“You’re a good man, Jake Banning,” Stella whispered, lifting on tiptoes as he met her halfway and gave her a light kiss. Then she turned to face his teammate.
“I’m Maia.” The redhead introduced herself.
“You’re the one who suggested I dye my hair black.”
“I did.”
“Thanks for that by the way.”
“You’re welcome.” Maia gave a small smile. “I’m sorry your grandmother got hurt. But we have more information that could shed light on her attack.”
Stella’s body stiffened as she glanced up questioningly at Jake.
He gave her a tight nod.
“Let’s hear it.”
16
It was the day of the Global Chemistry Innovation Conference, three days after Pearl was shot. Stella stood on patrol duty just inside the Virginia Beach Convention Center where thousands of participants from all over the world converged. Some wore their geek proudly with chemical equations emblazoned on their shirts, while others were more conservative in suits and horn-rimmed glasses. Stella wondered what spectrum she would have fallen on if she had continued her degree and was attending, instead of working this event.
Longing bloomed inside her, a desire to blend into this crowd.
Slacks and a pretty top, she thought. Sensible shoes. Those would be her attire.
And here she was in a uniform that had become foreign to her in the past week.
She spotted Caroline with a conference tote over her shoulder. She was conversing with its organizer. Caroline was dressed in a gray suit and would be giving Pearl’s keynote speech. Gram had insisted on this.
There was a high probability that Schneider wasn’t stopping with Pearl and disrupting the conference would be his way of getting revenge on the CWC shutting down the German lab that facilitated his dishonorable discharge from the Tier One forces. Schneider’s plan was to make Pearl suffer. He had Lt. Desmond put Stella on patrol that night so he could kidnap her and use her as revenge against Gram. Jake and Gould had the misfortune of blowing a tire and drew her attention before Schneider could get to her. The fortunate circumstances had Stella shaking her head.
The question remained whether the Krieger United owner abandoned his plan to join the big-time arms dealing network, cut his losses, and disappeared. There was no chatter in the signal intelligence databases. If there was a plot, they were using very low-tech means of communication as fallback.
After Pearl was shot, the convention organizers, the feds, and local LEOs decided to release a bulletin to all convention goers informing them of the credible threats to the event and necessary measures were being taken to ensure their safety.
Stella watched as people readily surrendered their bags to be inspected and scanned. The crowd was sizable, and it was evident that instead of scaring people off, they were more determined to show solidarity, a defiance to use science for good rather than evil.
She smiled when a group of young adults passed her with shirts emblazoned with the words: “Geeks for Peace.”
Viktor enlisted Drake and Marcus to be the eyes outside the convention halls. No one could take Wolf away from Caroline’s side. Stella spotted him in civilian clothes keeping an eagle eye on the crowd.
Maia was at the front of the convention hall dressed in a smart pant suit, going undercover as a conference attendee. Viktor was somewhere around.
As for Jake, he was wearing the event security’s blue uniform. She could feel his eyes on her, always watching.
The keynote speech was about to begin and there was a rush of attendees passing through the doors that caused a caterpillar effect. Stella’s eyes narrowed when she saw that the guard in charge of letting people through in the handicap queue wasn’t scanning the whole frame of the wheelchair. She clicked on her shoulder radio. “Assisting in the handicap line.”
“Roger that. What’s wrong?” Jake asked.
“Security protocols are not being enforced.”
“Dammit, coming at ya.”
Stella got to the line and stopped one of the wheelchairs from going through. It was a man of about thirty, with dark complexion. He didn’t fit the profile, but at this point everyone was a suspect. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sure you got the bulletin yesterday and we just need to be thorough.”
Expecting an awkward encounter, she was relieved when the man shrugged. “No problem with me. I was surprised you all were lax. You know in the movies it’s always the guy in the wheelchair who has a bomb.”
Everyone tittered nervously, and Stella bit back a pained smile.
The guy flushed beneath his mocha skin. “Bad joke?”
“Yep.” She whipped out her sensor wand from her belt and scanned the wheelchair all over. The device only checked for residue of the binary agent and wasn’t outfitted to identify its final chemical properties. No one knew the final derivative of Schneider’s chemical weapon. It was disturbing what could be found on the internet these days, especially in the black hole of the dark web.
After showing the guard how to perform the scan correctly, Stella walked by the wall of the conference ballroom to assess threats that might have escaped that guard. It only took a single lapse in vigilance. The room was abuzz with chatter and conversation. She strolled past the Geeks for Peace row, followed by a long table of tweed-wearing professor-like men and women who reminded her of Pearl. Gram was under heavy guard at the hospital, but if she was just a means to an end, they would know today.
Her eyes fell upon the front rows and spotted two people in wheelchairs side by side. This was going to be awkward. It was one thing to be thorough, but it wouldn’t lessen the image of what would appear to be bullying someone with a disability. She took a deep breath and decided it was better to be safe than sorry. However, another attendee caught her eye. On the same front row was a person with hair and sideburns that was at odds to his profile. The lines of his face reminded her of Schneider, but everything else like his build and said facial hair didn’t belong to the two-hundred-forty-pound fugitive they were after. But he could easily wear a fat suit and if Schneider had been ex-German Special Forces …
The guy in question turned her way and, even through the round spectacles and the distance, those beady eyes lasered into her. The small hairs on her nape rose as Stella clicked her shoulder mic. “Possible eyes on Schneider.”
