Calculated Risk

by Stephanie Doyle

  Three strikes, three counters. Sabrina struggled to fend off what she knew to be perfectly executed martial arts moves. There was a little of everything in his style, karate, jujitsu and kung fu. The man wasn’t picky. But he was getting frustrated. She could feel it in the increased speed of his attack. He managed to make contact with her cheek, which staggered her. Enough for her to lose concentration for a split second.

  Suddenly, she felt his ankle whip around behind her right knee and pull. The force of it sent her stumbling backward on to her ass with her opponent looming over her. He reached for the lapels of her jacket and pulled her up to her feet so fast that she was unable to mount a counterattack with her legs. He thrust her back against the side of the building, pinning her to the brick wall with his weight.

  “You always were a hellcat in a fight.”

  Just then the moon broke free of a cloud and shot a burst of cool white light down on the man’s face. It had been a while, and he’d aged. The wrinkles were deeper around his eyes, there was a smattering of gray in his hair and his expression was harder, colder than she remembered it. But there was no mistaking him.

  “Quinlan,” she breathed.

  “In the flesh.”

  “Put me down,” she ordered imperiously. She saw his lips twitch and he paused for a second, but eventually he lowered her to her feet.

  Before he let her go, though, he had a condition. “You’ll talk to me?”

  She nodded and released a breath signaling that the fight was over. He relaxed, too, and took a step back to let her come away from the wall. As soon as she was clear, she reached for his shoulders and slammed her knee into his groin. She watched him collapse helplessly to the ground.

  He rolled onto his back and reached for his crotch, letting out a low pitiful wail.

  Squatting down on her haunches near his head, Sabrina took a moment to enjoy the view of the mighty Quinlan on his back and writhing in pain. She’d imagined him in just such a position often over the past ten years. But somehow the reality of it was so much more special.

  “Gosh, it’s been a long time,” she commented cheerily. “So how have you been?”

  He moaned and rolled away from her, attempting to get to his knees but failing. Instead, he curled himself into the fetal position.

  “That good, huh? Great. I’m doing really well myself. Good job prospect, nice house.”

  “You’ll pay,” he finally managed to whisper.

  “Well, it’s been fun catching up. We should do this again sometime.” She straightened herself to her full height and started to walk away, thinking she had at least a few minutes before he’d be able to regain his feet.

  She’d kneed him pretty hard.

  But one of her fatal weaknesses in life was that no matter what the situation, she always underestimated Quinlan.

  She felt his hand around her ankle as she moved to take a step. She had the advantage of position, but she’d forgotten how strong he could be. He tugged hard on her leg and sent her tumbling. Unprepared for his speedy recovery, she wasn’t able to control her landing and ended up falling on her arm at a bad angle, her elbow smacking the pavement hard.

  As she tried to breathe through the numbing pain, she felt him crawling up behind her using his weight to keep her down. She felt his knee press against the small of her back and gasped at the pressure he applied. Apparently, he wasn’t taking any chances of her escaping.

  Either that or he was really ticked off.

  He grabbed her wrists and pulled them behind her back, securing them with a thin piece of wire that she knew from experience he carried around with him like most men carried pictures of their kids. He wasn’t merciful as he pulled her to her feet and pushed her out in front of him.

  “So help me, Bri, you pull another stunt like that and I’ll-”

  “What? Hit me?” She turned around to face him so he could see the blood trickling from her lip. “Oooh. I’m scared.”

  When they got to the end of the street he stopped her and signaled with his hand. A few blocks down, Sabrina could see a set of headlights blink to life. In moments the car pulled up in front of them-a dark Cadillac equipped with a driver.

  “What, no limo?” Sabrina asked. “Those budget cuts must really be hell on you guys.”

  “Get in.” He opened the rear door and Sabrina got in butt first, sliding over the red leather seat as she made room for who she now understood was Krueger’s choice. She checked the locks on the doors and saw that there weren’t any. No handles, either. It might not be a limo, but it was definitely government issue.

  As soon as Quinlan shut the door, he gave the driver directions. “Her house. The long way.” He hit a button on a panel located on the arm of the car door. It raised a partition between the front and back half of the car. They were alone.

  There was quiet for a time. Neither spoke as the impact of being in the same car together after so long apart settled on them. Quinlan, however, was the first to recover. He hit the car light on the roof and filled the back seat with a dim yellow glow.

  Sabrina squinted at the light as her pupils adjusted. After a moment she turned to look at him only to find him staring back at her. He removed one of the black leather gloves he wore, and reached for her face to swipe away the blood.

  She jerked her head back and snapped. “Don’t touch me.”

  “It wasn’t my intention to be so rough with you,” he said, sounding regretful over their fight.

  “It never is,” she replied.

  Sighing, he removed his other glove and shoved them into his pockets. “Sabrina. Still angry after all these years?”

  “Still an asshole after all these years?”

  He didn’t bother to respond.

  Impatient with his silence, she finally asked. “You? They sent you?”

  “Me.”

