Chapter 6
6
Alex supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d been forced into using this emergency supply dump his father had told him about right before he came on this cursed mission. Why had his father asked him to look into Doctors Unlimited, anyway?
He’d been shocked by Roman Koronov’s phone call, even more shocked when his old man told him to copy down a set of lat-long coordinates and a number combination.
How had his old man known he would need the information unless his father had expected someone to come after his son in Zaghastan? Had Roman sent that Spec Ops guy after him? Had his father’s suggestion that he go to work for D.U. been a set-up?
Had Roman sicced the rebels on his own son with the intent to kill him? Was he that cold a bastard? Why would his father do a thing like that? What die Doctors Unlimited have to do with it?
Lord knew, Alex didn’t for a minute think Doctors Unlimited was the innocent aid organization it purported to be. Were the persistent attacks by those extremely well-armed rebels the reason his father had wanted him to take the job? What did the attacks signify?
While he waited for the vacuum tubes in the radios to warm up and start working again, he acknowledged it might be arrogant to assume this mess was all about him. It seemed as if larger forces at work around him and Katie, and now the baby. But who? And why ?
He was missing something critical. He felt it in his bones.
Static snapped and popped over the radio and he fine-tuned the AM frequency, holding his breath and praying this would work. If not, he could only hope there was enough gasoline stored somewhere in here to travel a hundred miles on the ATV to the nearest large city, a prospect he did not relish.
He hated making this call with every fiber of his being. But as sure as the sun rose every morning, when that guy he’d stabbed reported back to whoever he worked for, more men just like him would be coming. A lot more. All together next time And with a woman and baby in tow, he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding them or beating them in combat.
He sent the distress call again.
Without warning, an answering voice crackled over the radio.
He had to yell into the microphone to be heard, but he relayed his position and the code words scribbled on the piece of paper from his wallet. There was a pause of nearly two interminable minutes, but then the voice at the other end of the radio came back and reported that a ride would be dispatched to his position, ETA six hours.
It was done .
He’d made a deal with the Devil, and now there would be hell to pay.
He acknowledged the message and turned off the radio. “You can stop cranking, Katie.”
He leaned back in the chair and pushed his hands through his hair in distress. He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. But he’d had no fucking choice. None at all.
He realized Katie was staring at him in suspiciously. “Start talking,” she demanded.
“Look. This was not my first choice for how to get out of here,” he retorted, anger flaring in his gut. “But someone is trying to kill us, or at least me, and we’ve got a newborn in need of food and care. I had no choice.”
“No choice about what?”
“I called the Russians and asked for an emergency evacuation.”
“As in the Russian government?” she squawked.
He nodded curtly.
“Why?” She uttered the syllable in obvious disbelief.
He supposed he couldn’t blame her. For all she knew, he was a vanilla American doctor who ran around doing humanitarian work.
He answered, “The guy following us, the one I took the ATV from, was American. A redneck, rah-rah, go-us American. The kind of man who wouldn’t knowingly work for a foreign outfit, and the kind foreigners wouldn’t hire.”
“And?” she prodded him.
“And that means whoever’s sent him to kill me isn’t Russian. This was the only safe egress route for the three of us that I could come up with on very short notice.”
He fingered the cell phone he’d lifted off the guy lying quiescent in his pocket. He was dying to see who turned up at the other end of the burner phone.
Katie collapsed onto a crate, staring at him in dismay. “How do you know how to contact Russia to ask for an evacuation? And why on earth would they actually come get you? Are you a Russian spy?”
“Do you truly not know who I am?” It was clear she did not, but he was so used to the people around him treating him with automatic suspicion when they met him, he could hardly believe she didn’t recognize him.
“You’re Alex Peters, M.D.”
He sighed. “Legally, that is true. I changed my name last year.”
“From?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she just stared, waiting. She was really good at that. Did she learn it from her brothers?
He sighed again. “My birth name is Alexei Petrovich Koronov.”
It took a moment, but her face lit with recognition followed quickly by dismay. “Peter Koronov? The spy who was convicted of treason?” she blurted.
“My father.”
“Oh my God.”
So much for their flirtation and mutual attraction?—
He jolted as her arms went around him.
“I’m so sorry, Alex.”
He stood up, pushing her away, using his hands on her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length. “What have you got to be sorry for?”
“I read about you. I remember wondering what would happen to the sons when the father was sentenced to death.”
