The Impossible Alliance (8 page)

Now
that
was interesting.

“What's his preference? Diamonds, emeralds, rubies?”

“Judging from the thefts, all the above. Plus sapphires and a few others.” He turned to the crates, shifting the empty one to the floor so he could use the crowbar she'd noticed on the table to pry open the next. This crate held
their electronic gear. He pulled out a laptop, a radio transmitter and several battery packs, stopping to tip his head as if he'd made a connection. “DeBruzkya didn't seem interested in pearls, however.”

“That doesn't narrow the list by much.”

Jared shrugged as he set the laptop on the table. “You're the geologist. That's where you come in.”

Great. Her, with her memory currently resembling a porous chunk of volcanic basalt. “Did the thefts reveal any pattern at all? Other than the fact that he's got a preference for crystals?”

“Not one Agents Williams and Taylor could discern.” He dropped his gaze to the laptop. “I've got their reports stored in there. As soon as you eat, I'll fire it up and pull up the file. You can review Davidson's and his fiancée's notes, as well. Maybe you'll find a connection I overlooked.”

She doubted it. She had the feeling there wasn't much those sharp eyes missed. She leaned back on the bunk until her back hit the cabin wall. A wall that would be closing in on her before long if she couldn't get her mind to release those last moments with Karl. It was as if the mere thought of the man had turned into a huge steel lock. On her brain.

“Give it time.”

“Time.” Last night she would have been surprised to discover Jared could read her thoughts. Not today. She raised her head, nodding curtly as she met that infuriatingly steady gaze. “Okay, I'll give it time. But what the devil am I supposed to do to amuse myself in the interim?”

“You don't. You rest. Recuperate. We both do. Last night we used up the element of surprise. We'll have to lie low for a few days at least, perhaps longer, to recover it. If we're lucky, our local sources will have discovered the identity of the man we left behind at Veisweimar by then. If he was trying to help you, he may have friends who may also be willing to help us.”

Jared was right. But there was something else she wanted
from that elusive man's friends. Something they desperately needed. Information. If DeBruzkya had been willing to murder Karl, why had he worked so damned hard to keep
her
alive?

S
am was wrong. He was losing his edge. Jared glanced up from his laptop and the file he'd downloaded from the ARIES central computer twenty minutes earlier and sighed. He'd hoped he'd be able to snatch Alex Morrow from that castle and complete the remainder of their mission before his symptoms locked in. It was too late. He'd already succumbed to the worst one.

Poor judgment.

Damned if he didn't succumb yet again as his gaze snuck across the cabin, straight at the bottom bunk for the fifth time in five minutes, lured by the captivating rays of late-afternoon light dancing across the woman's cheeks. Hell. It wasn't the light that had captivated his attention and he knew it. It was the woman. No matter how many times he looked, he still couldn't believe how completely the layers of illusion had been peeled away. Where an awkward, myopic man had once stood, a strikingly beautiful, innately sensual woman now lay. If anything, the faded jeans and drab gray sweater Alex had donned that morning enhanced
her curves. Or maybe it was him. Maybe it was the fact that he knew firsthand what lay beneath. From the top of her freshly washed hair, courtesy of an impromptu bath in the pond out back two hours earlier, all the way down to her slender feet and every satiny inch in between. Especially those pale, full breasts. The dark nipples that crowned the peaks.

The way they'd stiffened beneath his greedy gaze.

Jared purged the sight from his mind, and fast. That was one memory he did not need to hang on to. He inhaled deeply, willing his body to forget, as well.

As if it could.

They'd played a dangerous game in that bed this morning. Hell, he still wasn't sure why he'd pushed it. The blood loss must have affected his brain. Why else had he decided to crawl onto that mattress after he'd sealed his wounds to try to use his body heat to quell the violent chills still racking her? Unfortunately, from the moment Alex's naked body curled into his, the only inferno he'd ignited had been his own. His flesh was still singed.

Apparently unlike hers.

Alex's flinch when he'd touched her told him that. In a way, he wished the woman
was
sleeping with Sam Hatch, or that she'd at least not opted to tell him she wasn't. It would have made his own insidious attraction easier to fight. Alex didn't know how right she'd been that moment she'd awoken in the forest. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman. Too long. But even if he wanted to cave in to temptation—even if
she
wanted to—there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

A year ago, he might have. Six months ago, even.

But not after that call.

The night she'd walked out of the connecting bathroom in Hatch's guest room, he'd suspected she'd overhead it. He knew now she hadn't. One look into Alex's sea-green eyes without those mud-brown contacts obscuring his view, proved it.

Relief seared into him once again as his gaze slipped over the honey-colored curls that framed Alex's face. From the mesmerizing curls, as well as the dark gold lashes that fanned out above her high cheeks, he stopped and lingered on lips that were much too full and smooth and much, much, too flushed for his peace of mind.

