Checkmate

He looked up from the steeping tea, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly. Did she or did she not, he seemed to ask, want the prime minister to have terrorism on his mind—as well as the need to cooperate while countering it?

Selena sighed, closing her eyes in apology. The truth was, she was jumpy. And she had good reason. Following Allori’s lead, she spoke frankly. “I wish you’d taken my warning a little more seriously.”

“A warning with no specific source?” He waved her off.

“It’s my job to gather just such warnings,” she reminded him, arms crossed even with the briefcase dangling from one hand.

“Yes. Of course it is. And I’ll consider it later this afternoon, by which time you should have even more information for me.”

“You yourself showed me the warden’s notice—”

He dangled the tea egg a few times, then laid it neatly aside. “And I’ve taken it into account. Bonita’s packing her bags as we speak. We’ll make do with a skeleton staff for now.”

“Ambassador—” Selena rubbed the bridge of her nose again, right above the little bump Cole liked so much. Don’t think about Cole. Fatigue washed over her in a startling rush, turning her stomach. She closed her mouth on indiscreet words, a reiteration of the warning from Oracle—the alarming intel from the CIA, along with other military and agency listening posts with which an FBI legate such as Selena should have no direct connection. Word that the Kemeni rebels were indeed desperate in the wake of their lost faux U.S. support—that they had to grab power now, or concede it forever.

There were reports of skirmishes, of dead Berzhaani citizens and one major bombing. The Kemenis had acted as if jabbed with a cattle prod, from quiescence in the shocked wake of Frank Black’s death to powerful intent.

Selena doubted the cheerful college students had so much as a clue of Berzhaan’s suddenly increased unrest. She herself knew only through Delphi—and the luck to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time this morning. Off to the shrine to seek peace of mind, and she’d found only violence.

“Selena?” Allori set his teacup in the saucer, brow drawing together. “Are you quite all right?”

And just like that, she wasn’t. Just like that, her stomach spasmed beyond even her iron control, and she blurted “Excuse me!” and bolted from the room, briefcase clutched in her hand. She remembered the bathroom as a barely marked door down the hall and only hoped she was right as she slammed it open. Thank God. Most of the room was a blur but she honed in on an open stall door, grateful for the lavish, updated fixture—

Better than a hole in the floor. Been there, done that.

And when she leaned back against the marbleized stall wall, marveling at the sudden violence her system had wreaked upon her, the thought flashed unbidden and unexpected through her mind: we were trying to start a family.

No. Not here, not now. Not with Cole half a world away and an even bigger emotional gap between them. She knew he hid things from her; she’d thought she could live with that. Maybe not. Selena clenched down on her thoughts the same way she’d tried to clench down on her stomach and stumbled out to the pristine sink to crank the cold water on full and splash her face and rinse her mouth. She raised her head to find herself in the gilt-edged mirror, deathly pale, deep blue-green eyes bewildered—and then those eyes widened and she dashed back to the toilet.

When she lifted her head again, her trembling hand numbly reaching to flush the toilet, she didn’t have the strength to make it to the sink. She reeled a clumsy length of tissue from the dispenser and sat against the marble partition, overwhelmingly grateful for the impeccably clean nature of the capitol. She scrubbed her mouth and chin and then the thought came again: we were trying to start a family.

Maybe they had.

Selena, only remotely in touch with the members of her divorce-torn family, had never had any heartwarming chats about pregnancy. Not with friends, not with her sisters-in-law, not with her coworkers. But she’d never gotten the impression that morning sickness—whenever it came—was quite this vigorous. Violent, even.

Maybe she’d just eaten the wrong thing for breakfast. Or maybe she’d finally have to admit to herself that in spite of her cool, collected self-image, once her emotions hit a certain amount of turmoil, her digestive system often did the same.

She had to know. To know. First chance, she’d hit the little store that catered to the diplomatic staff and she’d get herself one of those little sticks and she’d pee on it. It didn’t matter that her period was a little late; that meant nothing. She was notoriously irregular when she traveled. Not until she had the little stick would she know for sure.