He shrugged. “My old man was never in danger of being executed for treason. He was too valuable as a bargaining chip against the Russians. The CIA got back several high-level spies in trade for my father.”
“So he’s back in Russia?”
He nodded. “He’s burned as a spy, of course. His face is too well known. I suppose he could get plastic surgery to change his appearance, but he’s also sixty-four years old. That’s getting up in years to be a field operative.”
Katie looked at him searchingly. “Is this why the CIA could be following you? Do they watch you?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been free long enough to figure that out.”
“Free?” she echoed.
They hadn’t told her about his prison time? He’d just assumed the people at Doctors Unlimited would have told her. After all, not many women would head out into the wilderness voluntarily and completely alone with an ex-convict. He swore under his breath. Jerks .
Katie pulled back a little in alarm. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Katie. I assumed they told you about me.”
“They who? Told me what?”
“Doctors Unlimited. Told you about my past.”
She frowned. “My brother told me you were really smart and went to college early. That you studied math. But somewhere along the way, you apparently got a medical degree.”
His internal warning antennae wiggled wildly. “Who’s your brother?”
“Ian. Ian McCloud.”
“Who does he work for?” he asked quickly.
“A think tank in Colorado.”
So. Her brother was in the intelligence field. Great. Had her brother sicced her on him? What else didn’t he know about her?
“How did you get this job?” he asked her.
“I was just finishing up my master’s degree in nursing and up to my ears in student loan debt. I was approached by someone from Doctors Unlimited and offered the adventure of a lifetime and a paycheck I couldn’t say no to.”
She was seriously a just a nurse? He’d half-assumed that was just a cover. Lord knew, practically everyone else who crossed his path worked for one spy agency or another. Good God, if she was who she said she was, she had no business running around out here in a war zone with a man like him.
Had she truly come here just looking for adventure? She’d certainly found it. At least he hadn’t completely misread her. The good girl might be looking to climb down off that pedestal of hers, after all?—
--and he was not the man to help her down. She was far too na?ve and pure for him. He might have already thrown his own soul away, but he had no right to destroy hers, too.
He sighed and asked, “Are you cold? There ought to be blankets in here, somewhere. Maybe even a bed. After all, the radio operator had to have somewhere to sleep between shifts when this placed was manned full-time.”
At the mention of a bed, Katie’s mobile features exploded in a variety of reactions. So transparent, she was. She was definitely interested in sex with him but also afraid of it. Smart girl.
“You’re very good at distracting me,” she murmured. “Although maybe I could use more distraction. The past few days have freaked me out pretty bad.”
He had to give her credit. When the bullets had been flying overhead, she’d kept her wits about her, followed instructions, and pushed herself well beyond exhaustion without a word of complaint. She was allowed to fall apart a little, now.
Reluctantly, he gathered her close once more and gave her a hug. “You’ve been very brave, Katie. Just hang on a little while longer. We’re almost out of this mess. Focus on the nice hot shower you can have as soon as we get back to civilization.”
She muttered into his shirt, “You sure do know the way to a girl’s heart.”
“I highly doubt that,” he murmured back. “I’ve never been any good at understanding women.”
“I don’t know,” she sighed as she snuggled closer to him. “You’re doing pretty well, so far.”
The strangest sensation coursed through him. Warmth. Affection, even. What the hell was that all about? Katie’s hands slipped around his neck, which had the effect of plastering her breasts against his chest. His abdominal muscles clenched in surprise.
“Katie,” he mumbled, “we shouldn’t?—“
“Why not? Who’s going to judge us?”
She had a point. Still…
“Kiss me, Alex. I need the distraction. And the sense of human connection.”
Who was he to say no to a sweetly delivered request like that? He would be a cad to disappoint her and leave her hanging. Right? Very slowly, he slipped his right hand around the back of her neck under the weight and warmth of her thick hair.
Her held tilted up and her lips parted slightly as she stared at him. Desire flared in his gut and an urge to make her his roared through him.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispered. “I can’t read you.”
He had to step back from her. Save her from his brand of corruption. Protect her innocence and purity and goodness. But damned if he could make his feet move an inch back or force his hands to slip off her satin flesh.
Time for Plan B—get her to back away from him. Fast. Scare her. Find a way to warn her off of his brand of corruption.
“I’m thinking about all the twisted ways I’d love to fuck you and use you,” he replied baldly.
