Secret Agent Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Well, then we have a problem because I’m not leaving you,” she informed him.

  This was no time for a battle of wills. “Yes, you are.”

  She put her hands on her hips. No way was she going to leave. “No, I’m not,” she enunciated very slowly. “You might not know this, but Polish women are exceptionally stubborn.”

  “No games, Marja.” Buffering her shoulders with his hands, he stared into her eyes. “I’m not going to be able to concentrate if I have to worry about you—and I will worry about you if you’re not outside the building—somewhere safe.”

  Oh damn him, anyway. Marja struggled to keep the tears back. “That’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me under the worst possible conditions.”

  “Nothing’s perfect,” he said philosophically. Releasing her, he gave her a little push toward the door. “Now get out of here.”

  Marja was torn, but she also knew he was right. She couldn’t take a chance that he wouldn’t be at the top of his game. Any kind of distraction would be fatal, to him, to her and to whoever hadn’t cleared out if the bomb should go off.

  But she really, really didn’t want to leave him at a time like this.

  “Damn it, make sure you do it right,” she told him, tears coming into her eyes. “One of you is hard enough to deal with. I can’t handle the thought of you in a thousand pieces.”

  “No pieces,” he promised as if it was entirely up to him. But these sorts of bombs were operated by remote control, not timers. He needed to separate the C-4 from its detonator before someone had a chance to make the fatal call. If luck was with him, the phone he’d just confiscated from the pseudo orderly was the one whose frequency was wired into the bomb. But he couldn’t count on it.

  Marja took him by surprise. She kissed him. Hard. “I’ll hold you to that,” she threatened. Knowing she had to leave, she wanted to say one more thing to him. One more thing she might not get the chance to say to him later. “I love you.”

  Kane stared at her, stunned. The next moment the room was invaded not just by the hospital’s security personnel, but the other men on his team. Marja was surprised as she recognized two of the three other men who came in.

  “Did you check his pockets for a cell phone?” Marcus Montgomery, the tallest of the three men, asked Kane.

  Kane held up the phone in his hand, surrendering it to Montgomery. “I don’t think that’s going to set it off. He didn’t stay behind to set off the bomb. I think he was here to make sure that nothing interfered with the plan.”

  Montgomery shook his head, contempt in his brown eyes. “Another suicide fanatic.”

  “Wake him up and see if you can get anything out of him,” Kane ordered. Turning to the other two men on his team, he continued to rattle off instructions. “Call the bomb squad. Evacuate this floor and the rest of the tower. If we’re lucky, that’s all the bomb’ll take out if it blows.”

  Finished, Kane dropped to his knees and then slid under the bed.

  “What about you?” Montgomery asked, bending down to look at Kane.

  “I’m going to be busy sweating,” Kane answered.

  “Now get the hell out of here and take everyone else in the room with you.”

  The room was not clearing as fast as he would have liked. He could still see several pairs of legs from his vantage point. “Move, people,” he ordered. “Now. This means you, too, Marja.”

  “Not until I get the patient out,” she answered. There was a hitch in her voice. “I might not be able to get you to go, but I’m not leaving without him.”

  The next moment he heard the door being opened again and saw the bottom of the gurney that he’d left out in the hallway, the one that had been used to wheel Yasmin in. Kane was feeling antsy.

  “Hurry it up, people. We don’t know how much time we have left.”

  “On my count,” he heard Marja say after lining the gurney up next to the bed.

  “Don’t count, do,” Kane ordered.

  The bed shifted slightly as the unconscious CEO was moved onto the gurney. His eyes were glued to the bomb that resembled a glob of extra-large Silly Putty with wires running through it. Kane held his breath as the bed frame, depleted of the extra weight, rose a hair’s breadth higher.

  Nothing happened, other than sweat drenching him.

  Within a few scant moments, the security men all retreated from the room. Two members of his team removed the unconscious terrorist, dragging the man between them. Listening, he heard the door closing. “You, too, Marja.”

  Only silence met his words.

  “Marja, I mean it. I’m not working on this until you leave. Now.”

  He heard her sigh. “How did you know?”

  “The security guards don’t wear perfume.” And his nose had grown exceedingly sensitive to the scent. “Now, go.”

  “Be careful,” she admonished, feeling like an idiot because the words felt so useless.

  “I’ll do my best,” he answered.

  When the door closed again, silence settled into the suite. All Kane could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the hammering of his heart. He wondered how fast the bomb squad would be and if there really was enough time for them to get here. Like other agents in this line of work, he’d been trained on how to dismantle a bomb, but he’d only done it twice in the field.

  He couldn’t help wondering if his luck would hold for a third time, or if, with the third time, the bomb would win instead.

  Flexing his fingers, it occurred to him that they felt unusually stiff.

  Kane took a deep breath. No time like the present to find out if he or the bomb would come out on top.

  There wasn’t any time to worry. Rather than run to the elevators to seek the shelter Kane had ordered her to take, Marja hurried to Yasmin’s suite. The bodyguards posted outside her door, alerted by the commotion down the hall, were instantly ready to take down anyone who breeched their space. Marja found herself looking down the barrel of a very complex piece of hardware she assumed was a state-of-the-art gun.