Dammit, man, take the gift and move
on.
Get back to the file, back to the mission.

So they could both get back to their separate lives.

He jerked his gaze from that distracting face and fused it to the laptop on his thighs, deliberately kicking up the pace of the scroll key, forcing his mind to keep up with the deluge of information that passed before his eyes. Three minutes later he stopped. Reread that last sentence—

And smiled.

“What is it?”

He swallowed a curse. How long had she been awake?

Worse, how long had she been watching?

He carefully shifted the computer from his lap to the wooden table. He turned to meet the unspoken question swimming within that sea of green and swallowed a second curse. She'd been watching long enough. He answered the question she'd actually voiced. “I think I've located your doctor.”

“This soon?” She scrambled upright on the thermal blanket, tucking her feet beneath her as she hooked her hands on the edge of the upper bunk. “Who is it?”

“Roman Orloff. He's the chief of staff at the main hospital in Rajalla.” The only hospital the city had left. The capital of Rebelia had once supported three hospitals and five outpatient clinics. As of yesterday Rajalla was down to one of each, with piles of rubble where the others had been.

“Orloff? Isn't that the doctor mentioned in Davidson's report? The one who'd helped hide his son?”

He nodded. “According to the report I received while you were napping, he disappeared shortly afterward. If Or
loff was the same man you saw, knowing Debruzkya he was probably beaten to see if he knew anything about Davidson's assault on the castles.”

“Report?” This time she scrambled off the bed completely, padding across the tiny cabin in her socks to stand beside the remaining chair. “Do you mind?”

He punched up the file and turned the laptop toward her, waiting as she sat down to scroll through the document. By the time she lifted her gaze, the speculation had returned.

“You've already read all this?”

“I skimmed it.” Why not? He owed her a fib or two.

He caught her soft curse as the screen went blank. “Great. I killed the file.” She slid her finger across the touch pad, deftly retrieving the file through the laptop's “Documents Recently Viewed” icon. Scrolling through the ninety-six page report from the beginning would take too long. She sighed. “Do you remember where it is?”

“Page sixty-two, paragraph five.”

“Thanks.” She jumped to the correct page. “It says Orloff was born in the southern province of—”

He shook his head. “Skip the first six lines.”

“Roman Orloff received his undergrad—”

“I said six, not four.” Impatient, he nudged her gaze directly to the connection that intrigued him and said, “‘Dr. Orloff completed his residency at San Diego General in November of 1984. Orloff returned to Rajalla for three years' hiatus, rotating though several of the capital city's then free outpatient clinics before returning to the U.S. in 1987 to specialize in—'” He broke off when he realized Alex was no longer staring at the computer, but at him. Christ. It probably would have helped if he'd remembered to glance at the screen once or twice. The blunder was moot now.

“You have a photographic memory.”

He held her gaze. “It's not as uncommon as you'd think.”

But it was.

At least, ones like his were. He was four when he'd discovered that. Kindergarten orientation, as a matter of fact. He'd learned firsthand that not everyone could recall every sentence they read word-for-precise-word the way his mother could—or the way he could.

Weirdo. Show-off. Smart-ass.

He'd heard them all by the end of the school year. A couple of times from teachers, too.

Alex was still staring. She glanced down at the laptop. “How long did it take you to read this?”

Oh, no. He had no intention of answering that one.

Unfortunately she had a watch. She used it, comparing the dial to the time stamp the computer had inserted on the file's initial opening. She gasped as she gaped up at him. How many times had he seen that look?

He forced a shrug. “Welcome to the freak show.”

Alex shook her head. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” An outright lie.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Try again.”

“Look, Dr. Mor—”

“Don't ‘doctor' me, mister. You could've gotten fifty degrees if you'd wanted to. All I want is a simple answer. How does a kid with a brain that probably rivals Albert Einstein's drop out of the eighth grade?
Why?
”

“That's two questions.”

“Pick one.”

The hell he would. What he did was stand up. Move. He paced his way to the bunk beds before he turned back, every inch of the floor's twenty feet between them as he pointed to the computer. “Page sixty-two, paragraph five, line eight. Finish it.” The double-edged curse already exposed, he began reciting, “‘Orloff returned to Rajalla for three years' hiatus, rotating through the capital city's then free outpatient clinics before returning the U.S. in 1987—” To his relief, she took the hint and severed her gaze, dropping it the screen to pick up where he left off.

“‘—to specialize in…neurology'?”

He nodded as her eyes widened. “Keep going. Scroll down the next page. Paragraph five, line four. ‘Orloff is rumored to have taken multiple, unexplained trips during the past month. Each trip averaging three hours.'”

