Читать книгу Checkmate - Doranna Durgin - Страница 11

“N o,” Cole said into the phone, more firmly than he should and less firmly than he wanted. “I just got back. I’ve got something going on here, and I’m not going anywhere until it’s settled.” He wrapped the damp towel around his neck, a match to the one tucked around his hips, and barely listened to the persistent voice in his ear. Given the frequency with which Selena checked e-mail, he should have heard from her by now. He should have had an answer to his simple, straightforward question.

What’s wrong?

“No,” he said again, this time with a sharp shake of his head that his caller would have known to heed had he seen it. “Even if you couldn’t do without me on this, you owe me. You’d never have uncovered that budding little problem without me—hell, you’d never even have known about it. And who else do you have who can switch-hit with the FBI so easily? So back off, Sarge.”

The man wasn’t a sergeant. But in an organization where rank was rarely assigned, the nickname served its purpose.

“Yeah, okay.” Cole pulled the towel away from his neck, idly rubbing it across his still-damp chest, and glanced into the living room where he’d left the television on. Special news flash, generic sort of logo that meant whatever had happened was either too new or too unimportant to have its own catchy headline name. “I’ll be in touch at this number. It goes where I go, right? But don’t be surprised if I answer from Berzhaan.”

That got a little snort of disbelief, a warning to watch his ass if he even looked at that part of the world, and an abrupt sign-off that left Cole looking at his phone in bemusement. Berzhaan wasn’t vacationland, but the FBI wouldn’t have sent Selena into a war zone.

Especially not now. Not when he had a marriage to fix—and needed the chance to do it.

Except he looked up from the phone to find a map of that small country on the television with a dramatic arrow pointing at Suwan; the image flipped to an imposing building with barricades all around it, emergency and military vehicles beyond that, and an ambulance speeding away from the outside edge of it all. Berzhaan was the special news flash. Berzhaan and a sudden surge of violence across the country, killing people, destroying their livelihoods. “No one knows the Kemenis’ exact goals or what drove them to this move just when their arms dried up…” And the building was the Berzhaan capitol, only a few blocks from the embassy out of which Selena worked. The embassy that had apparently been evacuated as soon as the siege of the capitol began.

Then where’s Selena?

Selena pinned her hopes on finding a master key on the stolen key ring, and sighed with relief when the fourth key she tried snicked neatly into the well-lubricated lock of the room at the end of the guest quarters hall. No one answered her quiet knock, but she found the room littered with signs of use and tried the next door down.

This room looked ready for guests—or at least, ready to be ready. There were no flowers on the table in the suite’s first room, and when she found the bedroom she didn’t see any dents on the pillow. But it was clean and ready for whatever final touches were deemed appropriate for its next occupant.

She didn’t intend to stay here long. Sooner or later the Kemenis would do a room-to-room search, rounding up anyone they might have missed the first time through. She’d give them enough time to settle down…but not so much they’d entirely have their act together. And even though her inclination to rush down and check out the situation drove at her, she forced herself to brew a cup of tea from the supplies in the kitchenette. Her stomach hadn’t been more than grumbly, but tea might well calm it further.

And then she sat cross-legged on the floor on the opposite side of a plush chair, giving herself a good view of the double-locked door while remaining discreetly tucked away, her briefcase at her side. She sipped tea and she considered the situation and how little she knew of it so far. Kemenis. They seemed to have based themselves in the public part of the capitol. The ballroom, perhaps, where the students would have been. She still needed to discover their intent. If they were holding hostages, to what purpose? What demands would they make…and how soon would they start killing people to achieve those demands?

For the Kemenis had never demonstrated a reluctance to kill people.

Quiet moments later, Selena set aside the tea, pulling her knees up to briefly rest her forehead there. Her stomach felt better…soothed. Her mind still whirled with unanswered questions—was she actually, truly pregnant? So hard to tell with her whimsical cycles…Had Cole actually, truly faked an assignment to have an affair? So hard to tell with his astonishing ability to play the moment…to play people.

But it shouldn’t have been. She should have just known. And he was sending e-mail from their home computer, returned sooner than expected. Not surprisingly—he obviously hadn’t had far to travel. Selena pulled her phone from the leather pocket on the side of her briefcase and turned it on. Its pale blue LED screen informed her she had voice mail, and that she had less than half the battery life left. She stared at it, tempted.

No. She’d wait until she had answers to her other questions—the Kemenis’ intentions, their manpower.

Answers it was just about time to find out.

In her hand, the phone vibrated. Selena jumped, chided herself for being nervy and checked the incoming number.

Cole. Of course it was Cole; the message was probably his, too. It’d been forty-five minutes, maybe even an hour since the Kemenis had made their move on the capitol. By now CNN had a live feed going. He’d be expecting to find her at the embassy…and he’d be wrong.

The phone gave another hopeful vibration, and this time Selena thumbed the on button, resolutely putting the phone to her ear. “Hello, Cole.”

“Selena!”

She’d never thought to hear Cole frightened. Of anything. But the fear tinged his voice even through this staticky satellite connection. Cole’s voice. It was a wonderful, smooth low voice that triggered a flush of the very emotions she’d been trying to avoid—along with the usual warmth she felt in his presence.

