Deep Rising (An Outside the Lines Novel) (Entangled Select) (3 page)

Damn it, she was so lonely she almost picked up the phone and dialed her ex, and heaven knew she hated the bastard. Their marriage had been short-lived and even shorter on honesty. She’d gone into it believing his promises about settling down and starting a family, and in hindsight, she should’ve known better. James was a master manipulator, and he’d fed her just enough hope to make her think she’d get what she wanted. But who else could she talk to? Who else could she confide in? The few friends she had, she wouldn’t call. And phoning her family to say, “Hi, I nearly died, how’s your week going?” probably wouldn’t make anyone feel better.

She focused her attention on Mount Rainier.

The simple magnificence of the towering mountain never ceased to amaze her. She grew up in the shadow of the stratovolcano, in this very cabin, and it inspired not only her childhood imaginings but her choice of vocation as well. And employed as a volcanologist, she’d seen some pretty amazing places. She had been to the top of Mount Fuji, to Piton de la Fournaise on La Réunion island
,
and beneath the waters of the Pacific in a bathysphere to view firsthand the volcanic creation of Loihi, the next island in the Hawaiian chain. Seeing a new island form, watching the bottom of the sea spew forth molten rock in an unending eruption—that was a heady sight to behold. But for some odd reason, the steady prominence of Mount Rainier moved her as nothing else could.

Setting the rocker into motion, she stared at the stratovolcano and fought to suppress the memory of nearly falling to her death.

It had been a close call in Guatemala. Too close.

…

Jared adjusted his binoculars and settled against the trunk of a blue spruce. The woman slept deeply, with no inkling he lurked in the brush not more than twenty paces from her cabin door.

This part of the country offered a relatively secluded locale. It wasn’t particularly crime-ridden, but a woman alone had no business sleeping outside.

Rolling his shoulders against the tree trunk, Jared fought the tension mounting in his spine. His mama had raised him to protect women, to cherish them. But with stakes as high as these, he needed to treat his job with total objectivity. If it had been a male suspect, he would’ve broken into the house and beaten the required information out of his target—as he’d been trained to do. Her gender shouldn’t matter a lick. But to him, it did.

Terrorists are terrorists
.

The reminder did little to squelch the indecision eating at his stomach. Hell, the last time his stomach had burned this badly, he’d drunk half a pint of his grandma’s moonshine. But it wasn’t booze or bad food that currently had him sick. It was his target.

On the long flight across the Atlantic, he’d read a veritable novel on Svetlana “Lana” Orskya. It was a tidy summary on paper—summa cum laude graduate, respected volcanologist, previously married to geologist James Enwright, no children. And as he’d read further, he determined the details in her file did not fit. On the surface, she presented the image of an all-American sweetheart—and was gorgeous, to boot. She traveled the world researching volcanoes and major geological events. She devoted her spare time to charity work. She didn’t live beyond her means or have any run-ins with the law. She paid her taxes. The green-eyed girl whose photo he’d studied looked more like a missionary than a woman-on-a-mission to end the world. Her appearance and background completely contrasted with the ninety pages of evidence linking her to possible terrorists.

But for all intents and purposes, Lana Orskya appeared guilty. If she wasn’t to blame for the rogue tsunami, she had obviously associated with the actual culprit because the evidence was irrefutable.

Recalling the innocent people on Ischia, the image of Officer Pisani mourning his wife, the destruction of life and property, the twelve hundred people whose families would be forever impacted…Jared recognized why he’d been selected for this mission. Because when push came to shove, he wouldn’t let anyone or anything stand in his way. And if the woman was guilty, she would pay. Dearly.

He pushed his palm against his stomach and rubbed. His body didn’t like the reality of his circumstances any more than his mind did.

Hemmin’ and hawin’ won’t change the outcome. Get it done
.

Swatting at a mosquito, he checked his watch. Jared pushed from the tree and cut through the woodland. With movements as brisk and quiet as the early dawn itself, he approached. The leaves and pine needles, still damp from recent rain, blanketed his heavy footsteps. At the rear of the cabin, he took the stairs to the back porch and tested the screen door.

Unlocked.
Foolish woman.

He slipped inside. Keeping his palm on the hinge of the door, he squeezed the spring coil, preventing it from squeaking as it closed.

