"Doranna Durgin - Heavy Metal Honey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

guiltily eased her touch on his back, the scar tissue knotted and inflexible under her
fingers. "And your knack for reading peopleтАжit's hard to explain."
"They didn't believe it, you mean." Even though they'd earlier avoided her for that
same reason. They wanted it both ways тАФ and they had the authority to demand it.
"Hmm," he said, by way of agreement. His muscles finally began to relax under
Kimmer's touch. After the decon, they'd hit the hotel hot tub, pretending they weren't
listening for the ring of the phone, the call back to action. Pretending they weren't
fuming at being left out of the interrogation of the man they'd apprehended.
"You'd think," Kimmer said, moving to massage his shoulders and unable to
resist the temptation to trail her fingers up his neck, "they'd do anything to keep our
bomb boys from building their dirty bomb. Even if the whole threat of those things
is so greatly exaggerated. Radiological Dispersion Device тАФ instant unnecessary
public panic."
"That's not fair," Rio said, and he meant her touch on his neck, and the way she'd
made the hair at his nape stand on end. Goose bumps. He turned his head just
enough to give her a meaningful eye, and then settled again. "The danger from RDDs
is real enough. It's just not the danger everyone thinks of."
Not the instant deaths, he meant. Not the radiation poisoning, not the potential
cancers. Only those in the direct blast zone were at risk to inhale particles, or to
swallow them тАФ and there were preventative treatments for such people.
 No, the real effects would come later. The economic costs of large scale,
long-term evacuations. The cleanup and demolition costs тАФ Hurricane Katrina all
over again, with radiation on the side.
Kimmer scowled at the back of Rio's head тАФ and then, to make up for it, bent
over to delicately lick behind his ear. He made a growling noise and shifted beneath
her. But she hadn't distracted him from the matter at hand, not completely. "We
should go after her," he said.
Kimmer stilled. "Our nameless mule, you mean." The woman who'd been duped
into smuggling in what she'd thought to be drugs тАФ and who didn't have much
longer to live after carrying the powdered fuel rod pellets over the border. "She
doesn't know anything, Rio. She didn't even know what she had in her hands тАФ and
she sure doesn't have it, anymore."
"We don't know what she knows," Rio said, his voice muffled by the bedsheets.
"At the least she's got names and faces, and we should check her out. Not to
mention that it's the right thing to do." Yup, that was Rio. Conditioned by his family
to consider the individual just as important as the big picture тАФ or more so. And
completely aware that Kimmer not only looked at the big picture, but had less reason
to forgive people those things that got them into trouble with the law.
But she kept her response low-key. "Our friendly alphabet soup collection told us
to stand down until they extract some sort of direction from their new prisoner." The
border patrol, Homeland Security, the FBIтАжthey were all in on it.
Rio snorted softly. "Since when do you pay attention to what the Powers That Be
tell you?"
Kimmer poked his shoulder, but kept it gentle. "Since it'll get Owen in a big
whopping load of trouble if I don't."
He was silent a moment, which she didn't much like. Rio was all easy-going, all
natural ease. Didn't fret, just got things done.
The tension beneath her felt an awful lot like fretting. Or possibly like a man who
was about to draw a line.
When he took a deep breath, she felt sure of it. "I'm not sure this works for me,"