Under Fire
Carol Ericson
An experiment gone wrong unleashes the most elite killers on the planetWhen an unstable patient opens fire on Ava Whitman’s lab, only a bullet-proof window and agent Max Duvall stand between her and certain death. Max vows to prevent Tempest—the covert ops agency behind the shooting—from killing the one witness left standing: Ava. But a victim of a brainwashing attempt, Max is battling his own demons. How can a man who has been programed to become a mindless, soulless killer keep the emerald-eyed beauty safe? Now, on the run and running out of time, Max has to use every ounce of strength to ignore his deadly tendencies. And every bit of willpower to not give in to his desire for Ava.
“Can I do anything to help you?”
Ava touched his arm again, this time lightly, brushing her fingertips across the slick material of his jacket.
The human contact and the emotion behind it made him shiver. Max clenched his teeth. “You can’t do anything to help. You’ve done enough.”
She grabbed the door handle and swung open the door before the car even stopped.
“Hold on. I’ll walk you up.”
“I thought you were anxious to get rid of me.”
He didn’t want to leave Ava, but he had to—for her own safety. “I was anxious to get you away from the lab and back home. The police can pick it up from here.”
He followed her to the front door. She dragged her keys from her purse and slid one into the dead bolt. It clicked and she opened the door.
Apprehension slithered down his spine and he held out a hand. “Wait.”
But it was too late. Ava had stepped across the threshold and now faced two men training weapons on her.
And this time she wasn’t behind bulletproof glass.
Under Fire
Carol Ericson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CAROL ERICSON lives with her husband and two sons in Southern California, home of state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery, wild freeway chases and a million amazing stories. These stories, along with hordes of virile men and feisty women, clamor for release from Carol’s head. It makes for some interesting headaches until she sets them free to fulfill their destinies and her readers’ fantasies. To learn more about Carol, please visit her website, www.carolericson.com (http://www.carolericson.com), “Where romance flirts with danger.”
To Marilyn, for all that you do.
Contents
Cover (#uc9104bf2-52b1-582c-bf6d-768cc3fe78d2)
Introduction (#uaa03254c-8ab4-5c2d-8e32-8ad0f45c5de7)
Title Page (#u67511304-b1d3-5c27-bd33-f9725b3257af)
About the Author (#ud95189f3-77e2-5ce7-a444-19e634006b88)
Dedication (#u04f284b0-a9b9-5d94-8702-a01ee905d295)
Chapter One (#ueb0a48bf-ec9a-5488-b2f7-38bc7b538f44)
Chapter Two (#u529cd16d-4761-5b96-89ab-7ba5df26cb8f)
Chapter Three (#u290b7277-b7eb-5089-a838-097543160faf)
Chapter Four (#u30674b16-37af-5698-acc7-2985d935eea3)
Chapter Five (#u9de65740-1b60-55b5-9426-7ab28b537f1f)
Chapter Six (#u138a3ee5-5900-5b8e-ba62-1234a2a4a0d1)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_f2be8487-ac5c-520c-b2f2-9e0d76f955a5)
The shell casings from the bullets pinged off the metal file cabinets. One landed inches from her nose and rolled one way and then the other, its gold plating winking at her under the fluorescent lights. The acrid smell of gunpowder tickled her nostrils. She smashed her nose against the linoleum to halt the sneeze threatening to explode and give away her position.
Someone grunted. Someone screamed. Again.
Ava held her breath as the rubber sole of a black shoe squeaked past her face. She followed its path until her gaze collided with Dr. Arnoff’s.
From beneath the desk across from her, he put his finger to his lips. His thick glasses, one lens crushed, lay just out of his reach between the two desks. With his other finger, he pointed past her toward the lab.
Afraid to move even a centimeter, Ava blinked her eyes to indicate her understanding. If they could make their way to the lab behind the bulletproof glass and industrial-strength locks they might have a chance to survive this lunacy.
The shooter moved past the desks, firing another round from his automatic weapon. Glass shattered—not the bulletproof kind. A loud bump, followed by a crack and the door to the clinic, her domain, crashed open.
Greg bellowed, “No, no, no!”
Another round of fire and Greg’s life ended in a thump and a gurgle.
Ava squeezed her eyes closed, and her lips mumbled silent words. Keep going.Keep going.
If the shooter kept walking through the clinic, he’d wind up on the other side in the waiting room. At this time of night, nobody was in the waiting room, which led to a door and a set of stairs to the outside.
Keep going.
He returned. His boots crunched through the glass. Then he howled like a wounded animal, and the hair on the back of Ava’s neck stood at attention and quivered.
The footsteps stopped on the other side of the desk—her pathetic hiding place. In the sudden silence of the room, her heartbeat thundered. Surely he could hear it, too.
He kicked at a shard of glass, which skittered between the two desks.
Ava turned widened eyes on Dr. Arnoff and swallowed. She harbored no hopes that the doctor could take down the shooter. Although a big man, his fighting days were behind him. Their best hope was to make it to the lab and wait for help.
The black-booted foot stepped between the desks, smashing the other lens of Dr. Arnoff’s glasses. A second later the shooter lifted the desk by one edge and hurled it against the wall as if it were a piece of furniture in a dollhouse.
Exposed, Dr. Arnoff scrambled for cover, his army crawl no match for the lethal weapon pointed at him. The bullets hit his body, making it jump and twitch.
Ava dug a fist against her mouth, and her teeth cut into her lips. The metallic taste of her blood mimicked the smell permeating the air.
Then her own cover disappeared, snatched away by some towering hulk. She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg. The gunman existed in a haze behind the weapon that he now had aimed at her head.
His gloved finger on the trigger of the assault rifle mesmerized her. She mumbled a prayer with parched lips. Click. She sucked in a breath. Click. She gritted her teeth.
Click. He’d run out of ammo.
He reached into the pocket of his fatigues, and adrenaline surged through her body. She clambered over the discarded desk and launched herself at the lab door. With shaking hands she scrabbled for the badge around her neck and pressed it to the reader. The red light mocked her.
Her badge didn’t allow her access to this lab. Her exclusion from the lab had been a source of irritation to her for almost two years. How could she forget that now?
She dropped to her knees and crawled to Dr. Arnoff’s dead body. Her fingers trembled as she unclipped the badge from the pocket of his white coat.
Amid the clicking and clacking behind her, the gunman muttered to himself.
Expecting another round of shots at any second, Ava swiped Dr. Arnoff’s badge across the reader. The green lights blinked in a row as if she’d just won a jackpot. She had.
She yanked open the heavy door and shoved it closed just as the shooter looked up from his task. Five seconds later, a volley of bullets thwacked the glass.
Knowing the gunman could lift a badge from any of the dead bodies around him just as she had, Ava slid three dead bolts across the door and took two steps back.
This windowless room, clicking and buzzing with machinery, computers and refrigeration, offered no escape, but it did contain a landline telephone. Maybe someone had been able to make a call to the police when the mayhem started, but no cavalry had arrived to the rescue yet.
After his first round, the crazed man outside her sanctuary had stopped shooting. He seemed to be searching the bodies of her fallen coworkers—looking for a badge, no doubt. He wouldn’t find Dr. Arnoff’s.
Ava pounced on the receiver of the telephone on the wall beside the door. Her heart skipped a beat. No dial tone. She tapped the phone over and over, but it remained dead.
Even if she had her cell phone, which remained in the pocket of her lab coat hanging on a hook in the clinic, it wouldn’t do any good. Nobody could get reception in this underground building in the middle of the desert.
The lock clicked and she spun around. The shooter was leaning against the door, pressing a badge up to the reader. The lock on the handle responded, but the dead bolts held the door securely in place.
She’d resented being locked out of this lab, but now she couldn’t be happier about those extra reinforcements.
He grabbed the handle and shook it while releasing another roar.
Ava covered her galloping heart with one hand as she studied the glittering eyes visible from the slits in the ski mask. What did he want? Drugs? Why murder all these people for drugs? Why come all the way out here to a high-level security facility to steal meds?
He gave up on the door and shook his head once. Then he reached up and yanked the ski mask from his head.
