Volcano Read Online Free Page A

balloon back into the tender depression
beneath Joe’s jaw. “Negotiable.”
    After a lingering moment, Al Fahd pulled back the balloon.
      Joe met the
Arab’s cold black stare. “Just let me know,” Joe said, gingerly pushing aside
the balloon, “when you’re ready to really let me join the party.”
    Joe stepped past Al Fahd with an easy grace that denied his
terror and walked straight for the door, praying there’d be no explosion at his
back.
    “Oh, Mr. Smith...” Al Fahd stopped him when he was halfway
to the exit.
    Joe halted in his tracks without turning.
    “Meet me in my quarters at twenty-one hundred. I am planning one hell of a party. And, if you’re half the player you pretend to be,
maybe you can help with the preparations.”

 
    ***

 
    “Hi, hon,” Mark said, walking over to the stove where Ana
stood. “How’d it go today?”
    “Fine,” she said, focusing her attention on her work as she
fanned in another handful of pasta. “Isabel was good as gold.”   It was true, at least according to what
Isabel’s regular sitter Maria had told her. By the time Ana had finally
returned from Washington at five, the baby had awakened all cheery and rosy
from a three-hour nap.
    “Really?” Mark smiled as only a proud father can. He turned
toward the cooing sounds at the far end of the galley kitchen and went to scoop
his daughter out of the port-a-crib. “How’s my best girl?” he asked, nuzzling
his patrician nose into the fat folds of the baby’s neck. Isabel squealed with
delight and clamped down onto her father’s salt and pepper head with fierce
fists.
    “Ow! Hey, Ana!” he called toward the stove. “Rescue me!”
    “Rescue yourself,” she said turning from the range and
reaching into the cabinet for dishes. That was just like him. Playing the
helpless male, when all he really wanted to do was be in charge.
    Mark disengaged from the baby and set her back in the crib
with a kiss on the head. “Hey,” he said, drawing up stealthily behind his wife
and bringing both arms around her middle. “What’s going on?”
    If only she could tell him. But Ana knew precisely what Mark
would say, that she was getting in way in over her head. That he was the
expert, the one with the background and experience to tackle these things. She,
after all, had only worked for the DOS just over a year and a half before baby
Isa had come long- and even then she’d only done junior analytical work.
    Ana shivered involuntarily as the warmth
of his lips met the nape of her neck. “If you’ve had a bad day,” he
whispered into her ear, “maybe I could think of a way to make it better...”
    “The baby!” she said, swatting the side of his head with the
hand that didn’t hold the dishes.
    “Maybe the baby,” he said, lightly nibbling her ear, “needs
a brother.”
    Ana sighed and put the plates down on the counter, then
turned to face him. If sex were the answer, Ana wouldn’t still have so many
questions. “Maybe-”
    “Ana,” he said, stopping her with a feathery finger to the
bandage on her chin. “What happened?”
    As if she could tell him. As if Ana could tell him about any
of the strange things that had been happening around here lately without having
the accusations somehow turned back on her. “Cut myself shaving,” she answered
wryly as the heat of his body closed in, pinning her against the counter.
    He brought his palms to either side of her face and looked
deep in her eyes, his cappuccino gaze stirring something Ana felt she
remembered, but couldn’t quite place, from so long ago. “Seriously, Ana. What
did you do to your face? You look like you’ve been worked over by-”
    “Took a little tumble, okay?”
    “Sweetheart, where?”   He shot a panicked look at Isa. “Was the baby-”
    “Isa was in the house with Maria!   Let’s not go making a federal case out
of-”
    Mark dipped his head and stopped her stream of words with a
kiss. Ana felt something pulling inside, an old