Midnight Fire (11 page)

Ahead of them was the building she remembered—ten stories tall, still sleek and modern though it was over twenty years old. If it was designed for rich men who cheated on their wives, it was very well done, discreet, tasteful, secluded right in the center of the nation’s capital. Maybe there was an architecture studio somewhere out there that specialized in that sort of thing. Chic and glamorous second homes for the unfaithful.

They walked around to the side and again, Summer marveled at how hidden it was. All the shrubbery was designed to provide privacy. Maybe in the summer everyone had trysts on the hidden lawns?

The door was large, smoked glass which barely gave a glimpse inside. The doorbells had no names, only numbers.

Summer reached out to see if the code she remembered still worked, but Jack caught her hand, engulfing it in his and again, that amazingly annoying flush of heat hit her. “Use a knuckle. Don’t leave prints.”

She nodded. Yes, she’d seen that in the movies and hadn’t even thought of it.

Summer punched the numbers with the second knuckle of her index finger. 4151947.

“You remember that after all those years?” Jack shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t remember yesterday.”

“My aunt said it was set by the supervisor and it was Jackie Robinson’s first day of playing baseball. April 15, 1947.” Her aunt had said it with poison, as if she couldn’t fathom celebrating a positive event like breaking the color barrier.

They both stood waiting while nothing happened.

“Too good to be true,” Summer said. “Probably they have a new administrator who likes tennis. So now what do we do—”

She stopped. Jack had attached some kind of electronic lead to the keypad and was holding a small display. Numbers were rolling on the display, stopping one by one. When the last number stopped, the door clicked open.

“Well, that was impressive,” she said.

Jack held the door open above her head, using the back of his hand, and looked around carefully. “They switched from a seven digit code to an eleven digit code. A million times harder to crack.”

“Took you about three seconds,” Summer observed.

He flashed her a brief smile, the Jack of old. The charmer and the seducer. “It’s what I do, darling. Crack things open.”

Like you cracked my heart.

She shook herself and followed him into the building.

The lobby was elegant and deserted. No porter. Not if it was a place for shady people to tryst. Clean, gleaming, elegant and impersonal. Jack called the elevator and it was already on the ground floor. Inside it was just as she remembered—wood and polished brass. Jack looked at her, knuckle poised over the elevator button panel.

“Third floor.”

On the third floor Jack held her back with an arm as he exited the elevator then gestured for her to come out. She turned right, then right again and stopped outside the door she remembered. Apartment 317.

There was a keypad and she punched in the number her aunt had impressed on her. 72735, using her knuckle. To her surprise, it worked. Hector had been so sure of the privacy of the apartment he hadn’t changed the entrance code.

The door clicked and Jack reached behind him and pulled out a gun. Summer looked up in surprise at his face, that he’d feel it necessary to go in armed, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was staring grimly ahead.

They walked in, Jack in front, leading with his weapon. Summer followed. There was no light other than that coming from the corridor through the still-open door. “Stay here,” Jack murmured and she stopped. This was his area of expertise.

He disappeared around a corridor and she heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. If he was checking the apartment, he was doing it in complete silence. No sounds at all until he suddenly appeared in front of her. The gun had disappeared from his hand. “Here.” He pulled two sets of latex gloves from that magical backpack. “Put these on while I pull the curtains.”

Summer put on the gloves and though she didn’t hear Jack moving, she did hear the whirr as the curtains in the living room and bedroom pulled shut. There were blinds in the kitchen. She was about to call out to Jack when she heard the light clatter of plastic as they were shut, too.

Jack returned, shut the door and turned on the lights.

“Okay. We’re going to search this place and we can leave nothing behind. That includes hairs and any kind of DNA, is that clear?”

Summer nodded. Absolutely. Hector was dead and as far as she knew, he had no relatives other than ex-wives who would have been written out of his will. But just in case the bad guys he’d been working with knew about this place and came to check...she gave an involuntary shudder. No way did she want to get into the crosshairs of the people who’d planned and executed the Washington Massacre. They were merciless.

“Very clear.”

Jack put his hand on her shoulder. “So, first thing, walk around and see if it’s the way you remember it. Maybe he redecorated or something. Then we’ll do a systematic search, okay?”

Summer nodded again and stepped from the corridor into the living room. Memories rushed at her, blasting at her like a cold winter wind. Her Aunt Vanessa had had bitterness and rage coming off her in waves as she found clear evidence of a mistress, maybe even two. Then, too, they’d been careful not to leave any evidence behind of their passing but her aunt had been taking snapshots of everything, which she handed over to her lawyers.