She did tense. For just a moment. But then, dammit, she relaxed again. Looked up at him as trustingly as a lamb.
Worse, she had the colossal foolishness to whisper, “I don’t have much experience with…with that. But I’d like to learn. I’d like you to show me.”
His eyes widened in genuine shock and he flung himself backward. He staggered a half-dozen more steps back before bursting out, “You have no idea what you’re asking. I told you before, I’m not a good guy. I’m not Joe College or an all-American boy.”
“I know.”
“For the love of God, if you know what’s good for you, don’t get anywhere near me.” He stabbed a hand into his short hair and whirled away from her, desperate to distance himself from her.
He heard her take a step forward and he fled to the far end of the bunker, stopping only when his thighs bumped into a wooden crate. He looked left and right fast for an escape route and spun to face his pursuer, as panicked as a cornered animal. She took another step toward him.
“Stop right there!” he barked.
Blessedly, she did.
“I spent the past five years in jail,” he blurted. “I’m a convicted felon. I did hard time for DUI, reckless endangerment, possession of controlled substances, resisting arrest, and a few other charges.”
The other charges were mostly related to taunting the court and baiting the judge, who’d steadfastly refused to throw the book at him until Alex finally broke down and asked the D.A. to convict him for his own safety. It had taken his lawyer some brilliant maneuvering to convince the judge to sentence Alex to four years in jail at his client’s own request without ever revealing the real reason for it.
“Sit down,” he ordered Katie. “Over there.” He pointed at a crate far across the space from him.
She sank onto the edge of the crate, but damned if that determined look still wasn’t gleaming in her baby blues.
“You’re innocent. Inexperienced. Naive,” he explained carefully. “I’m the complete opposite. I’m neither decent nor good nor respectable. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
“No. Explain it to me.”
He huffed. “My father was arrested when I was twelve. I got sent off to boarding school and then to college while he was very publicly tried and convicted of treason. People treated me as if I was a criminal, too. After a while, I got so sick of trying to prove them wrong that I changed tactics. Tried to live down to everyone’s rotten expectations of me. I was not immune to teenage angst, and I was a kid living in a world of adults.”
“And?”
She was going to make him spell it all out. Every last sordid bit of it. Unreasoning anger at her rattled in his gut. Maybe that was why he didn’t pull any punches with her. “After medical school, I started to party. I drank and used drugs and gambled. I went into full rebellion against my father and carried it to its logical extreme.”
“And there were women?”
“Yes. There were women. Older than me. Experienced. I sought out women on whom I could work out my many issues and who wouldn’t expect any kind of a relationship with me.” He stared hard at her, willing her to hear what he was leaving unsaid.
But damned if her eyes didn’t light with unwilling interest. Answering lust surged into his loins, but he suppressed it brutally. “Katie, as pleasurable as I might find it, you do not want to explore my world.”
“You can’t possibly know what I want or don’t want,” she retorted.
“I know you have no idea what you’re asking for.”
“So show me. Give me a taste.”
He stared. If it had been possible for his eyes to fall out of their sockets in shock, they would have done so. Could he do it? Could he give her a taste of the darkness inside him and then back off when it got to be too much for her? Did he have that much self-control?
He muttered, “It wouldn’t be the same without a fifth of whiskey and a half-dozen lines of coke.”
“I have a good imagination. Try me.”
He surged up off the crate and stormed down to the far end of the bunker, swearing luridly in Russian.
When he finally wound down and swung around to inform Katie in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t do it, she was watching him, looking as satisfied as a recently fed cat. He eyed her suspiciously.
“How long until the cavalry comes to rescue us?” she asked mildly.
“Six hours, give or take.”
Her mouth curved up in a smile that was pure sin.
Oh, God . “No, Katie.”
She started walking toward him, her hips swinging provocatively.
“I won’t do it. I can’t.”
“Yes. You can,” she purred.
She reached for the hem of her shirt, forcing him to dart forward and snatch her hands away from the fabric. Her body slammed against his and female curves pressed against him in every place it was wrong for them to press. He groaned in the back of his throat.
“Mmm. That’s nice,” she reported. “I think I like having my hands restrained.”
“Stop it,” he ground out.
Standing with her breasts crushed against his chest, she looked up at him. “I want it. You want it. We’re both consenting adults. What’s the problem?”
He closed his eyes. Willed himself to be strong. He would protect her if it cost him his sanity or even his soul.
