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  She stared at the damage, as a vice began to squeeze at her chest. “Oh, Pippin!” she whispered.

  Hearing his name, the silvery cat trotted over to her and rubbed up against her legs, his tail high.

  “Oh, Pip, look what you’ve done!” she said, bending down to speak to him.

  He put one paw on her shin for leverage and reached up to bump his face against hers, purring loudly.

  She lowered herself to the floor, suddenly too tired to do anything else. The shears clattered next to her and she realized that she was on the verge of a huge crying jag. As her eyes blurred, she thumped her thigh. “Screw it, no tears!” she told herself. “Baby!” she added, as they continued to gather.

  Pippin, thinking the thumping was a signal for him, climbed into the cozy space made by her crossed legs and rolled over so that his back was propped in the vee of her legs, displaying his soft white belly fur for her to rub and tickle. It was an old game but the very last thing Sahara felt like doing.

  Nevertheless, she blindly reached for his tummy and rubbed, feeling him purr beneath her fingertips. “Yeah, you’re right,” she told him, her voice hoarse. “It could be worse.”

  The front door buzzer rang seconds later. The buzzer box was mounted on the wall over her bed, next to where she sat on the floor and she jumped. Pippin sprang out of her lap and dived under the bed.

  “I’m with you,” she said to his one eye that peered out. She glanced at her watch. Ten thirty-three. “This had better be good,” she told Pippin and lifted herself up to sit on the bed. She wiped at her eyes and pressed the intercom button. “Who is it?”

  The voice that replied was distorted by the old intercom but she recognized it, anyway. “Logan Wilde, Sahara. I need to talk to you.”

  * * * * *

  He moved awkwardly around the apartment, while Sahara sat at the table, her leg folded under her. She noticed that Pippin had chewed at the chives there too and sighed, before turning her attention back to Logan Wilde.

  “You look tired,” he said. “Did you get any sleep since I left?”

  “I could say the same thing about you.” It was an understatement. The man looked like he had aged ten years in the last few hours. He was dressed all in black now and it emphasized the beginnings of tired circles beneath his eyes.

  She got to her feet, rinsed out the coffee pot and dug in the cupboard for a coffee filter. She got out the real coffee, not Caro. She wanted caffeine and lots of it, as soon as possible.

  “I don’t want coffee, if you’re making that for me,” Logan said from behind her.

  “It’s for me,” she said shortly. She heard the snap in her voice and tried to soften it. “Besides, you look like you could use some.” She glanced at him. In the better light in the kitchen section of the apartment, she could see signs of strain in his face that hadn’t been there that afternoon. The lines around his mouth seemed deeper. So were the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The riveting quality of blue had lost some of its edge. It made him look older and worn. “You look ill-used,” she added.

  His eyes widened a little in reaction. Surprise? But he didn’t follow her lead. Instead, he moved over to the table and sat in the plain kitchen chair and pushed his hand through his hair, making the black shock fall back over his forehead once more.

  “Why don’t you take off your jacket?” she suggested. “It must be stifling in this weather.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “It’s still nearly eighties degrees out there. I’m sure.”

  He stripped off the light jacket and she realized why he had hesitated. He still wore the gun harness over the shirt beneath. She busied herself with spooning coffee and cleared her throat, hating the reminder of his business.

  When she returned to the table once more, she had her reaction under control. He was staring at her again but not like a man absorbed with memories.

  “What?” she asked, prompting him.

  “I suppose I can see why everyone else is so convinced you’re Micky,” he said slowly. “It’s there on the surface, sure enough.”

  She gave a nervous laugh. “What’s underneath, then?”

  He sat up straighter. “I should get down to business.” But instead of getting to business, he looked around the apartment. “How long have you lived here?”

  “It’s been nearly ten years now.”

  “You’ve always owned the store?”

  “I built it from scratch,” she said and didn’t bother to hide the note of pride in her voice.

  He took a deep breath and the thought struck her: He’s putting this off. The realization sent a finger of fear through her. To make this man reluctant to deal with it, the matter had to be horrendous.

  “Tell me,” she said quickly. “Get it out.”

  Instead of doing as she suggested, he pointed behind her. “Your coffee is done.”

  She hissed a small curse under her breath, got up and made two cups of coffee, dumped the cream and sugar on the table and placed a mug in front of him. Then she sat again, stirred in the cream and sat back. “Now,” she said.

  But while she had moved around the room preparing the coffee, he had regained his control. His expression was urbane and neutral. “Thanks,” he said, picking up his unaltered cup and sipping from it.

  He got to his feet and moved to the counter to lean against it. It forced Sahara to swivel in her seat to see him properly.

  He put the coffee aside like he was getting down to business. “The man in your store today was Seoc Roderic. Or at least, that’s the name we know him by. He’s a well-known go-between—someone who collects messages or objects from one party and delivers them safely to another. In our world—my world—couriers are minor players, barely above notice when tracing lines of power. But Seoc did know Micky, my ex-wife. This afternoon he was utterly sure you were Micky, even after looking at you up close and talking to you. I spoke to him tonight and he’s still convinced you’re Micky.”