“Talk to me, Summer,” Jack said.

Focus
, she told herself. He wouldn’t be interested in her emotional reactions. He needed info. What he called “intel”. Not the memories of a twelve year old girl. She looked around carefully.

“The furniture has changed. Originally the sofa and armchairs were off-white and had curved backs. He’s replaced them but the look is basically the same. The coffee table had been glass, now it’s bamboo and wood. But it’s almost exactly the same size and it’s in exactly the same position as the old one was.”

Summer walked around carefully. She sniffed the air. It was cold and smelled stale. When she’d come with Vanessa those couple of times, it had been lived in and there had been a definite feminine touch. Potpourri, scented candles.

“From what I can tell, a decorator has been in but hasn’t changed the look much, just updated it and kept the same kind of furniture more or less in the same position.”

“Pictures on the walls?” Jack asked.

“The same,” Summer answered promptly. She didn’t even need to think about it. The view in her head was the view she was looking at. “Except for this.” She touched a watercolor of a seascape.

“Looks like a Winslow Homer,” Jack said.

“It does. Maybe Hector had been investing.” Though she didn’t remember Hector showing any interest in art whatsoever. He had enjoyed money, though. She remembered that.

Jack looked around. “There’s plenty of undisturbed dust here and in the bedroom. I don’t think anyone’s been here, either to stay or to clean, in weeks. So we should be okay.”

He was right. A thick patina of dust covered everything, strange to see in such an expensively appointed place. Maybe Hector had a cleaning service come only when he’d been here, not on a regular basis.

A thump at her back and Summer turned to see Jack overturning an armchair. He examined it thoroughly, running his latex-covered fingers over the seams carefully. Then he studied the next armchair.

“Will you need help with the sofa?” she asked. The new sofa had a wooden structure and looked bulky and heavy.

“Nah.” He was taking the three cushions off and studying them carefully. “Can you check the bedroom please? See if anything catches your eye?”

“Sure.” Though, frankly, she’d rather stay in the same room as Jack. This whole place creeped her out. She’d had a friend in Lhasa, a little girl her age. The family next door shunned the crazy drug-addled Americans but Summer and the little girl became friends without anyone noticing. Very pretty, with a nut-brown face. Badi. Badi had had visions, mostly of places. She’d had this fey sense of place and would shiver when they went by certain buildings. Once she’d dragged Summer away, white-faced, from a building at the edge of town. Later Summer learned that the Chinese had gathered up all the men in town and killed them all in that building in 1954.

Bada kismata
Badi murmured whenever she didn’t like a place. Bad juju.

Badi would have paled in this apartment. It was definitely
bada kismata
. The stale, dull, lifeless air, the ostensibly luxurious furniture without one personal touch.

The bedroom was more of the same. The air smelled dead. Summer lingered at the threshold, reluctant to walk in.

Nonsense, she told herself briskly. She was a reporter and reporters faced danger daily in their quest for truth. An empty bedroom didn’t even qualify on the danger scale.

She entered. It was a big room, sort of oddly shaped, with an L corner on the back left hand wall. There was a little nook there, with an armchair made of plexiglass, visibly not hiding anything. On the wall facing the door was a built in bookshelf with only a few books on it.

Summer examined the dust covered shelves and the spines of the books. Law tomes, mostly about international law. Hector had been a lawyer specializing in international law. Apparently a renowned expert. Many of the books were separated by objects. A glass ball, a silver bowl, a bronze sculpture.

She heard another thump from the living room.

There was something about the arrangement of books and objects that looked off. There was nothing personal in the entire apartment but by the same token there was nothing ugly. A designer had come, designed a five star hotel type accommodation, then left. Everything was covered in dust, but perfect.

Tasteful decorations, tastefully arranged. She would have expected the decorator to take the books and arrange them in aesthetically pleasing ways. God knows Hector hadn’t been a reader. The books were heavy and expensive looking, there were even a few antique books, with attractive leather spines with gold lettering. Clearly there for show.

She checked the tops of the books and sure enough they were covered with dust.

She cocked her head to one side. The only way the arrangement made any sense was if Hector had been reading the books and put them back out of order. But no one had touched the books in a long while.

Another thump. Jack was sure doing his best to be thorough. So she should, too. She should check every single drawer, check the mattress. And there was a laptop on a plexiglass desk, too. Check that out.

But she stood rooted to the spot.

Summer had an innate sense of symmetry, of balance. The group of books to the right on the fourth shelf down from the top needed to be broken up. Given the airiness of the rest of the bookshelf, it was like seeing a clot of books.

