approvingly as he stepped in front of her. Evidently she wasn’t the only quick-change artist around. With his hair flowing freely and that matching cable-knit turtleneck toning down his massive chest and arms, in addition to his dark jeans and nondescript jump boots, Agent Sullivan looked more like a local woodsman out for a midnight stroll than a finely honed ARIES operative on the prowl in the backwoods of…
“Where are we?”
He stilled. “You don’t remember?”
Before she could answer, he turned back to the pile of gear, leaning down to retrieve something. She stared at the disk of that gleaming scope as he returned.
Great.
She steeled herself as he moved in close, determined to ignore his scent and his warmth as he tucked the cool disk into the curve of her upper breast. “I don’t have a blessed clue where we are. The last I remember, I was attending a conference in Holzberg. I’m not even sure how long I was out. I woke up a couple of days ago…I think. It’s hard to say, since I kept falling back under. Twice I saw someone else. A man. He’d been beaten severely. I think he was a doctor or at least a nurse assigned to treat me.”
He slipped the scope from the gap in her shirt and tucked it beneath her collar, sliding the disk far enough down her back to listen to her lungs. “Why?”
“He was wearing a white lab coat.”
“I don’t suppose—”
“No. I didn’t see a name. I didn’t hear one, either. Except for my own.” She breathed easier as he withdrew the scope and hooked the tubing around his neck—until he lit up the face of his watch. The dial glowed softly as he captured her wrist and timed her pulse. She willed it to slow.
“Hmm.”
Was that a good “hmm” or a bad “hmm”? She decided on the former, easing out her breath as he withdrew his fingers altogether, then headed for the pile of gear. He headed back, sans scope—but with a mini flashlight in his right hand.
Oh boy.
“The man spoke to you?”
Her panic revved as Jared turned on the flashlight.
“Alex?”
She dragged her gaze to his. She’d been right to worry earlier. Those amber eyes might be mesmerizing, but they were also much too shrewd for her peace of mind. She could almost feel her ear throb beneath them. He was waiting.
What had he asked her?
She shoved the panic down and cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”
“The man. You said you heard your name. Did he speak?”
“No—yes.” She shook her head, shook off the panic. “No. He wasn’t the one who called my name. But, yes, he did speak. The first time I came to, he was leaning over me, talking softly, as if he thought someone might be listening. At least I think so. At the time I was woozy, confused. I couldn’t understand the language. It could have been Rebelian, but I can’t be sure.” She’d been pretty out of it. “Anyway, by the time he switched to English, I’d passed out. The next time I awoke, he was handcuffed to the bed beside mine. At first I thought he might be sleeping—or dead. But then a couple of armed thugs entered the room. He’d been beaten into unconsciousness. They dragged him out, probably for another round of torture.” She fell silent as Jared sighed. The sound was heavy, rife with regret
“I’m sorry. I had my orders.”
“I know.” She also knew he truly hadn’t had time to search for the man when they left. In the end, neither of them had. If Jared had bowed to her demands and gone back, all three of them would be dead by now.
“I’ll put out the word. See what I can find out. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Hell, maybe he did.”
She flinched as Jared slid his fingers beneath her chin. He had to have noticed, but he didn’t comment on it as he gently turned her head and tipped it slightly. She forced the panic down again, forced herself not to pull away as he bathed the side of her face with the red glow from his flashlight.
“The thugs, did they say anything?”
She didn’t dare move, much less nod. “Yes. But again, I can’t be sure about the dialect. I do know they were carrying AK-47s. The rifles sported Romanian forward pistol grips.” No surprise there. The Romanian black market had been thoughtfully arming the goons of Eastern Europe for years. She dug her fingertips into her palms as he probed the line of stitches behind her right ear.
Don’t move. Keep him talking.
It just might keep him distracted enough.
“So…where exactly in Rebelia are we?”
It worked. He withdrew his fingers and switched off the flashlight before tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Fifty-one kilometers inside the northeastern corner of the Hartz forest. Two days ago, another ARIES operative by the name of Robert Davidson and his fiancée Lily Scott discovered you were being held in General Bruno DeBruzkya’s stronghold, Veisweimar—a medieval castle that served as a makeshift prison in World War II. As you discovered for yourself, DeBruzkya has since turned the castle into a fortress. The information came from the general himself. He told Lily you were alive, but he never said you were unconscious. Hatch sent me in to pull you out.”
It made sense. The last thing she knew, she was supposed to meet a colleague. To discuss DeBruzkya and his threats to— Nothing. The memory stopped there.
Again.
“What is it?”
“My head.” More specifically, her memory. “It’s just not there.” She dug her fingers into her temples, but the impromptu massage didn’t help now any more than the previous hundred desperate kneadings had. “No matter how hard I try, I just can’t remember what happened.”
Thanks to her hearing aid, the base curse he’d meant to keep beneath his breath reverberated through her ear.
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. In fact, it’s extremely common. Most coma patients don’t remember the events directly proceeding their trauma. It’s called retrograde amnesia.”
Just what she didn’t need to hear.
Her curse echoed his.
“What do you remember? According to Hatch, the last he heard you were about to meet with a Delmonican colleague. A man by the name of Karl—”
“Weiss.” She nodded. “That much I do remember. I also remember why we were supposed to meet. Karl and I first met years ago, shortly after I joined ARIES. It took a few years to develop him, but he’s turned out to be one of my more reliable sources. He’d contacted me a couple of days before, asking me to meet him in Prague. But he was nervous. Karl said he’d stumbled across something regarding General DeBruzkya, something I would find fascinating…and frightening. I asked him to meet me in Washington, D.C. since I was scheduled to deliver a paper before the Congressional Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards. Karl refused.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say. But I got the distinct impression he was afraid he was being followed. Terrified even. And you have to know Karl—he’s a big man.” She flicked her gaze to Jared’s massive shoulders. “Almost as big as you. Karl doesn’t scare easily. But trust me, he was then.”
“So you agreed to meet on his turf.”
She nodded. “The conference in Holzberg was perfect. Karl’s a physicist who spends much of his spare time devoted to regional environmental issues, and I—”
“Received dual doctoral degrees in environmental geology and chemistry. You graduated with honors.”
She blinked. “How did you know that?”
“I