Ava gasped and stumbled back. She knew him. Simon. He was one of her patients, one of the covert agents the lab treated and monitored.
Guess they hadn’t monitored him closely enough.
“Simon?” She flattened her palm against the glass of the window. “Simon, put down your weapon. The police are on their way.”
She had no idea if the police were on their way or not. The lab used its own security force, so she and her coworkers never had a reason to call in the police from the small town ten miles away in this New Mexico desert. Since the lab’s security guards had made no attempt to stop Simon, she had a sick feeling Simon had already dealt with them.
“You need help, Simon. I can help you.” She licked her lips. “Whatever you need me to say to the authorities, I’ll say it. We can tell them it was your job, the stress.”
His mouth twisted and he lunged at the window, jabbing the butt of his gun against the glass, which shivered under the assault.
Ava blinked and jerked back. She made a half turn and scanned the lab. If he somehow made it through the door and she got close enough to him, she could stick him with a needle full of tranquilizer that would drop him in his tracks. She could throw boiling water or a chemical mixture in his face.
He’d never let her get that close. He’d come through shooting, and she wouldn’t have a chance against those bullets. None of the others had. She gulped back a sob.
The bullets started again. Simon had stepped away from the door and continued spraying bullets at the glass. That window hadn’t been designed to withstand this kind of relentless barrage. She knew. She’d asked when she started working here, curious about the extra security of this room.
He knew it, too. Sweat beaded on Simon’s ruddy face as he took a breather. He didn’t even need to reload. He rolled his shoulders as if preparing for the long haul.
Then he resumed firing at the window.
Again, Ava searched the room, tilting her head back to examine the ceiling. Unfortunately, the ceiling was solid, except for one vent. She eyed the rectangular cover. Could she squeeze through there?
Simon took another break to examine the battered window, placing his weapon on the floor beside him.
She tried to catch his gaze, tried to make some human contact, but this person was just a shell of the Simon she had known. The sarcastic redhead who did killer impressions had disappeared, replaced by this creature with dead eyes.
Ava’s breath hitched in her throat. Beyond Simon, a figure decked out in black riot gear loomed in the doorway of the clinic. Was it someone from security? The police?
Not wanting to alert Simon, she inched farther away from the window and kept her gaze glued to Simon’s face.
The man at the door yelled, “Simon!”
How did he know who the shooter was? Had someone from the lab seen Simon before the rampage started and reported him?
Simon turned slowly.
“Give it up, Simon.” The man raised his weapon. “We can get help, together.”
Simon growled and swayed from side to side.
Would he go for his gun on the floor?
Taking a single step into the room, the man tried again. “Step away from your weapon, Simon. We’ll figure this out.”
Simon shouted, “They have to pay!”
Ava hugged herself as a chill snaked up her spine. His animalistic sounds had frightened her, but his words struck cold fear into her heart. Pay for what? He’d gone insane, and they’d been responsible for him, for his well-being.
“Not Dr. Whitman. It’s not her fault.”
Ava threw out a hand and grasped the edge of a counter to steady herself. Her rescuer knew her name? His voice, bellowing from across the room, muffled by the mask on his face, still held a note of familiarity to her. He must be one of the security guards.
“It is.” Simon stopped swaying. “It is her fault.”
He dropped to the floor and jumped up, clutching his weapon. He raised it to his shoulder but it didn’t get that far.
The man from across the room fired. Simon spun around and fell against the window, which finally cracked.
Ava clapped a hand over her mouth as she met Simon’s blue stare. The film over his eyes cleared. They widened for a second and he gasped. Blood gurgled from his gaping mouth. He slid to the floor, out of her sight.
Every muscle in her body seized up and she couldn’t move.
The security guard kept his weapon at his shoulder as he stalked across the room. When he reached the window of the lab, he pointed his gun at the floor, presumably at Simon.
Ava covered her ears, but the gunfire had finally ceased.
Slinging his weapon over his shoulder, the man gestured to the door. “Open up. It’s okay now.”
Would it ever be okay? She’d just watched a crazed gunman, one of her patients, mow down her coworkers and had barely escaped death herself.
She stumbled toward the door and reached for the first lock with stiff hands. It took her several tries before she could slide all the dead bolts. Then she pressed down on the handle to open the door.
The man, smelling of gunpowder and leather and power, stepped into the lab. “Are you okay, Dr. Whitman?”
She knew that voice but couldn’t place it. Tilting her head, she cleared her throat. “I—I’m not physically hurt.”
“Good.” His head swiveled back and forth, taking in the small lab. “Are there any blue pills in this room?”
She took a step back from his overpowering presence. “Blue pills? What are you talking about?”
“The blue pills.” He stepped around her and yanked open a drawer. “I need as many blue pills as you have in here—all of them.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She blinked and edged toward the door. Had she just gone from one kind of crazy to another? Maybe this man was Simon’s accomplice and they were both after drugs.
He continued his search through the lab, repeating his request for blue pills, pulling out drawers and banging cupboard doors open.
A crash from another area of the building made them both jump, and he swore.
Taking her arm in his gloved hand, he said, “We need to get out of here unless you can tell me where to find some blue pills.”
“I told you, I don’t know about any blue pills, and there’s no serum on hand either.” Maybe he was after the vitamin boost the agents received quarterly.
He grunted. “Then let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.” She shook him off. “H-he’s dead, right? Simon’s dead?”
The man nodded once.
“Then why do we have to leave? Maybe that noise was the police breaking in here.” Cold fear flooded her veins and she hugged her body. “Are there more? Is there another gunman?”
“He’s the only one.”
“Then I’d rather stay here and wait for the rest of your—” she waved a hand at him “—security force or the cops or whoever is on the way. That could be them.”
He adjusted his bulletproof vest and took her arm again. “We don’t want to wait for anyone.”
Confusion clashed with anger at his peremptory tone and the way he kept grabbing her. She jerked her arm away from him and dug her heels into the floor. “Hold on. My entire department has just been murdered. I was almost killed. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”
“Sure you do.” He reached up with one hand and yanked the ski mask from his head.
Her eyebrows shot up. Max Duvall. Another one of her patients, another agent—just like Simon.
“Y-you, you’re...”
“That’s right, and you’re coming with me. Now.” He scooped her up with one arm and threw her over his shoulder. “Whether you want to or not.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_a52c9583-9cc9-5018-8f09-fa853bfa35be)
“Let me go!” She struggled and kicked her legs, but Dr. Ava Whitman was a tiny thing.
He could get her to go with him willingly if he sat down and explained the whole situation, but they didn’t have time for that. That could be Tempest at the door right now. He couldn’t even risk doing a more thorough search for the blue pills. He’d have to just take her at her word that there were none at the lab.
Maybe Dr. Whitman already knew the whole situation. Knew why Simon had gone postal. He couldn’t trust anyone...not even pretty Dr. Whitman.
Clamping her thighs against his shoulder, he stepped over the dead bodies littering the floor. When he navigated around the final murder victim in his path at the door of the clinic, Dr. Whitman stopped struggling and slumped against his back. If she’d had her eyes open the whole way, she probably just got her fill of blood and guts.
He crossed through the waiting room and kicked open the door to the stairwell. He slid Dr. Whitman down his body so that she was facing him, his arm cinched around her waist.
“Will you come with me now? I need you to walk up these stairs and out the side door. I have a car waiting there.”
Through his vest, he could feel the wild beat of her heart as it banged against her chest. “Where are we going? Why can’t we wait here for the police?”
“It’s not safe.” He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed. “Do you believe me?”
Her green eyes grew round, taking up half her face. She glanced past him at the clinic door and nodded. Then she grabbed the straps on his bulletproof vest. “My purse, my phone.”
“Are they in the clinic?”
“Yes.”
He shoved back through the door and pulled her along with him. He didn’t quite trust that she wouldn’t go running all over the lab searching for the security guards. Wouldn’t do her any good anyway—Simon had killed them all.
She broke away from him and yanked her purse from a rack two feet from the body of a coworker. She dipped her hand in the pocket of her lab coat hanging on the rack and pulled out a phone.