  “I never knew the government had such a sick sense of humor.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured as a nonanswer. “You really thought they would send someone else? You really thought I would let them? That disappoints me, Bri. You used to be smarter than that.”

  “I just figured you were too old for this sort of thing.”

  She’d wanted to insult him, but the truth was he was right. She should have known who Krueger would send. Quinlan had been chasing Kahsan for most of his career. He was obsessed with the man and had been since the time he nearly caught him that one time in Africa. Instead he’d ended up with a nasty-looking scar over his left eye.

  If she had to convince anyone to buck the system to go after Kahsan, Quinlan might be the candidate. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  “Would you be surprised if I told you that I’ve missed you?” He turned his head toward her, his lips twitching ever so slightly. Quinlan’s version of a smile.

  She snorted. “Yes. Because missing someone would actually imply that you have some capacity for emotion. And we both know that’s not true. Don’t we?”

  Rather than answer, he faced forward again, his smile gone. “Your problem has always been an excess of emotion. An unfortunate circumstance for someone with a brain like yours.”

  “That’s me,” she said sarcastically. “All heart. If only I could be an ice monster like you.”

  “If only.”

  Sabrina ground her teeth together and struggled to hold on to the last of her patience. “I’m tired. I hurt. My wrists are bleeding. My lip is swollen. You’re dropping me off at my house, and then you are gone. If Krueger thinks I can work with you, he’s deluding himself. I want someone else.”

  The protest against his involvement was a pretense. Part of the play that had been scripted by Krueger. Quinlan would be expecting her to try and buck him, so she did. But it didn’t change the fact that what she said was true.

  “No.”

  Figures. Quinlan didn’t buck easily.

  Okay, she said to him silently. You want to play? Game on.

  “Look, there’s something you don’t know. Ther
e’s another part to this that makes it…complicated. Which means I don’t need any more complications on top of it and you are the mother of all complications.”

  “Another part. Really?”

  “Yes,” she hedged. “I sort of had this idea.”

  “Do tell.”

  She glanced over at him. There was something in his tone that wasn’t right. As though he was holding back…rage. She thought about what might enrage him, aside from the attack on his manhood, and came up with only one answer.

  “You know,” she stated.

  “That you contacted Kahsan? Hell, yes, I know,” he spat, pushing his face into hers. “I have people all over the world whose mission it is to keep me informed about Kahsan’s every breath. The only thing no one can ever tell me is where the hell he is. You can imagine my shock when rumors started circulating about some female genius trying to make contact with him. Then I hear about Arnold’s death, and I get word from my superiors that I’m to collect you and take you to his computer. Suddenly, it all makes a disgusting sort of sense.”

  “No,” she said, sensing his anger over the betrayal. “You’ve got it wrong.”

  “How much, Sabrina? I want to know. How much did you sell your soul to the devil for?”

  It hurt. Ten years was a lifetime ago. There was no reason to think that any bond they might have shared then would have survived all this time and everything that had happened. Still, his instant distrust hurt more than anything he’d done to her physically. She barked out a humorless laugh in defense against the pain.

  “Now you know that’s not possible, Q. How could I have possibly sold my soul to Kahsan when I sold it to you years ago?”

  Chapter 4

  Fourteen years ago

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Sabrina said nothing. She had this idea that she would play the role of the stoic prisoner being interrogated by the enemy. After all, that’s what she felt like. The prison in question might be some fancy office in Washington, D.C., but it didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t leave.

  And that she didn’t want to be here.

  She was tired of being tested. Tired of being pushed in directions that she didn’t want to go. First her father, then Harvard, now this. But the man sitting across from her didn’t seem like the typical geeky Martin-Lewis-professor type she was used to dealing with.

  He seemed like a badass. It was in the eyes. Gray and cold. And the fresh scar that ran over his left eye. She was tempted to ask him if it was real, or if it was just for effect.

  “I believe I asked you a question,” he said quietly.

  “I believe you can go shove it up your ass,” she retorted in defiance of the quiver of intimidation she was feeling being in this man’s presence. So much for the silent stoic routine. Then again, she’d never been quiet when she had something to say.

  The man who had been introduced as Quinlan nodded casually at her response, then reached across the desk that separated them and, in a lightning fast move, snatched the nose hoop that dangled from one of her nostrils. Thankfully, the catch came undone or else he would have ripped completely through her soft tissue.

  Even with that small mercy, the pain was intense. She screeched and covered her nose with her hand. Then watched as he slid the thin gold loop over his finger. “You sonofab-”

  “Your father said you were a young lady. Young ladies don’t use that kind of language.”

  He handed her a tissue that he pulled from a drawer. She covered her nose with it and then instantly checked to see how much blood there was. It wasn’t much. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

  Scowling at him she tossed the tissue away. “Yeah, well, my father doesn’t really know me. In fact, I think I’ve grown a couple inches since the last time he looked up from his computer to see if I was still around.”

  Quinlan studied her slouching body. “What are you, five-seven?”

  “Five-seven and one-quarter inch.”

