Dangerous Secrets

Sixteen

It went smoothly. And fast.

Nobody else wanted to get married on this dark, icy winter day, so after filling out forms and producing IDs, the clerk ushered them immediately into a large room with a podium at the other end.

The room was filled with remnants of weddings past. Big vases of wilted flowers flanked the podium and formed a little honor brigade on either side of the aisle. White satin bows hung from the windows and the smell of scented candles still lingered in little pockets of fragrance. The empty chairs were like ghosts in the room.

A smiling woman and a gray-haired man stood at the podium, watching benevolently as Nick and Charity walked up the aisle, hand in hand.

Half an hour later, they walked out, man and wife.

Or rather, Nicholas Ames walked out a married man. Nick Ireland was still…what? Single? Legally, yeah, he was single. He didn’t feel single any more, though, not with a beaming Charity on his arm, responding happily to her new name, Mrs. Ames.

Like pulling the petals off a daisy. Married. Not married. Married. Not married…

It was a farce, of course. The whole marriage thing. He was a nonexistent man taking vows to be faithful until death. Ridiculous. He didn’t even believe in marriage. Nothing in his lifetime had ever led him to think that marriage was anything but a legal way to scratch an itch. Stupid, expensive way, too, when there were so many other ways to get laid.

Most of the men in Delta Force were divorced. Several times over, too, which just proved that the smartest men in the world could be led around by their dicks. For a while, at least.

And in the Unit—few of them even managed girlfriends, let alone wives. A long-term commitment was twenty minutes. Roll on, roll off, good-bye. It wasn’t a lifestyle conducive to relationships. That wasn’t anything that bothered him, until now. Marriage was for civilians.

And yet—and yet.

There’d been a moment there, when the gray-haired man read aloud some bible thing about cleaving unto each other, then made them repeat vows to look after each other in sickness and in health, then quietly pronounced them man and wife. When Charity lifted her radiant face for his kiss. When a goddamned shaft of sunlight unexpectedly broke through the slate gray sky to fucking shine at their feet like some fucking sign from heaven.

Then, right then, the whole thing felt…real. For an instant, he could believe he really was Nicholas Ames, businessman, marrying a wonderful woman, till death do us part. They’d live in that beautiful house which they’d fill up with kids. Take a week’s vacation in Aruba each winter. Plant roses and establish a wine cellar and buy a goddamned dog.

It was like a fork in the road and he could see far down where that road would take him. He’d become a family man, pillar of the community. Mow the lawn on Saturdays, coach Little League. Father, husband, neighbor…

Nah.

Nick wasn’t born for that life. What the fuck did he know about families? Dick is what he knew. His mother had abandoned him at an orphanage; she probably didn’t even know who his father was. He had tainted, renegade blood in him. And his upbringing, well…Charity could never know what his childhood had been like. What he’d done, what he’d seen. She’d recoil in disgust. Any woman would. And what he was would come out, sooner or later. No one can stay undercover for a lifetime. So a real marriage wasn’t in the cards, ever.

But still, for just a minute there…

Afterward, he took her to a jewelry store. The jewelry store, the only one in Parker’s Ridge. This was one thing that was on him. He wouldn’t make Uncle Sam pay for this. But what the fuck, he had a million dollars now, didn’t he? He could afford a pair of rings.

The store didn’t have a big selection and he was just about to settle for a plain regular wedding band size extra large and a band and a diamond for Charity, when he saw them.

A pair of claddagh rings, set in a velvet box under glass. A large, broad band of gold with four claddaghs etched on the ring for him, and the symbol itself as a gold ring for Charity.

The claddagh, the Celtic symbol of true love.

It was the only thing he had of his mother.

On the twenty-first of December, 1976, the night watchman of the orphanage heard a bell ring. It rang only a few times a year and it was the sensor of the only baby hatch in America at that time. Now there were 150 of them, most of them funded by Jake.

The hatch was a warmed baby bed, and it was why Nick had survived that night, the coldest night of the winter of 1975. He had been placed in a cheap plastic basin, wrapped in a blanket stolen from the downtown homeless shelter. The doctors wrote down that, in their estimation, he was three or four days old and that he’d been breast-fed sporadically. The only object in the basin was a small, cheap trinket, sold by the millions in Ireland. A claddagh medallion.

Nick had that medallion in his pocket.

“Honey,” he said, “come here.”

Charity put down the ring she’d been looking at and walked over to him.

Nick picked up the smaller ring, meant for a woman’s hand. He placed it in the palm of her hand. “Do you know what this is?”

