She had no training to deal with situations like this. Or yesterday. Understatement.
“Fine, I admit I’m Mirage.” She leaned around, speaking to all of them. “Since I’m the one who shared information to begin with, I think it only fair you tell me what happened to Mandy.” All of this had happened because she’d tried to help a young woman in trouble. “If you found me, then you have to know what happened to her. Was she rescued?”
Carlos wanted to shake some sense into Gabrielle. Hadn’t she figured out her game was up and she had no more moves left? “We ask questions and you answer them. Understand?”
Gabrielle had been taking deep breaths and speaking calmly as if buying time to gather her thoughts and guarding her tone. But she answered through clenched teeth this time.
“I’m trying to cooperate, but if you want any answers from me, you’ll at least tell me if Mandy is safe. She’s the reason I took a risk that landed me here.” Gabrielle held her posture as rigid as a school principal in a room filled with faces lacking compassion, but Carlos could see her hands clasped in her lap. White-knuckled.
She maintained that same regal calm in the face of the threat he’d lobbed at her about handing her over to a country that would prosecute her.
Damn if he didn’t admire her spirit and backbone.
Her intense violet-blue eyes searched his for something. A degree of help or support?
Not now.
That silent reply must have come across loud and clear when disappointment dulled her bright gaze. She changed body language faster than most women switched shoes. Rattled earlier, then hurt, she now seemed determined to shield her emotions from everyone, or specifically him. To hide that she was terrified of her precarious future. She was wasting her time. She couldn’t cloak the vulnerability he’d already witnessed that was eating at his insides.
He didn’t want to feel anything for her, but those gorgeous eyes meeting his televised both compassion and fear for Mandy. The mistake would be allowing himself to see Gabrielle as anything other than what she was-a player in a deadly game.
One who should be answering questions to save her own butt.
Instead, she was worried about Mandy. So was he.
“Gotthard,” Carlos said. “Got an update on Mandy?”
The air sobered with apprehension for the young girl.
“Mandy went into a coma from blood loss-” Gotthard read further, then finished with “Bottom line, she’s still alive.”
A collective release of sighs filled the room.
“A coma?” Gabrielle gasped. “What went wrong? Who screwed up the rescue?” She’d winged that at the whole room.
Anger visibly bristled in response to the criticism.
She blew all her sympathy points with that outburst.
“Look, Gabrielle.” Carlos was not reining in his temper one inch. She’d leaped over a line into the proverbial fire. “We went wheels up twenty minutes after receiving your last message and made a HAHO jump into the French Alps at night during a damn blizzard to save Mandy.” He’d leaned forward, stabbing his index finger against the desk on each point. “If we’d gotten the information sooner, we might have reached her before she broke a glass to cut her wrists. You’re in no position to question anything my team did and had better start giving answers if you hope to ever see daylight again.”
Carlos straightened away from her and crossed his arms to wrestle his calm back in place. He’d wonder for the rest of his life where he could have shaved minutes that might have put the team on-site faster. He would not, however, allow another person, particularly a civilian-a suspected felon-to criticize his team.
Gabrielle opened her mouth to speak, but he didn’t give her a chance.
“Back to our questions,” he snapped. “How did you know Mandy was being kidnapped or who the kidnappers were?”
Her rosy cheeks lost color, but he would not be swayed this time. Carlos questioned if Gabrielle was as vulnerable as he’d first thought or just a damn impressive actress.
“Guest arriving,” announced from a hidden speaker in the room.
Who the hell was coming now? Had Joe traveled that fast?
Carlos turned to Gabrielle, whose face had washed out to the color of sand on a beach. If she didn’t give them something soon, she’d be facing Joe. Or worse. Tee.
TEN
CARLOS NODDED at Korbin, who reached over to lift a remote sitting on a low, black-lacquer cabinet along the wall. He punched keys to activate the flat screen, generating an image from the camera covering the driveway.
A red Ducati Monster S4R motorcycle slashed through the gate.
