Page 21

She wondered guiltily if it was her fault he’d had to endure whatever had been done to him for the past year.

She’d been the one to tip the scales in his life, to force him to choose sides and accept employment at the CIA.

Before she and Dawn had come into his life, he’d successfully walked a tightrope between the CIA and the FSB.

He’d carved out a life for himself where everyone more or less left him alone.

But no more.

She and Dawn made him vulnerable to pressure. He’d had to give in and choose sides. She was just grateful he’d gone with the United States.

Frankly, she was a little worried about the CIA having given him all the lethal training they apparently had. Even she wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was fully committed to Uncle Sam. It wouldn’t shock her if someday he switched sides and went to work for his father in the FSB.

It was one thing to know Alex had changed this past year. It was another entirely to know she was responsible for it. It was a whole lot harder to blame him for being the way he was, now.

What had Roman wanted with him yesterday, anyway? She’d heard Alex speaking, low and angry, in Russian while she comforted Oscar. And why the abrupt reversal of course to Baracoa after the call?

Curiosity made her impatient for Alex to wake up so she could quiz him on what was going on. Assuming, of course, that he would tell her the truth. That might be an optimistic assumption on her part.

Something moved outside and she lurched to alertness. Gripping the pistol tightly, she eased back deeper into the shadows of the shed. As if he had radar for it even when unconscious, Alex’s arm came around her from behind, startling her. Dang, he was quiet. His hand closed over hers on the pistol.

She relinquished the weapon gratefully, and he moved silently in front of her. She backed into the shed and fumbled in the pack for the other pistol and spare clips of ammunition.

She jerked violently when Alex shot fast from the doorway, two sets of double-taps one after the other so quickly she could barely count the four shots. Holy shit . He’d just shot someone.

He moved outside as fast as a snake. She yanked the spare pistol free of the rucksack and followed him out, the weapon chest-high in front of her and her heart in her throat.

“Clear,” he bit out.

She lowered her pistol and watched him feel for a pulse under the neck of … crap …a soldier. A second motionless body in a uniform crumpled not far from the first one.

“You killed Cuban soldiers?” she wailed in dismay.

“They were looters. Not military.”

“How could you tell?”

“No belts. Hair too long. The one with the shotgun held it wrong.”

“You shot them because they had no belts?” she demanded incredulously.

“I shot them because they weren’t who they appeared to be, and they were headed for our shelter. Given the current situation, it’s logical to assume they were here to loot it. Which meant they were at least casual criminals. Which meant you would’ve been in danger from them.”

“So you killed them?” He wasn’t showing even a hint of remorse over shooting those men.

“So I killed them.”

“Does it feel good playing Rambo?” she muttered. What the hell had happened to him? The Alex she’d known before he left was first and foremost a healer. He fought to save lives, not to casually take them. Who was this man?

He didn’t respond to her sarcasm and merely said grimly, “Pass me that shovel behind you.”

“Hiding the evidence?” she asked dryly.

“Yes.”

“My God. You’re not kidding, are you?”

He glanced up from where his shovel bit into the soft earth of what had likely been a garden. “Spy Craft 101. If you kill someone, hide the body. There’s no need to make your trail any easier to follow than you have to.”

“You just murdered those men!” she exclaimed. She could not believe he wasn’t reacting at all to that small fact.

“And last night I saved the lives of several people. Your point?” he snapped as he shoveled.

“Don’t you feel anything at all?”

That made him stop shoveling long enough to look up at her. “Feelings interfere with optimal performance. If I’m going to keep you safe and get you out of here alive, I have to be on my A-game.” He shrugged and went back to shoveling. “It was a no-brainer.”

And a no-hearter, too, apparently. Color her stunned.

“Look, Katie. Killing isn’t something ever to do lightly.

I get that. But this is not a normal situation.

We’ve been sent into the aftermath of a devastating storm to look for something dangerous.

All the normal, everyday people have left the area.

It’s a good bet most of the people who’ve returned to this place already are not looking to rebuild their lives and practice good citizenship.

This is, in effect, a war zone. The rules of engagement are different. ”

She reluctantly conceded that his logic might be sound. But still, it rankled with her. She grabbed a spade and started shoveling beside him.