With old houses and wood buildings like this cabin, every lath and board tended to groan. He stepped completely onto the porch, balancing his weight from one foot to the other. He tested the planks, gradually applying pressure, avoiding creaks as he inched along the length of the sunporch.

When he halted in front of Lana, he examined her. The dark curling mass of her hair, tied back with a small plastic clip, rested over one shoulder. A tiny furrow marred her brow as if she dreamed of unpleasant things. She had a small, straight nose. A wide mouth, high cheekbones. He found something incredibly alluring about the slender woman. Upon initial assessment, he was captivated—which made absolutely no sense. She was a threat, a potential terrorist. But she didn’t look vicious or evil. The woman looked tired, fragile. And, well, lovely.

Jared frowned. It was a damn good thing this was his last mission, because when the enemy started to look good, it was past time to get out.

His hands were rougher than he intended as he shook her awake.

Chapter Four

Lana found herself in the midst of a nightmare. Someone was shaking her, holding her against her will.
Intruder, danger, run.
The thoughts ripped through her mind as she fought to free herself. She kicked with both legs but her feet met only air. She sank her teeth into the hand on her shoulder.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” a deep voice said.

“
You
are
hurting me!

“Quit thrashing.”

Stop fighting?
And then…
what
? Her heart slammed against her ribs, beating so fast it hurt. “Let me go.”

In the absolute silence that followed, she heard only their breathing. Hers pounded, rasping, garbled. His was even, smooth, as controlled as a metronome. His breath washed over her neck.

“Ms. Orskya, you are suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. I am a CIA agent, and just as soon as I discern whether or not you’re packing a weapon, I’ll let you go. Then we can get to talking.”

“Release me now,” she gritted.

She thought he relented when his hands slipped from her shoulders, but in the next instant, she was pulled out of the chair and pressed against the wall.

Hard, strong fingers traced her skin, searching beneath her arms and along her sides. He bent only slightly, and his hands squeezed along her thighs. She shrieked.

“Relax,” the deep voice muttered. “My tastes don’t run toward terrorists. Lord knows I’ve dealt with enough of you scum…”

“You son of a bitch!”

She continued to squirm, but there was nowhere to go. He boxed her in, patting her down with an efficiency that told her he’d done this many times before. She shoved at his shoulders, but he didn’t budge an inch. “Right now,” the raspy voice warned, “I’m trying to be civil.”

“I’m an American citizen. You can’t do this!”

“I can do whatever is necessary to protect this country. Now, we can do this nice and easy or the hard way. Which is it going to be?”

His lips brushed her neck as he spoke. She jerked away at the contact. “You say it like I have a choice.”

“On the contrary, you can choose to cooperate and tell me what I want to know, or I can make you cooperate.”

“This is ridiculous!” she screamed. The man carried the scent of mountain air and pine. He held her so intimately she could catch the slightest trace of coffee on his breath. His presence assaulted her senses, shattering her every notion of security. She tried to twist away from him.
This wasn’t happening, was it?
“I am a scientist, not a terrorist. And I have rights! You can’t barge into my home and hold me hostage!”

“Actually I can. There is a nice little clause that Congress made into law after 9/11. It grants me access to you and any information related to you. Like the lingerie purchases over the Internet, and all your medical, dental, and banking records.”

Lana gasped. A hundred rebuttals flashed through her mind.

“If you’re trying to say something,” he growled, “then spit it out. I can’t understand when you’re mumbling unintelligibly.”

“Let me go,” she managed to whisper.

After the longest minute of her life, he did.

…

Something in her voice, a tremor hinting at imminent tears, prompted Jared to relent. He no longer had the stomach for this sort of thing, he realized. Dang it, he never had. Protect the weak, champion the innocent. He’d held fast to this ethos since volunteering for DEVGRU, the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group that interfaced the military with the CIA and other government agencies. Some days, that mantra was the only thing that got him through.

If she’d been guilty, he would’ve executed his Bravo-4 training and executed
her
. A couple of pounds of pressure, a minimal effort on his behalf, and he could’ve tightened his hand around her throat until he counted her last breath. The trouble was, on a gut-deep level, he believed in her innocence. Sure as the sunrise, she was weaker than him. Throw in that she was a woman—a soft, beautiful woman—and he couldn’t compete with that trifecta. Sure, he could be wrong. Could be a sucker for a pretty face. But guilty or not, he couldn’t be the man to exact justice.

