SLEEPER (Crossfire Series) (34 page)

“Your earphones are off,” he told her.

“No, dearest heart. There’s something else stuck in there. If you would just freaking untie me, I’d get them out myself.” She shook her head wildly. “Will you pull them out?”

“Is she okay?” Nikki asked, coming down on her knees.

“Yes, I think so,” Reed answered. He examined Lily’s ears and felt around. He felt something. He gently pulled them out, then shone his flashlight on his palm. “What the hell?”

“That other woman…she put them into my ears while I was fighting her,” Lily explained. “I couldn’t hear very well after that. She winked at me.”

Reed squeezed the small foam bits in his hand. “Earplugs?” he asked, puzzled. “She plugged your ears first so you couldn’t hear the signal.”

Reed hugged Lily fiercely. Other problems could be dealt with later. Right now all he cared about was the woman in his arms. “I couldn’t lose you,” he told her. “Not this time. I was so damn afraid he’d got to you. When you didn’t run—”

“I couldn’t. He had Tatiana. Tatiana!” Lily sat up. “I need to make sure she’s all right. Poor thing was white as a ghost.”

“Nikki will go to her. My team’s here and everyone’s safe.” He slowly untied her, then kissed her. Long and slow. “We belong together, Lily. Don’t think of leaving me now.”

Providence, he thought. Arch had said there were worlds to explore, and he’d become a SEAL, traveling everywhere, looking for that missing thing in his life. Getting away from it all had only made him feel even more alone. He’d seen and done a lot, but nothing had satisfied him.

He slid an arm around Lily. Until he met an unexpected flower with fierce thorns. He looked up at the cold, wintry sky.
Damn it, Arch, you old fox, you were right, man. I caught myself a big wave, dude.

* * *

Greta glanced at her watch. They should have the device by now and be heading back. The house hadn’t been unguarded, like Talia and she had thought, and she had wasted some time. She thought of the three dead bodies in Gunther’s house. Satisfaction bloomed in her.

“Old lady against three big guys. Old lady three points. Three big guys, three big zeros,” she murmured. It felt good to prove Gunther wrong. She dismissed the thought of having to explain the bodies. She’d think of something.

There was just enough time to look over these files quickly. She didn’t want Talia to be the first to see them.

There was something about her niece, which she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that made her just a little wary. It was difficult to explain. Greta enjoyed Talia’s company, though, especially when she showed her the old photos from her family album. It made Greta even more determined to finish this assignment. A nice holiday at the
dacha
, catching up with family and news.

The beep from the computer disturbed her reverie. A little window appeared on the screen, asking for a new password.

Greta frowned. Talia had said the decoder would handle the passwords and all she had to do was follow the instructions on the screen before inserting the micro flash-drive. Now what?

She was stumped. She pressed the ESC key. The screen went blank.
Scheiss
!
Please, please don’t erase any files that I’ve downloaded!
These damned computers were so unreliable. One moment one held the world in the palm of one’s hand. The next, with a stupid beep and a blank screen, it held one’s balls with its stupid cursor.

She didn’t have time to restart. Tentatively, she reached out and hit the ESC key again. The screen blinked and a list of files appeared. Greta breathed a sigh of relief. At least there seemed to be something in the drive.

Her eyes ran down the rows of files. Names…familiar names, some American, some Russian. Gunther the Geek had collected quite a bit of information. Her name was there too.

Van Duren. What did the man have on her? Impulsively, she moved the cursor over her name and clicked.

Photos of her. Famous cases tied to her with question marks that Gunther had noted down. Greta smiled. Of course, no one would ever know which of those had been her doing; that was the sign of a great operative. Gunther had been trying to figure out what was truth and what was legend.

She read on. Disappearance? Possible death?

“Reassignment, you stupid man,” she said. These must be notes he’d made before he’d found out she had been moved from assassin duty to undercover as a secretary in the CIA.

A picture of her after she’d gone through training, just before she’d relocated to the States. Damn, she didn’t remember the plastic surgery to change her eyes. No wonder she’d always hated the way her eyes looked. She had—

Greta’s hand went to her mouth. She had…screamed and fought against having her face changed. She was an assassin. How dare they want her to undergo training to learn how to fucking type! She was not getting too old to seduce and kill! She certainly was not growing old in some stupid behind-the-desk job moving information! That wasn’t her at all! She—

Her hand shook as she reached out and clicked on another date. That was the day she’d officially been taken off duty. She recalled how she’d screamed at the deputy in charge—

The needle—

Ich will dies nicht!
Ich will dies nicht!

The file took a moment to open up. Gunther’s notes on top: What are these? Greta stared at the graphics that followed. Rows and rows of familiar patterns.

“Reading something interesting?”

Greta looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard anything. Talia stood at the doorway, looking at her casually. Way too casually.

“Did you know about my file here?” Greta asked calmly.
I don’t want this!
The screams rang in her head over and over. She covered the weapon on her lap with one hand.

Talia walked toward her. “Really? A file about you?”

Greta moved the weapon beside her. “Yes,” she said. Her attention went back to the screen. She needed time to digest this. Talia must never know….

“Does it show strange images that remind you of those knitting patterns you’re so fond of? Maybe the afghan and shawls you’ve knitted over and over?” Talia asked, her voice strangely serene, her dark eyes watchful.

“You…know?” Greta had to force herself to stop looking at the pattern. It was so beautiful to look at.

