Текст книги "Blowback"
Автор книги: Emmy Curtis
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 12 страниц)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sirens sounded, and people came running around the corner into the alleyway. Her ears were still ringing, and the skin on her arms was red where the heat from the blast had hit them.
“We’ve got to run,” David said. “Leave your bag.”
“Give me a second.” There was no way she could run anywhere in her high heels, not on the cobbled streets of Athens. She ripped open her bag and kicked off her heels, grabbing her sneakers and slipping them on.
David slapped her ass, not once but a few times. What the…? “This is not the time—”
“Your skirt has embers on it.” He slapped her a couple more times and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Come on.”
She didn’t take the time to look at the state of her skirt, but grabbed the sundress that was on top of her clothes, and took his offered hand.
David took off with her half a step behind. They ran away from the debris, and the people who were shouting and pointing, and headed to the loading dock. Once they’d cleared the hotel block, David slowed, but still ran.
“Smile,” he said, as they passed late night shoppers. He grinned at her and she smiled back, wondering what the hell he was thinking.
They continued to run, laughing and smiling until they reached a residential neighborhood. David stopped. “I think we can stop here. Are you okay?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.” She was being honest. A poor man had just got blown up, and yet she was glad it wasn’t her and David. Which made her feel like an awful person. And someone was obviously trying to kill them.
David grimaced and rolled his shoulders.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure. A little blast shock, but I’m fine. I’ve seen worse.” He turned to look at a bus stop street map, and she saw his back.
“Jesus. Your shirt is shredded! Let me look”—she pulled up one of the ripped tails of his shirt and saw his back was red raw—“It looks like you have really bad sunburn.” She winced at the pain he must be in.
At that second his phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and answered. “No. We’re both okay. They’ve what?” He nodded a few times. “Thanks, Mal.” He paused. “Just fuck off.”
He shoved the phone back in his pants and paced in front of the church they’d stopped in front of. “They’ve closed down the city. No one in and no one out. The police have road blocks on all the roads leaving the city.”
“So you don’t think we’d make it to the airport?” she asked, wondering what had happened to her life in the past two days.
He remained silent, obviously processing this new information. She didn’t press him. She sat on the small wall of the church and took a breath. That poor bellboy. Why would someone bomb their car? Was it because of Brandon’s note? Did she set off the chain of reactions that led to that poor man’s death?
David stopped pacing and crouched in front of her. She tried to keep her eyes on his face, but her imagination was working overtime. Did the man have family? Did they know yet? “Okay, this is the plan. We’re going to take the metro to Piraeus port, where all the tourist boats set sail to the Greek islands. You’re going to take out as much cash as you can at an ATM and then you’re going to use your credit card to buy one ticket to the farthest island we can find. That way they’ll think that you’ve left the city and we’ve split up.”
She recognized that he was detailing a plan, and she could hear the words, but she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. The car kept exploding in her mind. Ka-boom. And then that second of silence, followed by the clang of falling car parts. Over and over. She tried to visualize what the bellboy looked like, but she couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him.
“We can’t go to the airport, and frankly the boats would be easily caught by a police launch, so the best thing we can do is hunker down somewhere anonymous and try to figure out what the hell is going on.” He pointed down the road to the metro station, and then looked back at her.
She nodded, because that’s what he was waiting for. She was sure it was an excellent plan. He took her hand and led her to the metro station, buying two tickets with some coins.
She was still carrying her sundress, which she understood looked strange, so she folded it up as small as she could and clasped it in one hand as they sat on the train. She played with the buttons of it. What had she done? Had she killed the bellboy?
Wordlessly she slipped her hand in her pocket and passed David the envelopes that Brandon Peterson had given her.
His back hurt like fuck. Like someone had taken a blowtorch to it. Throb, throb, throb, in time with the motion of the train. Molly slipped her hand into his, and he took a deep breath of relief that she was still alive, that they had escaped death by virtue of tipping a bellboy to bring the car around.