Another crash erupted from somewhere in the building, and Dr. Whitman dropped her phone. It skittered and twirled across the floor, coming to a stop at the edge of a puddle of blood.
She gasped and hugged her purse to her chest.
The noise, closer than the previous one, sent a new wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Let’s go!”
Her feet seemed rooted to the floor, so he crossed the room in two steps and curled his fingers around her wrist, tugging her forward. “We need to leave.”
Still holding on to Dr. Whitman, Max plucked her phone from the floor and headed toward the stairwell again. He half prodded, half carried Dr. Whitman upstairs, and when they reached the door to the outside, he inched it open, pressing his eye to the crack.
The car he’d stolen waited in the darkness. He pushed open the door of the building and a blast of air peppered with sand needled his face. He ducked and put an arm around Dr. Whitman as he hustled her to the vehicle.
She hesitated when he opened the passenger door. The wind whipped her hair across her face, hiding her expression.
It was probably one of shock. Or was it fear? “Get in, Dr. Whitman. They’re here.”
This time she didn’t even ask for clarification. His words had her scrambling into the passenger seat.
He blew out a breath and lifted the bulletproof vest over his head. Would Simon have turned the gun on him after everything they’d gone through together? Sure he would’ve. That man in there who’d just committed mass murder bore no resemblance to the Simon he knew.
He threw the vest in the backseat and cranked on the engine. He floored the accelerator and went out the way he came in—through a downed chain-link fence.
He hit the desert highway and ten minutes later blew past the small town that served the needs of the lab. The lab didn’t have any needs now.
After several minutes of silence, Dr. Whitman cleared her throat. “Are we going to the police now? Calling the CIA?”
“Neither.”
Her fingers curled around the edge of the seat. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“Home?” She blinked her long lashes. “Whose home?”
Without turning his head, he raised one eyebrow. “Your home. You have one, don’t you? I know you don’t live at the lab—at least not full-time.”
“Albuquerque. I live in Albuquerque.”
“I figured that. Once I drop you off, you’re free to call whomever you like.”
“But not now?”
“Not as long as I’m with you.”
She bolted upright and wedged her hands against the dashboard. “Why? Don’t you want to meet with the CIA? Your own agency? Tell them what happened back there?”
“What do you think happened back there?” He squinted into the blackness and hit his high beams.
“Simon Skinner lost it. He went on a murderous rampage and killed my coworkers, my friends.” She stifled a sob with the back of her hand.
She showed real grief, but was the shock feigned? Extending his arms, he gripped the steering wheel. “How much do you know about the work you do at the lab?”
“That’s a crazy question. It’s my workplace. I’ve been there for almost two years.”
“Your job is to treat and monitor a special set of patients, correct?”
“Since you’re one of those patients, you should know.” She dragged her fingers through her wavy, dark hair and clasped it at the nape of her neck.
One soft strand curled against her pale cheek. Whenever he’d seen her for appointments, her hair had been confined to a bun or ponytail. Now loosened and wild, it was as pretty as he’d imagined it would be.
“And the injections you gave us, the vitamin boost? Did you work on that formula?”
She jerked her head toward him and the rest of her curls tumbled across her shoulder. “No. Dr. Arnoff developed that before I arrived.”
“Did he tell you what was in it?”
“Of course he did. I wouldn’t inject my patients with some mystery substance.”
“Were you allowed to test it yourself? Did you work in that lab?”
“N-no.” She clasped her hands between her bouncing knees. “I wasn’t allowed in the lab.”
“Why not? You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
“I...I’m... The lab requires top secret clearance. I have secret clearance only, but Dr. Arnoff showed me the formula, showed me the tests.”
He slid a glance at her stiff frame and pale face. Was she still in shock over the events at the lab or was she lying?
“Now it’s your turn.”
His eyes locked onto hers in the darkness of the car. “What do you mean?”
“It’s your turn to answer my questions. What were you doing at the lab? You weren’t scheduled for another month or so. Why can’t we call the police or the CIA, or Prospero, the agency you work for?”
“Prospero?”
She flicked her fingers in the air. “You don’t have to pretend with me. Nobody ever told me the name of the covert ops agency we were supporting, but I heard whispers.”
“What other whispers did you hear?” A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“Wait a minute.” She smacked the dashboard with her palms. “I thought it was your turn to answer the questions. What were you doing there? Why can’t we call the police?”
“You should be glad I was there or Skinner would’ve gotten to you, too.”
Folding her arms across her stomach, she slumped in her seat, all signs of outrage gone. She made a squeaking noise like a mouse caught in a trap, and something like guilt needled the back of his neck.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease out the tension that had become his constant companion. “I was at the lab because I found out Skinner was going to be there. We can’t call the police for obvious reasons. I’m deep undercover. I don’t want to stand around and explain my presence to the cops.”
“And your own agency? Prospero?”
“Yeah, Prospero.” If Dr. Whitman wanted to believe he worked for Prospero, why disappoint her? The less she knew the better, and it sounded as if she didn’t know much—or she was a really good liar. “I’ll call them on my own. I wanted to get you out of there in case there was more danger on the way.”
“You seemed convinced there was.”
“We were in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night at a top secret location with a bunch of dead bodies. I didn’t think it was wise for either of us to stick around.”
She leaned her head against the window. “What should I do when I get home?”
He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel. If Tempest and Dr. Arnoff had kept Dr. Whitman in the dark, she should be safe. Tempest would do the cleanup and probably resume operations elsewhere—with or without Dr. Ava Whitman.
“Once I drop you off and hit the road, you can call the police.” He frowned and squinted at the road. “Or do you have a different protocol to follow?”
She turned a pair of wide eyes on him. “For this situation? We had no protocol in place for an active shooter like that.”
Maybe the whole bunch of them out there, including Dr. Arnoff, were clueless. No, not Arnoff. He had to have known what was going on, even if he didn’t know the why.
“Then I guess it’s the cops.” Even though the local cops would never get to the whole truth. He pointed to the lights glowing up ahead. “We’re heading into the city. Can you give me directions to your place? Is there someone at home?”
She hadn’t touched her cell phone once since they escaped from the lab. Wouldn’t she want to notify her husband? Boyfriend? Family?
“I live alone.”
He supposed she’d want to be with someone, have someone comfort her. God knew, he wasn’t capable. “Do you have any family nearby? Any friends to stay with?”
“I don’t have any family...here. I’m kind of new to the area and I spend a lot of time at the lab, so I haven’t had much time to cultivate friends.”
Hadn’t she told him she’d been working at the lab for two years? Two years wasn’t enough time to make friends? Maybe she’d been taking some of her own medicine.
“When the police come, they may want to take you back to the scene. You’ll probably have to lead them to the facility.”
She gasped and grabbed his arm. “What do I tell them about you?”
He stiffened and glanced down at her hand gripping the material of his jacket. She dropped it.
Was she offering to cover for him? He figured she’d waste no time at all blabbing to the cops about the man who’d shot Skinner and then whisked her out of the lab. “Tell them the truth.”
No law enforcement agency would ever be able to track him down anyway. Tempest had made sure of that.
“I can always tell them you were a stranger to me, that you wouldn’t tell me your name.” Her fingers twisted in her lap as she hunched forward in her seat.
She was offering to cover for him. Why would she do that, unless she knew more than she’d pretended to know?
“You’d lie for me?”
She jerked back and whipped her head around. “Lie? You’re an agent with a government covert ops team. If I learned anything at the lab, it was how to keep secrets. I never revealed any of my patients’ names to anyone, and I’m not about to start now.”
“I appreciate the...concern.” He lifted a shoulder. “Tell the cops whatever you like. I’ll be long gone either way.”
She tilted her chin toward the highway sign. “That’s my exit in five miles.”
“Then I’ll deliver you safe and sound to your home, Dr. Whitman.”
“You can call me Ava.”
After riding in silence for a while, Ava dragged her purse from the floor of the car into her lap and hugged it to her chest. “What happened to Simon? He looked...dead inside.”