Charity picked it up, turning it around. Two stylized hands clasping a heart topped by a crown. “No, but it’s very pretty. An unusual design, though.” She looked up with a frown. “What is it?”

“A claddagh. It’s an ancient Celtic symbol. Look, see the hands holding the heart?”

Charity nodded. “And what’s that on top?”

“A crown.” Nick smiled mysteriously. “There’s a story behind it. You’ll love it.”

The jeweler had discreetly retreated to the other side of the room to give them privacy. A wind-borne burst of sleet rapped against the big picture window, rattling it. If it rattled, it meant it was a thin pane of glass loose in the casement.

Jesus, Nick thought. The geezer didn’t even have bullet-resistant windows. A small fortune in gold and diamonds and any dirtbag could smash his fist through the window and grab a handful. What was wrong with these people?

Without thinking about it, he angled his body so that he was between the front window and Charity.

He placed the two rings on his open palm and held them out to her and told her the story of the claddagh. One of the stories. There were dozens. He chose the one he thought Charity’d like best.

“Many, many years ago, in Galway, Ireland, a man named Richard Joyce left his true love to go to the West Indies to seek his fortune. He promised her he’d come back to her a rich man and marry her. But on the way he was kidnapped by pirates and taken to Algiers, where he became a slave to the most famous goldsmith in the Mediterranean. Joyce was an enterprising young man and the goldsmith trained him well. He became a master goldsmith.

“One day the British king demanded the release of all British prisoners held in Algiers. The goldsmith offered Joyce half his fortune and his daughter in marriage if he would only stay. But Joyce wanted to go home and marry his true love, and he did. While still a slave, he’d forged a ring to symbolize his love and upon his return, he gave it to his sweetheart, who’d waited faithfully for him all those years.”

Charity was listening intently to him, face rapt. “When the ring is put on the right hand, it means that person’s heart is open. When it’s on the left hand ring finger with the heart facing outward, it means the person is engaged. When it’s on the left hand ring finger with the heart pointing towards the body, it means that person is married to their true love.”

Nick picked up the smaller ring and gently slid it onto her left ring finger, heart facing the body.

A perfect fit. He curled his fist around hers.

“When Joyce gave it to his wife, he said, ‘With these hands I give you my heart and I crown it with my love.’” He smiled down at her. “And that’s what it means to me, too.”

“Nick,” she whispered. Her eyes were shiny, white throat moving as she swallowed.

“No crying,” Nick said, alarmed. Jesus, that was the last thing he needed, a bawling female. No tears, she couldn’t cry, no way. His own throat felt tight and hot. She’d set him off and he never ever cried. Never. Iceman.

“Here,” he said swiftly and held out the man’s ring. “Put it on my finger.”

She slid it on and they both looked down at his hand. It was a little tight, but that could be taken care of. Or not. He wasn’t going to wear it for very long, anyway. Another week, two, max.

The thought dimmed some of the joy and he pushed it out of his head. Concentrate on the moment. And this moment was a fine one, one he’d remember for a long, long time. Charity, looking up at him as if he’d invented sunshine and found the cure for cancer, the old geezer smiling at them both as if they were his beloved grandkids.

Oodles of love and warmth floating around. Nick was surprised they weren’t melting snow at a hundred paces.

Okay. Enough of this. There was stuff to do, pronto.

He had to break the news to his teammates camped out in an uncomfortable van that he’d married their prime contact.

Nick knew he was going to take a lot of flak for it, he’d be yelled at and threatened, he might even be demoted, and his boss would have a coronary, but in the end, they’d agree to protect Charity as long as necessary and that was what counted. A team of good guys would have her back.

Let them scream. He was tough. He could take it. What he couldn’t take was the idea of Charity alone and in danger. He’d just brought the talents of a lot of very tough guys and an entire government agency over to her side.

He paid for the rings in cash and bundled Charity back into the car. She kept her left glove off, holding her hand up and admiring the ring. It was pretty.

He flexed his own left hand. The broad band felt heavy and cumbersome on his hand. He didn’t like male jewelry and never imagined he’d ever wear any, let alone a wedding band. It felt weird, awkward, alien.

Even driving at his poky Nicholas Ames speed, it wasn’t that far to Charity’s house. In ten minutes they were there. Nick parked on the curb and kept the engine running.

He lifted Charity’s chin with a forefinger and bent down to her. Her mouth opened immediately, tongue touching his with an electric stroke that went all the way to his balls.

