Checkmate
Selena prodded him with the knife in the vicinity of his bloody butt cheek. “Don’t,” she warned him. Then she held the knife out to the woman in the punjabi. When the woman hesitated, Selena gestured with the knife, affirming her intent.
The woman’s fingers wrapped around the hilt to grow white at the knuckles, a grim determination taking over her expression. “No one need know how he died,” she said softly. “They need not know it was I.”
“Might as well pin it on me,” Selena told her. “Although if he answers my questions, perhaps you could settle for scarring him in some way that he would never admit came from a woman’s hand.”
The woman only smiled.
“You cannot expect me to take this seriously!” the wounded man shouted.
Selena had to give him credit. For a man bleeding badly from his tush, his bleeding partner offering nothing but the sullen silence of someone who hopes not to be noticed, he had courage.
Or perhaps he simply truly didn’t understand his situation.
Selena gave him a beatific smile. “I expect you to take it very seriously.” She used her gun to tick off points on the fingers of her other hand. “Point—I speak seriously kickin’ Berzhaani. Point—I’m very good from this end of a gun. Point—Did you see me sweat when I took you boys down? Now take a moment to think. Think hard. What sort of American woman are you likely to find here in the heart of Berzhaan with all these things in her favor?”
Someone to take seriously, that’s who.
He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to hold on to his self-righteous rage and scorn, glaring at her from deep-set eyes just made for the expression.
“Did the Kemenis send you?” she asked.
He didn’t answer directly—but he looked away. It was enough.
“I gather they didn’t send you to behave like this in particular.” She tapped the muzzle of the Beretta thoughtfully against her knee. The motion kept his attention on the weapon—helped him to realize that this was no lady’s pistol, but a gun of sturdy heft that fit comfortably in her equally sturdy hands. That she wielded it without a second thought. “But here you are, causing trouble in an otherwise unremarkable location. The shrine is fascinating, but not a political touchstone.” And the Kemenis, suddenly bereft of their American benefactor, were desperate. Desperate enough to make a real move on the country’s power base? Her eyes narrowed; for the first time she let a glimpse of her anger show through. “But this is close enough to Suwan to cause alarm…close enough to draw off troops in response.” And I’ve just initiated that by calling in. And now the capital would be more vulnerable to terrorist action.
Again he looked away, trying to hide the subtle retreat with an uncomfortable shift to relieve pressure on his wound.
“You’re a sacrifice,” Selena said. “Contributing to a larger goal….”
Suwan…the embassy…the capitol. One or all of them, the real targets.
He glared again, and the curl returned to his lip as he opened his mouth to say something crude.
She smacked her pistol against his shin, a casual but precise blow that struck the crucial nerves there, numbing his leg with excruciating pain and with very little effort on her part. He made a wordless noise of surprise and gaped as his eyes watered, mouth quickly pursing for more imprecations.
“Don’t,” she said sharply. “Just…don’t.” She exchanged a glance with the woman who now held the knife, saw the uncertainty rising there and straightened. “I’m not sure,” she said to the woman, “but it might well be that his humiliation is complete without any extra scarring, especially if he were cast out at your doorstep in a pretty bundle for the National troops. It’s entirely up to you, of course. I’m afraid I have to leave now.”
The woman in the chador leaned toward the other, murmuring something worried.
“A boy,” said the first woman. “Did you see—?”
Selena nodded. “I sent him up to the shrine to hide, with the promise I would take all blame for it. I’m sure he’s waiting for you there.”
“Thank you,” said the woman in the chador, sitting for that moment like a queen on her throne instead of a nearly violated woman on her thoroughly rumpled bed. But she could not hide a quivering twitch of her mouth or the tears of relief welling in her eyes.
Selena thought it was her cue to leave. That and the distant sound of helicopter blades thumping the air. She emerged from the house with caution, the automatic gunfire still clear in her memory—but either no one else had intended to come to this far end of the town, or the arriving troops had caught their attention. She made it to her Russian Moskvich sedan without incident, folding herself into the driver’s seat with the Beretta in easy reach. She hoped to swing around the village and make it into Suwan without any trouble—but if trouble came along, she’d be ready for it.
