Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

Revenge? Political power? Pete could be after any or all of them. He’s neither timid nor stupid.”
    Honor glanced quickly at Jake. In the pale light washing between clouds, there wasn’t anything inviting about his expression. He looked as remote as midnight. Uneasiness flickered through her. This was the Jake she didn’t know, the one who could hold a gun with the safety off and every intention of pulling the trigger if he had to.
    “Who do you think stole the amber?” she asked.
    “Kyle signed for the shipment and drove it out of Kaliningrad. I traced him as far as Russia before Donovan International started slamming doors in my face.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Just what I said. Donovan International has more pull than I do. They didn’t want me asking questions.”
    “That’s ridiculous. We want to find Kyle as much as you do. More. We love him.”
    “Yeah. That’s why your family doesn’t want me to find him.”
    “Look,” Honor said through clenched teeth, “Archer told me that the evidence against Kyle was just a bit too pat to believe. As if he had been set up.”
    “Maybe he wasn’t very clever about what he was doing.”
    “Why can’t you believe that he might be innocent?”
    “Because that would make me guilty. No thanks, buttercup. I’m not hanging for your brother’s sins.”
    “Couldn’t someone else have stolen the damned panel and hidden it in with the legitimate stuff? Why does it have to be you or Kyle?”
    Jake muttered something under his breath. He looked in the mirrors for the tenth time in two minutes. Still no one following them. He flicked on the safety and put his gun in the glove compartment.
    “Your brother was in lust with a Lithuanian freedom fighter—or terrorist, depending on your politics.”
    “Lust? Love is a four-letter word, just like the others you use. You can say it. Your tongue won’t rot.”
    “Crap.”
    “That’s another four-letter word,” she agreed coolly. “Unlike some men, Kyle is capable of love as well as lust.”
    “Is that another shot at me?”
    “It’s a fact. Take it and tuck it.”
    “Consider it tucked. Now here are a few facts for you. You aren’t going to like them any more than I liked being set up to take Kyle’s fall.”
    Honor’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
    “I own a company called Emerging Resources,” Jake said. “The major part of my business is advising First World corporations on how to work with the Russian Federation, which is teetering between Second World status and the toilet.”
    She threw him a quick look. He was watching the mirror on the passenger side.
    “With intelligence and sweat and luck,” he said, “Russia can be kept from sliding into fiscal and social chaos—and dragging a big chunk of the world down with it. Hard currency is one key to any country’s survival. In Kaliningrad and Lithuania, I ended up as an unofficial adviser on how the government could get the most hard currency out of their amber. Do you understand the difference between hard and soft currency?”
    “A hard currency can be traded for any currency in the world,” Honor said tightly. “A soft currency can’t. Outside the country that issued it, soft currency can be less valuable than good toilet paper.”
    “You’re a Donovan,” he said, smiling thinly. “You understand international business. Without hard currency to buy goods on the world market, not much is possible for Russian Federation countries but charity, poverty, stagnation, and ultimately revolution. Sensible people know it and design national policies accordingly.”
    “So where does theft and the Amber Room come in?”
    “Not under sweet reason, that’s for sure.”
    As Honor turned onto Marine Drive, clouds swiftly ate the light, leaving behind a deeper gloom.
    “The Amber Room comes under greed, revenge, and politics,” Jake said. “For Russia it’s a symbol of Nazi greed, Russian blood, and the agony of World War Two, plus the greatness of a czarist Golden Age that Russians are afraid they’ll never know again. Communism gutted the economy and the people’s spirit worse than the czars ever did.”
    Honor remembered the intense conversations she had had with the Donovan when she first suggested that she and Faith do business outside of First World countries. He hadn’t been thrilled, despite the fact that the Donovan males were doing just that.
    “Dad says pretty much the same thing,” she said. “It’s the one