Chapter 18
18
Alex blinked awake as his cell phone rang somewhere close by. His head was splitting in two. He pulled a pillow over his head to muffle the damned phone until it stopped ringing. Except even after the caller gave up, the ringing continued in his ears.
He rolled over to pass out again until his hangover abated.
The phone rang again.
Fuck! Go away, whoever you are . As if he had to guess who it was. Katie.
The phone rang a third time.
Irritated all to hell, he rolled over on his back and slapped the nightstand with his outstretched hand. Groped around. Found the flat shape of his phone.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” he snarled. “I told you, this is how I roll.”
“I believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else, Mr. Peters.”
Male voice. Formal. Unfamiliar .
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“Charles McCloud.”
Katie’s uncle. Gonna try to recruit him directly, was he?
McCloud said, “I thought you might want to know Katie has been admitted to a hospital. She was attacked a little while ago.”
Alex sat bolt upright and cursed as his head exploded in agony and his gut revolted.
Holy shit. Katie . Heading fast for the toilet he bit out, “What hospital?”
“Walter Reed Bethesda.”
“Thanks.” He disconnected the call fast so Katie’s uncle wouldn’t hear him puking up last night’s whiskey. He ran cold water in the sink and stuck his head under it to drive the spikes out of his eyeballs. He toweled his hair and he raced around the room picking up and pulling on discarded clothes.
Keys. Where were his keys, dammit?
He snatched up his phone and wallet and ran for the elevator that a family was currently climbing into. He barely caught the thing and slipped inside. The parents eyed him warily as they pulled their kids to their sides and rode down in silence.
He must look like shit. Tough. Katie was hurt. How bad was it? Who’d attacked her? Why in the hell had McCloud called to tell him? Had the CIA jumped her to get at him?
On his way out of the hotel, he poured himself two complimentary cups of black coffee from the breakfast buffet and slugged them both down. Then, he headed for his car and prayed the caffeine would counteract any lingering effects of last night’s drinking binge.
Head splitting, he climbed in the car he’d rented yesterday and headed for the hospital. What time was it, anyway? The car clock said nearly ten a.m.
When was Katie attacked? Last night? Had she lain somewhere alone for hours until someone found her? How bad was she hurt? Why hadn’t she called him? The more questions he asked himself, the worse his head throbbed. The panic trying to claw its way out of his gut wasn’t helping matters, either.
Damn, he was out of practice at drinking. He’d forgotten how shitty it felt the day after. Time was when he hadn’t cared if he felt like this. But today of all days, he wished his head was clearer, that he was in better shape to help Katie.
He forced himself to pay attention to the cars behind him, to catalogue makes and models in a running list as cars came and went behind him. As far as he could tell in his debilitated state, he wasn’t followed.
He rushed into the emergency room and went to the check-in desk. “Katie McCloud?” he bit out.
“You family?” the nurse asked briskly.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitating. “How is she?”
“Come with me.”
He followed the nurse through a set of swinging doors and down a hallway. “What happened?” he asked tersely.
“She was mugged in our parking garage. Lucky for her, someone heard her scream. The assailant ran away when the good Samaritan approached.”
“Have the police been called?”
“Don’t know. I just started my shift.”
“How bad is she hurt?”
“Contusions. Swelling. Unconscious when they brought her in.”
Unconscious? He’d kill whoever did this to her. He asked grimly, “Was she sexually assaulted?”
“Her clothing was intact when they brought her in.”
Praise the Lord . “Purse missing?” he asked.
“No. It was on her shoulder. She must have fought the guy off until someone showed up to scare him off.”
Either that or her mugging was no mugging at all.
He knew the bastards would use her like this to get to him! This was exactly why his father had always preached never to get involved with anyone. Loved ones, even friends, were a liability a man like him could not afford.
He rounded the corner into a small room and froze in the doorway. Katie looked so pale and helpless tucked underneath a pile of blankets that his gut clenched in concern.
A butterfly bandage on her left jaw covered a nasty lump. A scrape on her right forehead looked like sidewalk burn. She’d hit the ground, right there.
“Concussion?” he muttered over his shoulder to the nurse.
“Likely.”
“Other injuries?”
