Deep Rising (An Outside the Lines Novel) (Entangled Select) (4 page)

He lounged at her kitchen table carefully dealing out a series of photos as if they were playing cards. A familiar face caught Lana’s eyes, stopping her in her tracks.

Jared stared at her. “Which one?”

She shook her head but didn’t speak.

“Who, Lana?”

It couldn’t be him, could it? She lurched forward, nearly pitching the coffee and accompaniments across the table. Something inside her tore apart, emotional anguish surpassing any physical pain she’d ever experienced.

He was family. How could he possibly do this to her?

Chapter Five

Jared swiped the other photos aside. He zeroed in on the one that had caused her to react. “You know him.”

Lana clammed up. “No.” Her mind spun. This had to be a mistake. Maybe they sought a scapegoat? Whenever an international incident occurred didn’t they always look for someone to burn at the stake?

His hand shot out, grabbing hold of her arm. A choking sound escaped her. Her arm throbbed where his thumb and fingers pressed into her. His overpowering authority prevented rational thought. She willed her mind to clear but her thoughts jumbled. He began talking again, but it was like hearing his voice through mud.

“…and we’re talking eighty million to one. Those kinds of figures justify the means. They make it real easy for me to be objective about you.”

The blood drained from her face. Life began to close in on her. Darkness rimmed her periphery. She concentrated on the front door. Cool air crept in. She wished she could slip from this nightmare to stand in the wispy breeze that lifted the curtains’ edge. Taking a deep breath, she regained a little of her composure.

“Let go of my arm! I want to see my lawyer.”

His laughter mocked her. “I’m not reading you Miranda rights. And just now, we aren’t beholden to the Geneva Convention either. All the bull you watch on CSPAN about foreign policies and criminal rights doesn’t mean jack.”

She shuddered, her body succumbing to fear and shock. If he didn’t back off with his brutal assault, she’d shut down. Not because she wanted to, but because her body had limits and coming off her encounter in Guatemala she recognized what those limits were. “You want me to cooperate? Then change your tactics. I can’t tolerate this!”

He loosened his grip on her arm and repeated his question. “Did you willingly or knowingly perpetrate the attack?”

“No. I swear I didn’t.”

He arched a brow.

She could see he didn’t believe her. She thought he wanted to, but that flicker of grace had vanished. His hand slid along her arm in the barest caress before tightening again. He would keep his promise, she realized, and resort to any and all interrogation techniques necessary. This man didn’t bluff.

“You know the man in the picture?” he asked. “You know who’s responsible for this?”

She gave a barely perceptible nod.

He slowly released her arm. “I don’t want to hurt you, Svetlana.” He leaned back. “Help me. Help me save lives.”

She folded her arms on the table and bowed her head.

…

“I have all night,” Jared drawled.

“He’s my brother.”

“Your brother, Paul Orskya, is twenty years old and has been in Miami for the last two weeks. Witnesses have already confirmed his identity and location.”

Lana tapped her nail against the photograph. “This is my half-brother.”

“Explain.”

“My father is from Kostroma. Before he came to America, long before he ever met my mother, he was intimate with a Dagestan girl. A summer romance, he called it. They were still in high school when she conceived a child. Sergei was born in 1968. My father left Russia when he was twenty, but he stayed in touch with the woman and his son. Even after he married my mother, he continued to send them money.”

“What’s the woman’s name? Where does she live?”

Jared peeled a paper towel off the roll and moistened it beneath the faucet. He pressed the cool compress against a scrape near his elbow, which he’d apparently garnered while waiting in the bushes. He hadn’t noticed it until a bead of sweat had seeped into the cut. It didn’t hurt, but he had learned early on the hazards of infection. Injuries, even the smallest ones, were best treated immediately. He stared at the woman, watching her emotions run the gamut. She seemed tough. He’d give her that. And loyal. Loyalty presented a commodity he didn’t have the time or patience to unravel.

“I think her name is Katia,” she said. “But it’s a moot point.”

“Why?”

“She’s dead.”

“Keep talking.”

“Sergei is a wonderful brother. I stayed with him for a summer when I was nine years old. He’s a very kind man.”

He eased into the chair across from her. “Kind men don’t kill people.”

Her gazed pierced him. “Don’t they?”

He shoved back from the table.