And then what?

She climbed to her feet, heading for the sink on wobbly legs. There she repeated the rinse-and-spit routine, unable to get the acrid taste of her sickness from the back of her throat. When she dared to look at her image again, she found that it reflected what she felt: she looked stronger, less green. This particular storm, whatever the cause, was over.

And then what?

What if she was pregnant in a strife-torn Berzhaan, her estranged husband not even knowing he was estranged? Theoretically he was still deeply undercover in wherever it was that he’d gone, unable to do more than send a sporadic e-mail or two. Theoretically.

Except she’d seen him in D.C.

Kissing someone else.

And now he’d sent her e-mail from his home address—and she hadn’t even had time to read it. But just looking at it confirmed that the one stable, steady thing they’d had between them in their four years of unspoken secrets and long absences was no longer stable or steady at all. That maybe it never had been.

No, no reason for emotional turmoil, not in the least.

Usually she and Cole managed to maintain steady communication when their jobs separated them. But this particular assignment had been a dark one, dark enough that if something happened to him, she’d learn only that he’d died in an auto accident while traveling. The dark assignments came along now and then, especially with the contract employees like Cole. With a two-year re-up on contract employees, the CIA station chiefs were willing to push them to the edge of burnout. It had damaged Cole and Selena’s marriage, in spite of their mutual understanding of the unique stresses in each of their careers. It had damaged Selena’s trust in Cole, watching him switch ably from role to role, ducking questions and hiding nightmares until she couldn’t help but wonder if their marriage was just one of the many parts he played.

Not that it surprised her. In her world, families didn’t stay together. People went their own ways when relationships became difficult, whether beset upon by emotional or logistical problems. She and Cole had overcome all manner of logistical difficulties—long-term assignments in different countries, frequent travel, the occasional international crisis. Recently she’d even thought he’d been lost…and afterward, they’d renewed their commitment to one another. Made up in a big way, celebrating the things they loved about one another, the ineffable chemistry that Selena’s ordered mind had never come close to explaining.

Even now she could feel it. Leaning against this sink with her throat burning and legs still weak, she could close her eyes and see the way he looked at her, remember the way he touched her…and yearn for him.

She just didn’t know if she could forgive him. Live with him.

And then what?

If she was pregnant…she’d have to stay here long enough to stabilize this new legate’s office, in spite of the unrest. And then she’d have to go home…she’d have to tell Cole. To decide if she trusted him, or if she’d merely contribute to the long line of broken branches in her family tree.

And if this is any taste of things to come, I’ll have to carry around a barf bag wherever I go.

The water still trickled. She scooped another handful into her mouth, held it and spit it out. Her eyes stung, sympathetic to her throat. It wasn’t until she coughed, short and sharp, that she stiffened—and realized that the uncomfortable tang wasn’t coming from her abused throat, but from the air she breathed.

Tear gas.

Trickling in from the street outside? From somewhere in the building?

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

Selena jammed used tissue into the trash, grabbed her briefcase and took a deep, steadying breath, pulling herself away from the emotional wallops of the what-ifs and dropping back into the calm, cool world of black and white—of this end of the gun versus the other.

Except she didn’t have a gun, and she didn’t have her knives.

Maybe she wouldn’t need them. Listening at the bathroom door revealed only silence, and she peeked out. The smoke hung thickly in the abandoned hallway. Selena ducked back inside, took another deep breath—this one to hold—and eased out into the hallway, running silently to the waiting room she’d left so precipitously only moments before.

Empty. Allori’s teacup lay broken on the floor, tea soaking the priceless carpet.

Son of a bitch.

The door leading to the prime minister’s office stood slightly ajar, and Selena made for it, her chest starting to ache for air. But breathing meant coughing, and coughing meant being found.

She didn’t intend to be found until she understood the situation. If then.

Razidae’s office proved to be empty, as well, the luxurious rolling office chair askew at the desk, papers on the floor, the private phone out of its sleek-lined cradle—and the air relatively clear. Selena closed the door, grateful for the old, inefficient heating system, and inhaled as slowly as she could, muffling the single cough she couldn’t avoid.