Without thinking, she slid the clot of the books to the left and right there on the inside of the upright was a small keypad. No wonder things looked asymmetrical. Hector had probably had the keypad put in after the decorator left and hid it with a grouping of books.

Well, this was interesting and explained the odd L shape of the wall. The walls had been reconfigured to create an internal room.

Would the same code as the door work? Only one way to find out. She punched in the code and nothing happened. Well, of course. Who would—

A loud
click
and the entire wall cracked open. She tried to look inside but there was only darkness.

“Uh, Jack?”

Summer tried to keep her voice level but Jack appeared immediately, big black gun in hand. She pointed at the crack.

“Don’t open it,” he said sharply and she withdrew her hand.

Jack placed the gun on a shelf where he could grab it in a second and pulled something out of his magic backpack. It was like a long, slender microphone, bigger at one end, connected to a small tablet. The stalk was extendible. He pulled it out until it was a foot long, then inserted the end into the crack, watching the tablet carefully.

He spared her having to ask what he was doing. “It could be booby-trapped,” he said, tapping on the tablet. “This scans for electronic devices, explosives or bioweapons.”

Summer’s eyes widened. “Bioweapons? You mean something like smallpox could be in there?”

“Or ricin or anthrax.” Jack nodded, then tapped sharply on the tablet. “But it looks like the space is clean. Nothing more dangerous than stale air.”

“Should we open the door then?” she asked. “Look inside?”

“Yeah.” Jack carefully stowed the sensor in his backpack and stuck his gun back in the waistband of his jeans. He pushed the entire library open and lights came on automatically.

Summer stepped into the room and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

Chapter Five

Kearns waited outside Summer Redding’s apartment in Alexandria. He’d checked the security cameras but they all seemed to be disabled, which was odd for a relatively upscale place.

Kearns didn’t like odd. Anything out of place was a potential source of danger. But since there was no way to know why the security cameras were out of order, he dismissed it. If this had been a regular op and he’d had time to research the mission, he’d have hacked into the building supervisor’s office to see if regularly scheduled maintenance was going on, or whether there’d been a malfunction at the central level, just to eliminate uncertainties, but that wasn’t possible.

Springer had been quite clear that the threat had to be eliminated
now
.

The cam issue stuck in the back of his head, though, because one possible explanation was that another operator had been here before him and had disabled the security cameras. That would be a complication and complications were always bad.

Kearns had never failed a mission yet. The mission that got him cashiered from the Clandestine Service hadn’t been a failure, but that fucker Hugh Lownie didn’t like the way he’d carried it out and had given him a dishonorable discharge. With no pension rights. Twenty years he’d busted his hump for the CIA and for a little collateral damage he was tossed away like garbage.

The day of his discharge he’d gone on a three day bender. The morning of the third day, Marcus Springer had knocked on his door, made a proposition and changed his life.

Who the fuck cared about a DD now? Kearns was making ten times the money he’d made in the CS with no limits on what he could do as long as he got the job done. Springer was a great boss, generous and with no rules of engagement. Just—get the job done.

Which he fully intended to do.

He understood very well that this Redding woman was a pain in the ass. Maybe she was about to write something bad for Springer on that blog of hers. Kearns understood the principle of eliminating problems before they festered.

Well, no security cameras sure made this easy.

He crouched outside her door with an IR gun in front of him and waited. The IR would capture signs of anyone inside, even through walls. He moved the sensor around carefully, watching the tablet until he was satisfied that there was nothing living in the apartment. Not even a cat.

The door security was good but not hard. The clandestine service trained well and his new employer hired black hat hackers on a regular basis to give refresher courses to his troops. Unless it was a bank vault, Kearns could crack normal security pretty quickly. A bank vault would take some time.

Inside of four minutes he was opening the target’s door, closing it quickly behind him. He had two options here. Either wait for the target to come home or leave a booby trap. It was late. The target was either out to a late dinner, at the movies or the theater or she was with a boyfriend. If a boyfriend, it was possible she wouldn’t come back for the night.

Kearns was a believer in not wasting manpower. He had been working on security for the next op and he didn’t want to waste his time lying in wait for a journalist chick.

There were other ways.

He dug out a special kit from his backpack, treating the items very, very carefully. He wasn’t afraid of bullets and he wasn’t afraid of knives and he could take most men down fast in hand to hand. But this stuff—this stuff terrified him. Invisible enemies that he couldn’t fight scared the shit out of him.