“Internist will be in shortly.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and was alarmed at how slowly Katie’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey, beautiful,” he murmured. “I hear you tried to go a few rounds with a bad guy.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked weakly.
“Your uncle called me.”
A faint frown puckered her brow. “How’d he know?”
Good goddamned question . But he just smiled gently at Katie. “How do you feel?”
“About like you look.”
His smile widened. There was the ole’ McCloud spunk. “Can I get you anything?”
“An industrial strength painkiller for my headache would be lovely. And a glass of water. I’m thirsty.”
She would not be allowed to have anything to eat or drink until surgery was ruled out, but he didn’t tell her that.
A doctor stepped in just then and introduced himself briefly. “Well, young lady, your MRI shows no internal damage. Other than a mild concussion and that goose egg on your jaw, I’d say you’re going to live. Bet you’d like a painkiller, though, wouldn’t you? Are you allergic to any medications?”
“No.”
“I’ll have the nurse bring you something and I’ll write a prescription for you. Bland foods for twenty-four hours, and someone needs to stay with you around the clock for the next few days. Will that be you, sir?”
“Yes,” Alex answered. “And I’m familiar with concussion after-care. I’m a physician.”
“Perfect. We’ll get her release paperwork going, and you’ll be out of here, soon, Miss McCloud.”
Alex expedited her release—it helped that he could casually write a check for her medical expenses—and before long, an orderly had pushed her out to the emergency room exit. The painkiller must be starting to take effect because Katie asked impatiently, “Can I please walk, now?”
“Okay, now,” the orderly finally said as they approached Alex’s rental car.
Alex jumped forward to help her to her feet and she scowled at him. “I’m not helpless. My brothers have slugged me that hard by accident, and I just fell and hit my head. I’ll be fine.”
He refrained from listing the possible complications resulting from blows to the head and tucked her hand under his arm protectively. “You’re coming back to my place.”
“I need to see my brother, first.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Somewhere in this hospital. I came here to visit him.”
Right. She’d been attacked in the hospital’s parking garage. He was losing his touch to have failed to wonder why she was here in the first place. He wasn’t that hung over. Or maybe he was that distracted by his worry for her.
They walked slowly around the massive building to the regular entrance, and he cut through the red tape briskly. “I’m Dr. Peters. I’m here to see…”
“Ian McCloud,” Katie supplied.
The receptionist answered promptly, “Third floor. Room 3017.”
Katie leaned against his side in the elevator, laying her head wearily on his shoulder. He was so putting her to bed and pampering her thoroughly when he got her home.
They found her brother’s room without too much trouble. “Want me to wait outside?” he offered.
“Of course not. Come on in and meet my brother.”
He followed her into the room and stopped in shock as he spied the man lying in the bed.
“You?” Ian demanded. “What the hell are you doing here?” He started to surge upright but subsided abruptly and laid back against his semi-inclined pillows, sucking in air through his clenched teeth.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck . The guy he’d stabbed in Zaghastan was her brother ?
Katie was looking back and forth between the two of them in confusion. “You’ve met?” she asked.
Alex answered reluctantly, “You might say that.”
“He’s the fucker who stabbed me!” her brother exclaimed.
Katie whirled on him, wincing as she did so. “You stabbed my brother?”
“Obviously, I didn’t know who he was. He was following us on that four-wheeler in Zaghastan. I jumped him and he pulled a knife on me. So, yeah, I stabbed him.”
Her jaw dropped and burgeoning outrage sparked in her bright blue eyes.
He added quickly, “In my own defense, I did treat his wound and save his life.”
“But you stabbed him!”
“He attacked me. We were in the middle of a war zone and people were trying to kill us. He came at me with a knife and I fought back. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“Get out,” she snapped.
Okay, he probably deserved that. But he was worried about her. She had a concussion of her own to deal with?—
“Out. Now!” She was getting agitated, which couldn’t be good for her head.
He threw up his hands and backed out of the room. But he went no further than the nurse’s station a few steps away. He begged a bottle of over-the-counter pain meds and downed a handful of painkillers dry.
How in the hell was he going to make this right? He really hadn’t borne any ill will toward her brother. It had been just business. War was violent and bloody. Kill or be killed. He’d actually shown extraordinary mercy in not killing Ian. By rights, she ought to be thanking him. But she wouldn’t see it that way. He might have done the right thing, but he wasn’t going to get any credit for it.
