Nicole turned and drummed up a smile for him. Something in his face must have betrayed what was going through his mind, because she laid a hand on his arm. “I’m okay, Sam. Really. Just a little shaken up.”
Not as shaken up as he was. His fucking hands trembled.
Whoa.
There was no such thing as a nervous or overly sensitive SEAL. They just didn’t grow them nervous, and if they were, they were weeded straight out in selection.
Sam was known for being cold-blooded. During training in the shooting house with live ammo, a pencil-dick geek had come and wired them up and taken blood samples after each session. Doubtless sent by Christians In Action. CIA refused to reveal the findings of the study but Cakewalk Potowski, who never met a computer he didn’t like and couldn’t crack, found the results buried deep in the heart of Langley.
Turned out the SEAL team’s heart rate and the cortisol and catecholamine levels—the stress hormones—remained stable even under live fire. Sam’s heartbeat hadn’t altered even when a flashbang went off in the room.
The geek, with an alphabet soup of letters after his name, had concluded the report with the morose observation that “efficient counterterrorism agents appear to have an essentially inhuman nervous system, not subject to the normal flight or fight reflex that has been part of the human legacy for ten thousand years.”
Fuckhead called themaliens?
Well old pencil-dick would have been astonished to see him now. His heart was pounding in his chest, still. Every time he started to calm down, he’d get an image of a dead Nicole right there in front of his eyes—head blown apart or body cracked open, take your pick of nightmares—in living color, and he’d start sweating all over again.
Sam was normally a fast, good driver, but right now, he was driving as if carrying sweating TNT.
He could barely concentrate on the road. Nicole in the car with him just ate up all his hard disk. Having her by his side and driving seemed like mutually exclusive things.
He didn’t want to hurt her in any way. Sam had intercepted her on her way toward the window, but her right side had crashed into a bookcase. Sam turned corners like a seventy-year-old grandmother because he couldn’t stand the thought of her jostling against the car door.
“You’re not okay.” Sam ground his teeth. “You nearly died. Twice.” Just saying it made his heart rate pick up even more.
“Yes, I know. Believe me, I know.” She gave a deep sigh, her slender hand tightening on his arm. “But I didn’t. That was entirely thanks to you. You have no idea how grateful I am that you can pick locks like a pro.”
“Well, goddammit, that’s another thing,” Sam said heatedly, aggrieved. Happy that anger chased a little of the fear away. “Why the fuck didn’t you put in a security system? The guy just fucking waltzed into your office, just about anyone off the street could just fucking?—“
His cell phone rang and he put it on speakerphone. “Yeah?” he barked.
Mike’s deep voice came through, slow and reassuring. “Our guys gave a perimeter check outside Nicole’s house, talked to the nurse, checked on Nicole’s father, everything’s okay. They’ll be relieved tomorrow morning and another two-man team will take over.”
Nicole slumped in relief, eyes closed. “Thanks so much, Mike.”
“Yeah. No problem.” His voice grew louder. “So the old man’s taken care of, Sam. You hold up your end. Make sure nothing happens to Nicole.”
“Oh yeah. Count on it.” If Sam had to tie her to a chair and stand guard, he would. “Did you get a face off our camera?”
“Yeah. Harry got two really good shots, one full face, one in three-quarter profile. He sent it as a JPEG here to headquarters. It’s already in the system. If this guy so much as jaywalked in the past ten years, we’ll know about it. I’ll stay here until we get an answer, and I’ll let you know right away.”
That made Sam feel better. Once they got the fucker’s name, they could find an address and he could go kill him. Discreetly. He’d take care of it himself. Just disappear for a day or two, do the job and then nothing else would ever threaten Nicole again. He wouldn’t let it.
“Good,” he grunted. “Stay on top of it.”
“You bet. Harry’s with the building night guards right now, trying to figure out how he got in and out. We’ll nail him. Don’t worry about that.” He closed the connection.
Nicole turned to look at him. “I’m really grateful for all you’re doing for me, Sam. And all that Harry and Mike and Mike’s police officer friend are doing.”
A bruise was starting to blacken at her temple and he could see dark flesh under her light white shirt along her right shoulder.
He shuddered.
“You’ve stepped into something nasty, Nicole.” He picked up her hand and raised it to his mouth. “We’ve got to keep it far away from you and from your dad while we track it down. But you’ve got to help us, honey. You’ve got to come up with what he’s looking for. We need to know that to keep you safe.”
Nicole rubbed her forehead with her free hand, looking troubled. “You think I don’t understand that? I do, believe me, I do. I keep running over everything that might be in my computer and I come up with basically nothing that could possibly be of interest to anyone. Wordsmith simply doesn’t get vital or confidential texts to translate. Though we will, you can count on that. And we’ll charge top dollar for them. Oh yeah.” She smiled at the thought.
Sam was struck anew by just how different she was from other beautiful women. She simply exuded intelligence and purpose. He’d never met a woman quite as physically gorgeous as she was, but he’d met and bedded his share of attractive women and none of them was like Nicole. Beautiful women had a powerful weapon at their disposal and they grew up using it, often.
