Limbo Man

by Blair Bancroft

  Only when he was out of here, he could track down the answers.

  At least he thought he could. With Vee’s help, physical and financial. Sure, he could take the money she was carrying and leave her behind, but he wasn’t going to. He’d been alone too long, and somehow, without remembering how it happened, the two of them had become a team.

  “You have a pile of cash on you, right?”

  “Right.” Her piercing stare turned wary.

  “We have to get out of here. Tonight. I have a bad feeling about this place—maybe it’s just Tingley, maybe not. But the info in my head isn’t surfacing, and it’s not going to while I’m here. Out there”—Sergei waved a hand toward the windows—“I think I’ll remember enough to track down what I need to know. And I could use your help. Will you come with me?”

  “Nick—”

  “Not Nick. Nick is the guy in the hospital. He is no longer with us. And not Sergei of the Organizatsiya. You’ll be running with the Sergei who just went toe to toe with Tingley. From now on, you will call me Sergei or Seryozha.” Vee ducked her head, hiding her expression. Govnó! He should have been more subtle, but Vee Frost seemed to have scrambled his wits more thoroughly than the beating.

  She was examining him as minutely, if not as insultingly, as Tingley had, her gaze gradually rising from his sneakered toes to his crotch, his chest, his battered face. He could find no sign that she liked what she saw. Idiot! He was asking her to run away with a monster, and it was taking too damn long for her respond. He kept forgetting how he looked.

  Her eyes finally fixed on his. Unaccountably, the blue warmed to the shine of a summer sky. Deep inside him, some remnant of the civilized world he used to know stirred to life. “This is the real you, isn’t it?” she asked. “Tell me, Sergei Somebody, do you want to stop this disaster as much as I do?”

  “More. It is my responsibility.”

  “And you are mine.” Vee heaved a sigh as he took her hand. “My family will disown me, I’ll lose my job, and be on the run for the rest of my life.”

  “Not if we win.”

  “You’ll leave here, even without me.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I must. Here, I can accomplish nothing.”

  Vee’s breath hitched. “Your memory came back. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you’re different?”

  Sergei sank down on the couch beside her. It didn’t take much acting to look chagrined. This woman was supposed to protect him, and he hadn’t played fair. She’d needed to know, and he’d ignored her. To Sergei Ivanovich Zhukov she was a means to an end, nothing more. His way out. And yet . . .

  If only he could remember what they’d been to each other while on the run.

  Time to choose his words carefully, not bite the hand that, quite literally, fed him. “I don’t remember the most important part,” Sergei admitted. “The part you all want to know. From what I’ve heard about traumatic head injuries, I think it’s likely I never will. I have to go out there and work with what I do remember.”

  “But why alone? One word, and you’ll have all of Homeland Security at your service.”

  “I’ll have a bunch of bulls in a china shop, ramming around and spooking both the bomb guys and the trigger guys. They’ll plunge so far underground, it will be like the twenty years since the bombs were lost. Silence. A vast nothing. No hope of getting the bombs back.”

  Plainly unconvinced, Vee scowled at him.

  “When we’ve found out what we need to know, we will need help,” Sergei conceded. “Then you may call Daddy.”

  Her frown deepened. Obviously, the charm that had extricated him from many a tricky situation had grown thin.

  “And now,” he said, ignoring her doubts, “there is the problem of getting out of here. “I should not have shown my teeth. I needed to stay poor battered Nick who was about as much of a menace as my dear old Aunt Marina.”

  “Alas for you, chivalry called.”

  “So . . .” Sergei allowed his lips to curl into an anticipatory smile. His hand closed over hers. “We must convince your friends that I am still harmless. A wounded man with nothing on my mind but chasing women and getting back to running guns.”