She had to reach the embassy. She had to warn the ambassador…and she had to warn Berzhaan.
The Kemenis were rising.
Chapter 2
C olin Jones slung his duffel through the door of the modest D.C. condo he shared with Selena. Modest by choice and lifestyle as opposed to financial restrictions, even here in this area of off-the-chart living expenses. But…
Maybe that would change soon, if Selena became pregnant as they hoped. Maybe their silk plants and collection of sleek sight hound statuary would make way for the real things. Green, growing things. Warm loyalty and four-legged companionship to round out a home that also held the laughter of a family.
Not that it would be easy. He and Lena had already experienced enough rocky moments to be realistic about what lay ahead and even then she hadn’t known half the things he’d kept from her in recent months. Things he wouldn’t tell her, things he couldn’t tell her. Decisions she’d never understand…some decisions he didn’t like to think about. But she hadn’t known those things, and she’d recommitted to the marriage, recommitting to each other…and immersing themselves in a few brief weeks of passion-filled nights before duty called and Cole had gone off on a long-term assignment, hoping Selena would soon find a posting nearby.
But as he took his first step into the condo, he knew Lena wasn’t here. Damn. He’d all but felt her arms around him, her hands sneaking beneath his waistband to tug up his shirt and—
Nothing but frustration at the end of those thoughts.
The silence of the apartment surrounded him. The stuffy air, scented with undisturbed spice candles. The faint layer of dust settled over the empty table next to the door where their mail tended to pile up when they were home. A glance into their small living room showed no sign of legal briefs, no sign of Lena’s latest fiction favorites. Just the cream and maroon tones of the rug, curtains and furniture—a color scheme that had been a compromise between her desire for cool and clean decor and his own need for bold.
The kitchen…not a crumb on the counter. The bedroom…neatly tidied, not so much as a stray sock or one of those hair scrunchies Lena tended to lose track of—and though Cole was much more casual about such things than she, Lena had never obsessed about tidiness, either. Not when she was relaxed and happy. A glance back at the living room revealed the very same quilt square on the wall as had been there two months earlier.
Left not long after I did, did you? For she had an entire collection, and rather than spread them out over the austere walls she rotated them on a monthly basis—while the rest of the walls remained uncluttered, a testament to their struggle to merge their styles. The casual, assertive operative who approached life in the fast and loose lane, and the FBI legate with a lawyer’s precise, compartmentalized brain.
Not for the first time, he wished he could see her in action—in real action—to get a glimpse of that side of her. The side that would expose the ferocity of her will and her ability to take whatever the situation pitched at her.
It had to be there. Somewhere. It had to be, or she wouldn’t still be alive.
He tore himself away from his thoughts to realize he’d left the door open. Cole nudged the duffel aside so he could close himself in. And with Lena out there somewhere, putting this door between them definitely left him closed in.
It’s not like this has never happened before. Time to find the note, the one they always left each other. Time to disabuse the uneasiness growing somewhere in the pit of his stomach, spreading to become tension between his shoulder blades. Lena’s notes always gave him ease, made his inward tension relax to match his outward appearance.
He knew the things people said of him; he cultivated those things. He sowed the seeds for his own reputation as the laid-back charmer who took each mission on the fly, improvising his way to last-moment success. Even Lena bought into it, not truly realizing how important she was to him, in how many ways…all the little things, like her notes. They were the one place she cast aside her lawyer persona for pure silliness—catching him up on the gossip around their condo, informing him how much their silk plants had grown since he was last home, drawing him stick figure versions of her latest adventures in D.C. living. And of course…the challenge of finding the always-hidden note in the first place.
Except…there it was, right out on the kitchen counter, one corner tucked beneath the gleaming white toaster. A sheet torn carefully from a five-by-eight pad of lined yellow paper, inscribed with a few sentences in her neatest hand.
Cole—had an unexpected call to Berzhaan. Things are pretty tense there. I’ll let you know more as I can—check your e-mail.
