Smoke and Shadows (33 page)

“Viktor . . . stop,” Marissa whispered as she looked at the dank heavy machinery around them that was going to be a part of their tomb.

“No. You’re not dying in this shit place,” Viktor shouted. “Not gonna happen.”

He shouldered the door again. This time it gave a little. He kicked it. A little more.

Marissa wondered if the excitement was catching up with her and she was suddenly feeling a numbing sensation take over her body.
 

Or the nerve gas had finally reached them.

“Marissa?” Viktor’s panicked voice echoed through the sudden wave of nausea.

“Vikt . . .” She was choking. She wanted to tell him she loved him one last time, but her vocal chords stopped functioning. She couldn’t swallow.
 

He came up behind her, wrapping his arms tightly around her. They both sank to the floor on their knees. His mouth trailed her ears as he whispered, “Live for me, Iz.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jack managed to get through the U.S. Capitol police barricade. Fortunately, Derek always had his AGS contractor badge on him. Tim was frantic because he had not heard back from Baran and Marissa. Viktor’s phone went off grid, which indicated that it had been destroyed.

Burns also reported that Manning and Connelly were able to dump the Union Station nerve gas canister into a neutralization chamber before it went off. Stark and Edmunds chased down two more of Reed’s men along the train tracks and finally had them in custody.
 

Jack and Derek brought another neutralization unit in their vehicle, and he prayed that they weren’t too late.

They immediately spotted Agent Olsen, who was pacing nervously along the building’s steps.

“Derek!” Olsen called out. “Thank God, you’re here.”

“Where are they?”

“They haven’t come out yet, and I can’t raise them. I don’t know what to do. We can’t send more backup in until we know the status of the canisters.”
 

“We’ll go in. We’re suited up,” Jack said. They were wearing chemical repellent coveralls, and had their gas masks with them. “You ready, Derek?”

“Yeah.”

The senate office building workers were leaving the premises in an orderly fashion under the direction of the U.S. Capitol police. Ever since the 9/11 attacks, evacuation drills were taken seriously, and it was during times of real crisis when such exercises paid off. It didn’t stop people from eyeing them warily as Derek and Jack made their way up the steps. Jack tried to smile at them reassuringly, but his face froze when it landed on someone whose blood he’d been wanting to spill for a long time.

Owen Reed, dressed in a business suit, was descending the steps with a couple of men. Jack also recognized Henry Logan. However, the oldest among them was clearly under duress.

“Derek, you move on.”

“What?”

Reed’s eyes drifted to Jack and the man’s demeanor tensed when he realized he’d been recognized.

“Baran and Marissa are in trouble,” Jack said.

“How the fuck are you so sure?”

“Because Owen Reed is escaping.”

*****

No!
Marissa’s mind was screaming when her limbs refused to move. Viktor had stabbed her with atropine. She watched him drop in front of her. He was having trouble breathing, but even then, he tried to smile at her. And then his body convulsed as saliva poured from the side of his mouth. His breathing grew shallower and the light began to leave his eyes.

You can’t die. You’re invincible. Remember?

She must have blacked out afterward. She heard the basement door slam open, followed by muffled cursing. Opening her eyes, she saw a man wearing a chem suit crouched over Viktor, plunging what looked like an injector into him.

“You okay, Marissa?”
 

Derek.

“Yes.” Her voice. Her voice was back.

And then she saw him. His eyes. Viktor’s beautiful blue eyes were staring at her. But they were lifeless.
 

Struggling to her knees, she screamed, “Viktor! No. No. You cannot die.”

Her insides were flaying her alive like shards of glass was ripping through each organ. It was her heart breaking into pieces. It was her soul that was shattering. She watched the man she loved die to save her. How could he do this to her? How could she survive this?

“Don’t you dare die on me, Viktor!”

“Marissa, I’m getting him outside.” Derek lifted Viktor under his arms and dragged him through the door.

Another man in a chem suit arrived. Through his mask, Marissa noted numbly that it was Jack. Then her eyes blurred as her tears finally came. She sobbed, her body giving out again.
 

