Chain Reaction Page 2

  The man smiled, the expression easing the harsh cast of his features. Not handsome by any kind of standards, his face was still interesting, and her fingers itched for pencil and paper. The sharp angle of his jaw was bisected by the faint white line of a scar. Dark hair curled around his ears and temples, a silky wash of blue on black. His mouth hinted at a sensuous side, the sardonic twist of his lips almost making her want to reach out and touch them.

  Touch him.

  She fisted her hands. This was a dangerous man, his stance predatory, his veiled green gaze cautious and knowing all at the same time. Whoever this was, he was not her friend.

  “So how’d it go?”

  For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about, then realized he was looking pointedly at her legs. “Better than yesterday. But I think all the drugs are playing havoc with my coordination.” Of course, she wasn’t actually taking all of them, but he didn’t know that.

  “They have a way of doing that.” He shrugged, his eyes probing hers as he held out his hand. “My name is Nicholas Price.”

  Mia hesitated, not sure exactly why she still had reservations about touching him. Maybe just because he was the first person who’d been anything but perfunctory with her since she’d woken up to find reality altered. “Mia Kearney,” she said, shaking his hand for only the briefest of moments before retreating farther back onto the bed. “But then I suspect you already know that.”

  “Yes, I do.” His voice was mild, almost soothing, the sound puzzling. Nicholas Price didn’t look like a gentle man. “I understand you’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

  “So I’ve been told. But I don’t remember anything traumatic. Except maybe being in here.” She hadn’t meant for the last to slip out. And an ugly idea occurred to her. “Are you a shrink?”

  Nicholas laughed, the sound genuine, buoying her heart even as she questioned his sincerity. “If you only knew how ridiculous the idea is. No. I’m not even a doctor. I work for the government.”

  Her mother had always made that word seem dirty, but Nicholas Price used it as though it would explain everything. “Who exactly is it you work for, Mr. Price?”

  “Most people call me Nick.” There was a false note of congeniality in his voice. As if he wanted her to believe he was her friend.

  But he wasn’t.

  “I’m not most people.” She pitched her voice to match his tone, and offered a smile.

  Amusement crested in his eyes. “I can see that. Mind if I sit down?” He tilted his head toward the lone chair in the room. A dilapidated ladder-back that looked as though it had seen better days.

  “It’s your prison.”

  “Now why would you say that?” His expression was back to guarded, and she wondered what she’d said to put him on alert.

  “Because the door’s locked?” She waved at the door as if looking at it would prove her point.

  “Maybe they just want to be sure you stay put.”

  “Now there’s a blinding glimpse of the obvious. Look, why don’t we just skip the social niceties. I’m a captive audience, Mr. Price. So just get on with it.”

  She might have been mistaken, but she thought she saw the slightest hint of admiration in his gaze. Not that she gave a damn.

  “I want to know what happened out there, Mia.” His use of her first name grated on her nerves. She wasn’t a kid and she didn’t know him from Adam. But she held her tongue. There wasn’t much point in arguing.

  “I already told you, I don’t remember anything.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I believe you. Your doctors say there isn’t any physical reason why you can’t remember.”

  “So maybe I wasn’t conscious when it happened.”

  “It?”

  “The nuclear meltdown or whatever it was. They haven’t really been all that forthcoming.”

  “It was an explosion. At least that’s what the briefing papers call it.”

  “Papers?” She couldn’t help the question.

  “That’s all we’ve got to work with at the moment. The site’s too hot. No one’s going in there right now.”

  “The site. You mean Cedar Branch?” She frowned, trying to assimilate the information. “So is everyone else here, too?”

  “As far as I know you’re the only survivor.”

  “I’m sorry?” Panic rose, bitter in her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply.

  “I said you’re the only one who survived.”

  “People were killed?” The surprise in her voice must have alarmed him, and he looked away, clearly realizing he’d said too much. “Come on, Mr. Price — Nick — you can’t just drop something like that on me and then clam up.” The back of her eyes tightened with tears. “How many people are dead?”

  He paused, still staring down at his hands, then looked up. “Everyone was killed, Mia. Everyone living in Cedar Branch is dead.”

  Her brain reeled as she tried to understand what he was telling her. Nancy, Patrick — Joe. All of them gone. “You’re lying.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Bile filled her throat, the edges of her vision fading to black. She fought against her terror, trying to stay focused — to stay in control. “I don’t know. But it can’t be true. They can’t all be dead.”

  He was beside her suddenly, holding a trash can as she lost her battle with her stomach, his big hand stroking back her hair as she expelled everything inside her.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I thought you knew.”

  “I want to see the bodies,” she demanded, fighting against the continuing waves of nausea.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Nick said. “They were incinerated in the blast.”

  She struggled to find her composure, to stop the roiling in her gut, but it was simply more than she could handle. A commotion at the door indicated the cavalry had arrived, except that Mia felt certain they weren’t there for her.