All right, then. The building was full of tear gas, the dignitaries were gone—and Selena had somehow missed it all.

They could have blown the building out from under you while you were throwing up and you wouldn’t have noticed.

Unless Allori and Razidae had simply gone to check out the tear gas and any attendant ruckus. In which case they could be caught up in it. Whatever it was.

Think, Selena. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and calmed the chaotic mess of her mind. She could call for help from here—Razidae’s private line might have an in-use indicator at his secretary’s desk, but it wouldn’t show up on any of the other phone systems, so she wouldn’t give her presence away by picking it up.

But there was no point in calling until she understood the situation. No doubt the authorities were already alerted. If she were near an outside window, she might even hear sirens—but Razidae’s office was in the protected interior, the only other exit leading to his secretary’s office. No, no point in calling. At least, not yet. But she would take this office as her possible home base, with its private phone line and its private location. Razidae was a prime minister who came prepared. All his resistance to U.S. overtures of assistance with Berzhaan’s counterterrorism program hadn’t been because of his denial that the problem existed. Rather that after years of having his country pulled this way and that, sovereignty lost, he wanted to maintain Berzhaan’s independence in all aspects of administration.

Selena couldn’t really blame him. But she wished he’d been a little more receptive. Maybe they’d have prevented this day’s events.

You still don’t know what’s going on.

Well, then, she told herself. Let’s find out.

Selena laid her briefcase on the desk, thumbed the token combination lock and flipped the leather flap open. She’d left her laptop behind in favor of her tablet PC, and the briefcase looked a little forlorn…a little empty.

Not much to work with. No Beretta, no extra clip, no knives…

Maybe she wouldn’t need them. Maybe by the time she discovered what had happened, it would actually be over.

Nonetheless, she took a quick survey: cell phone, battery iffy; she turned it off and left it behind. A handful of pens, mostly fine point. She tucked several into her back pocket. A new pad of sticky notes. A nail file, also worthy of pocket space. Her Buck pocketknife, three blades of discreet mayhem, yet not big enough to alarm the security guards. It earned a grim smile and a spot in her front pocket. A spare AC unit for her laptop, which garnered a thoughtful look and ended up stuffed into the big side pocket of her leather duster. A small roll of black electrician’s tape. A package of cheese crackers—

Selena closed her eyes, aiming willpower at her rebellious stomach. I don’t have time for you, she told it. Without looking, she set the crinkly package aside, and then surveyed the remaining contents of the briefcase. A legal pad and a folder full of confidential documents. She supposed she could inflict some pretty powerful paper cuts. A few mints and some emergency personal supplies she wasn’t likely to need if she was actually pregnant.

No flak vest, no Rambo knife, not even a convenient flare pistol.

Then again, there was no telling what she might find with a good look around the capitol. Almost anything was a weapon if you used it right.

Selena jammed the rejected items back in her briefcase, automatically locking it. She tucked it inside the foot well of Razidae’s desk and checked to see that she’d left no sign of her presence—except there were those crackers….

She made a dive for the spiffy executive wastebasket beside the desk, hunched over with dry heaves. Mercifully, they didn’t last long. And afterward, as she rose on once-again shaky legs and poured herself a glass of the ice water tucked away on a marble-topped stand in the corner, she tried to convince herself that it was over. That she could go out and assess the situation without facing the heaves during an inopportune moment. That it was over, because over meant she’d eaten something that didn’t suit her and not that she’d added pregnancy to this volatile mix of Cole’s infidelity and Berzhaan’s turmoil.

She dumped the rest of the water into a lush potted plant that probably didn’t need the attention, wiped out the glass and returned it to its spot. She very much hoped that she’d creep out to find an embarrassed guard and an accidentally discharged tear gas gun. Then she could stroll up with her pens and her pocketknife tucked away, as calm and cool as though she hadn’t been heaving in Razidae’s wastebasket moments before.

