Page 51

Alex might have spent the past eight hours more or less motionless, observing a quiet farmhouse, but he felt as if he had run a marathon. The strain of knowing his mother was inside that building was almost more than he could stand.

He’d imagined her incessantly for pretty much his whole life.

He’d dreamed about her. Had pretend conversations with her.

Imagined her hugging him goodnight and tucking him into bed.

He’d even answered the hard questions for her in his own mind.

Why did you leave me behind when you left my father?

Didn’t you want me? Did you love me? Why didn’t you come back for me, or at least contact me?

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to hear the real answers. She’d been an insubstantial ghost hovering over him for so long that he was apprehensive of giving her an actual face or a voice.

“How late do you plan to wait before you approach her?” Katie murmured into the earpiece and microphone set that matched his. She was positioned behind the house to watch for movement there.

Truthfully, they could probably go in, now. It was almost ten p.m. The local civilian populace would be in bed and safely out of the way, leaving the night to his kind of people.

“Getting cold?” he asked her through the microphone mounted on his earpiece wire.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Any sign of movement over that way?” He already knew the answer. She’d been faithfully reporting rabbit and squirrel sightings for the past eight hours, whether out of boredom or nerves, he couldn’t tell.

“Nope. All’s quiet on the western front.”

“We’ll give it a little while longer. Once a few more lights go out in the house, I’ll head in.”

“What’s this ‘I’ stuff?” she demanded in quick alarm. “I’m going with you.”

“Umm, no. You’re not. You’re my back-up. If things go wrong, I’ll need you to call in the cavalry.”

“How will I know if anything goes wrong unless I’m with you?”

“You’ll know,” he replied dryly. Spies didn’t usually go down quietly or without a fight.

She huffed in his ear.

They sat in their respective hides for maybe another fifteen minutes.

The silence between them was actually kind of companionable.

It was nice having company on a boring surveillance mission.

One of the things he appreciated most about Katie was her ability to be with him without feeling a need to fill in the silences with meaningless chatter.

Without warning, though, the woods around the farmhouse erupted with movement. All of a sudden, men were moving through the woods fast. They swept the area like a Special Forces team, spaced evenly, big-ass weapons at the ready. Night vision goggles and throat-mikes identified them as pros.

Stunned, Alex ducked behind the beef steer that had wandered over to his position some time ago and been grazing quietly nearby. What the hell?

The bastards didn’t even bother to be quiet. They shouted back and forth, coordinating their search and reporting possible targets to one another. He didn’t even dare whisper instructions to Katie. There were too many men and they were too damned close. She was on her own.

And then he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. A woman’s voice raised in fear. Katie’s voice. The entire search team rushed toward the back of the house.

Panic roared through him. He was responsible for her. He’d dragged her out here, put her in arm’s way. His entire body tensed with a need to rush over to her position and rescue her.

He watched from underneath the steer as a pair of big men hauled Katie up the front steps of the house. The door opened and light spilled out into the night. A tall, slender, blond woman stood in the doorway.

It was her .

His body went hot and cold at the same time, and he could not stop himself from staring hungrily at her face. He hadn’t gotten her far wrong in his mind. She was still beautiful.

But even from here, she looked cold. Her expression was harder than diamonds as she gestured to the men to bring Katie inside.

Why hadn’t the bastards shot Katie in the woods where they’d found her? These guys had to be Cold Intent’s core operatives. The same people who’d been shooting at Katie for the past few weeks. Why not just kill her, now?

It was a trap of course. Baited to draw him out of hiding of his own accord. After their encounter with him yesterday, those assholes must be thinking better of trying to capture him using force. And why bother if they could dangle Katie in front of him, an irresistible morsel on a hook?

The other reason why they were doing this was obvious. Claudia Kane had a few questions for Katie about her son before she sprang the trap around Alex. And then Claudia would kill her.

Knowing Katie, she would hold out against questioning as long as she could. God knew, the McClouds were a stubborn bunch.

But Claudia would break her. Katie was no professional operative. The good news was that after the sweep netted Katie, the team of men had all trooped back into the house behind her. The bad news was he had maybe an hour to rescue her from his mother. At most.