  “Even though Micky is dead?” Sahara asked.

  Logan grimaced. “Seoc knows that in our business, death is a slippery state. So many agents reported dead have turned up alive somewhere else in the world, with a different name and sometimes even with different faces.” He shrugged.

  “But your wife was not an agent, right?”

  “She was known to a lot of people and so she had power of a sort. She floated on the edges, just as Seoc did. I think, sometimes, she was drawn to the romanticism of it.” His mouth turned down. “She didn’t see the real side of what we do.” Logan crossed his arms and took a deep breath.

  Sahara thought, Here it comes.

  The blue eyes pinned her to the chair. “We want you to be Micky—just for a while.”

  Sahara jumped, even though she had begun to suspect what Logan was about to say. “Why would you want me to do that? You said she wasn’t an agent.”

  “No, she wasn’t. But she knew a lot of people and one of those people is a man who is hiding out somewhere in the world. A nuclear physicist from Tehran, called Malik. He has something he wants to give to Micky, and only Micky.”

  “What?”

  Logan pursed his lips for a second. “The working plans for cold fusion.”

  Sahara clutched her cup. “Cold fusion? They know how to do that now?”

  “Malik does,” Logan said dryly, “and he will only share with Micky.”

  “But why are you so anxious to get the plans? Surely other scientists….”

  Logan shook his head. “Malik is a gifted genius. Iran’s version of Einstein. Western nations are generations away from even getting close to what he has created. Most have shelved the idea—they don’t think it’s feasible. Oh, they all agree it’s theoretically possible, just not something worth tackling. Like faster than light travel—it’s the stuff of science fiction as far as they’re concerned. So Iran has been quietly working on it, using Malik’s talent. It seems they’ve solved it and now they won’t share. But when you
get the plans from him, they will be shared—with every nation in the world.”

  “That’s incredible,” Sahara breathed. “This is really happening? They’ve really done this? Figured out cold fusion?”

  “We have good reason to believe they have.” He took another breath and almost seemed to push the words out, as if he were hurrying to speak them. “You meet Malik at a location that he will give us, say hello and take the plans from him. That’s the full extent of your involvement. There shouldn’t be any complications. It’s not even like Malik is looking for payment. Straight in and straight out again. You’ll be gone maybe a week.”

  “It sounds simple enough,” Sahara said, sipping her coffee. “And for cold fusion…that is worthwhile, isn’t it?” She looked up at him, hoping he would agree with her, for in truth she felt completely out of her depth. They were asking her to collect the secrets to nuclear fusion, for goodness sake!

  She dredged her memory for what she knew about fusion power. It was a subject she knew a little about because of the clean power it would provide. “Once it’s understood how to recreate fusion, then there’d be clean power for everyone, right? No more radiation damage or nuclear slag heaps and spills. Free energy for the asking.” It was a huge thing. A worldwide revolutionary thing.

  She realized her hand was shaking and put the cup down.

  “I would be with you every step of the way, of course,” Logan said, as if she had not spoken at all. His arms were still locked over his chest. “And even though you would not see it, security would be tight. The tightest—to protect you.”

  “Is there a need for such high security?” she asked. “You just said that it was simple. In and out.”

  “You would have to change your appearance just a little,” Logan continued, again as if she had not spoken at all.

  Sahara stared at him, her heart pattering. What was going through his mind right now, to distract him so much? It was almost as if he were speaking the words like a pre-set dialogue. Something written down and memorized.

  “The hair, mostly,” he continued. “And you would have to learn names and facts from Micky’s past.” He took a breath and it lifted his chest and arms. “Your clothes too.”

  “Logan—” Sahara began, trying to interrupt him.

  “And Micky spent a lot of time with some very powerful people. You’d have to learn how to deal with them. We’ll be moving in embassy circles—”

  “Logan!”

  He stopped and looked at her and she knew that at last he was really looking at her.

  “You’re scaring me,” she said simply.

  “Good.” He grabbed the back of the chair he’d been using and turned it around and straddled it, sitting so that he was only a few inches away from her. “You should be scared.”

  “What? But…you just said…”

  “Don’t say yes to this, Sahara. It’ll kill you.”

  Confusion was making her dizzy. “But Logan, you just—”

  He pushed his hand through his hair again. “I know what I said, damn it. You think I don’t have bosses? Supervisors? A chain of command?” He grabbed her wrist. His expression was earnest, the blue eyes drilling into hers. “Say no. Don’t do it.”

  “But you said I’d be perfectly safe.”

  “So was Micky, for heaven’s sake!” He jumped to his feet and strode over to the counter. Then back to the table, in long, angry strides. He looked at her and spread his hands. “You’re always safe until you’re not. Micky at least had the measure of these people. She knew what she was involved in. You’re a complete innocent. They’ll chew you up alive.”

  “Thanks,” she said dryly.

  “That’s not what I meant, exactly.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and became still. The blue eyes were looking into hers again and this time she knew she was looking at the real Logan. The one behind the façade. “What I do mean is that I don’t want you to do this.” His voice was low, curling around her spine, stroking her insides until they quivered. “I don’t want you to do it, because it’s dangerous. Because it’s the sort of ‘easy’ job that got Micky killed and because they won’t tell you that.”

