Midnight Fire (2 page)

He wished Hector were still alive so he could kill him all over again.

But Hector had left a lot of secrets behind. A deep conspiracy that reached into the upper levels of the American intelligence community, including Jack’s former employer, the CIA, and Jack wasn’t going to rest until he unveiled it all and saw the conspirators in jail or in the ground. Preferably the latter.

Everyone thought Jack had been killed in the Massacre. Jack had stayed off the grid by pretending to be homeless, while living in a hidden safe house no one else knew about, set up by his former boss, who was now dead.

Pretending to be a homeless vet made him invisible. People didn’t want the homeless around at all. And homeless
vets
? No way.

Jack had bought old BDUs from the Salvation Army, pissed on them a couple of times a week and kept them out on the safe house’s little balcony where they got rained on and snowed on and grew more and more filthy.

He showered but took care to never wash his face. He shaved his head regularly and wore a filthy dreadlocks wig and pasted a scraggly beard on his face every time he went out, to confound the facial recognition bots. It worked. He didn’t even recognize himself.

For the entire funeral, Jack had watched from the edges of the crowd outside, keeping an eye on the Jumbotron, looking for clues, looking for
something
and wasn’t once recognized in the city he’d grown up in.

Except for Summer.

Damn.

She’d always been too smart for her own good.

He vaguely remembered the summer she’d been around at Hector’s place—she was some kind of relative of one of Hector’s wives—after she’d lost her folks. She’d been a funny looking little thing, eyes and mouth too big, a messy mass of reddish-brown hair sitting on her head like a bird’s nest. Stick-thin and quiet as a mouse. It was the summer he’d had the crazy idea of training for the Olympics as an archer but it had turned out to be too much work and interfered with his social life. Life had been really good back then. He’d been pretty busy all that summer training and competing and partying and hadn’t really paid her much attention.

Then she disappeared. People were appearing and disappearing from his life constantly in those years because he was too clueless and self-involved to pay attention.

And then in his senior year at Harvard he’d run across her and—whoa. Her face had grown so the eyes and mouth were sexily big without looking weird. She didn’t have a rat’s nest at all, but a smooth auburn bob and had filled out nicely. Very nicely.

He’d barely recognized her and had been able to place her thanks to her voice. She’d grown up abroad, dragged to a thousand places by her hippie parents. She spoke beautifully but with a tinge of an exotic accent that had made him smile when she’d been twelve and made him sweat when she was eighteen.

And then he’d fucked her and left her. Which was what he did on a massive scale in those years, thinking with his little head and not his big head.

It felt like ancient history, something you’d study in a textbook. The Years of Fucking Around: 1997—2001.

He had to get out of here, fast, because Summer would follow her instincts and try to catch him.

His years in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service had taught him to walk really fast without appearing to hurry. He just lengthened his stride and made sure he wasn’t pumping his arms.

He didn’t really have to worry about anyone other than Summer, because no one noticed him, except to draw back or even cross the street to avoid him. Down the hill from the Cathedral and four blocks away was a black SUV with mud on the license plates and smoked windows. It looked exactly like every other official vehicle in the city.

Jack jerked the passenger door open and sat down.

“Well that was fun,” Nick Mancino said as he started the engine. Nick wrinkled his nose. “Man, you smell.”

“That’s the point,” Jack said. “Now drive.”

The SUV pulled out and headed for Jack’s safe house. “So?”

“I think I was made,” Jack said sullenly. Six fucking months without being made in a city full of intelligence operatives and government agents and one girl—woman—made him in an instant.

“Well...fuck,” Nick said, driving fast. Nick, a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, was under unofficial cover. Only one person knew he was here investigating the Massacre, the Director of the FBI. With possible CIA involvement, it was the hottest of hot potatoes and so far, the investigation was off the grid.

Officially, Nick was on leave from the FBI and would stay on leave until they unmasked the conspiracy. He was almost as driven as Jack to find the fuckers responsible. Almost.

Jack had lost his entire family except for his sister, Isabel. He was going to find out who was responsible or die.

“Who made you?” Nick’s eyes swept the side view mirrors and the rear view mirror in a constant rotation. Jack was a good driver but Nick had taken combat driving training at Quantico.

Jack clenched his teeth. “Summer Redding.”

