Extreme Measures

18

Dirt and leaves and grass filled Eve’s mouth.

She coughed, rolled to her side, and grimaced at the burn in her side. Heat spread over her skin. She pulled her eyelids apart to see the trees, the forest, everything in flames.

“Get up. Gotta keep moving.”

Zane’s hand tugged on her arm, pulling her to her feet. In a daze she tried to make sense of the explosion. Tried to see through the flames and smoke to what lay beyond. Tried to find—

“Carter!” She jerked hard on Zane’s arm, stopping him from pulling her.

“He’s dead, Eve.”

“No!” Eve struggled against his grip.

Zane’s dirt-streaked face appeared right in front of hers, his eyes wide and intense, and she registered his strong arms gripping her upper arms. “He’s dead. They both are. And we will be too if we don’t get the fuck out of here now.”

Dead. They . . . Oh shit. Natalie. Carter. Both of them.

Zane yanked her forward. Her muscles reacted even if her mind was having trouble keeping up. Gripping the gun tightly in her other hand, she ran with him through the trees, away from the carnage. Her stomach rolled. Sickness threatened, but she fought it back. Just like every other time an op had gone wrong and someone had died.

But this was Carter . . .

Don’t think about him. Don’t think about them.

They stumbled onto a golf course. Zane didn’t let up on his hold. He tugged her into the trees, around shrubs and rocks and saplings, not giving her a moment to rest. Not giving her time to think. Only time to feel.

Dead.

No . . . Not both of them. Not because of her.

They reached another parking lot, this one for the golf course. Sweating and out of breath, Zane finally released his grip long enough so Eve could double over and suck in air. Her stomach rolled all over again. And then the burn started low and bubbled up.

She stumbled for a bush and retched what was in her stomach. Pain consumed every part of her. Dead. Both of them. All because of her.

“Come on. I got a car.”

She registered Zane’s voice. Not the words or the tone. Just that it was familiar. He tugged on her arm. “This way.”

Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she stumbled after him toward a Honda. A back window was broken in. He popped the passenger door and helped her in. Tossing the pack in the backseat, he moved to the driver’s seat, pulled the panel off the area below the steering wheel, and yanked out a handful of wires.

She wanted to ask him where he’d learned to hot-wire a car but couldn’t find her voice. Her throat burned. Her stomach ached. And when she thought about Carter and Natalie . . .

“I’m going to be sick.”

Zane shoved her head between her knees. “Breathe.”

Seconds later the ignition started. Zane leaned back in his seat. “Hold on.”

Time rushed by with the scenery. Eve didn’t know how long they drove or in what direction. She heard Zane on his cell phone but didn’t know who he was talking to. Couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing. All she could see was Natalie hefted over Carter’s shoulder, Carter running the wrong way, and then the world burning in a fireball like the one in Seattle. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head against the window and tried not to get sick all over again.

She awoke sometime later. The car had stopped. It was raining. It was always raining somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Cool air washed over her when the driver’s door opened and closed. “I changed the plates,” Zane said, settling behind the wheel. Water droplets stuck in his hair and on his shoulders and arms. “And I don’t think anyone’s following us. At least not yet.”

Her eyes slid closed again as he pulled back onto the highway. Tipping her head away from him, she focused on the hum of the windshield wipers. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her stomach hurt, and her head throbbed. She didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to feel. The hum of the wipers grew louder.

It was dusk when she felt the car stop again. Blinking several times, she looked out the windshield at the monstrous log cabin with its multitude of porches and windows and different levels in surprise. “Wh-where are we?”

“Safe house.” Zane popped the door and stepped out into the rain. “Come on.”

In a daze, she climbed out of the car and moved for the front porch. Rain ran down her cheeks and beaded on her clothes, but she barely felt it. She climbed up the steps and moved onto the porch after him, waiting while he checked the pots along the side of the house for what she suspected was a spare key.

He disappeared around the corner of the house, and Eve slowly turned to look around. Tall pine and Douglas fir trees rose toward the dark sky. They were obviously in the mountains, though at what elevation she couldn’t tell, and since she hadn’t paid attention to the direction Zane had been driving, they could be in Canada for all she knew. There were no other vehicles anywhere close. No other homes that she could see, either. Just dense forest growing darker by the minute, and ominous clouds that mirrored her mood.

Dead.

Her stomach rolled again. Pain wrapped knotted, gnarled fingers around her chest. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose to keep from getting sick once more. Carter was dead. Because of her. Carter and Natalie. Probably Olivia too. If those were the same men who’d taken her sister, there was no hope for Olivia’s return now.

She’d dealt with death before, but this hit too close to home. This was too real. This was her fault.

Footsteps echoed close, and Eve managed to open her eyes just as Zane came around the corner. He held something shiny in his hand. “Got it.”

