AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The stairwell opened into an underground parking garage full of gleaming cars. Steward was pacing back and forth, already on the phone. I flattened myself against a pillar and listened. “...from the Middle East is in a shipping container,” he said. “It’s down a back road that isn’t on most maps, so I’m going to give you the coordinates. Got a pen?”
Maybe Maravic, on the other end of the line, had a pen, but I didn’t. I looked around for something to write with and found nothing.
“Thirty-five point eight six nine north,” Steward reeled off from memory. “Eighty-three point eight three six west.”
Shit! I closed my eyes and started repeating the numbers in my head.
“Call me when you have it,” Steward told Maravic, then hurried off up the stairs.
I waited a few seconds to make sure he was gone, then raced up the stairs. I could feel the numbers fading in my head. How do spies remember this stuff?! Thirty-five point eight six nine… I grabbed hold of the first person I saw. “Got a pen?” He looked at me blankly. I grabbed another man’s arm. “A pen! Got a pen?” He recoiled from my Missouri twang. Thirty-five point eight six nine…
I saw Tanya across the room and ran to her. “Thirty-five point eight six nine north,” I panted, “eighty-three point eight three six west.” Even as I said them, the numbers faded and jumbled into garbage in my head. “Tell me you got that!”
She blinked at me. “Thirty-five point eight six nine north, eighty-three point eight three six west,” she repeated as if it was nothing. I groaned in relief, lifted her right off the ground and bear-hugged her. She was so amazing and—
Goddamnit. I felt the resolve harden in my chest, becoming iron. I wasn’t going to let her go. I was going to find a way to reach her.
“What’s there?” she asked, her voice muffled.
I gently put her down and forced my voice to be level. “The package from the Middle East that Steward wants Maravic to pick up,” I told her. “My guess would be explosives.”
She thought for a second. “Those coordinates are within the US. Somewhere in the Midwest.”
I shook my head in wonder. “You just know by heart where GPS—Yeah, of course you do.” I took hold of her shoulders. “If we get there first and get the explosives, that stops this thing dead. And we’ll have the hard evidence we need. You can clear your name. I can go back to the team!”
Together, we ran for the door.
43
TANYA
We looked up the coordinates and they led to a spot just outside Columbus, Ohio. About a seven hour drive from DC, thanks to traffic. Maravic could make it from New York in about eight. It was going to be tight. We rushed back to the hotel to change and grab our stuff and then we drove like hell.
Colton was almost silent for the first three hours. Then, somewhere in Pennsylvania, we turned off the interstate to miss some construction. I was driving and Colton was reading me directions as we blasted down a deserted backroad, our wheels kicking up clouds of dust behind. And suddenly, it happened.
“Let me tell you a story,” said Colton.
I glanced across at him, surprised, then frowned. There was a weird look on his face. I turned back to the road.
“There’s this girl. And I don’t know what happened to her, but at some point in her life, she feels this calling—”—he tapped his chest—“like a lot of us get. She wants to serve her country. Protect it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“Not a conversation, a story.” His eyes gleamed and I recognized that stubbornly determined look.
“I don’t want to listen to this story,” I told him.
“Well, we still got four hours to go and we’re stuck in this car and you can’t drive with your hands over your ears so you ain’t got much of a choice.”
“Chyort!” I said out loud, and gripped the wheel harder.
“So this girl, she’s smart, and she’s resourceful and she’s pretty as hell, so her country trains her to be a spy. They teach her how to lie, and cheat, and double-cross, how to manipulate people, how to use her body to seduce men.”
Where is all this coming from? Then I thought back to how quiet he’d been. This wasn’t coming out of the blue, he’d been planning it ever since we left the party, choosing his words.
“And this girl, a woman, now, she gets so used to lying and betraying people that she convinces herself she’s evil. She starts pushing people away because she thinks no one should like her, let alone love her. But she’s wrong. Her heart’s in the right place. The bad shit she does, she does it to protect her country.”
