Midnight Fire Read online

  He held it as they accelerated and leaped into the sky.

  Summer enjoyed flying, being above the earth, away from its cares. Lately, she’d spent all her flights working, as she was always under deadline. She was going to do some work on this flight too, later, when the jumble in her head settled. There were three laptops available and she’d start putting order in her thoughts, start doing some research. There was no deadline. There were no deadlines at all, if Area 8 was down.

  Summer looked down as the plane banked over green suburban Virginia and lifted its way west. Below, at the very edge of visibility, was DC, with its monuments and power structures.

  There was a very real possibility that people down there, Americans who were part of that power structure, were plotting to bring the country down. Undoubtedly they’d plotted the Washington Massacre. They were more dangerous, more insidious than the foreigners who hated America.

  This was the most hated sin of all—treason. The enemy within. She had no concept of why they would do it. Maybe those most potent of temptations—money and power. It was inconceivable to her, but there it was. In her job she’d seen what a lot of people would do for money and power.

  So many lives had been lost in the Washington Massacre—swept away in violence, like swatting flies. Her life had been lost, too, though her heart kept beating. As she watched DC fade into the distance, she realized she was flying away from her own life, left behind in dust and ashes, like her apartment. Her home, gone. Area 8, gone.

  Zac and Marcie would be worried about her. The news of her apartment blowing up would break soon. When Zac and Marcie heard that, they’d try to contact her via the cellphone Jack had thrown into the Potomac as they crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

  They’d be frantic, but she couldn’t call them and reassure them.

  Her life was unraveling so quickly, she couldn’t hold the threads together.

  Her old life was lost, tossed away by evil forces. What would the new life be like, standing in the rubble of her old one?

  “Hey.” Jack reached over with the hand not holding hers and turned her head away from the window and toward him. “It’ll be okay.”

  “No,” she smiled sadly. “It won’t. But thanks for the thought.”

  His face was sober, serious. “We’ll get them, Summer. Whatever it is that is happening, we’ll stop it and catch the people behind it. These are Americans. Plotting against our country. They are going to be caught and tried for treason. The Director of the FBI has set up a secret task force, and we’ve got the guys of ASI. None better.”

  She tightened her hand around his. “Who are these people, anyway? ASI. I assume we’re in their plane?”

  “Yeah.” His face lightened slightly. Clearly thinking about this ASI made him happy. “It’s a security company set up and staffed mainly by former SEALs. We joked a lot about the snake-eaters in the Clandestine Service and we liked to think we were better, certainly sneakier, definitely better-looking and better-dressed, but the truth is, SEALs are the best of the best. The company was founded by former Commander John Huntington and former Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski. They were famous for getting the job done, back in the day. And their company is quietly famous. They get the job done but keep a low profile, just like when they were in the military. They don’t advertise their services, but they have work pouring in because they are really good. They also recruited a super genius to head their IT section, Felicity Ward, the one I told you about. She used to work with the FBI.”

  “Sounds like a good company,” Summer said. She tried to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. Area 8, in its own way, had been a good company, too. And it, too, got the job done. Area 8 worked with the top people in the field and she’d always tried to create a collaborative atmosphere.

  Summer had worked so hard and had had such high hopes for the future. And now everything had been blown apart.

  “It is.” Jack had shifted in his seat so his whole body was facing hers. Wide shoulders blocked her view of the rest of the plane. The wall behind her, his broad body on the other side—she should have felt hemmed in, but she didn’t. He’d managed to create a sort of cocoon with his own body and she felt oddly protected. It was like they were in a small space together, sharing confidences. “My sister’s fiancé is their newest employee. Joe Harris. You heard him on the phone. Got shot up badly but he put himself back together and just started working for them.”

  Summer smiled. “I’m so happy for Isabel. I hope he’s a good guy. She deserves someone nice.” Like Jack, Isabel had lost everything in the Massacre. Her entire family except for Jack, the family home, the family fortune—everything.

  “Joe? He’s the best. Not only does he make Isabel happy, he’s guaranteed to keep her safe or die trying. And SEALs are really hard to kill. He saved her life when Hector kidnapped her. It’s an incredible story. I’ll tell you about it.”

  “You will, very definitely. Remember you promised me this story. I’ll publish the articles in Area 8, when I can go online again.”

  “A book,” Jack said. “You need to publish a book and it’ll win a Pulitzer.”

  “Unless we’re all dead.”

  Jack kissed her hand. “We won’t die. You sure won’t. Not as long as I’m alive.”

  He took her breath away. Summer blinked back tears, changed the subject. “Well, Joe Harris is getting a good deal, and eating really well, too.” Isabel was a superb cook—chef level, though she didn’t do it professionally. She’d had her own blog, Foodways, that Summer had been addicted to. It stopped right after the Washington Massacre.

  “Yeah.” Jack was watching her carefully. “What I’m trying to say is that there are some good people working on this. You’ve been caught up in something horrible and it must seem like your life has stopped, but it’ll get straightened out. I won’t—”

  He stopped abruptly, jaw snapping shut.

  “You won’t what?” she asked.