Seconds later they were in the house. Light pine floors ran from the massive entryway toward a two-story family room and, beyond that, an industrial-sized kitchen. A curved staircase rose to the second floor. Wide windows covered the entire back wall of the great room, looking out over the enormous back deck, the grass, and the pristine blue lake.

He closed and locked the door behind him, then grasped her hand. “Come on.”

He led her into the great room. Plush furnishings surrounded a huge rock fireplace that ran to the ceiling. An elaborate mantle stretched from one side to the other. Above, an enormous flat-screen TV was mounted to the wall. Past the kitchen on the right, a large round mahogany table sat in a bay of towering windows, looking out toward the lake. He pulled out one of the ten chairs around it and pushed her to sit. Then grabbed the arm of her left sleeve and pulled.

Fabric ripped. Startled by the sound, Eve looked down where he was kneeling next to her. “What are you doing?”

“You’re hit. Hold still while I see how bad it is.”

The white sleeve was stained with soot and blood and dirt. She stared at the jagged wound across her biceps, swollen and red, not even feeling it.

“It’s just a scratch.” He pushed to his feet and disappeared. “Stay here.”

She looked around the room, feeling numb inside. She should get up. She should be trying to find her sister. She should be tracking those men who’d blown up that park and killed her friends. But she didn’t have the energy. Didn’t have the drive. Didn’t have . . . anything anymore.

Dead.

Zane knelt next to her again. “This might sting.”

Something cool brushed her arm, but she barely registered the sensation. He cleaned and bandaged the wound, then pushed to his feet. Seconds passed before he said, “I need to move the car. You gonna be okay for a few minutes?”

Was she okay? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t answer.

Footsteps echoed across the floor. Then the door opened and closed. Minutes later he was back, shaking the rain from his hair and locking the door once more. When he moved back into the room, she heard him mutter, “God, you’re a mess,” but she didn’t have the energy to fight with him or even look his way.

“Whose house is this?”

He moved into the kitchen and flipped on a light. “A high-profile client. It’s a vacation home in the Cascades. No one will find us. We’re safe for the time being.”

For the time being. That didn’t do much to bolster Eve’s mood. She turned and looked out at the water. “I thought you weren’t speaking to your boss at Aegis.”

“I am now.”

He didn’t elaborate, and Eve couldn’t help but wonder what else had happened in the hours she’d been out of it, but she still didn’t have the desire to ask.

“Is there”—she swallowed the lump in her throat—“any news about Olivia?”

“No, none. I’m sorry.”

None. She didn’t expect there to be. Olivia was dead. Just like Natalie. Just like Carter. Just like that child in the street in Seattle.

All because of her.

She closed her eyes again. Focused on the sounds. The fridge opening. A cupboard door slapping shut. A pan landing on a burner. Familiar, normal sounds.

Just don’t think. Just don’t feel.

A click echoed in front of her, and she opened her eyes to see a plate of scrambled eggs on the table.

“Eat,” Zane said.

She didn’t feel like eating. And just the sight of food made her stomach roll. He went back into the kitchen and returned with his own plate and two glasses of water.

Water. Water she could manage. She picked up the glass and downed the entire thing.

“There’s something you need to know.” He waited until she put the glass down before going on. “Jake Ryder, the CEO of Aegis Security, and ADD Roberts went to school together. I don’t know all the details, but they don’t get along. Aegis was passed over on the defense contract for the Guatemala mission. Ryder got pissed and told the government they could go fuck themselves. He makes enough money off private security where he doesn’t need the State Department’s kickback. But it was a big deal at the time. And then, surprisingly, a few weeks later, Aegis was awarded the contract.”

Slowly, Eve turned to look his way. And a tiny part of her brain kicked into gear. “You’re telling me the assistant deputy director at the CIA is the one who set Aegis up to take the fall for Humbolt’s death.”

“That’s the way it’s looking.”

“And by that theory, ADD Roberts is the one after Humbolt’s formula.”

“Yes.”

“My boss.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “In counterintelligence.”

Zane exhaled a breath and rested his forearm on the table. “Think about it. If he really did set Aegis up because of some vendetta against Ryder, and he sent you in to get the drop from Smith, then his hands are all over a lot of sticky shit.”

Eve considered for a moment. She worked for the world’s greatest spy agency. She knew there were double agents in the organization. Knew there were compromised agents. Hell, her job was to find them. And though there were a variety of reasons a person could turn, usually they were focused around money, ideology, coercion, or ego. ADD Roberts was, as Carter had pointed out, a mover within the Agency. Eve couldn’t see any of the above four reasons compromising his chance at one day being director of the CIA.

“How did you know the op in Guatemala was compromised?” Zane asked.

Eve’s brain was suddenly spinning way too fast. She pushed her untouched eggs away, rested her elbow on the table, and rubbed her throbbing head. “I got a call from Langley. A researcher who’d originally helped me pull info on both you and Carter before I went to Beirut.”

“And he or she said what?”