  Ah. She was so quick. A true delight, as her eyes turned stormy and she pulled her hand from his. “You just . . .” Vee uttered a sound that came close to a growl. “You ride to my rescue like some knight on a white charger, and then you turn right around and try to finagle me onto my back—”

  Sergei’s tongue clicked in a double Tsk. “Never finagled. I am merely stating the obvious. Since they all think we’re sleeping together, there is little point in your playing the outraged virgin. Let us take advantage of their dirty minds. Let them think we are in bed, lost in each other, while we are sneaking out the window. Later, you can call your papa and tell him what we’re doing, but, trusting no one, I must do this thing my way.”

  “No one?”

  Sergei allowed his lips to quirk into a near smile. “You I almost trust. Enough to take you with me. Your contacts could be useful.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Is compliment. I always work alone.”

  “Let’s get something straight. If you want to work with me, lose the Sergei accent. And the attitude.”

  “Agreed.” He shouldn’t be so damned relieved. He never worked with a partner. As far as his mind was concerned, he’d met her only a few hours ago. And yet . . .

  She was staring at him, wide-eyed. “You don’t remember, do you? Look at me, dammit.” She grabbed his arm, while continuing to examine his face. “You don’t remember the time after the accident, the run from New York, our time on the island? That’s why you had me tell you about it. That’s why you don’t answer to Nick.”

  “So my mind’s playing see-saw, that is not why I don’t like Nick. He is an invalid, not the solution we need in a crisis.”

  Vee snorted. “I’ve got news for you. Nick was no wimp. He held my own gun to my head. In bed at three a.m.”

  “In bed? Tell me that wasn’t all I aimed at you.”

  “Believe me, the gun to the head was as far as you got.”

  He almost summoned a Tokarev leer, but managed to morph it into his blandest poker face . A delectable morsel, Blondie. “Your name, dushenka. Vee is too stark for a woman like you.”

  “Valentina.” Little more than a grumble, but it made him smile. “Valentina. A good Russian name.” Forgetting he had no physical attraction to flaunt at the moment, he leaned toward her, his voice deep and enticing, “So, my gallant Homeland Security warrior, will you follow your assignment to its extreme? Will you run away with me?”

  She frowned, softly pounding her fist against her mouth, obviously still reluctant to make the break with the rules that bound her life. Finally, a reluctant, almost infinitesimal nod of agreement.

  Not the level of cooperation he’d hoped for, but for the moment it would have to do.

  Chapter 10

  The monster was invisible. Vee saw only the green eyes, intense (pleading?), invading her space. Asking the impossible. She tried to protest, tell him he was mad, but the words wouldn’t form. Breathless, she could only stare at him.

  “You would not be jeopardizing your career because I am your assignment. Where I go, you must go, even if it’s not where Daddy Dearest decreed.”

  “They’ll think you turned me!”

  “Ah, da.” His breath hissed past his teeth as he straightened, his eyes suddenly focused on infinity. A frown, and then, “It does not matter what these men think. Once we are gone, you will call your papa and explain.”

  Every instinct said he was right, no other solution possible, yet she’d spent her entire career following the rules. Leaving the safe house, going rogue with a Russian organizatsitz, was flat-out insane.

  “Poor choice for this job, were you?” He leaned back on the couch, arms stretched to his sides, palms out. “Look at me, Valentina. I’m the man who knows how to find what you’re looking for. You shou
ld be willing to dare anything to help me.”

  Vee returned his look, ice to ice. Just because she’d never played this particular game before didn’t mean she couldn’t be as cool and calculating as her opponent. “You don’t understand—it’s not that simple.”

  “So tell me.”

  Nick was back. He might want to be called Seryozha, but the tone of voice, the body language was all Nick. The trouble was, she couldn’t be sure if he was James Bond or Hitler. Every instinct said Nick was a good guy, but Sergei was an out-and-out villain, and she had doubts about Seryozha, who gave orders as if he were Boss of the World.

  “I was assigned to protect the man we called Nick,” she said at last. “And, yes, get close to him. Which wasn’t hard because Nick had a certain charm . . . until he stuck a gun in my face at three in the morning. But Sergei, the arms dealer, I didn’t like at all. And you, whoever you are, are a complete mystery. If I help you get out of here, I have to ask myself who’s seducing whom. It would appear I’m the one who’s being played.”

