Hard Line (Cobra Elite Book 5)

by Pamela Clare

  That made her laugh, and she began to compose an imaginary letter. “Dear National Science Foundation: This letter is to inform you that the beds at Amundsen-Scott Station are too small to accommodate sexual intercourse and post-coital snuggling. Please address this problem soon.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get right on that.”

  “Malik and Kristi had sex in the greenhouse last night. They didn’t want to keep people awake.”

  “The greenhouse?” Thor had thought Jones had spent the night in his room alone. “If Cobra’s owners were here, they’d kick his ass—and mine.”

  “Then I’m glad they’re not here.” She pressed a kiss to his sternum. “With all this terrible stuff happening, you and my work with the telescope are the only things that make me feel safe and grounded. Geez. Sorry. That might be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever said to a man.”

  “Hey, don’t feel bad.” He ran his fingers along her spine. “I’m honored to be mentioned in the same breath as the telescope—and I’m glad you feel safe with me.”

  She might not feel that way if she knew you better.

  That had been war. It was in the past.

  Samantha sat bolt upright, her face alight with excitement. “I forgot to tell you the news. I think we might have discovered a rare elliptical double-ringed galaxy. They make up only about ten percent of the galaxies in the universe. I haven’t had time to analyze anything yet, but it looks a lot like Hoag’s Object with young stars in the outer ring and older stars in the inner core.”

  Thor had no idea what a Hoag’s Object was. He propped himself up on his elbow. “How can you tell the age of the stars?”

  “Younger stars are typically hotter and emit more blue light, while older stars are often cooler and emit more red light.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t want to bore you or come across as a total nerd.”

  “You’re not boring me.” He reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Your whole face lights up when you talk about your work. Samantha Park, discoverer of galaxies. That’s pretty damned cool.”

  Her lips curved in a hopeful smile, something vulnerable in her eyes. “You really believe that?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Patty always said that men are intimidated by brainy women.”

  “Only if they’re idiots.” He leaned in, kissed a rosy nipple. “Intelligence is sexy.”

  A burst of static.

  “Jones to Isaksen.”

  For helvede. Damn it.

  He reached for his radio, which sat on Samantha’s desk beside his pistol. “Jones, this is Isaksen. What do you need?”

  “Uh, well, we’re waiting for you.”

  Fuck. Right.

  He’d lost track of time. He was supposed to meet Jones and Segal to remove Patty’s journal from the vacant room. Rather than spending tonight with Samantha, he was going to spend it reading the private thoughts of her murdered best friend.

  “I’m on my way.” He sat up, caught Samantha’s chin. “I don’t want to go, but I must. Will you be okay alone here tonight?”

  Her room had been broken into today. He wouldn’t blame her if she felt nervous about being alone in here.

  “I’ll be fine. If I get freaked out, I have a few more Xanax.”

  “Set that security camera after I leave and keep your radio handy. If you need me, call.” He got dressed, tucked his pistol and concealed holster inside his jeans, and grabbed his radio. “Sov godt, skat. Sleep well.”

  It was almost painful to walk away.

  Samantha washed her face, brushed her teeth, and combed her hair, her thoughts fixed on Thor. My God, the man was incredible. Not only was he the best sex she’d ever had, but he also seemed to care about her work, listening while she babbled about stars and galaxies.

  Intelligence is sexy.

  He certainly made her feel sexy—the intensity in his gaze when he looked at her naked body, the heat in his kisses, the way he said her name when he was fucking her.

  Oh, Samantha. You’re… too… much.

  She’d spent most of her life feeling inadequate when it came to men. Sex had always come with anxiety. Would she come fast enough or at all? Would the guy find her disappointing in bed? Would she say something nerdy and turn him off?

  With Thor, she forgot to worry. It all just seemed to come together—the emotional side of sex and the physical side. Was he even real?

  She finished combing her hair and walked from the restroom back to her room, hesitating at her door, chills skittering down her spine as if she were being watched.