No stick figure. No silliness. Only a sweeping S.
Something’s wrong.
But she couldn’t possibly know—
Very wrong.
Selena blew past the clean, modern outer ring of Suwan, where the post-Soviet restoration efforts prevailed. Approaching the center of the city, she maneuvered through the now-familiar streets into ancient Berzhaan, an area full of impressive stone architecture, and of old fortress walls that came from nowhere and disappeared into nothingness, no longer anything but pieces of their former glory. The streets turned cobbled, the alleys narrowed, and the thick feel of history hung in the air. Here, some of the oldest buildings had given way to Soviet manpower, leaving in their wake impressive new buildings of state. The capitol building was one such; the American embassy a much smaller version of the same, several blocks away.
She drove the Moskvich around the back of the embassy, returning it to the motor pool with a haste that drew the curiosity of the young Berzhaani who took the keys, and entered the embassy through a back door for which few had the special high-security key card. A glance at her watch confirmed her tardiness for her two o’clock appointment with the ambassador and the prime minister. She kicked her pace into a jog, soundless over the luxuriously thick carpeting, and went straight to the ambassador’s office in spite of her appearance, pulling off her head scarf along the way. The details of the embassy—trappings both American and Berzhaani—flashed past in a familiar blur, barely noticed.
Had anything been changed, that she would have noticed.
She pulled up short outside the open door of the ambassador’s outer office. Bonita Chavez looked up from her desk with disapproval deepening the lines of features that had been generous before middle-age and now seemed entrenched in making themselves even more obvious. She glanced at the classy silver and oak clock on the wall. “You’re late.”
Stern or not, Bonita didn’t worry Selena; along with her duties as the ambassador’s civil service admin, she seemed to have taken on mother-hen duties. Beneath her current frown lived worry, not anger, and Selena already harbored affection for her.
“I ran into a little trouble.” Selena stepped into the office. “Can I go in?”
“He’s waiting for you. You can rest assured he knows you’ve arrived.” Bonita’s gaze raked her up and down, looking for telltales of Selena’s “little trouble.”
“All one piece,” Selena told her, opening her coat wide for quick inspection and, as she’d intended, causing Bonita to bite her far-too-crimson lipstick against a smile. Selena forced herself to walk across a carpet of stunning workmanship—she always had to force herself to walk on the beauty of Sekha-made carpets—and rapped her knuckles against the dark, heavy wood door of the ambassador’s inner office before pushing it open.
Ambassador Allori looked up from his computer monitor. “Do I guess correctly that you had something to do with that call that came through the embassy, requesting troops at Oguzka?”
“The Kemenis—”
“Yes, yes.” He cut her off, frowned at his monitor and tapped a key in response, and simultaneously swept a stiff sheet of paper off his desk to hold out to her. “You’ll find this of interest, I think, though you hardly have time to read it. You don’t have time to change, either—I doubt Mr. Razidae will be disposed to notice. But you’ll want to wash your face. It’s got someone’s blood on it. Not yours, I presume.”
Bonita! She’d seen it, surely. She’d let Selena go on in without alerting her to clean up, and with an admirable lack of telltale expression at that.
On the other hand, perhaps it was done as a favor. Allori could hardly refute the evidence that her delay had been for significant reasons.
“No, sir.” She took the paper, recognizing the letterhead of the embassy warden. “Not the least bit mine.”
He gave her a moment to glance at the text, which bore the header Surge in Kemeni Rebel Activity:
The Department of State advises American citizens in Berzhaan to take prudent steps to ensure their personal safety in the coming days. Remain vigilantly aware of surroundings, avoid crowds and demonstrations….
Selena could not help a soft snort. Too late. Already been there, done that.
If Allori heard, he gave no sign of it. No doubt he, too, knew the value of keeping American personnel at an official distance from such…demonstrations. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said, which was as close as he’d get to referring to the Oguzka activity. “Now…we leave in less than fifteen minutes. Can you be back here in ten?”
