alone. He knew what he needed to do next, and the laser dot appeared on her chest.
In the darkness, she noticed the steady red point of light, then brought her gaze up to meet his.
'It's amazing how quickly we've gone from stay to go,' she said. She took a hesitant step back. 'At my house, you thought I'd betrayed you,' she said.
'Don't move,' Jason said, his voice calm. She knew he intended to kill her and would do so without hesitation. 'So,' he continued, 'I suppose this is the part where you tell me it was all a coincidence. Chris just happened to be at your house.'
'Yes,' she said. 'It was a coincidence. It's not like I invited him over.' She sat down on his quad and waited for him to approach.
He moved closer, keeping his aim steady. 'Well, at least you're following the script now,' he said. 'Next you'll beg me not to kill you or maybe offer me up some of your smuggler friends instead — isn't that right?'
She started to reply, but he cut her off.
'I knew that I shouldn't have trusted you,' he continued. 'Save the pleas for mercy and since I already know who the smugglers are, offering them up won't do you any good. I should have ended all of these complications the first day out of Nome.'
He raised the weapon a little bit higher. 'The mission comes first.'
'You really do live an empty life, don't you?' she asked. The words hit him like a cold, hard slap on the face. 'You don't have
His finger tightened on the trigger. He had to do it.
Tina kept talking. 'You know, if I really believed that you would kill me outright, without giving me a chance to even explain, I wouldn't have come out here. I hope my grandfather is right and that I'm a good judge of people. I think if you were going to kill me, I wouldn't have gotten out word one.'
'Perhaps,' he whispered. 'I've been doing this job a long time. It's the little amusements that carry one through the tougher times.'
'I don't know who you really are, Jason. And I've told you the truth. I'm not involved and I don't have any friends that you would really be interested in. I can't imagine telling you that my grandfather smokes illegally imported Cuban cigars will win me many points.' She held up her hands in defeat. 'I guess you'll either have to listen and make your choice or kill me and have to go on living life just as you have in the past.'
He shrugged. 'My past isn't so bad. I've been living with it for a long time. But what the hell, I'll play along. Why was he there? And don't tell me he was just taking a walk around the block and you ran into him.'
'I don't know,' she said. 'He was waiting at the house when I got back. He's been after me for some time to go out with him, but I've always turned him down. I sort of figured it was done, that he'd gotten the message. Suddenly he has a renewed interest and I don't know why. But I do know that after you barged in, he didn't seem all that excited to be talking with me. If I were to guess, I'd say that he and his smuggler friends suspect you of being onto them, of having been the one that broke into their facility earlier. They probably sent him to me to try to get some information.'
Jason nodded. It made a certain amount of sense. How did she manage to cloud his judgment so easily? 'Anything else?' he asked.
'That's all I've got,' she said. 'He took off right after you did, so at this point your guesses would be as good as mine.'
He moved closer, watching her breathing patterns, studying her body language. If there was even a hint of a lie, he'd shoot her dead…but there wasn't. If she was lying, she deserved an award for her acting. Still, he had to know if he could really trust her. A wandering nuclear weapon and a submarine capable of delivering it were far more important to the safety of the world than one dead woman, whether he liked her or not.
There was one button he could push, and maybe find out where she really stood.
'And the sex,' he asked. 'Was that all a setup, too?'
Tina jumped off the quad, marched straight up to him and slapped him across the cheek. Hard. He didn't stop her. 'You bastard,' she hissed.
'So, that's a no,' he said, holstering the Glock.
'So you're not going to kill me?'
'Not yet,' he replied. 'But the night is young. I'm either a trusting fool or a very lucky guy. I guess only time will tell.'
'You've worked for the government for too long. It's made you too suspicious,' she said.
'In my line of work, there's no such thing,' he said quietly. 'And it's what has kept me alive.'
Tina moved to his side and rubbed his cheek, kissing the handprint that she left. Jason turned and kissed her deeply. 'I wish you'd had a better life,' she said when they came up for air. 'Being alive isn't the same thing as living.'
This was no time for emotional entanglements. 'Maybe someday I'll get the chance to try it out, but right now, you need to get back to town and I need to get back to work,' he said.
'When should I expect you?'
'Probably not until later tomorrow,' he replied.
'I'll see you tomorrow, then. Don't make me come looking for you.'
Tina got on her quad and left. Jason watched her drive off into the distance, then turned his attention back to the submersible. He watched the radar, making sure that her signature was well and truly headed back to town. Suddenly, he saw another one pop up on-screen. And another. They were approaching fast.
Acting on instinct, he ducked his head down just as a bullet whizzed through the air where his head had been a moment before, sounding like an angry bee. He dived out of the submersible and somersaulted on the ground, his gun ready as he came up. During the roll, he heard an odd cracking sound from inside his coat, but ignored it for the moment, knowing that the quad speeding down the hill toward him took precedence. He took aim at the driver, but had to move again as a second ATV crested the hill, the passenger firing repeated bursts with a MAC-10 submachine gun.
Jason fired as he rolled, taking out the driver of the first ATV. It spun out of control, throwing the driver and the shooter to the ground in a crumpled heap. Taking cover behind a cluster of rocks, Jason turned his attention to the second quad. Like the first, there were two people on board, one driving and one shooting.
The shooter opened up with the MAC-10 again as they sped toward him. Sharp shards of rock chips flew through the air, but he kept his profile low, waiting for an opening.
Just as they turned to get a better angle, Jason moved again, rolling to one side and yanking the gunman off the quad and to the ground. The momentum of the movement had both of them tumbling toward the beach.
Jason found his feet first and pounced on him, but the man was motionless. His neck had been broken in the fall. He spun around to take on the next threat, but realized that both the quads were gone. The survivors had left their dead companions and disappeared into the night.
He quickly checked the bodies, confirming what he already suspected. The men were from town. He hopped into the submersible and checked his radar. The two quads had made it into town, and there were also boats nearby in the water. They must have been planning another weapons drop and his timing had just been bad. He quickly programmed the Scorpion to retreat back into the water, then checked his coat. Damn, he thought, pulling the shattered remains of his shooting glasses free from the pocket. So much for that toy.
If possible, he needed to keep his cover if he could. Jumping on his quad, he raced back into town, cut down an alley and went straight to Tina's. This time he didn't bother knocking as he ran into the house. He slammed the door shut as she came out of her room.
'Jason, what…'
'No time.' He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to the bedroom, stripping off his shirt and tearing hers off over her head.
'Jason…'
'They're coming,' he whispered. 'Move fast.'
She complied, pulling at his clothes, throwing them on the far side of the bed. Jason pulled her on top of him on the bed.
They could hear someone pounding on the outer door, but neither moved to answer it. Jason heard it slam open and the rush of footsteps, but tried to focus on keeping calm, knowing that he still held his Glock beneath the
