Smoked

by Slade, Heather

  “Please,” he whispered.

  “I love you, Smoke. I can’t deny it. I don’t want to deny it.”

  He rested his head on his hand. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? Took that long for either of us to be able to say it.”

  “What’s going to happen, Smoke?”

  “Between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a lot older than you are, Siren.”

  “That’s the least of my concerns.”

  “It shouldn’t be. In ten years, you’ll still be younger than I am now. Think about that.”

  I shrugged. As virile as he was, he’d likely outlive me. “What about our jobs?” I had this house that I was never at, and according to Ms. Wynona, he was never at his ranch either. How could we ever be together if neither of us managed to be home?

  “We’d have to work hard to figure it out.”

  “I don’t want to give up my work, Smoke.”

  “And I don’t want you to.”

  “No one will guarantee we’ll always work together.”

  “Nor do I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  Smoke laughed. “Don’t get your hackles up. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “Then, what is it?”

  “I’m not sure how effective I’d be.”

  “Because you’d be too worried about protecting me?”

  “Hey, you got those bandages changed yet?” said Decker, pounding on the bedroom door.

  “Give us another few minutes,” I hollered back.

  “Jesus Christ, we’ve got a damn…” muttered Decker, his voice trailing off.

  I shifted out from under Smoke, stood, and picked up the medical supplies the hospital gave us when he was discharged.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” he asked.

  “I can assure you, I’ve seen far worse.”

  “That’s what I thought when the nurse in England warned me about how you’d look after your surgery.”

  “And?”

  “It nearly broke my heart to see you lying in that bed with bandages on your head and monitors hooked up everywhere. The worst part was that they had you restrained. As soon as she left the room, I untied you.”

  “See, Smoke, you loved me then.”

  He nodded and then grimaced when I removed the bandages from his back.

  31

  Smoke

  The obvious answer to what was in the safe was it contained evidence that would prove Byrne, and perhaps the other two men who worked for Interpol, was connected to the murder of agents around the globe. Either that or evidence of some other crime he’d committed. Why else would he or someone who worked for him kill Jimmy Mallory?

  Siren still hadn’t told me what she learned about her father or of the strange coincidence that he was friends with Jimmy’s dad.

  As hard as I tried not to move, when the cold analgesic on the replacement bandages hit my back, I flinched.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Siren, what about your father?”

  She sat down on the bed, beside me. “Turns out I followed in his footsteps.”

  I couldn’t hide the fact her news stunned me. “He’s with IMI?”

  “Was.”

  “What happened?”

  “He lost his life while on an op searching for Veronica Guerin’s killer.”

  “You were a baby.”

  “Not yet born is my understanding.”

  “That’s why your mother didn’t list him on your birth certificate.”

  “She feared some kind of retaliation.”

  “Do you remember her ever talking about him?”

  “Never. They weren’t married, although Uncle Gene said they intended to be.” Siren startled when there was another knock on the door. I stood and opened it.

  “I think I know where the safe is,” said Deck. “We’re moving out.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Decker looked from Siren to me.

  “If you think I’m going to try to talk her out of it, you’re wrong.”

  “We don’t have time to move Gene to a safe house,” he said.

  I watched the struggle play out on Siren’s face. “I’m not decrepit yet,” I said, nudging her. “Go if that’s what you want to do.”

  “I do.”

  Her trust in me mirrored my trust in her. I don’t know if she saw it that way, but I did.

  I followed them downstairs and walked Siren to the door. “See you on the other side.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me.

  “The two of you remind me of her parents,” said Gene once the door was closed.

  “Yeah? Siobhan told me that you were able to tell her about her father.”

  “Aye. They burned hot as coal, those two.”

  I laughed. “Good way to put it.”

  “Their love was clear as could be to everyone else, just like yours and Siobhan’s.”

  I don’t know what compelled me to confide in Gene, but I did. “I do love her.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “She does. I know she loves me. The question is, can it be enough? In our line of work, well, you know what happened to her father.”

  “Some said at the time that he was killed by the wrong side.”

  I raised my head. “Friendly fire?”

  “Is that what they call it, then?” Gene shook his head. “Friendly, even though it killed the man.”

  I’d heard about too much of it as of late between Beau Rey and the agents killed around the world, murdered by the very men who’d put them in harm’s way in the first place. My assumption was there’d been accidental deaths caused by those fighting on the same side since the beginning of time.

  However, my gut told me that Beau’s death was no accident, friendly fire or otherwise. The same was true for every agent who may have died by an order given by Daniel Byrne, Boris Antonov, or Kim Ha-joon.

  * * *

  Siren, Casper, Decker, and Hughes hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when Gene dozed off in his chair. I went to look around Siren’s house. Yeah, I was snooping, but she loved me, so maybe she’d consider it as me just trying to learn more about her.

