Emma Holly (35 page)

Now that she was listening for it, Charity could hear the mechanism lock.

"Stop!" Sylvia ordered. "I want you against the wall!"

B.G. stopped but didn't back up. "What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding confused.

Charity would have thought the answer was obvious, but Sylvia was eager enough to explain. She tossed her head and did her best to look down her nose. "Michael was kind enough to inform me of the lockdown. He worried I'd be afraid. I figured this was my last chance to move."

"And you knew we'd be here because… ?"

This made Sylvia run her tongue across her grin. "I suggested he install infrared cameras down here. So we wouldn't miss anyone 'getting busy' anywhere." Her gun arm came out a little straighter. "You see what happens when you forget that little people have power?"

"Where is Michael?" Eric asked. "Is he all right?"

Sylvia seemed not to notice he'd stepped up beside B.G. "He's a bit tied up at the moment. He became upset when he realized I hadn't befriended him for sex."

"Why are you doing this?" Charity asked—as she realized the object seemed to be to keep Sylvia talking.

Sylvia turned to her, her eyes as blank and cold as chips of green ice. Looking into that odd, disconnected gaze, Charity knew whatever she thought she'd understood about the masseuse, it hadn't been the whole story. Sylvia was silent for so long, Charity thought she wouldn't answer.

"I'm doing this to keep the Americans from controlling this discovery all by themselves," she said at last.

"They really can't be trusted, you know. Look at the trouble they cause in the world. Surely even you can see they need to be kept in check."

"I'm, uh, not very political," Charity said.

"No." Sylvia's gaze raked her up and down. "I guess you wouldn't be."

"Not to sound trite, Sylvia," B.G. put in, "but you really can't get away with this. If the house isn't surrounded, it will be soon."

"That
would
be a problem," Sylvia said, "if I didn't know there has to be a secret exit from your lab, to allow your employees in and out without being seen. I'm betting you didn't tell your guards to barricade that." With an ominous click, she released the gun's safety. Her hand was shaking, a fine, nervous tremor.

Unfortunately, it wasn't shaking enough to suggest she'd miss. "Open the door, B.G. I want to see your real playroom."

"I'm sorry, Sylvia." B.G. sounded truly regretful. "What you want doesn't matter very much to me."

She shot him so quickly and with so little noise that Charity didn't realize it had happened until B.G.

staggered back with a burst of red flowering on his sleeve. Sylvia had hit his upper arm. Eric moved as if to rush her, but B.G. restrained him even as he bled. For her part, Charity couldn't contain a cry of fear.

Sylvia had both hands on the gun butt now, and her eyes were locked on B.G.'s.

"Let me into that lab," she said, dark and low.

"You know I can't, Sylvia. My research mustn't fall into the wrong hands."

Without warning, her face went crimson. "Yours are the wrong hands!" she shouted. "Yours, yours, yours!"

Charity's heart was threatening to choke her throat. She moved closer without thinking. Sylvia was out of control. Her forearm muscles were corded up. She was going to shoot B.G. again, maybe somewhere crucial. "Sylvia—" she began.

She didn't get a chance to say another word, helpful or otherwise. With a noise that sounded like a snarl, Sylvia grabbed her wrist, spun her back against her chest, and shoved the gun beneath her jaw.

"How about her!" Sylvia demanded. "Would you open the door for your precious Charity?"

Don't
, Charity tried to mouth, but B.G. wasn't watching. Instead, he was shuffling forward toward Sylvia, his right hand clamped to his wounded arm. Sylvia backed up so he couldn't reach her, but the move distracted her from noticing Eric was edging away.

Yes
, Charity thought.
Go get help
.

"You should give up," B.G. was saying in his calmest, gentlest voice. The only sign he'd been shot was his slightly ragged breathing. "Let us get you some help. If you keep this up, you know you'll fail. It's impossible for it to end any other way."

A shiver slid down Charity's spine followed by a more general wash of cold. Behind her, Sylvia shuddered, too. The same indefinable scent that had filled the tunnel to the lab tickled her nose, except that now it seemed to be rolling off of B.G. Was he trying to distract Sylvia, or could he be attempting to coax the quantum dimension to nudge events in his favor? If he was, Charity's fear could only get in the way. She reached for confidence instead.

