Phd Protector. Cindi Myers

      “Accusing me isn’t the same as denial,” he pointed out.

      “No! I don’t want anything to do with those monsters. And I don’t want anything to do with you.” She stalked away and sat on the end of the unmade bed, her back to him.

      Even from across the room, he imagined the heat of her anger washing over him. He welcomed the warmth, the intensity of the emotion, the life in her. For so long now—before they had even brought him here, since Christy’s death—he had felt cold and hollow inside, more robot than man. Only his daughter had been able to stir him, her tiny breath able to coax sparks from the few coals of life left inside him.

      Then she was gone and the fire had died altogether. He had gone through the motions of living, but had felt nothing.

      Now Erin was here, all fiery anger and glowing life, making him remember things—hatred and hunger and sex. Somehow being near a woman, after so many months with only the company of other men, reminded him of his own humanity. He wasn’t dead after all, but he didn’t know if that knowledge was good or bad. Living meant feeling—risking and caring and hurting. All things he had told himself he couldn’t afford to do again.

      * * *

      ERIN ENVIED MARK’S COMPOSURE. She couldn’t sit still, agitation driving her to pace. She had lived with fear for so long it was part of her makeup now, like the color of her hair or the shape of her face. Even years after she had left the family compound she continued to look over her shoulder, expecting her stepfather to make good on all the threats he had hurled at her when she’d walked away from him. Duane had a need to control situations and people. If you thwarted him, you could expect to be punished.

      He had bided his time, but he had finally exacted his revenge, though she still wasn’t sure of his final plans for her. She kept expecting his thugs to come back for her—to tie her up again and tell her there had been a change of plans, that this remote cabin wasn’t her real destination. This place was too bizarre, even for Duane. Did he really believe he could build a nuclear bomb in a place like this? With a scientist who didn’t even bother to look at a book?

      She risked a glance at Mark, who had returned to work at the lab table. He wore goggles and a mask and was working with his hands in heavy gloves, manipulating something inside a large glass box. Maybe the protective gear was because the material in that box was radioactive. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders to ward off a sudden chill.

      She couldn’t figure Mark out. The story he had told her—about his wife and little girl—was horrifying. She was pretty sure Duane had killed other people, so why not Mark’s wife? But how could Mark be so calm about his situation? She had spent every waking moment for the last six weeks trying to figure out how to escape from her captors. She had almost succeeded twice—she still winced, remembering the beatings she’d received when she had been caught. But Duane hadn’t let them kill her or rape her or otherwise harm her. She had thought he drew the line there out of consideration for her mother, but now she wondered if it was because he had other plans for her. Plans that included the enigmatic Mark Renfro.

      Her stomach growled. The sandwich she had made earlier still sat on the kitchen counter, so she retrieved it and took it to the table to eat. Mark glanced up from his work. “They usually bring dinner by now,” he said. “Since they haven’t, we may have to make do with cold cuts.”

      She shrugged. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to get any closer to him, but curiosity—and maybe loneliness—weakened her resolve. “What are you doing?” she asked.

      “I’m using a solvent to extract pure uranium from powdered ore,” he said. “The process takes a couple of days, but there’s a lot of high-grade ore in this area. I think that’s why Duane was interested in the property in the first place. Some things I’ve overheard make me think he hasn’t owned the place long—that he acquired it specifically for this purpose. The remote location suits his purposes well, too.”

      “I still don’t understand how you convinced Duane you could make a bomb out here,” she said. “He’s insane, but he isn’t stupid.”

      He removed his hands from the box, pulled down the mask and pushed up the goggles and faced her. “I didn’t convince him of anything. He decided it could be done and chose me to do it.”

      “But what made him think it was even possible?” she asked. “Don’t you need, I don’t know, a particle accelerator or something like that?”

      He chuckled. “Actually, in the 1960s, three physics students working in a small laboratory were able to design a functional bomb. The United States government paid them to make the attempt. They wanted to see if it was possible for a few people with a limited amount of knowledge and not a lot of sophisticated equipment—a situation that might crop up in an underdeveloped country, for example—to make a nuclear weapon. Turned out they could. The government called it the Nth Country Experiment. You can read about it online if you’re interested. And in 1994 a teenage Eagle Scout built a nuclear reactor in his backyard, using materials he found around the house.”

      “So you really could build a bomb?” The idea made her skin crawl.

      “I’m sure I could, given enough time and the right materials.” He scrawled something on a piece of paper and passed it over to her. In case anyone is listening—building a bomb isn’t the problem. Building one small enough for one person to carry around inconspicuously is.

      She nodded and crumpled the paper, holding it tight in her clenched fist. “I still don’t see how I can help you.”

      “Perhaps you’re merely here to boost my morale.”

      She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.”

      He frowned. “I only meant that having someone to talk to is a nice change.”

      Right. Maybe she had grown too accustomed to the company of Duane’s goons who, despite their boss’s orders not to lay a hand on her, spent plenty of time leering and making lewd remarks. “How have you kept from going crazy, alone here for so many months?” she asked.

      “I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “And I focus on the work.” He turned back to the lab equipment.

      She stared at his back for a long while, then stood and walked to the window. He could focus on work all he wanted, but she was going to focus on finding a way out of here.

      In different circumstances, she might have enjoyed the view out this window. The cabin sat on a slight rise at the edge of a valley. Feathery junipers and piñon pines dotted the rocky ground amid a thick blanket of snow. A few hundred yards beyond the cabin the land fell away in a steep precipice. Across from this gorge rose red rock mountains, the peaks cloaked in white, the setting sun painting the sky in brilliant pinks and golds. How ironic that such a peaceful-seeming place could be the source of potentially great destruction.

      A cloud of white off in the distance, moving in their direction, caught her attention. “I think someone’s coming,” she said.

      Mark was by her side within seconds. “That looks like Duane’s entourage,” he said, as three black Humvees slowly made their way up the narrow, rutted track. A guard who must have been seated on the other side of the door rose and walked to the edge of the narrow porch, an automatic rifle cradled in his arms. When the vehicles stopped in front of the cabin, the guard snapped off a salute.

      Erin didn’t even realize she had backed away from the window until she bumped into Mark. He rested one hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and she fought the urge to lean into him. She didn’t even know the man, and didn’t fully trust him, yet she felt safer with him than with any of those on the other side of the door.

      Men piled out of the first and third vehicles, all dressed in camo and bristling with weapons. One man unpacked a wheelchair and set it up next to the middle vehicle, while another man opened the back door of this Hummer, leaned in and lifted out Duane Braeswood.

      Mark sucked in his breath. “Is that really