by Cindy Dees
Life really sucked sometimes.
In the meantime, he would head down to the parking garage to see if he could figure out who’d attacked her and if it had been a message to him.
* * *
KATIE MOVED TO her brother’s side in concern. “What happened to you?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. That bastard Koronov rough you up? I’ll be happy to kill him for you.”
“I was mugged. I’ll be fine. Mild concussion and a few bumps. Nothing worse than you louts did to me as a kid.”
“We never meant to hurt you. But you insisted on tagging along all the damned time and getting in the way.”
She smiled crookedly at her big brother. “Yeah, I know. I was a pest.”
“Cute pest.”
“So, why are you in this joint, big guy?”
“Your boyfriend stabbed me. Damn near killed me, too, the bastard.”
Katie frowned. Alex had nearly killed Mike? Her brother was literally a trained killer. She didn’t know the details, but she’d heard bits and pieces of quiet conversation between her brothers now and then. And they all thought Mike was one serious badass.
“Did Alex catch you by surprise?” she asked, confused.
“Yeah. Ambushed me. And when I pulled a knife, he nailed me.”
“Where’d you get poked?”
“Right here.” He pointed to a spot just below his ribs on the left side of his stomach. So, he’d been facing Alex when he got stabbed. Which meant Mike had a chance to defend himself, and Alex had still gotten the drop on her brother? Whoa.
She knew Alex’s father had trained the crap out of him, but she’d had no idea just how lethally he was trained until this very second. No wonder Alex was a head case. He’d never asked for any of that training. It had been forced on a little boy with no say in the matter. She really was starting to hate Peter Koronov. At least she’d thwarted the guy’s attempt to get that list of D.U. staffers. Satisfaction coursed through her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Zaghastan, too?” she demanded.
“Didn’t know I was coming out to your neck of the woods to play until after you’d left and gone off the grid.”
A few weeks ago, she’d have bought that line without question. But now, her lie detector antenna wiggled. He’d known roughly where she would be. It would have taken a single phone call to D.U. to find out where she was. They wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him where to find his baby sister and look in on her, right?
She’d played a whole lot of poker for toothpicks with Mike over the years and knew his tells. It took her about two seconds to become convinced he was being evasive with her. Why wouldn’t he be square with her? Did it have to do with protecting a cover for his job, or was it something else? Something he didn’t want to admit? What had he been doing out there at the end of the world? For that matter, why had he pulled a knife on Alex?
“What took you to greater downtown Zaghastan, bro?”
“Work.”
She rolled her eyes. “What kind of work?”
“Classified work.”
“C’mon, Mike. I’m not a kid. I know what’s going on in that region. Don’t bullshit me. What were you doing?”
He shrugged a little under the bandages swathing his torso. “Observing.”
“So you weren’t one of the military types dressed up to look like rebels?”
His laser-sharp gaze snapped to hers, and his voice dropped to an urgent murmur. “What do you know about that?”
“Only what I saw with my own two eyes. Those ‘rebels’ were way too well armed to be locals. I know a trained soldier when I see one. I grew up with you guys, remember? Those supposed rebels were Spec Ops types.”
He sighed. “Could you keep that to yourself? It’s highly classified information.”
She shrugged. “I’m just a civilian translator. A kindergarten teacher on a humanitarian trip abroad. Who’s gonna ask me about something like that? Your secret’s safe with me.”
He snorted skeptically. “Not as long as you’re hanging around with that guy. He’s trouble.”
It was her turn to snort. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Stay away from him, Katie. He’s a big shark and you’re a tiny little minnow.”
God, she hated it when her brothers said things like that to her. It was just that kind of dismissal of her that had made her take the Zaghastan gig in the first place. “I’ll let you get some rest. Mom and Dad are driving down to see you today. They’ll be here this afternoon.” On that note she let herself out of Mike’s room.
She did not relish the interrogation her parents would subject her to when they saw her injuries and, moreover, when they heard she was hanging out with the guy who’d stabbed her brother. She didn’t even need to hear that tirade to wince.
“You okay?” Alex asked in concern from nearby. She supposed she wasn’t surprised he was still out there, waiting for her. Reluctant gratitude flowed through her.
“I was thinking about having to face my parents this evening.”
“If it’s what put that look of pain on your face, don’t do it. Come to my place and rest.”
“I thought you were avoiding your place.”
He shrugged. “Everyone seems to know I’m involved with you, and they all know where I live, anyway. I’d rather be surrounded by known security measures and force the hostiles to come at me head-on if they’re going to make a run at you.”
“What about Dawn?”
“She’s in a safe place.”
“But I’m pretty sure the guy who jumped me followed me from the convent. I think they’re using Dawn as bait to find us.”
“All the more reason to let them find us when we’re nowhere near her,” he ground out. “No one messes with me and mine without suffering the consequences.” His expression was blacker and colder than she’d ever seen it. And yet it sent a frisson of warmth through her. If only that expression wasn’t just for Dawn and he felt a little bit like that for her, too.