“Why is he here?” Carlos asked the room in general.
“Don’t know.” Korbin clicked off the screen image and dropped the remote on the cabinet. “Joe said we had one more coming, so Hunter must be it.”
The door upstairs opened and closed with quiet civility that fit one particular agent. Bootheels thumped down the steps.
Carlos turned to Hunter Wesley Thornton-Payne III, who always managed to piss Carlos off without even opening his aristocratic mouth. Carlos detested aristocrats, anyone who believed bloodline granted you unearned respect.
Hunter angled his chin in that I’m-so-much-better-than-you-miscreants way that made Carlos want to test the arrogant agent in the barrio after midnight where attitude wouldn’t save his ass. They’d use Hunter’s blond hair to scrub the brick walls.
Ex-CIA or not.
“Morning, Rae, Korbin, Gotthard.” Hunter lifted his chin to each, who nodded in return. Then he took in Gabrielle and shifted his gaze to Carlos. “I take it this is Mirage.”
Carlos nodded.
“What have I missed?” Hunter eyed Gabrielle once more before he stepped past her to sit on the other side of Rae.
Carlos nodded at Gotthard, giving him the floor.
Gotthard leaned back from hunching over the laptop and faced Hunter. “Mandy is alive, but in a coma, and fingerprints confirm this is Gabrielle Saxe of Versailles, France.”
“What have you got, Hunter?” Carlos crossed his arms, sending his best silent message of “Just give me the facts without the attitude.”
“If she is our informant, she’s no amateur,” Hunter began. “She bounced that post through at least two different compromised servers. She might have hacked them herself or just bought them from one of the big hacker groups on an IRC network like Freenode or EFnet. I almost didn’t find the address.” A hint of respect and irritation entered his arrogance. “We had a forty-eight-hour window of authorization to monitor network traffic going to or from the compromised computer at a waste-disposal plant in Russia. The minute she replied to my post about the babe being in danger, we had her.”
“I should have known that was a trap,” she muttered.
Gotthard raised his wide head to face Hunter, deep furrows of concentration carving the bridge of his nose. “Was there any evidence on that Russian server, maybe something that might indicate who she’s working with?”
Not much for the techno side of this business, Carlos enjoyed anytime someone who was an electronic wizard tweaked Hunter. And Carlos doubted that had even been Gotthard’s intention.
“I’m not working with anyone,” Gabrielle interjected.
No one so much as blinked her way in acknowledgment.
Carlos might have suffered a weak moment for her last night, but he knew better than to believe anything she offered now. She could have told him her real name was Saxe last night.
“Let’s just say I was thorough.” Hunter angled his head slowly at Gotthard and pursed his lips with just enough vigor to let everyone present know he felt imposed upon to answer. “The origination point was a private IP that belonged to I. M. Agoste.” He pronounced the last name with a heavy accent on the hard e. A smile of triumph glimmered on his too perfect lips.
“What?” Rae squinted in thought, tapping her pen against a notebook she’d been writing in. “I’m A. Ghost?” She
paused, thinking, then nodded. “Bloody well is since you know she wouldn’t use a real name.”
“The puzzle queen’s got you there, Hunter.” Humor lifted one eyebrow and the corner of Gotthard’s stern mouth.
Carlos smothered a chuckle. That son of a gun Gotthard had been poking at Hunter after all. The pompous agent’s smile dissolved into a flat line. Getting one up on the never-wrong Hunter was a favorite pastime among the team.
“Gabrielle will now tell us how she knows Mandy and how she found out so much about the kidnapping.” Not ready to play hardball just yet, Carlos coaxed, “This will go much easier if you cooperate.”
The spark of anger she’d fired up earlier had dissipated, leaving a graceful statue, breathing so softly the material clinging to her breasts hardly moved.
He knew without a doubt she wore no bra. Don’t look there.
His sigh came out tired. Anyone capable of hacking past firewalls should be bright enough to realize when she was getting a break. He hadn’t threatened her…yet. “Gabrielle-”
“From a postale card.”
