Flashpoint (6 page)

“I am,” Tess said. “I’ve wanted this for too long to walk away from it now. And unless you’re going to let Decker go by himself into a city that’s been labeled ‘the terrorist capital of the world’—”

“I’m not,” he said.

“Well, there you have it,” she said. “It looks like we’re going to do this.”

They were both silent then. Nash was looking at her now, really looking at her. He’d looked at her that same way, that night—as if he liked what he saw. And as if that surprised him.

They both spoke at the same time, both cut themselves off.

“I’m sorry,” Nash said. “Go ahead.”

“No, you go,” she said.

“I was just going to ask if there was any way we could be friends again.”

Yeah,
right
. “Well, that depends on your definition of friends,” Tess countered evenly instead of bursting into disbelieving and near hysterical laughter. “Because I was just going to say that there’s absolutely no way I’m ever going to sleep with you ever again. Not in this lifetime.”

He nodded. “Of course. I . . . I understand.”

Did he really? Tess doubted it. But there was no way she was going to explain that she couldn’t keep sex separate from her emotions—the way he did—without revealing that she’d fallen a little bit in love with him that night. She might’ve been able to keep her heart out of it if it really had been a casual encounter—just relatively superficial small talk, some laughter, and an orgasm or two—the way she’d expected. But Nash had
talked
to her. He’d said things she’d never expected to hear him say.

They’d connected.

Correction—she’d thought they’d connected. He’d merely played her. Although why he’d done that, she wasn’t sure. She’d made the first move—he had to know she was more than willing.

But maybe Jimmy Nash had gotten to the point where sexual conquests weren’t enough. Maybe he didn’t get off unless he knew he was going to break someone’s heart.

Although hers had only been cracked.

“So,” she said now. “Tell me what I need to know about you to pass myself off as your wife. Have we been married for long? What’s my name?”

“My cover was that I was unattached, so you can keep Tess,” he said. “It’s easier that way. Although you’ll be Tess Nash, of course, to drive home the fact that we’re together.”

“But Nash isn’t your real name,” she started to say, and as he glanced at her, she saw surprise and even wariness in his eyes. No doubt he was wondering if, as a comspesh, she’d had access to his Agency file. His
real
Agency file, not the one that proclaimed
Access denied
. She had, after all, tracked him to Mexico. That hadn’t been easy to do. “Never mind. Off topic. It’s inconsequential. I’m sorry, go on.”

She realized that he was more put off by her being here than he was letting on. And he was less rested and relaxed than she’d thought at first, too. He kept rubbing his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

“It’s been three years since I’ve been in Kazabek,” he said. “But I think it’s better to say we met just a few weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” And after knowing each other such a short time, they were already married?

“Yeah.” Nash didn’t seem to think that was far-fetched. “They know me in Kazabek as James Nash. I’m the director of a not-for-profit organization called People First,” he told her.

“James,” Tess said, “not Jimmy?”

My name’s Jimmy.

He met her eyes only briefly, and she knew he remembered telling her that, too. They had both been naked at the time.

“No.” He cleared his throat, went on. “The story is that I was hired by PF right out of college. Which, by the way, was right down Mem Drive from you. I went to Harvard.”

During the interview, she’d told Tom Paoletti that she’d attended MIT. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Is that so hard to believe?”

“No,” she said swiftly. “I just . . . I had no idea.” His file hadn’t mentioned Harvard, but of course, it wasn’t that sort of file. “When were you there? Maybe we could say we met in Cambridge, you know, and were friends for years before—”

“I was there right after I participated in that manned spaceflight to Mars,” Nash told her.

Tess stared at him. He was just such a good liar, it was hard to know what was truth and what was cover story. What was real and what was make-believe.

“Where did you really go to school?” she asked.

“Harvard,” he said. But then he added, almost gently, “
Really
is relative. The only
really
you need to be concerned with is the one that drives our cover story. Which is I went to Harvard, graduated fifteen years ago, worked for People First ever since.”

