Meltdown Read online

  Sweeney peered inside. A set of bunk beds adorned both walls, leaving less than three feet of space in between. Two of the four bunks were already taken by what looked to be a boy and his grandmother. Incredibly, neither seemed to have awakened at their noisy entrance.

  Remembering that they had to pay for bedding, Sweeney handed the provodnista a ten-hryvnia note, and she stalked off down the hall. Once she was gone, he turned to Mary and grinned. “Spacious, no?”

  “Shhhh!” Mary said, stifling a grin.

  Sweeney clicked on the light overhead and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Wait until word gets out that you and I shared a cabin for the night.”

  She said nothing but tilted her head to give him a wide-eyed don’t even think it look.

  Sweeney chuckled. “Nothing to worry about, ma’am. Mrs. Sweeney taught me how to be a gentleman.”

  The train started up again with a lurch, and in a moment the intermittent clack-clack of the wheels gliding over the tracks took up a rhythmic beat offset by the snores of the babusya in the bottom bunk.

  The train Nazi returned with two sets of linen sealed inside clear plastic. She handed them to Sweeney without a word, then slid the door to the cabin shut. Sweeney tossed his sheets on his bunk, then levered himself onto it with one swift move. Mary also seemed too tired to fully make her bed. She simply climbed up onto her bunk and sat down with her back to the wall.

  Sweeney sat against the opposite wall and stared at her. Even with the unflattering dress and no makeup, she was still prettier than most women would be even after a professional makeover. Her almost pouty lips and soft blue eyes gave her face an open, vulnerable look that any red-blooded male would find mesmerizing. Until she kicked him in the face. What made a girl like this want to face possible death and certain misery by becoming an operative?

  “What?” She was staring back now, the faintest hint of a smile on her face.

  He held her gaze. “Nothin’. I was just wondering how you got into this line of work.”

  She shrugged. “I like to travel. I grew up around the military. It seemed like a good job.”

  “You’re a military brat?”

  She nodded. “Yep, Dad was an Army drill sergeant.”

  “So do you like the job?” He made sure not to mention the CIA, on the off chance that the babusya was a Russian secret agent. Using English at all was taking a risk as it was.

  She huffed and rolled her eyes.

  “What?”

  She frowned. “Why don’t we talk about you?”

  He was surprised at her sudden turnaround. “Okay, sure. I was born in Alabama, I’ve got two brothers, and my dad is a Baptist minister. What else you want to know?”

  “You? A preacher’s son? I never would have guessed.”

  “Why, thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “So why’d you join the Army?”

  He sighed. “Well, I’d say I joined the Army to get away from my mother.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “If you met her, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

  “But I haven’t met her, so tell me. Is she an ogre or what?”

  Aw geez. How did I get roped into this? Sweeney sighed. “No, she’s not an ogre. She just ruled the house. I mean everything…She ran the place like—”

  “Like a drill sergeant?” Mary’s grin was priceless.

  “Exactly. The Army was like a vacation after spending eighteen years in my house.”

  “Is that why you have a problem with women in authority?”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “Maybe because it’s true?” She nudged him with her toe.

  “Why are we talking about this?”

  “You started it.”

  “What? No, I didn’t! I just asked how you got the job of master head-kicker.”

  She stifled a laugh. “What did you call me?”

  He grinned, glad they were talking about her now. “That was pretty amazing the way you took care of those two soldiers in the back of that truck. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, Dad was a drill sergeant. He used to make me spar with him in the sawdust pits at Fort Jackson.” A look crept into the edges of her face that told him it hadn’t been fun.

  “Wanted you to be able to protect yourself, huh?”

  She shook her head. “No, I think he just wanted me to be a boy.”

  He grinned. “Well, you’ll never make a very good one, if you ask me.”

  Fire flashed in her face. “Tell that to those soldiers I took out back there.”

  Sweeney chuckled. “You mean the ones we had to rescue you from?”

  Mary didn’t answer. Instead, she turned away from him toward the window.

  He thought he saw her lip tremble a little. Sweeney was no mind reader, but he could tell he’d hit a sore spot. He tried to back-pedal. “Look, uh, I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re a real jerk, Bobby, you know that?” She said it almost to herself.

  Sweeney raised his eyebrows. Wow. What’s that about? He tried to retrace the conversation in his head and figure out exactly where it had blown a tire and sailed over the edge of a cliff.

  “Listen, Mary, I wasn’t trying to insult you. I didn’t mean you weren’t capable. I just meant you wouldn’t make a very good man. But why would you want to? What are you trying to prove?” He shook his head. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

  She stared out the window, her blue eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “You’re right, Sweeney. I can’t hack it with the men. I mean, I’ve pretty much proven that over the last month, haven’t I? I’ve put the team in danger just by being here.”

  Way to go, bonehead. Now you’ve gone and made her cry. If there was anything he hated more than seeing a woman cry, he hadn’t found it yet. Everything in him was screaming fix this, but he didn’t know how.