“He snapped.” His belly coiled into knots. If Simon could snap like that, he could snap, too.
“Did you know about his condition somehow?”
“I had an idea, and when I discovered he was heading out to New Mexico I put two and two together.”
“Was it the stress of the assignments? I saw most of you four times a year, but of course you weren’t allowed to discuss anything with me. You all seemed well-adjusted though.”
Max snorted. “Yeah, I guess some would call that well-adjusted.”
“You weren’t? You’re not? Can I do anything to help you?”
She touched his arm again, this time lightly, brushing her fingertips across the slick material of his jacket.
The human contact and the emotion behind it made him shiver. He clenched his teeth. “You can’t do anything to help...Ava. You’ve done enough.”
She snatched her hand back again and studied her fingernails. “This is the exit.”
He steered the car toward the off-ramp and eased his foot off the accelerator. She continued giving him directions until they left the desert behind them and rolled into civilization.
He pulled in front of a small house with a light glowing somewhere inside.
She grabbed the door handle and swung open the door before the car even stopped.
“Hold on. I’ll walk you up.”
“I thought you were anxious to get rid of me.”
He scratched the stubble on his chin. That hour-long drive had been the closest he’d come to normalcy in a long time. He didn’t want to leave Ava, but he had to—for her own safety.
“I was anxious to get you away from the lab and back home. The police can pick it up from here.”
If there was anything left of the lab when they got there. Tempest had to know by now that one of its agents had gone off the rails. The crashes and noises at the lab could’ve been Tempest.
“Well, here I am.” She spread her arms.
He jingled the keys in his palm and felt for his handgun and other gear on his belt as he followed her to the front door.
She dragged her own keys from her purse and slid one into the dead bolt. It clicked and she opened the door.
Apprehension slithered down his spine, and he held out a hand. “Wait.”
But it was too late.
Ava had stepped across the threshold and now faced two men training weapons on her.
And this time she wasn’t behind bulletproof glass.
Chapter Three (#ulink_fe07b091-2fe3-5a74-a948-43d63e655957)
Simon was back—in stereo. Ava caught a glimpse of two men with guns pointed at her for a split second before Max snatched her from behind, lifting her off her feet and jerking her to the side.
At the same instant, she heard a pop and squeezed her eyes closed. If the men had shot Max, she was finished.
An acrid smell invaded her nostrils and she opened her lids—and regretted it immediately. The black smoke pouring from her front door stung her eyes and burned her throat.
“Hold your breath. Close your eyes.” Max lifted her and tucked her under one arm as if she were a rag doll.
She felt like a rag doll. The jolt of fear that had spiked her body when she saw the gunmen had dissipated into a curious out-of-body sensation. A creeping lethargy had invaded her limbs, which now dangled uselessly, occasionally banging against Max’s body.
If she was lethargic, Max was anything but. His body felt like a well-oiled machine as he sprinted for the car, still clutching her under one arm. He loaded her into the front seat and seconds later the car lurched forward with a shrill squeal.
“Get your seat belt on.”
Her hand dropped to the side of the seat, but her fingers wouldn’t obey the commands of her fuzzy brain. At the next sharp turn, she fell to the side, her head bumping against the window.
A vise cinched her wrist. “Snap out of it, Ava! I need you.”
How had Max known that those three little words amounted to a rallying cry for the former Dr. Ava Whitman?
She rubbed her stinging eyes. She sniffled and dragged a hand beneath her nose. She coughed. She grabbed her seat belt and snapped it into place.
Without taking his eyes from the road, Max asked, “You okay?”
She ran her hands down her arms as if wondering for the first time if she’d been shot. “I’m fine. Did they shoot at us? How did they miss...unless...?”
“I’m okay. They didn’t get a shot off.”
“I thought— What was all that smoke? The noise?”
“I was able to toss an exploding device at them before they could react. I don’t think they were expecting you to have company.”
“Let me get this straight.” She covered her still-sensitive eyes with one hand. “Two men had guns pointed at us when we walked through the door and you were able to pull me out of harm’s way and throw some smoke bomb into the house at the same time?”
“I had the advantage of surprise.”
Her hand dropped to her throat. “Did you know someone would be there waiting? Because I was sure surprised to see them standing there.”
“Let’s just say I had a premonition.”
She shook her head. “Superhuman.”
Max jerked the steering wheel and the car veered to the right. “Why’d you say that?”
She tilted her head. Why the defensiveness?
“When I saw those guns, I thought we were both dead. Somehow you got us out of there alive. Did I ever thank you? Did I ever thank you for what you did at the lab?”
“Not necessary.” He flexed his fingers.
“Are you going to tell me what those men were doing at my house? Are they with Simon? Did they come to finish the job he started?”
She held her breath. If she had a bunch of covert ops agents after her, what was her percentage of survival? Especially once Max Duvall left her side, and he would leave her side—they always did.
“I’m not sure, Ava.”
The name sounded tentative on his lips for a man so sure of himself. Agent Max Duvall had always been her favorite patient and it had nothing to do with his dark good looks or his killer body—they all had those killer bodies.
Most of the agents were hard, unfriendly. Some wouldn’t even reveal their names. Max always had a smile for her. Always asked about her welfare, made small talk. She looked forward to the quarterly visits by Max—and Simon.
Smashing a fist against her lips, she swallowed a sob. Simon had been friendly, too. He’d even admitted to her that he was engaged, although such personal communications from the agents were verboten. Where was Simon’s fiancée now?
Did Max have a wife or a girlfriend sitting at home worried about him, too?
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She blinked and met Max’s gaze. They were back on the desolate highway through the desert, and Max’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. A trickle of fear dripped down her back. Maybe those men back at her house were there to save her from Max. Maybe Max and Simon were in league together.
“Are you afraid of me?” His low, soft voice floated toward her in the cramped space of the car.
“N-no.” She pinned her aching shoulders back against the seat. “No, I’m not. You saved my life—twice. I’m just confused. I have crazy thoughts running through my head. Do you blame me?”
“Not at all.”
“If you could tell me what’s going on, I’d feel better—as much as I can after tonight’s events. I deserve to know. Someone, something is out to extinguish my life. I need to know who or what so I can protect myself.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“From what? For how long?” Her fingers dug into the hard muscle of his thigh. “You have to give me more, Max. You can’t keep me in the dark and expect me to trust you. I can’t trust like that—not anymore.”
Tears blurred her vision, and she covered her face with her hands. Hadn’t he just told her to snap out of it? If she wanted to prove that she deserved the hard truth, she’d have to buck up and quit with the waterworks.
“You’re right, Ava, but I have a problem with trust, too. I don’t have any.”
“You don’t think you can trust me?” Her voice squeaked on the last syllable.
“You worked in that lab.”
“The lab that you visited four times a year. The lab that kept you safe. The lab that treated your injuries—both physical and mental. The lab that made sure you were at your peak performance levels so you could do your job, a job vital to the security of our country.”
“Stop!” He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, and she shrank against her side of the car.
“That lab, that bastion of goodwill and patriotic fervor, turned me into a mindless, soulless machine.” He jabbed a finger in her face. “You did that to me, and now you have as much to fear from me as you did from Simon. I’m a killer.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_9b5f66f3-24a9-5941-8f96-b525b2b1a51e)
Icy fingers gripped the back of Ava’s neck and she hunched her shoulders, making herself small against the car door. She shot a side glance at Max. The glow from the car’s display highlighted the sharp planes of his face, lending credence to his declaration that he was a machine. But a killer? He’d saved her—twice. Unless he’d saved her for some other nefarious purpose.
Her fingers curled around the door handle, and she tensed her muscles.
Her movement broke his trancelike stare out the windshield. Blinking, he peeled one hand from the steering wheel and ran it through his dark hair.
“I—I won’t hurt you, Dr. Whitman.”
She whispered, “Ava.”
He cranked his head to the side, and the stark lines on his face softened. “Where can I take you...Ava?”
She jerked forward in her seat. She couldn’t go home, as if she’d ever called that small bungalow teetering at the edge of the desert home.