“You worked for the Agency for fifteen years,” Tess said aloud, and he paused. He was clearly wondering how she knew that, and she then realized that this wasn’t public knowledge.

“You told me,” she reassured him. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to lie.

But like most liars, he was extra suspicious. “When?”

“How should I know?” she said with an eye roll that expressed just the right amount of exasperation. “You came into support and sat on my desk only 854 times in the past three years. It was one of those times.”

If she’d been specific—May 14, 2002, at 3:30 in the afternoon—he would’ve known she was making it all up.

Instead he nodded. “Here’s the deal, okay? We met three weeks ago, in D.C.”

“Not while we were at school?” Tess asked. “It seems perfect—”

“It’s not. There’d be too many years of ancient history to keep straight. We met three weeks ago, while I was in town for a conference,” Nash told her. “People First is based out of Boston, but I travel a lot. Particularly to D.C. Where you live . . . doing what?”

“Working for a dot com?” It was what she probably would have done if she hadn’t been recruited by the Agency. “How about . . . After MIT, I worked for a dot com that peaked big, but then died,” Tess suggested. This was kind of fun. Or at least it would have been if she’d been playing this game with anyone but Nash. “It gasped its last breath a year ago. I’m so,
so
sick of computers, I decided to go back to school, right there in D.C. To law school.”

“Are you really sick of computers?” he asked.

Tess gave him a look. “Harvard?”

Nash nodded, smiled. “You’re good at lying.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I think.” Of course, coming from the Liar King, that was probably the highest praise.

They were both silent then. So exactly how did they meet, Tess the law student and James the head of a not-for-profit organization, three very short weeks ago?

That particular detail—three weeks and then, bang, a wedding—still seemed weak to Tess.

Across the table, Nash rubbed his forehead.

“Headache?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled ruefully. “Hangover.”

Ah. “It might help if you drink some water.” She fished in her bag for the extra bottle she’d bought at the airport, slid it across the desk to him. “Here.”

She’d surprised him. “Wow,” he said. “I’m—” He shook his head. “Thanks.”

“How about if I was doing work-study as a legal assistant for a firm—you know, pro bono law for not-for-profit groups,” Tess said as he opened the bottle and drank. “Maybe one of our clients was People First. And that’s how we met.”

“No,” he said, wiping his mouth with his hand. “I mean, yes, that’s excellent, but let’s not have your firm connected with People First. It would be too easy for someone to check and see that there’s no record of . . . We could do it if we had more time to set it up, but we’re on a plane to Kazabek in just a few hours. Let’s say instead that you hadn’t heard of PF until you met me. What if . . . you had a meeting with a pro bono client who was attending that same conference. Your meeting was in the hotel bar.”

“But he didn’t show,” Tess said.

“Yeah. I walked in, saw you sitting there alone, and it was love at first sight. And here we are, three weeks later. Married.”

Tess looked at Jimmy Nash, with his perfect hair, his bedroom eyes, his broad shoulders, and his washboard abs—oh, she couldn’t see them now, but she knew they were there beneath his shirt. “Is anyone really going to believe that? We meet and we’re married in just a few weeks?”

“Yeah, and it’ll help explain why we don’t know each other all that well. That’s important, unless you want to spend hours on the flight memorizing brands of toothpaste and deodorant, favorite foods, favorite movies, whether you like anchovies on your pizza—”

“Definitely not—to both of those things. The memorizing and the anchovies.”

“I figured as much,” he said. “The anchovies, I mean.”

“I suppose you like them.”

“Absolutely. Live large, I always say.”

“Anchovies are small. And awful,” Tess pointed out. “And people don’t really get married after knowing each other for only a few weeks.”

“Sometimes they do. We’re going to Kazabek, Tess, not L.A. There’s not a lot of premarital sex happening there. People get married before they get busy—and likewise, people who want to get busy get married first. You know, women have been sentenced to death for adultery there—even women who were raped.”