  He tilted his head. “I don’t buy that. We would have never gotten out of Lebanon alive if it wasn’t for you. Come to think of it, we probably would have all died in that bunker in Panama if you hadn’t been there, because you told us about the explosives.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Bobby. You’ve had to rescue me twice. We probably wouldn’t have gotten captured in the first place if it weren’t for me. And when we were being shot at…I was so scared!”

  He sat back a bit. “So? We’re all scared.”

  “Oh, come on. I’ve heard you and Coop on the radio. Bullets flying everywhere and you two sound like you’re ordering french fries.”

  “That doesn’t mean we’re not scared. Mary, it’s just the way we’ve been trained. And unfortunately, we’ve had plenty of experience in the getting-shot-at department.”

  She just dropped her head into her hands.

  He lifted himself across the space between the two bunks to sit next to her. He wanted to put an arm around her, comfort her, but thought better of it. “Look, Mary. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please forgive me.”

  She sniffed. “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden? You never wanted me on this mission in the first place. You have a problem with strong women, remember?”

  He sighed and looked away. Was it really that he was afraid of strong women? Or was it weak men? His father had kowtowed to his mother all those years, and if Sweeney thought really hard about it, he’d have to admit that his resentment was directed more at his dad.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, Mary. Maybe that’s not why I joined the Army after all.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “Maybe…maybe it was to prove that I wasn’t my dad. He was so into ‘ministry’ that he never did anything…well, manly.”

  “Like hunting and fishing, or what?” Mary seemed genuinely interested, and she wasn’t crying anymore, so he forged ahead.

  “Like taking responsibility for anything. He couldn’t make the smallest decision without Mom’s approval. I guess I just needed to prove I coul
d be my own man, and maybe that meant not allowing any woman to run me.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I can understand that. For me, it was sort of the same. I wanted so badly to earn my dad’s love, and I knew the only way was to be as tough or tougher than the boys.”

  “So you had to prove you were.”

  Mary nodded, looking away. “I guess I failed at that.”

  Sweeney shrugged. “Maybe. But you succeeded at being human.”

  Her laugh was laced with bitterness. “I don’t think simply being human would be acceptable to Dad.”

  “Well, it’s acceptable to me, if that’s worth anything.” He smiled softly when her eyes met his.

  “Thanks, Bobby. That’s sweet.” She reached up and hugged him, and even though there wasn’t anything sensual about it, it had been a long time since Sweeney had felt that good. He hugged her back, lingering for a moment.

  The sound of a throat clearing at the door pulled them apart like a piece of paper being torn in half. John was standing there with an amused smirk that made Sweeney’s face catch fire in an instant.

  19

  Washington DC

  SAMAEL BERG CHECKED his watch as he hurried toward the front doors of Washington Dulles International Airport. Its soaring architectural curves made no impression on him at all. He wanted only to leave the country by the quickest means possible.

  He’d dropped off his rental car and was now only an hour and a half from the departure of his flight to Frankfurt. Normally, that would have been cutting it close. But since the great “neo-napalm” scare, air travel had dropped off considerably. Besides, he carried only his briefcase, and with no bags to check, ticketing should go smoothly.

  Samael now regretted having brought in the Panamanian. Still, he knew he’d had to hire someone, otherwise the project wouldn’t have had the desired effect. It had been imperative that he hit multiple sites around this huge country in a short period of time. He couldn’t have done them all himself. Surely his employer would understand that.

  What worried him more was his last phone call with Edgar Lerida. The idiot had spoken the name of the explosive. On the phone. Samael knew from his own experience in the intelligence community that the government had very sophisticated listening programs that could cull out a conversation based on a single word.

  He couldn’t get out of this country fast enough.

  Security officers patrolled the area on heightened alert for any suspicious activity. But Samael tried to just look like every other business traveler. Since he carried nothing that could tie him to the crimes, he had nothing to worry about.

  He breezed through the business class check-in and then made for the security line. There, he removed his shoes and belt and set his laptop in the tray, then passed through the detector. The TSA employee running the machine was actually inspecting the bags now. On his flight in they had barely appeared awake.

  Samael smiled. America should thank me. They have been shocked from their stupor.

  His briefcase reappeared, along with his belt and shoes. He redressed and went searching for his gate, stopping for coffee on the way.

  An hour later, he was sitting at the gate reading the newspaper and waiting for the flight to begin boarding. Suddenly two men, one black and one white, stood in front of him wearing identical midnight blue suits and very serious expressions. He looked up at them. “May I help you?”

  “Are you Samael Berg?”

  Alarm bells were going off in his head. “Who wants to know?”

  One of the men opened his coat to reveal a badge and gun tucked in his waistband. “We’re federal agents, Mr. Berg. FBI. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Samael looked at the gate. “But my flight is about to leave.”

  The black man leaned toward him and spoke quietly. “Let me make this crystal clear. You are going to come with us for questioning. You can catch a later flight.”

  Samael was a former intelligence operative. He could tell this man wasn’t bluffing. He racked his brain for anything that could have given him away but came up empty. He put his newspaper down and slowly stood. “What’s this all about?”

  The FBI agents each grabbed one of his arms in a vise grip and began moving toward a door opposite the gate area.