  His eyes changed, brief sparks of anger fading into green depths, refocusing with an entirely different emotion on a strand of her hair—lifting, letting it fall over long pale fingers that belonged to a creature of the night. Strong fingers. Gentle fingers. Playing . . .

  Sparks exploded to every corner of her body before pooling in her most private places like molten gold. Blast it! This was exactly what she’d feared. She was actually attracted to this ugly, mixed-up Russian enigma. And it wasn’t just the raw power of the man who had materialized out of Nick the Invalid’s body on the airplane. She’d been drawn to him before that. The Nick who gave her the appreciative but not salacious once-over in the hospital. The Nick who had managed to follow her through their underground getaway, even though he’d just climbed out of a hospital bed. Nick, white-knuckling a shopping cart in Target to keep himself from falling over. Even the Nick who’d stolen her gun and aimed it at her in the middle of the night. Most of all, the caring Nick who bent over her in Aunt Victoria’s kitchen, massaging away her moment of weakness. The Nick who let her sleep on his shoulder on the airplane.

  Yet when she woke, she was sleeping with a stranger. With a man who talked to Bill Grimes like a colleague and treated top Homeland Security Agent Wade Tingley like a lowly lackey. The man who was manipulating her right this minute, assuming command, ordering her to pack.

  Idiot! This is building rapport to the max. Tingley would love it.

  Not if I’m the one being seduced, dammit.

  “We have some time to kill.” The smooth, insinuating words came from behind as she headed toward the bedroom to pack her meager belongings.

  Vee paused, her back to him, stiff and uncompromising. “I don’t need help packing,” she told him, adding a coolly dismissive, “Thank you.”

  “Five minutes for packing. Two, three hours until it’s safe to leave. Why not begin as we mean to go on? You are supposed to keep me happy, yes?”

  Arms hugged to her chest, Vee turned, every slender inch of her broadcasting cold fury. “Leaving here against orders breaks all the rules, Sergei Whoever-you-are. If we ever sleep together, it will not be because it’s part of your scheme, my scheme, the organizatisiya’s schemes or DHS’s. It will be because we both want to. Now, goodnight. Knock on my door when it’s time to leave.”

  Not waiting for a response, Vee stalked into her bedroom and shut the door. For a moment she simply stood there, eyes closed, replaying the last few minutes. She was actually doing this? Running from the safety she’d longed for because the stranger who had emerged from under Nick’s brutally damaged skin asked her to?

  Ridiculous! And yet she was going to do it because, for some absurd reason, she believed him. And the chance of preventing a nuclear disaster was worth her personal humiliation if she was wrong.

  Stranger. He was certainly that, this oddly compelling madman with dubious selective memory. How much did he remember, and how much did he know only because she’d told him remained a mystery. He could be a total fraud, just using her to get away from the Feds. And then, poof, Sergei Tokarev, the international arms dealer, was in the wind, his laughter echoing back to her.

  If he left her alive.

  The worst part, the one thing she could not get around—he was Sergei Tokarev. His nightmare confirmed it. And yet . . . this was a chance she had to take. And if she was going to travel with this stranger, she had to have a name for him. He’d rejected Nick, Sergei was a criminal and a boor. So . . .? You may call me Seryozha. For lack of anything more appropriate—madman, nut case, amnesiac—Seryozha it was.

  Vee let out a long sigh. So be it. She was committed. Without turning on the light, she walked across the room to the window and peered out. Obviously, use of the ski resort as a safe house had never crossed the architect’s mind. Security lights were non-existent at the heavily forested rear of the building where their rooms were located. Only faint ambient light from the resort’s front entrance provided enough illumination for her to see anything at all.

  As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a solid wall of evergreens and underlying scrub, punctuated by silver trunks of birch trees glowing in the moonlight. The forest loomed with not more than thirty feet of cleared space between her window and the treeline. Beautiful but eerie, and less secure than a house in suburbia. An army could sneak up on them without being seen. Grimly, Vee shut out her overactive imagination and began to pack.