Selena returned the warden notice to his desk and murmured, “See you in eight, Mr. Ambassador.” She turned on her heel, using her long legs to full advantage and mounting the back stairwell in twos and threes rather than waiting for the elevator to the third floor embassy staff housing. Selena’s chosen apartment, tucked in a back corner, caught sun through two windows and offered an amazing view of the Caspian Sea. Probably a mistake, given the way it reminded her of Cole’s eyes.
Sometimes the lake shone an impossible blue, and sometimes the undercurrents turned it a murkier blue-green, but she didn’t take time to check today’s color. For that matter, she didn’t even take the time to remove her coat. She eyed the bathroom mirror, removing the faint smear of blood to which Allori had referred. She removed her knives, knowing she’d have to face a metal detector at the capitol, and then dumped a few extra clips for her Beretta into her coat pocket. The gun and clips would be left at the capitol building’s sign-in desk, but given what she’d already encountered today, she didn’t intend to go out on the street unprepared.
As for the rest of it…she brushed a damp washcloth futilely over a smudge of…something…on her khakis, and ran it over her leather and nylon mesh hiking boots to remove the dust of the day. She applied a quick, light coat of foundation and a subtle smudge of kohl around the outer edges of slightly tilted eyes, knowing it would echo the look to which the prime minister was accustomed. She tackled her hair, pulling a brush through the tangles the wind had left beneath the scarf, giving herself a critical stare. Time for a cut. If she let it grow too far below her shoulders, the strong, lean bones of her face seemed stronger, leaner…she preferred to keep it short enough to square up her jaw and soften a strong chin with its hint of a cleft.
Three minutes remaining and she counted herself ready to go, except for a quick glance at her automatically downloaded e-mail as she closed her laptop up, her briefcase already to hand.
She wished she hadn’t.
E-mail from Cole.
Finally.
She knew she’d stopped breathing. Forced herself to begin again. There was no way to look at the message now. No way to look at it until she was through with work for the day.
The next one down in the list was another matter. Delphi.
Delphi was Selena’s contact at Oracle, and Oracle…
Oracle was a name Selena never said out loud. The elite intelligence-gathering organization predated Homeland Security, and now quietly provided backup. Oracle crossed agency lines to garner intel, a cross-check system designed to prevent terrorist disasters…and then they acted on it when no one else could or would. Selena suspected her invitation to join Oracle’s clandestine efforts was another legacy of her days at the Athena Academy. The organization, its methods and goals…it tasted strongly of Athena.
Alerted by the subject header—Kemeni—as much as the sender, Selena accepted that she’d be late to the ambassador’s office and opened the e-mail. Even so, she had time for no more than a glance.
A glance was all it took.
Chapter 3
B ut the e-mail warning hadn’t stopped Allori, only delayed them a few more crucial moments while he listened to Selena’s concerns. And then he’d issued a few quick orders and they’d headed for the Berzhaan capitol.
Late, late and later.
With one careful finger, Selena rubbed the bridge of her nose, not sure if she should have had lunch or if she actually regretted having breakfast. The scene in the lobby of the Berzhaan capitol building momentarily swam in her vision—but the moment passed and then the situation was all too clear: if they’d arrived on time, they would have gotten here before this busload of excited but respectful college students. Their bright winter coats would have proclaimed them foreigners if the quick whispers in English hadn’t; Selena heard all manner of accents, from American to Canadian to British. They clustered around the reception desk, trickling through the weapons detector arch one by one.
She and Ambassador Allori weren’t the only displaced arrivals. Off to the side, two smiling Berzhaani women—modern women in neat business suits and modest heels, uncovered by either chador or hijab—watched the procession with patience, while a tall Berzhaani man in a designer casual jacket over silk had a distractedly pleased expression. He was worth a second look, sleek and groomed and all cutting edges, his dark complexion giving him the same smoldering good looks that had earned Omar Sharif a generation and more of worshippers. He caught Selena’s gaze and raised an eyebrow; the gesture revealed more than he probably ever imagined. Regardless of his trendy appearance, her directness had surprised him, and to some extent offended him—but he saw nothing wrong with letting his gaze linger on her in return, judging her too-casual dress and her edgy red-piped, black leather coat, appreciating her long legs and the way that same tailored coat revealed her figure.