Tess nodded. “I do know. I’ve read the packet of information on Kazbekistan that Tom Paoletti gave me.”

“Then you also know that their women’s rights movement has recently regressed about two hundred years,” he said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Whenever you’re outside, you need to be covered.” Nash had on that same concerned face she’d first seen in the car, two months ago, on the way to rescue Decker at the Gentlemen’s Den. He was using the same commanding officer voice. These were orders he was giving, not suggestions. “Down to your ankles and wrists and up to your neck.”

“So much for my budding career as a topless waitress.”

Nash was not amused. “I’m serious.”

“That’s very apparent.”

“Even if it’s a hundred degrees in the shade.”

“I’m clear on that,” Tess told him. She resisted the urge to salute.

“You’ll have to carry a scarf whenever you go out, too,” he said. “In case you’re stopped and asked to cover your head.”

“Yes, I read that. In the packet.”

“Some people don’t read the packet.”

“I did.”

“There are parts of the country where women have to wear a burka and veil,” Nash told her.

“Some parts of the capital city, too. And some women in Kazabek actually choose to wear burkas all the time. Or at least so I understand, after having read the packet,” Tess said.

“Think of this as a test,” he told her.

“You mean, a pop quiz on the reading material, or more of a ‘How long will it take before Nash drives me nuts’ kind of test?”

“This is your first time out there.” As if he had to remind her. “I’m going to be on top of you every minute. You don’t like it when information is repeated? Too bad. I’m going to make damn sure that you know everything you need to know to keep from getting hurt or, yeah, even killed. People can die in the field, Tess.”

She did know that.

“And if you want to have a contest to see who drives who crazy first,” Nash continued, “well, congratulations, you’re already winning.” He stood up. “Do you have other clothes with you? Because you can’t wear that to K-stan.”

“Yes, I know. These are interview clothes. I have a suitcase in the rental car.”

“You can’t take a suitcase to Kazbekistan.”

“Yes, I know that, too. I just wasn’t sure how many changes of clothing to bring, so—”

“Get ready to smell bad,” he told her. “Figure that your entire wardrobe’s got to fit in that shoulder bag you’re carrying. And don’t overload it, because you’ll be carrying my bag, too.”

Tess laughed. Of all the . . . “Look, Nash—”

“You should get used to calling me James.”

“James,” she repeated. “I know that you’re trying to frighten me off, but it’s not working. You may not know my brand of toothpaste or my favorite movie, but haven’t you caught on, maybe even just a
little
bit, that I don’t scare easily?”

“Colgate regular and it’s probably a toss-up between
Moulin Rouge
,
The Philadelphia Story
, and
Casablanca
,” he reported, smiling briefly at the expression of surprise that she couldn’t keep from her face. “I was in your apartment, remember?”

Yeah, like she’d ever forget. “Snooping among my DVDs?”

“No, just keeping my eyes open.”

“While you snooped among my DVDs.” After she’d finally fallen asleep, he must’ve stopped to look while he was on his way out the door, because she’d been with him every other moment and they’d been nowhere near her entertainment center. Funny, she would have thought he would have been in an enormous hurry to escape before she awoke. Instead he’d stopped to look at her things.

“I meant what I said about packing light,” Nash told her now. “You really are going to be carrying my bag.”

“Isn’t that overdoing it a little in terms of following Kazbekistani customs?”

He lifted the bottle she’d tossed to him, toasting her before he finished off the last of it. “I’ll be carrying our water.”

Ah. Bottles of water would definitely be much heavier than clothing.

“Go and get your suitcase, Mrs. Nash,” he said. “I’ll help you figure out what to bring.”

Mrs. Nash.

Hearing that from his lips was just too weird.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

Decker watched Nash watch Tess Bailey browsing in the airport bookstore.

Nash looked up, feeling Deck’s gaze.

Decker shook his head in disgust, and Nash played dumb. “What?”

It was only because he asked that Decker answered. “You’re an asshole. Two months—and you didn’t call her once. And now you get to pretend to be her adoring husband?”

