by C. J. Snyder
Mykael watched the hand that clenched his communicator shake hard, for the length of a heartbeat. Ghost traded hands, moved the earpiece to the other side of his head, turning his body away from Mykael.
“What the hell do you mean?”
Ignored by Ghost, she closed her eyes and focused, trying to hear Tron’s side of the conversation.
“...I said. ...Cochillos. Conf...tress and bar...Jaime.” She sat up straighter. Jaime had indeed been accompanied by a man who looked as seedy as the cartel underlord himself. Assuming the man to be another thug, she’d dealt with him quickly, while holding a gun on Jaime. Jaime had wet himself watching her dispatch his friend. When she left, the hash pipe they’d shared still smoldered on the desk.
Chapter Seven
He spent an hour on the communicator. Sometime during that hour, the pretense that this was her room alone evaporated. He made himself at home, shoved off his boots, propped his feet on a chair while he poked at the tiny keyboard of the communicator.
“Can I help?” She offered after the first hour. “No.” The quiet grunt did little to ease a panic that wanted out. Mykael retreated to the bathroom, using hot water to try and ease a foreboding that wouldn’t stop. But did it matter? If he caught her, he’d stop her, have to arrest her. She’d killed a Black Fire agent. Mykael pulled the man’s features back before her closed eyes.
The man was stoned. More stoned than Jaime. More stoned than a Black Fire agent should ever be. Coercion? Her mind slipped over the elements of the room. One pipe. One bag of dope. Cigars. Whiskey. Two men, three chairs, one an office chair empty behind a desk, the other two occupied. A sofa along the far wall. Weapons, yes. Neither man had drawn. Both were armed. Ghost’s friend hadn’t worn a communicator, or anything to give him away. Under cover? Too deep if he had been. Too out of it to protest his own death. Jaime had been more aware of her.
Mykael’s thoughts were interrupted by a draft of cold air. “We gotta go out, angel. How fast can you be ready.”
“Ten,” she promised and waited for him to close the door. When he didn’t, she peeked around the edge of the shower curtain. He filled the doorway, waiting for their eyes to connect. “Thanks.”
She couldn’t stop a frown. “For what?”
“The space. The quiet. I lost an old friend tonight.”
She could only hope he didn’t notice that her fingers were suddenly white against the edge of the shower curtain. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and she’d never meant it more. For reasons she didn’t care to contemplate, it mattered very much that her actions, her quest, had hurt Greg.
He cleared his throat. “We haven’t been close. Not for a while. Anyway, I’ve got to go and I want you to come with me.” For the next hour, Mykael pretended. She pretended she'd never seen her brother's restaurant. Pretended he wasn't her brother. Pretended she'd never been inside the small office that smelled the same, only more so, than it had earlier in the night. She pretended she hadn't smelled the death, the hash, the smell of two men . The new odors, those of death, were not so hard to pretend her way through.
When Ghost brought a chair to the outside of the small room and motioned her toward it, she sat. She figured it was so he knew where she was. She wondered if he knew it meant she could hear every word.
“One killer.” A Black Fire team member she hadn’t met yet, named Cap, worked with Ghost to make sense of the carnage in the little room. “Stood here,” Ghost agreed.
“Crater first? That doesn't make any sense.”
“Got a preliminary tox report back. He was high as an F16.” Ghost sounded angry. “What was he doing here? Did you send him to meet with Caldera, Ghost?”
“No. He wasn’t cleared for anything covert. I thought he was still in Colorado, finishing up his meetings with Kat.”
Kat, she wondered. She'd read of a Kat somewhere, but couldn't think where for the moment.
“Are you sure it was Los Cochillos?” “One hundred percent. The bar footage and the outdoor footage clearly show him leaving. Not arriving, however, so we've got to look for a disguise. This is the only way into this office. He came in the same way he left.” Ghost had her movements down cold.
“Have we heard anything from Caldera?” The quiet click and whir of a digital camera punctuated Cap’s question.
“Yeah, he's flipping a gourd. Magnum said he's ready to kill a whole lotta somebodies. Including the muscle he brought in to keep this from happening.”
“Muscle named Ibrajim Azisi? “That would be him. I've got a line on cartel chatter. I'll put out a feeler.” Ghost punched in a few numbers on his communicator. “Secure?. Did you hear what happened? Your people have a line on Azisi?..I need in on it. Thanks.” Ghost’s back was to her as he faced Cap. “Azisi thinks Los Cochillos is working for Black Fire.”