The lights dimmed, making her lose her quarry as the spotlight shifted to the stage and an announcement was made that the keynote was about to start.
Her earpiece erupted in chatter.
“Dammit, the lights,” Stella said urgently. “Someone get the lights back on.” All she could see were silhouettes of people rushing to their seats and she cursed her height disadvantage as she craned her neck. The seconds of darkness felt like minutes. When the lights came back on, murmurs of confusion rose in the room, and Stella looked again to where she thought she saw Schneider.
The seat was empty.
“Suspect’s gone,” Stella said. “I repeat, Schneider is gone.” She sprinted forward and her eyes swept across the auditorium frantically searching for him. Movement at the exit door behind the stage caught her eye and she recognized his clothes and his back.
“He left at the north exit,” Stella said. “Behind the stage.”
“Advice … wait for backup.” That was Maia.
“We’re gonna lose him.” She hurried to where he disappeared.
“He wouldn’t be alone,” Jake snarled. “Wait for backup.”
Stella went with her gut. She wasn’t going to do anything reckless but relied on her training. As she exploded from the exit where the Schneider-guy disappeared, her head swiveled from left to right. The hallway was devoid of people because it was not a public-accessible corridor. She kept her ears peeled and heard shuffling to her right. Drawing her weapon, she hurried in that direction and when she reached the intersecting hallways, caught sight of the guy entering a door on her left.
“Tex, you ther
e?” Stella asked.
“I see you’re near the maintenance door.” Her friend’s voice crackled through comms.
“Is that further down where I am?”
“On the left, yes. That’s where our Schneider-look-alike disappeared,” Tex said. “It’s the stairwell leading to the basement.”
Jake appeared beside her. “The keynote has been postponed. They’re evacuating the room.”
“Wolf and Caroline are briefing the organizers,” Maia reported, rounding from behind Jake. “Viktor is briefing the SWAT and HAZMAT teams. He’ll catch up with us.”
Stella nodded tightly. The more of them, the better. No telling how many people Schneider had down there.
Arriving at the door, Jake gripped its handle and looked back at them. “Ready?”
Both women nodded.
17
The trio silently descended the steps and, before they cleared the last one, Jake glanced around the wall to make sure it was clear of Schneider’s men. It was a wide pathway with monstrous equipment on each side—the heart of the convention center. Mechanical and humming sounds drowned their footsteps’ approach.
“My guess is they’re going to rig the ventilation system,” Tex said in their earpieces. “The turbine is at the far end of where you’re heading. Watch those gaps between the machines. There are places where Schneider’s men can hide. Sorry I can’t help you with thermals.”
Jake looked over his shoulder, first at Stella, then at Maia who signaled she was crossing to the other side. Stella turned and watched their rear. He tamped down the urge to snatch her and spirit her to safety.
He needed to focus on the job. They were close to apprehending Schneider.
“Get that working. It’s our last chance to deploy this.” A voice spoke from about thirty feet from them.
Jake and Maia exchanged a look across the room. She pointed to herself and he nodded. They needed a stealth approach, and if anyone was light on her feet, that would be the red-haired Guardian.
“I agreed to disrupt the keynote speech,” someone rasped. “One person. Not five, not ten. I’m a nationalist, not a murderer.”
“You do as I fucking tell you.”
“Or what? You’ll use the Novichok on me? You’ll die too.”
“How about I tell Bobby here to shoot you?”
“Shit, counting three people,” Jake said.
“That means we can each take a shot,” Stella whispered. “We didn’t need Viktor after all.”
“I’m touched,” a voice muttered behind them.
Jake whipped around just as Viktor clamped a hand over Stella’s mouth, presumably to prevent her from screaming and then slowly released her.
What the fuck, Jake mouthed. If they weren’t supposed to be quiet he would have punched his boss.
His woman looked like she was about to spit nails or, if her eyes had been laser beams, Viktor would be toast.
“I’m also trying to hack into the center’s HVAC controls,” Tex said.
“Copy that,” Jake replied.
Maia, who was a couple of steps ahead of them, signaled with four fingers—four hostiles. Moving farther ahead meant they were too close to speak, so Jake told Tex they were going radio silent.
“Copy that,” the hacker/analyst acknowledged.
Advancing forward, Maia raised her rifle. She had a target.
“Give it up, Schneider,” she called out.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man spat.
“Lower that cane.”
“You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.”
“I don’t know, Doug. I can call you, Doug, right? But it seems you’ve got a weapon in that cane.”
“I just wanted to teach these people a lesson.”
“What lesson? That losers like you would harm innocents just to prove a point?”
“He’s stalling,” Jake muttered as his eyes scanned the area.
A shot rang out from behind them. Jake whipped around just in time to see a man fall from between the machineries.
“Your man is dead, Schneider,” Stella called out calmly.
“Good job, Hunt,” Viktor said as he made his way toward Maia, gun raised and aimed at Schneider and his cohorts.
