Soldier's Night Mission

by Cindy Dees

  Lily asked bluntly, “Who are you?” The Russian blinked, startled as she barged on without giving him time to answer. “Mind you, I don’t need to know your name. I’m sure I couldn’t pronounce it or your rank without butchering them, so I won’t try. What I mean is, do you have high enough security clearances to hear what we’re here to talk about? I’ll need to see something in writing before I speak with you.”

  Carter had to work not to burst out laughing. The Russian was stunned speechless that some slip of an American girl was not only questioning his security clearances, but demanding proof of them.

  “I am senior military attaché to United States, missy,” the Russian spluttered, his accent noticeably thicker.

  Carter grinned. Damn, she was good. She had the guy completely off balance. Taking pity on the man, he intervened. “Lily, this gentleman is, indeed, the attaché here. I recognize his face. He’ll have a high enough clearance to hear about your findings…” he paused for effect “…barely.”

  The Russian puffed up like a rooster and actually strutted a lap around the room while trying to regain his composure. Lily moved over to the sofa, sat down and leaned back calmly to wait the man out. Carter was amazed. Where had she learned how to handle men like this?

  Finally, the Russian sank down on the sofa facing them.

  “Now, then,” Lily started briskly. “I’m an astrophysicist, and I’ve made a discovery that not only affects our two countries, but also the entire world.”

  The Russian’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead a fraction.

  “It turns out a small, insignificant asteroid is going to strike a deserted region of Siberia in approximately one week.”

  The Russian shrugged. “Meteors. Asteroids. They hit Earth every day.”

  “True,” Lily replied serenely, “but they don’t hit at the exact location of your country’s doomsday machine. And this one’s going to.”

  “Doomsday…what…we have no…impossible…” the man spluttered.

  Carter honestly didn’t get a read on whether the man knew about the machine or not. Either way, the Russian’s shock was genuine as Lily went on to briefly outline the forecasted impact, shock wave, EMP pulse and crater damage, and then to state that those met all the parameters to force an automatic detonation of Russia’s entire nuclear arsenal by the doomsday system, the existence of which he was so busily wasting his breath pretending wasn’t real.

  “You have proof?” the Russian finally blurted.

  “Of course.” She laid a copy of her calculations on top of the photograph of the asteroid. “The math is complicated, but our scientists have verified all of it.”

  The Russian took one look at the strings of letter and figures inside the file and bolted to his feet. “This is madness. Although, I shall, of course, take all precautions and send your math to the university to be checked.”

  Lily, in turn, leaped to her feet. “There’s no time for that! Didn’t you hear me? The asteroid’s going to hit in a matter of days. And your country’s going to accidentally destroy the world if you don’t disable your machine before the impact.”

  Unfortunately, the attaché chose that particular moment to regain his mental footing. He blustered, “I categorically deny that my country has any such device.”

  Carter leaned back, thinking fast. That sounded true. It was completely possible that this guy had never heard of the doomsday machine. Attachés the world over were thinly veiled official spies. At the end of the day, this guy was a flunky in the Russian power structure and not even that high-ranking.

  Carter intervened gently, “I realize, sir, that your important duties here may keep you too busy to get briefed on obscure defense systems your country maintains in central Siberia. But this asteroid is all too real, and it’s going to land very soon. If such a hypothetical doomsday device did exist, it would be extremely important for officials at the very highest levels of your government to make sure such a device were turned off and left off until after this asteroid has landed.”

  The Russian’s gaze narrowed. He was being massaged. He knew it and clearly didn’t like it. Would he tell the ambassador about this? Or maybe run it up the Russian military chain of command instead? Carter couldn’t tell. The man was too good at masking his intentions.

  “My secretary will show you out,” the Russian announced stiffly. He pressed a button on the wall, and the doors opened immediately. The secretary from before stood there.

  Carter paused in the act of passing by the man and murmured in his fluent Russian, “From one special operator to another, we’re telling you the God’s honest truth. You have my word on it. Do what you have to, comrade, to get someone to listen to you.”

  It was all he could do. Carter took Lily’s arm and escorted her from the building. They climbed into the SUV and had no sooner cleared the gates than his cell phone rang. He should’ve known. H.O.T. Watch had been watching them from above the whole time.

  Brady Hathaway spoke tersely in his ear. “Did the ambassador buy it?”

  “We didn’t get to speak with him. We got passed off to an attaché. And I have no idea whether or not he believed us. He seemed to genuinely believe that no doomsday machine exists.”

  “For everyone’s sake, I hope he’s right,” Brady replied grimly. “But our intelligence sources on the subject are impeccable. It exists, all right.”

  Carter sighed. “I don’t know if our attaché will stick his neck out and risk his career by running this information up the chain of command or not. Frankly, he didn’t strike me as the type.”

  Brady responded, “We’ll watch the message traffic for the next few hours to see if we can get a read on it.”

  “Any instructions for us?”

  “Get our girl under cover and stand by for further instructions.”

