The World Is Too Darned Big

  "My brother-in-law is a clerk for the CIA," Combover volunteered. Jo's mouth thinned, but he let the

  doc babble on. "He showed me samples of POs and stuff."

  "Did he know what you were going to do?" Dyson asked, appalled.

  "Well... he wants to borrow the card for a weekend at work..."

  Note to self: find brother-in-law and clean his clock.

  "Look, Jo," Tara said, "I'm really sorry, but we're gonna have to get that card back. We just, um, can't

  let you or this guy run around with it. So, uh, let's not have a problem, okay?"

  "Sorry, Tara."

  "You're the one who's going to be sorry," Dyson declared.

  "I just said I was sorry," Jo snapped back.

  "You don't know how sorry," Dyson sneered. "This gorgeous blonde to my left is deadly in the field."

  "Awww," Tara said. Gorgeous? That's so sweet.

  "Oh, I know," Jo said.

  Dyson nodded, looking triumphant. "Her fiendish reputation precedes her, eh?"

  "Actually," Tara confessed, "he's sort of my mentor."

  "Your what?"

  "Taught her everything she knows," Jo boasted. "Practically raised her."

  "Not everything," she said coolly. "For example, you didn't teach me to shoot my partner and leave him for dead while you ran off with the goods."

  "Why would I teach you that? Do I look like I want a head wound anytime in my future?"

  "I have to say, I'm disappointed, Jo." And she was. In the old days, he'd never have left a body. If for

  no other reason than it was messy. "Seriously."

  "You're a child, Tara," he said, kindly enough. "You always were. You think you're bad, but at the

  center you're softer than a marshmallow egg. It's why you'll never be great."

  "Great like you?" she sneered.

  "Good parting line," Dyson said. "Get him!"

  "Well, just a minute."

  "Why?" Ben asked. "What are you waiting for?"

  "Look, the guy's got about a million black belts, okay? And who do you think taught me how to fight?"

  "Actually, I've never seen you fight," he pointed out, "but I'm assuming you know what you're doing."

  "Did she say you killed someone?" Dr. Combover asked, finally catching up. "I didn't sign on for that! You were supposed to get the card, that's all, just get the card!"

  "Collateral damage," Jo sniffed.

  "We'll show you collateral damage," Ben said. He stuck his hand in his pocket, withdrew the blackberry yogurt he'd grabbed earlier, and lobbed it, grenade-style, at Jo.

  It splattered all over the floor, Jo's shoes, and his trouser legs. Tar a waited expectantly for Jo to melt or blow up or fall down unconscious, but nothing happened.

  "You've ruined my suit," Jo commented, leaning down to brush purple puree off his pants.

  "What's in it?" Tara breathed. "What's going to happen?"

  "Nothing. It's just yogurt," Ben muttered to her.

  "Now you tell me." She sighed, then waded in. Getting her ass kicked sideways by her mentor wasn't on her list for the day, but what the hell. She certainly couldn't let Ben take him on. Jo would eat him for lunch, spit out the bones, and bury them in some far-off field.

  "Left leg!" Ben ordered, squinting.

  Tara obligingly kicked out at Jo's left leg, and Jo obligingly moved, sweeping her blow aside. "Easier said than done," she said over her shoulder, and then her ears rang as Jo punched her head. Which she totally deserved; what had she been thinking, taking her eyes off the ball?

  Everything went sort of blurry for a second, and there was a high-pitched whining sound, followed by

  the more recognizable sound of Ben yelling, "You son of a bitch!"

  "Don't," she managed, only to be knocked sprawling as he surged past her and jumped on Jo.

  Jo went down—he was well trained, but Ben was a big guy—but rallied quickly by grabbing Ben's tie, doubtless meaning to strangle Ben to death (a compulsion she well understood). Instead he shrieked and let go of the tie and stared at the blood pouring down his hand.

  "Ha!" Ben crowed. "Never touch the tie!" He punched Jo square in the face—Tara could hear the flat smacking sound of flesh hitting flesh—and let out a howl. "Arggh! That hurts!"

  Jo turned his head to the side, spat out a tooth, then sneered, "You watch too many movies, Dr. Dyson." Then he didn't say anything, because there was a "bronnnnnnggggg!" as he was knocked unconscious with a microscope.

  By Dr. Combover.

  "He wasn't supposed to kill anybody," the doctor said dully, dropping the microscope on the counter. "I didn't—he wasn't supposed to do that."

  Ben leaped to his feet. "Good work. We'll be sure to tell the police about your last-second change of heart."

  "Yeah, we'll mention that right away," Tara said. "And what's with your tie? Your stupid, too-wide, brown tie?"

  "It's lined with throwing stars," he explained. "I forged them out of titanium so they'll never—"

  "Forget I asked. Why'd you do it?" she said to Combover, who, according to his ID, was Dr. Krendall. "You work here, right? We were told Jo was stealing a cure. Did you hire Jo and his team to steal it for you?"

