Cloud Dust: RD-1 (R-D #1)(82)

The blackmailer, whoever he was, wanted Rafe and me. Madam President was considering it, just to avoid another massacre. She already had enough trouble at her doorstep, and if giving up two people made that go away, then why wouldn't she consider it?

I liked to think that she really didn't know what she was giving away, but squashed that thought immediately. Rafe grimly accepted our fate, and was already plotting ways to handle it.

As was I. The thing that terrified me most?

That someone would insist I be blindfolded.

"I've had enough sleep," Rafe responded distractedly. I held back from asking further questions. He was busy thinking, just as I was.

*

Notes—Colonel Hunter

"They're asking for Corinne and Rafe." The Vice President's words were flat as he shook his head. He didn't want that to happen—they'd saved his life.

"I hope you'll excuse the question, Madam President," the Secretary of Commerce said, "but I don't understand who these people are."

"I know. These two are very talented special agents. He either wants to use them or kill them; he hasn't said which."

"So he has us by the balls, if you'll pardon the sexism attached to that comment," the Secretary of Agriculture said.

"Yes," the President replied. "We turn them over, or we get another Georgia."

"Why would he want them?" the Secretary of Homeland Security asked. I could tell he was pissed because he hadn't heard of either one. I wanted to strangle him—it was easy enough to see that he was interested in any talent that might help his department.

"I've worked with them," the Vice President said. "They saved my life in London."

"Is that how you got out of Downing Street alive?" someone else asked.

"Yes. I can't reveal more than that, it's still classified as need-to-know."

"There are things you should know," the President sighed. "This same person was behind the terrorist attack at the Louvre. He manipulated those events in order to steal valuable paintings and works of art. He is also behind the thefts and deaths in London and Edinburgh. You see what we're dealing with, here? With Corinne and Rafe, he can be assured of getting in anywhere and getting out again with very little trouble. That's how talented they are."

"We have to weigh two lives against tens of thousands?" the Attorney General asked.

"We do." Madam President's shoulders slumped. She knew, just as I did, what they'd already decided.

"Did he provide a time and place to turn them over?"

"Yes. We have an hour, and it'll be in one of the tunnels leading away from White House."

"How the hell?" the Attorney General exploded.

"I didn't stay on the phone to discuss how he knew. The clock was already ticking," the President snapped. "Now, if you don't have a suggestion as to how we're going to inform two of our agents that we're trading them for civilian lives, then shut up."

*

"Madam President, we don't make deals with terrorists," I reminded her as we made our way to the room where Shaw and the others were.

"We don't have a choice," she hissed. We'd left the cabinet in the meeting room and walked away with only the Vice President and two Secret Service agents at our heels. "If we could have questioned those pricks in Canada before they dropped dead of who knows what, then we might have learned something. We have nothing on this man—if it is a man. The voice is disguised every time."

"What did he tell you to do, then?" I asked, attempting to keep my voice civil. This was the worst kind of betrayal, in my book. Yes, it might save lives in the interim, until the bastard wanted something else. He only had to threaten us again. We were setting a dangerous precedent, and choosing a path we couldn't change or abandon, once we were on it.

"We have to meet outside the tunnel entrance. He said no weapons and only two others—no Secret Service and no cameras. He said to turn everything off; he'll know if we don't."

"Three people to escort Corinne and Rafe?"

"That's what he said."

"Fuck."

*

Corinne

Ilya, they're going to trade us, I thought at him.

"I know," he murmured as he pulled me against him and kissed my temple, his breath warm and soft against my skin. Too many scenarios ran through my mind as he held me close—scenarios from more than six years earlier, when I'd witnessed torture and death at the hands of the deranged.

I didn't imagine this would be any better—after all, the one behind all this didn't seem to worry about killing—had been behind the killings I'd witnessed in France, actually, just to steal paintings and a crown.

Whomever or whatever he or she was, they'd become bolder. More convinced that they were untouchable. In their sociopathic mind, they were invincible.

They wanted us—Rafe and me—to do their dirty work. Rafe could provide shielding for us, and I could lead him through any maze and past any keypad to get us in anywhere. Cutter had provided that information, through Dalton.

"How will he blackmail us to cooperate?" I pulled away from Rafe. "We know somebody wants you dead. I think this guy wants us alive."