A stutter of muted automatic gunfire broke the silence.

So much for that idea. Selena’s heart, already pounding from her illness, kicked into a brief stutter of overtime that matched the rhythm of the gunfire. “All right, baby,” she said to her potential little passenger, pulling her fine wool scarf from her coat pocket and soaking it in the pitcher. “Get ready to rock and roll.”

But as she reached for the doorknob, she hesitated. She could be risking more than her own life if she ran out into the thick of things now. As far as she knew, whoever had pulled the trigger of that rifle didn’t even know she existed. She could ride things out here with her lint-filled water and her cheese crackers.

Or she could be found and killed, or the building could indeed blow up around her, or whoever’d fired those shots could succeed in their disruptive goal, and Selena and her theoretical little one could be trapped in a rioting, war-torn Berzhaan. She closed her eyes, her mind suddenly full of images of frightened students and dead capitol workers and a dead Allori. She closed her eyes hard.

It really wasn’t any choice at all.

Chapter 4

T he smoke settled toward the floor in the long hallway. Selena’s eyes watered above the damp scarf, but not so much that she couldn’t see. The hallway was all hers. She hoped it stayed that way.

If she did this right, she’d complete her prowling unseen; she’d have an idea where Ambassador Allori had ended up and how Prime Minister Razidae had fared. She’d find the college students and even the arrogant Berzhaani businessman from the lobby.

And she’d find the Kemeni rebels.

Steady there. She didn’t know the Kemenis were behind this.

Yes. I do.

On this side of the five-story capitol, the prime minister and his cabinet members generally went about their business, addressing the problems of a nation with a tumultuous past. On the other side, ceremonies and social functions filled a dining-ballroom so grandly exotic it would have suited a Russian czar—and, given the country’s past annexation, might have once done just that. The kitchens, the maintenance, even a detention area…all on that side of the building. Somewhere.

With some fervency, Selena wished that just once, she’d had a chance to glimpse a blueprint of the capitol. The CIA probably had one…but they hadn’t shared, and though she had a request in with Oracle, Delphi hadn’t yet come through. For now, Selena was on her own.

All too literally.

She decided to start with the lobby. Moving carefully through the halls, silently over the carpet on her rubber-soled lightweight hikers…she spent long moments listening before she turned corners, stifling the constant impulse to cough and keeping a firm mental control over her unhappy but quiescent stomach. She found signs of struggle—pictures knocked askew, a coffee cup shattered against the wall, stains splashed across creamy paint…even a smudge or two of blood, a hand-print where someone had reached out for support. As an undertone to the tear gas, the equally acrid smell of gunpowder grew stronger.

When she peered around the final corner and into the unfolding delta of the lobby, she winced. The faint haze of remaining tear gas couldn’t hide the aftermath of the struggle, wasn’t strong enough to cover the visceral smell of blood and death. One guard sprawled before the security arch, his face missing. Selena couldn’t see the other, though she heard noises from behind the standing desk where he’d been. Still alive?

Behind the desk…that’s where her gun had been stored, in its own lockbox. She took a step around the corner, exposing herself. She might as well be as naked as she felt; she was just as vulnerable. She eyed the semiautomatic pistol in the dead guard’s hand. Any thoughts she had of going for the weapon vanished as she saw the slide jutting back. He’d emptied it at someone.

Or maybe just at the bullet-riddled wall on his way down.

She could still grab it. She might find ammo if she could locate the security office. But she’d prefer her own familiar weapon, so she took a few more silent steps toward the counter and the rustling noises behind it, the occasional grunt. Her hand dipped into her pocket, her fingers twisting in the cords for the laptop AC adaptor. David and Goliath.

She figured she was stamped as David in this particular scenario.

As she reached for the sleek granite desk edge, fingertips hovering and ready to support her as she leaned over, a man popped up from the other side. His bearded face reflected astonishment; he dropped a handful of booty and scrambled to bring up his rifle, catching the muzzle brake on the inner structure of the desk. Selena jerked her hand from her pocket, whipped the chunky little AC adaptor over her head once to gather momentum and slung it against the man’s temple. Down he went, falling with a strangely soft landing.