It’s information you need…

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” he warned. “Let’s talk for now. I’ve been ordered to bring you in for formal questioning if I don’t like what I hear. Trust me. You don’t want to be subjected to that.”

Lana clenched the blanket to her chest and lowered herself back into the rocking chair.

“There’s been a huge mistake,” she insisted. “I’m a researcher. A field scientist. I’d never do anything to intentionally harm anyone.”

Jared made a noncommittal sound. He took the chair across from her. In the dim moonlight, the woman looked especially young and delicate. Her hands trembled. Her expressive face crumbled as though she wanted to weep, then she shook her head and grabbed hold of the chair arms. Tears, he would’ve expected, but she didn’t cry. She squared her shoulders and her green eyes flashed to his. Her stoic strength shouldn’t have impressed him, but it did. He’d seen too many people backed into a corner. Hell, he’d personally backed them there. Nine out of ten folded quicker than a tent. But every now and then, a target came out swinging. Right or wrong, he held a begrudging respect for the fighters.

“I want to see your ID,” she demanded.

Jared nearly smiled at the request, which was a little late in coming. Not that he’d given her much of a chance to do more than listen.

He handed her his wallet and watched as she fumbled through his numerous identification cards and badges. Realistically speaking, all of them could be forged—and they were—but he didn’t point this out.

Neither did she. She passed the wallet back to him.

“Let’s start at the beginning. Did you or did you not publish an article in volume forty-one of
Annual Seismology
?” he asked.

“Yes, I did.” Lana pulled the blanket to her throat. “It was my thesis. I submitted it three years ago. It’s how I earned my doctorate.”

“In your thesis you outline areas of the world in which seismic or volcanic activity could generate tsunamis, mega-tsunamis, or landslides.”

“I also explored the impacts of earthquakes along the Ring of Fire, as well as factors of stratovolcano instability. So?”

“The scenarios you discussed could spell obliteration for many major cities—”

“That is precisely why I felt the need to detail them! Every inch of this planet is vulnerable in one way or another.” She rubbed her eyes. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Are you aware of the landslide that occurred on September 5 on Ischia? It generated a tsunami that struck a neighboring Italian island. More than a thousand people died.”

“What? No, I hadn’t heard about it.” She knotted her hands in her lap. “I’ve been in Central America for the past month. I only returned home last night. I’ve been sleeping on and off since. I don’t understand. What does a landslide have to do with me? There are landslides all over the world, virtually on a weekly basis.”

“Yes, but you specifically discussed this one in your thesis.”

“I spent a summer studying abroad with the US Geological Survey. We kept a tiltmeter on Ischia and benchmarks along the southern flank of the island. It showed signs of movement—along with eighty other islands in the Mediterranean!” She shrugged. “The earth is very much alive and unstable, Mr. Hawthorne.”

Jared Caldwell didn’t bat an eye at her use of his alias. “In the conclusion of your thesis, Ms. Orskya, you indicate a number of potential world-ender zones.”

Lana nodded. “I never subscribed to doomsday prophecies or Armageddon, but they’re staring us in the eye every day whether we want to look or not. We’re one virus away from obliteration. A couple of degrees warmer and half the planet will flood.”

“I’m interested in plate tectonics.”

“Shifting continents?”

Jared stiffened. “I’m not a seismologist, or geologist, or a volcanologist. I don’t know the precise terms you’d use. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. Landslides. That’s what I need to know about. And how or why you’re selling the coordinates for catalyzing them.”

“Me?” She shot out of the chair. “You’re insane!”

“The attack on Ischia was executed down to the tiniest detail, Doctor.
Your
details. How would someone have gotten those if you didn’t give them to him?”

“Those were only predictions and warnings! Anyone with half a brain and a computer can deduce the weak points in the lithosphere!”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But there’s a clinker. The journal only published an abstract of your article, and the university did the same. They had enough foresight to recognize the lethal potential of your ideas. So, unless you hand-printed, faxed, e-mailed, or shipped a complete copy, there is no other way it could have fallen into the wrong hands. We obtained our version from your mentor. His entire computer is uploaded into the US Geological Survey, but the material is encrypted which means hackers wouldn’t bother to look for your thesis in his hard drive unless they
knew
to look for it there. Do you hear what I’m saying? The person responsible would have to knowingly target the USGS
and
hack their firewalls to obtain your materials. And our analysts already confirmed that there are no electronic footprints on either your mentor’s PC or the USGS database. That tells us the terrorist had to obtain the data another way. Most likely scenario, it came from you, making you suspect
numero uno
on our list.”