“I can’t believe you stabbed my brother. Explain to me why you did it again?”
“He posed a threat to you and Dawn. He attacked me. I defended myself.” He added grimly, “And not only spared his life, but saved it.”
He sounded like he didn’t expect her to believe him. Thing was, Mike didn’t say anything to contradict that story. And Mike was incredibly tough. It wasn’t like Alex picked on an innocent civilian. Something in the wall of anger she’d built up in her heart overnight cracked just a little.
He ushered her into his car in silence and pulled out into traffic. The tension in the rental vehicle was thick enough to cut with a knife. God, she hated this. Why wouldn’t he let down his emotional guard with her anytime other than in bed?
She asked, “Do you know why special operators would be in the Karshan Valley posing as rebel soldiers?”
“Nope. If I did, then I could identify who they were and figure out who’s screwing with us now.”
They were almost to his place when her cell phone dinged an incoming email. She pulled it out of her purse and was startled to see the sender was Uncle Charlie. She opened the attached file and a short list of names scrolled down her phone.
“Who is it?” Alex asked tersely.
“It’s the list from Uncle Charlie of outsiders in the Karshan Valley nine months ago,” she announced.
Alex glanced over at her alertly. “Care to share?”
“Sure.”
“Once we’re inside and can’t be overheard,” he murmured as he parked the car.
“Paranoid much?” she quipped.
“I just got you out of the emergency room. Indulge me.”
He did look pretty frazzled, now that he mentioned it. “Were you worried when you heard I was there?” she blurted.
He stopped in the act of closing her door and looked her square in the eye. “I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life.”
Wow. At a loss for words,
she followed him up to his condo in silence. In short order, he installed her on the living room sofa with a pile of pillows behind her and a blanket over her lap. Not until he handed her a bowl of chicken noodle soup, and made her down part of it, would he let her talk business again. His fussing over her made her alternately want to cry and scream. The guy was a doctor, for God’s sake. Wasn’t he supposed to feel compassion for his fellow man? Shouldn’t that mean he was able to share his feelings with her? Surely his father hadn’t burned all the feelings completely out of him. Nobody who felt nothing made love as passionately as Alex did. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he quit acting like a damned robot.
He startled her out of her thoughts by announcing, “Okay, let’s see Uncle Charlie’s list.”
She’d read the list over and over in the car until she had it memorized. Ten names were on it. She passed him her cell phone.
“Care to tell me why your brother’s on this list?”
“He told me today he was in the area acting as a military observer.”
“Hmm.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked quickly. The combination of his intelligence training and raw brainpower could be leading him to all kinds of conclusions she wouldn’t see in the list.
“The CIA informant—that’s this guy here—and your brother are no surprise. But who’s this guy, Archaki?”
“A Russian, I guess.”
“Not Russian. Archaki is a Ukrainian name. So are these three. What do you want to bet they were traveling together?”
“Makes sense. But I’m only a kindergarten teacher, remember?”
“You can drop that act with me,” he snapped. “We both know what you are.”
She leaned back, stung. What the heck does that mean?
He stared at her hard, his mind obviously working in overdrive. Indecision crossed his face but gave way to irritation. He swore under his breath and pulled out his cell phone. He chose a number and she was startled at the lengthy series of numbers his phone dialed. An overseas call?
“It’s me. Yes, I know what time it is in Moscow. No, I don’t have the D.U. list yet. I’m working on it. Who’s Yevgeny Archaki?”
Holy crap, he’d called his father. Was he so eager to find Dawn’s father and foist the baby off on the man that he would enlist his father’s aid, even knowing all the strings that came attached to it?
Her heart fell at the mention of the list of Doctors Unlimited staff and that he was still planning to steal it. He listened for a surprisingly long time to his father’s answer to who Archaki was, though, which distracted her. What was his father telling him?
“Thanks,” Alex said reluctantly. “I’ll tell you why another time. Yeah. I’ll be in touch.”
“Well?” she demanded as soon as he disconnected the call.
“Archaki’s a Ukrainian mobster. Into trafficking and smuggling.”
“What kind of trafficking? Drugs? Sex?”
“Yes,” was Alex’s chilling answer.
“What’s a guy like that doing in the Karshan Valley?”
“Good question.”
Alex left and returned with his laptop, settling in a chair across from her. “Sleep. I’m going to do a little research.”
Even with all the tension between them, she still felt safe in his presence. Weird, that. Her head hurt, and she’d slept like crap last night. Even though it was barely past noon, she closed her eyes. But in a few seconds, they popped back open.
“Why did you call your father?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just now. Why did you call him? I thought you hated his guts.”
Alex’s gaze narrowed dangerously. “You never give up, do you?”
It was her turn to look confused.
“Okay. I’ll play ball. I called Peter because he was the fastest means of obtaining information on Yevgeny Archaki.”