  Carter’s lips twitched. He’d love nothing better than to get under the covers with Lily. “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  They headed back to the hotel and were in time to catch the noon news. It seemed anticlimactic after all the drama of the past few days.

  “Is that it?” Lily asked. “Is it over?”

  Carter sighed. “Do you think he believed us?”

  “I think he believes an asteroid’s going to hit Siberia. I don’t think he believes the doomsday machine exists.”

  “That’s how I read him, too. And that being the case, I expect we’re not done talking to folks about this problem.”

  “Well, at least the Russians know now they didn’t stop me from giving you all my research. They don’t have to kill me anymore.”

  Carter didn’t disabuse her of the optimistic thought. Personally, his fear was that now the Russians would decide that, instead of just her having to die, both of them had to die.

  Chapter 9

  Lily paced the confines of the hotel room, agitated. Carter insisted on keeping the heavy curtains closed for security reasons. She understood why, but her dratted claustrophobia was starting to kick in again.

  “We’ve got a problem,” she finally announced.

  “What’s that?” Carter looked up from a news program on the television.

  “The walls are closing in on me.”

  “I’m fairly sure they’re not moving. I hear they squeak and groan terribly when they close in and crush someone. And then, of course, there’s all the screaming and bones crunching.”

  “Very funny.” She scowled at him.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked more seriously.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “You do realize that we’re standing at ground zero of a nuclear attack on the United States by Russia.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And if we fail to convince someone to listen to us, we’ll be crispy critters by this time next week. It could all be over in an instant.”

  “It’s been that way for the past sixty years, and we’re still standing here talking about it.”

  “Be serious, Carter. We could be living our last day
s on Earth.”

  He crossed his arms and contemplated her soberly. “This is just now occurring to you?”

  “I’ve been too busy trying to run around with you and stay alive, not to mention trying to figure out if my calculations could be wrong, to stop and think about it until now.”

  “Welcome to my world. Threats to the continued survival of mankind have cropped up from time to time before. It’s just that the general public never hears about them. Well, except for the Bay of Pigs incident. We got within about ten minutes of nuclear war on that one. Thing is, we’ve always managed to come through the crises. We’ll make it through this one, too.”

  “I thought I was the incurable optimist and you were the big pessimist.”

  He shrugged.

  She wrung her hands and stared at the walls which, despite his quips, were definitely shrinking in on her inch by inch. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “No can do, sugar.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m under orders to keep you safe and under cover.”

  Her gaze snapped to his. Did he intend the double entendre?

  He smiled wryly, but his eyes remained grim. What was that about? Something was wrong. Something he wasn’t telling her. Something that had him big-time worried.

  “Talk to me, Carter. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that I’d do just about anything to get you under the covers, but I can’t. You’d be mad at yourself for doing it, and I’d be mad at myself for seducing you.”

  “But what if I wanted you to seduce me?”

  “You’d want me to distract you. That’s entirely different.”

  “Well, I’m here to tell you a game of cards or a pay-per-view movie isn’t going to do the trick,” she declared.

  “You’ve obviously never played strip poker,” he retorted.

  Her gaze narrowed. “Big words from a man who’s not prepared to follow through on them.”

  He smiled. “You know, if I were a less mature person, I’d feel obliged to pick up that gauntlet you just threw down. But I happen to know better. Sorry.”

  Damn, damn, damn! “Carter, you’ve got to get me out of here.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “What if we wear disguises?”

  “Better, but still stupid.”

  “What if we only go downstairs and take a peek in the shops in that arcade off the hotel lobby?” When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “Pleeeease?”

  He gave her a regretful look.

  She spoke quickly before he could say no. “Look, I’ve done everything you people have asked without complaint. I’ve run all over creation. I’ve left my home and my job, and God knows if I’ll ever get tenure now. I haven’t complained when people kept trying to kill me. Heck, I even shot a man. I’ve let you take me and my claustrophobia into salt mines and mini-subs and hollow mountains without making too big a fuss about it. All I’m asking is to get out of this room for a little while. The world may be coming to an end, and I just want to go downstairs and have a look around. Is that too much to ask?”

  His mouth twitched. “Let me get this straight. The world is about to end, so you want to get in a little last-minute shopping?”

  Oh, God. He was right. If her parents ever found out how she’d caved to petty materialism in the end, they’d be mortified. “Well, yes,” she answered defensively.

  Carter started to chuckle. It became a laugh, and then a shout of humor.

  “It’s not that funny,” she declared.

  “Oh, yes, it is,” he gasped. “You’ve just proven that at your cores, all women are the same. I get it now. I can die a happy man. I finally unraveled the mystery of the female mind.”

  “Not all women like shopping, you know,” she snapped.

  The comment sent him off into renewed gales of laughter. She gave up on the argument and just rolled her eyes until his amusement finally subsided.

  “Okay, fine. You win,” he announced. She listened as he called the concierge and asked for a woman’s blond wig to be sent upstairs.

  He got off the phone and she demanded, “And you think the hotel’s just going to have something like that lying around waiting for a guest to request?” she demanded.

  Carter grinned. “This hotel is infamous as the place high rollers bring their mistresses and…professional dates. They’ll have a wig.”

