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This time his jaw didn’t drop because he got it that she was supersmart, but still, he was surprised. “You pretended you were dead and then took an ambulance?”

“It was close by the exit and the guy left the key in.” She looked at him out of sky blue eyes. “I’m really sorry,” she whispered. “But I didn’t have a choice.”

Metal picked up her hand and leaned forward. This beat anything they’d been taught in SERE school. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. She’d done it all, superbly well, with no training.

“And you left it on Waller?”

“Yes. I would have left it further away but I didn’t think I’d make it.”

“No,” Metal said soberly. “You wouldn’t have. You’d have fallen in the snow and died of hypothermia.”

“That’s, um, that’s what I thought.”

“You did what you had to do to survive. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.” He pulled out his cell, dialed Jacko without taking his eyes off her. “Yo. Felicity escaped her attacker from the hospital. She…requisitioned an ambulance, that’s what the key is to. They’re probably looking for it. Park it near the hospital. And wipe it down. It’s on Waller. Yeah, I know exactly how far that is from Lauren’s. She parked far away to keep trouble from her friend. And she walked four blocks in the snow, wounded. I swear she was a SEAL in a former life.”

A blush appeared over her cheeks and her lips turned up. Damn, she was beautiful when she smiled. Hell, even when she didn’t smile.

“Uh huh.” He held the phone out to her. “Lauren’s hopping up and down. Want to talk to her?”

“Oh yes, please!” She held out her hand and he placed the cell in it.

He could hear an agitated female voice but he couldn’t make out what Lauren was saying, though he could imagine it.

“Yes,” Felicity said. “No. Just a little weak.” She met his eyes. “Um, yeah, Metal has taken very good care of me. Yes, a little. Oh God, yes. Can’t wait!”

She handed him back the cell. “Lauren and Jacko are coming over. Is that okay?

“Sure. But he’ll take care of the ambulance first.”

“But…I have the key.”

Metal smiled into her eyes. “You’re not the only tricky one.”

Felicity smiled briefly back, then chewed her lip. “Am I going to be in trouble for stealing it? And—God! For sounding that bomb alert. I’m sure that’s a federal offense.”

“Don’t even think of that.” He’d make goddamned sure of it. She’d been fighting for her life. He had friends in Portland PD. No one was going to touch her, guaranteed. “Not a problem. The problem now is to figure out who is after you. We can start when you feel better.”

“No,” she said, beautiful face suddenly stony. “We start now. That attack was out of the blue and it could happen again at any moment.” The effect of being safe, of the tea and bread and of talking to Lauren was wearing off. She’d lost color in her face, her eyes drooped. She was exhausted and scared but she wanted to attack her problem anyway.

Damn. Just like a SEAL, only gorgeous and female.

She had a very pretty slighty pointed chin and he was absolutely certain that chin spelled stubbornness. But she was also kind-hearted. So he took the whole thing on himself.

“Listen,” he said, scooting closer. “We’re definitely going after the guy, but I’d feel much better if Jacko were here. Do you mind waiting for him to arrive so we’re all on the same page?”

Metal could tackle this himself, but he’d just given her an out. She needed more rest.

“Okay.” She stifled a big yawn behind a small fist. “Sure.”

“In the meantime maybe you should rest.”

She wasn’t saying anything but she was in pain. His admiration went up another notch. Suck it up. Embrace the suck. SEAL life mottos.

“Thank you,” she whispered and he nodded. He didn’t want thanks, he wanted the fucker who’d slashed her. Badly. “Why are you doing this for me? I can understand Lauren and maybe Jacko because he’s with her. But why are you helping me?”

Metal took a minute. He wasn’t good with words. Put a rifle in his hand, give him a lung-shot teammate and he knew exactly what to do. But this? It was hard to put into words because he surprised himself with the depth of his feelings.

Since she’d stumbled into Lauren’s house, white-faced and bleeding, he knew he had to take care of her. No other options. But he couldn’t say that. It would scare the shit out of her and confuse her. So he said part of the truth.

“Okay, here’s the deal.” He took her hand in his again, scooted his chair closer. “I hate this. I cannot tell you how much I hate this. I don’t know what this fu—guy wanted?—"

“You can say fucker,” she said quietly, a faint smile on her face.

“I say it a lot,” Metal warned.

Her smile grew wider. “That’s okay.”

