“Breakthrough?”
Al nodded. “That he had managed to miniaturize many of the components of a nuclear bomb while using very lightweight materials. That—well, that he had developed or was in the process of developing man-portable nuclear bombs.”
“Jesus,” Metal muttered.
Al met Metal’s eyes over her head. “Yeah.”
“Scary shit.”
“Very scary,” Al said.
“I don’t understand.” Felicity looked back over her shoulder at Metal, then at Al. “Man-portable bombs?”
“I thought that was just an urban legend,” Metal said.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Al drew in a deep breath then winced and held his side. “Sorry. Nobody really knows if it is an urban legend or not. Or rather Nikolai Darin would know, except he’s dead. At the time he defected, the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War. For those with eyes to see, the end was near and a lot of people in the security apparatus were very anxious. They weren’t going to go down with the ship. A lot of wild-eyed ideas were green-lighted. Weaponized smallpox. Poisoning major waterways. And very small nuclear weapons that didn’t require missiles. They had a name for them too. Deti.”
“The little ones,” Felicity whispered.
Al nodded. “Yeah. The little ones. Rumor was that they could be carried in a backpack.” He looked at Metal. “Smaller and lighter than the kind SEALs carry into battle. Place one in every major city, blow them up and you’ve won the Cold War. Because who would know who placed them, set them off? Moscow would deny it vehemently while mopping up the rest of the world. With no proof, what was left of the United States wouldn’t retaliate. It was supposed to be a last-ditch plan if Moscow ever fell, as it did in 1991. By then if the Deti ever existed, no one could find them.”
“They lost nuclear weapons?” Felicity asked, appalled. “How can you do that? As if misplacing a pen? That’s insane.”
Metal gave a harsh laugh. “Entire arsenals were lost when the Soviet Union fell. For a few years it was absolute chaos. We had to send over inspectors at our expense to start to do an inventory. The office that kept track of their nuclear arsenal was disbanded and the files lost. We were looking at an entire arsenal that the Russians—most of them ex-KGB—were trying to sell to the mob and to terrorists. It was wild. They ransacked a whole country.”
“Was that what Borodin wanted from me? The location of the Deti? That’s—that’s crazy. I’d never even heard of this until now. My father never said anything to me. Nothing at all. Why would Borodin think I knew anything?”
Silence.
“Al?” Her voice rose because Al winced again, but it wasn’t because of a cracked rib. “Al? What do you know?”
“Nothing, honey.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything. But you—you might know.”
“No.” Felicity shook her head decisively. “I don’t know anything about this. Nothing at all.”
“Your father and I got drunk together once,” Al mused.
Felicity’s mouth fell open. “Drunk? My father?” Her sober, serious, unsmiling father? The only Russian in the history of the country to have never developed a taste for vodka? “Never.”
Al smiled faintly. “Oh yes. Just the once. You must have been, oh, eleven? Twelve? Back in Russia the Mafiya had taken over. The whole country was a huge criminal enterprise. Your father was in Washington for some reason and he called and came over with two bottles of the best vodka I have ever had, bar none.”
“You guys drank two bottles of vodka?”
Al shook his head. “Not quite, but almost. I had an epic hangover the next day. The next three days, actually. Vomited my guts out. Anyway, deep in the night we started talking about regrets. He said there was something he deeply regretted doing. I looked at him and knew. And he knew I knew. I asked him where they were.”
“The Deti?”
Al nodded. “Yes, honey. The Deti. Bombs that could have changed the course of the world.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said you’d know where they were,” Al answered, gray eyes watching her so carefully. “He said he left everything with you.”
It was almost as bad as being hit by the sonic boom. Felicity felt nausea rise and her head pound. “But...that’s insane. I don’t know. How could I? This is the first I ever heard of even the existence of the Deti. How could my father have said that when he never told me anything? And how could he say I knew when I was just a little girl?”
“Your father’s English wasn’t perfect. He chose his words carefully. He said you would know. As if he hadn’t told you yet, but would.”
Felicity sighed sadly. “He died without telling me. You must believe that.”
“Wait.” Metal turned to Al. “He said he left everything with Felicity?”
“Yes. He said that. He left everything with his daughter.”
“He didn’t leave anything with me! Not that I know of. When they died so suddenly, I sold the house and all its contents. If he left information on the bombs in...I don’t know. A book, in a piece of furniture, behind a painting, it’s gone. But he wouldn’t do that, would he? Leave something of importance to me without telling me?”
“But he did,” Metal said softly. “He did leave something of importance to you and he told you to always keep it with you.” He bent and picked up her backpack. “And you do. You always have it with you.”
Felicity gasped.
Metal zipped open the top of the backpack and pulled out the soft leather carrying case. “Your father’s Nobel Prize. Check it carefully, honey.” He opened the case and carefully handed the medallion to her.
Felicity took it with numb fingers. She held it in the palm of her left hand. She’d seen it a million times. She looked up at Metal then at Al. “It’s the genuine medallion. There aren’t any extra letters or numerals. There’s nothing here.” She turned it over and looked at it, seeing nothing she hadn’t seen a million times before.
