Foxworth calmed himself. "Don't ask me again. A long as I can reach you, I don't need anything else."
"I'm always available for you." Morel closed his case.
The money he got for these visits guaranteed it. If his patient didn't want tests, well, that was his decision. Morel had done what he could. He wouldn't bring it up again, not after what Foxworth had said. For a moment, he'd actually felt threatened.
CHAPTER SIX
Selena's condo had security good enough for Langley or the NSA. She needed it. There was enough rare art on the walls to start a private museum. She'd inherited a fortune from her uncle. His murder had brought her to the Project. She'd never imagined then that she would end up working for Harker.
One of the things Nick liked about her was her lack of pretension. Selena didn't flaunt her money. She had no false airs of superiority because of wealth.
He sat at the counter and watched her in the kitchen. She moved with smoothness perfected in twenty years of martial arts training. The reddish blond coloring of her hair revealed her Celtic ancestors. Her eyes were sometimes blue, sometimes deep violet. Her face was interesting. One cheekbone was a little higher than the other. She had the kind of look people called striking. There was a small dark mole on her upper lip, a natural beauty mark.
Selena had a lot of skills, but cooking wasn't one of them. She was trying out a recipe for beef stroganoff. A pan of noodles burbled on the stove.
"You need any help with that?"
Nick kept the nervousness out of his voice. Selena's last two attempts to make dinner hadn't ended well. They usually ate out when they were together, or Nick fixed something.
"No, I'm fine. How's your drink?"
"I'm good." He picked up his whiskey, took a sip. Foam lifted off the noodles and boiled over onto the stove.
"Darn!" She turned down the flame.
"Won't hurt anything," he said.
She took the noodles off the stove, strained them into a colander in the sink. Half of them stuck to the pan. She scooped them out and added the beef and brought everything over to the counter. It was already set with plates and napkins and silverware. She'd put a rose in a bud vase on the counter. Water in crystal glasses. A large Greek salad.
Nick eyed the stroganoff. "What are those black things?"
"Olives. I didn't have any pickles."
He took a bite. The meat was like leather. His eyes watered. "Kind of hot." They both reached for water. "How much pepper did you use?"
"It said a tablespoon. You like spicy things so I added a bit more."
"A tablespoon." No way, he thought. "Not bad," he said. He took another gulp of water.
"It's terrible. Damn it." She pushed her plate away.
"Great chefs weren't made in a day. The wine's good." He leaned over and kissed her. "And you taste good. Kind of like peppered wine."
"You taste like whiskey. With curdled sour cream."
"Let's just eat the salad."
When they were done they moved to a long couch where they could look out over the lights of the city. The Capitol Dome glowed white in the distance.
"I wish it could always be like this," she said.
"It's like this right now."
"For how long? Something's going to come up. It always does. We still aren't certain who came after us."
"No. We'll find out, though."
"You think they'll try again?"
"Yes."
"How can we stop them?"
"They'll make a mistake. Sooner or later, there's always a mistake. All we need is a lead. We follow that, we learn more, we keep going. Somewhere there's an end to the trail. Then we eliminate the threat."
"We don't know what the threat is."
He picked up his drink and gazed into the amber glow of the whiskey. He set it down.
"We'll find out," he said again. He changed the subject. "You miss what you did before you hooked up with Harker?"
Selena had a unique gift for ancient and obscure languages. She had a world wide reputation as an expert.
"Sometimes. Mostly not. After this last year, I could never go back to my old life. Even with the drawbacks of working for Elizabeth."
She stared into her wine glass. "You think you'll ever want to get out of this? Do something different?"
"I think about it, sometimes. It would be hard to just have a normal life. Whatever that is."
"Some things don't change, normal life or not."
"What do you mean?"
She set her glass down and kissed him. A long kiss.
They broke apart. "Let's not change that," he said.
She looked into his eyes. Gray eyes, with flecks of gold.
They went into the bedroom and undressed. She pressed against him and wrapped her arms around him. She ran her hands over his body, feeling the geography that told his history. His right side was stippled with scars from the calf to the shoulder, the result of a grenade in Afghanistan. A puckered ridge marked where a round had passed through his upper chest. The scars were familiar to her touch. She took in his scent, tried to inhale him. She pushed him down on the bed and straddled him.
"Tell me you love me," she said. "Tell me."
"You know I do."
"Tell me."
"Yes. Yes, I love you."
She was ready for him. She guided him in and they began moving together. Afterward, they lay for a long time in each other's arms.
Nick fell asleep. He dreamed the dream.
They come in low and fast over the ridge, the rotors hammering out the hard heartbeat of war.
The village sits in a sandy valley between sharp, barren hills under a relentless sun. He's first out of the bird, his Marines fast behind. They hit the street running. On the right, low, flat roofed houses. On the left, more houses and the market. The shoddy bins of the market are made from old crates, the walls of hanging cloth. Flies swarm on meat hanging in the open air of the butcher’s stall.
A baby is crying somewhere. The street is empty.
Bearded figures spring up like dragon's teeth on the rooftops and open fire. The market stalls turn into a storm of splinters. Plaster and rock explodes from the sides of the buildings.
He ducks into a shallow doorway. From one of the houses, a child runs toward him with a grenade, screaming about Allah. Nick hesitates, a second too long. The boy throws as Nick shoots him. The child's head turns into a red mist of blood and bone. The grenade floats through the air in slow motion…everything goes white…
Nick shouted and sat up in the bed, slick with sweat.
"It's all right, Nick. It's just a dream." Selena waited until she was sure he was awake before she touched him.
He rubbed his face. "Try and go back to sleep," she said.
"There's no point."
He got up and waited for daylight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Endgame Development was housed in a concrete and brick building off Brighton Beach Avenue. The area was a zoning nightmare. Apartment buildings and row houses butted up against commercial shops and services. Most of the business signs were in Russian and Ukrainian. Brighton Beach was known locally as "Little Odessa". It was the base for the Russian and Ukrainian Mafia in the US.
The August day was hot and humid. Nick and Lamont sat at a grungy sidewalk cafe down the block from the building, eating Russian pastries and drinking black coffee. Sport jackets concealed their weapons. Nick had a brought a .45 caliber Sig-Sauer P229 designed for concealed carry. He was thinking about changing over from his H-K. The Sig was smaller, less obvious. It sat snugly in a holster at his side.