Kearns hoped she’d come. A clean kill, made to look like a fall that broke her neck. He could do that, no problem. This stuff—

Fuck.

His hands had almost trembled. You could not have shaky hands with this shit, because it would kill you deader than dirt. Worse than a bullet. A bullet was fast. This shit was not fast but deadly and painful.

He waited another five minutes for Redding to show up, so he could do this the old fashioned way, but the bitch wasn’t coming. Probably out fucking someone.

Okay. He looked inside his pack. Everything he needed for this was in a neat little kit. He pulled it out, gingerly. He knew from the briefing that nothing would go off until he set it off, but nonetheless, he treated it like the most fragile crystal.

It opened at a touch and he lifted out ten strips of adhesive material, two of which had a small bubble.

Sarin. Twenty six times more lethal than cyanide. Kearns had been around death a lot in his career. You could even say his career was dedicated to death and he was fine with that. But this scared him. It was a horrible death, unstoppable unless someone had a massive dose of atropine on hand, to be administered within ten minutes of exposure.

Kearns put an adhesive to the doorknob. The instant it stuck, the adhesive starting changing color until it became transparent. He put adhesives on every doorknob, on the refrigerator handle, on the intercom receiver, on the landline cordless handset. Two were placed inside the kitchen faucet and the bathroom faucet. At the first stream of water, the gas would release. All of that was redundant because she was going to be hit the instant she entered her apartment. Everything in the apartment was just overkill.

Kearns opened the front door, put the bubble adhesive to the frame of the front door, at the height of the face of a five foot five woman, placed a tiny trip wire that would disappear the instant the door was pulled open. When it was, a puff of sarin would blow right into her face.

Problem solved.

Kearns got out of there as fast as he could.

* * *

Jack kept Summer back with an arm as he pushed open the secret door. When the light came on, he saw instantly what this was and put his weapon away. Interesting, but not dangerous.

Well, dangerous maybe if it came out while Blake was alive. Summer was a journalist and Blake might have cared if people knew how he liked to fuck, but the fucker was dead and no one cared about his sex life.

Even if that sex life was...something else.

He heard Summer take in a shocked breath and turned to see her face. Those beautiful, silvery-gray eyes were wide, lovely mouth an O. She tried to come across as a tough-guy journalist but Jack had known her as a girl and she’d shown every emotion very clearly when she was young. When she’d first arrived, she didn’t even need to talk, everything was right there on her face.

She’d grown tougher, of course. And he was certain that political corruption and wrongdoing wouldn’t put that look on her face.

Whips and nipple clamps and butt plugs, though—those did.

Jack stepped farther into the room.

“It’s...huge,” Summer said, whispering.

“Yeah. I think it’s the entire next door apartment. He probably bought both at the same time.” They walked into a large room which would have been a big open space living room/dining room if people lived there instead of fucked there.

Everything was top of the line, looked brand new. There had to be half a million dollars in equipment there.

“Good God,” she breathed and Jack had to admit it was impressive. There was more than enough space and equipment to accommodate a good fifty people.

Summer stood in the middle of the room and made a complete circle. “I have no idea what half this stuff is for. This, for example.” She pointed to an intricately woven cylinder hanging from the ceiling.

“A bondage cage. Whoever is inside can’t move, is suspended in air.”

Summer wrinkled her nose. “God, I wouldn’t like that. And these?” She pointed to the glass top of a long beautifully crafted walnut case made out of an antique pool table. She leaned over to peer in, brow furrowed.

Jack leaned over with her, pointing to various items. “Okay, these are butt plugs, of various shapes and sizes and made of various materials.”

She turned her head so quickly her auburn hair whipped across his face. “But some of them look like they are made of glass!”

“They are made of glass, darling.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? What happens if it breaks...inside?”

Jack had never thought of that. “I doubt they break but if they did...ouch.”

She was so amazingly pretty when she concentrated. It was as if she’d been handed this puzzle she had to solve. “And these?”

He knew what they were for, too. “Butt plugs with horse hair attachments.”

“Whatever for?”

“When the plug is in, the horsehair pony tail sweeps down to the floor. For playing horsie.”

He guessed. It had never been his scene.

She looked sideways at him, frowning. “How come you know so much about this? Are you into kink?”

Jack kept a straight face but it was hard. “No, darling, I’m not into kink. If you haven’t forgotten, I am into pleasure. The old fashioned way.”

They were looking into each other’s eyes, noses an inch away from each other. Summer blushed a fiery red, a teenager’s blush. Something unusual to see in a grown woman.

No, she hadn’t forgotten.