  She clutched her coffee cup more to hide the trembling in her hands than anything else. “They forced you into this, didn’t they? They forced you to ask me.”

  “It’s complicated.” He was hedging.

  “They were going to ask me one way or the other, though,” she guessed.

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  She stood up, so that she was closer to his level and closer to looking him in the eye. “My mother died when I was eight and my father died when I was twelve. My foster parents died when I was sixteen. I think I’ve learned how to take care of myself well enough. You’ll just have to take care of the rest of it for me, because you’re right, I really don’t know your world. Every time I see you, I learn a little more and like it a little less.”

  “Sahara, don’t—”

  She laid her hand on his arm and was bombarded with sensations—heat, softness, the hard muscles beneath, the size of his forearm under her fingers. She pushed the sensations away, anxious to make her last point. “You’ve warned me. That’ll have to do. This needs to be done.”

  He took a deep breath, calming himself. She could see him pulling on the restraints, bringing himself back to a calm state. “Why are you agreeing to this?” he asked and his voice was rough.

  Because you didn’t lie to me this time. The words pushed at her lips but she held them back. “Because the world needs fusion power,” she said. It was part of the truth, anyway.

  “You’re doing this for your country?” Disbelief tinged every word.

  “Why not?” she shot back. “You’re so jaded, you’ve lost the ability to believe in ideals?”

  “I’ll give you three weeks and you won’t have to ask me that anymore. You’ll understand all too well.” His tone was infinitely bitter.

  “Then why are you doing it, Logan?”

  He looked like he was on the verge of answering. His lips parted, as he stared at her. Then he turned away and grabbed his coat. “Let’s go.”

  “Now?” She could feel her eyes widening.

  “Yes.” He shoved his arms into his coat with snappy movements, not looking at her.

  “But I need to pack…my personal things….”

  “You won’t need anything. It will all be supplied.”

  “But my shop! I can’t just walk out and leave it unopened and unattended!”

  This sensible appeal finally halted him. His lips thinned as he considered the matter. “The lady this afternoon—”

  “Tiffany.”

  “She knows the workings of the store?”

  “Tiffany flew back to London tonight.”

  “Is there anyone else who could run the store?”

  “I have a shoestring budget, Logan. I do it all myself.”

  He remained still, thinking it through. In the silence, Sahara could feel an old excitement coursing through her. It took her a moment to recognize it and when she did, it was with a jolt.

  This was the sort of drop-everything-and-go moment her father had often provided. A competition halfway around the world, in two days’ time? No problems, mate. There’s a Boeing to Heathrow in three hours, we can make it….

  With the recognition came a sweet-sour ache of remembrance. She’d always thought she’d hated being picked up and shuffled off in this way. She’d believed that roots, family and stability—home—was the bedrock she craved. Yet now she faced another such moment and she was tingling with excitement at the idea of it. With chagrin, she realized that this had influenced her agreement, even before she had recognized it. Because of it, she tried a token protest.

  “I can’t just up and leave, Logan. I have a cat and bills and...and a life.” It sounded pathetic, even to her. But then Howard’s harsh prediction lit up in her mind like a neon sign in the dark. She spoke more firmly. “Someone must run the store. If I don�
�t open, the whole business will stall. I have rent to pay, insurance, taxes. I won’t just fall behind, I’ll have to shut up entirely.”

  Logan was studying her and it seemed that he didn’t quite understand.

  “If my business shuts up, then I lose this apartment, too. It’s not just my income. It’s my whole life.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair. “We’ll take care of it. Somehow. Give me your keys and I’ll make sure someone comes in to run it.”

  “Really?”

  “I promise,” he said firmly, heading for the door of the apartment. “That’s the one thing I can guarantee—you won’t lose money in this deal.”

  His voice was sour enough to curdle milk.

  Chapter Eight

  For nearly ten years, Sahara’s life had followed an unending cycle of work and friends and seasons. In one moment it all changed and she could feel the fear building in her, even though she had been the one to agree to do this.

  Logan escorted her across the concrete toward a small, sleek private jet and up the few steps to the open doorway. He had stayed silent throughout the journey to the airport and Sahara kept her silence, too, although her heartbeat had sounded loud in her ears.

  A brunette woman in a silver-gray skirt suit and elegant French-pleated hair appeared in the doorway just as Logan gestured for Sahara to climb the stairs. The woman rested one high-heeled court shoe on the ledge of the doorway. “Hello, Sahara.” She spoke loudly to be heard over the engines of the jet. “My name is Jacqui. I’ll be taking care of you from now on. Please come up.”

  Sahara looked up at Logan, startled. His eyes narrowed as if he’d become suddenly wary. That scared her even more.

  Without thought, she reached for his hand. His fingers curled through hers and squeezed just a little. Enough to drain her fear.

  “Go on,” he murmured.

  She climbed up into the jet as Jacqui stepped backward to make room.