“Kiss me, Alex. Show me something I’ve never done before.”
Please, Lord, give him strength. If he could get her talking. Distract her?—
“What haven’t you done?” he blurted. “Sexually.”
“It’s probably faster to list what I have done. Let’s see. I’ve had sex, of course. But it was pretty boring. Basic missionary position involving some grunting and messiness.”
“Did you like it?” he asked.
She looked up at him sidelong. “I thought we already established that I haven’t had good sex yet, given that I prefer ice cream to it.”
He grinned reluctantly. “Noted.”
“I tried to give a blow job once, but I had no idea what I was doing. The guy mentioned something about deep throating and then passed out.”
“He passed out in the middle of a blow job?” Alex exclaimed incredulously.
It was Katie’s turn to grin. “He was drunk.”
Alex snorted. “Very drunk.”
“I’ve made out, of course. Gotten a hickey or two. Oh, and I gave a guy a hickey, once,” she announced in triumph.
“Has a man ever gone down on you?” he asked.
“Like oral sex?” she asked, a faint quaver in her voice. “No.”
“Ever used any toys?”
She laughed. “I went online once to see if I could order a vibrator. My best friend said they’re the best way to get an orgasm. But there were so many things to choose from I didn’t know where to start.”
He shook his head. “Babe in the woods,” he muttered. Cripes. She was practically a virgin. She’d never had an orgasm? Not one?
She laid her hands on his chest, sliding her palms up to his shoulders and beyond, toying with the short hairs at the back of his neck. “Show me just one thing,” she coaxed.
“When you imagine good sex, what do you think about?” he challenged.
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you imagine being told what to do? Tied up? Or do you fantasize about being in charge, yourself? Telling the guy what to do and how to pleasure you. Do you envision a romantic encounter or a wild fuck?”
“Oh,” she breathed.
He stared down at her, waiting. Two could play the patience game.
“Umm, I think I’d rather have the guy be in charge.”
“And?” he murmured.
“I’ve had dreams a couple of times about being, umm, at a man’s mercy. I woke up turned on.”
“Good to know. Do you imagine it slow and sexy or hard and rough?”
The pulse at the base of her neck right where her collarbone ended jumped. He would lay odds she was flushing, but it would take better light than this to tell if he was right.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and he all but jumped her right then.
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “I’d have to try both, I suppose.”
She was a natural temptress. Totally unaware of her own sensuality.
Still holding both of her wrists, he guided them behind her back. “Clasp your hands,” he instructed quietly. “And don’t let go. Can you do that for me?”
“Uh huh,” she replied breathlessly.
How in the hell had she talked him into this? Why couldn’t he seem to say no to her?
The position thrust her breasts up and out toward him. She lifted her chin and exposed the length of her neck to him.
Very slowly, he reached for the hem of her ridiculously pink turtleneck and raised it up until her bra and the cleft between her breasts was exposed. He hooked his index fingers in both of the lace bra cups and drew them downward millimeter by millimeter, gradually circling the underside of her sweet, firm breasts, exposing them as he went.
He confessed, “I’ve been thinking about doing this ever since you suckled Dawn.”
“So have I,” she agreed breathlessly. “That and how you…” she finished in a rush, “…made my nipple stand up for her to suck.”
Without warning, he flicked both of his thumbnails across her rosy peaks. She gasped, and…God save him…lifted her breasts a little more.
“Again,” she breathed.
In minor shock, he obliged. Her entire body strained toward him.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he ordered.
“Electricity is streaking through my whole body. It starts where you’re…flicking me…and goes to my fingers and toes and…and…”
“And what?” he demanded.
She whispered, “And between my legs.”
Holy shit . His erection strained against his zipper until he thought his fly might explode. Watching her face for the slightest sign of distress, he reached for her jeans and unzipped them slowly.
“Spread your legs a little,” he murmured. And then, “Wider, Angel.”
He splayed his fingers on her belly and her muscles contracted sharply. He named all the muscles of the human abdomen in order from largest to smallest before he regained control of his raging lust enough to slide his fingers down over the silky plane of her stomach slowly, slipping them under the elastic edge of her thong.
Memory of seeing that intensely sexy scrap of lace had him pausing yet again to force his breathing to slow. His dick throbbed insistently, and even his balls got into the act. Gritting his teeth, he continued his hand’s downward descent.