Nose against her cheek, he drew in a sharp breath, scented with shampoo and cream and her perfume. He didn’t know what it was, but it was worth every penny she paid for it. It was sheer dynamite. Though it was light and springlike, it went straight to his dick, in a pure Pavlovian reaction. It was automatic. Smell Charity’s perfume, get a woody.

Charity murmured into his mouth, a soft groan and cupped his face with her ungloved hand. This was supposed to be a little peck—bye honey, be good, I’ll be back soon—but Charity’s mouth was a little honey trap, warm and wet and welcoming, almost as exciting as her little cunt.

He hadn’t gone down on her yet. Chicks loved it. He could take it or leave it, but he’d long ago figured out it was a fast, easy way to make the woman wet and soft enough to take him fully. So it was basically a little speed bump on the way to what he considered real sex.

Suddenly, holding Charity’s head still, tongue in her mouth, he had a sharp, sudden hunger to kiss her pussy. Exactly as he was doing with her mouth. Not as a prelude but as the main course. She was so soft down there, even her pubic hair. He flashed on the two of them in her warm bed on this freezing winter night, Charity spread-eagled on the flowered sheets, with his head between her thighs, tongue in her cunt like it was in her mouth right now.

He could see it. Charity’s slim, lithe form stretched out, sharp hip bones bracketing her concave belly, pale breasts trembling with every breath, heartbeat visible in her left breast.

He loved it when she came, loved the feeling of the sharp contractions of her cunt around his cock. Jesus, how much better would it be to taste her climax, feel her coming against his mouth?

Just the thought of it brought him fully erect, when he had nowhere to go with his hard-on. Ouch.

He broke away from her, breathing hard, and curled his fingers resolutely around the steering wheel.

Her mouth was wet, a little swollen, the way her cunt probably was….

Think of something else.

Nick flashed on telling Di Stefano and his boss about marrying Charity. Their reaction, the reaction back in D.C. It was like dipping his dick in a glass of ice water.

He smiled at her, at her confused look and nodded toward the house. “Go in now honey, or I’ll never get these things done. I’ll be back around five or six and we’ll spend the entire night…celebrating.”

She turned pink and Nick laughed and reached across to open her door. “Hold that thought.”

Charity turned and smiled at him. “You betcha,” she said softly and got out. Nick watched until she was in the house and the living rooms lights went on, then pulled out.

He called Di Stefano and was relieved when he got a busy signal. Bumped over to voice mail, he left a brief message that he was on his way.

Then he called Jake on his cell. “Hey big guy,” Jake answered. “Or should I say rich guy?”

“That’s funny, coming from you. You have more money than God.” He heard Jake chuckle complacently, because he did. “You could buy me out with what you spend for breakfast.”

“Maybe. But I think I’m going to set another goal for you. How about another million by this time next year? I’ve been crunching numbers and reading some interesting stuff on Moldovan bonds. And there’s this new Brazilian company making hybrid cars. I’m going to make you so much money, you’ll figure it’s ridiculous keeping that job of yours and you’ll quit and do something that won’t get you killed.”

Perfect opening. “Hey Jake, about that getting killed stuff…”

“What?” Jake’s voice rose with tension, all humor gone. “What? Are you in trouble? Goddamn you, Nick, how many times have I told you—”

“Can it, Jake,” Nick said wearily. Jesus, what had he got married for, when Jake did the nagging wife thing so well? “I’m not in danger.” Yet. “What I am is married. I think.”

“You think? Jesus, Nick, you think you’re married? That’s like being a little bit pregnant. What the hell’s going on?”

The promise of that slate gray sky was kept. Snow started falling in earnest, thick white sheets dropping out of the sky, reducing visibility to just a couple of feet beyond his front fender. Even he had to pay some attention here. He put his cell on the dashboard and switched to speakerphone.

“Listen, I don’t have time to explain. I want to change my will. I’m going to disinherit you. You okay with that?”

His first day in the army, when he had exactly $10.75 to his name, when asked about next of kin and asked to make out a will, he’d put down Jake as his next of kin and beneficiary. Over the years, as he renewed his will, that hadn’t changed. Jake had power of attorney over his affairs and was his heir.

If Jake didn’t inherit all Nick’s worldly possessions, even if they topped an unlikely million bucks, it wouldn’t make any difference at all to Jake. What was a million bucks to him? Walking around money, that’s what it was.