He looked down at their clasped hand and a coldness trickled down his spine. There was something else in there too. He met her eyes, which looked as though wariness and pain were weighing her down. Hooking his finger under the paper between their hands, he slowly dragged it into his lap.
It was one, no two small envelopes. One had been opened. They had her name on them, small enough to be a florist’s card. He opened the flap as she looked away. Inside was a small card.
Stamov extraction.
He was pretty sure Stamov was the Russian finance minister, and he suspected that his “extraction” wasn’t referring to a visit to the dentist. He flipped the card over. The other side was blank.
What was a State Department employee doing contacting a foreign minister through a civilian? And why was he leaking what would probably be classified information?
He opened the other note.
Andropov extraction.
He thought Andropov was the Russian prime minister—yeah, that rang a bell.
He gave them back to Molly and took her hand again. They’d talk later. Much later, when no one was listening.
So the Russians were telling everyone that they were under attack from the US. Someone in the US government was warning them that it was true, and now someone was after Molly and David. At least he knew why, now. Someone very definitely didn’t want Molly to give that note to someone in the Russian government. And that was either the CIA or…Fuck. He couldn’t get his head wrapped around it.
Not that he necessarily trusted the CIA to do what was right in any given situation. He’d met too many intelligence officers in Afghanistan who were downright sketchy most of the time. But take down a government by picking people off? Unlikely.
The train terminated at the port city of Piraeus, where Molly took out five hundred euros and then paid for a one-way ticket to Cyprus, which was the farthest island served by the ferries. The ferry would leave just about the time they got back on the metro to return to Athens. It was a good plan, if he said so himself. It would keep anyone from following them and getting them in a pickle. Another Mal-ism. It would keep from getting them in a shit-ton of trouble.
They caught the train back to Monastiraki, which was the main tourist area of Athens. Much easier to blend in there. When they emerged from the station, it was dusk, and the partiers had come out to play. Throngs of people ambled in the street, so he adopted their pace and walked with his arm wrapped around Molly’s shoulders like so many other couples.
He found a hotel in a graffitied backstreet, just a few doors down from a basement “adult” sex shop. The hotel lobby was clean and well furnished, looking more like a boutique hotel than the façade would have suggested. They checked in using cash and fake names, and eventually were given a key to a room on the third floor. The elevator took an age to come, and when it did they got in silently.
“What did…?” Molly started to say.
He placed his finger on her lips and then claimed them in a kiss. Just for appearances. Just in case there was an elevator security camera. Yeah right.
A bolt of longing, need, and relief wrapped itself around his heart as she rose on her sneakered tiptoes and leaned into the kiss. Despite everything that had happened, this degree of need took him by surprise.
The door pinged loudly as it opened, echoing around the small space. Molly jerked away from the kiss, looking mussed and flustered, but there was no one there. No one in the short corridor either. He grabbed her hand, wanting to get a lockable door between them and the world as fast as possible.
As soon as the door swung shut on them, he lifted her up by her hips, finding her mouth again with his, because there were no words for what had happened. She kissed him back with a ferocity that lit a fire inside him.
He wanted to rip her clothes off, but he didn’t know how long she could wear the sundress alone, how long they would be there, so instead he put her back on the floor and carefully, with shaking hands, undid the buttons of her blouse.
She batted his hands away and whipped the silky thing off over her head. The beige lace of her bra made her seem naked for a second. He trailed the backs of his hand lightly over her arms. Her skin was warm, alive to his touch. Alive. Thank God they hadn’t evaporated into the night air in the car. He shook his head for a second to clear the image of the explosion, but instead his brain took him to his friend Danny, who’d been blown up in Iraq. They’d been dicking around…until they hadn’t. Until Danny was gone forever. And they could have been too.
Molly took his face in her hands and he was back with her, yet overwhelmed with the euphoria of being alive. He tried to rein in his impulse to crush her to him, but when she looked in his eyes, she must have seen something. She stepped back and unzipped her charred skirt. In a second she’d wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him to her mouth.