Mykael could see the confusion chase across Cap’s features. “Why would he think that?” “I don't know. We're missing something here. Something big. Did you get Crater's body out and away?”
“Just like you taught me.”
“Jaime's still at the lab, but we'll release him to Carlos Caldera as soon as we've completed the autopsy.” “That's all there is then.”
“So we've got nothing but tapes.” Mykael stiffened as Ghost turned toward her. “Nothing but tapes,” Cap echoed. “SDPD offered us a viewing room.”
“What medium?”
“Digital.” Sean spoke from next to her, surprised her, sending Mykael's gaze flying up to his face. He never even glanced at her. “I made copies for us. I have the originals for you.” Ghost nodded once. He removed the cameras and recorders he’d placed earlier that morning, sent the images to his communicator, and hoped they’d get lucky. Los Cochillos had just skipped from the bottom to the top of the list of priorities. “Cap, finish processing? Anything turns up, I want to know about it.”
“Roger that,” Cap murmured, but it was clear he thought what they all knew. There wouldn't be any evidence. There never was. The tapes wouldn't reveal anything either. Los Cochillos managed to get in, kill, and then stroll out without anyone seeing a thing but his exit.
“Why doesn't he care if he's seen leaving?” Ghost asked no one.
Magnum answered. “Because Los Cochillos is the disguise.”
Mykael started, dropped her bag to cover her sudden jerk. How had Sean figured that out? Did he know? No, he couldn't know. Not if he wasn't going to turn her in to these men he idolized.
For the first time that day, he met her eyes with a cool smile. “Decoy.” “Hi.” It was all she could manage. The thought of Sean working with Ghost, with Blade, with Ice, made her shiver, deep, deep inside. Her little brother did not belong with these men. He didn't belong in the dark depths of the abyss.
Ghost's hand came down on her shoulder and she stood, wanting the nearness of his body, her reactions too quick for censure. He caught her hand in his, issued a few more commands to Cap, but she couldn't hear them, wasn't aware of anything but the sheer shock of the strength of connection between the hand surrounding hers and her own. She followed him outside blindly, stopped when he did, in the shadow of an old tree next to the restaurant. He cupped her head with one strong hand and tipped her face up to his. “You okay?”
“I--” He didn't give her a chance to finish. “I'm sorry. I know it must have been a shock, seeing that office. I should have parked you somewhere a little further away, but until we find out who this guy is, I'd rather have you safe.”
She wanted to smile at the absurdity. Instead the sentiment had her blinking back tears. She had to get away from this man. Her heart was shredding, falling open a layer at a time and she didn't think she could stand the bitter sweetness of him.
Ghost didn't speak again until they were back in the hotel room. He'd stopped at a grocery store, tucked her under his arm, unable to stand her out of his sight for even an instant. Pulling her along with him, he gathered cheese, crackers and a bottle of wine. He wasn't sure what the night would hold, but he'd
bet it wasn't sleep.
Tron’s phone call had interrupted their dinner and he worried she’d be hungry. That would make two nights without sleep for both of them. He knew she hadn't slept after she joined him the night before. Knew because he'd been unable to sleep at all, first thinking about her, in the next room, almost close enough to touch, but so far away. He'd heard her fight through her nightmare, the soft cries, the tangle of legs and arms fighting sheets.
He certainly hadn't slept after she'd arrived, surprising him, lying so still and silent folded against him. He'd held her hand the whole night, feeling like he held shattered glass. Now, tonight, he needed to think, to process, to figure out how he'd lost a man. Yet there she sat, curled onto a straight-backed chair, still tough and mean as a cornered tom cat, but exuding a sorrow that clenched at his heart.
How the hell could he do his job with her sitting there?
“Tell me about the man you lost, Greg.” She poured him a glass of wine and he accepted, watching her long graceful fingers, remembering another glass of wine at her remote cabin. “Crater. He was troubled.” “I take it, from what I heard, he wasn't supposed to be there?” The question sounded important, not like a casual inquiry and he wondered why, then decided he was too tired to know what he was thinking.
“No. We don't know why he was there.”
“Undercover?”
“Not for us. Crater didn't react well when Viper died. He blamed the unit, and especially me, for letting a man walk away.”
Her eyes were bright, her gaze followed every blink of his own eyes. “Who?” “Doesn't matter. Just that Crater wasn't well after that. He worked with a doctor who has ties to the team, but didn't make much progress. He was bitter and angry and probably didn't have much of a future with us.”