Jake was mighty proud of his fighter girl and he would show her just how proud he was as soon as this op was over.
“Send SWAT and HAZMAT in,” Viktor said loudly, letting Schneider know it was the end for him.
“Continue to watch our rear,” Jake told Stella as they shuffled forward in tandem.
When Schneider saw him, the man’s face contorted with a vicious hate Jake had never seen on anyone before.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled. “You betrayed me.”
“I believe the right word is played,” Jake said. “It’s over, Schneider.”
The man raised his cane in both hands and sneered. “I’ll see you in hell first.”
His men scampered away just as four rounds slammed into his body.
Schneider fell to the ground and the rod he was holding clattered to the floor.
Jake held his breath.
18
Stella sat on the steps of the ambulance getting looked over by an EMT.
As a precaution, the HAZMAT crew set up portable showers in the back of the convention center and after the four of them got hosed down, they were given a change of clothes that resembled hospital scrubs.
Schneider was dead, and the Novichok derivative suspected to be in the cane had been contained and commandeered by the feds. Needless to say, there was unparalleled excitement at the convention as the organizers and the VBPD herded the crowd to a safe location.
A shadow fell over her and she glanced up to see Jake handing her a bottle of water. “You feeling okay?”
She nodded. The scant seconds after Schneider dropped to the ground felt like an eternity when she held her breath as though the entire oxygen supply was toxic. All she heard was the pounding in her ears as everyone froze. Then the Guardians sprang into action, disarming three of Schneider’s crew swiftly and efficiently. Stella stood in awe until Jake grinned at her while handing her the confiscated weapons.
Well then.
All was secure when the cavalry arrived. Everyone was wearing gas masks as was protocol during a chemical attack but not knowing whether the Novichok was in gas or powder form, the risk was still high.
Jake helped her down from the ambulance steps and they both thanked the EMT for checking her out.
She leaned into him. “I’m ready to take a long nap, but I want to see Gram first.” Caroline was staying behind to deliver the keynote after the excitement was contained. The show must go on.
“You got it.”
Her eyes caught sight of the big blond Guardian talking to the VB chief of police and a dark-haired gentleman. “Who is Viktor talking to?”
“A spook.”
“CIA?”
“Yup.”
“Wow.”
Jake grinned at her. “How come you never were that impressed with me when I was all covert and shit.”
“You did kidnap me.” They walked arm in arm toward the parking lot.
“You guys heading out?” Maia hollered, which made Viktor look in their direction.
“Yeah,” Jake said.
Maia smiled at her and gave her a thumbs up. She felt heat creep up her cheeks.
Viktor gave them a brief nod and resumed his discussion with the spook and Stella’s boss.
“He likes to appear in clutch moments, doesn’t he?” Stella said, remembering the incident at the safe house and today’s op.
“Viktor?”
“Yes.”
“I’m surprised he showed up in the basement,” Jake said. At Stella’s questioning look, he added, “Remember that chemical attack at the U.S. Capitol six years ago?”
Stella stopped walking and turned to him, her eyes bugging out. “That was Viktor?”
“Yep. He almost didn’t make it. I think he spent a
month in the hospital and months in rehab—the tremor in his hand took a while to disappear.”
Jake had to prod her to resume walking as she reeled with this information.
“He really is a legend,” she said in awe as he helped her into the SUV.
“Hey, now,” Jake chided, hanging his arm on the roof of the vehicle as he ducked his head inside. “Do I need to be jealous of him?”
“No,” Stella said, tongue-in-cheek. “I don’t like blonds.”
Jake barked a laugh as he straightened and shut the door.
Then he got into the vehicle beside her and together they drove off to see Pearl.
Epilogue
Five weeks later
Wall sex.
It was the perfect position to take on a man like Jake Banning. Pinned against the wall, riding his cock, his up thrusts sliding her up and down the smooth surface with him controlling how deep he would go. And he went deep. So deliciously deep that every stroke lit up every nerve ending where his shaft touched her.
Jake tore his mouth away from kissing her and growled, “Say it again.”
“I love you,” she gasped, just as another orgasm hit her and he continued to pump into her, looking down where they were joined, satisfied rumblings vibrating in his chest.
Her caveman.
His gaze lifted, their eyes locked briefly before his lips curled back almost in a snarl, his lids shut, and he threw back his head and grunted his release. He sagged into her, face buried between her neck and shoulder. He didn’t immediately drop her legs, he loved nuzzling her neck after sex and that was what he was doing now.
“Say it again,” he whispered, his breath fanning her ear and giving her goosebumps. Stella didn’t respond and waited for him to glance up which he did after her continued silence.
His stare was penetrating. In the six weeks that she’d known him, it was the first time she’d uttered those words. It wasn’t because Stella didn’t feel them, she did in a big way. Her love for this man was all-consuming, she could barely think straight when her thoughts strayed to him when they weren’t together. It took a lot of discipline not to daydream while on patrol. Their attraction was a perfect ionic bond as Gram liked to tease them, but Stella wanted to be sure that it wasn’t just a chemical reaction that would vaporize.
Protecting Stella (Special Forces: Operation Alpha) Page 13
