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“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. And I would hate to ask what the woman was doing that had her at knee height.” As she spoke, he seemed to gain a bit of color.
The crowd shuffled and they were pushed nearer to Hans, who was standing precariously close to the passing New York traffic.
“Sir,” Mindy said, tapping Hans on the arm, “you may want to take a step back. Cabs pull right up to this curb.”
Hans gave her a look like she had murdered his first grandchild. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, his voice flecked with his Swedish accent. “First you think you can tell me what I should do with my power inside the parliament, and now you even wish to dictate how I cross the street? You Americans think you know everything.”
As the last words fell from his lips, there was the screech of tires and a man’s yelling. The sound was strangled, some foreign tongue that Mindy didn’t recognize. But even not knowing exactly what the man was saying she could tell by the look on Hans’s face that it wasn’t good. As the car grew closer, something pitched out of the window. From where she stood, it looked like an envelope. As it hit the ground a plume of white powder erupted into the air. Jarrod grabbed her and threw her to the ground, covering her with his body.
She couldn’t breathe, but she wasn’t sure whether it was because of his weight or how he had pinned her. As she struggled, her throat burned and her eyes began to water. She tried to push Jarrod off out of some instinctual need to survive. After what seemed like an excruciating amount of time, he rolled off her. As she took a breath, her lungs burned.
He looked as she felt. Tears were streaming down his face and there were dabs of saliva at the corners of his mouth and goatee. She glanced around, a few paces away from them, where Hans was lying on the ground. He was coughing, his body in a fetal position. When he rolled over, she could see that his eyes were swollen shut and blisters had erupted on the skin of his eyelids. There was blood dripping from his face and mouth.
Hans moved as though he was looking at her, even though he couldn’t possibly have been able to see her. And then she heard the scream, her scream. Hans reached out in her direction, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t.
Though she knew she should act and help the man, she feared moving any closer to him. Hans rolled on the ground, his body convulsing.
Whatever the man in the car had thrown at them, it must have been some sort of poison.
Reaching into her purse, she grabbed a wet wipe. It would probably do nothing to help, but she couldn’t simply watch Jarrod deteriorate like Hans.
Jarrod took the wipe from her and cleaned his face. “Thank you.” He looked dazed, but he got to his feet, tugging her up with him. “We have to get out of here. Now. You’re not safe.”
From what she could see around her, no one was safe.
She grabbed her phone, dialed 911 and threw the device to the ground in hopes that it would be traced—she could get another phone, they were a dime a dozen.
Jarrod took her hand and pulled her away from the area. She wanted to stay to help, but Jarrod was right. The safest place for them right now was as far away as they could possibly get from the effects of the powder while they waited for EMTs to arrive. For once, she didn’t just have herself to think about… Now, she also had Jarrod.
Chapter Three (#u063db92f-43d5-5d89-a60a-888c5ab3905f)
It had been a long and painful night stuck in the confines of Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital. The place was constantly in motion, just like the rest of New York City. It reminded him entirely too much of Camp Delta. Every time he tried to close his eyes after the nerve agent attack, he found himself thinking of all the lives that had been extinguished around him just within the last month. First Trish, then Daniel, and now Hans—everywhere he went, it seemed as though he left corpses in his wake.
Throughout the night, he had made his way down the hall and to Mindy’s room to check and make sure she was doing better. For the most part, she had seemed only mildly phased by the chemical attack, but the EMTs had been adamant about bringing them in for all kinds of testing. Luckily, aside from some irritation in his lungs, he had been given the all clear—a far cry from what had happened to Hans, who had died almost instantly on scene. They had taken his body to the morgue, where he was being kept in isolation until they could determine the chemical that had been used in the attack.
He ran his hand down his face and sat up from his hospital bed. Somewhere down the hall he could make out the shrill beeps of an IV pump that had run dry, the monotonous trill of an EKG machine, and the thump and whoosh of a ventilator. The whole place stank of the terror of the long-ill and bedside commodes.
He couldn’t stand being in this place another minute. It was worse than being a prisoner of war. At least there, he would have felt he had better odds of making it out alive.
He went to the closet and opened up the melamine door. His clothes were MIA, but there was a small white plastic bag with Beth Israel printed on the side. It contained his wallet and small personal belongings.
He should have expected as much. Of course, they would have disposed of anything that could have been contaminated. He was just fortunate that the hospital staff had stopped using full-blown bodysuits—ones that looked like something straight out of a nuclear war zone—every time they had come in to check on his status.
Thankfully, they hadn’t been forced to remain in isolation for long once it was established that the nerve agent used had already dealkylated and run through its half-life. Leaving nothing to chance, he’d already made sure to have the hospital staff send a sample off to his people within the CIA.
A draft worked its way through the back of his gown. It was going to be a breezy walk.