Carlos gave her a dubious look. “I sent a scan of that postcard to headquarters this morning.” He cut his eyes at Gotthard, then Hunter. “Anything back from decoding?”
The look of surprise that rolled into disappointment Gabrielle gave him shouldn’t have cut, but he felt it just the same. Had she thought just because of what happened yesterday and last night he wouldn’t search every possession she had?
“I got a text the postcard is indecipherable,” Hunter interjected. “If that’s all she has to offer, I say we call security and be done with her.”
That got Gabrielle’s attention. “I can explain the message on the card.”
“Then explain,” Carlos ordered.
“It’s in code,” Gabrielle said, glancing at everyone. Not a face around the table registered belief.
Gotthard rubbed a finger across one eye and read further. “I’m online with the decoding department right now. Nothing from the Monster.” He looked at Gabrielle and simply said, “Our supercomputer.”
Carlos stepped around Korbin and opened the low cabinet. He withdrew the postcard and a stack of copies he’d made of it for the meeting, then passed the copies to the BAD agents.
Gabrielle cringed when she realized one major downside she hadn’t considered. The postage stamp indicated the card had been mailed a couple weeks ago.
Carlos raised a gaze flooded with suspicion. “Who sent this?”
Stalling wasn’t helping her. Gabrielle accepted that she had to give him something for any hope of getting a break with this group. “A girl I knew in school a long time ago. She disappeared before I graduated. That card was the first time I’ve heard from her in eleven years.”
Carlos tapped a finger on the table in a silent rhythm.
Sound bizarre? Welcome to her world for the past forty-eight hours.
“I’m in no mood to ask twenty questions to get one answer,” Carlos warned quietly. Distant and foreboding. Nothing like the seductive vibration she’d experienced from his sleep-roughened voice this morning.
He sat forward, close enough for her to smell his fresh shower and resent him for shoving her thoughts off track. “If you continue to lie, you won’t like how this ends.”
The whispered threat should have sent a shock of fear scurrying along her spine, and on some level it did, but she’d survived the unimaginable yesterday. That she sat here alive gave her strength and resolve to fight her way out of this, too.
Besides, showing emotions would be perceived as a weakness these operatives would exploit any way they could.
“I am not lying,” she told Carlos in a tone intended to allow no room for dispute.
“Really? So you what?” Carlos sighed. He lifted his hand, palm up, as he turned to her. “Got a postcard from a long-lost girlfriend who figured you were the one and only person who could help an American diplomat’s daughter being kidnapped?”
Sure, that sounded ridiculous, but he wanted the truth. “You ask me questions, then refuse to believe what I tell you. If you don’t like my answers, don’t ask questions.”
Smooth eyebrows lowered over the two narrowed black slits with thick lashes. Carlos stood and paced away, fingers absently massaging his neck. He dropped his hand. Anger rippled off him so thick the air should have clogged the vent system.
Her heartbeat jumped in the silence.
“Why didn’t you just contact the FBI or CIA?” Hunter asked.
She swiveled, pushing her gaze past Rae to take in the cocky new arrival. His burgundy turtleneck sweater created a beautiful base for a living bust of perfection she had no doubt women adored. He sat in profile, elbow on the table, head propped on his palm. Elegant golden hair styled just the right length to be daring, yet civilized.
She knew his kind all too well and was not impressed.
“That would have put Mandy at greater risk,” Gabrielle answered, shifting back to address the whole room. “The FBI and CIA would have thought it was a hoax or just locked me up until they figured out if I was mentally imbalanced, which might have cost Mandy her life. Those agencies tend to act quicker if they believe they gained the information from a credible source. I think it’s fair to say Mirage is known as a credible resource.” Sure that had been snippy, but she’d earned that right.
“Who sent the card?” Korbin asked.
A fair question, but one Gabrielle really did not want to answer. “I told you, a girl at my school.”
