Free Crazy Wild by Tara Janzen

jihadists from all over the Middle East who wanted what she had.
    “Which government?” she asked.
    He glanced up again and met her gaze. The faint light of an exit sign above them cast just enough illumination to turn his eyes a fathomless shade of gray. “The United States government. Land of the free. Home of the brave. I get paid to track down people trying to sell dirty bombs on the black market.”
    There wasn't an ounce of condemnation in his voice—just the facts, cool and damning all on their own. Still, she felt a sick little knot of tension tighten up in her stomach. Another shiver racked her body, and she wondered if she was ever going to feel warm again. The temperature in the old library was damn near balmy compared to outside, but she was still freezing.
    “I'm not selling anything.” It was the god's truth.
    “Is that why Reinhard Klein is trying to kill you? Because you won't sell him the bomb?” he asked. “Or did you jack the price up on him, thinking to cut yourself a bigger commission than Sergei had built in for you?”
    The knot in her stomach grew even tighter. He'd called her Ms. Starkova, and he knew who Reinhard was, knew about Sergei and the warhead.
    He knew a helluva lot—but his version was a twisted version of the truth.
    “I don't know anybody named Sergei, and nobody's trying to kill me.” They wanted her alive.
    “Tell yourself what you want, Cody, but when somebody shoots at me, I pretty much figure that means they want me dead.”
    Cody.
He'd used her name again, this time making it sound like he knew her, like they were friends and she should just spill her guts to him.
    Not likely. She didn't care how American he looked, or how American he sounded, or who he said he worked for—she had to get away from him. Cordelia Kaplan, Dominika Starkova, or Creed Rivera—it was easy for a person to say they were anyone, to be anybody. All she really knew about him was that he was dangerous. If he'd wanted to, she didn't doubt for a second that he could have killed Edmund Braun with his bare hands.
    “Are you with the CIA?” She had to ask. Him being with the CIA would certainly explain how he knew what he did. She'd told Keith O'Connell everything—and he'd died for it.
    So she'd decided not to tell anybody anything, ever again, to just disappear, to make
Tajikistan Discontent
disappear. But disappearing was proving impossible. Bruno the Bull, Reinhard Klein, and a complete stranger named Cesar Raoul Eduardo Rivera had all found her in Denver.
    “The question, Cody, is who are you with?” He held her gaze intently, and the knot in her stomach started to twist and turn. He had to be CIA.
    “I'm not with anybody.” And that was her problem. She was completely alone and in way over her head.
    “Reinhard Klein, Bruno Walmann, and Ernst and Edmund Braun came a helluva long way to find you. Why, if it wasn't to close the deal on the Soviet nuclear warhead you're selling?”
    To take her back to Sergei, so he could torture her.
    “I'm not selling anything.”
    He didn't seem the least bit concerned by her lack of an answer, which didn't fool her for a second. This was an interrogation. He was calm and steady, because this kind of business, this prying out of information, was best done calmly, steadily. He was still wild. He was just biding his time, and she didn't have a doubt in the world that he was damn sure he was going to get everything he wanted before he was finished with her.
    Even worse, she had a terrible feeling he might be right.
    He pulled a photograph out of his pocket and showed it to her.
    “Is this you?”
    The terrible feeling she had intensified. It was an old school photograph. Her mother had one, a larger copy in a frame on her mantel, and she'd seen another in her father's house—one of the few signs that he and her mother had ever kept in touch, if only distantly.
    “Where did you get that?” He shouldn't have her school picture, no matter who he was. It