The very reason she had to run so far away in order to sort out her feelings.

She’d always responded to him that way—the first day she met him, the day they’d gotten married, and each and every time he turned that smile on her. With effort, she managed to avoid blurting out her suspicions about being pregnant—because he really didn’t need to know it. Not now, when she was trapped in a building under Kemeni siege. For whatever he’d done, whatever potential affairs he might have conducted, she knew he cared. Right there in his voice, she could hear how much he cared. She just wasn’t sure if he cared in the way that she needed—or if he even could. He was so good at filling so many roles…maybe he simply couldn’t limit himself to one relationship role.

You believed he could when you married him. That he had.

“Lena?”

Selena blinked. Battery time. Don’t waste it. “Listen,” she told him, moving up to her knees so she could react more quickly if anyone came to the door during this time she couldn’t hear them as well. “I’ve got to save this battery, so I only have a moment. I’m in the Berzhaani capitol building.”

He swore a blistering oath, but cut it short. “What’s your situation?”

“At liberty. As far as I know, I’m the only one. I’m about to go down and scope it out, but I think Allori, Razidae, the staff and a whole busload of college students all picked the wrong day to be here.”

“Fits what I’ve heard.” Cole swore again, more softly this time. “Any chance you can get out?”

“I don’t know yet. I doubt it. They know I’m here.” Selena hesitated, hunting the best words. Businesslike words. Orderly words. “What have you heard? What do the Kemenis want?”

“Razidae’s resignation,” Cole said promptly. “Along with all his advisors, support staff, any capitol employee who ever touched the hand of an American in peace and all dogs who’ve wagged their tails at Americans. The cats can stay, because everyone knows they’re notoriously fickle anyway.”

Selena closed her eyes, touching the bridge of her nose. “And the threat? When do they start killing people?”

“That part’s not clear. At least, not as it’s coming over CNN. The truth is, no one out here knows what’s really going on in there. They issued that short statement of demand, and—”

“Then I’ll find out,” Selena said. What the hell were the Kemenis up to? The other members of Razidae’s government would never step down, not even to save Razidae’s life. Those were the prime minister’s own well-known instructions, leaving the Kemenis very little to gain even if they survived. From the tone of Cole’s voice, he felt very much the same. She told him, “I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Stay off the landline.” It was more secure…he’d understand that.

“I’ll be here.” Cole hesitated. Even through her own unexpected relief at this reassurance—she’d rather have no one else handling details on the other end of the phone with her life at stake—Selena could practically see him wrestling with himself. She wasn’t sure if he lost or won when he spoke again. “Lena, I know you’re upset about something—”

At home, he meant. At him. What had given her away? How unfair that he could be so certain of her when she couldn’t manage the same in return.

“—and I know we can’t go into that right now. But don’t forget…” He hesitated, trailing off in a way that meant he was hunting for better words. “Just don’t forget how much I love you.”

She hadn’t expected it. She didn’t know what to say. She let noisy static fill the air between them—wasting time, wasting battery power, but too surprised at the way her heart snatched those words to do anything else.

“I mean it,” Cole said, growing fierce. If he’d been there, he’d have pulled her close by now. He’d be looking down at her, arctic-blue eyes intense with the meaning behind his words, close enough for her to see that quirky dark blue spot on his left iris. “Whatever upset you, whatever goes on there, don’t you dare forget how damn much I love you!”

She couldn’t get her voice above a murmur. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Good,” he growled. “Now go save the day, will you? I’ll be waiting by the phone.” And he cut the connection before she could.

Selena flipped the phone closed, turning it off; her movements came automatically, and she gave them no thought at all. Instead she dropped her forehead back down on her knees.

…how damn much I love you!

It was a lifeline. He knew she’d run, if not why. He knew the peril she faced—if the Kemenis found her, they weren’t likely to escort her to captivity. She’d already caused too much trouble. Come back to me, that’s what he meant. What he wanted.

She gave herself the moment…let herself feel what his voice did to her—what his emotions did for her. Selena, orderly and logical and everything in its place…unless she was with Cole. Unless he sparked the unpredictable in her as he so often did. In the outside world, she wore her precision like a shield; in their apartment, she was just as likely to strip in one room so she could surprise him in another. Like the evening the week before he’d left, when she’d walked into the bedroom during his workout, bare as bare came, and straddled him on the exercise bench.

He lost all the air in his lungs in a surprised gust of exhalation, both arms dropping away in mid butterfly-curl, his chest beautifully exposed and ripe for touching. She moved against him, sighing happily, and by then he was hissing through his teeth, his hands fumbling free of the weights and only making it as far as the bench press bars, which he clutched in helpless reaction.

They’d only been gym shorts. They hadn’t lasted long.

Selena ached to think of the moment, in her heart as well as her body. For as physically sweet as it had been, the memory only hammered home what he meant to her. What he gave to her.

Spontaneity. Unpredictability. Outrageous daring. And right now, if she was going to survive, she needed to find it all within herself, too.