License to Kill

by R. J. Blain

  I huffed, as I had a half a mile to hike through the woods to get to the damned farmhouse and do my share of the work before ferrying over explosives.

  The exterior of the farmhouse needed work, which made my job easier. Other animals had already made nests under the deck, although my presence scared them off. As I couldn’t justify blowing a nest of young raccoons to bits, I picked up each little one by the scruff of the neck and moved it into the woods while the mother hissed at me.

  While we were of comparable size, my unnatural nature did a good job of convincing her to keep her distance.

  She took the hint, and as soon as I finished with my transfer, she herded her family away.

  The farmhouse would be easier to hide explosives around than I thought, as someone had installed lattice around the entire foundation, creating a gap large enough for me to move my payload around without anyone discovering my activities. All I needed to do was carry the armed bundles to the porch, crawl underneath, drag them into place, and fill the space with everything we’d brought.

  I’d done some math while waiting for our chance to strike. We had enough to take out an entire skyscraper.

  The farmhouse and its asshole occupants didn’t stand a chance.

  At the truck, which we’d brought because the SUV had insufficient space for the ridiculous amount of ordinance we’d brought with us, Amelia handled preparing the payloads. She lined up small bundles rigged so I could carry them, large enough to be as efficient as possible while small enough for me to carry. I’d be an exhausted, quivering mess by the time I hauled everything to its proper spot, but I refused to complain.

  The bastards deserved their fate, and it was only a matter of time before they killed somebody else in their mission to gain control over military weapon systems.

  “While you were poking around, I flew a drone over, had a look in the windows, and went over the base footage. Unless somebody comes over unexpectedly, we’re good to blow this joint. You have an obscene amount of explosives to move, so get to it. I’m going to shift and help ferry things to the edge of the trees to limit how far you have to walk.”

  I bobbed my head, picked up the first of the bundles, and headed for the farmhouse. Once there, I waited and checked the windows, searching for any sign someone looked for a stray fox armed with a bomb.

  All seemed quiet, so I trotted to the gap beneath the deck and wiggled through the gap between the house and the lattice, setting the first on the far side. At Amelia’s suggestion, I set them within a foot of each other, which would get full coverage around the structure. The extras would go beneath the porch around the foundation, to make sure nothing of the building remained when we finished with it.

  No one went in or out of the house in the three hours it took us to set everything up, and once I returned to her truck, Amelia helped me shift back to human.

  “Interesting. Shifting doesn’t help you heal at all.”

  “And the injuries tend to carry over.” I’d healed enough since being shot I could function, but becoming a fox hadn’t done me any favors. If anything, transforming had set me back a week. Moving hurt, and I expected to keep hurting for a while longer before all that remained were scars. “What’s next?”

  “We blow the place up. Want to hit the button again?” Amelia put the truck into gear. “We’re going to put at least three miles between us and the payload first. When that goes, it’s going to go hard.”

  “Yes.” Securing revenge put me in the bad guy camp, but maybe I’d never get closure regarding my ma, I’d do some serious damage to the group who’d made a mess of my life.

  Without them, everything would have been different.

  Amelia gestured to her phone, which already had the app for the bomb open. “Same deal as last time. Just give me a few minutes to find a good place to park.”

  When she had the truck parked and she gave her go ahead, I pressed and held the screen until the button changed colors before tapping it to trigger the detonation.

  The bomb didn’t disappoint. It blew hard enough to rattle the windows in the vehicle, and I could feel the explosion in my bones. “What’s next?”

  “We settle back at camp and watch the wires for a while. This hit will send the FBI coming in swarms, as it’s the second such explosion at a similar location, and they’ll inevitably conclude there’s a connection, which is exactly what we want them to be doing. Then we wait to see what the remaining mercenaries in the area do.”

  “Cause trouble, I’m sure.” I could see the mercenaries trying to get payback, except the black market ops wanted us to disappear. Fortunately for us, the black market ops wanted us around later in case they needed someone else to plant an obscene number of explosives around a building to reduce it to some bits of ash and smoke. “Does this make us terrorists, Amelia?”

  “It makes us killers for hire, but we’re not really terrorists. We’re not terrorizing anyone. We’re doing our work in fairly remote locations, and we’re only taking out the guilty. These guys are the terrorists. We’re just helpful patriots doing our thing. Don’t worry so much. Even the Inquisition wants these guys eliminated, so even if they do send investigators, they’ll ignore any paw prints spotted.”

  “How do you know about the Inquisition’s activities?”

  “The black market, of course. There are Inquisitors in the market, and they’re monitoring stuff almost as thoroughly as I do. Some of the market ops even know about the Inquisition, and as they like their lives and their markets intact, they don’t peep a word about it.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “We relax for a week or two, keep an eye on the company’s activities, and if there are any issues, we deal with them. Even better, since we’re dealing with a black market job, we get paid if we have to deal with them—and we get paid to wait. It’ll take a week or two, but you’ll have a special bank account with your funds soon enough. There will be an offshore account for use as needed, and you’ll have one or two American accounts. If you become active enough, you’ll have a ridiculous number of accounts that are given smaller payments to prevent banking flags. Most of the larger lump sums go to offshore accounts, however. Then you can gradually funnel money over as you need or just eat ATM fees. I just usually draw cash and eat the fees.”