Unlike him, Mindy had seemed to welcome the reprieve from her daily life. She had barely woken once since they had been brought here, possibly an effect of the sedative they had received. His dose had worn off rather quickly, but it had left behind lethargy.
All night he had been thinking about who could have pulled this off and why. He’d come up with many options—ranging from the Swedish government itself all the way to his enemies within the Gray Wolves, a crime syndicate responsible for his sister Trish’s death in Turkey.
The Gray Wolves hadn’t been exactly quiet about their distaste for Jarrod and his family—and their leader, Bayural, had left them with a warning that he would soon be coming for the entire Martin family. Jarrod had no doubt that the man would come through on his word.
Still, the attack wasn’t typical of something the Gray Wolves would have put together. They were far more crass and deliberate. They certainly weren’t the type who would hit and run; rather they would face him down as they drew their weapons. Bayural wanted him and his family to know exactly who was pulling the trigger and why.
So, in essence, he had been left with no real answers—only more questions.
He tied the back of his gown as tightly as he could and made his way down the hall one more time to Mindy’s room. Nurses rushed from one room to the next.
At the nurses station stood a man who appeared to be visiting the floor. Jarrod guessed he was in his midthirties, with a high and tight haircut and a stiff back. As Jarrod approached, he made sure to walk closer to the wall, masked by the comings and goings of the staff and visitors, and outside of the man’s direct line of sight. Something about him felt off, but he couldn’t attribute that feeing to anything obvious about the man’s appearance.
Jarrod passed behind him just as the man said something to the nurse at the counter.
Had the people responsible for the nerve agent attack found them? They had to have known they would end up at a hospital.
To be safe, he and Mindy had to get out of there, but at the same time, he didn’t want to alarm her. She’d had enough happen in the last twenty-four hours. If she caught a whiff of their being under further attack she might bolt—and likely end up dead.
He tapped on the closed door of her room, and the TV inside the room clicked off. “Come on in,” she said.
His body clenched at the sound of her voice. He had known she would be fine, but there was still a tremendous amount of relief in hearing her sound so healthy.
He looked toward the nurses station one more time, but the suspicious man had turned and was now walking down the hall in the direction of Jarrod’s room. He opened her door and slipped inside. He was probably making something out of nothing.
“Hey.” He walked over to the window, carefully holding the back of his gown shut.
“Hey.” She gave him a look that made him wonder if she was as much at a loss for words as he was.
What could they say about what had happened out there on the street? The nerve agent attack wasn’t something a person was forced to endure very often.
For a moment, he considered making a joke about the weather, but he remained silent.
“Feeling okay?” Mindy asked.
He nodded. “You?”
She nodded. “Were you a man of this few words yesterday, too? Or is this something new?”
He cracked a smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m super chatty.”
“Wow, if that’s true then you must think I never shut up.”
He laughed. “I know for a fact you are quiet sometimes. Last night, for example, you only snored a little bit.”
She covered her face with her hands but peeked between her fingers, the action uncomfortably endearing. “You did not come in here when I was sleeping, did you?” she asked, sounding slightly embarrassed that he would have seen her in such a vulnerable state.
“Not in a weird way,” he said, trying to make her feel better. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
She motioned down her body. “As you can see, I made it through unscathed. And I am so ready to get out of here.”
“Have you looked in your closet?”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“Well, you and I are going to have matching gowns on the way out. That is, if you want to go AMA with me.” He hitched his thumb toward the open door, beckoning her. He tried not to sound hurried or alarmed, but his thoughts kept moving back to the man at the nurses station. If one of them had been the intended target of the nerve agent attack it would be no time at all before the perpetrators found them and finished them off.
“I should’ve known you were a rebel.” She got up from the bed and walked over to the closet. When she opened the door, there was only a plastic bag filled with her wallet and personal items.
“Crap.” She took the bag out and put it on the bed as she rifled through it.
“What?” he asked.
“My phone. It’s missing.”
“You threw it on the ground, remember?” He could still hear the sound of the glass of the phone crunching as it hit the concrete. He was impressed she had thought to sacrifice her phone for the greater good.
“Dammit… Okay, first stop, I need a new phone.” She looked up at him, appearing somewhat frantic at the prospect of being cut off from the outside world.
“If you need to get ahold of someone, like your boyfriend or whatever, you can use my phone.” He lifted the bag he was carrying for her to see. “It’s in my briefcase.” He reached inside his bag and pulled out his cell phone.
He had twenty-seven text messages. Most of them were from his sister Zoey, who had pulled data about the attack and immediately pieced together what had happened. The farther he read down into her texts, the more frantic they had become, with the last unanswered text reading, I’m on my way to NYC if I don’t hear back from you. Plane leaves in three hours.
That had been two hours ago.
He tapped out a quick message to let her know that he was okay, but no doubt she would still be beside herself with concern. It was one of the things he loved about his brothers and sisters—or rather, sister…now that Trish was gone.