Life really sucked, sometimes.
In the meantime, he was heading down to the parking garage to see if he could figure out who’d attacked her and if it had been a message to him.
Katie moved to her brother’s side in concern. “What happened to you?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. That bastard, Koronov, rough you up? I’ll be happy to kill him for you.”
“I was mugged. Mild concussion and a few bumps. Nothing worse than you louts did to me as a kid.”
“We never meant to hurt you. But you insisted on tagging along all the damned time and getting in the way.”
She smiled crookedly at her big brother. “Yeah, I know. I was a pest.”
“Cute pest.”
“So, why are you in this joint, big brother?”
“Your boyfriend stabbed me. Damn near killed me, too.”
Katie frowned. Alex had nearly killed Ian? She didn’t know the details of his training, but she’d heard bits and pieces of quiet conversation between her brothers now and then. And they all thought Ian was one serious badass.
“Did Alex catch you by surprise?” she asked confused.
“Yeah. Ambushed me. And when I pulled a knife, he nailed me.”
“Where’d you get poked?”
“Right here.” He pointed to a spot just below his ribs on the left side of his stomach. So, he’d been facing Alex when he got stabbed. Ian had a chance to defend himself then, and Alex had still gotten the drop on her brother? Whoa.
She knew Alex’s father had trained the crap out of him, but she’d had no idea just how lethally he was trained until this very second.
No wonder Alex was a head case. He’d never asked for any of that training. It had been forced on a little boy with no choice in the matter. She really was starting to hate Roman Koronov. At least she’d thwarted Roman’s attempt to get the list of D.U. staffers. Satisfaction coursed through her.
“How in the hell did you end up running with an asshole like Koronov?” Mike asked.
“He’s a doctor. I went with him on Doctors Unlimited mission into Zaghastan.”
“He was your partner? I heard you were coming out to my neck of the woods to play. I would’ve stopped by and said hi if I knew you were there.”
She’d played a whole lot of poker for toothpicks with Ian over the years. She knew his tells, and he was being evasive with her, now. Why wouldn’t he be square with her? Did it have to do with protecting a cover for his job, or was it something else? Something he didn’t want to admit? What had he been doing out there at the end of the world?
“What took you to greater downtown Zaghastan, bro?”
“Work.”
She rolled her eyes. “What kind of work?”
“Classified work.”
“C’mon, Ian. I’m not a kid anymore. I know what was going on in that region. Don’t bullshit me. What were you doing?”
He shrugged a little under the bandages swathing his torso. “Observing.”
“So you weren’t one of the military types dressed up to look like rebels?”
His laser-sharp gaze snapped to hers and his voice dropped to a bare murmur. “What do you know about that?”
“Only what I saw with my own two eyes. Those ‘rebels’ were way too well armed and slick to be locals. I know a trained soldier when I see one. I grew up with all you lugs, remember? Those were Spec Ops types.”
He sighed. “Could you keep that to yourself? It’s highly classified information.”
She shrugged. “I’m just a civilian aid worker on a humanitarian trip. Who’s gonna ask me about something like that? Your secret’s safe with me.”
He snorted skeptically. “Not as long as you’re hanging around with that guy. He’s trouble.”
It was her turn to snort. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Stay away from him, Katie. He’s a big shark and you’re a tiny little minnow.”
God, she hated it when her brothers said things like that to her. It was just that kind of dismissal of her that had sent her to Zaghastan in the first place. But Ian was looking a little gray around the gills, and she wasn’t feeling too hot herself. She would pick that fight with him later.
“I’ll let you get some rest. Mom and Dad are driving down to see you, today. They’ll be here this afternoon.” On that note she let herself out of Ian’s room.
She didn’t relish the interrogation her parents would subject her to when they saw her injuries and, moreover, heard she was hanging out with the guy who’d stabbed her brother.
“You okay?” Alex’s voice asked in concern from behind her. She was surprised he was still out here, waiting for her. Reluctant gratitude flowed through her.
“I was thinking about having to face my parents this evening.”
“If it put that look of pain on your face, don’t do it. Come to my place and let me take care of you.”
“I thought you were avoiding your place.”
