Phoenix Rising

by Corrina Lawson

  “I’m not reckless,” he said. “I’m as careful as I can be.”

  “With weapons and body armor? If you’re doing something careful, you don’t need them.”

  He buckled on the body armor and walked over to her, so that they were only a few feet apart. He towered over her, even more than Lansing, but she didn’t feel the least bit afraid of him, not since their first meeting. He wouldn’t hurt her. Despite his work as a soldier, there was no meanness in him. She rubbed her arm, remembering Lansing’s anger. Alec wasn’t like him at all.

  “I like doing this,” Alec said. “I make a difference. It’s what I’m trained for.”

  “Yes, I know. But you never had a say in any of that training. You’ve told me that.”

  “Fighting the bad guys is family tradition.” He straightened. “Lansing’s too old now, so it’s my turn. It happens all the time. Daz has the same deal, on both the American and the Filipino sides of his family.”

  “Daz didn’t grow up isolated in this place.”

  “Yeah, well, Daz didn’t have to worry about accidentally burning down the schoolyard as a kid. I did.” He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you seriously trying to talk me out of going tonight? C’mon.”

  “I’m trying to get you to reconsider what you’ve been forced into doing for your entire life. There’s a whole world out there you haven’t seen.”

  She walked over to the coffee table, reached down and brushed her fingertips over the gun. Her hand trembled. The gun looked like the same kind that her kidnappers had used, years ago. If he stayed with the Resource, Alec might become like those men, using any ends to justify the means.

  “Hey! What’s with the nerves? Where’s my competent, no-nonsense counselor?”

  The gun rose from the coffee table, floating in air. She turned and followed its flight. He snatched the gun out of midair with a smile and holstered it.

  “See?” he said. “I control the guns, not the other way around.”

  “And who controls you?”

  His chest, Kevlar vest and all, rose and fell in a deep sigh. “I know someone in this room who’s trying to control me. What’s wrong, Beth?” He walked to her and lifted her chin with two fingers, his dark eyes crinkling around the edges.

  “This is not a life you chose, this is a life that’s been imposed on you, from birth.”

  “And?” His fingertips moved along her jaw, in a soft caress. I should move away. It feels too good. But he’s listening.

  “I’m scared. About this mission, about you being locked up inside the Resource forever.” Deathly afraid, so afraid her stomach felt like a heavy lump of coal. “There’s so much you don’t know about the Resource and about Lansing, so much you don’t understand. And you need to know it before it kills you.”

  “Hey, I know Lansing can be a bastard. And that he’s overprotective and controlling. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my job.” Alec leaned closer to her face. “We can talk about that another time.”

  “Do you really think there’s going to be another time?” Her voice rose, almost panicked now. She wasn’t getting through. “What if you get hurt tonight?”

  “Look, this cell might have a dirty bomb. They need to be stopped, and I’m the one who can do it. I have to do this, right now.”

  “Just that simple?”

  “Yep. I walk away, people get hurt. I do my job, people are saved. That’s the deal, that’s my life. You analyze things too much.” He cupped her face in his hand. “But if it took this mission to find out you care, then good.”

  She shuddered. Wrong, wrong, she shouldn’t let him touch her like this. Yet it felt like he touched her somewhere far deeper than her skin. A shiver, like the one from their first meeting, traveled from her neck to her toes, setting her nerves jangling. “This is wrong.”

  “The mission isn’t wrong,” he said, misunderstanding her. “Relax.” His face was less than an inch from her lips and his breath fell on her cheek. Her skin felt inflamed, sensitive to the slightest movement of his hands.

  He kissed her.

  His lips were softer than she had expected, tender, not at all like his casual, even macho, confidence. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling those strong muscles and pulling him against her, intensifying their contact, even as her mind screamed in protest. This is not what I came for!