  A nurse pushed Nick aside, and for a befuddled moment Mia had the urge to reach for him. Fortunately, her hand wasn’t up to responding. The nurse ordered him from the room, drawing a syringe as she spoke.

  Mia fell back against the sheets, mind still reeling, and held out her arm, for the first time since she’d awoken into this nightmare grateful for the sedative.

  “WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU tell me she didn’t know?” Nick stood in the corridor outside Mia’s room, trying to control the rage that was surging through him. He wasn’t against manipulating a suspect to get an admission, but he also wasn’t in the habit of torturing people just for the hell of it.

  “I didn’t think it was necessary.” James Waters shrugged, clearly unperturbed by the pain his omission had caused. Waters was the doctor assigned to Mia’s case, a government flunky who wouldn’t have lasted a day in private practice. “I was told to give you access to Miss Kearney. No one said anything about briefing you. I just assumed you were aware of the situation.”

  It was clear from his tone that the man resented the fact that he was here at all, but Nick didn’t give a damn. If he’d needed people to like him, he’d have found a different line of work. “I was briefed. But no one told me she didn’t know about her friends.”

  “How do you know they were friends?” Waters asked, his tone bland, but his eyes sparking with interest.

  “I’d say it’s pretty damn obvious. She’s lived and worked in the area for most of her life. And if that wasn’t proof enough, one look at Mia’s face after I told her certainly convinced me.”

  He was mildly surprised that he’d used her first name. After all, he’d just met the woman. But then holding someone’s hair while they puked had a way of cutting through all the bullshit.

  The doctor shrugged. “Davies didn’t want her to know.” Charles Davies was heading the investigation. Director of the CIA’s Security and Containment division, Davies was a snake of a man. Nick had dealt with him in the past, and wasn’t relishing a repeat performance.

  “Does he
suspect her?”

  “You’d have to ask him. As far as I know, it’s all pretty straightforward. A rig transporting a nuclear weapon lost control on the Old Dam Road. It broke through a guardrail, tumbled down the side of the mountain near Cedar Branch and slammed into a stand of pines. The result was a hell of an explosion that took out the town.”

  “Except for Mia Kearney.”

  “Exactly. She was found unconscious in the rubble of a house just off Main Street.” Waters paused, his eyes narrowing. “So we brought her here. Obviously, we’re trying to understand why she’s still alive.”

  “A medical miracle.” Nick didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  Waters frowned. “I don’t believe in miracles, Mr. Price. They’d put me out of business. But I do believe in anomalies, and I intend to find out why Miss Kearney is one.”

  “Then we’re working on the same side.” They were banal words, offered more in dismissal than anything else. Talking to underlings was a waste of time.

  “Hardly.” Waters’s words were clipped. “We’re assuming it was an accident. You’re assuming it wasn’t.”

  “I’m not assuming anything. I’m simply looking at the facts.” Nick’s bosses at Homeland Security had sent him here for answers, and he intended to get them. If not from Mia Kearney, then from the staff attending her.

  “She was found at the edge of the destruction zone,” Waters said, his fingers tightening on the clipboard he was holding. “So while she could have been in the truck, the odds are against it. Even if you assume delayed detonation, the radiation zone stretched something like half a mile beyond the physical destruction. She wouldn’t have been able to escape.”

  “But the point is that she did. Which all by itself is suspicious. But when you add it to the facts that everyone else in the area was obliterated and that the woman was found in a nuclear shelter, I’d say that should be enough to raise a few red flags.”

  “Except for the fact that it was a fifty-year-old, homemade shelter that probably wouldn’t have held up when it was new. Certainly after all this time it’s doubtful that it would have been part of any terrorist scheme. Although it may have played a role in her survival.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in miracles.”

  “I don’t. But I do believe in dumb luck. Sometimes a person is just in the right place at the right time.” Again Waters shrugged dismissively. “Anyway, the point is that until proved otherwise, I’m treating Ms. Kearney as a victim. Like the rest of the people in Cedar Branch.”

  “Except that they’re all dead, and she’s not.” Which set Nick’s internal alarm bells ringing no matter what Waters had to say on the subject.

  “But I’m telling you, all the evidence indicates that it was a tragic accident.”

  “And that’s why Langley’s S&C is involved?”

  The doctor hesitated just a moment too long, and Nick wondered if he’d hit a nerve. “I don’t know why any of the specific personnel on this project were called in. I only know that the orders originated in Washington.”

  That much was definitely true, and Gordon Armstrong, Nick’s boss, wasn’t happy about it. Turf wars were old hat between the CIA and Homeland Security, but this incident had uncharacteristically been passed off to the CIA’s little known S&C division without so much as a by-your-leave to any other agencies. Considering the ramifications should it come to light that the so-called accident had been intentional, it was understandable that Gordon was pissed. And he’d pulled strings to make certain that Nick was allowed on site.