"He's right," she said as clearly as she could with the muzzle jamming into her neck. "I know you're angry, but fighting B.G. is pointless. He always gets what he wants. Somehow, some way, he'll get his way this time, too. Maybe the gun will misfire or your hand will shake. Maybe the power will suddenly go out. However it happens, you'll be caught."

It might have been her imagination, but the lights appeared to flicker just a tiny bit.

"Shut up," Sylvia snapped. "You think you're better than me. You think you can split them up and pick the one you want. But they'll always love each other more than you. You're nothing to them but a stupid slut."

Everything she said might have been true, but Charity had never felt less stupid. Slightly taller than Charity, Sylvia had leaned down to hiss the insult in her ear, tilting the gun away as she did. Though this wasn't the break Charity had been picturing, she wasn't at all surprised when a weight crashed into them from behind, driving them helplessly to the floor.

Even as the air rushed from her lungs beneath the impact of two bodies, Charity grinned. The pistol flew from Sylvia's hand as if it had been thrown. B.G. nabbed it and then the weight lifted from her back.

"Son of a bitch," Sylvia cursed, leaping for Eric.

At once the pair were grappling across the hall, rolling around too wildly for B.G. to get a clear target.

Charity managed to sit up, but all she could do was watch. Sylvia was out for blood, scratching and biting anything she could reach. Eric seemed to be trying to subdue her without causing injuries. This, and his underlying lack of craziness, put him at a disadvantage. As they struggled, one of the suits of armor toppled over them with a crash. Eric's head came up with a gash.

Charity had recovered just enough air to gasp.

"Damn it," B.G. exclaimed. "Stop being a gentleman!"

"Fine," Eric said and knocked Sylvia unconscious with a single, well-cocked blow from his elbow.

Even though she'd been trying to gouge out his eyes, he winced as she crumpled.

"Thank you," B.G. huffed. "I thought I was going to have to stand here forever and bleed to death."

"You deserve to," Eric panted, just as furious. It was the first time Charity had seen either of them angry.

"What were you two planning to do, use your amazing 'mind power' to hypnotize her into submission?"

"We gave you an opening."

"You gave me an accident!"

The argument seemed likely to continue—a release of tension, Charity supposed—but just then what was probably B.G.'s security team, plus a bunch of government commando guys, pounded into the paneled hall wearing camouflage and thick-soled boots. There were at least a dozen of each sort, and the rifles they carried were enough to make her lungs hitch in shock. Charity pulled her knees to her chest and tried to look harmless. One of the armed men, possibly a medic, knelt immediately beside Sylvia.

She'd begun to come around but must have been knocked out of her right mind—assuming she still had one. She was moaning something about B.G. having missed his chance.

"Would have done anything for you," she swore. "Would have given up the whole mission."

Her words sparked a prick of sympathy. Apparently, Sylvia had been hoping to get between Eric and B.G. herself.

While the first medic tried to settle her, another saw to B.G. The rest of the soldier guys fanned out. In spite of everything, Charity found their discipline impressive. As the rival captains finished muttering into their headsets that the area was secure, a vaguely familiar woman in a conservative but kind of cute suit stepped with finicky precision through the testosterone-laden crowd.

Her attention detoured to where Charity was huddled on the floor, then moved dismissively on.

She stopped in front of Eric.

Blood trickled from his eyebrow to his ear, and his hair stuck out in tufts like it always did first thing in the morning. Sylvia had also managed to rip his shirt open. Charity couldn't help enjoying the view of his abs, but the woman seemed horrified.

"Good Lord," Dana said, taking in his disarray. "What have you gotten yourself into now?"

B.G.
found Charity in her room, tucking her provocative outfits into a carryall. Her movements were slow—sleepy, he might have said—as if her attention wasn't all there, as if against all logic she was in no hurry to leave Mosswood. He didn't know whether to be relieved or sorry she'd figured out she couldn't stay—not with Uncle Sam taking up residence in preparation for going over B.G.'s lab with a microscope.