Nick’s eyes widened and he flicked a glance over to Jack. “Summer Redding? The blogger?
Area 8?
”

Jack nodded.

“Well, hell.” Nick shook his head. “That is very bad news. Redding is one sharp lady. Are we going to read about you being alive after all in today’s blog? If so, we’re fucked.”

They
were
fucked. If Summer posted that he’d been seen today—alive—the entire mission was endangered. It wasn’t just a question of himself. Jack knew that forces inside the CIA were working against the country. The Massacre was just the first of what he felt might be more attacks coming soon.

A drumbeat of dread thrummed through him.

Just before the Massacre, Jack had stepped on some kind of trip wire. He’d first come across whispers in Singapore, where he’d been posted for the past four years. An informant had contacted him about a secret plan at the highest levels of the Chinese government to destabilize the United States with the help of a few very highly-placed American citizens, including a few in the CIA. When Jack heard that, every hair on his body had stood up.

The plan had several steps and the first one had been the Massacre and the second one was going to be an attack on US soil. He had nothing more than that. No timetable, no indication of where.

And then the informant had disappeared and reappeared as a floater in the Singapore city morgue. The corpse had been so bloated it had taken the coroner an hour to discover the slit across the informant’s throat.

But it had been serious enough for Jack to fly home to talk to his boss, the head of the National Clandestine Service, Hugh Lownie. He’d been meaning to fly home anyway because his dad, against the entire family’s advice, had announced his intention to declare his candidacy for the presidency. His mom had gone into panic mode, frightened to death that someone would assassinate him. Rumor had it that they were fighting, close to a divorce, but that was bullshit. His parents loved each other deeply.

His dad was an idealist, wanted to run, and Jack had come home.

He’d met with Hugh in a park with no microphones anywhere because he didn’t trust anyone or anything at Langley. Hugh had promised to start an in-house investigation.

That night, the night his father was slated to declare his candidacy at the Burrard Hotel, Hugh had called him. Jack had been on the podium because whether or not he agreed with his dad about running for President, he loved the guy and would swing his support behind him.

Everyone he loved had died that night with the exception of his sister, Isabel.

Nick wrinkled his nose. “Dude, do something. You fucking reek.”

Jack unfastened the seat belt, took off the stinking jacket and slid out of the uniform pants. He also snatched the smelly wig off his head. He hated it almost more than the sweat-and piss-soaked BDU. The wig itched and was heavy as fuck. Underneath, Jack kept his hair shorn and did it himself. Looking at himself without the wig, he looked like a prisoner of war. He pulled the beard off, too. The beard was stuck on by a miracle glue like that on Post-its that he could apply and tear off without pain.

Nick kept his eyes firmly on the road. Jack reached behind him for a hoodie and sweat pants, put the stinking homeless uniform in a plastic bag, tied the handles together, and put the bag in a gym bag. The funk factor in the vehicle dropped by about a thousand.

“Thanks,” Nick said, sighing with relief. “So, what are we going to do about Redding? She made you, she’s going to put it in her blog. We have to stop that, stop her. It would be a disaster. She can’t write about it. Not now, it would put the entire mission in jeopardy.”

“Whoa,” Jack shot up in the seat. “We’re not touching her. The hell you talking about?”

“Calm down, bro.” Nick clutched the steering wheel harder. “I don’t mean hurt her, Christ, what do you think I am, CIA?”

Jack let that slide. A couple of years ago he wouldn’t have taken any abuse from an FBI puke, no sir. The CIA wasn’t perfect but he’d been proud to serve. At least in the beginning. Then later...

And now? Now someone in the CIA had killed an informant, carried out the Massacre and moles—he had no idea how many—were plotting to bring his country down. So he kept his mouth shut. Slumped back into the seat. “We’re not touching Summer,” he repeated. “She won’t post anything, she never posts anything without some kind of proof. So we’re okay.”

He hoped.

Nick narrowed his eyes at the road and slapped his hand against the wheel. “You fucked her. That’s what this is about.”

Jack sighed. “Yeah. About a million years ago. I fucked a lot of the women who were at the funeral. I was a man slut. So what?”

“So you were imprinted on her, that must be it. Because no one else noticed you. And if that’s the case, she’ll be like a dog with a bone. Must have been some fuck.”