Katie stared at the woman who’d given birth to Alex. Claudia Kane was as elegant and icy as she’d expected the woman would be. Any mother who could abandon her newborn baby to the clutches of a spymaster like Roman Koronov couldn’t have much of a heart.

Claudia, seated in a big wingback chair across the elegantly furnished living room, studied her back closely.

The men who’d dragged Katie up off the ground and into the house had released her arms and now stood quietly in the corners, weapons still drawn, alert and wary. It was clear they were waiting for Alex to make a move to rescue her. She was bait.

Sit tight, Alex , she thought desperately. It’s a trap .

Claudia finally broke the silence. “Tell me about my son.”

“He has your eyes,” Katie blurted. Although Claudia’s might contain a tiny bit more blue than Alex’s gray eyes, both sets of eyes were sharply intelligent and observant.

“Where is he?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t lie to me. You’re not any good at it.”

“But I really don’t know.” Technically, she didn’t. He could still be in the pasture in front of the house, or he could have fled somewhere else entirely in his efforts to avoid Claudia’s men.

“What are you doing here?” the woman demanded. Her voice lashed at Katie’s waning courage, shredding what little she had left.

“Sitting, at the moment.” As irritation flashed through Claudia’s eyes in the exact same way it did Alex’s, Katie added less confrontationally, “I’m curious, actually.

I’m wondering why you chose to surface, now.

Why you thought you could use your son to destroy your ex-husband, and why you would hold such a grudge against Roman Koronov after all these years. ”

Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did the woman react to Katie’s accusations. Cool customer. Had Katie not dealt with the woman’s equally cool son for so long, she would’ve been scared to death of this woman.

But Katie had dealt with Alex, and she did know how to read his moods and tempers. Katie sat back patiently in the wooden chair they’d hauled in here from the kitchen. She could wait out the mother the same way she waited out the son.

“How did you meet Alex?” Claudia threw out.

Katie knew the technique. She used it on patients who were reluctant to be honest about their health history or how they’d gotten hurt.

Get them talking about something, anything, innocuous, and then, once they were already gregariously chatting, shift the conversation to the thing she really wanted the patient to talk about.

Katie answered, “I suspect you already know how he and I met. How long have you been watching Alex? A few years? His whole life, perhaps?”

“I’m asking the questions, here,” Claudia snapped.

She could ask all she wanted. It didn’t mean Katie was going to answer. She wasn’t about to spill Alex’s innermost feelings to this woman.

“Why did the two of you go to Cuba?”

Katie frowned. “You don’t know? I would have assumed you were of sufficient rank in the CIA to have been briefed on your son’s activities. If nothing else, I would have thought you’d know what the primary operative in your operation was doing. Yet, here you are, asking me? Interesting.”

Claudia’s pale stare narrowed. It actually was interesting seeing Alex’s eyes in a blond, fair face instead of contrasting with Alex’s dark hair and bronze skin. “You’re in too much trouble to be flippant with me, young lady.”

“How am I in trouble? Call the police and accuse me of trespassing if you’d like. I haven’t done anything else wrong.” A flash of the dead bodies she and Alex had left in a forest in New Jersey flashed through her mind’s eye. But she pushed the grisly images away.

“You’ve interfered with a secret, high-level government operation.”

Katie jumped on that one, replying casually, “You mean Cold Intent? Sheesh. That’s no secret. A ton of people know about it.”

Even the guys in the corners lurched at that salvo.

“Who knows?” Claudia bit out.

“Well, there are Alex’s hacker friends. I don’t know how many of them helped him with the research on Cold Intent.

Could be dozens. Oh, and there’s Alex’s boss at Doctors Unlimited.

But you already knew that, didn’t you? You’re the one who had André relay your orders to have Alex and I separated and Alex drugged at Guantanamo, aren’t you? ”

Claudia’s eyelids flickered slightly. Hah . Katie’s stab in the dark had struck true.

She continued, “I imagine André has told some of his staff about it by now. And then there’s my uncle, Charlie McCloud.