He gave a brisk nod. “So, whatever this fucker wanted, he was more than willing to hurt you to get it. I know you’re really smart. Lauren says so and you thought your way out of a very dangerous situation like you’d been trained for it. But though you’re smart, you’re not physically strong and violence isn’t your thing. And I hate that this fucker thought he was going to win and I hate even more the fact that he’s out there looking for you. This is exactly what’s wrong with the world. The strong using their strength to hurt. If there’s anything in my life I want, it’s to stop that. And this guy is going to get stopped.”

It was probably the longest speech he’d made in years and he hadn’t even touched on the heart of it.

Metal was born strong. He was always the biggest in his class and his father and brothers taught him self defense from when he was a toddler. He’d never been bullied but he’d stopped a lot of bullying.

That’s what the O’Briens were all about. Generations of them—siblings, father, grandfather and great grandfather just off the boat from Ireland. Generations of big, strapping O’Briens, all firefighters and cops. Guys who protected, guys who made a difference, guys who helped .

Guys who were there on that terrible day in September in New York, all rushing into the burning buildings and never coming back out. Father and two brothers, all gone in the space of a couple of hours. Eight year old Metal, who’d been thinking of breaking with the firefighter-cop tradition and going to med school, resolved to enroll in the Navy, intent on becoming a SEAL. And he’d done it.

He wasn’t a SEAL any more. He had almost more metal in his body than bone. But by God he still had his SEAL heart and his SEAL skills and no one was getting near Felicity again.

Unless it was him.

That spurted up out of nowhere and he repressed it, hard. Just pushed it way back down, like the way he did thirst, hunger and pain on a mission. So, yeah, she was a beauty. And yeah, he was turned on. More than he’d been in…shit. Forever. But she was wounded, looked to him for protection and was Lauren’s friend.

So that made her out of bounds, right? Not to mention the fact that he looked like a bruiser and she looked like a princess. And she was probably three times smarter than him.

“We’re going to stop him.”

She listened to him so carefully, taking in his words through her ears but also her eyes and maybe even through the hand he was holding.

She watched him in a way he’d never been watched before. He was big and plain-looking, so beautiful women never looked at him closely. Actually, they barely glanced at him because he didn’t have anything they wanted. Beautiful women wanted status sex or status money, and he could give neither. Walking into a club on his arm wouldn’t get anyone points. And though he’d saved most of his money from the military and though he owned his own home and he earned really well at ASI, he sure wasn’t rich.

So being so carefully examined by a beautiful woman was really new.

Her eyes was amazing but more than their beauty, they were alive. It was as if she operated at a higher level than other people, vibrated to a faster vibe, like a hummingbird.

“This feels familiar.” She clenched her fingers around his. “You held my hand all night, didn’t you?”

Metal blinked. “Yeah.” Was she angry? “I’m sorry, I?—”

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “It helped.”

He nodded. No way he was going to say that it helped him more than it helped her. He knew intellectually that she wasn’t in danger. She’d suffered blood loss but had been transfused. Other than that, once the gash was stitched up and she was taking antibiotics, she was fine.

But Metal had had men, good men, die in his arms, even while he was working frantically to save them. He never let down his vigilance. If she had had any problems during the night, he was right there. And holding her hand, feeling it warm up in his, reassured him on the deepest level there was.

“What’s your name?” Her head cocked to one side, eyes half closed. “You saved my life, you held my hand, I’m in your bed and I don’t know your name.”

She was toppling. He answered as he eased her back down with a hand cupping the back of her head.

“Sean Aiden O’Brien. But most people call me Metal. And yours?”

“Metal,” she murmured sleepily. “Nice to meet you. I’m Felicity. Felicity Ward. That’s my name—for now.”

A minute later she was fast asleep again.

Washington, DC

Borodin had new intel that brought him to Washington.

Roy Gregory, in exchange for another infusion of cash, had dug further into the files and uncovered the interesting information that Felicity Ward had a mentor inside the FBI. He’d originally handled the Darin family before handing them over to the US Marshal’s Office and had kept in touch with the family over the years. Al Goodkind, now retired, living in Alexandria, Virginia. A product of the Cold War, he even spoke some Russian. Or at least he had a minor in Russian Studies and a major in Law from Georgetown University.

Gregory discovered that it was Goodkind who had put Felicity Ward’s name forward as a freelance consultant.

Other information—Goodkind lived in a residential area of Alexandria, in a house with a large lawn. Neighbors at least a hundred meters away. He was a widower, lived alone. He was a former FBI agent, it was true, and could be presumed to be armed. But he was also 75 years old. Gregory included the latest medical report from his FBI-appointed doctor and Goodkind wasn’t in good health. He had high blood pressure, incipient diabetes and had had prostrate cancer seven years ago, which had come back.

He wasn’t going to live much longer anyway.