“Let me see,” Metal said gently and she handed it over. He brought it close to his eyes and carefully studied it. Then he reached down and slid a knife from his boot. A knife she’d had no idea he was carrying. It was thin, razor sharp, pointed. Holding it by the black handle, Metal put the pointed end against the face of the medallion and worked the knife. Felicity watched uneasily. That medallion was very precious to her. She was about to say something about being careful when Metal gave a grunt of satisfaction and held his broad palm out.
Felicity and Al peered down at the tiny dot in the palm of his hand.
“A microdot,” Al murmured. “Fairly high tech for the time. Now we’ll have to find a forensic IT specialist to find the equipment to read it.”
Felicity sat, stunned. “What do you think is on the microdot?”
“Coordinates,” Metal said. “Coordinates to hidden atomic bombs.”
Portland, Oregon
Three weeks later
She came in laughing, waving goodbye to Lauren, who waited in the car until she was in the house before driving off.
“Hey,” Metal said.
“Hey.” She looked so incredibly beautiful, color high from the cold, eyes bright bright blue. Weighed down by about a ton of bags.
“I see you’ve been shopping,” he said mildly. Apparently she’d just discovered it as a recreational activity. She now made regular forays and came back with booty, filled with delight. She shopped with Lauren, she shopped with Suzanne and Allegra and had started an entire new Chapter of shopping with Claire, Bud’s wife.
Metal didn’t care. She sometimes came home with amazing underwear in every color of the rainbow. Yeah.
“God, yes. Lauren and I discovered this amazing shoe shop, outlet really. Fifty percent off your fifth purchase. Incredible quality.”
“You happy with wha
t you bought?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She smiled a secret smile. “Particularly happy. I got you a present.”
“Yeah?” God, she was irresistible. And he never resisted her. Couldn’t.
She’d gone to work at ASI almost immediately, notwithstanding Midnight’s and Senior’s protests. In only a few weeks she had become indispensable to the company. Metal was under strict orders never to leave her.
God, no. Why would he do that when she made him so happy? As a matter of fact...
But first some news. Metal had no idea how she was going to take it.
Felicity was unwinding his long ratty black scarf from around her neck when she froze. “What’s wrong?”
Damn. For a self-professed nerd she was getting really good at reading people. Or at least reading him.
“Let’s sit down,” he said. When she sat, he took both her hands.
Her eyes searched his, back and forth, those incredibly perceptive bright blue eyes that saw through him. That saw him.
“They found them, didn’t they?” she whispered. “The Deti.”
Metal nodded. “Six of them. Exactly where the coordinates said they’d be.”
“I thought we were never supposed to know. That it was a state secret. At least that’s what Al said. That I’d never have closure.”
Well, it turned out Al loved her too much to leave her hanging.
“I found out through a roundabout way and we are to forget this forever. Do you understand me, Felicity? We must never talk about this.”
She nodded, face sober. “Never. I have Russian blood. We keep secrets for generations.”
“Okay. They went immediately to the site of the coordinates. The FBI and a NEST team. NEST is—”
“Nuclear Emergency Support Team. Yes. Where did they find the Deti?”
“On an old farm, near Merritt, Minnesota. Just a few acres and an abandoned clapboard house. Merritt is—”
“Merritt was our first home.” Her face was pale. “I barely remember it. We left when I was four. I never saw it again.”
“It was bought by a corporation whose owner we can’t track down. But the important thing is that the land belonged to no one and your father made sure it would never belong to anyone. They found them exactly at the coordinates—buried six feet underground in a special casing.”
Al had no idea how Darin had managed to smuggle the Deti in, but they were small. An ordinary trunk would contain them.
“Why now? Why let us know now? I’ll bet they found them immediately.”
Yes, they had. Now, because Al had been debriefed for a full week and had waited another two weeks to casually get to a pay phone and call him. Risking big too. It was a measure of Al’s love for Felicity, that he was willing to risk jail to get her closure.
“It was the first chance he got,” Metal said simply.
“So.” Felicity clung to his hands. “It’s over.”
“It’s over,” he agreed. “No old business. Not anymore. Just new business. Just us, together. And our future.” And our family, he thought.
More than anything in the world he wanted a family with Felicity.
“Our future.” She smiled. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
The future. Felcity’s entire life had revolved around the past, around the choices made by her parents. Around her mother’s unhappiness and her father’s guilt. One evening after making love, she’d confessed to him that she felt light now, as if a terrible burden had been lifted.
Well, it had. No burdens now.
He had his own past to bury. He’d loved his family fiercely. But they were gone now. Had been gone for almost seventeen years. He had never really laid his grief to rest. But in these weeks with Felicity, he’d spent hours, even days, without thinking of them. They had loved him. They wouldn’t have wanted him to feel such grief that he couldn’t get on with his life.
Both of them were free now.
“I want my present,” Metal announced. “Right now. And then I want to give you mine.”
Rising, she went to one of the bags and brought out a tartan-wrapped package. He recognized it as from a Scottish store in the center of town. She placed the package solemnly in his hands.
He tore the wrapping paper open and pulled out a long cashmere scarf. “This is beautiful but it’s the Black Watch tartan,” he said. “Honey, I’m Irish, not Scottish.”
