Gideon

by Cherry Adair

  “Correct. The conference was moved to a different location three days ago, just to be safe, however. Nope. Different location; sports arena. Bigger explosion, bigger target. As your buddy Maza stated under some duress, we’re dealing with a complex, thermobaric bomb.”

  “Holy crap,” Riva whispered.

  “Fuck.” Gideon had only vaguely heard Maza’s words, but he’d had a more immediate issue to deal with at the time.

  Thermobaric. Jesus Christ. Escobar Maza hadn’t given a shit about simultaneously running two of the largest drug cartels in the world, or a piss-willy little financial summit meeting tomorrow in Santa de Porres.

  Fuck no.

  Gideon realized that he’d been fucking around with a weapon of mass destruction that, if not disposed of, would blow Cosio, and every man, woman, child, and fucking goat, off the map for eternity.

  No wonder terrorists around the world were bidding to own one. Just the threat of a thermobaric, of the size he was now looking at, must be making bad guys worldwide salivate. Owning this thing would give them a leg up—way up—in the terror game. Forget the off the charts billions Maza would have made. His power would’ve been off the charts had he lived to hold his auction. The power he would’ve had would’ve been staggering. Terrifyingly so.

  Gideon rubbed his hand over his freshly shaven jaw. Shit. The thermobaric would first disperse a flammable mist of underoxidized fuel, which would ignite to create a gigantic explosion of immense destruction. The massive fireball would incinerate everything in its path. The ensuing pressure wave would rupture internal organs, reduce load-bearing walls to rubble, bringing down buildings, tunnels, and underground facilities. It would also suck all the oxygen out of the air.

  Whichever way you looked at it, if this sucker went off, everyone, every living thing for thousands of miles, would be toast.

  And how the fuck did he know all this? The tight, painful band around Gideon’s head intensified. Fuck, not now for crapsake.

  Something else undeniable. Navarro and his team had approximately thirteen hours to disable the bomb.

  Now Gideon saw the importance of the countdown clock Darius had set above the monitors. Just as, Gideon suspected, he’d done when Riva’s bomb was being removed earlier. The guy must have fucking nerves of steel.

  Darius gestured to the monitor image of an empty stadium centered between the other screens. “Soccer stadium. Part of a giant complex. Seats close to eighty thousand souls. Set to detonate at thirteen hundred. An hour after the game starts tomorrow. Canceled of course, but the bad guys don’t know that. Tricky bastards. So far chatter has nine countries eagerly waiting to see the outcome of the blast before they start bidding on it. By then the whole world will be watching, and scared shitless someone will try the same thing in their backyard.” He held up a finger to address his teams.

  “Bravo, five—no, six—tangos at your five. Keep your heads low.” He angled his head to look at the two of them standing nearby. “It goes off and it’ll take out Cosio and half of the mountain, and everyone in and around. Leaving a mile-deep crater, a hundred miles wide.”

  “And hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead.” Gideon watched the action on screen. Maza had been a monster, destroying an entire country and its population as a show of strength. Why? For the glory? The fucking fame? The money? “Maza’s dead—”

  Darius was a master virtuoso as he directed his people, knowing everyone’s location and responding to a dozen convos at once. “His boss isn’t,” Darius said flatly, his attention on one of the screens where half a dozen black-clad T-FLAC operatives ran in a crouch on a rooftop. “Stonefish was the brains of—” He adjusted the satellite feed for a closer look in night vision. It was dark, and the city lights in the background screwed with the images. Gideon presumed the stadium lights were off to let the operatives move about unnoticed.

  Watching half a dozen action movies at the same time, on standard definition, instead of high def, TV screens, made Gideon itch to get his hands on the computers. More, he itched to get his eyes on the schematics for the bomb.

  “Delta. Up rez rescans. Copy that. I have visual.” Darius told his people in the field. “Nine tangos coming up on your six. And on your nine. Delta, do you copy? Head for the third floor. Use stairs.”

  Fascinated, Gideon stepped in closer to watch the action, even as his synapses tried to tie in what he was looking at with some nebulous piece of knowledge, stuffed somewhere inaccessible in his brain.

