Point Of No Return

“In your wildest dreams, pal.” Mae turned on her heel.

Well, uh, yes, actually. Because in his nightmares she stuck around to get tortured and killed by Akif Bashim.

He grabbed her wrist. “I’ll drag you to the airport if I have to.”

She snapped her wrist away. “I never thought I’d actually be glad to say this, but…you’re not my boss.”

He flinched a little at that. “No, but I do know this country and what happens when people get caught in the crossfire. Which, if you didn’t happen to notice, is exactly what’s happening in that little hot spot of the world Josh and his girlfriend seem to have gone walk-about in. So, yes, honey, you’re leaving.”

Mae, as if deaf, kept walking.

“Oh, nice, Mae.”

She ignored him. And where exactly was she going? He sped up behind her, matching her long strides. “I thought you might be glad to see me—after all, you called me.”

She stomped along in silence.

“C’mon, Mae, listen to me. I am on your side here, believe it or not. It’ll be better for Josh if you go and let me track him down. I can travel faster, and I know the language and—”

She stopped.

He skidded to a halt and took a step back. “What?”

Her stare could probably leave blisters. “You want me to leave so I won’t get in the way, is that it? It’s too risky to work with me, so you’ll just kick me to the curb?”

He opened his mouth, ready to refute her, but of course nothing came out. Because, as usual, she’d bulls-eyed it. He lifted a shoulder in a rueful shrug.

She shook her head, as if dispelling some inner voice, and stared at him a long time. Oh, Mae, why do you make this all so hard? Why couldn’t she be the kind of woman who didn’t have to be on the front lines of trouble? The one who’d let him take her out for ice cream? The girl he’d envisioned on the other end of his emails? The one he’d known for a crazy, romantic week in Seattle?

Or maybe he hadn’t known her at all.

She finally spoke, her words losing some of their heat, yet still stiff with anger. “If you knew anything about me, anything at all, Chet, you would know that I will not just go home and leave Josh here. I’m not built that way. I don’t know what’s going on with him—why he did this, or who this princess is—” She added air quotes, as if he couldn’t catch her tone.

“She’s the daughter of a warlord.”

“Perfect. For all I know, he’s being held against his will. But I made a promise to my sister. And I keep my promises.”

Right. He did know that about her.

“So, you go ahead and do whatever you need to do. Find the princess, save the world. Whatever. But you need to stay out of my way. Yasna?”

He hated it when she spoke Russian. It only reminded him that she had friends and experiences that didn’t fit into the neat, safe world he wanted her to live in. Worse, as she met his eyes, unblinking, he saw that the anger had vanished, only to be replaced by something more frightening.

Resolve.

And when she turned and stalked out again for parts unknown, all he could do was follow.

Wasn’t this just swell? He had four days to find a runaway princess, talk her into helping save the world by marrying a man twice her age, and stop a love-struck teenager from starting an international incident, all while trying to keep up with—forget ahead of—the woman he most wanted to protect in the world.

He’d felt more comfortable in his Snow White costume.

“Just tell me where you’re—we’re—going, please.”

“The market,” she said without looking at him.

The market. Okay. He cataloged the changes in Tbilisi as he followed her down the street. The smell—dust, car exhaust, the slightest whiff of grilled lamb—all seemed familiar. He didn’t recognize, however, the red and blue vendor kiosks selling ice cream and candy, the electric beat of European bands banging from boom boxes. Traffic hummed and horns blared, motors coughing out black smoke from Russian-made vehicles—Ladas and Zhigulis, he supposed—but also Japanese imports and even German Volkswagens. It all evidenced a new capitalism, not the Georgia he’d remembered.

Of course, when he’d been sneaking around Georgia, it had been in the hills, back when the Russians occupied the offices in the ornate buildings in downtown Tbilisi, back when his government decided that a little revolutionary thinking might help take down communism. His stomach churned as he pondered the fact that the seeds he’d sown over two decades ago still wreaked havoc in the country today. Back then, he’d believed he was arming freedom. Oh, hindsight.

A woman, her head covered, holding her toddler daughter in her lap as she sat on the grimy sidewalk, held out a hand to him as he passed by. He couldn’t meet her eyes as he dropped a lari into her grip. Just ten feet away, yet another woman, this one much younger, huddled under her veils in the alcove of a Soviet-era building peering at him with huge brown eyes.

Carissa.

He inhaled so sharply that Mae glanced at him.

Of course it wasn’t Carissa. Couldn’t be. But memory had sharp claws and it knew how to make him bleed.

If not cost him his life, this time around.

Maybe he should have called Wick and the rest of Stryker International instead of packing his duffel and hopping on a transport without so much as a check-in. His team would show up at the office and read the hastily scrawled, “Off on a private trip. Be back soon.” And since he hadn’t taken a day off since he’d started Stryker International, those cryptic words would have the opposite of the intended effect, igniting speculation, if not an all-out manhunt. Starting with a phone call to his partner, Vicktor Shubnikov.

With some more rotten luck, Vicktor would mention it to his wife, Gracie, who would immediately think of her former roomie, Mae, and probably follow up with a phone call to Seattle. To which she’d get no answer.

How long, really, would it take his team to figure out he’d headed to Georgia, scrounge up a plane and stir an already-simmering mess to full boil?

Clearly, Chet had needed more coffee and a few moments to think before running off after trouble.

Trouble who seemed to be outdistancing him de spite his near run. Sheesh, Mae had long legs. “Slow down.”