Nash was going to share a room with Tess, which by nature would generate intimacy. Add in the adrenaline inherent in a dangerous mission, plus the romance of being in an ancient, foreign city . . .

“It’s a tough job,” Nash said, trying to turn it into a joke, “but someone’s got to do it.”

“Yeah, well, do more than pretend, and I’ll beat you until you bleed.”

Nash looked at him.

“Yes,” Decker said. “I
am
serious.”

“Well, I’m not,” Nash said. “I was just kidding. I’m not going to take advantage of her. I mean, not that she’d let me.” He looked over at Tess. “Although, holy Mother of God, I forgot just how hot she was.”

Decker shook his head. Hot. Tess Bailey was beautiful and brilliant. She was funny, and enthusiastic, and brave. She was so much more than merely hot.

And Nash had walked—no, run—away from her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Decker asked.

Nash met his gaze only briefly. It was hard to tell if that was because he was uncomfortable with the direction their conversation was going—they didn’t talk like this, not about things that mattered—or if it was because he couldn’t keep his eyes off Tess. “That was a rhetorical question, right? I mean, you don’t want me to make a list or anything. . . .”

“I thought you didn’t mess with women who worked support.” Decker knew this was senseless. Talking about it wouldn’t change what had happened.

“I didn’t,” Nash said. “I mean, I never did before. It was just . . . It was that one crazy night.”

Wait a minute. “One night?”

“Yeah.”

Decker could feel his blood pressure rising. “You had a one-night stand. With Tess Bailey.”
Fuck.
He’d thought Nash’s fling with Tess had been going on for a while. “That night at the Den.”

“Yeah,” Nash said. “I mean, well . . . You saw her.”

“Yes,” Decker said. “Yes, I did.”

“How could I say no?”

Jesus, Nash was practically drooling as he watched Tess.

Decker got right up in his face, but he kept his voice low. “I meant what I said before, douche bag. You so much as
touch
her again, and I
will
beat the living shit out of you.”

Nash was amused. “Shit, Deck, you sound like I slept with your girlfriend.” He stopped laughing and actually looked shocked. He did a double take, looking from Deck to Tess and back in disbelief. “Did I sleep with your girlfriend?”

Okay, now they’d managed to dive headfirst into territory Decker didn’t want explored. “No. Forget it, all right?”

He turned away, and Nash let him go. But then he followed. “I swear to God, I didn’t know.”

Decker gave up. “Look, she wasn’t my girlfriend. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s never going to be my girlfriend.”

“She could be.”

“No,” Deck said. “Even if . . .” He laughed his disgust. “I’m her team leader now.”

“To hell with that.”

Decker just shook his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Life goes on,” Decker said.

Nash was back to watching Tess. He sighed. “Shit.”

“Tom Paoletti gave me an additional job to do while we’re in Kazabek,” Decker told him. “He asked me not to mention the details to anyone else—including you.” That got Nash’s full attention.

“That figures,” he said. “I could tell he didn’t really like me.”

“Give him time,” Decker said. “He’s naturally got some questions about you.”

“So that’s what the closed door was about. This secondary assignment, and him asking you questions—like are you sure you can trust me?” Nash’s laughter sounded remarkably real. If Decker didn’t know him so well, he would have been certain that Nash didn’t give a damn.

But Deck knew that it bothered him. Nash pretended that he found it all amusing, but he was particularly sensitive to some of the nastier rumors that circulated about him.

“Yeah,” Decker said. “I told him that as long as we paid you enough, you wouldn’t flip to the other side.”

“Screw you!” This time Nash’s laughter was real.

Decker smiled. In truth, Tom hadn’t asked the trust question that everyone usually always asked about Nash. He hadn’t had to—he was a smart man who knew he’d gotten enough of an answer when Deck had told him he didn’t keep secrets from Nash, that anything Tom told Decker would find its way to Nash’s ears, no exception.