  Pain radiated through and around his head. Dammit. Not now. Stay sharp.

  Riva touched his back. “There’s a first-aid kit somewhere, let’s get you some aspirin for that headache.”

  “I’m good.” Realizing that he sounded short, when he was actually touched by her gesture, he brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “It’ll dissipate in a few minutes. Thanks.” He’d become excellent at hiding the headaches from Mama and Andrés, but Riva had read his microexpressions even in the flickering semidarkness of the control room.

  It took a moment to figure out where the T-FLAC operatives were, and where Maza’s men were as they tried to intercept them. Thanks to Darius, it was a well-choreographed dance. The bad guys were like ants running around. The area where Navarro and the other two bomb techs were located was a locker room in the bowels of the stadium.

  So after all that shit, Maza had a boss, someone controlling the players like chess pieces. Well fuck. The world kept turning and there was always some asshole ready to step in and be the ultimate bad guy. Different face, same agenda.

  “Can you zoom in…” Gideon asked Control, leaning in. The view of the bomb fuzzed, then came in clear and sharp. He narrowed his eyes as he looked it over. “Fuck. Not good.”

  “Things are going to get a lot trickier,” Darius told them. “I’d appreciate you grabbing me something to eat, and a pot of coffee, if you don’t mind. This has been an action-packed day already, and it doesn’t look as if it’ll slow down anytime soon. Besides, near as I can gather, you two haven’t had a real meal in days. Fuel up, it’s going to be a long night.”

  To confirm that, Gideon’s stomach growled. “We’ll fix you up. Riva? Staying or coming?”

  “Coming. But let’s make this fast. Things are changing here on a minute-by-minute basis.”

  When they went into the hallway, the door automatically locked behind them. Riva shot him a small smile. “Safe house precautions. We protect Control like bees protect their queen. He’s our nerve center.”

  “Efficient guy,” Gideon observed as they entered the kitchen. A glance at the open door to the pantry showed it exactly as they’d left it this afternoon. He wasn’t going to forget those few minutes. Ever. “What’s his story? Was he an operative?”

  “Darius is an operative,” Riva told him, opening the refrigerator and removing the giant pan Gideon had seen one of the operatives stirring earlier. There was still a generous portion of fragrant lomo saltado.

  “Injured last year in the line of duty. I didn’t realize he was still in the wheelchair. Word is he’s had a dozen surgeries, they told him he’d never walk, but apparently he’s just as cool, just as organized, as a Control. He flat out refuses to be on disability or even slow down, and he’s determined to get out of that wheelchair. Everyone’s money is on him to be back in the field sooner than later. I’ve never met him before this, but his name is legendary at HQ.”

  “No one seeing him in there would think of him as anything less than on the top of his game. Guy must have nerves of steel to do what he does.” Gideon stood back as she slid the heavy pan onto the stove with both hands, then turned the burner on low to start reheating its contents.

  She turned, looking around as if trying to figure out what to do with herself. Gideon could think of several things, most of them to be done upstairs. She’d bared essential parts of herself, and he knew she was trying to crawl back into her shell to protect her underbelly now. Too late. He saw her, and that would never go away. He k
new this woman. Knew that she hated being seen as vulnerable.

  “God, I’m famished.” Crossing to the sink, she refolded a flowered dishtowel. “I don’t remember when last we ate something that wasn’t a protein bar. Go ahead and start a fresh pot of coffee, would you?” She was talking a little too fast.

  The dark window gave him a perfect reflection of her face. Tense, beautiful, strained.

  Gideon went to her, turning her in his arms. Tilting her chin up with crooked fingers, he tried to read what was going on. “Are you worried about your team?”

  Riva placed her hand over his, holding his fingers to her face. Gideon cupped her cheek. Her skin was cold, but the temperature was comfortably warm in the house. “No, they’re the best. If anyone can defuse the bomb, it’s Navarro and his team.”

  Stroking her cheek with the edge of his thumb, he crowded her against the counter. “Do you want to be out there with them?”

  She bit her lip, her gaze never leaving his face. What did she read there? His desire? His feeling for her? His hesitation? Gideon knew he couldn’t hide anything from her, even if he wanted to.