“Hell.” It wasn’t the thought of losing Nick’s money that made Jake’s voice so somber. “You’re in trouble, Nick. I can feel it. Something really bad is coming down and you’re right in the middle. Oh my God. Oh shit. Oh fuck. I just flashed on your funeral. Fuck this, fuck whatever you’re doing. Wherever you are, get out now!”

Jake’s voice rose with anxiety.

A trickle of sweat ran down Nick’s back. Jake’s hunches were good, almost as good as his. Jake was a genius at crunching numbers, but his incredible success was also due to the way he could sniff trouble coming and could slalom his way out of it, fast. As the Wall Street Journal said, “Jacob Weiss’s hedge fund, JLW, has demonstrated a sixth sense for emerging markets and, in today’s volatile world, an even more useful sense for tanking markets. JLW has the golden touch—it knows, to the day, when to abandon ship.”

When Jake talked, markets listened. More to the point, when Jake talked, Nick listened. Ordinarily, when Jake said jump, Nick answered how high? He couldn’t bail now, though. There was no way out now but straight through the heart of trouble.

Nick didn’t even try to snow Jake. He was too smart to swallow false reassurances. “Whatever’s coming down, Jake, I’ll deal. You know me. I’m harder to kill than a cockroach. But there’s a new element now. A…a woman. I…married her.” The words were hard to get out. They sounded surreal and false. He was married. He wasn’t married.

Yes, he was. No, he wasn’t.

This was messing with his head.

Concentrate.

It didn’t make a lick of difference if he was married or not. What was important was to settle his affairs right now so he could face the showdown that was coming with a clear head.

“Yeah? About time.” Jake’s nanny gene rose to the fore. He’d been nagging Nick to get married for almost ten years now. “About time you tied the knot, you idiot. I don’t know what you were waiting for, hell to freeze over? So tell me that means you’re going to settle down, find yourself a job that won’t get you killed—”

It was Jake’s favorite rant and Nick was tempted to zone out and let him get it off his chest for the billionth time. But he wanted to drive as fast as he could to the van and the weather was worsening with every passing minute. The snow had let up a little, but the temperature was dropping and ice was building up. He needed to pay attention to the road. These conditions tried even his driving skills.

“Can it.” Nick fought the wheel as a sharp, strong blast of wind rocked the vehicle. “Listen, I’m tight for time, so I can’t explain the whole situation. Believe me when I say it’s…complex. All you need to know is that one Nicholas Ames—that would be me—married one Charity Prewitt a couple of hours ago.” He gave Charity’s full name—which turned out to be Charity Prudence Prewitt. He had smiled at that and the smile had earned him a poke in the ribs from her sharp little elbow. He gave Jake DOB, SSN, and address. “If something happens to me, you’ll know.” Jake was the only person on the government “To Be Notified in Case of Death” form. “Can I change my will on the phone? Right now? I want her to be my sole beneficiary. Sorry, Jake. When I kick the bucket, Marja’s going to have to do without her fiftieth fur coat.”

“She’ll live,” was Jake’s wry reply.

“Okay—so now I really need to know whether I can legally do this over the phone. This is a formal request to you. You have power of attorney. I want to change my will and make Charity P. Prewitt my sole beneficiary. Is that possible right now?”

Clacking in the background. Nick waited patiently, wrestling the wheel, trying to concentrate on the road.

“Done. Let me read it out to you.”

Jake read out the new will, which was identical to the old one except for the date, the name of the beneficiary, and an addendum to the effect that Jacob Weiss, who had power of attorney over Nick Ireland’s affairs, recognized Ireland’s voice and was willing to swear an oath in court to that effect. “I’ll get that notarized, just to be on the safe side. Soon.”

“Now,” Nick said.

Silence. Jake processed that. “Okay, I’m leaving the office right now. There’s a very grateful notary on Lexington who bought himself a vacation home in Tuscany with what JLW earned him, so he owes me. I’ll get this notarized within the hour, Nick. That’s a promise.”

Nick knew it was as good as done.

“Thanks, buddy.” Nick felt an overwhelming sense of relief, as if a granite block he didn’t know was on his back had been lifted. “I owe you. Big time.”

“Pay me back by staying alive.”

“Do my best and thanks.”

Nick hit the Off button and devoted all his attention to the road. Though it was early in the afternoon, the sky was almost black. The few cars he passed on the road all had their headlights on and were driving at twenty miles an hour, feeling their way over the roads rather than driving their way along.

The surveillance van was only twenty-five miles away, but there was a dangerous patch of road that wound in hairpin turns up a steep hill. It would be hairy with ice on the road. He wanted to get there, fight with Di Stefano and Alexei and get back before sundown.