  “Gentlemen, I think this discussion needs to be held somewhere more private.” Charles Davies strode down the hall, his expression thunderous. Davies was short and square, his everyman looks helping him blend into the crowd. He was the kind of man most people misjudged, missing the steel that glinted behind his bland expression. But then, Nick wasn’t most people. “If you’ll follow me.” Davies turned and walked back the way he had come, leaving Nick and the doctor to follow in his wake.

  Nick had first dealt with Davies years ago in Lebanon, the bastard showing his true colors. Although they’d never been forced to work together, from time to time they’d connected tangentially as assignments had crossed agency lines. And Nick’s opinion never changed. Bottom line — Charles Davies was a snake and Nick didn’t trust him any farther than he could throw him.

  Davies sat down behind the desk, motioning for Waters to close the door. Nick perched on the arm of the side chair, not wanting to give Davies the height advantage. Not a subtle move, but Nick didn’t give a shit.

  “Thanks to your blunder,” Davies began without preface, “you’ve shut her down completely.”

  “She didn’t seem exactly forthcoming before I told her, Charles.”

  “What did you think she was going to do?” Waters asked. “Shrug and say the losses were all for the greater good?”

  “No. But unless she’s one hell of an actress, she had no idea those people were dead, which means at least part of what she’s been saying is true.”

  “Which would support what we’ve been saying all along.” Davies leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “This was an accident, Nick. Nothing more.”

  “I don’t see it that way.” Nick shifted on the arm of the chair, careful to keep both men in his line of sight. “The rig belonged to Kresky International, and they’re not the type to skimp on security. If they were transporting something as volatile as a nuclear warhead, I guarantee you they would have made damn sure something like this couldn’t happen. And what’s even more interesting to me is the fact that you believe they could have made this kind of mistake.”

  Charles’s expression gave away nothing, but his fingers tensed, a sure tell that Nick’s comments had hit home. “We certainly haven’t ruled out the possibility of sabotage. But there’s not much left to examine. Just a hell of a crater and the clutter of debris at the edge of what was once Cedar Branch. But the little bit we have managed to work out indicates an accident. Add to that the fact that no one has stepped up to claim responsibility, and I think you’re trying to build a conspiracy where there isn’t one.”

  “It’s not like I want it to be a terrorist attack,” Nick said. “It’s just that the pieces don’t fit. You’ve got a survivor where there shouldn’t be one. You’ve got one of the biggest contractors in the country moving materials that were probably classified, and definitely dangerous, across state lines. There should have been memos on the memo. Add in the fact that you’re here, and it feels like something more than a tragic accident.”

  “Look, I just go where I’m told, and do what has to be done. The rest of the crap I let the suits take care of.” Davies leaned forward, his expression grim.

  “Then you’ll understand why I have to follow through with this. Orders are orders. And mine are to debrief the girl.”

  “But she told you,” Waters said, “she doesn’t know anything. You just said her reaction was genuine.”

  “And I believe it was. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved somehow. Her mother, Angela Kearney, was a political activist with connections to some pretty questionable people. And her grandfather was a staunch opponent to nuclear fission in all its incarnations. Particularly the danger of nuclear facilities to local populations.”

  “But this had nothing to do with a reactor.” Waters frowned in obvious frustration.

  “Yes, but the damage is comparable and definitely plays better on the news.”

  “Then why choose an out of the way place like Cedar Branch?” Davies asked, the question clearly rhetorical. “Besides, both the mother and the grandfather are dead. In fact, Miss Kearney has no living kin.”

  “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t share her family’s radical tendencies.”

  “Fine.” Davies stood, a sure indication that the meeting was over. “Talk to her, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. Just try not to upset her any more than you already have.”

  “
Like you give a flying fuck.”

  “I don’t.” Davies shrugged. “But I do want to know how she managed to survive an explosion that killed everyone else in the area, and your goading her into agitation isn’t going to help me achieve my goal.”

  “Well, I sure wouldn’t want to do anything to get in your way,” he said, studying the other man, certain that Davies was hiding something. And accident or not, Nick wasn’t leaving until he figured out what the hell it was.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  “GET OUT OF HERE. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  Nick ducked, just missing the pillow Mia threw at him. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you.” She sat cross-legged on her bed, her eyes shooting fire. She was no longer attached to the monitor, which he assumed signaled improvement. At least his pronouncement hadn’t caused her any physical damage.

  “I’m sorry about before. If I’d known you didn’t know…”

  She glared at him, then shrugged. “Someone would have told me eventually.” She might be pretending not to care, but he could see the tension in her shoulders, the grief in her face.

  “You lived in Cedar Branch most of your life, right?”

  “Technically, I lived about fifteen miles away, at Thornyhold.”

  “Your grandfather’s ranch,” he prodded, knowing that sometimes the best way to gain someone’s trust was to talk about comfortable things.

  “Yeah.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Although some of the time I lived with my dad’s family in South America or with both parents when my dad’s schedule allowed.”

  “Renaldo Vasquez. He was a jazz musician, right?”

  “He played the sax. In a quartet called Mercury. But you already know that, Mr. Price.”

  “Nick,” he corrected, “and I’d like to hear it from you.”