Jack stiffened. Nick was a good guy but no one could talk like that about Summer. Jack swiveled his head and glared. “Say anything like that again and I’ll rip you a new one,” he growled, meaning every word.

Nick’s eyes widened. “Dude. Sorry. Whoa, didn’t mean it that way. Hell, she’s an incredible woman. She followed the trail of Senator Rowland’s abuse of the family au pair like a terrier with a bone. If we have one less shit in the Senate, it’s thanks to her. I read
Area 8
regularly, love it.” He blew out a breath. “So—now that we’ve got that out of the way—we still got a problem. A big one.”

Jack clenched his jaw.

“Problem. We’ve got a problem. You see that, don’t you? Talk to me, Jack.” They were at the safe house and Nick pulled into the covered alleyway in the back. “What are you going to do about it? One of the most well-known bloggers in America knows you are not dead. How do we remedy that?”

Silence.

“Jack?”

“I’m going to go talk to her,” Jack said finally.

Chapter Two

Jack Delvaux is alive!

But...Jack was dead. He’d died in the Washington Massacre.

There’d been a memorial service for him and she’d cried bitterly over the golden boy who was no more.

Summer sat in her cute yellow Prius in front of her apartment in Alexandria, shaking hands still on the steering wheel, mind whirling.

Jack Delvaux, alive.

Most people would shrug the thought off as a figment of their imagination. Most people, knowing Jack had been dead for six months, would have told themselves that they were mistaken.

So anyone else who thought they’d seen a man who’d been dead for six months would have said to themselves—
that homeless man really looked like Jack Delvaux
,
but...nah.
He’s dead.

But Summer couldn’t do that because she had irrefutable proof that she’d seen Jack.

Her body. Her body had told her.

The week they’d been lovers at Harvard, her body hadn’t been her own, it had been connected via some magic spell to Jack. Everything about her had changed. Her skin had felt different—too tight. Every time she saw him heat flashed through her, head to toe, an unstoppable blast that made her breath stop in her lungs. Her fingers and toes and breasts tingled and heat blossomed between her legs, as if seeing him threw a switch that made her body change. It had never happened to her before and after he’d dumped her, it had never happened to her again.

And this afternoon, right outside Washington National Cathedral, her body had bloomed alive, like she’d been zapped by something. She’d channeled her 18-year old self.

Her body had recognized Jack before her head did and it freaked her out.

For a second there, outside the National Cathedral, she’d wondered if she was having a stroke. She hadn’t connected the boiling sensations under her skin to the tall homeless vet. And then...then she’d recognized him. First by his effect on her—the only man who’d ever made her feel as if she had an “on” switch and knew how to use it—and then by those intensely blue eyes.

Crazy as it sounded, she believed she really had seen Jack.

So—how could that even be possible? The only way it would be possible would be if he’d survived the Massacre but had been so badly injured in the explosion he was unable even to say who he was.

If he’d been so concussed he couldn’t communicate, if he was disoriented, he’d end up living on the streets.

The thought was disturbing. It was disturbing for anybody, but for Jack Delvaux...he’d been destined by DNA to lead a long, happy, golden life. Isabel too, and yet look at her. She’d been in a coma, had lost her entire family, had quit her food blog. Her life shattered.

Isabel. Isabel had been so nice to her that summer. Then they’d lost touch, of course, as people do. But if Isabel, who’d disappeared from view, thought her brother was dead, and he was alive...

Summer had to tell her. It was a moral obligation, wasn’t it? Except how could she do that unless she were certain? It would be cruel beyond words to tell Isabel that her brother was still alive unless Summer were absolutely certain.

And just because a man made her tingle wasn’t exactly proof of life, was it?

She dragged the groceries out from the back of her Prius. It had been a long sad, startling day. A nice meal at the end of it would put her in a better mood. After eating, she’d tackle the Jack problem, though it was going to be hard to find one homeless man among so many others.

Maybe check video footage at some shelters, to start. Since the Massacre ten new ones had opened for the masses of men and women who had suddenly lost everything in the economic shock. So...shelters. And then?

The security at her door was, as always, reassuring but balky. Keypad and deadbolt, which always meant putting on the floor whatever she had in her hands. What an English friend had called “belt and braces.” It did make her feel safe, though.