  The white one muttered an answer in his ear that turned his insides to cold oatmeal. “Someone happened to look at the saved route information on the GPS that came with your rental car. We need to talk to you about the places you’ve been visiting during your stay in our country.”

  The muscular soldier towered over Mary Walker, sneering at her as she bounced on the balls of her feet, fists at the ready. She tried to read his body language, looking for any opening that might give her a chance to take him down.

  “You gonna dance around all day, or what?” he taunted.

  His weight shifted slightly forward as he prepared to grab for her. It was the best chance she was going to get. With a shriek that she hoped sounded larger than her skinny body was, she charged at him, intending to knock him off balance.

  But he pivoted at the last second and brought his forearm down like a guillotine, sweeping her off her feet. She landed with a thud that knocked the wind out of her.

  Through tears caused more by her failure than the blow, she saw the soldier standing over her, shaking his head.

  “When you gonna learn not to charge like that, Mary? You know better!”

  She fought back the tears, gasping for breath. “Dad, I—”

  “Come on, get up, girl!”

  She rolled over and got to her feet, her fourteen-year-old body shaking and covered with itchy sawdust. “Can’t we go home now?”

  Her father’s frown turned into a scowl. “What, you want to quit?”

  “No sir. I…” Her eyes pleaded with him. How could she tell him how badly she needed his approval? His granite features said it all—that wasn’t going to happen. She dropped her gaze to her shoes. “Yes. I want to go home.”

  “Now, listen here!” he bellowed, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I’m not raisin’ no pansy girl, you understand?” He shook her, causing the tears to return. “Do you hear me?”

  “Do you hear me? Mary, do you hear me?”

  “Mary? Mary, do you hear me? Mary, get up!” Her father’s voice faded into one that was quieter but just as insistent.

  She itched all over from the sawdust. She blinked the tears away again, but this time it was Sweeney leaning over her, shaking her gently by the shoulders.

  “Get up, Mary. The train’s pulling into the station.”

  Groggy, she sat up and blinked, trying to get her bearings. “Oh, I was dreaming.” She looked down at the rough wool blanket pooling in her lap and pushed it away.

  Sweeney smiled. “Those blankets have gotta be some kind of Cold War rejects. Mine itched like crazy.”

  “Blech. Yes.” Mary combed her hair away from her face with her hand. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Sweeney sat on his bunk in the white T-shirt Olenka had given him. His massive biceps rippled as he stretched and yawned. “It’s at the end of the hall. But you might want to wait until we get off the train—this one’s pretty nasty. Just a hole in the floor so you can watch the tracks racing by underneath you.”

  Mary wrinkled her nose. “Eww.” She could wait.

  The door to their berth slid open with a bang, and the train Nazi poked her head in. “Kovel!”

  Immediately, the babusya in the bottom bunk sat up and roused her young grandson. The boy’s sleepy eyes went wide when he saw the muscle-bound American sitting across from and above him.

  Seeing that everyone was awake, the provodnista gave a satisfied nod and moved on to roust the other compartments.

  “’Sup?” Sweeney grunted, flashing the kid a grin. Mary slapped his leg and gave him a look to remind him he wasn’t supposed to let anyone know he spoke English.

  When Mary and Sweeney stepped off the train a few minutes later, Rip and John we
re waiting for them on the cavernous platform. Both men looked well rested, if somewhat rumpled in their ill-fitting clothes.

  Mary inhaled deeply of the cool morning air. Something about last night had been cathartic, like throwing open the door of an old garden shed after a long winter.

  Before their talk, she’d known Sweeney only as a younger version of her father—a broad-shouldered, unfeeling warrior who, if he thought of her at all, it was only to want her to be more like the other guys. But last night Sweeney had done something her father had never done. He’d told her she was okay. He’d made her feel valued. And then he had opened up to her and given her a peek underneath the tough-as-nails exterior.

  That was a Bobby Sweeney she’d like to get to know better.

  Though she’d been terribly embarrassed when John had showed up at their door and seen her hugging Sweeney—he’d come with some of Olenka’s grandmother’s food—Mary decided it was probably for the best. She didn’t need romance complicating her life at this point. And, to his credit, Sweeney had made no indication that he expected anything more than the hug she’d willingly given.

  Rip was chuckling as they approached. “You two look like Little Red Riding Hood and the hunter.”

  Sweeney clapped an arm around Rip’s shoulders. “Glad you’re reading the classics, Rip. And you look like Tiny Tim.”

  “Maybe so, bro. But if I have to walk very far in these farmer boots, I’m going to need crutches.”

  As they walked toward the terminal, John hung back with Mary. “You two seem to be getting along a little better.”

  Mary looked up at him. “Don’t get the wrong idea, John. We—”

  John cut her off with a grin and a wave. “Hey, no need to explain anything. You’re both adults. I don’t need to know.”

  “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

  John laughed. “I’ll never let Bobby live it down. You, I’ll give some slack.”

  She punched him in the arm. “Gee, thanks.”

  “So where do we find our ride?”