Well, okay. Maybe Deck would keep it secret if Tom wanted to throw Nash a surprise birthday party. But probably not, because Nash hated being surprised.

So if Tom didn’t like that, well, Deck wished him luck with the new company and this mission, but . . .

Tom had told him to chill out and sit back down.

“He asked me to look up a guy named Dimitri Ghaffari,” Decker told Nash now. “See if he and his American partner are good candidates for recruitment to Tom’s team. We don’t have a name for the partner—in fact that could be something Ghaffari made up to build his reputation. It rings of urban legend: Ghaffari and his rich American backer.

“Tom doesn’t know much about him, but Ghaffari’s name has come up often enough over the past few years. Apparently he did import/export out of a home base in Kazabek. Business has tanked since the K-stani government deteriorated.”

The warlords who were running most of the country these days wanted to keep the West out, and people like Ghaffari had made a living bringing it in.

Ghaffari could well be looking for work, and his loyalties no doubt would be on the side of those who supported capitalism.

“He might’ve been killed in the quake,” Nash pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“Everyone we know in Kazabek might’ve been killed in the quake.”

“Yeah.” That was a sobering thought.

“This assignment already blows,” Nash said.

“Yeah,” Decker agreed. But if that laptop was real, and there was even the slimmest chance that it was somewhere in the rubble, with even just the smallest portion of its hard drive intact . . .

“You have any nickels on you?” Nash asked. “We’re flying in to Ikrimah, and, well, I usually have enough time to pick up a few rolls of nickels from the bank.”

Decker dug through his pockets. He had only a few mixed in with the pennies and dimes. He gave them to Nash. “Maybe the bookstore has an extra roll.”

“Ah.” Nash managed to smile. “Good idea.” He looked over at Tess again, but then caught Decker watching him. “I honest to God didn’t know about . . .” He shook his head.

“There was nothing to know,” Decker said, and went to help Tess find a book to read on the flight.

K
AZABEK
, K
AZBEKISTAN

The first aftershock had caught her unprepared. Sophia had forgotten how intense it could be, much like another earthquake itself.

After escaping Padsha Bashir’s palace, she’d found her way to the old Hotel Français, near City Center, where she had lived with her parents when she was barely ten years old, an entire lifetime ago. The hotel had been crumbling and in ill-repair even then, and she’d heard two months back—before she’d foolishly accepted Bashir’s invitation to that ill-fated luncheon where Dimitri had been served his final meal—that the Français had shut its doors. The old wreck had been sold and was scheduled to be either restored or demolished in the very near future.

But Sophia had lived in Kazabek for long enough to know that the very near future could be any time between the end of the year and the end of the decade. It wasn’t likely to be sooner, because, in K-stan, changes of that magnitude took time.

And sure enough, the building was still standing. Part of the roof had decayed, but as she made a slow circuit of the rambling place, she could see that the walls weren’t cracked—at least no more than they had been before.

The basement door was locked, but locks had never been a challenge for her. She opened it without doing any damage. No one would know she’d gone inside.

The entire hotel was empty, all of the furnishings and wall hangings missing, and all the towels and the maids’ uniforms that had lined the little corridor by the laundry room gone.

On the first floor, outside what had once been a restaurant, she found the ladies’ washroom. Comprised of two small rooms, one a former sitting area, now empty, the other filled with sinks and stalls, it had a door that locked, a cool tile floor, and most important, windows way up high on the interior wall, looking out over the center courtyard. If she burned a candle in there at night, the light wouldn’t be seen from the street.

If she had a candle.

The water, amazingly, still worked. It came, with a gush of rust and slime, from the faucet of one of a row of sinks that lined one mirrored wall.

Sophia let it go until it ran clear and then she drank. She washed using the soap still in the glass globes—apparently not everything had been taken from the hotel. The soap was thick and congealing from age and evaporation, but she used it to wash not just her torn and bleeding feet and the most recent cuts on her arm where Bashir had reminded her of the sharpness of his sword, but all of her. Everywhere he or one of his horrible friends ever touched.