But if Max thought he could launch a bombshell at her like that and then blithely drop her off somewhere, he needed to reprogram himself.
Had he really just blamed her for Simon’s breakdown?
“Before you take me anywhere—” she pressed her palms against her bouncing knees “—you’re going to explain yourself. How is any of this my fault?”
He squeezed his eyes closed briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have yelled, but I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“Me?” She jabbed an index finger at her chest. “You don’t know if you can trust me? You’re the one who whisked me away from the lab, led me into an ambush and then threatened to kill me.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t a threat. I don’t make threats.”
His words hung in the space between them, their meaning clear. This man would strike without warning and without mercy. The fact that she still sat beside him, living and breathing, attested to the fact that despite his misgivings he must trust her at least a little bit.
“You warned me that you were a killer, like Simon.”
“What exactly do you think the agents of...Prospero do if not kill?”
“You kill when it’s necessary. You kill to protect the country. You kill in self-defense.”
“Is that what you think Simon was doing?”
She stuffed her hands beneath her thighs. “No, but that’s what you were doing when you took him out.”
He nodded once and his jaw hardened again. “I won’t hurt you, Ava.”
She swallowed. His repetition of the phrase sent a spiral of fear down her spine. Was he trying to convince her or convince himself?
“Tell me where I can drop you off, and you’ll be fine. Friends? Family?”
“I told you, I don’t have any friends or family in this area.” She pushed the hair from her face in a sharp gesture, suddenly angry at him for forcing her to admit that pathetic truth.
“I can take you to an airport and get you on a plane to anywhere.”
“No.” She shook her head and her hair whipped across her face again. “Before I get on a plane to anywhere, I want you to explain yourself. What happened to Simon? Why did you blame me? Why did Simon attack the lab?”
“If you don’t know, it’s not safe for me to tell you.”
“Bull.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Those two men were waiting for me at my house. I wasn’t safe back there, and I’m not safe now. What you tell is not going to make it any worse than it already is. And you know that.”
Lights twinkled ahead, and she realized they’d circled back into the city after a detour on a desert highway so that he could make sure they hadn’t been followed.
He pointed to a sign with an airplane on it. “I can take you straight to the airport and buy you a ticket back home to your family. You can contact the CIA and tell them what happened. The agency will help you.”
“But the agency is not going to tell me what’s going on. I want to know. I deserve to know after you accused me of being complicit in Simon’s breakdown.”
“You were.”
She smacked her hands on the dashboard. “Stop saying that. This is what I mean. You can’t throw around accusations like that without backing them up.”
He aimed the car for the next exit and left the highway. “It’s going to be morning soon. Let’s get off the road, get some rest. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’re getting on that plane.”
She sat quietly as Max followed the signs to the airport. He turned onto a boulevard lined with airport hotels and rolled into the parking lot of a midrange highrise, anonymous and nondescript.
He dragged a bag from the trunk of the car and left the keys with the valet parking attendant.
She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until they walked through the empty lobby of the hotel.
A front desk clerk jumped up from behind the counter. “Do you need a room?”
“Yeah.” Max reached for the back pocket of his camouflage pants. Without the bulletproof vest, the black jacket and the ski mask, he looked almost normal. Could the hotel clerk feel the waves of tension vibrating off Max’s body? Did he notice the tight set of Max’s jaw? The way his dark eyes seemed to take in everything around him with a single glance? Normal was not a word she’d use to describe Max Duvall.
“Credit card?”
“We don’t use one. Filed for bankruptcy not too long ago.” Max offered up a tight smile along with a stack of bills. “We’ll pay cash for one night.”
The clerk’s brow furrowed. “The problem is if you use anything from the minibar or watch a movie in the room, we have no way to charge you.”
Max thumbed through the money and shoved it across the counter. “Add an extra hundred for incidentals.”
The clerk’s frown never left his face, but he seemed compelled to acquiesce to Max. She didn’t blame him. Max was the type of man others obeyed.
Five minutes later, Max pushed open the door of their hotel room, holding it open for her.
She eyed the two double beds in the room and placed her purse on the floor next to one of them. If the clerk downstairs had found the request for two beds odd, he’d put on his best poker face. Maybe he’d figured their bankruptcy had put a strain on the marriage.
She perched on the edge of the bed, knees and feet primly together, watching Max pace the room like a jungle cat.
He stopped at the window and shifted to the side, leaning one shoulder against the glass.
“Do you want something from the minibar? Water, soft drink, something harder?”
She narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t expected him to play host. Despite rescuing her from mortal danger, he hadn’t seemed too concerned with her well-being. He’d gone through the motions and had acknowledged her shock and fear, but he’d done next to nothing to comfort her. Because he still didn’t trust her.
“I’ll have some water.” She pushed up from the bed and hovered over the fridge on the console. “Do you want something?”
“Soda, something with caffeine.”
The man didn’t need caffeine. He needed a stiff drink, something to take off the hard edges.
She swung open the door of the pint-size fridge and plucked a bottle of water from the shelf. She pinched the neck of a wine bottle and held it up. “You sure you don’t want some wine?”
“Just the soda, but I don’t mind if you want to imbibe. You could probably use something to relax you.”
“That’s funny.” She placed the wine on the credenza and grabbed a can of cola from the inside door of the fridge. “I was just thinking you needed something to relax you.”
“Relax?”
He blinked his eyes and looked momentarily lost, as if the idea of relaxation had never occurred to him.
“Never mind.” She crossed the room and held out the can to him.
When he took it, his fingers brushed hers and she almost dropped the drink. That was the first time he’d touched her without grabbing, gripping and yanking. Although she’d touched him before, plenty of times.
Like all of the agents, his body was in prime condition—his muscles hard, his belly flat, barely concealed power humming beneath the smooth skin. As a medical professional, she’d always maintained her distance but she couldn’t deny she’d looked forward to Max Duvall’s appointment times.
But that was then.
She planted her feet on the carpet, widening her stance in front of him. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about now? Why did Simon go on a murderous rampage, why is someone out to get me, and why did you blame it all on me?”
He snapped the tab on his can and took a long pull from it, eyeing her above the rim. “Let’s sit down. You must be exhausted.”
“I am, but not too exhausted to hear the truth.” She walked backward away from him and swiveled toward the bed, dropping onto the mattress. She had to hold herself upright because out of Max’s tension-filled sphere, she did feel exhausted. She felt like collapsing on the bed and pulling the covers over her head.
He dragged a chair out from the desk by the window and sat down, stretching his long legs in front of him. It was the closest he’d come to a relaxed pose since he’d stormed into the lab in full riot gear.
“What do you know about the work at the lab?”
“Didn’t we go through this already? We support a covert ops agency, Prospero, by monitoring and treating its agents. Part of the lab is responsible for developing vitamin formulas that enhance strength, alertness and even intelligence.”
“But you’re not part of that lab.”
“N-no. I’m the people doctor, not the research doctor.”
He slumped in his chair and took another gulp of his drink. “How do you know you support Prospero? Isn’t that supposed to be classified information? After all, the general public knows nothing of Prospero...or other covert ops agencies under the umbrella of the CIA.”
“We’re not supposed to know, but like I said, people talk.” She waved her hand in the air. “I’ve heard things around the lab.”
“You heard wrong.”
She choked on the sip of water she’d just swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“The rumor mill had the wrong info or it purposely spread the wrong info. You don’t support Prospero. You support another covert ops team—Tempest.”
“Oh.” Clearing her throat, she shrugged. “One agency or the other. It doesn’t make any difference to me. They must be related groups, since both of their names come from the Shakespeare play.”
He nodded slowly and traced the edge of the can with his fingertip. “They are related, in a way.”
“So what difference does it make whether we supported Prospero or Tempest?”
“I said the agencies were related, not the same. One is a force for good, and the other...” His hand wrapped around the can and his knuckles grew white as he squeezed it.
The knots in her stomach twisted with the aluminum. “Tempest is a force for evil? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes.”
She jerked the hand holding the bottle and the water sloshed against the plastic. “That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t work for an agency like that. Would you? You’re a Tempest agent. Are you telling me you all signed up for service knowing Tempest had bad intentions?”