  “Samantha?”

  She gasped, whirled, found Vasily standing behind her.

  He hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Sorry. I frightened you. I came to see if you are okay. I heard a man broke into your room.”

  “Y-yes.” Samantha had left her radio in her room, so she couldn’t call Thor. “He was trying to steal Patty’s private journal, her diary.”

  “I brought for you something.” He held out what looked like a pocket knife—except there was no blade that she could see. “This is the safety switch. Slide back, push this button.”

  In a millisecond, a stiletto knife appeared.

  “A switchblade.”

  Vasily folded the knife down, clicked the safety button back into place. “I sleep better tonight knowing you have a weapon.”

  “I… I can’t take that.” She started to tell him she had a radio and a motion-activated security camera in her room but stopped herself.

  He thrust it into her palm. “Please take it. I show you. You slide the safety back.”

  She tested the weight in her hand, slid the safety button back. “I don’t know. I—”

  “Push the button.”

  She did as he said.

  Snap.

  The blade appeared, fast and lethal.

  But Samantha had never owned a weapon of any kind. She handed it back to him. “I appreciate your concern for me, but I can’t keep this.”

  He tried to get her to take it. “You should keep it. I want to help you.”

  “What if a bad guy gets it away from me?”

  His brown eyes looked straight into hers. “Do not let that happen.”

  “No, thank you, Vasily. I just can’t.”

  Looking disappointed, he turned and walked away, leaving her to stare after him.

  Unnerved, she stepped into her room and locked the door. The remaining Xanax were there, too, still in their blister pack. But she didn’t take one. If something happened tonight, she wanted to be alert, not drugged and out of it.

  Nothing is going to happen tonight.

  She crawled into bed, turned off her light, and stared at the ceiling, but sleep wouldn’t come, random images chasing each other through her mind. Malik and Lev pinning down a furious Lance. The reflection of Thor sliding in and out of her. Vasily holding the switchblade. Patty’s body lying on the bed in the infirmary.

  Oh, Patty.

  Samantha threw back her covers and got out of bed. “To hell with this.”

  She put her bathrobe over her pajamas, stepped into her slippers, and left her room, remembering the radio this time. The hallway was empty and silent as she walked to the self-service kitchen next to the galley. There, she heated water in the electric kettle for a cup of chamomile tea.

  Steve walked in, carrying an empty coffee cup. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, lines of fatigue on his face. “Can’t sleep?”

  “I’m just … tense, I guess. How about you? You look exhausted.”

  “All this shit is happening, and I still have a station to run.” Steve set his cup on the counter and drew her into a hug. “I’m so sorry, kiddo. This has been tougher on you than anyone. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Bring Patty back?”

  He released her and stepped back, sympathy in his eyes. “I can do a lot of things, but not that. I miss her, too.”

  The kettle whistled.

  Samantha found the cham
omile tea and dropped a teabag into a clean mug. Then she filled the cup with steaming hot water and stirred in some honey.

  “Milk?” Steve opened the fridge and took out a pitcher of reconstituted powdered stuff. “Or whatever passes for milk here.”

  “Thank you.” She held out the mug. “Just a little.”

  “Whiskey would probably help more than tea.” Steve poured the milk, then set the pitcher back in the fridge. “I thought you’d be with our resident god.”

  “Thor?” Steve’s description made Samantha laugh, though given how good Thor was in bed, maybe he really was descended from Odin. “He has more important things to do than hold my hand when I’m feeling scared.”

  “I hope the tea helps. Goodnight.”

  She had to ask. “Are switchblades prohibited on station?”

  “Switchblades?” He seemed to consider her question. “I don’t think we have an official switchblade policy. Who has a switchblade? One of the Cobra guys?”

  “Vasily tried to give me one tonight. He came out of nowhere, showed me how to use it, and told me to protect myself. That’s part of the reason I can’t sleep.”