It took a solid hour of both of them digging to make a trench big and deep enough to lay the two bodies in. Alex searched the dead men briefly. He showed her their wallets, neither of which contained any kind of military I.D.

Okay, fine. So his belt theory had turned out to be accurate. Still, it was a hell of a flimsy excuse for killing a man.

He tossed the wallets on top of the corpses but kept a pocketknife, the shotgun one of them had been carrying, and a pouch full of shotgun shells. He started to shovel earth over the corpses.

She murmured a brief prayer for the dead men’s souls and picked up her spade. Covering the bodies went fast. They tamped down the dirt and Alex spread dead grass and debris on top of the spot. By the time he was done, nobody would ever guess two men were buried there.

“Satisfied?” she asked grimly.

He nodded and said briskly, “Let’s see if we can find the Zacara factory and figure out what the hell’s going on around here.”

Alex wished they’d been able to take the mo-ped as they walked through the iron gate and turned onto the main road headed north. But stealth was called for over speed in approaching the factory. And if his map was accurate, the Zacara plant was only about a mile away.

He shouldered the backpack, registering with shock a faint tremor in his hands. He was a surgeon, for Christ’s sake. His hands were steady under the worst of stressful conditions.

It wasn’t like he’d never killed before. The CIA had taken care of that in his advanced training. But waking up to see a terrified Katie wielding a pistol…that glimpse of an armed man approaching her…that had scared the living hell out of him.

He swore mentally. It was an experience he could do without repeating again. Ever.

The idea of killing bad guys didn’t faze him anymore. He’d long ago accepted that he was a tool. If he didn’t kill a target he’d been sent to eliminate, someone else would be sent to do the job. The decision of whether a person lived or died was not his. It was, literally, above his pay grade.

If he ever attained enough rank to give kill orders, then he could wrestle with his conscience to his heart’s content. But not now. The CIA went to great lengths to make its wet ops people understand this distinction. To drive home the mantra, No guilt. Make the kill and move on.

His orders were clear. Stay alive. Find out what was going on. Get proof. Get out. And in his best judgment, staying alive had required shooting those two men.

Was he relieved to find no military ID’s in their wallets? Hell, yes. But would he still have shot them even if they’d actually been soldiers? Absolutely. They posed a threat to the mission—and, furthermore, to Katie—therefore, they must be eliminated.

Katie had accused him of not reacting to shooting the looters. She was right that he’d felt nothing much about the actual act. What she was missing was the cold, hard terror that provoked him to kill in the first place. For her. Without thought, without hesitation.

What was this willingness to do anything for another person? Was it love? The idea exploded inside his head, filling his entire brain with disbelief.

If so, it was a hell of a way to find out he loved her. Somehow, he doubted Katie would be thrilled. Oh, baby, I love you so much I’ll kill you for . Nope. Not her idea of Prince Charming and happily ever after.

It damned well rocked his world, though. Had his father felt this for his mother? For him or his brothers? Had the boy Alex been too young and too na?ve to realize that, in his own way, Roman had loved him fiercely?

Katie hiked beside him for a few minutes in silence. He was interested to hear what she was chewing on so hard.

She finally blurted, “Tell me again why we zoomed off to Baracoa with Oscar?”

Ahh. Dammit . Sometimes he forgot how smart and perceptive she was. She had a real talent for connecting seemingly unrelated dots.

Meanwhile, his mental defenses went on full alert. He had to evade this line of questioning. He answered casually, “The boy needed someone to take care of him. I know you. Had we not delivered him to his grandmother, you would’ve insisted on hauling him around with us.”

“And?”

He winced. Of course, she’d realized there was more to it than that. He added reluctantly, “And we needed supplies for properly collecting and storing clean samples. The evidence we collect might come under intense international scrutiny at some point. We have to do it right.”

“What kind of supplies did you get?”

“Sterile test tubes, sample bags, and seals that must be destroyed to open the samples.”

“If there’s something like Sarin in the samples, the United States is going to go crazy,” she commented.

“Exactly.”

“Why else?”

He pretended to concentrate on scanning the deserted countryside in hopes that she would get distracted and move on.

“Why else did you go to Baracoa?” she pressed.

Nope. She was not going to be distracted, today. “I needed time to think,” he tried.