It was time to pay Goodkind a call. With any luck, he would either know where she was or would make excellent bait. In any case, he was easily disposable.

If Lagoshin was fucking this up, Borodin would have to unfuck it. Find Felicity Ward via a lateral route. Via her affection for Al Goodkind.

Borodin himself could take care of Goodkind. He was still strong enough to take on a sick old man. But that was one of the many advantages of being rich—never having to get your hands dirty. Borodin had his two pilots with him and they could grab the old man. His pilots were all ex military and knew their way around weapons and hand to hand combat. On trips, his pilots often doubled as bodyguards. Borodin trusted them. His current pilots, Yevgeny Milekhin and Lev Zolin, had saved his life in Uzbekhistan on an inspection of a gas pipeline.

Borodin checked out of the hotel. His time in New York was over.

Zolin picked him up in a rented Town Car and drove him out to the private aviation sector of JFK. Zolin and Milekhin had been sleeping in the airplane, which was perfectly comfortable. They’d certainly slept in worse places. Having the pilots in the plane insured that they would be ready for takeoff at any moment.

By the time Borodin arrived at the plane, a flight plan to Washington DC had been filed, the plane was fully fueled and they took off fifteen minutes after he boarded. The plane was registered to a shell company headquartered in Aruba and could never be traced back to Intergaz.

They were ghosts.

That’s what money did. Made you invisible, nearly untouchable.

Another Town Car at Reagan Airport, rented by one William Novella, whose cloned credit card Borodin had bought on the black market. He had about a hundred of them with him. In the parking lot, Zolin switched plates with another car. The car would take Borodin into Alexandria. Zolin drove and Milekhin waited with the plane.

The weather was overcast and cold. The forecast was for snow. Apparently it was snowing in Portland, their next stop. Borodin laughed when he watched the weather reports from anchors breathlessly announcing ‘heavy snowfalls’ and subzero temperatures.

What would these weaklings do in Siberia, where a snowstorm could dump 160 centimeters in 24 hours, where temperatures in winter dropped to – 25° C, where kids played ‘snow bomb’—throwing a bottle of boiling water in the air and watching it freeze before it hit the ground?

He and his men could move around just fine in the cold.

Finding Al Goodkind’s house with GPS was easy. By the time they made it to his neighborhood light was draining from the sky. It was a quiet neighborhood, very few people were about. Alexandria was where apparatchiks went to die. Men and women who had spent a lifetime in service to their government. You’d think a lifetime in government would be enough to induce paranoia, but no. The homes were separated by large open lawns and there were no fences.

In Moscow, former KGB functionairies—those that lived long enough to retire—resided in gated communities with twelve foot walls and barbed wire because they’d made enemies. No one was foolish enough to live like these people.

They passed by Goodkind’s home four times, twice from the east and twice from the west. They daren’t risk any more pass-bys. The house was dark except for the glow, seen only tangentially, from a room at the back. A den or study, looking out over the garden.

Someone was home.

Zolin, who knew what he was doing, detected video cameras at the front, under the porch roof, and said that they were ancient. After the fourth drive-by, he parked around the corner from Goodkind and slipped out after punching the button on a device that blanketed cell reception within a hundred-meter radius.

He was carrying a combat knife, a Taser, a Beretta 92F in a shoulder holster and a pre loaded syringe of propofol. He also had strict instructions not to use the Beretta. Borodin wanted information without having to tend to a gunshot wound. Not to mention the fact that blood would ruin the beautiful interior of his Airbus.

Borodin knew how to extract information. Goodkind was former FBI and presumably tough but no one held out forever. They had a 6-hour flight ahead of them. That should be more than enough time.

All he needed was contact information regarding Felicity Ward’s friends in Portland. The woman had to have friends to have disappeared so completely. A wound required medical care, stitches, antibiotics, a place to recover. Where could she have gone to ground? Goodkind would know.

And if he didn’t, he’d be forced to contact Ward with a bloody face and swollen eyes and Borodin would pry her out of her lair.

Borodin sat, calm and collected, in the front passenger seat, wishing he could smoke a cigarette. A Sobranie. He’d smoked all his life and had been outraged when his doctor ordered him to quit. Twenty-five years ago such arrogance would have been paid in blood. But it was a new Russia, a new world.

Not to mention the fact that his doctor had showed him autoptic photographs of a man who’d died of lung cancer. The photos had been disgusting.

As a KGB officer, Borodin was used to seeing human flesh torn apart. He’d fought in Afghanistan and had seen limbs and heads blown off, seen men holding in their guts with their hands.