  “Jesus.” Steve rubbed his jaw. “I can see why you’re tense. To be honest, I wish you all had gotten off the ground before the Russians realized they were stuck. They’re a pain in my ass. Two of them got in a fistfight in the lounge tonight over a fucking game of darts, and they weren’t even drunk. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I will. Thanks, Steve. And goodnight.”

  Thor met Jones and Segal outside their rooms. They waited until no one else was around. Then Segal opened the vacant room with his bump key so that Thor could retrieve Patty’s journal.

  “Thanks.” He locked the door behind him. “We’ve got a meeting at zero-six-hundred. You two get some sleep.”

  Thor took the journal to his room and settled down for a long night. He decided to start reading with Patty’s arrival on station to make sure he didn’t miss anything. He’d gone only a few pages before he found himself smiling at her sense of humor and even laughing at her jokes.

  “I’ve spent a winter here before, but when I stepped out of that plane and the cold hit me, a part of me wanted to hide under an airplane seat and sneak back to Christchurch. But Samantha would never forgive me if I left her here alone. Besides, she’d end up with a galaxy named after her, and I wouldn’t. I can’t let that happen, even if she is the smarter of the two of us.”

  Did Samantha know that Patty thought she was the smarter one? Possibly. Samantha had said something at the memorial service about helping Patty with one of her science classes while Patty helped her get out of her shell.

  “Feb. 28: There’s an obnoxious kid on station who keeps filming everyone and harassing the women. I swear this kid is an incel who somehow escaped his mother’s basement. I predict that someone will punch this little shit in his filthy mouth before we fly out in November. I hope so, anyway. Is that wrong?”

  Thor had to agree with her on that one. He wrote down the date of this entry in case he came across more conflict with Jason.

  “March 10: Lance and I hung out last night and talked until almost 1 a.m. He’s the IT guy this winter. I wasn’t too impressed with him at first. Okay, I won’t lie, I didn’t even notice him. Then we both ended up in the lounge watching Citizen Kane. He knew so much about it. We’re having dinner tomorrow.”

  Thor hadn’t imagined Lance as a classic film buff.

  “March 23: The sun dropped below the horizon today. We won’t see it again until September 21. I wrote a little song in honor of the event and tried to play it on one of the guitars in the music room. I haven’t touched a guitar since high school. Still, I think the lyrics were a smash hit.

  “‘There goes the sun, doo da doo doo/There goes the sun/And I say, it’s all night.’

  “Lance started banging on the cowbell and dancing. People shouted, ‘More cowbell!’ Poor Samantha stood there looking confused. ‘Why more cowbell? What’s the big deal with the cowbell?’ Oh, my God, I laughed so hard. I just love her.”

  Thor could see why people described Patty as being full of life—and why Samantha missed her so much. He’d begun to feel it, too—a sense of loss.

  He read through the rest of March and then started April, the next entry bringing him fully alert.

  “April 2: I saw something in the science lab here in the main building that I couldn’t understand. It looked like someone was running hacking software on one of the desktop computers. I’m not a computer expert, but I know enough to recognize hacking software when I see it. I’m not sure whether to report it since I have no idea who was running that program or why.”

  Thor kept reading, a knot in his chest.

  “April 4: I lied to Lance again. I feel so bad about it. Poor guy! I’ll have to make it up to the both of us soon. I’m sacrificing a night of sex for this, after all. Tonight, I’m going to hang out in the science lab and do busywork. If someone is up to something illegal there, my presence might prevent them from continuing. If it’s all in my head, then I get ahead of our workload.”

  So, that bastard Barclay had told them the truth—at least about this. Patty had deceived him, but she hadn’t done it to hook up with another man. She’d seen hacking software and had taken it on herself to figure out who was behind it.

  For helvede! Damn it.

  Some part of Thor wished he could warn her, tell her to stay with Lance and forget what she’d seen. The satellite would have been hacked anyway, but she would still be alive.

  He came to her last entry.

