Checkmate. Doranna Durgin

      The woman’s fingers wrapped around the hilt to grow white at the knuckles, a grim determination taking over her expression. “No one need know how he died,” she said softly. “They need not know it was I.”

      “Might as well pin it on me,” Selena told her. “Although if he answers my questions, perhaps you could settle for scarring him in some way that he would never admit came from a woman’s hand.”

      The woman only smiled.

      “You cannot expect me to take this seriously!” the wounded man shouted.

      Selena had to give him credit. For a man bleeding badly from his tush, his bleeding partner offering nothing but the sullen silence of someone who hopes not to be noticed, he had courage.

      Or perhaps he simply truly didn’t understand his situation.

      Selena gave him a beatific smile. “I expect you to take it very seriously.” She used her gun to tick off points on the fingers of her other hand. “Point—I speak seriously kickin’ Berzhaani. Point—I’m very good from this end of a gun. Point—Did you see me sweat when I took you boys down? Now take a moment to think. Think hard. What sort of American woman are you likely to find here in the heart of Berzhaan with all these things in her favor?”

      Someone to take seriously, that’s who.

      He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to hold on to his self-righteous rage and scorn, glaring at her from deep-set eyes just made for the expression.

      “Did the Kemenis send you?” she asked.

      He didn’t answer directly—but he looked away. It was enough.

      “I gather they didn’t send you to behave like this in particular.” She tapped the muzzle of the Beretta thoughtfully against her knee. The motion kept his attention on the weapon—helped him to realize that this was no lady’s pistol, but a gun of sturdy heft that fit comfortably in her equally sturdy hands. That she wielded it without a second thought. “But here you are, causing trouble in an otherwise unremarkable location. The shrine is fascinating, but not a political touchstone.” And the Kemenis, suddenly bereft of their American benefactor, were desperate. Desperate enough to make a real move on the country’s power base? Her eyes narrowed; for the first time she let a glimpse of her anger show through. “But this is close enough to Suwan to cause alarm…close enough to draw off troops in response.” And I’ve just initiated that by calling in. And now the capital would be more vulnerable to terrorist action.

      Again he looked away, trying to hide the subtle retreat with an uncomfortable shift to relieve pressure on his wound.

      “You’re a sacrifice,” Selena said. “Contributing to a larger goal….”

      Suwan…the embassy…the capitol. One or all of them, the real targets.

      He glared again, and the curl returned to his lip as he opened his mouth to say something crude.

      She smacked her pistol against his shin, a casual but precise blow that struck the crucial nerves there, numbing his leg with excruciating pain and with very little effort on her part. He made a wordless noise of surprise and gaped as his eyes watered, mouth quickly pursing for more imprecations.

      “Don’t,” she said sharply. “Just…don’t.” She exchanged a glance with the woman who now held the knife, saw the uncertainty rising there and straightened. “I’m not sure,” she said to the woman, “but it might well be that his humiliation is complete without any extra scarring, especially if he were cast out at your doorstep in a pretty bundle for the National troops. It’s entirely up to you, of course. I’m afraid I have to leave now.”

      The woman in the chador leaned toward the other, murmuring something worried.

      “A boy,” said the first woman. “Did you see—?”

      Selena nodded. “I sent him up to the shrine to hide, with the promise I would take all blame for it. I’m sure he’s waiting for you there.”

      “Thank you,” said the woman in the chador, sitting for that moment like a queen on her throne instead of a nearly violated woman on her thoroughly rumpled bed. But she could not hide a quivering twitch of her mouth or the tears of relief welling in her eyes.

      Selena thought it was her cue to leave. That and the distant sound of helicopter blades thumping the air. She emerged from the house with caution, the automatic gunfire still clear in her memory—but either no one else had intended to come to this far end of the town, or the arriving troops had caught their attention. She made it to her Russian Moskvich sedan without incident, folding herself into the driver’s seat with the Beretta in easy reach. She hoped to swing around the village and make it into Suwan without any trouble—but if trouble came along, she’d be ready for it.

      She had to reach the embassy. She had to warn the ambassador…and she had to warn Berzhaan.

      The Kemenis were rising.

      Chapter 2

      C olin Jones slung his duffel through the door of the modest D.C. condo he shared with Selena. Modest by choice and lifestyle as opposed to financial restrictions, even here in this area of off-the-chart living expenses. But…

      Maybe that would change soon, if Selena became pregnant as they hoped. Maybe their silk plants and collection of sleek sight hound statuary would make way for the real things. Green, growing things. Warm loyalty and four-legged companionship to round out a home that also held the laughter of a family.

      Not that it would be easy. He and Lena had already experienced enough rocky moments to be realistic about what lay ahead and even then she hadn’t known half the things he’d kept from her in recent months. Things he wouldn’t tell her, things he couldn’t tell her. Decisions she’d never understand…some decisions he didn’t like to think about. But she hadn’t known those things, and she’d recommitted to the marriage, recommitting to each other…and immersing themselves in a few brief weeks of passion-filled nights before duty called and Cole had gone off on a long-term assignment, hoping Selena would soon find a posting nearby.

      But as he took his first step into the condo, he knew Lena wasn’t here. Damn. He’d all but felt her arms around him, her hands sneaking beneath his waistband to tug up his shirt and—

      Nothing but frustration at the end of those thoughts.

      The silence of the apartment surrounded him. The stuffy air, scented with undisturbed spice candles. The faint layer of dust settled over the empty table next to the door where their mail tended to pile up when they were home. A glance into their small living room showed no sign of legal briefs, no sign of Lena’s latest fiction favorites. Just the cream and maroon tones of the rug, curtains and furniture—a color scheme that had been a compromise between her desire for cool and clean decor and his own need for bold.

      The kitchen…not a crumb on the counter. The bedroom…neatly tidied, not so much as a stray sock or one of those hair scrunchies Lena tended to lose track of—and though Cole was much more casual about such things than she, Lena had never obsessed about tidiness, either. Not when she was relaxed and happy. A glance back at the living room revealed the very same quilt square on the wall as had been there two months earlier.

      Left not long after I did, did you? For she had an entire collection, and rather than spread them out over the austere walls she rotated them on a monthly basis—while the rest of the walls remained uncluttered, a testament to their struggle to merge their styles. The casual, assertive operative who approached life in the fast and loose lane, and the FBI legate with a lawyer’s precise, compartmentalized brain.

      Not for the first time, he wished he could see her in action—in real action—to get a glimpse of that side of her. The side that would expose the ferocity of her will and her ability to take whatever the situation pitched at her.

      It had to be there. Somewhere. It had to be, or she wouldn’t still be alive.

      He tore himself away from his