“Not knowingly. Did you? How did you come to work at the lab?”
Unease churned in her gut and a flash of heat claimed her flesh from head to toe.
“What is it?” Max hunched forward, bracing his forearms against his thighs.
“Dr. Arnoff recruited me.” She pressed her fingers to her warm cheeks. “He gave me the job because I had nowhere else to go.”
“Why not, Ava?” His dark eyes burned into her very soul.
“I—I had lost my license to practice medicine. I was finished as a physician before I had even started. Dr. Arnoff gave me a chance. He gave me a chance to be a doctor again.” Her voice broke and she took a gulp of water to wash down the tears.
“Why? What happened? You’re a good doctor, Ava.”
His gentle tone and kind words had the tears pricking the backs of her eyes.
She sniffed. “I’m not a doctor. I made a mistake. Someone betrayed me, but it was my own fault. I was too trusting, too stupid.”
He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. Running a hand through his thick, dark hair until it stood up, he heaved a sigh. “So, Arnoff took advantage of your situation, your desperation to get you to work for Tempest.”
“And you? Simon? The others? How did Tempest recruit you?”
He dropped his lashes and held himself so still, she thought he’d fallen asleep for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, he seemed very far away. “You’re not the only one who has made mistakes, Ava.”
“So, what is Tempest? What do they do? Wh-what have you done for them?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he ran his knuckles across the dark stubble there. “Tempest is responsible for assassinations, kidnappings, tampering with elections around the world.”
“I’m not naive, Max. A lot of covert ops groups are responsible for the same types of missions.”
“Tempest is different. An agency like Prospero may commit acts of espionage and violence, but those acts promote a greater good—a safer world.”
She crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders. “And what does Tempest promote?”
Max’s dark eyes burned as he gazed past her, his nostrils flaring. He seemed to come to some decision as his gaze shifted back to her face, his eyes locking onto hers.
“Terror, chaos, destruction.”
“No!” A sharp pain drilled the back of her skull and she bounded from the bed. “I don’t believe you. That turns everything we did in that lab, all our efforts, into a big lie. My coworkers were good people. We were doing good work there. We were protecting agents who were protecting our country.”
He lunged from his chair, slicing his hand through the air, and she stumbled backward as he loomed over her, his lean frame taut and menacing.
“Tempest agents do not protect this country. Tempest is loyal to no one country or group of nations. Tempest is loyal to itself and the shadowy figure that runs it.”
Her knees shook so much she had to grip the edge of the credenza. Despite Max’s sudden burst of fury, she didn’t fear him. The man had saved her twice. But she did fear his words.
Maybe he was delusional. Maybe this was how Simon had started. Maybe she should fear Max Duvall.
“I don’t understand.” The words came out as a whisper even though that hadn’t been her intent. She had no more control over her voice than she did the terror galloping throughout her body.
He ran both hands through his hair, digging his fingers into his scalp. “I don’t see how I can be any plainer. Tempest is a deep undercover agency, so rogue the CIA is completely in the dark about its operations and methods. Tempest carries out assassinations and nation building all on its own, and these interests do not serve the US or world peace.”
“Then what is their purpose?”
As if realizing his close proximity to her for the first time, Max shuffled back, retreating to the window, wedging a shoulder against the glass.
“I don’t know. Tempest’s overall goal is a mystery to me.”
“If Tempest is so evil, why are you one of its agents? You said you were recruited, but why’d you stay? There’s no way the agency could keep you in the dark, not...not like me.”
She held her breath, bracing for another outburst. Instead, Max relaxed his rigid stance. His broad shoulders slumped and he massaged the back of his neck.
“You really have no idea, do you? You haven’t figured it out yet.”
A muscle beneath her eye jumped, and she smoothed her hands across her face. She sipped in a few short breaths, pushing back against the creeping dread invading her lungs.
“Why should I know? You haven’t explained that part to me. You’ve made some crazy, wild accusations, throwing puzzle pieces at me, expecting me to fit them together when I haven’t even processed the mass murder I just witnessed.”
Her knees finally buckled and she grabbed for the credenza as she sank to the carpet.
Max’s long stride ate up the distance between them, and he placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay? We should’ve saved this conversation for morning, after some sleep and some food.”
When she didn’t respond, he nudged her. “Can you stand up?”
She nodded, but the muscles in her legs refused to obey the commands from her brain.
He crouched beside her, slipping one arm across her back and one behind her thighs. She leaned into him and he lifted her from the floor and stood up in one motion.
He was careful to hold her body away from his as he carried her to the bed, but for her part she could’ve nestled in his arms forever. She wanted him to hold her and tell her this was all a joke.
He placed her on the bed with surprising gentleness. “Why don’t you get some sleep, and we’ll talk about this over breakfast?”
She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Tell me the truth. Tell me the whole ugly truth about what we were doing in that lab and why you stayed with Tempest.”
He backed up and eased onto the edge of the bed across from hers. He blew out a long breath. “I stayed with Tempest even after I discovered their agenda because they wanted me to. Tempest controlled my mind and my body. They still do.”
“No.” Ava squeezed the pillow against her body, her fingers curling into soft foam.
“It’s a form of brainwashing, Ava, but it goes beyond the brain. It’s my body, too.” He pushed up from the bed and plucked up a lamp with a metal rod from the base to the lightbulb. He unplugged it and removed the shade. Gripping it on either side with his hands, he bent it to a forty-five-degree angle. Then he held up the lamp by the lightbulb, which had to still be hot, and didn’t even flinch.
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “Dr. Arnoff’s vitamin formula—stronger, faster, impervious to pain.”
He released the bulb and the distorted lamp fell to the floor. He examined his hand. “So, he did tell you.”
“That’s what he was working on, but he told me it was years from completion.”
He held up his reddened palm. “He completed it.”
“What you’re telling me—” she swung her legs over the side of the bed “—is crazy. You’re saying that Dr. Arnoff’s formula created some kind of superagent and that Tempest sent these agents out into the world to do its bidding?”
“Yes, but I told you it’s more than physical.” He tapped the side of his head. “Tempest messed with our minds, too.”
She bunched the bedspread in her hands. “How? That didn’t happen in our lab.”
“No. That occurred in the debriefing unit in Germany where we went after every assignment.”
She pinned her hands between her knees as her eyes darted to the hotel door. Max Duvall could be crazy. This could all be some elaborate hallucination, one that he’d shared with Simon Skinner. Then her gaze tracked to the metal rod of the lamp, which he’d folded as if it were a straw. So, he was crazy and strong—a bad combination.
“How did they do it? The brainwashing?”
He squeezed his eyes closed and massaged his temple with two fingers. “Mind control—it was mind control and they did it through a combination of drugs, hypnosis and sleep therapy.”
“What is sleep therapy?”
“That’s my name for it. The doctors would hook us up to machines, brain scans, and then sedate us. They said it was for deep relaxation and stress reduction, but...” He shook his head.
“But what?” She wiped her palms on the bedspread. The air in the room almost crackled with electricity.
“It didn’t do that. It didn’t relax us, at least not me and Simon. After those sessions, a jumble of memories and scenes assaulted my brain. I couldn’t tell real from fake. The memories—they implanted them in my brain.”
She gasped as a bolt of fear shot through her chest. “They wanted you to forget the assignments.”
“But I couldn’t.” He shoved off the window and stalked across the room, pressing his palms against either side of his head. “Simon and I, we remembered. I don’t know how many others did.”
He really believed all of this, and he blamed her for administering the serum. Maybe the men at her house had been there to protect her from Max. The pressures of the job had driven them both off the deep end. Simon had snapped, and Max was nearing the same precipice.
“I-is that what drove Simon to commit violence? The implanted memories?”
“No.” He pivoted and paced back to the window, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead. “The implanted memories were fine. It was the flashes of reality that tortured us.”
If she kept pretending that she believed him, maybe he’d drop her off at the airport without incident. She could make up family somewhere, a family that cared about her and worried about her well-being. A fake family.