Proof of life had never felt so good.
“I need you now,” she murmured against his lips.
The lady didn’t need to ask again. He sat her on the small dresser next to the window and yanked off her panties. He shoved his own pants down and her hand reached for him while she was wriggling to the edge so she could get closer.
She drew him to her, but he took her hand away and put it behind her so she was leaning back. He ran the tip of his dick over her clit, watching as her eyes fluttered closed and her mouth dropped open.
His body blazed with a need to consume her. He pushed into her in one hard stroke. Heat shot through his balls into the base of his spine. He was going to last no time at all…
He held himself in place, feeling her body pulse around him. “Maybe someone’s watching us through the window,” he said. “Do you want me to open the curtains a little farther?”
She started for a second and then relaxed, her breathing kicking up as she twitched around his dick. She gazed into his eyes and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
It was all fantasy, the window faced a wall, but he pulled the net curtains open, flicking them across her back as he did. “Take your bra off.”
She didn’t hesitate, she unfastened it, and allowed it to fall to the floor.
He pulled out of her slowly and grabbed her legs, swiveling her so she was lying across the dresser, giving the wall, and her fantasy, a better view.
He bent over her and dragged a nipple into his mouth. He held it between his teeth and flicked his tongue over its hardness.
His dick strained up, and he was thankful that she was in no position to grab it. He had no idea if he’d be able to hold it together if she did.
Her head fell back, and he wondered for a second if she was imagining someone else watching them. The thought sent waves of arousal through him that took him by surprise.
He gently bit her other nipple and plunged his hand between her legs. Jesus Christ she was so wet. So fucking wet. He dipped his head to her and ran his tongue and fingers over her clit.
Her legs dropped open to give him more access. He’d never been with a woman so open to his touch, so comfortable with her sexuality. It nearly blew his mind that she was his. He knew there was some mental correction to do there, but his mind was consumed with the taste of her. His dick ached to be inside her again. Literally throbbed to feel her hot and wet around him.
He plunged two fingers inside her and curled his fingers behind her clitoris. His whole mouth covered it, stroking it with the flat of his tongue.
Her breath became audible, and then she gasped his name as she contracted around his fingers. He didn’t wait for her spasms to recede, he moved her back around so she was sitting at the edge of the dresser and just took her. No tentative pushes, no gentle strokes, just one thrust that blasted through his brain with stars and heat.
God, he needed to be farther inside her. He picked her up and laid her across on the bed, holding her legs open for him. He thrust, hard, his balls slapping against her. She moaned and raised her butt, giving him those all-important millimeters of access.
Everything in him tightened. Molly grabbed her breasts and, with her thumb and forefinger, pinched her nipples, her eyes on his. That was it. While hot heat pulsed from his lower back all the way up his spine to his head as he came. Fuck, yeah.
“You’re amazing,” she said, pulling herself up on her elbows. He felt her deliberately squeeze his dick. He eased out of her, by habit grabbing his dick to keep the condom on. Except…no condom. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. Not even once. He’d never had sex without a condom. That was one thing that was beaten into them at bootcamp.
“Molly. I didn’t use a condom. Are you…?”
“It’s okay, I’m on the pill. And I swear I’ve been celibate since I met you. You bastard.” She shifted on the bed and laid her head on the pillow.
Relief…didn’t flow through him. What was wrong with him? He climbed on the bed and lay next to her, pulling a sheet over both of them. “Why am I a bastard again? I mean, you’re probably right, but why?”
“After I left Iraq, I looked for you everywhere. I don’t mean I looked for you online, or tried to find out where you live…I mean, you said you’d come find me, and I trusted that you would. I expected to find you on my doorstep every time I came home. When I wasn’t at home, I thought I saw you a hundred times. But it was never you. You ruined my whole year.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as her eyes drooped closed. “That’s why you’re a bastard.”