He shrugged. “Everyone seems to know I’m involved with you. I’d rather be surrounded by known security measures and force the hostiles to come at me head on if they’re going to make a run at you.”
“What about Dawn?”
“She’s in a safe place.”
She winced. “I’m pretty sure the guy who jumped me followed me from the convent. I think they’re using Dawn as bait to find us.”
“All the more reason to let them find us when we’re nowhere near her,” he ground out. “No one messes with me and mine without suffering the consequences.”
His expression was blacker and colder than she’d ever seen it. And yet, it sent a frisson of warmth through her.
“I’m still mad at you, Alex. You stabbed my big brother.”
“And not only spared his life, but saved it,” he replied tiredly.
Like he didn’t expect her to believe him. Something in the wall of anger at him she’d built around her heart cracked.
“Why?” she asked simply.
“Because he posed a threat to you and Dawn,” he answered just as simply.
Well, then. It was hard to argue with that. He helped her into his car and pulled out into traffic.
She asked, “What do you know about special operators in the Karshan Valley posing as rebel soldiers?”
“Nothing, other than what we saw.”
“You don’t know why they were there?”
“I’d love to know why they were there. Then I could identify who they were and figure out who’s screwing with us, now.”
They were almost to his building when her cell phone dinged an incoming email. She pulled it out of her purse and was startled to see the sender was CMcCloud. Uncle Charlie. She opened the attached file and a short list of names scrolled down her phone.
“It’s the list from Uncle Charlie of male Caucasians to Karshan a few months either side of nine months ago,” she announced.
Alex glanced over at her alertly. “Care to share?”
“Sure.”
“Once we’re inside and can’t be overheard,” he murmured as he parked the car.
“Paranoid much?” she quipped.
“I just got you out of the emergency room. Indulge me.”
He did look pretty frazzled, now that he mentioned it. “Were you worried when you heard I was there?” she asked in surprise.
He stopped in the act of closing her door and looked her square in the eye. “I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life.”
Wow. At a loss for words, she rode up to his condo in silence.
In short order, he installed her on the living room sofa with a pile of pillows behind her and a blanket over her. Not until he handed her a bowl of chicken noodle soup and made her slurp down part of it, would he let her talk business again.
Finally, he said, “Okay, let’s see Uncle Charlie’s list.”
She passed him her phone and he scanned the list without comment. He strode into his office and was in there less than a minute. He emerged carrying two sheets of paper. “I printed it out. If your head hurts half as bad as mine right now, you want nice, big, easy-to-read print, too.”
She smiled and patted the cushion at her hip. He sat down, his hip intimately pressed against hers. She scanned the list again. There were ten names.
“Care to tell me why your brother’s on this list?”
“He told me today he was in the area acting as an observer.”
“Hmm.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked him. The combination of his intelligence training and raw brain power could be leading him to all kinds of conclusions she wouldn’t spot in this list.
“The CIA informant—that’s this guy here—and your brother are no surprise. But who’s this guy?” He pointed at a name on her paper.
“The Russian?” she asked.
“Probably not Russian. Shishani is a common Chechen surname. So are these three. What do you want to bet they were traveling together?”
“Makes sense.”
He stared at her hard, his mind obviously working in overdrive. Indecision crossed his face but gave way to irritation. He swore under his breath and pulled out his cell phone. He chose a number and she was startled at the lengthy series of numbers his phone dialed. An overseas call, maybe?
“It’s me. Yes, I know what time it is in Moscow. No, I don’t have the D.U. list yet. I’m working on it. Who’s Yevgeny Shishani?”
Holy crap, he’d called his father. Was he so eager to find Dawn’s father and foist the baby off on the man that he would enlist his father’s aid, even knowing all the strings that came attached to it?
Her heart fell at the mention of the list of Doctors Unlimited staff and that he was still planning to steal it. He listened for a surprisingly long time to his father’s answer to who Shishani was, though, which distracted her. What was his father telling him?
“Thanks,” Alex said reluctantly. “I’ll tell you why another time. Yeah. I’ll be in touch soon.”
“Well?” she demanded as soon as he disconnected the call.
“Shishani’s a Chechen mobster. Into trafficking and smuggling.”
“What’s a guy like that doing in the Karshan Valley?”
“Good question.” Alex left and returned with his laptop. “Let me see if I can find an answer.”