But this—this was cold and clinical. Clean cuts, cracked ribs laid open like the wings of a bird. And under the rib cage two black pulpy sacs it took him a minute to recognize as lungs.

“This man smoked for thirty years,” Dr. Vavilov said, huge gray bushy eyebrows frowning over dark bloodshot eyes. “Take care you don’t look like this when I cut you open.”

Borodin had smoked since he was fourteen. Forty-five years of two packs a day. He left without a word and never smoked a cigarette again. Though he wanted to. Every single minute of every single day.

Right now, for instance. Waiting for Zolin to come back with an unconscious Goodkind. So much was at stake that he felt an itching under the skin. It had been years since he’d felt anxiety and it wasn’t pleasant.

Since he’d become rich, small troubles had simply melted away and big troubles—well, he had people for that. He wasn’t used to being uncertain about an outcome. His outcomes had all been good these past twenty-five years.

And yet everything about this Deti business—starting from having to find Darin’s daughter—was unnerving.

So this wait would have been better if he could have rolled down his window and lit up a Sobranie. Such a rich taste instead of the insipid cigarettes of the West. That first intake, ah… Calm rushing throughout his extremities and…

A hard knock at the window made him start.

Borodin hated being taken by surprise. Had Zolin seen him jump? He should know better than to startle him like that. It was true that the cellphone towers were temporarily out so Zolin couldn’t call ahead on his cell, but still.

And then Borodin peered closer. Zolin looked stressed, pale even in the darkness lit only by the streetlights. He had an unconscious man over one shoulder. Zolin was very strong but had difficulty shoving the man into the back seat of the Town Car and moved stiffly.

He limped as he walked to the driver’s side of the car.

“What happened?” Borodin asked.

Zolin blew out an angry breath as he checked the rear view mirror and pulled out. “Fucker was armed and waiting for me. There must be sensors to the side of the house I couldn’t see. Winged me. Had to wrestle him to the ground. We’re going to keep him handcuffed all the way to Portland.”

Shameful, to let an old man best him. “Are you okay to drive?” Borodin asked, voice cold.

“Yeah.”

He winced as he drove.

“Where’d he get you?”

“Outer thigh. Took a chunk out of it. Didn’t hit anything vital.”

“You’re bleeding,” Borodin accused. Thank God Zolin’s DNA wouldn’t be on record here. But if the American authorities somehow caught him and traced him back to the abduction of a former FBI agent…

Zolin glanced down. “Yeah.” His voice was dismissive. Well, hell. Zolin hadn’t thought it through. Blood stains were blood stains. Borodin was going to have to hire cutouts to eliminate the Town Car, break it down into pieces and spread them over a wide tract of terrain. He hated this, fixing problems on the fly. In a foreign country.

The rental agency would put a black mark against the name of one William Novella who hadn’t returned a vehicle. So that identity was compromised.

“Will you be able to pilot the plane?”

Zolin must have sensed something in his tone because he glanced over to Borodin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll patch it up and inject with a painkiller. And I’ll be co-pilot. But you’re going to have to watch this guy. He’s tricky.”

Borodin simply turned his head to look at Zolin. Zolin flicked a glance at him, then gripped the wheel harder and concentrated on the road.

Message received.

It was going on 9 pm when they rolled up to the hangar in the general aviation sector of the airport. No one stopped them, no one questioned them, no one paid them any attention at all.

Amazing. Simply amazing. It was like America had built up a series of private airports all over the country for the rich to move around in, encased in their own private bubble.

When the Town Car rolled to a stop, Borodin got out and stood watching while Zolin wrestled with the still unconscious body, face an expressionless mask. But he was very pale and the side of his trousers was black with blood.

Melekhin appeared at the top of the stairs and casually descended. Without saying anything, it was Melekhin who carried the body up the airplane steps. Zolin headed up, trying not to limp, like an alpha wolf that doesn’t dare show weakness.

Borodin was last up. By the time he stepped into the luxurious cabin, Goodkind was duct taped to one of the seats, head lolling on his shoulder.

Borodin had a pre loaded syringe of norepinephrine that would wake Goodkind right up. In six hours, a lot of information could be gained, particularly in an enclosed space 10,000 meters above the earth where no one could hear you scream.

Though Borodin sincerely hoped not to have to use the instruments in one of the briefcases. Maybe he’d gotten soft in his years as a businessman, decades after the hard things he’d done in Afghanistan, but he’d prefer not to shed blood if possible. He’d rough Goodkind up a little, test his mettle. Then decide how to proceed.

He didn’t care either way what happened to Goodkind. All he wanted was Darin’s daughter. All he wanted were the Deti.