Her breathing changed almost immediately, and she was asleep faster than a cat. He didn’t even get the opportunity to apologize, or explain, or revel in the fact that she’d been saving herself for him to show up. That he’d wasted a year. He imagined for a moment what that year could have looked like. Sharing a bed, a home, a life. His last thought was of him and Molly on a sofa, just watching television. So mundane.
So fucking amazing.
CHAPTER NINE
She woke as the light came in through the window they’d left uncovered. She smiled as she remembered the sex last night. He blew her mind. She visualized for a second that someone had been watching him go down on her. Heat pooled between her legs again. What was wrong with her?
They were in trouble unless something happened, but all she could think about was David and his talented tongue, dick, and fingers. If she were going to prison, she’d at least have a lot of great memories to pull from while serving time.
David turned over, grabbing her and spooning her from behind. She moved, allowing him to get comfortable, and then settled back against him. His arm was wrapped around her waist, and her whole body was held against his.
He released the tightness around her waist and twisted his arm slightly, just so that it brushed her nipples. They sprang to life almost immediately. Was he even awake? His breathing was deep and steady. He had to still be asleep. He rolled his arm against her nipples again, causing her to bite back a whimper. He said nothing, but gently moved his hand so he could stroke the top of her breast, all the way to her nipple and back again.
She was torn. Should she stay still and let him drive her crazy in his freaking sleep, or wake him up?
He gently touched her again, and she strained for more contact. Her breasts felt flushed, and she was almost tempted to touch them herself. He seemed to love watching that yesterday.
Instead his fingers trailed down her belly, caressing the slight curve of her. He must be asleep. His touch was so lazy, so gentle. So unlike him. She moved a tiny bit, so that if his sleeping self wanted to go further he could. How brazen was she being, anyway?
His fingers slid down the top of her thigh, gently making patterns that were driving her crazy. He shifted against her so that she was almost lying on her stomach, her upper leg now bent to stop her rolling completely on her front. Please. Touch me. She could feel her own wetness without even touching herself.
He stroked her ass cheek, over and over until she wanted to scream.
Just when she couldn’t take any more, he dipped his fingers, so lightly, first lightly circling her ass, then the side of her thighs, back to her ass, so lightly touching that she wondered if she was imagining it.
But no. He trailed down her leg, and when he brought his fingers up again, they stroked her outer lips, before delving farther in with his return stroke. He hesitated and felt her wetness again. A groan rumbled through his body, but he did nothing except play in the wetness, making her crazy. Then he used three fingers to lubricate her clit. She was so excited she was going to come any fucking moment.
Just when she thought he was going to let her come, his fingers pressed back to her ass, pushing gently for admittance. But just when she thought this was going to take a whole other turn, he went back to her clit. Circling it first with his wet fingers, he then used two fingers to play. He rubbed directly on it first, then slightly to one side, which brought a whole new sensation pulsing through her body, then he just used one finger. Lightly playing over it, until she felt herself rocking against his hand, teetering on the precipice before tumbling over in a wave of pleasure, heat, and wantonness.
As her orgasm subsided, she turned. His eyes were fully open, not even sleepy looking. “You were awake this whole time?” she asked.
“You think I do this kind of thing in my sleep? Not too wise when I spent nearly all my formative years sleeping in dorms with other guys.”
She laughed. When he put it like that…
“Well you never know,” she said. “You might have got this.”
She sprang up, sliding on top of him, straddling his thighs and pressing her still-wet clitoris against his hard dick lying flat against his stomach. He jumped. But not as much as when she slid his whole dick inside her.
She sat up, and raised and lowered herself on him. He clamped his teeth together breathing in tightly. “Jesus.”
She slipped a pillow under his head so he could see better, because she wanted him to see her. She wanted to be sure that if he left her, then he would have a lot of memories to torture himself with.