“But doesn’t he think you owe him a favor now?”
Alex shrugged, but she caught the brief shadow in his eyes.
“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” she cried. “Why don’t you cut ties with him and be done with the man once and for all?”
“You’d just love it if I did that, wouldn’t you?” he bit out.
She answered softly, “No, Alex. It’s sad for a child to cut off a parent. But I think he causes you more pain than a relationship with him is worth. I just don’t want to see you get hurt by him anymore.”
That earned her a frown tempered by confusion, skepticism and who knew what else. One thing she knew for sure. After their lovemaking last night, Alex was severely off balance. Which was a good thing, she supposed. If she could get him into bed a few more times, maybe she’d finally break down his emotional fortress and let the real man out.
But not right now. She ached from head to foot and her head throbbed. A nap first. Then more sex with Alex.
She dozed for the next few hours as Alex worked intently on the computer. It looked like he was conducting some sort of deep Web search. The third time he woke her up to have a look at her pupils and have her perform a few simple tasks like sticking her tongue out, smiling, spelling her name and touching her nose with each hand, the expression in his eyes was unusually grim.
“Am I dying, or have you found something?” she asked lightly.
“Samarium.”
“Samar—huh?”
“Rare earth metal. Used in nuclear power plants, lasers and missile casings.”
“Okay. That’s meaningful because?”
“Because I found an obscure geological survey from a Ukrainian university reporting that samarium might be found near the surface and cheaply mined in the western end of the Hindu Kush, specifically in Zaghastan and more specifically in the Karshan district.”
“There’s no mining operation in that area,” she responded. “Do you think people were in the Karshan Valley to scope it out?”
“Remember that cave we hid in the night we ran?”
She nodded, frowning.
“Remember those little bore holes all over the walls?”
“I do!” she exclaimed. “Was someone looking for this samarium stuff, you think?”
“Remember that really deep shaft at the back of the cave that we threw our trash down?”
“There was a mine in the area.”
“I think locals were working it. Bringing up ore by hand and smelting it in local furnaces.”
She recalled vividly the odd smell of the place. She’d put it down to the dried dung that was routinely burned for fuel. But maybe it had been something else entirely.
“Is samarium valuable?” she asked.
“They don’t call it a rare earth metal for nothing. And its uses are primarily military. You do the math.”
“Why do the Ukrainians need it? Are they building nukes and lasers?”
“Yevgeny Archaki’s financials don’t indicate he’s doing deals with his government. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’s said to despise the current regime in his country. Apparently, the feeling is mutual.”
“Then why is he mining this stuff? There must be money in it or he wouldn’t mess with it.”
“Iran.”
Whoa. And Zaghastan shared a border with Iran. It would be an easy matter to secretly mine samarium, pay locals to refine it, smuggle it across the border and sell it to the Iranians, who were undoubtedly eager to lay hands on the stuff.
“Until this very minute, we had no idea Yevgeny and company were possibly mining samarium. So why would he be trying to kill us here in the States, half a world away from his operation? It’s not like we have any proof. Wouldn’t men like my brother be a much more immediate threat to him? Why not kill Mike?”
Alex’s mouth twitched wryly. “Who, exactly, does your brother work for?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He joined the army as soon as he got out of college.”
“But that was...ten, twelve years ago?”
She nodded.
“Why does it matter?”
“It would help us figure out who else is poking around the Karshan Valley.”
“And poking around us,” she added.
He smiled darkly at her. “Ahh. She finally lets a hint of the brilliant spy within peek through.”
She sighed. “I’m so not a spy. Seriously, I’m a kindergarten teacher. I just grew up in a houseful of cops and soldiers.”
“Riiight,” he drawled skeptically.
“I never claimed to be stupid,” she retorted a shade defensively. “For what it’s worth, it takes someone really on their toes to keep up with a bunch of five-year-olds.”
“I believe you,” he replied sincerely.
“If it makes you feel better, Uncle Charlie offered me a job when I saw him this week.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better at all,” he answered a bit sharply.
“Want me to ask Uncle Charlie about this samarium angle and see what he says?” she offered.
“Actually, I’d rather see how your brother responds to a casual mention of samarium mining.”
She frowned. “We’re just going to drop that into a conversation about sports and the weather?”
A tiny smile flickered across his face for just an instant, and her heart beat a bit more hopefully. Was it possible for them to find their way back to each other, after all? It was decent of him to look out for her like this. And he’d looked ghastly when he’d come into her room. Worse than any hangover, no matter how epic, could account for.
His cell phone rang, and he glanced at it. “My lawyer,” he murmured as he took the call.
Ooh. Maybe there was news about their application for long-term guardianship of Dawn. She glanced down at the list in her hand. One of these men was very likely Dawn’s father. It had better not be Mike, or getting stabbed would be the least of his problems before she was done with him.
Alex exhaled hard, almost like he’d been punched in the gut and all the air driven out of him. He said only, “I’ll be right there.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly.