Catching the spy hadn't been enough.

At least he knew what had put the CIA on alert—despite having no intention of revealing it to Charity. It seemed that Maurice, his chauffeur, had been telling ghost stories in a local bar, swearing he'd seen people in old-fashioned dress flitting through the halls. B.G. sincerely doubted these "ghosts" were anything more than recordings of past events that had been imprinted on his antiques, harmless things with no more reality than photographs. The experiments going on beneath Mosswood might have triggered them to replay, but of course Maurice knew nothing of that project. He hadn't realized what a red flag his stories would send up, coming as they did from the house of a physicist known to be probing the nature of time.

When B.G.'s watchers intercepted the same not-so-tall tale through less savory channels, they concluded they weren't the only country with their eye on B.G.'s progress. Worse, the added detail in the second account led them to believe their competitors had an inside track. Maurice hadn't uttered a peep about glassware moving by itself.

Conspiracy theories were built on such small coincidences.

His meeting Sylvia at the spa in Victoria turned out not to have been one of them. His security team redeemed themselves by discovering she'd been visiting a number of places B.G. had been known to go—with the hope of someday bumping into him. Such patience required that she support herself until she found him, and how better than at an establishment he'd patronized? To B.G., this seemed an inefficient method for orchestrating an encounter, but it had worked, so who was he to cast aspersions?

Certainly he was not the infallible judge of character he'd thought.

Eventually, B.G. was sure he'd find out how a masseuse from Geneva got mixed up with an international faction who'd wanted to steal his work. Sadly, there would always be people in the world who wanted access to secrets they hadn't the faintest concept how to use. As to that, he expected there were a few in his own government.

His contacts at the FBI—whose job it actually was to protect sensitive technology—told him they hadn't been consulted on what they called "this cowboy operation." For whatever reason, the CIA appeared to have hared off on its own. Now, provokingly, he'd have to deal with both intelligence arms.

With a silent inner sigh, he smoothed Charity's hair behind her ear. "Your interview go okay?"

She turned when he touched her, still moving as if she were underwater, letting a pair of strappy red stilettos fall to the bed. "It was fine. Your lawyer was very helpful. He didn't let the CIA guys bully me into answering anything they didn't really need to know."

"That's Samuel's job."

"And he did it super good." She laid one hand on his ribs, her warmth a poignant shock. "I'm sorry your house is being overrun. I know you value your privacy."

"I have more lawyers, plus a few friends in high places. I expect we'll be able to minimize the intrusion.

Sometimes one hand—or branch of government, in this case—truly doesn't want the other to know what it's doing."

"Convenient," she said, her little smile awkward.

When she dropped her gaze, he clasped her shoulders to bring it up again. His arm hurt beneath its bandage where the bullet had strafed his flesh, but the pain was curiously welcome. He was alive. They all were. "I want you to know I wouldn't have let Sylvia shoot you. I'd have opened the door before it came to that. I'd have tried to find some other way to keep my research safe. I chose my strategy because I believed she thought of you, on some level, as someone who understood her. I believed she wouldn't hurt someone who'd given her such pleasure."

Charity hunched one shoulder embarrassedly. "It's funny how, in the end, the person Sylvia wanted most was the one she couldn't have. Those games of yours are pretty smart."

Not smart enough
, he thought. Or maybe too smart for their own good. He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. He didn't expect what she said next.

"I tried to tell you not to," she said, her eyes earnest.

"Not to—?"

"Not to let her scare you into unlocking the lab. I mouthed
don't
, but you were looking at her."

"Ah," he said, stunned and not stunned at the same time. "That was very brave."

Charity wrinkled her nose at the praise. "I wasn't really thinking about it. I only knew your project was dangerous and not just anybody should play with it—especially before you've got it more figured out."

He smiled, touched by her modesty and her trust.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked shyly.

"Of course."

"When you told Sylvia she was doomed to fail, were you trying to pull a quantum trick?"

"I think you must have known I was, or you wouldn't have done your best to help."

"Well, I thought so but I wasn't sure."