  “Of course,” she said lightly, sliding her hands up his chest and looping her arms around his neck. “But Control is right. I’m depleted right now. My reflexes wouldn’t be as sharp as they should be. I’d be a liability. Tomorrow…Tomorrow it’ll all be over. Everyone heading out, rig—”

  Fisting the heavy mass of her hair, he kissed her. Loving the press of her body against his, he stroked a hand down her slender back, cupping her jean-clad ass in one hand.

  Suddenly Riva stiffened. Slipping from between the sink and his body, she reached to the small of her back for her weapon. “Someone’s coming.”

  He believed her and turned to the door with a small frown. “I don’t hear anythin—” The front door slammed open, hitting the wall with a bang.

  Riva whipped out her SIG and aimed it two-handed at the doorway. So did Gideon as he stepped in front of her. What the fuck?

  Moving to stand squarely at his side, she said quietly, “They had the entry code.”

  Yeah, Gideon got that. But something felt off about the loud arrival. Riva didn’t relax her steady stance. Neither did he.

  Several pairs of heavy footfalls raced down the hallway. A tall, dark-haired man wearing jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket stopped dead in his tracks in the open doorway.

  Anguish, hope, joy lit his face as he saw Gideon. “Gid—”

  “Gid—”

  “Stand down, Rimaldi,” a tall, redheaded guy wearing LockOut said as he and two other similarly dressed operatives came into the kitchen behind the guy in the leather jacket. “This is Mr. Stark’s brother, Zakary.”

  Gideon’s heart locked. Zakary. Zak.

  His brother strode across the kitchen and grabbed Gideon in a tight embrace as Riva stepped aside. “Jesus.” They were the same height, face to familiar face. Zak held him away, hands on Gideon’s shoulders, searching his features. His eyes were almost the same color Gideon saw on the rare occasions he’d looked at himself in the mirror over the last few months.

  Memories tumbled like marbles down a staircase as Gideon remembered the adrenaline rush of scaling that office building in Dubai, Zak laughing his fool ass off as they got to midpoint and turned to check out the view from a thousand feet in the air. God, what a rush.

  “This is a fucking miracle.” His brother’s eyes never left Gideon’s face. “Look at you. My God, all I was told was that you were here, and that your memory’s impaired. I don’t give a shit about that. You’re fucking alive. I came as fast as I could. Didn’t believe it, until I saw you.”

  Gideon’s anger dissipated as memories rushed into the void that had marked his days for the last five months. Zak. Impulsive. Fearless. Foolhardy as ever, falling out of his canoe and almost killing himself white-water river rafting in crazy Cagayan de Oro, in the Philippines that broiling summer five years ago… “Impaired is one way of putting it, yeah.” Gideon kept a straight face with effort as sudden elation swamped him. “What’s your name again?”

  Zak’s face fell. “Shit! You don’t remember me?” Stepping back and shoving his hands into his pockets, his eyes became even more intense, as if his very will would restore Gideon’s memories instantly. Typical Zak.

  Gideon stepped into him, touching the scar on his brother’s jaw with his fist. “Cagayan de Oro.”

  “Fuckit, you prick!” Zak grabbed him in another bone-crushing bear hug. “You do remember!”

  “Bits and pieces.” Now, he suddenly realized, sans the splitting headache. Hallelujah.

  “No sweat,” Zak told him, eyes shiny with the same emotion Gideon felt. “I remember everything for the two of us. I’ll help you.”

  “Swakopund?”

  “Sandboarding in Namibia.” The brothers shared a grin. “Efua.” Zak sighed, hand over his heart. “Tall, gorgeous, skin like Valrhona dark chocolate.”

  “And just as bitter as I recall,” Gideon said, dryly. “Didn’t she try to lop off your dick after she discovered you’d cheated on her?”

  Zak shot him a devilish scowl. “A minor misunderstanding.”

  Gideon’s smile widened. “My memory isn’t as it was, but I know that was a pattern, not an exception. What happened to that hot blonde they kidnapped with us in Venezuela?”

  “Acadia. Married her.”