“Get her out. She’s had a shot of atropine, but she needs to be evacuated,” Derek told his friend.
 

Jack scooped her up and raced out with her. She looked back, watching Derek heave his friend over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold, Viktor’s blond head bowed. His massive, muscular form, so intimidating in motion, was now uncharacteristically limp. Three more people in masks ran past Jack to help Derek.

No. No. No.
She didn’t want to leave him. But it was too late. He was already gone.

*****

Beeping. The sound of a heart monitor.
Shit. Was he in a hospital? And what the fuck was shoved down his throat?
 

Yes, there was the sound of a breathing apparatus and he was damned intubated. He struggled to open his eyes. A dark head was bent over his bed. Long silky hair. Marissa.

He must have made a sound because she jerked awake. Her green eyes were dull, the brilliance much dimmed. But they were still beautiful.

Darkness clawed at him and his eyes grew heavy. Oblivion.
 

He drifted. For how long, he didn’t know. He heard people talking in hushed tones, and he tried to rouse himself again. He couldn’t feel his body, but he was remembering everything. Especially the pain of suffocating made easier only with the thought that Marissa would live.
 

“Viktor?”

He finally opened his eyes and focused on her lovely face, the image that had haunted the darkness that had been his companion of late. He didn’t react too much to the intubation anymore, but he still couldn’t feel a fucking thing.

Marissa
.

“You’re going to be okay.”

Why do you look so sad then, kitten?

The doctor came in, interrupting his moment with his woman, and if he had a choice right now, he’d kick the man in the ass. Except it was his ass that felt kicked. He endured the poking and prodding because, frankly, he had no choice. Intubated, remember?

“Can you understand me, Mr. Baran? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

He blinked once.

“The good news is you’re going to make a full recovery. The Antoxin that was given to you a couple of weeks ago did a good job of protecting your nerves from permanent damage. The not so bad news is, it’ll take about a month to get you back to eighty-percent, and then you’ll regain feeling of your nerves gradually. We’ll put you through electrical and protein therapy to speed up your recovery.” The doctor paused. “You were very lucky. Because of your fitness level, your lungs held on very well and you didn’t sustain any damage to your brain.”

Yes, that would suck if he had brain damage.

He was suddenly feeling tired again and wished the doctor would leave so Marissa would speak to him. Her husky voice soothed him. He felt himself drifting off again.

He lost track of time. People visited, but he couldn’t really say anything, right? Marissa was always in the background and she still looked sad. This was making him nervous. He was gradually regaining some sensitivity in his body. He was told this would be exponential, but he was so ready to be able to breathe on his own.

“Viktor?”

Hey, Iz.

“Um, you’re going to be okay.”

Right. You keep telling me that, kitten. What’s wrong?

“You’ll be able to breathe on your own in a few days.”

Viktor was pretty sure he smiled.

“So I think it’s best if I say this now.”

What the fuck?

“I need to go away for a while,” Marissa said. Viktor took a good look at her and realized she not only had dead eyes, the dark circles were more pronounced and her normally glowing skin was pasty. Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you. Very much. Don’t ever think that I don’t. But what you did that day, you took away my choice.” She paused. “It doesn’t make sense, I know.”

Actually, he did understand her, and he was suddenly afraid of what she would say next.

“You made me watch you die, Viktor, and, somehow, I hate you for it. I can’t get that horror out of my head, watching you convulse in front of me . . .” She exhaled with a shudder. “I wondered, if you really loved me, why you’d put me through that?”

Because I’m a coward. I couldn’t bear to watch you die. Forgive me, Iz.

Marissa gave a short, mirthless laugh
.
“The other part of me not hating you, hates myself. Because what kind of person am I? I owe you my life. But living is harder, especially if the person you wanted to live for is dead, and he died so you could live.”

But I’m alive, Iz. We’re both alive. We’ll get through this.

“I wanted to explain. It’s not you. You did the right thing any brave, noble person would do. You saved my life. Thank you. But I’m messed up, and I can’t stay seeing you like this every day. I need to fix myself so I can be the same person before—all this.”

