Her Baby's Bodyguard (22 page)

It sounded as if Burian guessed that she was infected. But how could that be? The doctors had confirmed her diagnosis only a day ago. And what kind of lesson…

Understanding flashed through her brain. She rounded the desk, her body shaking with fury. And she had been on the verge of feeling sorry for him? “You bastard.”

“As usual, your emotions are clouding your logic, Eva. Have I not taught you better? This is your doing. If you had not left me, we would have reached a new understanding by now.”

Jack leaned over to grab the front of Burian’s overcoat. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Explain it to your thug, Eva. He does not appear capable of higher reasoning.”

“Your insults are pointless, Burian. He’s a better man than you could ever hope to be. Next to him, I wouldn’t even call you a man.” Eva could feel the room spinning. She braced her hand on the workbench and tried to rein in her anger. She looked at Jack. “I was wrong. I wasn’t infected accidentally.”

“Did you believe you were?” Burian asked. “That disappoints me, Eva. You know that the Chameleon Virus is too stable to present any danger unless it is activated. It cannot be contracted by mistake.”

Jack hauled Burian to his feet. “Are you saying you
deliberately
infected her?”

“There is no other way. That is one of the beauties of my creation. It is only activated in liquids. It can target one individual or an entire population.”

Burian spoke as if he were proud, and he likely was. Eva inhaled hard, trying to catch her breath. “How, Burian?”

“Our last staff meeting, of course. I put it in your tea.”

That was two days before she’d left. So she already had the virus before she’d come to this lab. And she had two days less to live than she’d thought she had. “Damn you, Burian. How could you do this to me?”

Burian twisted against Jack’s grip as he tried to face Eva. “It was your fault. You left me. You cannot imagine my worry when I went to your quarters only to discover that you had disappeared. I ordered a search immediately. They were to stop you and bring you back.” He looked at Jack. “I assume you were among those who aided her. You should not have interfered.”

“You wanted to kill me,” Eva said.

“No. It should be obvious that I would not have infected you if I could not have reversed it. You were of too much value to me. I was prepared to give you a choice that would allow you to prove your loyalty to me. The day you left should have been a new beginning for our love. Instead, you ruined it.”

Her chest hurt from her urge to scream. She had thought Burian only wanted Katya. Yet all along, Jack had refused to believe that. He’d been convinced Burian wouldn’t willingly let Eva go.

He’d been right.

“Don’t you dare speak about love,” Eva said. “You don’t understand the meaning of the word. All you know is control and possession. And what kind of choice did you think you were giving me? You mean if I had agreed to renew our affair, you would have let me live?”

“You needed to learn it was the only logical option. We are perfect for each other, Eva. I planned to have you at my side as we changed the course of the world. Now more than ever you needed to understand you belong to me.”

Jack tightened his grip on Burian and shook him hard enough to snap his head back. “Okay, now I’m giving you a choice. You said you could reverse what you did to Eva. Do it and I might let you live.”

“You will not kill me,” he gasped.

“Don’t bet on it.” Jack half carried, half dragged Burian around the bench to the open door of the refrigerated cabinet. “Which one of these is the vaccine?”

Instead of replying, Burian looked at Eva. “I did not plan to harm you. If you had not left me, you would not be ill.”

Jack shook him again. “Look, buddy, you might have a bunch of fancy degrees after your name, and you might have the rest of the world fooled, but you’re no different from the other nutbars out there who figure they’ve got a right to abuse women.”

“Preposterous. I am no abuser.”

“You abused her trust. You abused her innocence. You—” He broke off. A muscle in his cheek twitched. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Where’s the vaccine?”

Burian studied Jack. “You are very passionate about Eva’s fate. Why is that? What did she promise you?”

“I have an idea. I’ll start injecting you with the stuff that’s in these bottles until I find one that cures stupidity.”

“What do you value? What is your price?”

Jack shoved Burian down to sit on the floor, holstered his gun and lifted a tray of glass vials from the cabinet. He set it on the workbench, then took his trimmed-down med kit from a pocket and withdrew a syringe. “How much time do we have before the guards do their next rounds, Eva?”