Finally, she was through the door and in the calm, fragrant quiet of her apartment. Her refuge. She loved coming home to her pretty apartment, where everything was orderly and clean and sweet-smelling, so unlike the kind of places her parents had lived in. They hadn’t cared that they lived in squalor. Why not? It was a question she still couldn’t answer.

But she wasn’t her parents. In no way was she her parents.

Shaking her head, she put the groceries on the kitchen counter, intending to cook and eat because she knew she’d be awake until morning doing research and would need her strength.

She moved into the living room to switch on a few lights and froze.

A man. A very big man was standing there, unmoving.

Oh God!
A nightmare! Somehow someone had gotten past her layers of security. That took knowledge and focus and that meant nothing good.

She kept a loaded gun in a small safe on the opposite wall. The man was standing between her and the safe, so the gun could have been on the dark side of the moon for all the good it did her.

He was huge, shoulders a yard wide in outline, head shaved, enormous hands loose at his sides. With the bookcase lights at his back, his face was in shadow. All she could see were hard planes. She felt, more than saw, the intensity of his gaze. It was like being in a dark beam of light.

She’d taken self-defense courses and could hold her own against a normal-sized man but this guy was not only huge but built. Those enormous shoulders tapered down to a lean waist, the neck muscles strong even in shadow.

Summer’s heart hammered as she ran through the options open to her. It went fast because she had none.

The gun was behind him. She had plenty of sharp knives but they were in a butcher block at least ten steps behind her. He could cut her off in a second if she made a dash for the kitchen door. And foolishly, foolishly, her cell wasn’t in her pocket as it usually was. It was in her purse, on the kitchen counter, out of reach.

About the only thing she could do was scream, even knowing that one of the selling points of the condo was noise insulation. Her throat was closed up and she could barely breathe, like those nightmares where you couldn’t scream, couldn’t run.

She took in a deep breath and it froze in her throat.

“Summer,” the man said in an unusually deep voice.

Her hand went to her throat where it felt as if someone had grabbed her, was throttling her. She couldn’t breathe.

He knew her?

This was personal then. Not some random stranger who’d broken into her home.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said and stepped forward.

Something about that voice...

Another step and the light from the kitchen illuminated his face.

Summer gasped.

Jack.

Summer stared, rooted to the spot, heart hammering

Jack. And yet...not Jack. The man standing in front of her had nothing in common with the golden boy she’d known. The man-boy who’d bedded her and then disappeared, a creature too fine to settle to earth.

This man was bigger, bulkier. The Jack she’d known had had a refined, swimmer’s physique. Muscular and lean. This Jack was huge, defined muscles that had been hidden by the homeless man’s baggy uniform now clear under his black sweater. He didn’t have straggling filthy dreadlocks. His head was crudely shorn, like a prisoner’s, uneven and brutal-looking. His long, dirty-blond biker’s beard was gone, too, leaving a bare chiseled chin with the jaw muscles working.

He was staring at her, narrow-eyed.

Summer was really glad he didn’t look anything like the Jack she knew, that he looked so dangerous. If he’d been an older version of the friendly, charming boy, she’d have rushed to embrace him, hugging him tightly, happy he wasn’t dead.

The Jack she knew would have hugged her back, maybe made a crack, pulling away from the hug because you didn’t cling to Jack Delvaux. But he’d have been friendly and utterly harmless. The old Jack wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

But
this
Jack?

She didn’t know about this one. He could swat her away with one swipe of that huge, powerful hand. This Jack had been on the run, staying under the radar, for six months—which in this age of surveillance she’d have said was impossible. She had no idea why he’d stayed hidden, letting everyone think he was dead, but he had to have powerful reasons. So. Now she’d discovered his secret. How was he going to react?

“Hello, Jack,” she said. “I thought I saw you at Blake’s funeral.” Summer kept her voice steady. Inside she was trembling, but long years of experience as a political journalist, showing absolutely nothing, served her well.

He frightened her, instinctively, but he couldn’t be allowed to know that.

“Hello, Summer,” he said, stepping toward her.

Summer forced herself not to step back. That would show she was intimidated. She was, but damned if she’d show it. He was very close to her, so close she had to tilt her head back slightly to keep her eyes on his face. He’d somehow grown in the past fifteen years. She didn’t remember him being this tall.

