Page 9 of Trapped With the Secret Agent

They were after much more than he first thought, but how much more and how fast was in question. Thousands, perhaps millions of lives were at stake, as well as access to a great deal of Middle Eastern oil. He had to find out. That information was now worth more than both their lives.

She planted her feet and pulled him to a stop. “Peter, I can’t go back in there. I really can’t.”

“Georgia, we’ve got no choice. We have to be in that room when they come back.”

She stared at him, frozen in place for a long second.

“Why?” she asked, her voice a fearful quiver. “What is that thing?”

He steeled himself with a deep breath. No one was around, might as well get the screaming over with.

“A nuclear warhead.”

Georgia stared at him, eyes gone wide and face drained of color.

“Oh my God.” Her voice trembled and she covered her mouth with one hand.

Peter grabbed that hand and using the grip he had on both her hands, backed into the storage room they’d just exited from. “God’s got nothing to do with it.”

She darted a glance over her shoulder at the shrouded crate before he shut the door. “Why would anyone do this? It’ll destroy everything for miles and miles andmiles.”

“Yeah. Hundreds of thousands of people will die, including a few Americans.” And,damn it, he wasn’t ready to die.

“But...they’d be killing their own people. It makes no sense.”

“Terrorism never does.”

He pushed her up to the hole in the wall and tried to boost her up, but she balked at going inside.

“Wait a second. Why are we going back? Shouldn’t we try to escape and warn someone?” Her voice rose, telling him panic wasn’t far behind.

His own pulse was a rapid engine revving in his ears, but no one else was going to show up and miraculously save the day. “Like who? The only man who might believe us is upstairs with a gun pointed at his head. The local authorities are more likely to throw us in jail than listen to anything we have to say, and even if they did, they’d accuse us of lying just to get the American military in here.”

“Well, we can’t just stand around waiting for the bomb to go off. We have to do something.”

“We are doing something.”

“What?”

“We’re getting back into that storage room.”

He spun her around, grabbed her by the waist, and shoved her into the duct. He got in behind, pushing her ahead of him.

“Peter!”

“I’ll explain everything when we’re back inside, I promise, but we have to get there first.”

“Fine. But if I go crazy it’ll be your fault.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Story of his life.

She got around the corner, turning herself so she could enter the room feet first. He followed, dropping to the floor of the too-small space and found himself sandwiched between Georgia and a wall of boxes. She shook like a leaf in a stiff wind.

“Start talking,” Georgia ordered, her voice quivering. “How could these people get their hands on a nuclear warhead in the first place, and why would they detonate it here?”

“How they got it is easy.” Peter shifted to one side, trying to find a comfortable stance, but moving only put him into solid contact with Georgia’s soft curves. His hand landed on her hip and skimmed over the indent of her waist.

He swore silently. Now was not the time to be exploring her bombshell body. He had to keep his mind on the job, or they were both dead.

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