You might know him? He’s the Deputy Director of Plans for the CIA.

And then there’s my brother, Ian. He’s in naval intelligence.

And my other brother in the FBI. And my dad, of course.

He’s a retired Green beret and an ex-cop. And then my other brother--”

“Enough.”

The guys in the corners looked restless. They were watching Claudia with something akin to concern. As if maybe their boss was losing control of the situation. Katie pressed her advantage.

“What do you think, Claudia? May I call you Claudia? I feel as if I already know you. Do you suppose Alex has told Roman about it, yet?”

“You tell me.”

Katie shrugged. “You’d have to ask the two of them.”

“Oh, I will.”

“You’d probably better just ask Roman. I doubt Alex will answer if you ask him. You made a grave mistake, you know, leaving him with Roman. His father trained him superbly over the years. Alex is way too smart to fall for your machinations.”

“I hope for your sake you’re wrong,” Claudia retorted.

“What? You think this transparent little trap is going to catch Alex off guard? You really don’t know your son, do you?”

She probably shouldn’t have pointed out to Claudia that using her as bait wasn’t going to work.

It made her useless to Claudia. The good news was she doubted Claudia would let the men shoot her in this pristine house.

They would haul her outside to execute her.

Good Lord willing, that would give Alex a window to do something miraculous to save her.

Katie said, “I’m assuming, of course, that Roman’s story about you choosing to stay in Russia when he defected to the United States to give his boys a better life is a load of crap?”

“A total line of bull,” Claudia replied derisively.

“Then tell me something, Claudia. Why did you leave your sons behind when you left Roman?”

Claudia leaned back and crossed one elegant leg over the other.

Katie didn’t honestly expect the woman to answer, so she was surprised when Claudia said, “It wasn’t my choice, really.

I had to get out fast before Roman had me arrested or killed.

My escape route relied on stealth and speed.

It wouldn’t accommodate several children. ”

“And yet,” Katie replied softly, “Alex and I managed to escape Zaghastan with a squalling newborn. You could have taken your sons with you had you really wanted to. You would have found a way. But you chose not to.”

For an instant, Claudia looked stricken. As if the woman had actually believed her own excuse all these years. But then, her eyes shuttered the exact same way Alex’s did. Katie had scored a direct hit with that one.

After a long, thoughtful pause, Claudia commented, “I may have underestimated you, Miss McCloud.”

Katie nodded sympathetically. “Everyone does. I think it’s the whole girl next door vibe that throws people off.”

An unwilling smile tugged at the corner of the woman’s mouth. God, that was just like Alex. It was a little freaky looking at a blond, female version of him like this.

A need to keep this woman talking, to buy Alex time to figure out a rescue plan or call in the cavalry, pressed in on Katie. She murmured, “Roman must have been very angry when he discovered you were a spy. He told Alex he loved you.”

“He was furious.” Claudia shrugged. “As for having feelings for me, who knows? It’s complicated with spies.”

“Tell me about it,” Katie agreed fervently. “It’s all layers piled on top of layers, meaning buried within meaning, nothing straightforward, nothing black or white. It’s all shades of gray.”

“Spoken like a woman in love with my son.”

“Oh, I’ve never made any secret of my feelings for Alex. But as for how he feels about me…that’s anyone’s guess. You did quite a number on his head, Claudia. He doesn’t trust any woman any further than he can throw her.”

“For your sake, you had better hope he cares enough about you to reveal himself to me.”

Katie gulped. She honestly didn’t know if he would put himself on the line for her at this juncture. He’d been willing to play house with her and Dawn a year ago. He’d even pushed past his personal demons far enough to invite her to run with him.

But now? After his mother had turned on him?

After the CIA had finished turning him into a killer?

After the drugs in Panama had unleashed his subconscious paranoia?

After his mother had jumped headlong into the ongoing game of who could manipulate and control him?

After she, herself, had refused to believe him when he’d tried to show her how dangerous the world really was?

Who could he trust, really?

Tragically, she suspected the answer to that was no one. Absolutely no one at all.