Athena Force 12: Checkmate by Doranna Durgin Read Free Book Online Page A

Razidae’s office. Selena ran out into a hall that ran parallel to the one she’d just left, heading for the set of stairs that logic told her would be opposite those on the other side and taking them two at a time when she found them. All the way to the fourth floor, where the secondary residences filled the space. Guests, dignitaries, distant family members…here they lived. A fumbling game of find-the-key finally netted her entrance, and she eased halfway into the hall, not ready to commit herself yet. She didn’t think the Kemenis would be up here just yet—they hadn’t had enough time to secure all the public space—but she took nothing for granted. She hesitated, taking her breathing back down, listening and watching.
    If anyone hid here, they were—quite wisely—still hiding. Selena let the door close behind her, making sure it latched as silently as possible, and then turned in the direction that would take her back above the ballroom, moving at a more cautious and sedate pace.
    She had no doubt there’d be plenty of time for more running later.

Chapter 5
     
    “N o,” Cole said into the phone, more firmly than he should and less firmly than he wanted. “I just got back. I’ve got something going on here, and I’m not going anywhere until it’s settled.” He wrapped the damp towel around his neck, a match to the one tucked around his hips, and barely listened to the persistent voice in his ear. Given the frequency with which Selena checked e-mail, he should have heard from her by now. He should have had an answer to his simple, straightforward question.
    What’s wrong?
    “No,” he said again, this time with a sharp shake of his head that his caller would have known to heed had he seen it. “Even if you couldn’t do without me on this, you owe me. You’d never have uncovered that budding little problem without me—hell, you’d never even have known about it. And who else do you have who can switch-hit with the FBI so easily? So back off, Sarge.”
    The man wasn’t a sergeant. But in an organization where rank was rarely assigned, the nickname served its purpose.
    “Yeah, okay.” Cole pulled the towel away from his neck, idly rubbing it across his still-damp chest, and glanced into the living room where he’d left the television on. Special news flash, generic sort of logo that meant whatever had happened was either too new or too unimportant to have its own catchy headline name. “I’ll be in touch at this number. It goes where I go, right? But don’t be surprised if I answer from Berzhaan.”
    That got a little snort of disbelief, a warning to watch his ass if he even looked at that part of the world, and an abrupt sign-off that left Cole looking at his phone in bemusement. Berzhaan wasn’t vacationland, but the FBI wouldn’t have sent Selena into a war zone.
    Especially not now. Not when he had a marriage to fix—and needed the chance to do it.
    Except he looked up from the phone to find a map of that small country on the television with a dramatic arrow pointing at Suwan; the image flipped to an imposing building with barricades all around it, emergency and military vehicles beyond that, and an ambulance speeding away from the outside edge of it all. Berzhaan was the special news flash. Berzhaan and a sudden surge of violence across the country, killing people, destroying their livelihoods. “No one knows the Kemenis’ exact goals or what drove them to this move just when their arms dried up…” And the building was the Berzhaan capitol, only a few blocks from the embassy out of which Selena worked. The embassy that had apparently been evacuated as soon as the siege of the capitol began.
    Then where’s Selena?
     
     
     
    Selena pinned her hopes on finding a master key on the stolen key ring, and sighed with relief when the fourth key she tried snicked neatly into the well-lubricated lock of the room at the end of the guest quarters hall. No one answered her quiet knock, but