  I wasn’t necessarily a messy guy; I wasn’t home enough to make a big mess. But, Siren? She was a goddamn neat freak. Every drawer I opened in her kitchen was perfectly organized. She didn’t even have a junk drawer that I could find. Who didn’t have a fucking junk drawer?

  I went upstairs to the master bedroom and found the same thing. Nothing out of place in her closet or bathroom drawers and cabinets. Even the clothes in her dresser were perfectly folded. It was beginning to freak me out. The woman had to have a room in her house that wasn’t straight out of a Better Homes and Gardens’ photoshoot.

  I traipsed from room to room on a mission to find even one thing out of place. When I got to the back of the house, I found another staircase. I climbed the steps and came to a single door at the top. I opened it, thinking maybe Siren kept boxes of crap up here. Instead, the attic room was empty.

  “Maybe she has OCD,” I muttered to myself, walking back down. I checked the time as I walked past the master bedroom. I had two hours before I was supposed to take another pain pill, not that I was feeling much pain. The only thing I felt was bored.

  How many more years would it be before I was like Gene? Falling asleep in an easy chair in the middle of the afternoon?

  I remembered seeing a workout room on the second level and thought briefly about trying to get some exercise. I decided against it, knowing that if I didn’t let my back heal, it would only add to the number of days I felt antsy enough to want to pull my hair out.

  I checked the time again. It had only been twenty minutes since Siren and the others left. This didn’t bode well for the future. Would I feel this way every time she was on a mission and I wasn’t?

  I walked down the main stairs and noticed Gene was no longer sitting in the chair. Ma
ybe he was in the bathroom. That was another thing. Didn’t men have to take a piss more often the older we got?

  I decided to make some lunch and was about to round the corner to the kitchen when I felt the muzzle of a gun press against my back.

  In front of me sat Gene O’Brien, bound and gagged, with a gun pressed into his temple.

  “Smoke,” said Daniel Byrne. “How nice it is to see you again. Unfortunate circumstances, as they say.”

  “What the fuck, Byrne?” I motioned toward Gene, whose face was bright red; sweat ran down his forehead.

  Whoever held the gun behind me, jammed the barrel harder into my back. The pain of it pressing against my burn was so intense, I almost passed out.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’d let ol’ Gene here tell you, but since I’ve gagged him, he can’t. He knows why I’m here, though. Don’t ya, Gene?” The old man shook his head.

  32

  Siren

  By the time we reached the location where Decker believed Byrne was with the safe, he was gone.

  “We just missed him,” he muttered into the headset to inform Casper and Hughes, who’d followed in Hughes’ SUV. He pulled out his phone and punched the screen. “Goddamn motherfucker,” he spat. “He’s on his way to your place. Move out.”

  I threw my car in reverse and sped away from the back of the barracks.

  Whatever Byrne thought was in the safe, must not have been. Since he’d been tracking me, he either thought I had it or Gene did.

  “You were able to track him.”

  “Hughes took care of it.”

  If anything would prove his loyalty wasn’t with Byrne, that should’ve been it.

  “How many have you got that you can trust for backup?” Decker asked Hughes through the headset.

  “I’ve got four heading over now.”

  “That you trust?”

  “Affirmative. I don’t need to tell you there is a group inside IMI who believes Byrne is dirty.”

  My eyes opened wide. Why had I never heard this? Was it because those same people believed I’d be loyal to the man? Given he’d recruited me, I supposed that was a logical assumption. I’d also officially been “on loan” to MI6 for the last few months, even though the mission I’d been on was for the Invincibles. But regardless, I’d been out of touch with IMI.

  “Pull over,” said Deck. “I’ll go in with Hughes and Casper. If Byrne is there, Smoke hasn’t managed to neutralize him, or he would’ve been in contact. I want Byrne to think you’re arriving on your own.”

  “Roger that.” I pulled off into a parking lot.

  “Hughes?” said Deck.

  “Copy,” I heard Casper respond at the same time Hughes pulled in behind me.

  “What is it with IMI not giving proper response?” he asked, hitting the kill switch on his mic before he spoke.

  “Hey, now.”

  “You’re definitely the exception, Siren,” he muttered before turning his mic back on. “Remove your headset.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to,” he answered without looking up at me. “Here.” Decker handed me something flesh-colored and not much bigger than the head of a pin. “What is this?”

  “Put it on the tip of your finger and then insert it as far as you can into your auditory canal. Casper?”

  “Testing, test, test, test,” I could hear her say inside my ear.

  “Copy,” I responded.

  “Copy back,” said Casper.

  “You amaze me,” I mumbled.

  “Why, thank you,” said Casper, although I was sure she knew I was speaking to Deck.

  “By the way, no one outside of the Invincibles knows about this technology. Except you and now Hughes.”

  “Understood.”

  He showed me something on his phone. “Is this a back entrance to the complex?”

  “Yes.” I pointed where they could enter and park without being seen from my house.

  “Wait for my signal,” he said, climbing out. “Head out in five, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Roger that.”

  * * *

  “We’re in position,” said Deck.