“Level Five hypnotic state is the hardest to come out of, Greta. Years and years of hypnotizing your own self with the same message. The Russian way has always been a little crueler than the American way, don’t you agree? They programmed you to program yourself and you spent ten years being what you’d vowed to them you’d never be. That pattern you’re looking at is the release, just like Llallana Noretski has her own release.”

“You’re lying!” Greta returned her gaze to the screen. She moved the cursor down. “You’re lying!”

“You didn’t like family, Greta, never had. You left your German family to go to the Soviet Union way back then, don’t you remember? You don’t remember your nieces and relatives. That’s why you accepted anything I said about your past with me—you can’t remember.”

“Gunther—”

“He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t quite figured it out yet, but he would have, eventually. But too late for him, he can’t do anything about it now,” Talia said. She took a few steps closer. Her voice was gentle. “They’ve prepared you to go home in the grandest manner, a final big assignment for one of their best. Wasn’t that what you kept telling yourself? Do you really think there is a
dacha
waiting for you? Or are they going to take you away, give you another face, reprogram you, and stick you behind a desk for the rest of your life?”

“No!” Greta realized she had to destroy all evidence, as well as Talia. No one must know this. No one! Her eyes were drawn back unwillingly to the screen, and she had to move the cursor further. She needed to see that pattern…so beautiful…it’d be perfect for a rainbow afghan, one to decorate the living room in the
dac
…no!

She was seeing scenes in her head that made no sense and explained too well. A screaming, fighting session. The needle
. I hate typing!
Ich will dies nicht!
She heard herself yelling. There was a fleeting second when she caught an image of herself being distracted by someone screaming….

“Look at the screen!
Zahlen Sie Aufmerksamkeit!
” a voice had reprimanded sharply.

She’d returned to her knitting, following a pattern on a huge screen. Then they’d put some earphones over her ears….

Greta screamed, pushing the computer off the table, pulling up her weapon. Talia lunged forward and locked her arm, directing it upwards, and Greta’s shot went harmlessly into the ceiling.

She was an assassin. She knew how to kill…she turned sideways and viciously elbowed into Talia’s stomach. Talia released her hand that was still holding the weapon.

Triumph went through Greta. She pointed her gun. Talia kicked, and Greta lost her grasp. The weapon fell to the floor.

“I’ll go back and show you it’s a lie!” Greta screamed, shaking her hand in pain.

She fought like she hadn’t fought for years now, countering moves like she used to. She swung at her opponent, connecting hard. She gasped when she received a painful fist in her stomach. Staggering back, she grabbed the chair. Her niece dodged and the chair hit a corner of the table. Screaming and cursing, she smashed the remaining broken leg against Talia’s defending arm and it broke into half. She threw it away in disgust.

Talia was fast, but Greta was Greta Van Duren. She’d once been the best assassin and her muscle memory was still there, even though she was older…. She cried out in anguish at her lost skills as Talia found an opening and made contact, a merciless uppercut against her jaw. She fell hard on her back, rolled, got up a second too slow, and received another kick that sent her flying backward. Nausea and dizziness. She lay there, panting.

“We can work to give you back your past if you’ll answer some questions,” Talia said. “We want to know what you’ve done at the CIA, that’s all.”

That’s all?
Greta laughed. She’d given ten years of her life and they’d reduced her to this…she saw the weapon on the floor. Rolled. Grabbed. She would not be bested. She was Greta Van…

A shot rang out.

“Duren,” Greta finished as she crumpled to the carpet. Her hand went to her chest. Blood, lots of blood. She coughed and tasted blood.

Greta strained her ears. That wasn’t Gunth talking. She was dying. She could feel her heartbeat slowing. She must…see…who…had finally gotten…her. She angled her head.

“What are you doing here, Alex?” she heard Talia ask.

She watched, her eyesight dimming, as a tall blond man in a black body suit came into view to stand in front of Talia. Not Gunther at all. Gunth was not this good looking. Greta coughed out a laugh and choked on her blood, her breath rattling as she tried to escape the encroaching darkness. How dare they pay her scant attention! She reached out, her fingers curling inches from the weapon.

“You and I have unfinished business, Tess,” the man said, reaching for Talia.

The world went black.

CHAPTER 21

Six weeks later

Lily would be lying if she said the past month and a half had been easy. There was nothing easy about being put into seclusion and treated like a lab animal. That was how she felt being led from room to room by people wearing crisply ironed lab coats and being subjected to tests and questions and then more tests.

It was necessary. She didn’t like being prodded and tested, but she’d found out a lot more about her “condition.” To her relief, there was nothing implanted in her brain, like some of the manuals had suggested. She didn’t know if she could live with the knowledge of a chip in her head.

Her anchor was Reed. The only reassurance she wasn’t going to be kept this way forever were his visits. He came to her twice a week, giving her strength, making sure she was all right. Without him, she would have been lost. Without him, she would have run from these people.

Among these new people, she had become friends with Nikki Harden, who had privately shared with her her own horrific experiences. Lily suspected she was one of a privileged few who knew all the details. The woman had gone through so much, and yet here she was, a happily married woman.

“Almost normal,” Nikki had told her, with a wry smile, “although my husband’s still learning new things about me.”

Husband. That word had never been in Lily’s thoughts before, never been considered part of her vocabulary. It signified a normalcy that she couldn’t imagine for herself. She told Nikki so.

“Baby steps,” Nikki advised. “I rejected the idea of a husband, or someone who would actually want me, for ten years. You know what I’ve learned?”

Lily watched curiously as Nikki opened her powder compact and handed it to her. At Nikki’s prompting, Lily peered into the mirror.