Most of his head was taken up with negotiating the turns, but what remained of his hard disk was focused on Charity, and on what he was going to do to her when he finally got back to her.

Tonight was going to be probably the closest he would ever come to having a wedding night, and he was going to make the most of it. He had no intention of sleeping tonight. They were going to fuck all night long, punctuated only by food and wine and maybe the odd shower or two.

Nick was shaken out of those pleasant thoughts by a sharp jolt. Instantly back in combat mode, he checked the rearview mirror and saw high headlights coming closer, close enough to ram him again.

It was only now that he realized his subconscious had noticed the black SUV all along. He’d simply put it down to some nervous driver following another driver on a night of bad visibility.

It wasn’t that, it was a tail. Shame on him for taking so long to pick up on it.

Nobody tailed him for long. He was hypervigilant in and out of a car. That this guy had been able to follow him just went to show how much Nick’s head was up his ass. Or up his dick.

God, if he did get offed, he’d fucking deserve it.

Thoughts of Charity and everything else fled from his head when the bastard behind him bumped his rear fender again.

Nick pulled away fast. The SUV had tinted windows. All he could make out behind the windshield was a male figure, tall and broad shouldered, wearing a watch cap. Mud had been smeared on the plate. There was nothing to call in.

Nick bared his teeth when the guy behind him bumped the Lexus again, only this time harder.

Fucker was making a bad mistake. Nick was a good shot, but there were better shots around. He was a good man in a fight, but he had never won any martial arts awards. He’d been a damned good soldier and was shaping up to be a fine law enforcement officer, but he wasn’t the best there was.

But by God, no one could beat him in a car. No one. If Watch Cap wanted to kill him while Nick had a steering wheel in his hands, he had the wrong guy.

The guy behind him bumped the Lexus again, only this time harder, maintaining contact while swerving hard to the left. He was angling to drive Nick across the next lane and off the road. This stretch of winding road had a thin guardrail against a sheer drop of four hundred feet. The guardrail wouldn’t hold against a big heavy car like the Lexus crashing into it.

Another jolt, harder this time, just as they were coming up to a curve. The SUV driver messing with his head. I’m coming after you.

Did the guy know this road? Nick did, intimately. Besides strong driving skills, he had a natural compass in his head. He never got lost, ever. All he had to do was drive a road once to find it again and if he drove it a couple of times, it was as if he’d been driving it all his life. He’d been driving this road to the surveillance van several times a day for the past ten days. He could do it blindfolded.

With a little luck, the scumbag behind him had been called in from outside. By Worontzoff, no doubt about that. Whether he’d made Nick for a cop or he was just crazy jealous of Charity, it didn’t take much detecting to realize that Worontzoff had put out a contract on him.

Nick didn’t think Worontzoff would send one of his goons out on local wetwork. That would be fouling his nest in case something went wrong. Mobsters like Worontzoff were executives. They thought along cool, rational lines and the cool, rational thing to do would be to bring in hired muscle with a cut-out for deniability.

But even if this shit head trying to ram him off the road had been born and bred here, he’d just signed his death warrant.

Okay, Mr. Hired Gun, Nick thought grimly. Let’s see how good you are.

They were coming up on the first leg of a big, sharp S curve. At the next jolt, Nick applied the brakes, hard, as if panicked. As if he were someone who has just now realized that the taps from behind weren’t minor accidents and that the other driver was trying to drive him off the road. The first thing a civilian would do is freak and then brake. Nick could almost feel the smile of satisfaction behind the dark windshield.

Enjoy that feeling while you can, fuckhead. You’ve got about five minutes left to live.

The SUV rammed his back fender again, violently, and this time stayed in contact with the Lexus. Then the driver gunned his engine as Nick braked harder. The Lexus had excellent brakes, Nick was almost completely stopped. The only thing propelling him forward now was the SUV. Even above the wind, he could hear the SUV’s engines whining as it took the burden of driving two heavy vehicles uphill in the snow.

Nick waited until the road started its first curve, long enough for the driver to have gotten used to the feel of strain in his vehicle. Long enough to make him complacent.

Just after the SUV shifted gears to start the steep, climbing curve, Nick gunned his engine, shooting forward, the Lexus taking him from almost zero to sixty in a couple of seconds. He rounded the curve, losing the SUV, and then took the other curve as fast as he dared. He’d effectively disappeared from sight.

As soon as he rounded the second curve, he made a bootlegger’s turn, big hood pointed back from where he’d come. He pulled over to the extreme left-hand side of the road and waited, engine running.