Summer ignored the blush completely and was still frowning. “Then how come you know so much about—” She swept her hand around the large room positively bristling with bondage toys, and paddles and whips and clamps. “This.”

“I had a CI—a confidential informant—in Bangkok. We used to meet in an S & M club. Those places define discretion. We asked for a private room and were guaranteed privacy. But I picked up a lot of...the lore. Saw some interesting things on the way to the private room.”

“I’ll just bet,” she said tartly.

Neither of them had shifted, they were still nose to nose.

Jack watched her eyes as he moved a tiny bit closer. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even breathe.

“But the thing is,” he said softly, looking around at all the sex toys lined up and arranged like well-organized and very expensive props backstage for a production directed by the Marquis de Sade, then looking back at her, “the sex is staged more than felt. It’s all carefully scripted. Nothing spontaneous about it at all. They are enacting something they see in their heads and it has nothing to do with the partner. Often they don’t even look at each other. They’re not looking at what’s...” he moved his head closer, “...right...” closer yet, “...in front of them.”

He closed his mouth over hers. Just their lips touching. He kept his hands to himself though what he wanted was to grab her head, hold her still for his kiss and just dive into her.

He wasn’t into kink, none of that bondage garbage moved him, but seeing some of the equipment, the sex toys, a whole room dedicated to sex—well, he’d flashed on having sex with Summer. He’d have to be dead not to. That week they’d been together fifteen years ago was imprinted on him.

Once Jack realized he was her first he’d been super careful with her. Gentle touches, soft sighs, lots of foreplay, making sure she was ready, was more than ready. He’d pulled out every thing he knew about sex to make it good for her. She’d been so shy and timid, everything had been so new to her.

But this was a grown-up Summer, a strong woman, one who’d meet him halfway. Not shy and passive, no. Strong, confident, sure. And he desired her. Was nearly crazy from wanting her.

Walking around this place dedicated to pure sex, he’d flashed on fucking her hard, moving in her as fast and as hard as he could and he’d gone stiff as iron. Thank God for long winter jackets.

Her mouth was warm and soft, but unmoving.

Damn. He’d miscalculated. The stab of lust he’d felt for this Summer—the smart, grown woman—wasn’t reciprocated.

Well, what did he expect? He’d fucked her and run all those years ago.

He moved his mouth gently over hers, barely touching her. He should open his eyes to see what was going on with her but he couldn’t. This was way too pleasurable and if he opened his eyes to see her indifferent or even disgusted...

He’d pull away.

Sure he would.

Jack didn’t go where he wasn’t wanted, never had, never would. But if his eyes were closed and he was drinking in the smell of her skin so close to his nose, the softness of her mouth, he didn’t have to stop right now. Did he?

Maybe he did.

He was just about to move his head away when—there! She sighed into his mouth and moved closer to him.

Yes!
Jack all but shouted. He wasn’t alone in this. Or at least maybe she was only feeling one hundredth of what he was feeling, but she was feeling something. He moved closer, slowly brought up his gloved hand.

Something felt not quite right with that hand. He remembered how soft and warm her red hair felt, and he wasn’t quite getting the stimulus input he was expecting but there was no room in his head to examine this phenomenon because she was kissing him back. Her mouth opened and he slid inside and it was soft and warm in there, so fuck the hair. Jack’s hand covered the back of her head as he tilted his own to get a better taste of her and oh God, she was delicious.

When was the last time he kissed a woman? The memory was lost. When was the last time he’d kissed soft lips, felt another’s breath against his face, could lose himself in a woman? How could he have forgotten the magic of a woman, the soft scented fragrance of a woman’s skin?

And this wasn’t just any woman. This was Summer. Summer who’d been so sweet all those years ago. Summer, whose articles he read faithfully so he felt like he knew how her mind worked, felt like he’d walked around inside her head.

And Summer, with the glossy auburn hair and the pale gray eyes and the slim curvy figure who made men’s heads turn. Summer, whose mouth tasted like heaven, like some impossible heaven made just for him, after so many years spent in hell.

Jack lived his life in a state of Defcon IV which had been bumped up to Defcon II these past six months. He was ready for an attack on his life 24/7, all his senses open to the outside world and its dangers. Danger could come from any corner and he’d lived the last six months waking up each morning accepting that it might be his last day on earth. Walking around, he’d felt a constant prickle up and down his spine, all senses projected outward.

Yet in here, surrounded by whips and things designed to hurt and degrade, right here he could feel his senses spiral inward until the only thing in the world was his mouth on hers.