“I didn’t do this,” she said quickly. “I swear I would never intentionally do anything to endanger anyone. You must believe me.”

Yeah, he
wanted
to believe her. And therein lay the problem. There was no way around this particular clusterfuck. He was compromised. In his line of work, there was no room for emotion, no margin for sympathy. And sure as shit, there was absolutely no leeway for attraction.

As it stood, the terrorist remained at large. But this didn’t constitute a dead end, he reminded himself. He’d garnered information, valuable information, and he planned to obtain more.

Lana touched her brother’s photograph. “Sergei wouldn’t do this,” she maintained. “He’s the type of guy who brings groceries to old people and takes in stray cats.”

“The evidence is staggering, Svetlana. He’s intimately associated with a notorious arms dealer. That satellite picture isn’t of him buying gifts for the homeless, it’s a bomb he’s purchasing from The Wolf—one of the most notorious warlords walking the planet.” Three bombs, actually, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Let’s say I actually believe you and this isn’t some Photoshop scam. If you could see him, why the hell didn’t you stop him?”

“We didn’t know who
he
was. Our SEAL teams were trying to intercept The Wolf . He’s a bigger fish, and we’ve been looking to fry him for years. Your brother seemed like small potatoes in comparison. By the time we deciphered the connection, we were unable to pick up his trail.”

“Couldn’t you follow him?” she snapped. “I doubt he walked away with a bomb tucked under his jacket.”

“What do you think we are? A bunch of dilettantes? Of course we tried to track him! He abandoned his vehicle one hundred miles from the transaction point. He wiped down every inch
before
he torched it. Until you just gave me his name, we had nothing conclusive to go on save a blurry satellite photo—which didn’t turn up a damn thing when we ran it through all known-apprehended databases. Does that answer your question? Man-made tsunamis are a fairly new form of warfare.” But if they
had
followed Sergei, if they
had
pursued every possible connection, then maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about a US attack.

“All those people,” she whispered, trailing her fingers across the table to the photo taken just after the tsunami. She pulled it slowly toward her, soundlessly crying. He watched, as she willed herself to stare at it.

Live it. Feel it.

He’d brought the photo on a whim. Thinking he’d come face-to-face with the guilty party, he had planned to shove it at her, forcing the criminal to view the senseless devastation. Instead, he watched an innocent woman choose to gaze upon destruction and loss of life. It nearly overwhelmed him, partly because she elected to do so, partly because he refused to look at it himself. Snatching the photo away from her, he buried it in the stack.

She jolted, as surely as if he’d struck her. Her big, expressive eyes batted up to meet his.

He spun from the table to prowl her kitchen. “No need to cry,” he muttered.

Swiping at her eyes, Lana shoved to her feet. “I’ve seen firsthand what happens after a tsunami. Not that you care, but I nearly died a couple of days ago! I keep picturing myself falling into a crevasse, and every time I close my eyes I relive the moment. Now, you tell me my brother is a terrorist! Sorry, but it’s been a trying week!”

“From your tone, I wager some of those tears stem from frustration.”

“You think?” she shot back.

“Hold out your arms,” he commanded.

“What? Why?” Her expression changed, anger displacing any residual distress. “You have some audacity charging into my house and threatening me. I’ve had enough of it.”

“Yeah. What are ya gonna do about it?”

His comment rendered her speechless. He extracted an electronic wand and scrolled it across her torso.

“W-what are you looking for?” she stuttered. “I haven’t left your sight.”

“I’m checking you for tracing bugs. Now, I strongly suggest you cooperate.” His cell was locked to the CIA’s main data uplink. They were monitoring the house and everything within a five-mile vicinity at this very minute. If anyone tried to approach, he’d know about it. But that wasn’t why he’d delayed scanning her. He’d hesitated because he preferred to see how this would play out. As far as hostages went, she’d been fairly cooperative. That didn’t mean she was telling the truth though. Her tears, the theatrics, the whole “oh no, it’s my brother” spiel could all be a ruse. If he found tech on her, it would mark her a liar. And she’d pay for her deception. Acid shot from his stomach into his throat. So his gut disagreed with him. No surprise there. But if push came to shove it wouldn’t matter how he felt about the matter.

“Stay still, Lana.”