Sure enough, a minute later, the SUV appeared, headlights on bright, cutting through the darkness. He saw Nick too late and stood on his brakes. He didn’t have Nick’s experience driving in extreme weather and he lost control of the heavy vehicle. The SUV spun almost 180 degrees on the ice, and Nick rammed into it hard.

He used the momentum of his own heavy vehicle to keep the SUV pinned in, then suddenly swerved left, hard, straight into the SUV, ramming it against the cliff.

The impact could be heard over the wind as the SUV’s front fender ran into the cliff. The airbag inside deployed. Nick could see the driver slumped over the airbag. An airbag deploys at two hundred miles an hour in the first fractions of a second. As a distraction, it wasn’t as good as a flash-bang, but it would have to do. The guy would be disoriented for at least two minutes and that’s all the time Nick would need.

Inside twenty seconds, he was out of the Lexus and had picked the SUV’s lock. The airbag was slowly deflating and the man was moaning, moving slowly, still in shock. His eyes sharpened with panic when he saw Nick and he fumbled for the Sig Sauer P210 in the passenger seat. Expensive gun. Nothing but the best for Worontzoff’s goons.

But the airbag impeded his movements. He never had a chance.

There was a quick way to do this. Nick placed the flat of his hand against the man’s right temple, his other hand on the left side of his neck and in one quick motion, broke his neck.

He pulled out his Maglite and looked around the vehicle, checking registration papers.

The SUV was a rental. The name on the rental contract was Stephen Anderson, no doubt a false name. The inside of the vehicle was clean, almost sterile. He checked the ashtrays, under the seats, inside the side pockets. Nothing. No cigarette butts, no food packages, no marked maps. No clues, no prints, since the guy was wearing gloves and probably no DNA.

Nick frisked him, fast. No ID, no labels on his clothes. He was more or less Nick’s height, more or less Nick’s weight. Perfect. This would work.

Nick ran back to his car, popped open the trunk, and got out his suitcase and emergency kit hidden under the spare tire. He always kept a jerry can of gas and got that out, too.

Go, go, go!

Even in this weather, someone might come up along this road any moment. Bending down in the SUV, he pulled the man up in a fireman’s lift, carried him over to the Lexus, and put him behind the wheel. His neck was broken, but that would be attributed to the fall of the vehicle from over four hundred feet. The clothes would burn up and with any luck the skin of his fingers would, too. Together with the skin all over. A suspicious coroner might want to match dental records but there weren’t any for Nicholas Ames and who was going to demand it, anyway? There would be a six-foot-two male charred body in Nicholas Ames’s car and Nick Ireland would drop out of sight.

Nick placed his non-Unit-issued cell phone in the guy’s pocket, on the off chance the SIM card would survive the fire. No one would be contacting Nicholas Ames ever again, anyway.

Working fast, Nick grabbed the jerry can, poured some gas into the driver’s footwell, and in the trunk, close to the gas tank. He checked the level. Thank God it was full. He figured there were over eighteen gallons of fuel in that sucker. Basically a rolling bomb.

Buckling the seat belt over the guy slumped in the driver’s seat, Nick checked everything and was about ready to drive the SUV over the cliff when he stopped and picked up the dead man’s left hand and removed the glove. He worked the claddagh ring off his finger and put it on the dead man’s left hand ring finger. It had been tight on him but fit this fucker perfectly.

Time was tight, but he took a moment to look down at his wedding ring on the man’s hand.

Always knew I wasn’t made for marriage, he thought.

Reaching in and igniting the Lexus’s engine, he put it in gear, placed the dead man’s foot on the gas pedal, and pressed down on his knee. The Lexus rolled forward. Perfect. In the last possible second before the car drove off the cliff, Nick threw an open match into the footwell, slammed the door closed, and ran back to the other side of the road.

The Lexus caught fire in midair. Nick watched the fiery ball in its long descent down into the valley below, lighting up the dark afternoon sky.

It took several seconds for the Lexus to hit the bottom. When it did, it exploded, the sound echoing through the valley.

Someone was going to come check out that explosion soon. Nick had to get out of here, fast.

Nicholas Ames, stockbroker, was gone now, forever.

He strapped on his shoulder rig, tossed the guy’s Sig Sauer into the glove compartment, threw his suitcase and emergency kit into the back of the now-battered SUV, and pulled out, heading for the van.

Not only was he now going to have to tell Di Stefano, Alexei, and the boss that he was married. He was also going to have to break the news that he was dead.