Selena pushed off against the desk, levering herself up to crouch atop it, ready to follow through—to scrabble over the rifle if she had to. But the man lay awkwardly on top of the dead guard from whom he’d been pilfering, the rifle out of reach.

And David wins again. Selena didn’t let regret for the dead guard slow her down. Time to grab a weapon—the Abakan rifle, an obvious if puzzling Kemeni favorite, or the lockbox with her gun, or the guard’s gun…she didn’t care. But shouted alarm warned her; she looked up in time to see green-and-tan-clad figures rounding the corner out of the hallway opposite her own approach path. She instantly dived for escape back the way she’d come, just barely rolling into the movement as she hit the floor. Gunfire exploded into the silence; wood chips and plaster spit through the air. Selena rolled with purpose until she hit the wall and scrambled to her feet, shouting, “Grenade!” as she flung the adaptor in their direction.

They didn’t stop to think why she’d warn them; they only reacted to the word, flinching and ducking as the adaptor bounced at their feet. It only took them an instant to realize the black device was not a grenade, not even a unique new American grenade—but by then Selena had thrown herself around the corner and driven out into a long-legged sprint. On her way past a stairwell she slammed the door open hard enough to hit the wall behind it but never hesitated, retracing her steps to make the next turn before they gathered themselves to charge the hallway in her wake. In moments she found the waiting room from whence she’d come, hesitating only long enough to leave the door open just the way she’d found it the first time. She dashed through to the prime minister’s office, grabbed her briefcase against the faint possibility that they’d trace her steps this far and headed out to his admin’s office. There she quickly rifled the desk drawers, ignoring the keyboard and flat panel screen monitor that had been slung across the room as well as the tea spilled across the desk. She hoped for but didn’t expect to find a weapon and found more reasonable treasure instead: a ring of keys.

Enough time spent; the echoes of frustrated shouts came faintly through the waiting room on the other side of Razidae’s office. Selena ran out into a hall that ran parallel to the one she’d just left, heading for the set of stairs that logic told her would be opposite those on the other side and taking them two at a time when she found them. All the way to the fourth floor, where the secondary residences filled the space. Guests, dignitaries, distant family members…here they lived. A fumbling game of find-the-key finally netted her entrance, and she eased halfway into the hall, not ready to commit herself yet. She didn’t think the Kemenis would be up here just yet—they hadn’t had enough time to secure all the public space—but she took nothing for granted. She hesitated, taking her breathing back down, listening and watching.

If anyone hid here, they were—quite wisely—still hiding. Selena let the door close behind her, making sure it latched as silently as possible, and then turned in the direction that would take her back above the ballroom, moving at a more cautious and sedate pace.

She had no doubt there’d be plenty of time for more running later.

Chapter 5

“N o,” Cole said into the phone, more firmly than he should and less firmly than he wanted. “I just got back. I’ve got something going on here, and I’m not going anywhere until it’s settled.” He wrapped the damp towel around his neck, a match to the one tucked around his hips, and barely listened to the persistent voice in his ear. Given the frequency with which Selena checked e-mail, he should have heard from her by now. He should have had an answer to his simple, straightforward question.

What’s wrong?

“No,” he said again, this time with a sharp shake of his head that his caller would have known to heed had he seen it. “Even if you couldn’t do without me on this, you owe me. You’d never have uncovered that budding little problem without me—hell, you’d never even have known about it. And who else do you have who can switch-hit with the FBI so easily? So back off, Sarge.”

The man wasn’t a sergeant. But in an organization where rank was rarely assigned, the nickname served its purpose.

“Yeah, okay.” Cole pulled the towel away from his neck, idly rubbing it across his still-damp chest, and glanced into the living room where he’d left the television on. Special news flash, generic sort of logo that meant whatever had happened was either too new or too unimportant to have its own catchy headline name. “I’ll be in touch at this number. It goes where I go, right? But don’t be surprised if I answer from Berzhaan.”