“The reality of what he’d done for Tempest pushed Simon past the breaking point?”
“It’s the serum.” He turned again and swayed to the side. He thrust out an unsteady hand to regain his balance. “Simon tried to break the cycle, but you can’t go cold turkey. I told him not to go cold turkey.”
A spasm of pain distorted his handsome features, and Ava tensed her muscles to make a run at the door if necessary. “I’m not sure I understand, Max.”
“The pills.” He wiped a hand across his mouth and staggered. “I need the pills. I’ll end up like Simon without them.”
She braced her hands on her knees, ready to spring into action. The pills, again. He’d been going on about blue pills at the lab when he rescued her, too.
Max was talking gibberish now, his strong hands clenching and then unclenching, his gait unsteady, sweat dripping from his jaw.
“What pills?” She licked her lips. Her gaze flicked to the door. If she rolled off the other side of the bed, she could avoid Max, pitching and reeling in the middle of the room. Then she’d call 911. He needed help, but she didn’t have the strength or the tools to subdue him if he decided to attack her.
“Pocket. The blue.” Then he pitched forward and landed face-first on the floor.
Chapter Five (#ulink_c8abde62-ec7b-52f1-99f2-d457aa0b7b2c)
“Max!” She launched off the bed and crouched beside him. If he decided to grab her now, she wouldn’t have a chance against his power.
His body twitched and he moaned. He had no power to grab her now. She could make a run for it and call hotel security. The hotel would call 911, and he could get help at the hospital from a doctor—a real doctor.
Max’s dry lips parted, and he reached for her hand.
And if any part of his story was true? She knew the secrecy of that lab better than anyone. Those two men with the automatic weapons had been waiting at her house, for her. Max had saved her.
She curled her fingers around his and squeezed. “I’ll be right back.”
She ran to the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. She held it under a stream of cool water and grabbed a bottle of the stuff on her way back to Max. She swept a pillow from the bed and sat on the floor beside his prone form.
He’d rolled to his back, so at least he wasn’t unconscious.
Pressing two fingers against his neck, she checked his pulse—rapid but strong. She dabbed his face with the wet towel and eased a pillow beneath his head.
“Can you drink some water? Are you in any pain?” She held up the bottle.
“The pills.” His voice rasped from his throat.
They were back to the pills? “What pills, Max?”
His hand dropped to his side, and she remembered what he’d said before he collapsed. His pocket.
She skimmed her hand across the rough material of one pocket and then the other, her fingers tracing the edges of a hard, square object. She dug her fingers into the pocket and pulled out a small tin of breath mints, but when she opened the lid no minty freshness greeted her.
Five round blue pills nestled together in the corner of the tin. She held up the container to his face. “These pills?”
His chin dipped to his chest, and she shook the pills into her palm.
He held up his index finger.
“Just one?”
He hissed, a sound that probably meant yes.
She picked up one pill between two fingers and placed it into his mouth. Then she held the water bottle up to his lips, while curling an arm around the back of his head to prop him up.
He swallowed the water and the pill disappeared. His spiky, dark lashes closed over his eyes and he melted against her arm. Her fingers burrowed into his thick, black hair as she dabbed his face with the towel.
His chest rose and fell, his breathing deeper and more regular. His face changed from a sickly pallor to his usual olive skin tone, and the trembling that had been racking his body ceased.
Whatever magic ingredient the little blue pill contained seemed to work. She peered at the remaining pills in the tin and sniffed them. Maybe he was a drug addict. Hallucinogens could bring on the paranoid thoughts.
His eyes flew open and he struggled to sit up.
“Whoa.” Her arms slipped around his shoulders. “You just had a very scary incident. You need to lie back and relax.”
“It passes quickly. I’m fine.” He shrugged off her arm and sat up, leaning his back against the credenza. He chugged the rest of the water.
“Are you okay? I almost called 911.”
“Don’t—” he cinched her wrist with his thumb and middle finger “—ever call the police.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She should’ve run when she had the chance.
His deep brown eyes widened and grew even darker. He dropped her wrist. “I’m sorry. I scared you.”
She scooted away and rested her back against the bed, facing him. “And I’m sorry you’re going through all this, but there’s nothing I can do to help you. You need to see a doctor, and I—I’ll go to my family and contact the CIA about what happened at the lab.”
“You are a doctor.” His eyes glittered through slits.
“Not exactly, and you know what I mean. You need to go to a doctor’s office, get checked out.”
“You mean a psychiatrist, don’t you?”
“I mean...”
“You don’t believe me. You’re afraid of me. You think I’m crazy.” He laughed, a harsh, stark sound with no humor in it.
“It’s a crazy story, Max. My lab was just shot up and two men tried to kill me—or you.”
“Both of us.”
“Okay, maybe both of us, but I don’t belong in the middle of all this.”
“You’re right.” He rose from the floor, looking as strong and capable as ever. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll take you to the airport tomorrow.”
“And you?”
“I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
“Which is?”
“You don’t belong in the middle of this, remember?” He tossed the pillow she’d tucked beneath him onto the bed and took a deep breath, the air in his lungs expanding his broad chest, his black T-shirt stretching across his muscles. “Would you like to take a shower? I need to take one, but you can go first.”
“I would, but I can wait.”
Still sitting on the floor, she’d stretched her legs in front of her.
Max stepped over her outstretched legs on the way to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
Blowing out a long breath, Ava got to her feet and grabbed her purse. She could get a taxi to the airport before he even got out of the shower.
* * *
MAX BRACED HIS hands against the tile of the shower and dipped his head, as the warm water beat between his shoulder blades.
She’d be gone by the time he came out of the shower. And why shouldn’t she be? She thought he was crazy. She didn’t trust him. And she was right not to.
If she stayed, if she believed him, she could probably help him. She didn’t seem to know about the pills, but she’d worked with Arnoff. She might know something about those blue pills that stood between him and a complete meltdown like Simon.
He’d warned Simon to keep taking the pills, but his buddy was stubborn. He’d wanted nothing more to do with Tempest and its control over their lives.
Max faced the spray and sluiced the water through his hair. Maybe he’d made a mistake showing his hand to Tempest. As soon as he’d refused his last assignment, Foster had suspected he’d figured everything out—not everything. He and Simon hadn’t realized quitting the serum would have such a profound effect on their bodies and minds.
He cranked off the water and grabbed a towel. At least he’d been able to save Dr. Whitman—Ava—from Simon. Stupid, stubborn bastard. Who was going to tell Simon’s fiancée, Nina?
He dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. A few hours’ sleep would do him good, and then he’d reassess. He could contact Prospero, but he didn’t know whom he could trust at this point. He didn’t blame Ava one bit for hightailing it out of here.
He pushed open the bathroom door and stopped short.
Ava looked up from examining something in the palm of her hand. Her gaze scanned his body, and he made a grab for the towel slipping down his hips.
“You’re still here.”
“Did you expect me to take off?”
He pointedly stared at the purse hanging over her shoulder. “Yeah.”
She held out her hand, his precious pills cupped in her palm. “What are these? They have a distinctive odor.”
“They should.” He adjusted the towel again and glanced over his shoulder at his clothes scattered across the bathroom floor. He couldn’t risk leaving her alone with those pills another minute. She might just get it in her head to run with them. She probably thought he was a junkie.
Her body stiffened and she closed her hand around the blue beauties. “Why would you say that?”
“They’re a milder form of the serum you inject in us four times a year.” He cocked his head. “You really don’t know that?”
The color drained from her face, emphasizing her large eyes, which widened. “Why would you be taking additional doses of the serum?”
“Weaker doses. To keep up. To be better, faster, stronger, smarter. Isn’t that what the serum is all about?”
“Did you know what they were when you started taking them?”
“By the time the pills were introduced into our regimen, we didn’t care what they were for. We needed them.”
“They’re addictive?” She swept the breath-mint tin from the credenza and funneled the pills into it from her cupped hand.
Max released the breath he’d been holding. “More than you could possibly know.”