She leaned right back so he could see his dick disappearing inside her. With one hand she braced herself, and with the other she reached behind her and squeezed his balls. He groaned, and pumped faster inside her, gaze firmly at the place they were joined. Just when she thought he was going to come, she sat up and touched the base of his dick as it was thrusting into her.
He gripped her thighs as he came, shuddering into her, eyes closed. She was never going to forget him, that was for sure.
He wrapped his arm around her and brought her head to his chest. His heart was still racing. They lay there for a while—long enough for Molly to wonder what he was thinking about. Long enough to remember what they were running from, what had happened last night.
“My God. Someone tried to kill us last night,” she said.
“But they didn’t,” David said. “And we’ve definitely done enough here to prove to ourselves that we’re still alive, don’t you think?”
She could hear a smile in his voice, but his words injected a thread of certainty. This amazing sex was because they were in danger. That’s all it was. Their lives were so different, there was no way they could make this work. And despite his best efforts, they were on the run in a foreign country with a few hundred euros to their names. He seemed fine, but she was starting to believe it was because he was calling on his training, and concentrating on the job at hand. She wasn’t sure how reliable he’d be if he didn’t have a mission on his mind. How…steady. She sighed at herself. She shouldn’t be thinking about this. She should only be thinking about stopping the death and destruction that had dogged her since she set foot in Athens.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“You’re going to tell me about that message you were trying to give Doubrov,” he said.
She tried to sit up, get off the bed or something, but he held her tight until she relaxed against him. “I was sworn to secrecy,” she said.
“Sweetheart. I think that ship has sailed. I need to know what you got into so I can help fix it, okay?” He said, his voice rumbling through his chest.
She raised her head and examined his face for something she could trust. He’d been with the military, so she could trust that part of him, but then he’d gone all rogue with the mercenaries. She knew nothing about the company he was with now, but she guessed she needed to trust him with that part of the nightmare, at least. If he let her down, then shame on him.
She took a deep breath. “After Iraq last year, Henrietta and I were debriefed by people in the State Department. Brandon was a low-level guy who took notes and brought tea and coffee. He was nice, serious…solicitous even. He made sure we knew when the different hearings were and made sure we were where we were supposed to be, when we were supposed to be.
“I heard nothing from him since, until he called me last week. He asked to meet me before I caught my flight to Athens. He asked me if I would do one thing to help my country. Of course I said yes.”
David’s mind ran at a hundred miles an hour. Who recruited a civilian to do anything involving the Russian government? His instinct was to beat some sense into the nitwit.
“He gave me the two envelopes and told me to wait for a text to tell me which message to pass to Dr. Doubrov at that cocktail party. And the rest you know. Except I haven’t been able to get in contact with him since the professor was shot.”
David got up and took the notes from his pants pocket. Brandon Peterson. BP. The fucking pen that had been used as an improvised trigger. BP? But why? Why send someone on an errand and then try to make sure the person she was supposed to deliver a message to was killed? The only reason would be an aborted mission. But then why not just call Molly and tell her to flush the notes?
One thing he knew. He wanted to talk to Peterson. He seemed to be the only guy with the answers.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him, placing a light hand on his shoulder.
He told her about the explosives that he and Mal had found, and the monogrammed empty pen casing that they’d found as part of the device. “I need to speak to Brandon Peterson. And I suspect that he’s here in Athens.”
She tucked some hair behind her ear, and suddenly all he wanted was to stay and absorb all the tiny movements she made. The scratching of an itch on the side of her nose, the little sniff she made of her coffee before sipping it, pushing her hair off her face. All the little details that made a memory real. That gave it depth. He closed his eyes against the thought that he was collecting memories. Preparing never to see her again.
“What can I do?” she asked, wrapping a sheet around her. It was the first time she’d hidden herself from him. Could she tell he was thinking about being without her? About only having memories to keep him warm?
“You can tell me what he looks like.”
“I can do better than that if you give me five minutes.” She grabbed the notepad and pen the hotel staff had left by the phone and began to draw.
