fog rose from the moist earth, making the morning misty and bright.

She was surprised when Alex turned into the driveway.

“I’m beat,” he muttered by way of explanation. “The shed’s intact and we can use it for cover while I go down for a few hours.”

Spoken like a true field operative. “I got plenty of rest yesterday. I’ll take the watch while you sleep,” she offered.

He nodded briefly. It took them a few minutes to carry out enough farm tools, buckets and junk to make enough room to stretch a tarp on the dirt floor for Alex. Without further ado, he handed her a loaded pistol, laid down and passed out.

She sat on the edge of the tarp inside the door for several hours, watching the day age. A few birds sang outside, and she wondered idly where they’d ridden out the storm and managed not to get blown away. Already, the area was renewing itself, recovering from the storm. If only she could find a way to do the same for Alex. There had to be a way to renew his soul. To wash away the hurts his parents had caused the boy and to heal the man.

She watched him sleep, memorizing the features of his face again. His cheeks were leaner than last year, his hair shorter and lighter and his skin darker, as if he’d spent a lot of time in the sun. His mouth spent more time compressed in a line than before, but right now it was relaxed, his lips full and kissable. Like this, he looked nearly the same as before.

But then, his eyes were closed. That was where his changes really shouted at her. His gaze now was cold and assessing, where before it had been at best sardonic and, at worst, cynical. He looked at the world now with a detachment he hadn’t had before. Like everyone around him was a bug potentially to be stamped out if they made a wrong move.

For the first time since he’d come home, she allowed herself to wonder guiltily if it was her fault he’d had to endure whatever had been done to him for the past year. She’d been the one to tip the scales in his life, to force him to choose sides and accept employment in the CIA. Before she and Dawn had come into his life, he’d successfully walked a tightrope between the CIA and the FSB. He’d carved out a life for himself where everyone more or less left him alone. But no more.

She and Dawn had made him vulnerable to pressure. He’d had to give in and choose sides. She was just grateful he’d gone with the United States. Frankly, she was a little worried about the CIA having given him all the lethal training they apparently had. Even she wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was fully committed to Uncle Sam. It wouldn’t shock her if someday he switched sides and went to work for his father in the FSB.

It was one thing to know Alex had changed this year. It was another entirely to know she was responsible for it. She found it a whole lot harder to blame him for being like he was now.

What had Peter wanted with him yesterday, anyway? She’d heard Alex speaking, low and angry, in Russian while she comforted Oscar. And why the abrupt reversal of course to Baracoa after the call? Curiosity made her impatient for Alex to wake up so she could quiz him on what was going on. Assuming, of course, that he would tell her the truth. That might be an optimistic assumption on her part.

Something moved outside and she lurched to alertness. Gripping the pistol tightly, she eased back deeper into the shadows of the shed. As if he had radar for it even when unconscious, Alex’s arm came around her from behind, startling her. Dang, he was quiet. His hand closed over hers on the pistol.

She relinquished the weapon gratefully, and he moved silently in front of her. She backed into the shed and fumbled in the pack for the other pistol and spare clips of ammunition.

She jerked violently when Alex shot fast from the doorway, two sets of double-taps one after the other so quickly she could barely count the four shots.
Holy shit.
He’d just
shot
someone.

He moved outside as fast as a snake. She yanked the spare pistol free of the rucksack and followed him out, the weapon chest-high in front of her and her heart in her throat.

“All clear,” he bit out.

She lowered her pistol and watched him feel for a pulse under the neck of...
crap...
a soldier. A second motionless body in a uniform crumpled not far from the first one.

“You killed soldiers?” she wailed in dismay. Emphasis on
killed.
As in other human beings snuffed out.

“They were looters. Not military.”

“How could you tell?”

“No belts. Hair too long. The one with the shotgun held it wrong.”

“You shot them because they had no belts?” she demanded incredulously.

“I shot them because they weren’t who they appeared to be, and they were headed for our shelter. Given the current situation, it is logical to assume they were here to loot it. Which meant they were at least casual criminals. Which meant you would be in danger from them if I didn’t take them out.”

“So you killed them.” He wasn’t showing even a hint of remorse over shooting down two men.

“So I killed them.”

“Does it feel good playing Rambo?” she muttered. What the hell had happened to him? The Alex she’d known before he left was a doctor. A healer. He fought to save lives, not to casually take them. Who
was
this man?

He didn’t respond to her sarcasm and merely said grimly, “Pass me that shovel behind you.”

“Hiding the evidence?” she asked dryly.

“Exactly.”

“My God. You’re not kidding, are you?”

He glanced up from where his shovel bit into the soft earth of what had likely been a garden. “Spy Craft 101. If you kill someone, hide the body. There’s no need to make your trail any easier to follow than you have to.”

“You just murdered those men!” she exclaimed. She could not believe he wasn’t reacting at all to that small fact.

“And last night I saved the lives of several people. Your point?” he snapped as he shoveled.

“Don’t you feel anything at all?”

That made him stop shoveling long enough to look up at her. “Feelings interfere with optimal performance. If I’m going to keep you safe and get you out of here alive, I have to be on my game.” He shrugged and went back to shoveling. “It was a no-brainer.”

And a no-hearter, too, apparently. Color her stunned.

“Look, Katie. Killing isn’t something ever to do lightly. I get that. But this is not a normal situation. We’ve been sent into the aftermath of a devastating storm to look for something dangerous. All the normal, everyday people have left the area. It’s a good bet that most of the people who’ve returned to this place so quickly are not looking to rebuild their lives and practice good citizenship. This is, in effect, a war zone. The rules of engagement are different here.”