“You’re mistaken.” She rubbed her palm against her forehead. “I swear I only meant to help. I would never assist anyone in committing such an atrocity.”

“I want to believe you, Svetlana,” Jared admitted. And, damn it all to hell, that
was
true. “I’ve read your file inside and out. You haven’t made any large bank transactions. You live in a two-bedroom cabin. You’ve traveled to disaster areas to help rebuild houses. Hell, you
look
innocent. On the surface, it appears like one big blunder. But something isn’t adding up, and it’s my job to get to the bottom of it.”

She numbly paced across the porch with the blanket trailing behind her. Her shoulders hunched in such a way he would’ve thought he
had
hurt her. Then she paused at the door to the house and glanced back at him. She met his gaze levelly. If there was fear, she didn’t show it.

“I need a drink,” she mumbled. “You?”

“I don’t drink when I’m on assignment.”

“You just told me a maniac purposely detonated a tsunami. I’m not about to pop a bottle of champagne.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of coffee.”

He smiled. “That’ll do.”

…

Lana began to relax by slow degrees as she mechanically filled the coffeepot and set it perking on the stovetop. She pulled a carton of milk from the refrigerator and the sugar canister from the pantry.

A man was in her home. A strange, dangerous man.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his lean body. He stood well over six feet. He was strong. She’d witnessed his strength firsthand when he’d accosted her in her chair. German, maybe French, bone structure with his pronounced cheekbones and angular jaw. The eyes stood out, capturing her attention. Hazel. Distinct shards of amber and emerald framed by dark lashes and straight brows. This man’s slow drawl and easy smile were disarming, and under different circumstances she would’ve found him seriously attractive. But beneath the handsome facade, she recognized his capacity for violence. He’d broken into her home, frisked her, and accused her of deeds to rival 9/11. And yet he hadn’t hurt her. With his strength, he could’ve tortured her in any number of ways to get the information he demanded, and she wouldn’t have stood a chance. She didn’t know what to make of his restraint. He’d been efficient in his pat-down—as if she’d be packing a weapon!—but he’d been gentle too.

“This is surreal,” she mumbled.

“The twelve hundred people who died on Capri would beg otherwise.”

She shuddered. Innocent people had died because of scenarios she had outlined with her thesis. Of course he couldn’t ignore the coincidence. In his shoes, she’d act the same way.

The man moved to her breakfast nook. He sat and his broad shoulders overwhelmed the space, making the entire room seem smaller. He continued to analyze her every move, his gaze riveted to her hands as she prepared the coffee. Did he think she’d poison him? She didn’t keep arsenic in her sugar bowl or potassium cyanide in the cupboard.

“I’m not responsible for this,” she insisted.

“Let’s assume I believe you,” Jared began. “If you’re telling the truth then someone had to gain access to your home or office, your PC, or your research documents. I’m going to need you to compile a list of anyone who, during the course of the last five years, either directly or indirectly, may have seen your thesis.”

Lana took a deep breath. For now—thankfully—he appeared to believe her. “What you’re requesting won’t be easy to accomplish,” she admitted. “I’ve discussed my work with family, friends, many professors, and professionals in my field. I also travel extensively, so I’ve used couriers and translators in different countries to obtain data.”

“Unfortunately, until you point us to other viable suspects, the spotlight remains on you. Now, is there anyone offhand who you think could have been responsible for the recent tsunami?”

“Of course not,” she snapped.

The coffee hissed, signaling it was finished brewing. She removed the pot from the stove, and then grabbed the milk and sugar. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. She’d done nothing wrong. On the contrary, she traveled the world measuring and documenting seismic activities all with one goal in mind—obtaining data to forewarn about natural disasters. Her life’s research was dedicated to
saving
lives. This was bullshit. And the very thought of someone abusing her research, of manipulating her ideas into something so malicious… It made her sick. She slowly approached the federal agent.