  “We need to evacuate the floor,” she told the man who stepped forward, his steely eyes silently warning her back. “There’s a bomb in the next room.”

  The bodyguards looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether she was telling the truth or wanting to harm the two people they were sworn to protect.

  Damn it, there wasn’t time for this contest of wills. “Look, it’s liable to go off any second.” The words formed a huge lump in her throat as she thought of Kane in the other room. She pushed past it. “So if you want to save that young woman in there, you’ll help us get her out of here.”

  When they wanted to, the ambassador’s security detail could move very quickly, despite their bulk. Rather than search for a gurney, the bodyguards pushed the hospital bed into the elevator. Marja went down with them, but before she got into the elevator, she smashed the glass on the fire alarm and activated it. She was counting on that to get everyone moving.

  Prepared for any sort of crisis ever since 9/11, the hospital staff evacuated the building even as sirens screamed above the usual city din, announcing the arrival of the bomb squad and still more police personnel.

  After she was certain that the ambassador’s daughter was safely on her way to the first floor, Marja got out on the fifth floor and rushed to Sasha’s room. Technically, according to Kane, everyone outside the tower was safe. But what if he was wrong?

  Better safe than sorry, she thought.

  When she got off on the maternity floor, Marja found herself all but swimming against the tide of nurses. Every one of them was wearing a baby apron designed to help carry out four babies at the same time, each secured in what amounted to a special deep, wide “pocket.” Luckily, there weren’t that many babies left on the floor.

  “Marja, what’s going on?” Sasha asked when she burst into the room, pushing a wheelchair that she’d commandeered in front of her. “Is there a fire?”

 
“No, no fire.” She scooped up her niece, who was in the bassinette by Sasha’s bed, and placed the baby in her sister’s arms.

  “Then what?” Sasha asked.

  Lining up the wheelchair next to the bed, she took the baby back for a moment. “Get into the wheelchair,” she ordered. Holding Natashya against her with one arm, she used her other hand to help guide Sasha. Her sister was still very weak.

  “But what’s going on?” Sasha asked.

  Marja tucked the baby back into her arms. “I’ll explain later.”

  She realized she’d just said the same thing Kane had said to her when she’d asked him for an explanation.

  It sounded better coming from her, she thought stubbornly.

  “Okay, here we go,” Marja announced. “Brace yourself, Sash, it’s a little crazy out there.”

  It was a vast understatement, but because of all their training, the staff managed to avoid pandemonium.

  Still, Marja couldn’t avoid feeling anxious and deeply worried as she guided her sister’s wheelchair onto the freight elevator.

  Kane was still up there.

  Chapter 15

  It was taking too long. Why wasn’t he down here yet? Something was wrong.

  The three short sentences kept dancing through Marja’s brain, shuffling over and over again like cards with no game to play.

  Her stomach was in knots.

  Marja had deliberately placed herself at the hospital’s main entrance, where she could see everyone as they evacuated the building. None of the people coming out of the hospital was Kane.

  The mix of people filling up the front parking lot was diverse. Along with patients, aided by hospital staff members, there was the police department, the bomb squad and reporters from every single news station and paper in the tristate area. Not to mention the firefighters who had come in response to the fire alarm she’d pulled. And then there were the bodyguards, surrounding the ambassador and a sleeping Yasmin like a human wall.

  Everyone was present and accounted for except Kane.

  Now that she was down here, her mind created horrible scenarios. A sense of restlessness pervaded her.

  She couldn’t stand it any longer.

  She had to go back up to see why Kane hadn’t come down yet.

  Marja glanced over her shoulder. For one second she debated saying something to one of her sisters, all three of whom were clustered around Sasha. Tony had heard the bulletin over the radio in his police car and had instantly doubled back to the hospital. He’d just found them a few minutes ago. Most likely, if she knew them, her parents were on their way in, as well.

  If she told any of them what she intended, they’d inform her that she’d lost her mind and physically restrain her. Just as she would if it was any of them who wanted to go back in an unsafe building.

  But it wasn’t any of them, it was her. And Kane.

  So, without another word, she quietly slipped away and wove through the crowd until she reached the side of the building. Making sure no one official saw her, she darted in through the door ordinarily used by X-ray technicians as a private exit. It was located directly opposite one of the hospital’s three stairwells.

  Once inside, she breathed a sigh of relief. Any remaining activity went by the front exit. Although it was tempting, not to mention faster, she knew better than to take the elevator.

  The proposition of climbing eight flights of stairs to the tower suites with the air conditioning shut off was not one she relished, but there was no other way to safely get there now.

  Opening the stairwell door, Marja started up the metallic stairs, moving as fast as she could. Praying it was fast enough.

  He had trouble seeing.

  Sweat kept dripping into his eyes, blurring his vision. Not to mention that there wasn’t much light coming in. Lying under a hospital bed, trying to disarm a bomb, was not exactly a recommended way to pass a summer’s afternoon.

  The space was tight, but Kane couldn’t risk raising the bed to allow himself more room. For all he knew, pressing the mechanical device could be the trigger.