She gave him the slightest of nods, turned away with an ease that probably also offended him and considered the best way to discreetly cut the line.
She didn’t have to. The uniformed man behind the standing height lobby desk glimpsed Selena through the crowd, and then spotted the slightly shorter ambassador. He raised a hand high, gesturing to the familiar guard at the security arch. With practiced ease, the guard created a break in the line and then nodded at the ambassador. Selena followed, automatically sorting through the young people they pushed past, hunting potential threats.
There weren’t any, of course. Just a slew of impressed and curious expressions. Who are they? Why are they getting special treatment? One bold young man gave her the same appreciative once-over she’d just gotten from the Berzhaani man near the entrance, albeit with none of the finesse. The visual equivalent of hey, baby.
Selena smiled at him, a knowing smile, and it startled him into a blush; he hadn’t expected to get caught. Blond hair, blue eyes; he could have been Cole a dozen years earlier. Except Cole wouldn’t have been caught.
Wrong. Cole had been caught.
A young woman poked the bold young man’s arm in silent vigor, blushing even harder than her friend…and sweetheart? Selena thought she saw a flash of jealousy in those wide-set eyes. She turned away, back to business, leaving the young woman a little space for dignity—and already methodically pulling her briefcase shoulder strap free, stripping herself of her gun and ejecting the clip to hand it over to the guard along with the extra magazines. As an afterthought she pulled the knife from the special inside sheath she’d had sewn into the coat. “Sorry,” she said. “I meant to get that one before we left.”
She thought she heard a stifled noise from her bold young admirer. Bit off more than you could chew, eh? She met the amusement in the guard’s eyes as he placed her things in a small lockbox and set them aside for retrieval upon exit, and then performed a quick scan on her black leather satchel briefcase. Within moments they’d passed through the security check, where one of the capitol’s nameless gofers met them with a smile and apologized for the delay as if Selena and Allori hadn’t been late in the first place. As the young man escorted them toward the prime minister’s office, he nodded at a hallway that led in the opposite direction. “We’re hosting a casual reception this afternoon. The college students, as you saw. And others to meet them, from the government and some of our own learning institutions.”
Selena glanced down the hall in question, finding a bustle of people in dignified dark green jackets such as their escort’s, pushing serving carts into position and pouring water into crystal glasses. A brief, loud argument between one of the capitol’s gofers and a cook took over the hallway just long enough for a woman in an exotic punjabi trouser-dress to intervene. The events coordinator. Selena had seen her before, though she’d never been in that part of the embassy herself. The chaotic nature of the event troubled her; she wished she knew more about it.
But then, she wasn’t here as the ambassador’s bodyguard.
Allori himself showed no sign of worry on his face—a round face made even more so by the extra weight he carried. He smiled at their escort. “I recall reading about the reception. Excellent idea.”
Their escort nodded. He, too, was of dark complexion, an olive cast as opposed to the rich brown tones of the Berzhaani in the lobby. Small, unimposing and unremarkable, he played his role with quiet perfection—drawing no undue attention, making or taking no easy offense. “If the young people of other countries see how forward-thinking we are…then we will have no need to change their minds when they are older.” He stopped beside an open door and gestured them in. “The prime minister begs your pardon, but was unable to avoid tending other matters. He’ll be with you as soon as possible.”
Selena didn’t need a translation. You were late, and he had to move on to other things. She nodded her thanks and followed Allori into the room—a lush room, the floor soft with a Sekha carpet over the wall-to-wall beneath, the wood accents of ceiling and trim dark and gleaming. A neat serving cart of wrought iron sat against the wall, offering everything from ice water to the finest leaf tea. Allori set his briefcase on one of the round-bottomed chairs and helped himself to some tea, fixing it in familiar ritual as Selena prowled the edges of the small room. He said, “You must have had an interesting morning. You’re as jumpy as I’ve ever seen you.”
She frowned at him. The room was undoubtedly bugged, and he was too experienced to have forgotten it.