  His jaw clenched.

  “You won’t what, Jack?”

  He curled his fingers through hers, brought their conjoined hands to his mouth, kissed the back of hers. Then looked straight into her eyes.

  “I told you and I meant every word. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t leave your side. I won’t let you go.”

  Summer just stared back, wide-eyed. She had no snappy answer, no facile answer, no answer at all. That wasn’t a player’s kind of comment. It wasn’t flirtation and it wasn’t an attempt at seduction, it was stated as bald fact, by a very serious man.

  Searching his face, Summer saw no sign of the beautiful golden boy. All she saw was the tough, determined man, who had just made a hell of a declaration.

  He’d turned into a warrior, so stating that he would protect her was part of who he was now. But that he wouldn’t leave her side? That he wouldn’t let her go?

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” she said softly. Somehow their faces had become closer, noses an inch apart. She could feel his breath on her cheek. Feel his body heat, feel the strength in that tough callused hand holding hers.

  “No answer needed,” Jack said. “I’m not looking for an answer. I’m just telling you how it is.” A slight bump of turbulence jolted them closer together. Jack didn’t move away and finally his mouth closed over hers and she sighed into it. The world faded. The horror, the danger, the threat—it was reduced to background noise, like the sound of the plane’s engines. Of no importance, certainly not compared to the infusion of white hot heat from Jack’s mouth.

  The outside world was gone.

  She remembered that. Kissing Jack, having sex with Jack—it had been like inhabiting some magical kingdom with waterfalls and frolicking animals and butterflies and unicorns. A land of eternal sunshine and incredible bliss.

  Last night had been about overwhelming heat, and
it too had made the entire outside world go away.

  Jack moved closer, lifted her arms around his neck, moved over her, pressed her against the chair back. This kiss wasn’t fun and distracting, this kiss was like a nuclear explosion—pure heat and power.

  The kiss was endless. He’d lift his mouth only to get a better position and every once in a while to breathe. She didn’t need to breathe—she breathed through him. He kissed with his lips and tongue and teeth. He kissed with his whole body pressing against her, a heavy hot weight holding her down.

  How did that happen?

  The seats were lie-flat and he’d turned both of them into beds and eliminated the arm rest. In between sharp biting kisses, he said, “Tell me no if you don’t want this.” A deep kiss, her mouth taken over by his. He was lying on top of her now. He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes, face drawn, a nerve ticking in one cheek. “If you don’t want it, I’ll stop. But I need you, Summer. I need to lose myself in you. I need your arms around me and I need to be deep inside you. I need to feel you coming around me. I need that like air.”

  He didn’t even have to say the words. Desire, need, came off him in waves. It was in the steely penis against her belly, in the drawn, almost painful lines of his face. This wasn’t happy happy sex, a friendly roll in the hay. It felt important, serious, necessary.

  No man had ever looked at her that way—like he needed her, like she was a vital part of him. Her few lovers had looked at sex the way she did. A nice ending to a day, fun but not as important as work.

  This wasn’t like that at all.

  Jack was waiting, poised above her, one hand cradling her head, the other over her left breast where no doubt he could feel her pounding heart.

  Because this wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt before for anyone. She hadn’t even felt like this for the young Jack—as if she’d die if they didn’t make love. As if his body was necessary for her to breathe, for her heart to beat.

  She didn’t answer him. It was almost too big for words, words wouldn’t do it. She lifted her head slightly and kissed him, holding his head still for her kiss with both hands, as if he’d run away from her

  No, he wasn’t running away. He pressed down on her again, the entire weight of his big body like a heavy mantle over her. There was nothing besides this, besides Jack overwhelming her every sense. His taste, his smell, the feel of him—that was her entire world.

  His hands moved slowly, giving her every possibility to resist. To say no.

  God no. Why on earth would she say no when she had a whole universe of pleasure right there in her arms?

  “Yes,” she whispered and it was like letting a racehorse out of the gate. It happened so fast. He slid her pants and panties down and off. As if he couldn’t wait for one second more, not even to undress, Jack unzipped and unbuttoned just enough for him to slide into her, with no foreplay.

  Turned out she didn’t need foreplay. He seemed to have understood this with his Jack-radar. His thrust was hard but she was ready, could feel herself slick and warm, closing around him tightly. He groaned and started thrusting heavily, thudding into her so hard it would have hurt if she hadn’t been so turned on.

  There was something exciting about being half dressed, having to keep quiet, some whiff of the forbidden. He was thrusting hard. He reached down, opened her up even further with his fingers so that his penis rubbed right...there.

  She went up in flames. She clenched heavily once, twice and came with a huge electric rush, wanting to cry out but Jack covered her mouth with his. She couldn’t move and couldn’t cry out and it was as if her body turned in on itself, exploding.

  Blinding pleasure came in hot waves that couldn’t die down because Jack was still moving so deeply in her, on and on and on. Her hands were clinging to his shoulders, nails dug into the heavy muscles, feeling them moving as he worked her mercilessly.