She even washed her hair, wanting to be rid of the perfumed scent of the palace.

She had virtually nothing but the nearly transparent white gown and the sheet—she washed those, too—that she’d wrapped herself in after killing Bashir. No real clothes, no passport, no papers, no money, no food. No friends who would be willing to help her.

Because Bashir’s nephews would seek revenge. The entire city would be searching for her, eager for the reward. It would be a big reward—the kind that could turn her friends into her worst enemies. With her blond hair, she had to be careful. She’d be easy for anyone to spot.

After checking that the door was locked, she wrapped herself in that wet sheet and lay down on the tile floor, exhausted and needing to sleep.

And, for the first time in months, able to sleep.

She may have had nothing, but she had water and she had her freedom.

Mere hours ago she’d been little more than a prisoner, a slave to a man she despised. Compared to that, she was now far richer than her wildest dreams.

W
ORLD
A
IRLINES
F
LIGHT
576, S
AN
D
IEGO TO
H
ONG
K
ONG

Tess looked up from her book to see the flight attendant standing in the aisle of the plane with a tray of champagne flutes.

The only seats available at such short notice on this intercontinental flight had been in first class. What a shame.

Tess smiled and shook her head—no thanks—and, ignoring the murmur of voices around her, returned her attention to her book.

It was a somewhat anemic spy thriller that had been written during the Cold War. The hero was a James Bond type who reminded her a little of Jimmy Nash. He was tall, handsome, and extremely skilled, clever with a dry wit. But like most fictional secret agents, this character never, ever whined and complained to his support staff.

It was remarkable how often authors left out those particular moments—the scenes where the superagent comes striding into the office, scowling at everyone and demanding to be told why no one had let him know
before
he went to Turkey that his credit card had expired last week.

Yeah, Tess would’ve liked to read the scene where Miss Moneypenny pulls the e-memo titled “See Me NOW About Your Credit Card’s Impending Expiration” from James’s email box, prints it out, and hands it to him, then tartly asks him what more he would like her to do to keep him informed, especially when he’s too busy wining and dining some babe in a black leather catsuit to read his blasted email.

She looked up as Nash returned from the bathroom and, with a smile, slipped past her into the window seat. The difference between no Nash and Nash was like night and day, and she had to force her gaze back to the open pages of her book. Reading with him sitting beside her was a challenge. The man had an enormous presence.

He could a fill an entire room—let alone the small first-class cabin of a commercial airliner—with just a smile.

It was similar to the way he’d filled the car that night, as he’d driven her home.

She’d left her own car in the parking lot at the Gentlemen’s Den, and wouldn’t be able to pick it up until morning. That bar fight Decker and Nash had started had escalated, and the entire street was blocked with police and emergency vehicles.

The helicopter that scooped them from the roof of the strip club had brought them to Agency headquarters, where Nash had quickly claimed the keys to the last of the loaner cars in the lot.

“Come on, I’ll give you a lift,” he’d told her.

But Tess had hesitated before climbing in. “Don’t you have, like, other things to do?” she’d asked. “Debriefings . . . ?” Didn’t Decker need him?

But Nash had smiled his best smile. And the combination of that smile plus the white tank-style undershirt—she still had on his dress shirt—that hugged his chest and showed off his muscular shoulders and arms actually made her heart skip a beat. Her response to him had been both tacky and clichéd, but true.

So she’d gotten into the car. Accepted the ride. With her eyes wide open.

Tess couldn’t remember what they’d talked about on the way to her apartment. Nash was good at keeping a conversation going, though, at keeping it light and easy.

There had actually been a parking space open in front of her building. Was it possible he’d arranged that, too? Or maybe he was just born lucky. He’d parallel parked the way he did everything—with confidence and skill.

“I’ll walk you up.” He didn’t ask, he told her. Tess looked at him, and he smiled very slightly. “That way you can give me back my shirt.”