  “Hmm. And you say women are all the same. Men are definitely all the same. They think about one thing and one thing only.”

  “Oh, like women don’t think about sex all the time, too?”

  She pounced. “Then you don’t deny that men do it?”

  “Of course I don’t deny it,” he said blandly.

  He took all the fun out of winning an argument. Lily did her best not to pout until the wig did indeed arrive a few minutes later. She retreated to the bathroom, where she tucked her long, dark hair up under the short wig. She went heavy with her makeup and suddenly looked like an entirely different person. In short, she looked like a slut. It was kind of fun actually. She was glad she got to dress up like this once before she died.

  Died. And all of a sudden, she was breathing hard, the tiny bathroom squeezing all the air out of her lungs. She tore open the door and burst out into the main room.

  Carter whirled around, alarmed. But then he just stared. “Lily?” he asked.

  “Who else would it be?” she retorted.

  “You don’t think maybe you should be a little less conspicuous for this outing of ours?”

  She grinned. “So what if I draw attention? No one will recognize me.”

  “I should say not.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

  She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t you dare tell me that the whole men prefer blondes thing is true. I have a week left to live. Let me keep my delusions that some men like brunettes.”

  “Hey, most men just want their women breathing. They’re not too much pickier than that.”

  “Sex freaks, all of you.”

  “Says the pot to the kettle,” he shot back. He pulled a baseball cap low on his forehead, casting his face into shadows. He’d turned the GO ARMY sweatshirt inside out and cut off its sleeves while she was in the bathroom. And as a disguise, she had to admit it was effective. She had a hard time looking away from his impressively bulging biceps long enough to register anything about his shadow-obscured face.

  The mini-mall next to the hotel’s lobby wasn’t crowded, but Lily had the right of it. The few women there were riveted by the sight of Carter’s arms. Every few minutes some new female would spy him, and Lily cracked up to watch them gape. For her part, she had a ball sashaying down the broad arcade, swinging her hips at every man there.

  “You’re enjoying looking like a hooker, aren’t you?” Carter murmured to her.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Fine. Just don’t look at any of those other guys. I’d hate to have to break their jaws.”

  “Ah, the Neanderthal within emerges.”

  “Damn straight, woman.”

  Carter’s irritation sent her into gales of laughter. Who’d have guessed that facing the extinction of mankind could be so liberating?

  But then Carter swore quietly under his breath, and in an instant, all humor evaporated between them. “The Russians are here. I don’t think they’ve seen us. Yet.” He took her elbow and steered her back toward the lobby quickly. But it wasn’t quick enough for him. She felt him stumble. Start to move stiffly. Crud. He couldn’t freeze up now!

  “Go to our room,” he bit out. “I’ll lead them away from you.”

  “Not happening, big guy,” she bit back.

  He scowled, but rather than argue, he ducked into the nearest store and headed fast for the back and its dressing rooms. He shoved her inside the first one and pulled the door shut behind them.

  They waited for several tense, endless minutes, but no one burst in on them.

  Eventually he muttered under his breath
, “Did you happen to notice what kind of store this is?”

  She glanced up at the garments scattered on hangers around the space. Oh, my. It was all lingerie. Sexy, naughty lingerie. The kind call girls and mistresses—or at least their male clients—were apparently fond of.

  She made the mistake of glancing up into Carter’s eyes. “Any port in a storm, eh?” she choked out.

  He laughed silently, his entire body shaking with it. He was definitely not freezing up this time.

  “I do believe you’re getting better,” she declared.

  Surprise lit his face.

  “You may be right. If nothing else, no one has ever managed to make me laugh when I’m about to die.”

  She looked down, abashed. How cool would that be if she had some kind of special connection with him? Hello…you’re still in limbo, a voice reminded her in the back of her head.

  Screw limbo. If she was about to die, she shouldn’t stand on principle with this totally hot man. She’d already caved to crass materialism in the face of possible annihilation. What did it matter if she turned out to be wanton hedonist, too?

  Thing was, Carter’s story about the massacre rang true. He didn’t strike her as the kind of person who could even contemplate harming innocent children. If he said they’d had guns and been on the verge of killing him and his men, she was inclined to believe him.

  Of course, maybe that was just her lust and wishful thinking talking. Maybe she so desperately wanted to believe him because she so badly didn’t want him to be a monster. Call her naive, call her willfully ignorant. But she didn’t want to live in a world where massacres like the reporter had described were real.

  “Carter,” she murmured, “do you think anyone saw us come in here?”

  “They’d have broken down the door or just shot us through it by now if they had.”

  “So, then, we’re alone?”

  “I don’t see anyone else.”

  She rolled her eyes. He was totally missing the broad hints she was throwing at him. Apparently, she was going to have to show him exactly what she was thinking about.

  She stretched up on her tiptoes and pressed herself against him pretty much from neck to toes. He took a sharp breath and the light dawned in his gaze. Neanderthal was becoming clever Homo sapien before her very eyes. She whispered, “If this were your last day on Earth, what would you do with it?”