  “You’re tall for your age and no doubt still growing,” he muttered as he made a few notes on a file that sat open in front of him. “Tell me, is that where your bitterness stems from? The fact that Daddy doesn’t pay enough attention to you.”

  “Actually it comes from the fact that my mother abandoned me at the age of four,” Sabrina corrected him, then faked a few dramatic sobs. “I’ve never quite gotten over it.”

  “Do you know what I see?”

  “Like I care,” she replied, then closed her mouth. Her last smart-ass response had resulted in the loss of a nose ring. She didn’t want to think about what she might lose next. Instinctively, she reached for the three hoops that dangled from her right ear.

  “I see a sixteen-year-old, immature brat who is too damn smart for her own good. But I’m going to fix that.”

  “You can’t fix something that’s not broken.”

  “Then I imagine we’ll have to break you. Let’s start over, shall we? Do you know why you’re here?”

  “My father told me to come,” she spat at him, pretending that the idea of being broken didn’t scare her. “Can I have another tissue?” He pulled another single tissue from the drawer and handed it to her and waited while she blew her nose. “Out front the lady said your name was Quinlan. Is that Mr. Quinlan?”

  “Just Quinlan.”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes. “You mean like just Madonna?”

  “Okay. Do you know why your father asked you to come here?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “Last I knew he wanted me to go to Harvard. Thought that I could give those guys all sorts of answers. Whatever. He had this vision of me working in an ivory tower developing theories and shit. How far does pi go? E equals mc cubed-”

  “Squared.”

  “Not the way I do it.” She smiled cockily. Then she remembered the hours upon hours of testing and her smile quickly diminished. “But they didn’t want any answers to any problems. They just wanted to test me. I was their freaking guinea pig.”

  “And you didn’t like that.”

  “I hated it,” she clarified. “School was never my thing. And pushy people asking me all sorts of questions…really not my thing.”

  This actually elicited a small, very small, smile from the man across from her. Just to show her that he got her message, she imagined. But he said nothing. Instead he glanced down at the file in front of him again and read it for a time. Finally, he looked up and met her gaze. “Your father is considered a brilliant man. His work for the National Security Agency decrypting enemy codes has been invaluable to this country’s security.”

  “That’s my dad.”

  “Your IQ eclipses his.”

  Sabrina said nothing.

  “Your specialty is numbers. You test off the charts for spatial mathematics, but what is unusual in a case like yours-”

  “I’m not Rain Man,” Sabrina finished. “I don’t even like Judge Wapner.”

  “-is your computation ability,” Quinlan continued. “Not only can you interpret formulas but you can also apply them at high speeds. Which probably comes from your ability to hold several hundred numbers in your head at once. Your memory is extraordinary. Few people have a true photographic memory and those who do usually must concentrate on the thing they are attempting to remember. Snapping the picture in their mind so to speak. And there is only a limited time frame in which they can retrieve and recite the image or words that they’ve committed to memory. Your brain, however, seems to have a limitless capacity for…storage. You remember everything, don’t you?”

  Sabrina squirmed in her chair. That’s what the geeks at Harvard had wanted to know. How much could she remember? How far back did it go? Test after boring test to questions that she didn’t see the point of knowing the answer to. “You’re making me sound like a freak.”

  Not that she hadn’t known she was one since the age of three. She just hated to be reminded of it.

  “Tell me. Can you remember the answers to the very
first math test you ever took?”

  It was addition. Four. Six. Five. Ten. Ten. The teacher thought she was being tricky by putting on the test two questions with two different sets of numbers that both added up to ten. Sabrina had been four at the time.

  Quinlan nodded again, as if her silence was answer enough for him. “Sabrina, you are a freak. Learn to embrace it.” He closed the folder, stood up and made his way to the door.

  “Wait,” she stopped him, sitting up in her chair. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to report my opinion of you to my superiors.”

  She felt her gut tighten and wished like hell she didn’t care what that was. “For what? What’s this all about?”

  “We call it our Youth Adoption Program.”

  “We?

  “The Central Intelligence Agency. We find gifted teens and start early with their training to become analysts or field operatives. Your father isn’t as completely out of touch with you as you like to think. He fears you’re not long for the ivory tower. And he thought this might be a challenging alternative for you and a way for you to still apply your unique gift for the greater good. Now I’m going to go tell my superiors if I think you’ll work.”

  “And do you?” she asked as he opened the door, promising herself she didn’t care.

  He didn’t turn around. But she heard him say, “I do.”

  Present

  “I want an answer. Talk to me,” he growled. “Now.”

  “I’ll talk. Not here, though.”

  Not that it really mattered where they were, but she liked the sense of control waiting gave her. He fell back against the seat, seemingly placated for the moment. She hoped that meant on some level he knew she wasn’t a traitor. Not because she cared what he thought, but because it would make her job easier. At least that’s what she told herself.

  The driver stopped in front of her house. House, she mused. More like a work in progress. She could have bought a slick new condo. Instead she had instantly fallen in love with an old lady, a Queen Anne that needed a lot of care and a lot of money. But since it had only been the second time she’d ever fallen in love with anything, she thought that it meant something.