Under Fire - Carol Ericson

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Some wouldn’t even reveal their names. Max always had a smile for her. Always asked about her welfare, made small talk. She looked forward to the quarterly visits by Max—and Simon.

      Smashing a fist against her lips, she swallowed a sob. Simon had been friendly, too. He’d even admitted to her that he was engaged, although such personal communications from the agents were verboten. Where was Simon’s fiancée now?

      Did Max have a wife or a girlfriend sitting at home worried about him, too?

      “Are you sure you’re okay?”

      She blinked and met Max’s gaze. They were back on the desolate highway through the desert, and Max’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. A trickle of fear dripped down her back. Maybe those men back at her house were there to save her from Max. Maybe Max and Simon were in league together.

      “Are you afraid of me?” His low, soft voice floated toward her in the cramped space of the car.

      “N-no.” She pinned her aching shoulders back against the seat. “No, I’m not. You saved my life—twice. I’m just confused. I have crazy thoughts running through my head. Do you blame me?”

      “Not at all.”

      “If you could tell me what’s going on, I’d feel better—as much as I can after tonight’s events. I deserve to know. Someone, something is out to extinguish my life. I need to know who or what so I can protect myself.”

      “I’ll protect you.”

      “From what? For how long?” Her fingers dug into the hard muscle of his thigh. “You have to give me more, Max. You can’t keep me in the dark and expect me to trust you. I can’t trust like that—not anymore.”

      Tears blurred her vision, and she covered her face with her hands. Hadn’t he just told her to snap out of it? If she wanted to prove that she deserved the hard truth, she’d have to buck up and quit with the waterworks.

      “You’re right, Ava, but I have a problem with trust, too. I don’t have any.”

      “You don’t think you can trust me?” Her voice squeaked on the last syllable.

      “You worked in that lab.”

      “The lab that you visited four times a year. The lab that kept you safe. The lab that treated your injuries—both physical and mental. The lab that made sure you were at your peak performance levels so you could do your job, a job vital to the security of our country.”

      “Stop!” He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, and she shrank against her side of the car.

      “That lab, that bastion of goodwill and patriotic fervor, turned me into a mindless, soulless machine.” He jabbed a finger in her face. “You did that to me, and now you have as much to fear from me as you did from Simon. I’m a killer.”

       Chapter Four

      Icy fingers gripped the back of Ava’s neck and she hunched her shoulders, making herself small against the car door. She shot a side glance at Max. The glow from the car’s display highlighted the sharp planes of his face, lending credence to his declaration that he was a machine. But a killer? He’d saved her—twice. Unless he’d saved her for some other nefarious purpose.

      Her fingers curled around the door handle, and she tensed her muscles.

      Her movement broke his trancelike stare out the windshield. Blinking, he peeled one hand from the steering wheel and ran it through his dark hair.

      “I—I won’t hurt you, Dr. Whitman.”

      She whispered, “Ava.”

      He cranked his head to the side, and the stark lines on his face softened. “Where can I take you...Ava?”

      She jerked forward in her seat. She couldn’t go home, as if she’d ever called that small bungalow teetering at the edge of the desert home.

      But if Max thought he could launch a bombshell at her like that and then blithely drop her off somewhere, he needed to reprogram himself.

      Had he really just blamed her for Simon’s breakdown?

      “Before you take me anywhere—” she pressed her palms against her bouncing knees “—you’re going to explain yourself. How is any of this my fault?”

      He squeezed his eyes closed briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have yelled, but I don’t know if I can trust you.”

      “Me?” She jabbed an index finger at her chest. “You don’t know if you can trust me? You’re the one who whisked me away from the lab, led me into an ambush and then threatened to kill me.”

      He sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t a threat. I don’t make threats.”

      His words hung in the space between them, their meaning clear. This man would strike without warning and without mercy. The fact that she still sat beside him, living and breathing, attested to the fact that despite his misgivings he must trust her at least a little bit.

      “You warned me that you were a killer, like Simon.”

      “What exactly do you think the agents of...Prospero do if not kill?”

      “You kill when it’s necessary. You kill to protect the country. You kill in self-defense.”

      “Is that what you think Simon was doing?”

      She stuffed her hands beneath her thighs. “No, but that’s what you were doing when you took him out.”

      He nodded once and his jaw hardened again. “I won’t hurt you, Ava.”

      She swallowed. His repetition of the phrase sent a spiral of fear down her spine. Was he trying to convince her or convince himself?

      “Tell me where I can drop you off, and you’ll be fine. Friends? Family?”

      “I told you, I don’t have any friends or family in this area.” She pushed the hair from her face in a sharp gesture, suddenly angry at him for forcing her to admit that pathetic truth.

      “I can take you to an airport and get you on a plane to anywhere.”

      “No.” She shook her head and her hair whipped across her face again. “Before I get on a plane to anywhere, I want you to explain yourself. What happened to Simon? Why did you blame me? Why did Simon attack the lab?”

      “If you don’t know, it’s not safe for me to tell you.”

      “Bull.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Those two men were waiting for me at my house. I wasn’t safe back there, and I’m not safe now. What you tell is not going to make it any worse than it already is. And you know that.”

      Lights twinkled ahead, and she realized they’d circled back into the city after a detour on a desert highway so that he could make sure they hadn’t been followed.

      He pointed to a sign with an airplane on it. “I can take you straight to the airport and buy you a ticket back home to your family. You can contact the CIA and tell them what happened. The agency will help you.”

      “But the agency is not going to tell me what’s going on. I want to know. I deserve to know after you accused me of being complicit in Simon’s breakdown.”

      “You were.”

      She smacked her hands on the dashboard. “Stop saying that. This is what I mean. You can’t throw around accusations like that without backing them up.”

      He aimed the car for the next exit and left the highway. “It’s going to be morning soon. Let’s get off the road, get some rest. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’re getting on that plane.”

      She sat quietly as Max followed the signs to the airport. He turned

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