  Her body became enveloped in that strange energy, alive as never before. It was like the kiss had a second level, one which she responded to instinctively, creating a living connection between them. He drew her lips apart with his tongue, still tender, still allowing her the chance to back away. But she opened her mouth to him instead, her whole self consumed with wanting to touch him, her face flushed with desire. She grabbed the buckles of his body armor for balance, her equilibrium lost along with her reason.

  He crushed her against him, no longer tender, a bruising kiss demanding conquest. She allowed him full control, despite the buckles digging into her shoulder. He lifted her completely off her feet and brought her up to his eye level.

  “Beth,” he breathed, brushing his lips against her neck before moving back to her mouth.

  Her mind whirled, too lost to remember that she should stop him. She wanted him too much. The air heated up, warming them. The papers on the coffee table began to smoke.

  Startled, she broke the kiss. There was a momentary disorientation, like a soft mental slap. The tingling stopped. Her skin went cold.

  She let her head fall to his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her last chance to reach Alec and she’d blown it. More, she’d crossed all ethical boundaries. Yet his arms around her felt so right.

  Alec spun around and set her into his easy chair. He swallowed, breathing heavily, his face and neck flushed. Staring at the papers on the table, he reached out a hand and they burst into real flame. He twisted his wrist, calling to the fire. It came to him, wrapping itself around his wrist like a bracelet. He smiled, blinked, and the fire vanished.

  He whistled through his teeth. “Wow. You are some kind of hot, counselor, to set me off like that. I usually have to think about creating fire.”

  “I’ve noticed that.” Her muscles seemed to have no will of their own, unable to move, unable to stand. “I’m sorry you lost control.”

  “Hey, don’t be. It felt good. All of it.” He picked up the rifle. “If I didn’t have to report now, I’d never have stopped.”

  She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chin. What a mess she’d made. Unethical. But that connection between them, almost a compulsion, didn’t feel like anything even approaching normal. She’d kissed men before. This was far different. This was alive.

  I want more. Ancestors damn me, I want more.

  I can’t have it. It’s wrong.

  “So if the farewell is like this, what will my welcome home be like?” He put on his jacket, tension in his short, sharp movements. He didn’t know what to make of her. With all her mixed signals, he had good reason.

  “Your welcome home?” she repeated. Would Lansing change his mind if Alec insisted on seeing her when he got back? Maybe, maybe. “Well, when I see you again, I definitely need to talk to you more.” She sighed. “But I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s unethical.”

  He grinned. “It didn’t feel unethical.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  He put his hands on the arms of the chair, looming over her. “You really hate what I do, don’t you?”

  “I don’t hate it, I hate that you’ve been forced into it.”

  He frowned. “No, I haven’t.”

  “The fact that you think it’s voluntarily is just a symptom of the problem.”

  “Then we’ll talk about it in our next session.”

  “And if Lansing doesn’t want you to continue with me?”

  “After tonight, he’ll owe me. No worries.” He smiled, his easy confi
dence still flowing. “It’s nice that you’re afraid for me.”

  He kissed her cheek, brushing his soft lips against skin that tingled with renewed desire. “Meantime, remember, F-Team and I can handle ourselves.”

  He took the rest of his gear, slung the rifle over his shoulder and walked out of the room, whistling.

  She reached into her pocket and switched off the scrambler. Great. What a total cluster fuck, as Alec would say. She’d crossed the line and kissed her client, she still had no idea if Lansing would let her back in to see Alec, and she certainly hadn’t convinced Alec that Lansing was truly dangerous.

  Of course, all of that would be immaterial if Alec didn’t survive this damned mission tonight. His team only received the hardest missions, the ones that government teams found too high-risk.

  And a dirty bomb was extremely dangerous.

  Plus, looming over everything, there was the threat from the CIA. Philip was not Superman. He couldn’t guarantee Alec’s survival forever if his superiors decided against it.

  She snapped out of her chair, her nerves still on fire. In a normal situation, she’d stop being Alec’s counselor after kissing him. But she was the only outside contact he had. She might be his only hope to survive.