God, he was never going to get used to that.
He was nowhere near ready to go to Montana and face his family and the ranch without his sister. Though logically he knew it wasn’t his fault, he still felt responsible. He was the one who had picked the job. He was the one who had put their family right in the middle of the Gray Wolves crosshairs. If he had just jumped on another ticket and taken another contract instead of this one, they could have been a thousand miles away and unknown to the men who now wanted them dead.
“Everything okay?” Mindy asked, looking at his phone as she walked over to the sink and washed her hands. “Your wife freaking out?”
He couldn’t hold back the laugh that escaped him. “No wife. No kids. No home base.”
“Ah,” she said, drying her hands. “I see. You are the rootless man.”
“Is that this generation’s way of asking if I’m a playboy?” he asked.
She giggled, the sound melting away even more of his resolve to stay emotionally detached from the beautiful woman standing in front of him with nothing on but a hospital gown. “You aren’t that much older than me, are you?”
He wasn’t stupid enough or young enough to fall into the trap of asking her exact age, but he guessed she was about twenty-eight. “I’m sure we are within a few years of each other. But I turned in my cool card years ago.”
“Clearly,” she said, grabbing a clean hospital gown that was folded and sitting beside the sink.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You may not care about flashing the outside world, but I need a little more coverage.” She indicated her backside.
He laughed. “You and your rear end have nothing to worry about. You have me for coverage.”
“Are you saying you want to…cover my rear?” she asked, giving him a disbelieving and yet alluring smile.
He would have been lying if he said no, so he grabbed her bag. “I admit nothing.”
“Okay, I see how it is.” She took the second gown and slipped it over the first, this time putting the back in the front. “There, now you won’t be so tempted…”
Two little hospital gowns and the bedhead she was rocking wouldn’t stop the way he was feeling about her. His only option was to get the answers he needed and then get the hell out of Dodge. If he stayed with her too long, he’d have to face his most challenging enemy—his feelings—and as the leader of his family and STEALTH he didn’t have time or the freedom for such a mind-set.
He peered out the door of her room and waited for a nurse to turn the corner. “Let’s go.”
She followed behind as he tried to seem as nonchalant as possible while making their way to the back stairwell.
He held the door open for her, and she started downward. Her footfalls echoed in the concrete stairwell, sounding like spring raindrops clearing away the dusty remnants of his wintery soul.
He took one more glance behind them, but the man from the nurses station was nowhere to be seen.
Yes. He was making something out of nothing. Perhaps the attack had been intended for Hans and they had merely been bystanders.
Regardless, they were lucky to be alive, and it was his mission to keep it that way for as long as it took to get the information he needed about Mindy and her family’s role in the stolen government secrets.
At least, that was what he needed to tell himself in order to remain at arm’s length from this woman. If he let this get personal, he was going to find himself in trouble. And trouble was one thing already rampant in his life.
“I get that we are leaving AMA and all, but why are you acting like we’re being chased?” she asked, stopping at the entrance to the second floor.
He wanted her to keep moving, so he made his way past her hoping it would urge her along.
“You don’t think whoever was behind this attack was coming after me, do you?” she pressed.
Her…him… Hans… He couldn’t be sure.
Maybe whoever had pitched the nerve agent was trying to take all three down in one fell swoop.
“Is there a reason you think that may be the case?” he asked, giving nothing away.
She looked away from him, but not before he saw the flicker of concern and fear move across her face.
She held secrets, but he was certain he could get her to loosen her grip and hand them over to him. All he needed was a little more time, a bit more pressure and an increment of fear. Maybe now was the time to talk of murder.
Chapter Four (#u063db92f-43d5-5d89-a60a-888c5ab3905f)
The Lyft driver hadn’t spoken to them, which was just fine by Mindy. She hated the formality and awkwardness that came with forced small talk with a single-serving stranger. It wasn’t that she wasn’t nice or didn’t want to be kind to others; it was just that with everything in her own life, giving any more emotionally—even ten minutes to a stranger—threatened what little control she had left. She was so tired.
As they arrived at her Upper West Side brownstone, Jarrod got out and walked around to her side, opening the car door for her. The gesture was as welcome as it was unexpected. It was a rare New York man who still had manners, or perhaps it was just that the prep-school kind of men she dated had let manners fall by the wayside. Maybe this man could finally bring a bit more civility and old-world charm into her life.
“Thanks,” she said, holding her hospital gowns in place like they were a Givenchy cocktail dress instead of the blue checkered fabric that had been worn by countless others.
She couldn’t wait to take a shower. Yet, if she left him alone in her apartment, she would be the one devoid of manners. Assuming that he was coming in. He probably had better places to be, including reporting back to his Swedish bosses.
“You are welcome, ma’am.”
