Point Of No Return. Susan May Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ while he’d been in Taiwan had mattered to her. Only she didn’t know it all, because if she did she would never have called, would never have asked him to dig into his past.

      “I…I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, Mae. I don’t even know if I can find the right people anymore.” Not to mention the bounty on his head in that particular country. Mae could be walking right into the fallout that he’d always dreaded. “Have you called the embassy?”

      “Yes, but their official position is that Josh ran away with a local village girl.”

      “Maybe he did.”

      “He’s not that irresponsible. He calls home every Sunday night, and was the only kid in his Sunday school who earned a gold star for perfect attendance. He’s an Eagle Scout, for Pete’s sake. He’s not going to just take off and scare everyone around him!”

      “Calm down, Mae. I’m sure he’s already back.”

      “He’s not back, Chet, that’s the point!”

      “But it doesn’t mean you should go running off to Georgia! There’s still a war going on over there!”

      “Exactly why we need to find him. What if he’s been kidnapped?”

      “What if you get kidnapped?” He took a breath and lowered his voice to something that resembled calm. “What if something happens to you?”

      “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

      But it would; he knew it in his gut. He’d seen the civil war between Georgia and Ossetia up close, and with Russia as Ossetia’s new comrades, one nasty misfire from the Georgian side and the entire mess could reignite. Just give the Ossetians one reason, and no amount of international tongue-clucking would keep them from unloading their Kalashnikovs right into the rag-tag Georgian defenses.

      And Mae would be caught in the middle, a beautiful redheaded American pawn, leverage for whatever terrorist group nabbed her.

      “Please don’t go, Mae. It’s not safe—”

      “Last time I checked, I didn’t need your approval. You’re not my boss.”

      He clenched his jaw so tight he thought his molars might crack. “I can’t believe you’re doing this again! Have you learned nothing about acting on impulse?”

      He realized he was shouting when Wick glanced at him. He exhaled slowly as they turned onto Karl Liebknecht Street. The architecture in this part of old Berlin betrayed the age of the city—the dangling chandeliers that lined the streets, the colonnades of the stately former Third Reich buildings, the grandeur of the Brandenburg Gate, now silent and looming over them. “I’m sorry, Mae, that wasn’t fair—”

      “You bet it wasn’t. If I hadn’t ‘acted on impulse’ and helped spring Roman out of prison, he might still be there. Or maybe not—maybe he’d be dead. I know that he wasn’t your friend, but, well, I guess it’s clear that even if he had been, you wouldn’t have lifted a finger to—”

      “Watch yourself, Mae.”

      “Forget I called. Just forget it, Chet.” The phone went dead before Chet could open his mouth.

      He closed the phone, holding it in his shaking fist, gritting his teeth.

      “Maybe you’ll feel better if you throw it,” Wick said quietly.

      “I knew a woman like that once,” Luke said from the backseat. “Drove me crazy.”

      “I married one,” Artyom added.

      Chet shook his head, staring out the window. Crazy was going to Georgia to search for a teenager who’d probably decided to backpack around Europe. Or better yet, hooked up with a village girl and disappeared for a weekend tryst.

      “She’s going to Georgia.”

      “Isn’t that where you—”

      “Yep,” Chet snapped, cutting Wick off.

      “Where what?” Artyom asked, leaning forward in the seat.

      Wick glanced at Chet, and when he didn’t answer, filled in the silence. “When he was a young Green Beret, Chet embedded with a group of rebels in the breakaway territory of Ossetia and helped them with equipment and supplies—”

      “I helped them start a civil war.” Among other things. His own words had the precision of a scalpel, the old wounds fresh and raw. His palms slicked. Carissa’s scream still echoed through the chambers of his brittle soul. He shook himself from the memory, wiping his hands on his knees.

      “He did more than that,” Wick said. “The leaders in Georgia declared him an enemy of the state and put a price on his head. If he ever goes back to Georgia—”

      “Unofficially, I’m also wanted in the territory of Ossetia—the one that recently conspired with the Russians to invade Georgia—by a terrorist group called the Svan. Their leader, Akif Bashim, would like nothing better than to find me, and throw in a little torture—just for payback—before he beheads me, of course.” Deep breaths, in, out… Chet tapped the phone on his leg.

      “I don’t understand—if you helped the Svan, and Akif was their leader, why would he want you dead?”

      Chet shook his head. Leave it, Wick.

      Wick’s eyes narrowed just a second before he betrayed him. “Let’s just say that Akif had a daughter, who fell in love with Chet.”

      Chet drew in a breath. “Yes, something like that.”

      Wick reached over and tugged the cell from his whitened grip, dropping it into the cup holder. “Mae will be fine.”

      “She won’t be fine.” Chet flexed his hands. “But if I set foot in that part of the world, Bashim will know it. And neither of us will get out of Georgia alive.”

      “You can’t go, boss,” Luke said quietly.

      Chet leaned his head back against his seat, closing his eyes, and almost instantly Mae appeared, her green eyes bright, her red hair ribboning down her back, her skin sweet and tangy, her soft laughter like a balm on his calloused heart, smiling as he waltzed her around the dance floor of Viktor and Gracie’s wedding reception. Their last magical moment.

      Before she dumped the drink over his head.

      He ran his finger and thumb over his eyes, dispelling the image. “But can I live with myself if I don’t?”

      TWO

      Chet blamed his stupidity on his fatigue and the fact that he’d spent twelve hours on a train staring at the ceiling of his sterile compartment, listening to Wick snore, and trying not to imagine Mae disembarking in the Georgia airport in Tbilisi to Russian gunpoint.

      No, he’d thought he was overreacting. The gun pointing wouldn’t start until she got to Gori and met one of the trigger-nervous eighteen-year-old Russian “brown boys” supposedly “peacekeeping” along the Ossetia-Georgian border. He’d read СКАЧАТЬ