  “Do I want to know how much we’re being paid for this?”

  “We’re getting an equal cut, so you’ll find out soon enough. I recommend you don’t think about it for now. Let’s just say you won’t be worrying about money anytime soon.”

  Six

  Along the way, I’d lost the ability to seek out silver linings.

  Our plan fell apart two days after we’d put an explosive end to twenty-seven members of the mercenary group responsible for the shooting in London and the Greenwich case.

  The FBI wanted a piece of the pie, and they did a damned fine job finding the connections between their demise and my murder. Amelia’s ploy had worked better than I liked.

  According to the black market, I’d been registered as presumed dead or missing and at high risk. Not reporting to duty still remained a flag on my file, but the murder attempt—or successful murder—had been listed as the reason I hadn’t appeared for work when the FBI wanted me to.

  Along the way, I’d lost the ability to seek out silver linings.

  With my luck, if the FBI discovered I was alive, they would opt against considering the reasons I hadn’t turned up in time to go to work. They’d ignore I was a victim, something Amelia had successfully convinced me of, although I’d been half the reason I’d become a victim.

  She disagreed with me.

  I’d learned not to argue with her.

  Unfortunately for me, somebody had forgotten the rules about personal involvement in cases, resulting in the Thomas family, myself excluded, coming to Georgia and poking their noses into my business. Again. Unfortunately for them, they lacked our uncanny knack for getting the job done without anyone becoming aware of ou
r lethal presence.

  If Amelia and I had been the ones in charge, we would have blown the warehouse up rather than sneak around in it. I suspected Jake was the one to come up with the idiotic idea of exploring the not-quite abandoned warehouse.

  When we’d first partnered together, he’d wanted to explore an old factory because he had more curiosity problems than any damned cat. I’d gotten shot during that incident, too, although he’d prevented the bullet from blasting through my brain. I still had the scar on my leg from that stunt.

  Jake had problems with abandoned or interestingly empty buildings.

  “He’s an idiot,” I informed Amelia.

  “Your mate?”

  “That was the idiot I’m talking about, and please stop calling him that. I already told him we’re divorcing.”

  “You need therapy.”

  Yes, I did, but I wasn’t getting any anytime soon. In the meantime, I’d settle with the therapeutic execution of asshole terrorists. That they were currently terrorizing three FBI agents I was legally related to only added to the problems.

  Fortunately for the Thomas family, the black market ops wanted all three of them to leave the warehouse alive, and we were being paid a hefty sum to bust in, take names, kill asshole mercenary terrorist scum, and get them out. I was getting a bonus for putting myself at high risk of being arrested, and Amelia had secured a promise from the Inquisition that she would be integrated with a pack and allowed to continue her other activities as long as she followed a few rules.

  Just like me, she wanted a pack, and I resented how easy it was for her to get what I needed.

  She just had to show up.

  I’d lost that battle and that war.

  Once we dealt with my soon-to-be ex-husband’s family, I would finish moving on, something I hadn’t told Amelia of yet.

  She looked forward to what would come after we raided the warehouse.

  I didn’t.

  “Explain to me why I’m doing this again?” I whispered, checking over the assault rifle she’d shoved into my hands.

  At least if I had to open fire, the bullet-proof vests the mercenaries wore wouldn’t help them much; they’d need full body armor to handle the rounds I’d be unleashing on them. My shoulder wouldn’t like the abuse at all, but I’d worry about how much damage I did to myself after we got the Thomas family out of the trashed warehouse alive.

  With the ammunition the mercenary company was packing, I doubted even Fenerec could withstand the damage.

  It pissed me off I needed to bail Jake’s ass out after he’d done so much to fuck up my life, making me a miserable mess.

  “You’re madly in love with one of the FBI agents trapped inside the building, you’ve realized walking out was a bad decision brought on by severe depression, and you need him in your life despite your justifiable crankiness.”

  “And I even almost like my in-laws when they aren’t being assholes,” I grumbled. No, if they had been a little more willing to welcome me, I would have liked them a lot.

  Well, maybe a quarter of the problem was with me. Jake could accept some extra blame for being a jackass and coming home smelling like other women while listening to the bullshit his parents had filled his ears with. Or so said Amelia.

  A few weeks with Amelia had given me reason to believe she knew what she was talking about, but it changed nothing for me.

  I couldn’t see myself surviving in the world of the FBI and Fenerec, a lonely fox living apart from a pack of wolves.

  I accepted three quarters of the blame for them being in the warehouse, however. If it hadn’t been for me, they wouldn’t have been in Georgia in the first place, hunting for me or my killers, as the word on the wire involved my idiot ex-husband refusing to believe I was dead. I still wasn’t sure how they’d tracked the remnants of the mercenary group, but I’d give them a nice gift of bodies while bailing their asses out.