She rubbed harder. “That word of the raid had leaked, and that the op was compromised.”

“But no info about how or where it was leaked?”

“No.”

Zane was quiet for a second and then said, “Ryder’s on his way here. He’s digging up info on Roberts so we can figure out how to play this.”

She dropped her hand, and her gaze snapped his direction. “Here?”

He pushed back from the table and took his plate into the kitchen. “I figure it’s time we brought in some help on this.”

Eve’s stomach rolled all over again. Did they need help? She wasn’t so sure. The only out she could see at this point was total surrender. “Carter was right. I need to call Langley and turn myself in.”

Zane’s plate clattered in the sink. “What?”

“You’ll have to turn yourself in too, but they’re not going to find any involvement in all of this on your part. You’ll be released in a couple of days.”

“Fuck that. They shot at me, Eve. At you too. They almost killed us, more than once. And one of them has a Chechen terrorist cell behind them. You think you’re safe at Langley? You’re not safe there. You’re not safe anywhere. Look at Carter. You’re not safe until we figure out who’s really behind this shit once and for all. You go there, and you’re dead.”

Dead.

Like Carter.

Like Natalie.

Like Olivia.

All because of me.

Eve closed her eyes, and a wave of nausea rolled through her belly.

Footsteps echoed across the floor. Then her chair jolted, and the legs scraped against the floor. “Open your eyes, dammit.”

She tore her eyes open, shocked to see Zane leaning over her, one hand resting against the back of her chair, which he’d obviously kicked away from the table. His gaze was as dark and intense as she’d ever seen it, and a fire brewed inside him, one that marked him as dangerous. As deadly. As a force not to be ignored.

“Don’t you fucking give up on me now. You want to be tired and sad. Fine. Be that way. But you’re not turning yourself in. Not after everything we’ve been through. People died out there today because of us. We owe them more than that.”

Her temper flared, and she knocked his hand away from her chair and stood. “People died because of me. Not because of you. Don’t tell me what we owe them. We don’t owe them shit.” Nausea rolled through her belly all over again. “I do.”

The fire in his eyes dimmed just a touch, and he straightened. “What happened out there today was not your fault.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and moved to the window, looking out at the darkening view. But that hollow feeling in her chest was growing bigger, more consuming, threatening to pull her under. “I don’t see anyone else in the middle of this nightmare. Only me.”

He stepped back, but from the corner of her eye, she watched a muscle in his jaw clench. “No, that’s right. It’s only you. Everything’s always about you. It’s your fault your sister was taken. It’s your fault Roberts set you up. It’s your fault Humbolt created that damn file in the first place. Hell, since we’re blaming you for shit, I’m sure it was your fault I was stationed in Beirut to begin with.”

He was talking to her like she was a child. Like she was an idiot. She glared hard over her shoulder. “Don’t mock me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare.” He held up both hands in surrender. “The great Evelyn Wolfe’s got it all figured out. She knows how to deal with this mess because, frankly, she started it all. So why don’t you do that, Eve. Why don’t you just worry about yourself and take care of everything on your own. God knows you’ve been doing it long enough. Should be second nature by now.”

The hurt mixed with sarcasm in his voice made her drop her arms and turn away from the window. “I told you to leave. I told you not to get involved in all of this. If you’d gone when I said, you could have explained your way out of this mess without too many consequences. I told you I didn’t need your help.”

“No, you never do.” His eyes hardened. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The fact you don’t want or need anyone’s help, not even mine. Well, you know what? That’s fine. You made your point, and I’m finally listening. Once Ryder gets here, I’m gone. It was my mistake for sticking with you and thinking you actually cared about someone other than yourself.”

He turned for the foyer, and Eve’s pulse picked up speed, followed by a sharp pinch in her chest that radiated pain all through her torso. He was leaving. Now. Because of what she’d said. Sweat broke out all over her skin, and a tiny voice in her head screamed, Stop him!

But instead of the front door opening and closing like she’d expected to hear, footsteps sounded on the curved staircase that led from the entry to the second floor, followed by a door slamming somewhere upstairs.

Hands shaking, she pulled out a chair and sat, then wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned forward in the hopes it would ease the ache growing in the pit of her stomach.

It didn’t help.

The sharp slap of rejection she’d seen in his eyes cut deeper than his words. He thought she didn’t care. He thought that all this time she’d been telling him to go because he meant nothing to her. He couldn’t possibly know he meant more to her than anyone ever had. She wouldn’t be able to survive his death too. Couldn’t he see that?

How would he?

That niggling voice in the back of her mind reminded her she’d never told him. That she’d barely admitted it to herself. That she had one chance now to do the right thing where he was concerned. She’d fucked up everything else, but this she could fix. Or at least, end. The right way. Which was something she should have done a long time ago.

But doing it . . .

Her stomach twisted tighter. Doing it meant watching everything he felt for her slowly wither and die.