She opened her mouth to protest but apparently decided not to. He slowly traced the wand up one arm, across her torso, and down the next. On his next pass, he scrolled across her waist, up along her stomach, and over the rise of her breasts. His gaze never left hers. Even when her breathing changed and her eyes widened.

When he bent and scanned her ankles, he braced for a kick or some other evasive maneuver, but she didn’t fight. She lifted her legs when prompted. He knew he shouldn’t take any pleasure in this, knew it was wrong on way too many levels to count, to enjoy the hitch in her breath as he moved his hands up her long, shapely legs. To hell with it.

He rose slowly and continued to invade her space. Her eyes were uncertain now, narrowing in a way that wasn’t wholly fearful.

He ran the wand over her head and claimed her hair clip.

She swallowed hard before saying, “People actually think to disguise them as hair accessories?”

“Sometimes.”

A cursory evaluation revealed nothing more than inexpensive plastic and a simple metal spring. His fingers threaded through the silky mass of her hair. As he lifted the heavy strands, he encountered the scent of lilacs. No doubt it was just the remnants of some girlie shampoo, but the scent was evocative, making him think about her hair spread across a bedroom pillow. “More often than not,” he continued, “the devices are subcutaneous.” The soft strands slid between his fingers. His fingers smoothed along her scalp. Her breath hitched as his fingers teased through her hair.

Get your head in the game, Caldwell.

She shook her head to free the strands from his hand, and the spell was broken. “I can assure you, aside from a few fillings, there is nothing foreign in my body.”

He forced himself to stop thinking about her body. “I was just getting to your dental history. Two fillings,” he told her. “One on the upper bicuspid, the second in the lower left molar. I need to scan them, Svetlana.”

She snapped her teeth together.

His hand caught her jaw. “Open your mouth.”

“No.” Although he trumped her in weight and size, Lana stared up at him defiantly, daring him to do his worst.

He didn’t know what he’d anticipated his mark to be like, but it wasn’t this combination of strength and vulnerability that made him want to throttle her and coddle her at the same time.

“Open.” His tone softened, and he tried to keep his touch gentle. She’d been through enough already, he decided. Standing here, cupping his hand around her jaw, drawing in the scent of her, feeling the warm sensation of her breath against his face, something deep within him stirred. He couldn’t comprehend it. He was frisking the person who could be responsible for killing over a thousand people. How could he possibly contemplate kissing her? The very thought was anathema to him.

Her eyes locked on his, flinching.

Did she know what had flashed through his mind? Yes. She understood.

He was an expert at reading people. And she’d probably been admired by many men.

She lifted her chin, her vibrant eyes narrowing, daring him. And damn if that didn’t make her more alluring.

“Open your mouth.”

It was several seconds before she complied.

Scanning the wand over her teeth, he completed his examination. No radio receptors or tracing tech. He didn’t want to think about what he would’ve done if he’d found a tracer. It wouldn’t have been pretty—for either of them.

He tossed the detector on the table. With one hand, he stroked back her soft hair, using the motion to tip her face to his. He caught the flicker of vulnerability, the hint of fear that she worked so hard to hide. “You keep being cooperative and we’ll get along fine. Now, do you have any way of contacting Sergei?”

“No.” She retreated across the kitchen the moment he released her. And knowing that he was the cause made him feel like ten kinds of scum.

“Would your parents be able to?”

“No.” Then, “I don’t know.”

“Can you think of any reason why your brother would do this? Personal gain? Jealousy? Rage, revenge?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s money. My family has never been driven by the dollar.”

“There’s always a motive, Svetlana. People don’t fly off the grid and commit heinous crimes without a reason.”

“Serial killers do.”

“Serial killers are sociopaths operating outside the confines of society,” he said. “Their urges are rooted in sexual desires and aggression. They have reasons, even if the average person can’t comprehend them. We aren’t talking about some Freudian felon. Your brother’s involved with the big players. He has the knowledge, the means, and apparently the balls to generate mass destruction.”

“If what you say is true, then my brother is sick and needs help.”

“The people who died on Capri needed
help
. Children in cancer wards need help. Your brother needs to be brought to justice before he sets off another wave. Or do you want to see more innocent people die?”

“Of course not!”

Jared would do whatever he had to do to protect the innocent. Problem was, he didn’t know if Lana was among the innocent or the threat.