Page 86 of Between Love and Honor

Nausea rose up the back of Ben’s throat. This man had tried to kill the woman he loved and he dared to pretend remorse. He hoped Griffin had enough to put him away forever.

“She was innocent,” Ben protested. “And she didn’t deserve to die.”

Ronoff scoffed at the word innocent. “You loved her. And now she’s gone.”

Ben dug his fingers into the leather armrest in his seat, but he didn’t bother answering. The gondola had reached twelve o’clock. The Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol Dome were all lit up majestically against the inky-black sky. But Ben saw none of this.

Ronoff laughed. “You think your feelings were not obvious the other night at the White House? Or that a man like me cannot know what desire looks like on another man’s face. Trust me, Agent Segar, you wore your desire for Quinn Darby very plainly.”

“Trusting you is not something I plan to do. Not after tonight.”

The Russian swiped at his eyes. “She had nine lives, that one. But only one of them was meant to be spent with you.” He was suddenly overcome with a coughing fit.

“She was the last name on your damn list.”

Ben had shocked him. Ronoff was suddenly flushed.

“You have seen the list.” He coughed the words out.

“She said no one else would know that name was on it. It is the Phoenix’s list.”

The conversation was suddenly difficult to follow.

“Who is ‘she’?”

Ronoff was overcome with another coughing fit. His eyes were bloodshot and his nose still ran.

“Is this guy high?” Griff asked.

Ben didn’t know or care. There was something he was missing here. His neck tingled and his pulse raced.

“What she are you talking about, Ronoff?” he demanded.

The wheel passed by the dock and began its assent up to the sky again.

Ronoff began to wheeze. “She knows . . . you are the Mariner,” he managed to get out. “She will . . . use it . . . against you!”

Suddenly, the Russian was clutching at his chest.

“What the hell is going on in there, Bennett?” Adam barked into his earwig.

“Hell if I know.”

He was just reaching over to help the other man when Ronoff began to convulse violently.

“Don’t touch him!” Griffin screamed in his ear. “It might be on his clothes!”

Ben didn’t have to wonder what “it” might be. He had seen enough nerve gas attacks during his days in Special Forces to know the seriousness—and the fatality—of them.

“Get this thing down!” he yelled, feeling a bit like he was trapped in a giant petri dish.

By the time they’d reached the dock, Ronoff was vomiting up blood. Ben perched himself on the back of his chair to avoid any contact. The Russian’s bodyguards tried to rush the gondola but Adam’s team was already in place.

“Get our man out of there,” the secretary commanded.

“And get a hazmat team in here immediately.”

Ben didn’t have to be asked twice. He leaped from the glass deathtrap and scoured the dock.

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