  "A ... cure? Stealing a cure? No ... no. I'm close, but... no. He might have told his men that, I don't know. It's . . . I'm stalled on my research," he said, staring at the floor. "Between my boss and the FDA and ...

  I just know I could make some real progress if I could get into the other labs ... and Mr. Jones told me with this new card the computer wouldn't track me, nobody would know I was here or what I was doing . .. You have no idea how the FDA can slow you down..."

  "Yeah, they're so pesky with their rules to guarantee safety," Dyson said, glaring. "There's a dead guy, and you're going to jail so your rep is in shreds, and any chance for a cure is stalled indefinitely, and for what?"

  "For a cure," Combover said simply. "A cure is worth anything. Everything."

  Tara didn't know about that; she wasn't the brains of this operation, for sure. But it sure seemed like an awful lot of waste. Ben was right... for what?

  Ten

  "That's it?" Ben was asking. "That's all? It's so ... so ..."

  "Over?" Tara suggested.

  "Shouldn't we at least wait until the police—"

  "Pass."

  "Oh. Well, all right. I guess they aren't going anywhere. How many handcuffs do you normally carry on your person, anyway?"

  "That's for me to know," she said smugly, "and you to find out."

  "You know, when you tried to take out Johanssen . .. your mentor ... to help me ... that was really great."

  "Why'd you yell about his left leg?"

  "I could see it was a badly mended break," he said, pointing to his blue eye.

  "Oh. Creepy."

  "Sort of the way I can see you're wearing a demi-cup bra," he said, grinning.

  "I don't know what's worse, that you're ogling me with your fake contact lens or that you know the word 'demi-cup'." They were striding—not running, but not lingering, either—toward the west exit, when she suddenly grabbed his arm and hustled him into an empty hospital room. "Want to know what color it is?"

  "Cherry red," he said without hesitation.

  She gasped. "How'd you know that?"

  "Trade secret."

  She snapped the lock closed on the door, shrugged out of her lab coat, and pulled her shirt over her head. "Well, ding ding ding," she said. "You get the prize."

  "What a day," he said dreamily, then grabbed her around the waist and kissed her until she was out of breath.

  They found themselves on the (fortunately empty) bed, and for the first time all day Tara felt as if time wasn't her enemy, as though she could do as she pleased for as long as she liked. She got him out of his coat, got the tie off (very carefully; it was so sharp there was no visible blood on it), got the shirt off, and was fumbling for his belt buckle when he pushed the cups of her bra down and kissed her breasts.
She forgot about his belt—and everything else—as he licked and sucked her nipples, as he ran his knuckles across the full undersides of her breasts, as he kissed her cleavage.

  "You're so gorgeous," he said, raising his head to look her in the eye.

  "Inside and out?" she teased.

  He laughed and bent back to her cleavage, and she ran her fingers through his wild red hair. "This is nuts," she sighed. "The police are on the way, if they aren't already here."

  "This hospital is huge," he said, his voice muffled. "It'll take them a while to get to us, if they even make it to this wing."

  "And what about Katya?"

  "She's having Cheez Nips in the bathroom; she's in heaven. I knew stopping by the snack machine on

  the way out was going to pay off ..."

  She whipped his belt out of the loops and sent it sailing across the room, then wriggled out of her pants and helped him out of his—

  "These hospital blankets are scratchy," he complained.

  —and rolled over until she was on top of him. He reached up and unlatched her bra, then sighed happily when her breasts bounced free. "What a day," he sighed again.

  She trailed kisses down his neck, his chest—broad and furred with reddish brown hair—then inhaled his male musk and ran her tongue along the length of his throbbing penis. He groaned and tried to bury his hands in her hair—it was too short—and settled for fondling her earlobes instead.

  She sucked his tip into her mouth and let her tongue play across its velvety head, marveling at the size

  of him, the warmth, his good clean smell.

  "Oh, God," he gasped. "Please don't stop. Ever."

  "For anything?" she teased, stripping off her panties and straddling him. He reached between her thighs and found her slippery, and she squirmed against his fingers as he stroked and teased.

  "By the way," he sighed as she lowered herself on top of him, "it really turned me on when you punched Dr. Krendall in the kidneys to get him to give us his brother-in-law's name."

  "Thanks," she said, almost moaned, as she settled herself over him. Oh, Christ, that's what she needed, that's what was missing. She began to rock against him as he gripped her hips and thrust against her.

  "Tara...oh, God ... Tara . .."

  She leaned down and nipped the side of his neck as he thrust faster; he reached between her legs and found her clit again and stroked it with the barest of butterfly strokes, and that delicate touch, coupled with the sweet size of him thrusting inside her, brought her to orgasm, made her close her eyes and

  shiver with the glory of it.

  "Come now," she said, almost pleaded, and he wrapped his strong arms around her and pumped against her, and obliged.