She dozed for the next few hours as Alex worked on the computer. It looked like he was conducting some sort of deep Web search. The third time he woke her up to have a look at her pupils and have her perform a few simple tasks like sticking her tongue out, smiling, spelling her name, and touching her nose with each hand, the expression in his eyes was grim.
“Am I dying, or have you found something?” she asked lightly.
“Samarium.”
“Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“Rare earth metal. Used in nuclear power plants, lasers, and missile casings.”
“Okay. And that’s meaningful because?”
“I found an obscure geological survey from a Chechen university reporting that samarium might be found near the surface and cheaply mined in the western end of the Hindu Kush, specifically in Zaghastan, and more specifically in the Karshan district.”
“There’s no mining operation in that area,” she responded. “Do you think people were in the Karshan Valley to scope it out?”
“They were doing more than that,” he replied grimly. “Remember that cave we hid in the night we ran?”
She nodded, frowning.
“Remember those little bore holes all over the walls?”
“I do!” she exclaimed. “Was someone looking for this samarium stuff, you think?”
“Remember that really deep shaft at the back of the cave that we threw our trash down?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “There was a mine in the area.”
“I think locals were working it. Bringing up ore by hand and smelting it in local furnaces.”
She recalled vividly the odd smell of the place. She’d put it down to the dried yak dung the locals burned for fuel. But maybe it had been something else, entirely.
“Is samarium valuable?” she asked.
“They don’t call it a rare earth metal for nothing. And its uses are primarily military. You do the math.”
“Why do the Chechens need it? Are they building nukes and lasers?”
“Yevgeny Shishani’s financials don’t indicate he’s doing deals with his government. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’s said to despise the current regime in his country.”
“Then why is he mining this stuff? There must be money in it or he wouldn’t mess with it.”
“Iran.”
Zaghastan shared a sliver of border with Iran. It would be an easy matter to secretly mine samarium, pay locals to refine it, smuggle it across the border, and sell it to the Iranians, who were undoubtedly eager to lay hands on the stuff for their nuclear and missile programs.
“Until this very minute, we had no idea Shishani and company were possibly mining samarium. So why would he be trying to kill us here in the States, half a world away from his operation? It’s not like we have any proof. Wouldn’t men like my brother be a much more immediate threat to him? Why not kill Ian?”
Alex’s mouth twitched wryly. “Interesting questions you pose. Who, exactly, does your brother work for?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He left the military about five years ago.”
“He could be working for anyone. For all we know, he could be a freelance mercenary.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It might help us figure out who else is poking around the Karshan Valley.”
“And poking around us,” she added.
He smiled at her. “How is it that everyone has so vastly underestimated your intelligence before now?”
She sighed. “I’m short and blonde.”
“And cute.”
“That, too,” she agreed. “If it makes you feel better, Uncle Charlie offered me a job after I spoke with him about you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better at all,” he answered a bit sharply.
“Want me to ask Uncle Charlie about this samarium angle and see what he says?” she offered.
“Actually, I’d rather see how your brother responds to a casual mention of samarium mining.”
She laughed. “Right. We’re just going to drop that into a conversation about sports and the weather.”
He laughed with her, and her heart expanded. Were they going to find their way back to each other after all? It was really nice of him to look out for her like this. And he’d been nothing but sweet to her since he’d shown up at the hospital. He’d looked ghastly when he’d come into her room. Worse than any hangover, no matter how epic, could account for.
His cell phone rang and he glanced at it. “My lawyer,” he murmured as he took the call.
Ooh. Maybe there was news about the their application for long-term guardianship of Dawn. She glanced down at the list in her hand. One of these men was very likely Dawn’s father. It had better not be Ian, or getting stabbed would be the least of his problems before she was done with him.
Alex made a soft sound, almost like he’d been punched in the gut and all the air driven out of him. He said only, “I’ll be right there.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly.
“My lawyer’s dead. Murdered. And some of his files were stolen.”
Foreboding roared through her. “Yours?”
Alex nodded grimly and disappeared into his office. She was alarmed to see him chambering a round in a pistol and holstering it as he emerged. “I’ve engaged the crisis security system. You’re effectively living in a fort. As long as you don’t let anyone in, you’re safe,” he explained tersely. “No one. Understood?”