  “And all three of them are surrounded by at least fifteen tangoes, and the FBI outside of the building have no idea how to get them out alive. We are on the roof. They are not.”

  Getting on the roof had been a stunt of the highest level of stupidity, and I still couldn’t believe it had worked. Hitching a lift in a dumpster being left in the alley for the neighboring building had gotten us close, and we used it for shelter until nightfall.

  Climbing up the side of the building without anyone noticing our presence had rattled every last one of my nerves, as had hiding out on the rooftop, watching one of the tangoes patrol while we waited right under his nose.

  A pile of junk they had left on the roof provided cover while we bided our time for a chance to get inside. I still wasn’t sure how Amelia had taken the guy down so quietly, but she’d snapped his neck and left him in the pile with no one aware of our presence.

  I sighed and checked my weapons again. The Beretta holstered against my right leg would be my all-else-failed weapon while the Ruger holstered against my left would be my backup when I ran the assault rifle out of ammo. The number of magazines I had strapped to me weighed me down so much I wondered how the woman expected me to keep up with her, especially when my leg still had a lot of healing to do.

  Jake wasn’t going to be happy when he saw the evidence of my ma’s attempt to rid the Earth of me. Then again, I wouldn’t care. Maybe we had fallen apart, but I’d been his partner for too long to want to see him die, so I’d bail his ass out before making it clear there wouldn’t be any kissing or making up.

  I needed what he wouldn’t give me.

  The reality of my situation crashed onto my shoulders with its relentless weight.

  I gave a shake of my head, redid my weapons check, and forced my attention where it belonged: infiltrating the building. “We’re going to get killed, you know that, right?”

  “If we clear the building, there’s a good chance we’ll make it out alive. We just need to be prepared for a firefight.”

  “Without body armor.”

  Amelia snickered and gestured at my outfit—what there was of it. Of the choices I had, the sports bra and spandex shorts offered me the most mobility, a choice Amelia had mimicked. “Without clothes.”

  “You had enough firepower to start a siege but not a single bullet-proof vest. You realize that’s insane, right?”

  “Well, I am a Fenerec, and I’m old enough I don’t need a vest. And we put this together in a hurry. The ops were out of vests.”

  “Well, I’m not invincible.” I had no idea what I was, but a Fenerec wasn’t it; Fenerec came in one form: wolves.

  Foxes, while similar in some regards to wolves, weren’t wolves. I grimaced at yet another reminder of the argument between me, Jake, and his family. At the end of the day, I had lost; I wasn’t actually a part of their pack, and never would be.

  I wasn’t one of them.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Sore subject.”

  “It’s not your fault I’m not a wolf.”

  “It’s not your fault you’re a fox, either. Maybe you’re not a Fenerec, but you’re something—something that’s keeping you on your feet when Normals would be in the hospital having transfusions. And anyway, when you rescue your mate and his parents, you’ll prove a fox is just as valuable as a wolf.”

  “Chances are, he’s still pissed at me and won’t even care. I did walk out on him, after all.”

  Amelia snorted. “Don’t count on that. You had a fight because he couldn’t convince his parents to let you into the pack and he got too close to other women. That’s on him, and he should have known better. Shit happens. At the end of the day, you’re a mated pair. He likely regretted every last word he said the instant you walked out the door, even if you stated you were divorcing him. And don’t doubt it for a second—you had every reason to walk out. He was going on some assignment without you, he wasn’t telling you a word, and wasn’t even listening to your input. Then to come home smelling like women during said assignment? I’d have walked, too. Now, that said, he’s yo
ur mate, and he’ll chase you to the ends of the Earth to win you back. There’s really no such thing as divorce among Fenerec, and once everyone realizes you’re not a traditional mated pair, it’ll work out. He’ll take steps to get you back, and you’ll put up a fight over it because you have trust issues.”

  “We’ll see about that. Last I checked, none of them think we’re actually mates, as I refuse to just roll over and do the blind trust thing. For all I know, his damned assignment was in a fucking brothel.”

  I hadn’t smelled sex on him, but that was something he could have solved with a shower before coming home.

  “Give him a chance—and give yourself a chance, too. You’ll be surprised how tunes can change when a pack member is hurt by a stupid decision, and in that, foxes are no different from wolves. We both need packs.”

  “Or skulks,” I grumbled.

  “Or skulks,” she agreed. “Now, let’s clean house and survive. There’s no point in worrying about problems that don’t exist yet, and we have bigger fish to fry.”

  That we did. I nodded, firmed my grip on my automatic rifle, and followed Amelia to the doorway leading into the building.

  The warehouse served double-duty as a factory, and the doorway exited onto a catwalk over a halted assembly line. Boxes waited on the conveyor belt, already sealed. I frowned, pressed my back to the wall, and scanned the room.