Wendy Rosnau - Merrick's Eleventh Hour

“I’m going to die?”

“If he wanted you dead, you would be. No, Merrick believes you’ll join him in the hunt for me to save your own skin once he’s found proof you’ve been filching information.”

“He won’t find anything, and I’d never give you up. Haven’t I proven my loyalty?”

“Loyalty that served your own revenge. You begged Merrick for your life in Prague and he gave it to you. Had he chosen to save me instead, I would never have betrayed him.”

“Why do you care why I agreed to be your mole? My reasons still served your purpose.”

“Treason is a tricky business.” Cyrus stood and checked the SIG’s ammunition clip. The weapon showed a full eight rounds.

“What are you doing?”

“I considered making this look like a suicide. A man chained to a wheelchair must have contemplated it over the years, but you know how much I enjoy tormenting Merrick.”

“I can still be of use to you.”

“Come now, Briggs, you had to know your days were numbered.”

“Not like this, Cyrus. At least let me get dressed and give me my chair. Let me die with some dignity.”

“A traitor has no dignity. Good-bye, Briggs.”

Cyrus raised the SIG and fired. The first two bullets plowed through Peter’s skull, out the back of his head and into the wall. The third went into his heart and stayed there.

Traitor, mole, comrade…None of it mattered now. Peter Briggs was dead before his head hit the pillow.

Hours later, Cyrus Krizova, aka the Chameleon, boarded a plane back to Greece. Like a soldier heading home from the war, a little victory celebration was definitely in order.

Da, the spoils of war.

For two decades Adolf Merrick had coveted the dream.

Johanna’s image came first. Long raven-black hair surrounding a delicate oval face. Perfectly arched eyebrows framing hazel-green eyes. The body of a temptress that moved with the regal grace of a cat.

Merrick flattened out his hand and stroked the white satin sheet, remembering the way she liked to curl up next to him. The exotic scent of Medallion roses had steeped the air, their peach petals exploiting the memories. The crackle and pop of wood burning slow and luminous in the brick fireplace fueling another timeless image.

Eyes closed, drunk on recall, he beckoned for her to come to him. And like a whisper riding a gentle breeze, Johanna came for a visit.

The bed moved against her fragile weight. Her moist breath teasing his neck, she whispered, However you want me, I’m here.

Merrick moaned deep into the vortex of the dream—a dream he would live in 24/7 if that were possible. He arched his hips in silent solicitation. Rewarded with a naked thigh sliding over his hips.

Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

The kiss of life.

The kiss of death.

Stay focused.

Don’t wake up.

However you want me, I’m here.

He wanted her hot and mind-blowing. He wanted her all night. Every night. He wanted time to stand still. No, he wanted to rewind time and go back to the beginning.

Take me back, my love. My wife. My life.

Stay focused.

Don’t wake up.

Another kiss.

Another moan.

Another night wrapped in ghostly arms.

No more thinking. No more sorrow. No more tears.

Nothing but the dream. Nothing but the memories. Nothing but Johanna swallowing him up body and soul and taking him on a wicked midnight ride.

The incessant rain tapping at the window like an unwelcome voyeur roused Merrick. It was dawn, another dreary, rainy day in April. He tossed back the white satin sheet, soiled now from making love to his ghostly wife. He dropped his feet to the floor and rubbed the gray stubble along his rugged jaw.

The fire had died sometime in the middle of the night, but not the memories. He realized now that he should have hired someone to box up Johanna’s things. Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her jewelry box on the vanity. The quilt she’d made for their bed was still folded over the rocker—all of it wrapped in cobwebs, surrounded by yellowed curtains, peeling wallpaper and wood floors stained from a leaky roof.

The tattered remains of heaven on earth.

He should have sold the house years ago, before it became an eyesore. He’d planned to, but he had always come up with some lame-ass excuse.

He shoved himself up from the bed and walked naked into the bathroom with a powerful grace that, at age fifty-two, still garnered him a second look from a beautiful woman. By society’s standards Adolf Merrick was one of the lucky ones. Like a renowned bottle of port years in the making, he seemed to get better with age.

The only evidence that he was past his prime was his silver hair—a phenomenon that had happened virtually overnight following Johanna’s death.

He turned on the shower and stepped inside. He kept the water cold—a strategic maneuver to quash the residual effects of making love to Johanna’s ghost. Five minutes later, back on track, with a towel wrapped low around his hips, he headed for the kitchen.

The windows faced Johanna’s rose garden in the backyard, and when she hadn’t been sharing his bed at night, or cooking something fabulous for dinner, he would find her in the garden with her roses. He’d left the windows open last night, and he could smell the heavy sweet fragrance—the scent as caustic as the memories.

His cell phone rang while he was cooking the hell out of a cup of instant coffee in the microwave—after all this time he still couldn’t brew a decent pot of coffee. He backtracked to the bedroom and picked up his phone from the nightstand, checked the number and saw it was Sly McEwen.

“What’s up?”

“I’ve got bad news.”

Merrick heard the distress in Sly’s voice. “Let’s hear it.”

“Peter Briggs is dead and so is the operative we had staked out in front of his apartment. That’s all I know. No details. The Agency called me after they couldn’t reach you.”

“I must have been in the shower.”

“I’m on my way to Briggs’s apartment now. My guess is Krizova sent Holic Reznik to clean up a loose end. Maybe we should have locked Briggs up.”

Merrick hadn’t wanted to do that. As of yet they hadn’t been able to prove that Briggs was guilty of treason. They needed concrete evidence, and that had been damn hard to come by.

“When should I expect you?” Sly asked.

“One hour. I’m at my country house.”

“I thought you sold that old monster years ago.”

Merrick set his jaw, sidestepped the issue, as well as his personal obsession with the old monster, saying, “Damn good thing I didn’t or I’d be homeless, thanks to Krizova blowing up my apartment. I don’t want Briggs’s body touched until I get there. One hour.”

The country house was north of D.C. As Merrick drove through the rain, he called Jacy Madox and got him out of bed in Montana. Since he’d slipped the flu virus into Briggs’s wine a week ago, Jacy had been going through the data on Peter’s computer while he was housebound. Although Jacy’s field agent days were over, he continued to work for Onyxx from his mountain home miles from nowhere. A cybergenius, he was considered one of the best hackers in the intelligence world.

“Sorry about Briggs,” Jacy said. “The news is I didn’t find anything on his computer. If he was Krizova’s mole, he left no evidence behind.”

“All right. I’ll be in touch.”

Merrick hung up, his mood sinking past sour. It was starting to look like finding Cyrus’s latest hideout was going to take an act of God. Not that he wasn’t thankful for the surprise resurrection of Sully Paxton two months ago. After believing his agent was dead, Merrick had learned that Sully had given new meaning to the word survival. It had been the salt the Agency needed to step up their commitment to ending Cyrus’s fanaticism with Onyxx, as well as his global terrorism.