  She wandered in his living room, among his things, looking at the little pieces of his life, searching for some clue to reach him. No photos, no little knickknacks and no signs whatsoever of his individuality sat on his bookcases. Alec had told her during one session that he’d lived in this room since he was twelve, with breaks for various military training, and then had permanently settled into it when he was sixteen, when F-Team was brought in to train with him. She never would have guessed that from how little of his personality was reflected in the room.

  He did have CDs, a strange combination of classical recordings and rap music. Classical from Lansing’s influence and rap from Daz and F-Team, probably. They were alphabetically stacked, Biggie Smalls to Eminem to Mozart and Schubert. But the classical CDs had dust on them. F-Team was winning the music war. Who would Alec choose, if forced: Lansing or F-Team? Or was that really a choice, given that Lansing was the ultimate boss of F-Team? It depended on whether there was a difference between Daz and Lansing.

  The built-in bookshelves held more titles centered on the British Empire than she expected, particularly on events of the Victorian age. Lansing’s influence again. Empire building would be like him.

  She put her face in her hands, stilling tears. When Philip had talked about the cost, she’d thought it was about doing bad things. Now she realized he’d talked about mental cost, about always having to remember how much truth you could reveal to any one person at any given time, never being able to be yourself. It could drive a person mad. It explained a lot about Philip.

  She had to tell Alec the truth about her. And soon. If he lived through this mission.

  Alec was thirty seconds late to the briefing. He slowed to a walk to appear unhurried. No sense giving Lansing an excuse to question him about Beth’s visit. As he turned the corner to the briefing room, he passed Lansing whispering to one of the Resource security people.

  “You’re certain those cameras went down?”

  The security officer mumbled something that Alec couldn’t hear.

  “Normal interference? No, you double-check everything. Now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Good. Lansing was too worried about a screw-up somewhere else to question him.

  Commander Daz Montoya stepped out of the briefing room into the hallway. “Firefly, good, you’re here,” he said to Alec. “It’s time.”

  The rest of F-Team was already seated in the briefing room. As always, they’d turned their chairs sideways to have the room’s only exit in view. Alec had learned they did this out of long habit—they had to have their backs protected. Even Kowalski, the CIA agent who was about to give the briefing, kept the door in sight. Alec turned his chair like everyone else.

  Daz sat straight, military posture, as always. A perfect soldier, even down to his cropped hair. Alec could only hope to be as good someday. Beth thought being a soldier was a bad thing. She didn’t understand. What he did mattered.

  Kowalski cleared his throat and started the briefing. Alec banished all thought of Beth from his mind. This was work. No distractions allowed.

  The briefing was a quick slideshow given in Kowalski’s dry style. No emotion seeped through. He might as well have been talking about a widget and not a dirty bomb. Alec’s heart started hammering in his chest as he realized this mission was more serious than any of his previous ones. He took a deep calming breath and wondering if he was the only one nervous or if everyone else was hiding it like he was.

  Their objective was to stop a transfer of radioactive materials from arms dealers to a terrorist cell gathering components for a dirty bomb. The exchange was to take place tonight at the Newark docks. F-Team’s job would be to secure the radioactive materials. Getting the cell and the arms dealers would be gravy.

  Gabe, the lanky tech officer, raised a hand. “So are we likely to deal with the fanatics or the pros tonight?”

  Good question. Members of the cell would fight to the death, no quarter given. Arms dealers would surrender if defeated. Pros were always preferable to fanatics. They were predictable.

  “We don’t know,” Kowalski said. “They could both be there.”

  Everyone in the room groaned.

  “This cell is a mystery,” Kowalski said. “From what we can tell, they’ve mixed mercenaries in with their fanatics.”

  He clicked to a close-up of dark-haired man with droopy eyes, thinning hair and a potbelly. “This is Hans Ulrich. He’s a German national and well-respected mercenary, which means he fulfills his contracts perfectly. We don’t know where his true loyalties lie and he’s never shown up with religious fanatics before. He’s the cell’s liaison with the arms dealer.”