“Then tell me, Max. I deserve to know everything. I stayed.” She shrugged the purse from her shoulder and tossed it onto the bed. “One little part of me believed your story. There was enough subterfuge in that lab to make me believe your wild accusations.”
“Can I put my pants on first?” He hooked his fingers around the edge of the towel circling his hips.
Her eyes dropped to his hands, and the color came rushing back into her pale cheeks. “Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”
He retreated to the bathroom and dropped the towel. Leaning close to the mirror, he plowed a hand through his damp hair. It needed a trim and he needed a shave, not that he’d given a damn about his appearance before Ava came onto the scene.
He pulled on his camos and returned to the bedroom.
Ava had moved to the chair and sat with her legs curled beneath her, a look of expectancy highlighting her face.
He’d memorized that face from his quarterly visits with her. Dr. Ava Whitman had been the one bright spot in the dark tunnel of Tempest. He believed with certainty that she had no idea what she’d been dosing them with. At first, he’d been incredulous that a doctor wouldn’t know what was in a formula she was giving her patients, but her story made sense. Tempest sought out the most vulnerable. The agency used blackmail and coercion, and in Ava’s case, hope, to recruit people.
Dr. Arnoff had kept her in the dark, had probably shut down her questions by reminding her that she wouldn’t be working as a doctor if it weren’t for the agency and then using the illegality of that work to keep her in line.
And she’d been good at her job. He had a hard time remembering the two missions he’d been on last year, but he could clearly recall Ava’s soft touch and cheery tone as she checked his vitals and injected him with the serum that would destroy his life.
Ava cleared her throat. “If the blue pills are a weaker dose of the T-101 serum, why are you still taking them?”
“I have to.”
“Because you’re addicted? Why not just ride out the withdrawal?” She laced her fingers in her lap. “I can help you. I—I have some experience with that.”
He raised his eyebrows. She had to be referring to a patient. “It’s more than the addiction. I could ride that out. You saw Simon.”
She drew in a quick breath and hunched forward. “Simon went over the edge. He lost it. The stress, the tension, maybe even the brainwashing—they all did him in.”
“It’s the...T-101, Ava. Is that what you called it? Without the serum, we self-destruct. Another agent, before Simon, before me, he committed suicide. Tempest put it down to post-traumatic stress disorder because this agent had killed a child by mistake on a raid. Now I wonder if that was even a mistake or his true assignment.”
“Adam Belchik.” She drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“That’s right. I thought he was before your time.”
“He was, but I heard about him.”
“He was the first to go off the meds, and he paid the price. He had a family, so he killed himself before he could harm them.”
“Is that why you were jabbering about cold turkey? You can’t quit cold turkey like Simon did, like Adam did. You have to keep lowering your dosage by continuing with the blue pills.”
“That’s it.” He pointed to the tin on the credenza, the fine line keeping him from insanity and rage. “I find if I take one a day, I can maintain. I tried a half, and it didn’t work.”
“You have only five left.” Her gaze darted to the credenza and back to his face.
“Four now. Four pills. Four days.”
She uncurled her legs and almost fell out of the chair as she bolted from it. “That’s crazy. What happens at the end of the four days?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I’ll be subject to incidents like the one you just witnessed until they kill me or I snap...or Tempest gets to me first.”
“And if they do?”
“They’ll either kill me or I’ll be their drone for the rest of my life.”
She folded her arms across her stomach, clutching the material of her blouse at her sides. “There has to be another way. If we get more of the pills and you take smaller and smaller doses, maybe eventually you can break free. You tried taking a half, but it was too soon.”
“Where would I get more pills? You said yourself you never saw them at the lab. They weren’t administered at the lab. My quick search there revealed nothing.”
She snapped her fingers. “Max, there has to be an antidote somewhere.”
“Why would you think that? Tempest had no intention of ever reversing the damage they’d done to us.”
“Maybe not to you, but Dr. Arnoff tested the T-101 on himself.”
His heart slammed against his chest. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive, or at least I’m positive that he told me he’d tried it on himself. He said he felt like a superhero—strong, invincible, sexually potent.”
She reddened to the edge of her hairline and waved a hand in the air. “You know, that’s what he said.”
Sexual potency? It had been a long time since he’d been close enough to a woman in a normal situation to even think about sex.
He cleared his throat. “If he acted as his own guinea pig, he’d want something to counteract the effects in case things didn’t go the way he planned.”
“Exactly—an antidote.”
“We could be jumping to conclusions.” He dragged in a breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to temper his excitement. He’d learned to be cautious about good news. “Maybe Arnoff didn’t develop an antidote. He could’ve dialed back by taking the blue pills—fewer and fewer of them until the cravings stopped and the physical effects dissipated.”
“That could be, but it also means there must be more of those blue pills floating around.” She dropped onto the bed. “What about the other agents? Can you all pool your resources and wean yourselves off of the serum?”
He cracked a smile and shook his head.
“What’s so funny? That’s the first real smile I’ve seen from you all night, and I wasn’t even making a joke.”
“I just got a visual of a bunch of Tempest agents sitting around a campfire sharing little pieces of their blue pills.”
A smile hovered at her lips. “Not possible?”
“I don’t even know who more than half of the agents are.”
“I do.”
His gaze locked onto hers. “You don’t know all their names. You don’t know where they live, and most of them are probably on assignment anyway.”
She shook her finger at him. “You’d be surprised how many of them opened up to me.”
“Not surprised at all.” She’d obviously been a ray of sunshine for the other agents, too. “But we can’t go knocking on their doors asking them to give up their meds. Unless they’ve already suspected something or had incidents like Simon and I did, they’re not going to see the problem.”
“I meant to ask you that.” She fell back against the mattress and rolled to her side to face him, propping up her head with one hand. “What made you and Simon realize what was going on?”
“There were gaps, glitches in our response to the treatment. For me it was the memories. I recalled too much about my operations. The memories they tried to implant in my brain didn’t jibe with my reality. On one assignment, Simon and I started comparing notes and then experimenting with the pills.”
“Simon didn’t show up for his last appointment with me. He never got his injection.”
“He decided to make a clean break. He shrugged off the seizures even though I tried to warn him.” He dropped his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp. What would they tell Simon’s fiancée?
The bed sank beside him, and he turned his head as Ava touched his back.
“You had to shoot Simon. He would’ve killed you. He would’ve killed me.” The pressure of her hand between his shoulder blades increased. “Now, since you saved my life—twice—I’m going to save yours.”
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to stretch out on the bed next to Ava and feel her soft touch on his forehead again.
“And how to you propose to do that, Dr. Whitman?”
Her hand dropped from his back. “Don’t call me that. I told you, I never finished. I don’t deserve the title.”
“Ava.”
“We’re going to find that antidote or a million blue pills to get you through this.” She yawned and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “But first I’m going to sleep away the rest of what’s left of this evening.”
“And your family? I thought I was taking you to the airport tomorrow so you could fly out to be with your family.”
“My family.” She launched from his bed to hers, peeled back the covers and slipped beneath them. “I have no family.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_ae1d333c-2655-574d-a0b8-8977d8c99f36)
Ava buried her head beneath a pillow and ran her tongue along her teeth. She needed a toothbrush and a meal.
“Are you awake?”
Lifting one corner of the pillow, she peered out at Max sitting in front of a tablet computer at the table by the window. “What time is it?”
He flicked back the heavy drapes and a spear of sunlight sliced through the room. “It’s around ten o’clock. You must be hungry. When was the last time you ate?”
“I had my dinner at the lab before...before everything went down.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“An eternity. A lifetime.” She retreated beneath the pillow. How was she supposed to do this with Max? Why did her life always manage to get upended?
She heard his footsteps across the room and the crackle of plastic.
“I went down to the little store in the hotel and bought you a few things.”
“A new life?”
The silence yawned from across the room and engulfed her. She tossed the pillow away from her and sat up.
Max stood in the center of the room, a plastic bag dangling at his side. “You don’t need to do this, Ava. In fact, I’m going to take you to the airport right now. I’ll pay for a ticket anywhere you want to go. Then you can call the CIA or whatever number the lab gave you in case of an emergency and you can forget about all of this.”
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