  Gideon did a double take. “Married her? You put a ring on it? Holy shit. Who are you, and what have you done with my kid brother?”

  “And we have a baby girl. Her name’s Gideola in memory of you.”

  Laughing, Gideon punched his brother in the arm. “Christ, I hope only half of that’s true.”

  “Zelda.” Zak’s face was glowing with love. “She’ll be a warrior just like her uncle.”

  “Yeah, well, more on that at a later date. I want you to meet someone. Riva?”

  Zak cocked a brow.

  Gideon held out his hand to urge Riva forward. She didn’t take his hand, but she extended it to Zak; in the other she held a plate piled high with stew and tortillas. “Riva Rimaldi.” She shook his brother’s hand. “You two have a lot to catch up on.” Moving toward the door, she gave them a cool, professional look, and a polite smile. “I’m going back into the hub, see if Control needs me for anything.” She glanced at the operatives who watched the interaction as if they were at a tennis match. “Don’t you three have something to do? Give these guys some privacy. And Control wants some hot coffee and food. My hands are full; can one of you take care of that?”

  “Geez, Rimaldi.” The redhead, steaming mug of coffee in hand, inched closer to the stove. “Can we at least grab something to eat first?”

  Knowing how erratic and infrequent sitting down to a meal was for Riva and her fellow operatives, Gideon took Zak’s arm. “We’ll go in another room.”

  “Not the dining room,” the shorter of the three men told them. “Garbage isn’t done in there yet. There’s a maid’s room or storeroom near the back door. Nobody will bug you in there.”

  “Walk with us,” Gideon told Riva. Stay with me. Be with me. I can give you the real me now. Holy shit. He might not remember every detail of his prior life, but the memories he had were full and in brilliant technicolor. He was back.

  Thank God. He. Was. Back.

  They left the operatives to their meal and proceeded down the wide hallway together.

  Zak looked from Riva to Gideon. “Care to fill me in?”

  “We’re in the middle of an op.” Riva’s voice was cool and short to the point of rudeness. “I have to talk to Control. Catch up with you later.”

  Gideon knew a brush-off when he heard one. But something important crashed into his brain with lightning speed, and literally stopped him in his tracks.

  Holy fucking shit!

  He and Zak had worked on a government project a few years ago. Tailoring a thermobaric weapon for use in the military targets tunneled in rock in Afghanistan. Gideon’s heart
leapt.

  Hot shit. He remembered things.

  Zak was here.

  Their combined knowledge and expertise could help T-FLAC, and specifically Navarro, defuse the bomb set by Maza. “Principal bad guy, Escobar Maza, now deceased, set a thermobaric to detonate at tomorrow’s soccer game,” he said evenly, holding his brother’s gaze. He saw the same leap of interest there as he felt himself. “Game’s canceled, bomb still active.”

  Zak whistled. “Project L Seven, right? We know a bit about those. How big?”

  “Big enough to take out Cosio and a good chunk of Peru with it.”

  “What are we doing just standing here? Presumably you’re working on this with these people, right? Or don’t they need your expertise?”

  Gideon would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so dire. “They don’t know I have any. Our involvement on that project was classified. Hell, I didn’t remember DC until a nanosecond ago, myself.”

  “Are you saying they don’t know about our familiarity with this particular weapon?”

  The door to the hub clicked as Darius unlocked it from the inside. “Come in, gentlemen.” His voice came through a small speaker above the door. “I believe you can both assist us.”

  Fascinated by this new development, Riva followed them into the hub. Turned out that one of numerous government contracts held by the Stark brothers was one of their inventions. A remote detonator for a thermobaric weapon. Go figure.

  Riva stood back as Control gave the brothers a computer, access to the dark net and to whatever else they needed, including entrée to T-FLAC’s servers and all the backup personnel they wanted.

  Gideon and Zak worked alongside Darius, with a live feed directly to Navarro and his team, and to computer tech Honey Winston in Montana, already in contact with her husband, Navarro. It was one big party in the Hub.

  There were enough operatives to protect the perimeter as the bomb techs worked. Riva was grounded. Not needed in the field, nor was she needed while Gideon and his brother saved the world.

  She was redundant.