the size of King Kong.
Dylan would never have taken such obvious bait.
But Creed remembered how soft her mouth had been beneath his, and even though he was absolutely positive this was one more sure step down the road to self-destruction, a real shit-for-brains idea, he was damned if he was going to say no. All she'd really done was give him the excuse he'd wanted. She had something in her apartment he needed to see, and if it bought him an extra hour of Cody Stark's company, he was going to take it. Maybe she'd show him the maps—or maybe she'd show him something else. And he'd be lying if he said a small, totally irresponsible, and undoubtedly crazy part of him wasn't hoping for something else.
“Okay,” he said and hoped to hell his brain kicked in sometime soon, before he did any serious damage to the operation. “I'll take you home before I take you in.”
On the other hand, it would save them all a few hours of detective work to have her show him where she lived. Dylan was going to want to go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, and he'd want to do it without the CIA on his ass. One of the basic truths of SDF was getting paid for getting results where other people failed. General Grant kept his office, next to the boiler room in the underbelly of a hell-and-gone annex, because his guys got the job done, every time, ahead of the pack. Without them, old Buck would have been put out to pasture a long time ago.
With his hand on her arm, he started toward the front door. Then it opened. The heavy handle rattled, the hinges squeaked, and a gust of frigid air blew inside.
He and Cody Stark froze in place. When the door closed, they heard two men whispering and the sound of footsteps crossing the foyer.
It didn't take Creed more than five seconds of listening to the voices to realize she'd been in danger from more than just the Braun boys blasting away in the stairwell tonight.
Damn,
she was starting to look like a friggin' magnet for trouble.
From the look on her face, she realized it, too. Without a word, they backed deeper into the stacks. The bookcases loomed up around them, deadening the sound of their retreat. After a few steps, he turned her around and they made a beeline away from the foyer. When he couldn't hear the men whispering any longer, Creed pulled her to a stop.
Making their escape through the front door was out of the question now. Bruno and Ernst were undoubtedly watching it, but he'd figured he could elude Reinhard's brigade. These new guys, though. Hell, they added a whole new dimension to the night. He didn't want to get caught on the Plaza with bad guys in front of them and bad guys behind them.
He looked around. They were at the south end of the building, which wasn't so bad. He'd parked Angelina on Bannock Street. All they needed was a way out. There had to be a back door somewhere.
In the end, he found a partially blocked fire exit behind the outdated encyclopedias onto Thirteenth Avenue. It took him all of thirty seconds to dismantle the alarm, and then they were squeezing out onto the street, right into the heart of the storm.
The wind had increased in velocity, blowing the snow sideways and causing the temperature to plummet.
Goddamn,
it was cold. Bruno and Ernst might be holding up in the wild weather, but the men inside the old library had to be desperate to have come out looking for her in a blizzard.
Of course, there was nothing like trying to pump up your country's nuclear capabilities to add a little incentive to your agenda. Having the Bomb was big on the world stage. Only eight countries could produce a mushroom cloud on demand—and every rogue state that had managed to pull themselves out of a Third World economy wanted to be number nine.
Add the nationless element of globe-trotting tangos to the mix and it was easy to see why Dominika Starkova was so popular. How they'd all traced her to Cody Stark, Denver Public Library research librarian, was something he needed to
Dylan would never have taken such obvious bait.
But Creed remembered how soft her mouth had been beneath his, and even though he was absolutely positive this was one more sure step down the road to self-destruction, a real shit-for-brains idea, he was damned if he was going to say no. All she'd really done was give him the excuse he'd wanted. She had something in her apartment he needed to see, and if it bought him an extra hour of Cody Stark's company, he was going to take it. Maybe she'd show him the maps—or maybe she'd show him something else. And he'd be lying if he said a small, totally irresponsible, and undoubtedly crazy part of him wasn't hoping for something else.
“Okay,” he said and hoped to hell his brain kicked in sometime soon, before he did any serious damage to the operation. “I'll take you home before I take you in.”
On the other hand, it would save them all a few hours of detective work to have her show him where she lived. Dylan was going to want to go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, and he'd want to do it without the CIA on his ass. One of the basic truths of SDF was getting paid for getting results where other people failed. General Grant kept his office, next to the boiler room in the underbelly of a hell-and-gone annex, because his guys got the job done, every time, ahead of the pack. Without them, old Buck would have been put out to pasture a long time ago.
With his hand on her arm, he started toward the front door. Then it opened. The heavy handle rattled, the hinges squeaked, and a gust of frigid air blew inside.
He and Cody Stark froze in place. When the door closed, they heard two men whispering and the sound of footsteps crossing the foyer.
It didn't take Creed more than five seconds of listening to the voices to realize she'd been in danger from more than just the Braun boys blasting away in the stairwell tonight.
Damn,
she was starting to look like a friggin' magnet for trouble.
From the look on her face, she realized it, too. Without a word, they backed deeper into the stacks. The bookcases loomed up around them, deadening the sound of their retreat. After a few steps, he turned her around and they made a beeline away from the foyer. When he couldn't hear the men whispering any longer, Creed pulled her to a stop.
Making their escape through the front door was out of the question now. Bruno and Ernst were undoubtedly watching it, but he'd figured he could elude Reinhard's brigade. These new guys, though. Hell, they added a whole new dimension to the night. He didn't want to get caught on the Plaza with bad guys in front of them and bad guys behind them.
He looked around. They were at the south end of the building, which wasn't so bad. He'd parked Angelina on Bannock Street. All they needed was a way out. There had to be a back door somewhere.
In the end, he found a partially blocked fire exit behind the outdated encyclopedias onto Thirteenth Avenue. It took him all of thirty seconds to dismantle the alarm, and then they were squeezing out onto the street, right into the heart of the storm.
The wind had increased in velocity, blowing the snow sideways and causing the temperature to plummet.
Goddamn,
it was cold. Bruno and Ernst might be holding up in the wild weather, but the men inside the old library had to be desperate to have come out looking for her in a blizzard.
Of course, there was nothing like trying to pump up your country's nuclear capabilities to add a little incentive to your agenda. Having the Bomb was big on the world stage. Only eight countries could produce a mushroom cloud on demand—and every rogue state that had managed to pull themselves out of a Third World economy wanted to be number nine.
Add the nationless element of globe-trotting tangos to the mix and it was easy to see why Dominika Starkova was so popular. How they'd all traced her to Cody Stark, Denver Public Library research librarian, was something he needed to
Similar Books