“Oh my,” she sighed. “That feels amazing.”
His fingers slipped between swollen folds of flesh so plumped with desire they reminded him of a ripe peach, springy and juicy. Katie gasped, and he stopped immediately to let her accustom herself to what he was doing.
But she was having no part of that. Her hips undulated forward, rocking onto his hand hungrily. He separated her folds and found the slippery pearl nestled in between. He rubbed the pad of his middle finger around it once, twice.
“Oh my,” she cried more urgently.
He rubbed the length of his finger against her, probing her passage with the tip of his finger. He collected some of the moisture there and smoothed it over her hotly throbbing flesh.
“Alex,” she groaned. “Please.”
“Please what?” he growled from behind his clenched teeth.
“More,” she panted. “I want more.”
“You want me inside you, here?” He slipped his finger a little way inside her tight, hot core. Her internal muscles clenched convulsively around his finger. He withdrew and then slid into her again, a little deeper.
She groaned again. Apparently, words had failed her.
Hell. He was in Hell. He couldn’t have this woman. She was not for him. But he’d never wanted any woman worse in his entire life. Satan’s karmic joke .
Angling his palm so it rubbed her with every stroke, he plunged his finger into her in a slow, maddening rhythm. His entire being ached to be inside of her, to slam into her until he was lost in mindless lust, exploding in rage and release. But for once, this was not about him. He watched, eyes slitted, as she rode his finger, head thrown back, throat taut, breasts heaving. Her entire body undulated with more and more urgency.
In the past, had she been any other woman, he would have taken pleasure in driving her to the brink and then yanking his finger out of her, withholding the release she was so close to. But shockingly, he wanted to give Katie pleasure. He wanted to see her first orgasm, watch it unfold across her face, see what emotions flitted through her oh so expressive eyes.
Female juices flowed around his finger, and her gasps turned into sharper moans. He matched the increasing pace of her hip thrusts, reaching deeper inside her, seeking and finding the spot in the front of her passage where the most sensitive nerves passed close by.
“Ready?” he murmured, his voice low and charged.
“Yes. Oh, God. Yes,” she panted.
He increased the pressure of his palm against her swollen flesh and slammed three fingers into her without warning, stretching her and filling her fast and hard.
She cried out sharply as the orgasm ripped through her. She shuddered from head to foot, but he continued stroking her, drawing out the orgasm, savoring cry after cry torn from her throat. She crescendoed with a last keening cry that rippled out of her, and sagged against him, spent. He eased out of her and pulled her shirt down gently.
And then a strange thing happened. An urge to hold her came over him. He never felt affectionate after sex. But here he was, drawing her close, savoring the aftershocks making her tremble against him so sweetly.
“Oh, my,” she sighed against his chest.
He started as something soft and warm moved across his collarbone. She was kissing him! Women never kissed him. It was too intimate. Too personal. Most of his sexual encounters had been purely business, not to mention most women didn’t feel like kissing him after he was done using them.
“I had no idea,” she breathed.
“Like I said before. You don’t know what you’re getting into. I can’t let you go there.”
She raised her head to stare up at him in the dying glow of the cyalume stick. “If there’s more of that to be had, I’m all for it,” she declared.
“I’ve created a monster,” he groaned.
She growled playfully in the back of her throat, “When can I learn how to do that to you?”
Her flirtatious question sobered him sharply. “I take my pleasures rather more darkly than that, Katie.”
She shrugged “That’s okay. If the end result is that , who cares how we get there?”
Katie watched, bereft, as Alex turned away from her and strode to the far end of the bunker, or whatever this place was.
Her brothers and her father walked away the same way, never pausing, never looking back. They just left. It was like their entire life was divided into neat little compartments they opened and closed at their convenience. At home: open the family drawer. Off to work: slam that drawer shut and open the soldier drawer. In danger: open the killer drawer. Out of danger: close that drawer again and don’t think about the people they’d eliminated. At a bar after the mission with the guys: open up the friends and buddies drawer.
But in the meantime, the family back home was forced to sit patiently in their little drawer, hearing no news, waiting and worrying, never knowing if their loved one was ever coming home. Or if they did return, whether or not it would be in a closed casket.
As a kid, she’d always vowed she would never fall in love with a soldier. All she had to do was see the toll it took on her mother to know that loving a dangerous man was not for her.
Alex paced long enough that she got tired of watching him. Eventually, in hopes of at least bringing him back to the present if not to her, she asked, “What’s in these crates?”