  “Doppler indicates a count of six,” Casper reported.

  Smoke, Uncle Gene, Byrne, and the other three had to be muscle.

  I was little, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take even the biggest guys. It was all about where, when, and how I struck. Casper outweighed me by at least a stone and a half.

  With the four agents Hughes had delivered from IMI, we had Byrne far outnumbered. It was just a matter of striking in such a way that the hostages—which we had to assume Smoke and Uncle Gene were—remained unharmed.

  “Move out. We’ve got your six,” said Decker.

  “Roger that.”

  When I pulled up in front of my place, the first thing I noticed was one of the doors on Gene’s car was partially ajar. Second, there were no other vehicles in sight.

  When I walked inside the house, the first face I saw was Smoke’s. He made brief eye contact, then his eyes went left.

  “One, one, one, five,” I whispered as quietly as I could without moving my lips.

  “Siren,” said Byrne, who stepped out from where Smoke had indicated at the same time another man approached from my right, frisked me, and took my weapons. “So glad you could join us.”

  “What are you doing here, and what in the hell is this?” I motioned with my hand toward Smoke and Gene, both of whom were gagged and bound to chairs.

  Byrne smiled. “Don’t play coy with me. You know very well that there’s something I need your help with.”

  “There are far easier ways to ask. No need to hold my friends at gunpoint.”

  “So amusing,” he said, motioning to a terrified-looking Gene. “Don’t you find her amusing?” Byrne said to Smoke, whose only response was a growling sound that emanated from his throat. It got louder when Byrne put his arm around my shoulders.

  “Have you ever wondered why I recruited you, Siren?”

  I shook my head. “Never. Perfectly obvious to me. I was the best in my class.”

  Byrne laughed out loud. “Far from it. No, girl, it wasn’t that you were the best or even in the top ninety percent of your class.”

  “Now you’re just being unnecessarily mean.”

  He shook his head. “It was more that I had to keep my eye on you. I knew one day your curiosity would get the better of you, and then you’d lead me exactly where you have.”

  I saw the safe I’d seen in the back of the antique shop sitting on my dining room table. “Are you under the assumption I have the combination to that thing?”

  His fingers dug into the back of my neck, and he brought his face close enough to mine that I could smell whiskey on his breath. “I’ve grown weary of your feeble attempts at humor. You know goddamn well what was in that safe, and it wasn’t diamonds and emeralds. Now, tell me what you’ve done with it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He moved his hand to the front of my throat and slowly tightened his grip. “Willing to die? And for what? Ancient history that no one gives a shit about?” He released my neck and shoved me. “Stupid girl. So much like your father.” Byrne walked over, put his gun to Gene’s head, and cocked it. “Not so brave with someone else’s life. You have until the count of five to tell me where you hid it.”

  I crossed my arms in front of me. “You can count to three and kill him, and it won’t change the fact I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never saw inside the safe, and I certainly never took anything from it.”

  Byrne moved the gun from Gene’s head and pointed it at me. “If that is the case, you are worthless to me.”

  From behind him, Gene began to thrash about in his chair, trying to scream through his gag. It sounded as though he was trying to say, “I know.”

  “Untie him,” I demanded.

  Byrne backhanded me, and I fell again
st the wall of muscle standing at my back. “You don’t make the rules.”

  Gene continued to thrash about to the extent that I feared the chair would topple over.

  “For feck’s sake,” muttered Byrne. “Untie the gag.” He motioned with his gun at me; the muscle shoved me at Gene.

  “I know!” he screamed when I untied his gag. “I know where it is!”

  “You better not be playing me, old man. If you are, I’ll make your last day on earth a living hell of pain.”

  Gene frantically shook his head and looked at me.

  “Your m-m-mother,” he stammered. “The b-b-box.”

  “The box?”

  Four things happened simultaneously. First, I realized which box Gene was talking about. Second, Byrne knew that I had. Third, when my eyes sought Smoke’s, I noticed he’d worked himself free and was waiting for the right time to strike. And finally, I saw that Byrne’s sloppiness in having his three goons on the inside rather than on the perimeter, meant Decker and the rest of our team had been able to get inside unnoticed.

  While all eyes in the room remained focused on Gene and me, I saw Hughes creeping toward us in the hallway, along with Casper and Deck standing at the ready from two of the other rooms’ doorways. I had no doubt the others were standing ready to burst through the front door the second I gave the signal.

  My eyes met Smoke’s one more time. He blinked thrice in rapid succession; I counted three seconds in my head and screamed, “Now!”

  I dove, knocking Gene’s chair to the ground and covering his body with mine like Smoke had done to me before the ceiling crashed down on us.

  I closed my eyes tight as bullets flew all around us, and prayed.

  33

  Smoke

  Within seconds, Byrne was dead, and so were the three men with him. I walked over and put my hand on Siren’s back and knelt down beside her. “It’s over,” I said, easing her body from Gene’s.