“Not today you’re not. Today you are a Scotsman.” She wrapped it around his neck and he fingered the material. It was incredibly soft. “I’m going to burn this old black one of yours I’ve been wearing. Now.” She sat back down, folding her hands in her lap. “My present. I want it.”
Metal’s palms suddenly started sweating. Oh God. He had an entire speech ready. Had been practicing it too. Now he couldn’t remember a word. The only thing in his head was a bright keening panic. What if it wasn’t the right time? What if she missed Vermont?
What if she said no?
He brought the small package out of his pocket. He didn’t have the nerve to say he’d bought it three weeks ago because she’d think he was insane. He was, but not about this. He was absolutely certain about this.
This was right, this was meant to be. He felt it in his bones.
His panic stopped, just like that.
He held the package out in the palm of his hand. Felicity picked it up with her delicate fingers, turned it over. He’d simply ripped the wrapping paper off the scarf but she picked hers apart carefully. Untying the bow of the ribbon. Gently opening the wrapping paper.
A small intake of breath.
She opened the jewelry box and stared.
Metal had gone straight to the source for all things beautiful and elegant. Suzanne Huntington. She had approved and so Metal knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was a ring that would be pleasing to a woman.
The central stone was a sapphire, a little darker than her eyes. There was an intricate setting and Suzanne had told him the name of the setting and told him the cut of the sapphire but he couldn’t remember any of that now.
She held the ring in her hand, then put it on. A band Metal hadn’t noticed around his chest suddenly eased.
“I, um.” His mouth was suddenly dry. God, where was a beer when you needed one? “I thought that since you’ve had so many names, you wouldn’t mind one more change.”
“Yeah?” Her tone was dry but her eyes were wet.
“Felicity O’Brien. Sounds good. Don’t you think?” He’d tried for casual but his voice broke on the last word.
She was admiring the ring and was smiling when she lifted her head. “Felicity O’Brien,” she said softly. “Sounds great.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books by Lisa Marie Rice, please visit Lisa’s website here or at lisamariericebooks.com/books.
Now Available from Carina Press and Lisa Marie Rice
Anyone wishing her harm will have to pass through him, and Jacko is a hard man to kill.
Read on for an excerpt from MIDNIGHT VENGEANCE.
Chapter One
Portland, Oregon
January 15
“Inside/Out” Exhibit of Suzanne Huntington’s interior designs
“Girlfriend on your six.”
A hard elbow jabbed into Morton “Jacko” Jackman’s hard side. It would have knocked a lesser man down. Former senior chief Douglas Kowalski wasn’t known for his gentleness or delicate touch. But then neither was Jacko. He was a former Navy SEAL too, just like Senior. But both of them were out of the service and working in the same company, Alpha Security International, so Jacko could knock Senior on his ass and not be court-martialed.
Except, well, Senior was a good guy.
Senior’s el
bow couldn’t knock Jacko down, but his knees nearly buckled at the thought of the woman behind him.
“Not my girlfriend,” he mumbled, hoping the tan he’d gotten over his dark skin this past week teaching Mexican federales in Baja the fine art of fucking with the enemy hid his red face.
Senior shifted his eyes sideways, a hint of a smile on his big ugly mug. “No?” He shook his head and jabbed him again. “So why the chubby every time you lay eyes on her?”
Fuck. Busted. Jacko pulled his tuxedo jacket lower. He’d learned to control his dick at fourteen. What was he—back in high school? Why couldn’t he be in jeans, like he was most times he saw her? Tight stiff ones that kept the hard-on down because it didn’t have anywhere to go.
Except you don’t wear jeans to a fancy art exhibit. Particularly not when your boss’s wife’s works were on show.
“Bravo red, moving fast,” the chief murmured. Anyone farther than a foot from them wouldn’t have heard a word and wouldn’t have understood anyway. The orientation clock. “Bravo red” meant she was moving behind him to his right. Man.
Lauren Dare.
Oh. God.
Jacko thought he could smell her but that was crazy. Still, why not imagine he could smell her, because she drove him crazy in every other way? Though smelling Lauren in a room full of hundreds of people, every single one—man, woman and other—wearing perfume or cologne, with caterers walking around with hot food on platters and glasses of wine everywhere...well, that stretched even Jacko’s sense of his own craziness.
He wasn’t known for this. He wasn’t what Suzanne Huntington, the big boss’s wife and the star of the show, would call a fanciful man. He was known for being hardheaded and hard-hearted and hard-bodied. He was a roughneck from Texas who’d be in jail if he hadn’t signed up for the Navy. They’d pounded self-discipline and a sniper’s focus plus a dozen lethal martial arts into him. He could handle any type of weaponry, explosives, hand-to-hand combat.
Not one ounce of his very extensive and very expensive training gave him a clue about how to handle Lauren Dare.
There she was! Alone and lost-looking against the wall across the room to his right. For such a beautiful woman, she was doing her best not to attract attention, though for Jacko that didn’t work. Couldn’t. It was like the roof opened up and the sun shot a beam straight down onto her like a spotlight. Jacko was surprised people weren’t gasping and turning to watch her.