“Supplies, mostly” he answered absently.
“Any baby formula in one? Maybe some diapers?”
Alex looked up at her quickly. “Probably no diapers, but powdered milk is a possibility. And there are no doubt medical supplies. Rolls of gauze and cotton surgical pads…” He commenced moving around the perimeter of the space reading labels on the crates. “Bring me that crowbar, will you?”
The tool was leaning next to the radio console and she scooped it up, joining Alex at a stack of smallish crates. He pried one open and pulled out several brown paper packages. “Voila. Emergency diaper-making supplies.”
Thank God. She was getting pretty low on clean corners of towel to wipe Dawn’s bottom with. She moved to the baby and, using gauze pads and cloth tape, swaddled her in a reasonably decent makeshift diaper while Alex continued rummaging around.
The infant was over the whole business of not needing to eat and cried loudly. No amount of rocking and IV fluid would calm her. Dawn wanted real food, and she wanted it now.
“See what she thinks of this.” He held out his hand.
Katie glanced up and spied him holding a plastic water bottle full of a creamy white liquid. Milk! The lid had been replaced by what looked like the cut off finger of a surgical glove. She smiled widely. “You’re brilliant!”
“So I’ve been told,” he replied dryly.
Dawn had to be convinced of the appeal of both the makeshift bottle and its contents, but eventually, she settled down to drinking her first real meal.
“We need to get her on proper formula,” Alex commented. “She needs vitamin and mineral supplements designed for babies. But that powdered milk will give her some calories to hold her until our ride gets here.”
Katie smiled warmly at him. “You take such good care of us. Thank you.”
He stared, looking thunderstruck. “Me? Take care of anyone but myself? I can already hear people on several continents laughing their heads off at the concept.”
“Then they don’t know you very well,” she declared.
He looked as if she could knock him over with a feather. She shrugged. He might not be long-term relationship material, but he was a decent guy and she didn’t care what anyone said. Not to mention he’d given her the first orgasm of her life.
It was impossible to tell time in the cavernous dark of the bunker. When Alex shook her shoulder gently to wake her, she was disoriented and struggled to emerge from a delicious dream involving Alex’s hand and her nether regions.
“Ride’s here,” he said.
“Oh!” She sat up quickly, disturbing Dawn who squawked at the abrupt movement. All in all, she was a great baby and had been more than patient with all the traveling so far. Maybe she, too, understood at some level that their lives were on the line.
While she’d been asleep, Alex had rigged a better baby sling made out of a bed sheet. She tucked Dawn into it with a grateful smile for him, and followed him out of the bunker. It took both of them to haul the steel door shut, and she heard the tumblers of the lock fall into position.
“What was that place?”
“It’s for emergencies. Served us well enough. That’s what matters.”
Didn’t feel like answering questions, did he? Of course, how in the hell he’d known of the bunker’s existence was the biggest question of all.
The made their way out of the crevasse and back into the open.
Alex jogged away from her dropping red cyalume sticks in a straight line. He even jumped on the ATV and drove off, continuing to drop red lights in a line that must go for nearly a mile. What on earth?
She heard their ride before she saw it. As she stared in disbelief, a small cargo plane descended toward them and landed on the impromptu runway. It had twin propeller engines mounted on high wings and looked like a miniature, skinny C-130. It taxied up to the near end of the marked landing strip and the rear cargo ramp started to open.
“Come on!” Alex yelled over the roar of the engines.
She ran after him, shielding Dawn from the dust storm the props kicked up as best she could. She ran up the metal ramp after Alex and into the dim interior of the cargo bay. A man in a gray flight suit pushed buttons that raised the ramp, then gestured them into crude webbing seats along the sides of the aircraft.
How did Alex, an American citizen, have the power to make a single radio call and get an immediate evacuation by a Russian military aircraft? Granted, his father had been an FSB employee at some point. But high enough ranking to rate this quick a rescue for his son?
Her impression was that Alex and his father were estranged. Why then, would the elder Koronov make a military aircraft available to Alex like this? What exactly was his relationship with his father…and more importantly with his father’s government? Was Alex a more loyal son of Mother Russia than he let on?
A frisson of cold, hard terror rippled down her spine.
She finished strapping in beside Alex and held Dawn close as the bird lifted off, bound for who knew where.
What the hell have I gotten myself into, now?