She wasn’t sure whether or not Jack was bluffing. Judging by the look on his face, he could easily do murder. He opened a vial at random, inserted the tip of the syringe and drew back the plunger. He repeated the process with five more vials until the syringe was filled to its capacity with a cloudy, yellow mixture.

God help her, but she didn’t
want
this to be a bluff. She wanted Burian to suffer, to learn the helplessness that she was feeling, to know fear. He’d stolen her life and her future. She felt no pity for him. “Fifteen minutes,” she said.

“That should give us plenty of time to see how he reacts to this brew.”

Burian used his feet to push himself along the floor on his rear. “This is barbaric.”

Jack hooked Burian’s bound ankles with the toe of one boot to stop his retreat. “What do you expect? I’m a thug, remember? Just tell me where the vaccine is. Or is your desire to punish Eva worth more to you than your life?”

“My guards will kill you.”

“They can try. They didn’t do that good a job before, did they?” He squatted beside Burian and poised the needle over his thigh. “I wonder what’s in this stuff. Hey, do you keep samples of the Chameleon Virus in that cabinet, too?”

Burian’s eyes flicked to the tray of vials. It was evident by his dawning expression of horror that Jack’s guess was correct. “Eva, stop him!”

With the thought of Katya growing up motherless and Jack growing old alone, she pressed her lips together and said nothing.

“Maybe you’ll be lucky.” Jack depressed the plunger, forcing out a few drops of liquid from the tip. They produced a dark circle on Burian’s pantleg. “Then again, maybe not. Are you a gambling man, Dr. Ryazan?”

“Bring me my daughter, and you can have the vaccine.”

Jack halted. “What?”

“It is Eva you want, is it not? That is why you are so emotional.”

“You’re not in a position to make bargains.”

“On the contrary. I am prepared to give you what you ask. I will provide the vaccine, you can have the woman, but only when I have the child.”

Jack’s fingers cramped on the syringe. It took every scrap of willpower he possessed to keep his arm motionless. He didn’t want to use the needle on Burian. He wanted to use his fist.

How could anyone, even a demented bastard like this one, think of separating Eva from her baby? It would be the same as asking her to cut off an arm. Or cut out her heart. A woman like Eva would fight to the death to protect the child she loved. Jack understood that. He’d seen it for himself. It was how he felt about them both.

Eva stumbled into the workbench, knocking over a pair of empty beakers that were clamped to a metal stand. Glass shattered on the floor.

Jack got to her side just as her knees gave. She clutched his arms and leaned toward Burian. “No!” she cried. “You’re not getting Katya!”

“I am her father, Eva.”

“You don’t love her.”

He lifted his shoulders. It was an arrogant gesture for a man who was bound hand and foot. He appeared to be empowered by the effect he was having on Eva. “She is merely an infant. Love is immaterial. It is guidance that she needs, not sentiment. I will teach my daughter to be strong, like me.”

Eva’s cheeks had paled. She was fighting for breath. “Jack…”

He picked her up and carried her to the chair behind the desk. Once she was seated, he gave her another dose of the medications Dr. Arguin had prepared. “Try to stay calm, Eva,” he said, holding his water bottle to her lips. “Your pulse rate is too high.”

“You can’t help her,” Burian said. “The symptoms will continue to worsen. Without my help, in another five days, her liver will fail. Fluid will gather around her internal organs. Her heart will not endure the strain. You have no time to waste. Where is the child? I will send my people for her.”

Jack squeezed Eva’s hands and looked at Burian. “You’re not getting anywhere near that baby. You’re not fit to raise a lab rat.”

“What bluster. You are the one who is annoying. I have more friends and resources than you can imagine. If you do not accept my bargain…” He looked toward the door. His lips stretched into a smile. “I believe our negotiations are finished. My men are early.”

There was the stamp of boots outside. Someone was shouting orders in the corridor.

Had their parachute gear been found? Jack looked at Eva. She was in no shape to make a run for the stairs. And if he carried her, he wouldn’t be able to fire with any accuracy.

But leaving without the vaccine wasn’t an option, anyway.

He dragged the desk across the room to barricade the door. Seconds later, it reverberated with a heavy knock. A male voice came through the steel panel, calling out something in Russian. The only words Jack understood were Burian’s name.