Zolin had patched himself up and was in the cockpit. Borodin had a platter of cheese and fruit and a nice Sauternes and then with a sigh, somewhere over the flat plains of the middle of the country, brought out the syringe of norepinephrine, the natural hormone of vigilant concentration, a stress hormone. Goodkind would wake up with a pounding heart, hypervigilant, with an increased blood flow to muscles and brain.

In excellent condition, in other words, to answer questions.

Borodin injected the syringe in Goodkind’s thigh, sitting across from him in one of the hyper comfortable leather seats, separated by a small table. The ideal layout for two businesspeople getting business done.

Which was exactly as Borodin considered it. He and Goodkind were going to have a trade-off. Goodkind had something he wanted—the location of Darin’s daughter. And Borodin held something of value to Goodkind—his life.

Borodin sat patiently while Goodkind rose back up into consciousness, step by step. He saw the actual moment when Goodkind became aware, but still pretended to be unconscious. Someone less observant than Borodin would have missed it.

“Welcome back to the world, Special Agent Goodkind,” he said calmly.

Goodkind’s head lifted and he looked directly into Borodin’s eyes. As his medical records indicated, he wasn’t in good shape. He was very pale and from the skin hanging from his jawline he’d lost a lot of weight recently. But his light gray eyes blazed and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

The message couldn’t have been clearer. Not talking.

All right. The dance now began.

“Now, you might be wondering what you are doing in a plane. You might even be wondering where we are going. And you might be curious as to whether you are going to survive this. Well, let me ease your mind. You are flying to Portland, Oregon with us because we are looking for a young woman I’m told you consider your ward. Which is interesting because that is her name. Felicity Ward. Except it is not. Felicity Ward is actually Nikolai Darin’s daughter.”

Goodkind’s eyes fluttered and his mouth grew tighter.

“Ah, I see these names mean something to you, as they should. Nikolai Darin defected to the West with his wife, Natalie. And they had a daughter, whose name eventually ended up as Felicity Ward, which is a ridiculous name for a Russian woman. But—ridiculous name or not, we’d like to talk to this young woman because she might know the whereabouts of something that belonged to the Soviet Union and now belongs to the Russian Federation.”

Sudden understanding. Goodkind probably thought that he presented a blank facade but he didn’t. He was fairly easy to read.

“And now, Special Agent Goodkind, we come to the last point I made. Whether you are going to survive this trip. The answer is yes. Of course you will survive this, as long as you give us information that leads to our apprenhending Felicity Ward.”

“Go to hell,” Goodkind growled.

“No doubt I will.” Borodin yawned. He was quite tired. “But not just yet. And certainly not for this. I fought in Afghanistan. I will certainly not go to hell for torturing and killing one American.”

When Borodin used the words ‘torture’ and ‘kill’, Goodkind’s expression didn’t change. Pizdets . A brave man. Brave men were terrible to deal with. Recalcitrant and unyielding.

“However, beyond that, I have no desire to deal with the consequences of, let’s say, commandeering a US federal agent. So once I have the information I need and we have parted ways, you will be free to go.”

Goodkind gave a feral smile. “Riiiight.” Drawing the word out.

“Alas, certain nuances of the English language elude me, but I take it that is sarcasm. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And yet I have every intention of letting you go, albeit as you would say, a little worse for wear. And the reason I can let you go, and not fear repercussions, is that I have the name and address and even cellphone number of your granddaughter. A certain Kay Hudson.”

At the sound of his granddaughter’s name, Goodkind jolted and tried to thrash. But the duct tape held.

“So. You give me information on Nikolai Darin’s daughter, when the time is right I release you and no mention of this is ever made by you to anyone. And your granddaughter continues to live what I sincerely hope will be a long and successful life.”

Goodkind glared. But he was impotent.

“So, when was the last time you saw or heard from Darinova?”

Those thin lips turned upward. “You can call her that, but she is as American as I am.”

“Indeed. So where is this paragon of Americanness?”

Goodkind smiled fully. “Bite me.”

Borodin sighed. “Another idiom. Probably not a flattering one.”

Milekhin appeared in the cockpit door and beckoned.

“You will excuse me, Special Agent Goodkind,” he said as he stood.

Milekhin bent his head close to Borodin’s and spoke in a low murmur. “Snowstorm in Portland, sir. They’ve closed the airport. We will have to stay here for the night and hope to fly out tomorrow.”

Borodin nodded, sat back down in front of Goodkind. Smiled into his eyes.

“So, Special Agent,” he said. “It looks like we are going to have a nice, long talk.”