  “April 5: No one showed up last night, so I logged onto the computer that had been running the hacking software. I dug around a bit, and it looked to me like someone had been tracking a US military satellite. Maybe one of the other scientists is working on a secret project for the DOD. I don’t know. I enabled logon auditing—it had been disabled—so that I could find out who is using that computer and when. I thought about telling Samantha and asking her to come with me. But if I’m wrong, I’d be wasting her time. If I find proof, I’ll report it.”

  Thor stared at the page, dread hitting him in the chest as he realized how close Samantha had come to getting caught up in this—and possibly ending up dead, too. Patty had gone to the science lab alone that night, tried to get proof. But the person behind it—the person who’d brought down the satellite—had given her wine poisoned with methanol, using their friendship as a weapon against her.

  Forbandet røvhul. Fucking asshole.

  Anger and sadness welled up inside him, Patty’s words enough to make him feel connected to her—and her murder. But now the truth would come out. Thanks to Patty and her journal, they had more information.

  Thor set up the scanner, scanned the relevant pages, and emailed them to Shields, the sense of loss staying with him.

  “I’ll do my best to find this fucker, Patty. I promise.”

  16

  Thor moved through the compound, rifle raised, night vision goggles turning the world a ghostly green. He and Jakob had already taken out six guys guarding the place, so whoever was inside knew they were here.

  A man with an AK stepped out a side door.

  Rat-at-at!

  Thor dropped him with a three-round burst.

  Women’s screams. Children crying.

  Jakob’s voice came over his earpiece. “Hvad gør vi så hvis al Harzi er gået?” What are we going to do if al Harzi is gone?”

  “Han er her. Hold dig skarp.” He’s here. Stay sharp.

  The muzzle of another AK peeked out from around the corner.

  “Han er min.” He’s mine. Jakob had the same right to avenge Lars, Mads, and Felix as Thor did.

  A young man barely old enough for a beard appeared and ran at them with a cry, an AK-47 in his hands.

  Rat-at-at-at!

  Jakob fired, and the kid fell.

  But the kid had been a distraction, a rush of footsteps coming up behind them.

&
nbsp; Thor pivoted, dropped to one knee, and fired.

  Rat-at-at-at! Rat-at-at-at!

  Two combatants fell to the dirt, dead.

  Weapons raised, Thor and Jakob crossed the courtyard and entered the main dwelling, frightened murmurs and the cries of children coming from a room to their right.

  Jakob went through the door first, opened fire, dropping an older man.

  Rat-at-at!

  “Er det ham?” Is it him?

  Rifle raised, Thor walked over to the man, lifted his NVGs, and shined the flashlight from his scope on the dead man’s face. “Nej.” No.

  He drew his goggles back down, glanced around to see a half dozen women, some very young, huddled against the wall, staring at him with horror on their faces. He didn’t know Pashto, so he tried English. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  Then he saw her.

  Samantha!

  She sat on a bedroll in the corner, eyes wide, clearly terrified of him.

  She screamed.

  Thor jerked awake, sat up, found himself not in Afghanistan, but in his room at Amundsen-Scott Station. He got out of bed, his body drenched with cold sweat.

  Fuck.

  It had been a long, damned time since he’d had nightmares about Afghanistan. What the hell was Samantha doing in his dream?

  He glanced at his watch, saw that it was zero-five-twenty. He had a meeting with Tower and Shields in forty minutes.

  Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, he dressed and hit the gym for a quick run before heading back to his room to change and grab his computer. By the time he had dressed, Jones and Segal were in the hall waiting for him.

  Jones took one look at him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just a long night.”

  Jones grinned. “With the journal or with Dr. Park?”

  “The journal.” Thor headed up the stairs to the second level. “How was the greenhouse—or did you and Kristi find someplace else?”

  “Jesus.” Segal shook his head. “The greenhouse, man? Seriously?”

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “Women talk to each other.” Thor made his way to the small conference room. He logged in while Segal and Jones made coffee and traded barbs over Jones’ sex life.