Pointless pretending she didn’t know why he was here.

“So I guess the reports of your death were exaggerated?” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

His huge fists closed, then opened. Summer’s mouth went completely dry. Was he going to attack her? No. Besides the closing of his fists, he remained completely and utterly still.

“Yeah. So now you know.” He stared at her unblinkingly.

She swallowed and nodded.

“So, I guess the question is—what are you going to do about it?” Jack’s voice was low and deep and emotionless. But he was watching her keenly, gaze as intent as a blue-eyed hawk’s.

Summer tried to keep it light. “I’m not too sure anyone would believe me if I wrote about it. I imagine the security cameras never caught you? I’m sure you’re in a lot of facial recognition databases, even if you are certified dead.”

“No. Never been caught.”

Washington DC had thousands of security cams. If he’d been here all this time, he’d been extremely clever in avoiding identification.

“Just like my security system didn’t stop you.” Somehow evading the two security guards and the security cams around the perimeter of her complex plus cameras on every floor seemed even more difficult than evading security around the city.

“Your security system is crap,” he said dismissively.

Summer drew in an outraged breath—her security system was
not
crap!—then clamped her jaw shut.

And then it occurred to her...if he thought her security system—which was top of the line, thank you very much—was crap, he was used to breaking into places. Into places with a better security system than hers.

“Listen, Summer,” Jack growled, stepping forward.

Startled, she stumbled, trying to scramble away from him, then at the last minute turned it into a smooth pivot and said the first thing that came to her mind.

“So,” she said crisply. “It’s been a long, lousy day and I haven’t eaten. I’m hungry. Do you want to talk about this over food?”

The surprise in his eyes was genuine. He nodded and followed her into the kitchen. In the bright light of the kitchen Summer got her first good look at him and oh, God.

He was gorgeous. In a totally
Prison Break
kind of way. How could he possibly be more attractive than he’d been as a boy and a young man? This man didn’t have anything classically handsome. His blond hair was shorn to stubble, the only hint of the color a glints of gold under the overhead lights. His face was filled out, all hard angles and planes, weather-beaten skin showing lines around the mouth and eyes. Cheekbones hard and chiseled, the skin hollowed out under them. He looked older than his thirty-four years, like he’d been a prisoner of war in a far off land.

In all these years, she’d dreamed of encountering Jack again. She’d be polished and successful, courted by many men. He’d look dissipated and puffy, all those years of partying finally catching up. Unrecognizable, paying the price for years of debauchery. She’d squint, saying
Hey Jack?
Is that you?
Nice to see you.
And feel absolutely nothing at all.

Not like now, where she felt strong fear and an equally strong attraction to this man she barely recognized.

Summer began preparations for the meal, movements brisk to keep her hands from trembling. She caught glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled ingredients from the fridge and the cupboards, the way you catch glimpses of a solar eclipse. Because it hurt to look at it directly.

Disturbingly, Jack came closer to her, leaning his back against her counter, watching her. She could feel his body heat, smell him. He smelled of soap and nothing else. He’d washed the homeless vet off him.

She chopped zucchini and onions fast, put them in a pan to sauté, took out fresh farm eggs from her shopping bag, whisked them with some grated parmesan. Not speaking, aware every single second of Jack watching her.

She pulled out romaine lettuce, shredded it and washed it under the faucet. There were a thousand things she wanted to ask but held off. How would he react to questions? Would he think she was interviewing him for an article?

An article. What a kick ass article it would be, too, headliner stuff. She could almost see it, could write the article in her head.

Jack Delvaux Found Alive Six Months After the Massacre.
She’d have a million clicks, be on every talking head show, maybe be nominated for the Pulitzer.

Then again, maybe Jack would kill her before that happened.

“Nice,” Jack said finally.

“What?” Startled, Summer looked him full in the face for the first time since he’d scared the hell out of her. She saw him through the scrim of time, the beautiful boy superimposed over the potent, frightening man, then she blinked and the scrim disappeared and all she saw was this Jack, in the here and the now, powerful and intimidating.

As she stared at him, the corner of his mouth turned up. He wasn’t smiling but the expression lightened up a fraction.

“I said it’s nice, someone cooking for me. That hasn’t happened in six months. Since even before the Massacre, as a matter of fact.”