“What did you say yesterday?” Carlos asked her. “Don’t be obtuse. We want the girl’s full name.”
ELEVEN
GABRIELLE STOOD AT the crossroads to her future and a chance of saving Linette. Tell Carlos Linette’s name or not?
Would she put her friend in greater jeopardy by sharing her identity? Could these people possibly find Linette? Her friend was already in danger or at the very least being held against her will. Maybe this was a chance to save her.
If these operatives, and that had to be what they were, rescued Mandy, they had to be what they contended. Right? The anger behind Carlos’s words when he’d said they’d made a jump in a blizzard had felt genuine.
“Gabrielle?” Carlos said pointedly.
“I’m not ignoring you.” She addressed all of them with that before returning to Carlos. “I’m trying to answer your questions without compromising my friend’s safety.” She nibbled on her lower lip then had a thought. “Can you tell me what happened to the kidnappers after you rescued Mandy?”
“No!” echoed around the room.
Her shoulders drooped. “I see.”
“What would be the threat to your friend?” Rae asked.
Gabrielle weighed her selection of replies and finally realized they would remain at an impasse forever if she didn’t offer more. “A fratelli.”
Tension snapped through the room at that admission.
“What do you mean by ‘a fratelli’?” Carlos asked in a voice that doubled-stacked the chill bumps on her arm. If he sounded threatening yesterday, today he was downright lethal.
“I don’t know,” Gabrielle admitted. “It was referenced on the card.”
“The card again,” Hunter scoffed, then everyone jumped in.
“How was it referenced?” Rae wanted to know.
“Oh, please. The card is bullshit,” Hunter countered before Gabrielle could speak.
“What if it’s not?” Rae argued right back with plenty of heat. “Mandy was kidnapped. We did find her in a château in St. Gervais. The Anguis were the kidnappers.”
Gabrielle noted everything Rae said, deciding this group couldn’t know all of those details if they had not indeed saved the young girl.
Korbin jumped in with “Rae’s got a point.”
“Our people said the best they got out of the card text was gibberish,” Hunter tossed right back. “The Monster didn’t break it.”
“I can-” Gabrielle started to say she could pr
ove the text was not gibberish, but got cut off.
“What if…our people are wrong?” Carlos asked Hunter. “What if the card is in code? We can’t pass up a chance for any lead on the Fratelli.”
Gabrielle tried to ignore how her heart jumped at the possibility that Carlos was finally supporting her position. That he might actually believe her. While the debate raged, she began to realize she had something to trade-decoding the card.
If she convinced them the card was in code, they had to believe she was not a criminal. That was logical.
Additionally, she now had a measure of belief-or call it an internal feeling she relied upon-that these people were not part of that fratelli. Logic implored that they would have feigned knowledge of the fratelli or any group they shielded, not argue over the credibility of her card that might be a lead.
The significance of how important it was that they locate this fratelli was not lost on her either. Finding the group could mean finding, and saving, Linette.
Gabrielle’s instincts had kept her alive so far. She had to rely on them now more than ever.
“If you’re not afraid of the truth, then let me prove it’s in code,” Gabrielle challenged Hunter, ready to take on all of them.
The arguing stopped as though someone had hit the pause button. When Hunter’s gaze leveled with hers, he made no effort to hide the disparaging assessment in his eyes. Weapons and blood shook her to her toes, but she’d been raised around his kind-the arrogant and the affluent-and neither fazed her.
“Go ahead, decode it,” Hunter said without a bit of concern in his voice. “And if you can’t, you’re of no value to us.”
She didn’t deserve his attitude or being held this way. Not after all she’d done to help Mandy and what she’d faced yesterday after they’d tricked her into exposing herself. “I helped you and you’re all treating me like I’m the enemy.”
Gotthard paused from typing on his laptop. “Until you give us a reason to think differently, you are.”
She needed one ally in this room and Carlos was her best hope. “I can show you how the code works.”
Whispered Lies Page 14