  Montgomery had just popped back into the room to tell him that the police had just taken the “orderly” with the laundry cart into custody. He’d had a cell phone on him, just like the man in the closet, and it had been confiscated, as well.

  It should have made him feel a little safer, but it didn’t. He’d been in this business long enough to know the deck was packed with wild cards. You thought you were playing a nice game of Blackjack only to discover that someone had gone and changed the rules on you and you were about to lose your shirt in a fast-paced game of Texas Hold ’Em.

  He almost had it, he thought, blinking to get the sweat out of his eyes.

  “Almost” was when people lost fingers and other important parts of their body.

  So near and yet so far.

  “Hey, Donnelly, the bomb squad’s here!” Montgomery announced with relief. The agent stood in the doorway of the suite, as if that small distance from the bed made a difference in whether he lived or died if the bomb went off. “You can stop being a hero and give it over to the professionals. Hey, Donnelly, you hear me?” he asked, raising his voice when there was no response from under the bed.

  Kane both felt and saw several pairs of black, rubber-soled boots coming toward him. For a second he felt as if he was glued in place by the perspiration pouring out of him. But then, he managed to wiggle out from beneath the bed.

  “Just in time for clear-up,” he said drily. Looking at the helmeted and well-padded man closest to him, he added,

  “It’s disarmed and you’re damn well welcome to it.”

  “You did it?” Montgomery cried in relieved wonder as he stepped back into the room.

  “Yeah.” The word was wrapped in overwhelmed weariness. Kane dragged the back of his wrist across his forehead, wiping off some of the perspiration. “I did it.”

  It was precisely at that moment that Marja ran into the room and launched herself at Kane. He had only enough time to open his arms and catch her as she wrapped her legs around his torso and sealed her mouth to his, kissing him over and over again.

  “You’re alive,” she cried.

  “Seems that way,” he managed to mutter against her lips. Damn, but she felt good. He tightened his arms around her, letting himself just savor having her so close. A part of him had been fairly certain he wouldn’t survive the half hour.

  “Nice work, Donnelly,” Montgomery commented. Hearing him, Kane had a hunch the other agent was talking more about the woman wrapped around his torso than his disarming the bomb.

  Marja drew her head back. “Donnelly?” she echoed, looking at Kane in surprise. Now that the joy of seeing him alive had settled in, she had questions. Many.

  In response to her quizzical repetition of his name, Kane shrugged carelessly, as if playing musical identities was no big thing.

  “Miss, you’re not supposed to be up here,” a man who could have doubled as a storm trooper informed her, his voice echoing against the heavy-duty plastic guard extending from his helmet. He seemed ready to forcibly escort her off the floor.

  Kane shifted so that he was between the man and Marja. “She’s with me,” Kane told him as Marja slid off his body and stood next to him. Despite what he’d just gone through, it was hard not reacting to that, Kane thought.

  The head of the bomb squad had just entered the room. Looking at Kane, he asked, “And you are?”

  Before he could answer, his handler materialized. One of the other agents must have called him, Kane realized.

  “I’ll explain everything, Sergeant,” Frank promised, flashing his credentials in such a way that only he and the sergeant could see. Putting his arm around the man’s shoulders, he directed him off to the side.

  “Can he explain it to me?” Marja asked, eyeing Kane. “Starting with who ‘Donnelly’ is?”

  The drama was over. It was time for the credits to roll on the screen—the ones available for vi
ewing. “I’m Donnelly,” Kane told her.

  She never took her eyes off him. “So who’s Kane Dolan?”

  His answer was far too noncommittal to suit her. “An orderly who worked here.”

  “Worked,” she repeated. “As in past tense.”

  He was finished here. Taking her by the arm, he guided Marja out the door. There was clean-up to do and they would only be in the way. “Not needed here anymore.”

  She waited, but he didn’t elaborate further. Big surprise.

  “Do I get any more than that?” she finally asked once they were out in the corridor again. She could feel her temper getting the better of her.

  Being closemouthed had never been difficult for him. But this time, it was different.

  This time, everything was different.

  “It’s on a need-to-know basis.” It was a line the Company had drummed into their heads over and over again.

  Oh no, he wasn’t about to get away with that. She’d been to hell and back in the space of a little more than an hour. She wanted more. Marja pulled her arm away from him and spun around to face him. “Well, I need to know. I really need to know.” Her tone was almost fierce.

  “Hey, Kane, don’t wander off too far,” Frank called after him, peering out of the suite into the hallway. “I need to debrief you.”

  Kane raised his hand over his head, signaling that he’d heard and would comply.

  The term “debrief” brought a deliciously wicked image to her mind, but she squelched it. That kind of thinking, that kind of feeling, was what had gotten her in trouble to begin with.

  As far as she knew, she was in love with a person who didn’t exist. Who had never existed. It was a hell of a lonely feeling. How much of what he’d told her was a lie? Or was everything a lie? She felt like an idiot.

  “Just who the hell are you?” she demanded. “I want an answer.”

  “Just someone with a job to do,” he told her simply.

  “Like you.”

  “No, not like me,” she countered angrily. “My life is an open book. Everyone knows my name, who my people are, where I come from. You’re a damn giant walking question mark.”