“Let me guess, plenty of time to drive from Rajalla to Veisweimar castle, examine a patient and return.”

He nodded.

“Do you have a photo?”

“I was finishing the medical backgrounder when you woke up. I haven't had a chance to check our e-mail. Knowing Jerry, he's already anticipated the request.”

She logged on to their encrypted account. Fifteen seconds later they had access, but the message wasn't there.

“Nothing.” She tapped out a quick message and hit “send.”

The tension returned as they waited.

Fortunately Jerry broke it a minute and a half later. Alex opened the e-mail and studied the electronic photograph the ARIES database tech had pasted within.

She nodded. “That's him.”

Jared stared at the color photo. The man appeared as tall as both of them were, with hair close in color and texture to the mop Alex had sported two hours before. Brown eyes, graying temples and a matching mustache completed an angular but otherwise nondescript face.

“You're sure?”

She tipped her chin to meet his eyes, her own warm with gratitude and certainty. “Trust me, you don't forget the face of the man who saved your life.”

The second surge of heat was meant for him.

He cleared his throat. “You're certain Orloff saved it?”

“He could have exposed my gender. He didn't. Not to mention, when I first awoke, my head resembled a mummy's. There's no way a three-inch track of stitches required that much gauze. I'm betting the man wrapped my face to hide a mustache and beard that wouldn't grow.”

It was possible. Probable even. “So why didn't he remove the stitches?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he never had the chance. Maybe he was afraid someone would come in. I don't know. I do know I should risk contacting him.”

“No.”

“Dammit, Jared. We're supposed to be a team. That means we both provide input, we both execute our respective parts of the job. As former Delta Force, I'd think you'd be familiar with the concept.”

He'd never told her he served with Delta.

He watched the color bleed from her cheeks. A moment later she pushed forth another shrug. “Sam's mentioned you once or twice.”

“Odd. Until two days ago, Director
Hatch
never mentioned you. In fact, six out of the seven ARIES agents I contacted on the flight to Ramstein never heard of your existence at all.”

This time, her color remained steady. “Who was the seventh?”

“Aiden Swift.”

Her gaze widened. “Aiden's retired.”

He nodded. “He's also a friend.”

Again, no color loss. But when she turned to exit the backgrounder file on the laptop, the slight tremble in her index finger as it glanced off the touchpad gave her away. What the devil was she afraid of?

“So…what did Aiden have to say about me?”

Nothing and but he'd give a hell of a lot to know what his friend had been withholding. “He said you were the best he trained. That I should hurry my ass up and get you the hell out of here.”

A soft smile curved her lips. “Sounds like Aiden.”

He swore she was still waiting. But for what? “Did Aiden forget to mention something?”

Another smile, this one not quite real as she powered down the computer. “He helped construct my persona.”

Her disguise.

Jared reached down and snapped the lid of the laptop shut for her. “That must be why he seemed particularly concerned. You concealing your gender and all.”

“Must be.”

She was lying. He couldn't put his finger on how he knew, or why. But she was definitely lying. The worse part was, it hurt. Jared hooked a boot under the bottom rung of his chair and reclaimed it, staring directly into those cool eyes as he settled back.

Why did he find her so damned fascinating?

She ran her fingers through her curls, then lowered her hands to drum her short nails against the table. “Now what?”

He crossed his arms. “We wait.”

“Even though I think we should contact Orloff?”

He shook his head. “I never said we wouldn't contact him. Just not you alone and just not yet.”

“You want to put a surveillance team on him first?”

He nodded. “We have the time. You need to recuperate. If he checks out, we can head into Rajalla when you're ready. In the meantime, I'll work on constructing a new cover that will let us into his world.”

To his surprise, she shook her head. “We already have one. All it needs is a little tweaking.”

“Yours?”

“Why not? Aiden always said to keep it simple, stupid and as close to the truth as possible. I'll tell Orloff I chose to be a man in the scientific world due to stereotyping. Since I've been frequenting the Eastern European, as well as Asian, environmental conferences for several years for ARIES, he'll believe me.”

“And me?”

Her wide smile startled him even more. “You're my fiancé.”

He blinked.

“Think about it. It's ready-made. You're U.S. Army.
Ranger, Special Forces, Delta—it doesn't matter. What matters is that you've been searching for me since I disappeared from the conference. With your connections, you managed to locate me and get me out of that dank dungeon DeBruzkya stashed me in. But when I passed out, you were forced to order the chopper to set us down.” She shrugged. “We didn't make it across the border. Everyone knows that ever since the day DeBruzkya came to power, the borders have been locked down tighter than a Soviet-era ruble exchange. Only medical and relief personnel are allowed through, and then only if they're carrying the proper documentation. Naturally we thought that Orloff—”