“You should have accepted my offer,” Burian said. “Now you both will die.”

Jack wedged the desk firmly against the door. The heavy oak should buy them some time. After that…

He returned to Eva and knelt beside her chair. “Get everything you can off that computer,” he said. “The formula has to be in there. We’ll find someone to duplicate the vaccine when we get out of here.”

She was too smart to buy into his attempt to cheer her. Instead of reaching for the keyboard, she touched his face. It was clear by the sadness in her eyes that she understood there was little hope of escape. “I’m sorry, Jack. I should have stopped you from coming. I knew it was too risky.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me, Eva. I would have tried anyway.”

The door shook from the impact of a heavy object. Plaster dust wafted down from the ceiling. Burian managed to get his legs under him and rose to his knees, shouting encouragement.

Eva trembled. She traced the lines beside Jack’s mouth and then touched both hands to the corners of his eyes. “I wish we had met sooner.”

“So do I.” He turned his head to kiss her palm. “But then we would have missed all this fun.”

A tear crept down her cheek. “That’s right. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

His own eyes filled with moisture. He hadn’t cried since he’d been fourteen and standing beside his mother’s grave. It was the last time he’d allowed himself to love anyone.

The next blow on the door opened a split in the door frame. Jack could see the lights in the corridor. It was only a matter of seconds before the guards would break through.

Jack wanted more than a few more seconds with Eva. He didn’t want to measure their time in mere days. He wanted to sleep with her every night and wake up with her every morning, feel her hair slide between his fingers, hear her laugh, watch her eat and let her steal the bread from his plate. He wanted the chance to see her play with her baby again—and see her stomach grow round with another one. He wanted to be there to teach Katya how to ride a bike or oil a baseball glove or even tie ribbons in her doll’s hair if that’s what she asked. All the ordinary, everyday things a family did…Damn.

He cupped the back of Eva’s head and kissed her with all the pent-up frustration he felt. Now that he’d found a woman he could see in his future, chances were they wouldn’t have one.

The door gave with a crash, crushing the desk into splinters. Jack broke off the kiss and placed himself in front of Eva.

The first man who came through didn’t look like one of guards from the complex. He wore the uniform of a Russian soldier. Four more soldiers entered behind him. They bypassed Jack and Eva and converged on Burian, their weapons drawn. One man yanked him to his feet while another shouted questions.

Jack felt behind him for Eva’s hand. “What are they saying?”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “I don’t believe this.”

“What?”

“It sounds as if they’re arresting him.”

Chapter 13

K
atya was running between the trees, afternoon sunlight dappling her white-blond pigtails and her arms full of ripe apples. She slid to a stop beside the basket, let the fruit tumble and gave Eva a gap-toothed grin. Then she ran to Jack, laughter and a hair ribbon trailing behind her.

He swung her into his arms and lifted her high so she could reach the branches with the ripest apples.

Eva drew the blanket over her shoulders as she walked toward them. The breeze was getting cool. It was almost time to go home, but she didn’t feel any urgency. She knew how to get there. She wasn’t lost.

Home was where it always had been. It wasn’t a place but a feeling.

The sunlight faded. The scent of grass and ripe apples became cotton, bleach and the perfume of flowers. Eva stretched out her hand. “Jack?”

His fingers closed gently around hers. “I’m right here, Eva.”

She opened her eyes.

The dream melded with reality. Jack was sitting beside her hospital bed. He was holding Katya to his shoulder with one hand while he clasped Eva’s fingers with the other. “How are you doing?” he asked.

She pushed herself up on one elbow. “Better every day.”

“I heard you’re getting discharged this afternoon.”

“That’s what the doctors told me.”

“Are you still going to that hotel room the spooks got for you?”

“For a while, at least.”

“You’ll need a moving van for all these flowers.”

She let go of his hand and sat up. During the two weeks since she’d arrived in Washington, there had been new arrangements delivered daily. Every available surface in the hospital room was crammed with bouquets and gifts, many from people she hadn’t met. There were lilies from an official at the State Department, a potted orchid from the director of the CIA and a silver samovar from the Russian ambassador.