No, don’t leave. Stay.
Viktor blinked his eyes rapidly.

Her tears fell faster. And she had to gulp back a sob.

“I promise to come back. I’ll try my best to fix my screwed-up self.”

The beeping of his heart rate monitor pinged wildly.

You can’t leave me, woman! I love you! God, Iz. Don’t do this.

Damn it
. All he could do was blink his eyes.

A nurse came rushing in and scowled at Marissa. “You need to leave, you’re upsetting the patient.”

Don’t fucking talk to her that way. Don’t make her leave.

Marissa backed away. He felt a dull pinch on his skin.

No!

She mouthed the words “I love you.”

He found himself floating into the darkness again. Next time he woke up, she was gone.

*****

Two weeks later

Stuart Kwon walked out of the gentlemen’s club and straight into his waiting limo. He’d been out almost every night, drowning the failure of his plans in alcohol and women. Baran and Marissa Cole survived. He didn’t exactly know how. There were rumors that Baran had died, others that he was in a coma, but Stuart didn’t particularly care right now. All he cared about was making sure that none of those attacks led back to him. It was fortuitous that Reed had been taken down by a U.S. Capitol police sniper. Reed had taken a last stand when one of the AGS operatives had recognized him and he drew his gun on Trenton Cole. He knew Reed made recordings of their phone calls as a form of insurance and would be the only person able to incriminate Stuart. The feds could have offered Reed immunity in exchange for the mastermind. Him. The senators also survived. When Reed was taken down, the rest of his men had surrendered.

The NKUF had lost confidence in him. They were expecting the grand finale of a nerve gas attack in DC to pull the U.S. into war with Syria so they could use the distraction to start their own mischief with South Korea.
 

Plain and simple. Stuart had underestimated his enemies.
 

The unfamiliar scenery pulled him out of his ruminations. He noticed that the limo was heading in the wrong direction.
 

Irritated, he told the driver, “Nikolai, I told you I wanted to go home.”

Nikolai didn’t answer. Now that Stuart looked more closely, the man before him was bigger than his driver/bodyguard. Stuart heard the ominous sound of all the locks engaging, and the privacy screen went up. He started to panic and pulled out his phone. His security team shouldn’t be far behind.

“Don’t bother,” a low voice said. “Your phone is useless. And your security team won’t be following us.”

He looked back and saw nothing but empty road.

“What do you want?” Stuart demanded. “Money? I could give you plenty of that.”

There was a harsh laugh. “I don’t need money.”

“Then what?”

The man didn’t reply.
 

Kwon sneered at himself. Everyone had his price. The man was just holding out for a huge sum of money.

The limousine turned off into a desolate stretch of empty land and stopped. The interior lights came on. The doors unlocked. A car door slammed.
 

A man got in and sat across from him. The stranger removed his hat.
 

It took a few seconds for Stuart to recognize the man before him. And for the first time in a long time, he felt the cold licking fingers of fear.

*****

Jack stared malevolently at the man before him. He wanted nothing more than to break every single bone in Kwon’s body, and then put him back together, so he could break them all over again. But this couldn’t go messy, and he didn’t have much time to pull this off before Kwon’s security team woke up and sounded the alarm.

“You—” The naked fear on Stuart’s face gave him some satisfaction.

“Realizing now you can’t buy me off, can you?” Jack said. “You had me tortured—”

“That was my nephew—”

“Bullshit. You were the puppet master this whole time, the money man,” Jack said. “You had chemical weapons brought into my country. You’ve gassed innocents—”

“You have no proof.”

“Nothing tangible. I don’t care,” Jack replied. “All that I’ve stated wouldn’t put this burning need for revenge in me. I’d probably let international court take its course to put you away. You see, Stuart, I can take the physical torture and maybe forget it. But you harm a single hair on the one person that means everything to me, you’re a dead man. I wouldn’t have been content with Owen Reed’s blood. That opportunity had been taken from me anyway. You were the prize. Your death is the only acceptable payment for what you have done to my wife.”