  * * *

  Later, in the gloom of the room, they reassembled their clothes and tried to get their breath back. Tara was having a hard time looking at Ben; she felt curiously shy. It wasn't like her at all to just jump some stranger's bones. Except Ben didn't feel like a stranger. And wasn't that odd? They'd known each other

  ... what? Five hours?

  Trying to get her mind back on business, she peeked out the window but only had a view of the next building; she couldn't see any cop cars.

  He came up behind her and dropped a kiss to her neck. She shivered and leaned back against him. It was odd. Very very odd. She should be anxious to be gone. But all she wanted was to go home with him and rent movies and make out on the couch and sleep late the next morning.

  "Ready to sneak out of Dodge?" he teased. "The Damon parking ramp is a couple of buildings away."

  "Sure."

  "I'll get the rat."

  She paused, then said, "Janet. My real name is Janet."

  Now it was his turn to pause. He turned her around, kissed her softly, then said, "Thank you."

  She had no reply; what else was there to say?

  Eleven

  Ben sighed, stretched, and rolled over to grope for her. What a day! What a night! After she'd insisted

  on renting movies, she'd been unstoppable in the sack. Not that he had tons of sack experience. But still. She'd been something else. Now he'd make her breakfast—well, take her out for breakfast—and they could spend the day together, like two ordinary people in—

  She was gone.

  He sat bolt upright. "T—Janet?" he called, knowing it was useless; his house had the familiar feel of emptiness to it. "Janet?"

  He rolled out of bed, jumped into a pair of cutoffs, and quickly searched the house. Nobody home but him. Even the rat was gone.

  He couldn't believe it. The day they'd spent together had been amazing enough, but the night had been . .. well. .. magical. She'd been alternately urgent and tender, and he'd been more than happy to meet her needs. Afterward, drifting off with her head on his shoulder, he'd felt like the happiest man who'd ever escaped from a lab.

  Well, she was . . . she was an independent woman. A free spirit. And they'd just met, after all. Maybe

  she needed to, um, water her plants or whatever. It's not like they promised each other anything. It's not like he had something . . .

  . . . something she wanted.

  Oh, shit.

  It took him forty seconds to ascertain that she had taken both key cards. He stormed up and down his lab, running his fingers through his hair, cursing himself for being ten kinds of a fool. He was an idiot!

  Of course she didn't like him; of course she wasn't going to stay with someone like him. She wanted the key card, and she got exactly what she came for.

  God, the things he'd said to her! "You're so beautiful; you're so wonderful." His face burned with anger and embarrassment. She'd played him like a real chump. And she'd been right to do it... He was a chump.

  Dr. Ben Dyson, Chump.

  Fuck.

  Twelve

  "Dr. Dyson, we're getting to be sort of friends, don'tcha think?"

  Ben, who had just returned from the grocery store, put the nachos and Coke away. Bemused, he

  watched Agent Tom Carradine shift his weight from one foot to another and case the place with his peripheral vision. "Friends? Well, uh . . ." You come over. You drop off a check. You take what I

  made. You leave. A few months later, you come over again. Rinse. Repeat. "Sure. Okay."

  "Well, we're just—I mean, my supervisor and I—we were talking and—is everything all right?"

  "No."

  "Oh." Tom blinked, then tried again. "I could maybe arrange for you to talk to someone if there's, you know, a problem."

  "No."

  "Okay." Tom switched tactics. Ben would have been amused if he wasn't so fucking depressed. "Listen, word's out, you know, small world and all, and we heard you did some great work a few weeks back. And my supervisor could talk to the DCI and maybe get you into the next class at Langley."

  How nice. Everything he ever wanted. Before he had a clue what he wanted. "No." He added, because

  it seemed like the polite thing to do, "But thanks."

  "Well, how about if we get you into DI? With your skills and background, no problem."

  Directorate of Intelligence. Analyst. Solving puzzles all day. Yawn. "No thanks."

  "Okay, well, you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

  "What do you want, Tom?"

  Agent Carradine shrugged. "Just to see how you're doing."

  "Oh. You don't need anything?"

  "Just for you to get back on track. Everybody's noticed. You've been . . . off . . . for almost a month."

  "Yeah, well. Thanks for checking in." Ben was almost— but not quite—touched. He performed a necessary function, after all, and people were bound to notice when he didn't do it anymore. He didn't like to admit, not even to himself, but the heart had gone right out of him around the time Janet had gone out of his house, never to return. Janet probably wasn't her real name, either, he supposed. "I'll see you."

  "Sure. You've got my card, right?"

  "About a dozen of them."

  "Well, gi
ve me a shout if you want to talk."

  "Sure."

  "Take 'er easy."

  "Ummm."

  Tom left. Ben stored the extra nachos on top of the fridge. He thought about having a Coke, then changed his mind. Instead, he wandered through his empty house. Something was a little off, but it was probably fallout from Tom's visit. It didn't mean—