  His face was buried in her neck, panting breath hot against her skin. Summer was barely aware of the rest of her body, unable to control it. Her head fell back against the cushion, her hands opened, no longer strong enough to cling to him. Everything she was was concentrated between her thighs as another climax started building. As if his body felt it—and maybe it did—Jack increased the rhythm of his thrusts. They became deeper, harder, as he rode her through another climax.

  Summer was done, she went lax. Her sex was soft and open to him, slick with her juices. Jack’s movements became less rhythmic, jerky, moving in short hard thrusts so fast she was surprised she didn’t burn up from the friction. He gasped, thrust hard one last time and started coming in hot spurts inside her that, impossibly, gave her another climax.

  Her head tilted even further back, eyes closed, drinking in the moment. She could smell them—a hot salty smell, like the ocean. Amazing and elemental. They were sticky where Jack was still inside her, sticky with his semen, her juices, their sweat.

  None of it was distasteful, it smelled and felt like life itself.

  Jack sprawled on her, panting, face buried in her neck.

  Summer slowly came back into herself, bit by bit. Arms, legs, her head. Jack was still inside her, softened from his climax but still hard enough to stay inside.

  Completely without her control, her vagina contracted one last time, like a little aftershock from an earthquake, and he responded immediately, growing thicker and lengthening.

  She laughed and he smiled against her neck. He kissed her right under the ear and whispered, “Welcome to the Mile High Club.”

  Chapter Ten

  Washington DC

  Marcie Thompson was amazingly easy to track down. Her cell was on the masthead.

  Sometimes Kearns thought people were too stupid to live.

  Her cell showed she was in a bookstore. He checked it online, The Political Reader, on Connecticut Avenue. The internet kindly gave him a view of the façade—broad book-filled windows, purple awning with the name of the bookstore in white font—and a view of the shops nearby. A dry cleaner to the left, an organic produce shop to the right.

  There was a talk going on about Freedom and Information. Or Information and Privacy. Some kind of nonsense with a talking head whose name he recognized, but knew to be a blowhard who made a very good living writing idiot books and appearing on TV as an expert on everything.

  So she was attending a cultural event.

  Well, he had ways.

  And some docs and an accent, too. In an instant he became Liam Nelson—the name close enough to that of the actor to reassure people subconsciously—a Dublin-based writer for the Irish Times. Everyone loved the Irish and Kearns did a really good accent.

  Marcie Thompson had given a TED talk—whatever that was—and he listened to about a quarter of an hour of it before he closed the screen. Political responsibility and freedom of the press and the right to privacy, yada yada.

  Anyone who led a life online had no business talking about privacy. Kearns could know her menstrual cycle if he really studied the FB feed hard enough.

  That wouldn’t be necessary. He didn’t want to fuck her, he wanted to kill her.

  He put on his journalism duds. Thick, heavy fake beard shot with gray. Porkpie hat with IR lights along the brim. Linen collarless shirt with a photographer’s vest over it. Cargo pants and sockless loafers. He hesitated at that last touch because, Christ, what if he had to run? He was used to his combat boots and could run miles in them. The loafers would slip off in the first five hundred yards.

  But onscreen Marcie Thompson was pretty, earnest, thin. No match for him. He wasn’t going to need to run. He needed to convince. But it stung because no warrior in the history of the world wore loafers on an op.

  The bookstore was huge, larger than it seemed from the outside, stretching almost a block in depth. Kearns could hear a droning voice from another room, rou
nded a corner and saw about sixty people on folding chairs listening to the talking head. Some former something or other. Considered an expert on Africa.

  You want expertise on Africa? Go fight in Sierra Leone, with two rebel armies and a rag tag government military force trying their best to kill each other and kill you, every minute of every day.

  This weenie had probably never ventured outside the air conditioned confines of his hotels when visiting Africa. There were no chairs left so Kearns leaned his shoulder against the corner of a bookcase and listened to crap for about two minutes then tuned the guy out.

  There she was, at the end of the third row, taking notes on a tablet connected to a tiny wireless keyboard. God knows what she was noting down, the speaker wasn’t saying one smart thing.

  She was a little less pretty than her photo on the masthead. Or maybe she’d had a tiring day. Well, it was a day that was going to end very badly for her. She seemed to be sitting alone, unconnected to the old lady sitting next to her.

  Good. It was always hard having to cull out a victim from a crowd.

  Without moving his head, Kearns studied the terrain. There had been a security cam at the door, right over the shoplifting detector, and a few in the front room but none in this meeting room, designed for author talks. None of the staff were paying them any attention at all. He debated going back outside and waiting for her on the street but if he approached her here, harmless Irish journalist, in a bookstore, she’d be lulled. Easy to fool.

  Finally the writer stopped his interminable pitch for his new book and sat down with a pile of copies to sign. People shuffled toward the author and toward the door. Marcie Thompson walked past him and Kearns made sure she heard his intake of breath.

  He let her get five yards, ten yards away, then walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned he smiled and stepped back, hands down. Very clearly not invading her personal space. The very picture of enlightened manhood.

  He pretended to peer as if she were a mile away. “Ms.—Ms. Thompson? I’m sorry but are you Marcie Thompson of Area 8?”