  Hans looked ordinary and unremarkable. Alec would never give him a second glance. Just as well that he didn’t do intelligence.

  Another photo replaced Hans. By contrast, this man was immediately striking. His mouth was set and his dark eyes seemed to be looking out from the photograph in what could only be a death stare. Not someone Alec wanted to meet in combat.

  “This is Demeter, full name unknown, the leader of the cell. We think he’s a Turkish national. He’s a fanatical Sunni Muslim, known mostly as a trainer of suicide bombers. He’d be happy to blow himself up for the glory of Allah while striking against us. His cell shares that goal, save for a few that Hans brought in.”

  “So what the hell are Hans and Demeter doing working together so closely?” Daz asked.

  “We theorize that Hans is handling the money and arrangements,” Kowalski said. “The other mercenaries are his back-up against betrayal by Demeter. Once the cell has the radioactive materials, we figure Hans and his people will drop off.”

  “Meaning you don’t fucking know,” Jimmy said from the back table.

  “Cut it, corporal.” Alec glared at Jimmy. They didn’t have time for this if they wanted to get going. Jimmy knew that and should be controlling his nerves better.

  Jimmy shrugged and subsided.

  “Last thing,” Kowalski said. “If possible, we don’t just want these guys dead. We want someone left alive to talk.”

  “You said the radioactive materials were priority,” Daz said.

  Kowalski took a deep breath and rubbed his bald head. “And it remains priority. But we get the cell too, and we don’t have to worry about them finding more nukes. And we get Hans, we find out who’s got the purse strings on this one. There are a lot of questions about this operation and we want answers.”

  Daz nodded.

  They spent a few more minutes reviewing the layout of the docks and the warehouses. Kowalski glanced at his watch and ended it. Alec took a deep breath. His heart wasn’t hammering anymore. The nerves were fading, as they always did.

  Lansing grabbed Alec’s arm
on the way out.

  “Something that you want to tell me, boy?”

  Alec shrugged the hold aside. Obviously, Lansing was referring to Beth’s visit. “What are you talking about?” Back off.

  Lansing’s bushy eyebrows came together. “I want you to concentrate tonight on the mission.”

  “I’m doing nothing but concentrating on the mission. Go watch in mission control,” Alec said. “You’ll see.”

  “I expect no less.” Lansing scowled and walked away.

  Daz stepped to Alec’s side. “What bug is up his butt?”

  “Who knows? Let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  F-Team loaded into the van that would take them to the Newark docks. Daz tapped Alec’s shoulder as they stepped inside. “Good slap-down of Jimmy in the briefing,” Daz whispered. “You’re learning command.”

  “Thanks,” Alec mumbled. He took his seat and dipped his head to hide a smile. Daz was stingy with praise. I better not let it go to my head. Alec closed his eyes and ran through the briefing one more time in his mind. He braced himself as the van started moving.

  Some of F-Team whispered among themselves, small-talk, to stave off nerves. One of them mentioned a girl and that was enough to bring Beth back to Alec’s mind. He flexed his hand and thought of her small but very adult body wrapped around him, so hot that it felt like his insides had been burning, never mind the papers. He’d nearly ripped off her clothes, pushed her against the wall—

  Daz elbowed him. “Hello? You with us, Firefly?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned back, resting against the side of the van. The body armor pressed against his skin, banishing thoughts of naked Beth. Her breasts might not be large but they certainly looked perfectly formed from what he could tell.

  “Why’d Lansing feel the need to give you that last warning?” Daz asked.

  “Maybe he’s got Alzheimer’s,” Gabe chimed in. The rest of the team laughed. Alec smiled.

  “Lansing doesn’t like Beth. He thinks things between us are getting too personal.”

  “Aha,” Daz said. “Well, Lansing’s got a point. Girls can make you stupid.”