“You’re an artist too?” He was starting to feel decidedly like a one-trick pony next to her.
She looked up from her sketch. “Not even close. But when you’re an archaeologist you spend your rookie year sketching what people dig up. I had to go from stick-figures to dimensional perspective in a few short months.” She went back to the notepad and smiled as she drew. “Here.”
She’d drawn a distinctive looking man. Which made his job easier. He memorized the face. “What does he wear?” he asked.
“I’ve only seen him a few times, and each time he was in a well-tailored slim-fitting suit.” She closed her eyes as if to visualize him. “A battered brown leather briefcase, like an heirloom or something. It doesn’t match his dark gray suits and white shirts and dark ties. But he always has it with him.”
He lay back on the bed and tried to formulate a plan. Not much of a plan, but he figured if he staked out the embassy, Peterson would show sooner or later.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and bit back a groan. His back was still sore, and frankly his joints weren’t what they used to be. Sometimes he felt like an old man when he got up. All the training and all the explosions during the past fifteen years had taken an unnatural toll on his body. Nothing a run wouldn’t fix…which would be fine if he were on vacation.
“Let’s see what the news says.” He clicked the TV on, pressing the VOLUME button quickly so it wouldn’t disturb the quiet ambiance between them in the small room. He looked back at her. Why couldn’t they just be simple? A couple who’d met at a grocery store, or through friends, or, fuck, even online. Finding someone like Molly was like finding a unicorn in a boot camp latrine.
“Try CNN,” she said. “I was wondering if Victoria might be on. You know how they plug into an affiliate’s news feed. Her channel is small, I think, but she’s on site, so this might be a much bigger story than fracking.”
He found the CNN World station at the end of what seemed like an endless stream of Greek and other European game show channels. His heart sank a little when he realized that the car bomb was in fact obviously the most interesting thing that had happened that day in Europe.
“Turn it up. I can’t hear.” Molly shuffled forward and sat next to him on the edge of the bed.
He obliged.
“This terror attack has sent uneasy ripples through the international diplomatic community. The G20 meetings are supposed to be a major show of cooperation and solidarity, but this year, in Athens, tensions between Russia and the US seem to be escalating in an out-of-control way. Here’s Alex Bernard from the scene of last night’s car bomb attack. What do you know, Alex?”
“Well, Kathy, as you say, tensions are high here. We don’t know much. The Greek authorities are keeping most of the information to themselves. What I will say is that Russian law enforcement have been invited to participate in these investigations.”
“Isn’t that unusual, Alex?” the anchor in the US asked.
“Under normal circumstances it would be strange. But with Greece in debt to the European Union, and with Russia offering, unofficially, to cover their debt, the relationship between the two countries has never been closer. Which is causing uneasy undercurrents with the other EU countries represented here. Also, of course, it was the assassination of the Russian minister earlier this week that started this campaign of terror.”
Molly grabbed his hand and he stroked his thumb over hers. They kept flashing to footage of the exploded SUV.
“Thank you, Alex,” the anchor continued. “And with only just over two weeks to go until the world leaders descend on Athens for the leadership meetings, authorities are looking to wrap up this investigation quickly and bring the terrorists to justice.”
David turned the sound down a little. “I’m going to go out for a while, see if I can find Peterson. Will you stay in the hotel and wait for me? I think breakfast is served up on the eighth floor. But you should stay inside.”
“Sure, I can do that. Nothing like an excuse to lounge around, I guess.”
“Do you need anything?” he asked, as he went into the bathroom.
“Toothbrush and toothpaste. That’s all I need, I think. I have my phone, money, and passport in my purse. The only thing I left in my case was my fancy dress and shoes, toiletries and workout gear.” She shrugged. “Hopefully I’ll get them back at some stage?”
“I’m sure,” he lied as he bent to kiss the top of her head. “Take the battery out of your phone, so they can’t trace you. I’ll be back soon.”