  Seryozha sank onto the edge of the bed, plunged his head into his hands. Govnó! With the lives of thousands on his shoulders, his head was filled with a woman. Screwing with his brain, turning him into a mewling idiot. He had thought to use her, and somehow the blasted woman had imprinted herself on his soul.

  Her bosses had planned it, of course. He’d known it from the moment he saw her on the airplane, and every careful word from her mouth when she’d recapped their escape from New York had confirmed it. And still he had let it happen. He’d been caught in a trap more devious, more diabolical than anyone could have envisioned. He liked Valentina Frost, and that was bad.

  The solution was simple. He’d go without her. Travel alone, as always. The American mantrap was an aberration, to be rooted out, tossed aside . . .

  He couldn’t. Shoving sentiment aside, he needed her. Time was not on his side, nor was his memory cooperating. As far as he knew, he had no allies, and he needed fast transportation, computer backup, very likely armed backup. All the necessities of a hunt that Vee could provide—Jack Frost willing.

  Yet he’d be putting her on the front line of danger. Sergei scowled at the backpack he hadn’t bothered to unpack. Okay, so reality hurt. He was committed to finding a bomb and Vee was an FBI agent. She’d signed on, knowing the risks.

  An amnesiac mafioso and atom bombs? Unlikely. But she’d rise to the occasion, even if success included the ultimate sacrifice.

  Muttering some of Russia’s more colorful “mother” profanities, Sergei flopped back onto his pillow, hands behind his head, glaring at the ceiling. This was not how he’d planned to spend his last few hours here. Miserable woman, couldn’t she admit they’d made a connection?

  Five minutes for packing. Two, three hours until it’s safe to leave. Why not begin as we mean to go on? You are supposed to keep me happy, yes?

  And how many times did those soft, insinuating words echo through her head while she waited? The recklessness of leaving the safe house vied with thoughts so heated they felt like flames searing her soul. By the time Seryozha knocked on Vee’s door, she was concentrating—hard—on not thinking at all. His tall, lean body, silhouetted against the light in the sitting room, immediately followed his knock. “The patrol will pass in two minutes, and then we go. My room. Now.”

  Silently calling herself an idiot, Vee followed.

  “The window screen is off,” he whispered as she joined him in the dark bedroom. “As soon as the guard passes, we go.”

  “Fine.” It wasn’t, of course, bu
t her instincts had always been good, and running seemed the best of an array of bad choices. If there was a leak at DHS, then they weren’t safe here, nor could they track a bomb without the bad guys knowing where they were every step of the way.

  “Patrol passing,” Seryozha whispered. “Get ready. I go first, help you out.”

  Vee made a face, lost in the darkness. “If her Russian wanted to be chivalrous, why not? He probably just didn’t want her to turn an ankle and mess up their escape.

  He shoved aside the draperies with care and looked out. Unwilling to be shunted aside, Vee peered around his shoulder. Moonglow added to the ambient light from the spotlights in front, revealing the same view she’d seen earlier. Calm, beautiful, but somehow threatening . . .

  Vee grabbed Seryozha’s arm as he reached for the bottom of the window. “Wait! I thought I saw something.”

  Instantly alert, he stepped to the side of the window, motioning her to do the same. Slowly, they surveyed the woods. Nothing . . . nothing— “There!” Vee hissed. “Did you see that?”

  “Da. Shadows—not trees.”

  Now, again, nothing moved, but she knew, they both knew.

  Tingley? Could Tingley be the traitor?

  “Tell the others,” he snapped. “I will watch.”

  Vee grabbed her Glock from her backpack. “Here. I’ve got my ankle gun.”

  Calmly, he reached for it, checked the magazine, slammed it back in. “Come straight back. Let them shoot at each other while we get the hell out.”

  “And leave our guys here? Like the agents in New York?”

  “Nothing’s changed. Protecting us is their job. Getting out is ours.”

  Dear God, but he was right. The mission, the mission, always the mission. Vee turned and sprinted for the doorway. At least the agents wouldn’t be caught asleep in their beds.