Bitter, angry Black Fire members didn't have much a future at all, although he wouldn't tell her that. Was it possible Crater had turned? Was working with Caldera? Or was it simply wrong place, wrong time? As hard as he wished it, he knew the former had far more probability than the latter.
Crater and Jaime Caldera. How long? How many secrets? What had he compromised? Ghost closed his eyes, tired by the possibilities.
Not much. There wasn't much recent information Crater knew. He'd been decidedly out of the loop since last year. Hopefully he hadn't known how far out of the loop he'd been kept. Still, damage control would have to be done. Tron had located Crater's communicator. Cap would pick it up and work the location for clues.
Tron had sent a detailed list of the items from Mykael’s cabin, but at first glance there didn’t seem to be anything helpful. A wedding certificate. Blade had married her. A death certificate for a stillborn infant named Edward Peter. Other papers Tron had taken but had yet to identify. She wanted to clear Blade’s name was Ghost’s best guess. What it would take to accomplish that in her mind…that was yet to be determined.
Now this mess with Crater. Could the week get any worse? Tron had made the initial call to a senator last night at his request, but he'd have to set aside an hour for a full debrief sometime tomorrow.
He opened his eyes to find Mykael stretched out on the king sized bed. She'd turned down the spread and the sheet and blanket too. She lay on her side, waiting for his attention, because when he focused on her, she patted the bed beside her.
“I know you won't sleep, but you might feel better if you would just lay down for a while.” I’d feel better if I could get lost in your eyes , he thought, but didn't say it. Too much at stake, too many lies whirled through the air, too much still between them. The thought of that was the most depressing of all.
Surprising himself, he joined her on the bed, faced her.
She smiled, looked almost shy, and that thought had him choking back a grin. Mykael shy? He must be tired. “Do you want to talk about Crater?” she wondered.
“No.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll have to spend the day looking at surveillance tapes. I want you to fly to Denver and meet with Tron.” She gave a nod, surprising him with her acquiescence. “Anything else?”
“Definitely not anything else tonight.”
“Okay.” She drew the word out and his attention to her mouth and the quick flick of her tongue over her lips. The taste he'd had of her in the Nevada desert had done nothing to quench his fantasies and they roared to life like starved lions. Last night had been a test of his will. He hoped he had the strength for another one. Except she was nervous, nearly jolting when he covered her hand with his own. He'd had enough of that.
“Why are you Ghost?” The question should have surprised him, but for some reason it seemed a natural progression of his own thoughts.
He traced her cheek. Again, she twitched. “It’s a long story.” Mykael told herself to stop jumping every time he touched her. “Sometime when we’re not so busy, then,” she murmured and was instantly sorry for the irritation leaking out in her tone. She hated people trying to pry into her life. Why would he be any different?
Time away from his overwhelming presence tomorrow would be good. Flying was not her favorite thing, but she’d learned to stifle her fears throughout her years with Peter. A flight to Denver wouldn’t be too bad. No water underneath their plane. Maybe, just maybe, Tron would be more forthcoming about prior members of the team. Like one named Ice.
Before she could apologize, Greg rolled to his back and flicked out the light next to the bed, leaving them tucked inside darkness. “You’re right,” he sighed. “Her name was Robyn.” He sounded far, far away. “From the time I was 20, she was my life.”
Mykael closed her eyes, let his voice wash over her, wrap her up in his story and carry her away from this horrible reality where she’d killed a Black Fire member, but not the right one. Where people caused pain to people who wanted to turn her baby brother into a monster like she was herself.
“We met at college, it was her first day. I was a senior, and she–she had all the sunshine inside of her. She let it out through her eyes, giant baby blue eyes. I fell in love on the spot.” He reached for her hand and she let him unfist her fingers to twine with his but she rolled to her back because she needed some distance.
“Love at first sight?” She couldn’t help the tinge of derision in her voice.
“Not for Robyn.”
That surprised her. “Too aloof for the sunshine lady?” This time, aware of the pain in his voice, the pain she’d seen in his eyes since she’d met him, she kept her voice light and rolled back to her side, faced him, while she cradled her head with her right hand.
“Aloof, huh? No, not back then. Back then I was being groomed to follow in Dad’s footsteps. Senator Lassiter, Junior.”
She couldn’t see it. Ghost, with all his skills, spending his days in meetings and oration? “So what happened?” “I talked her out of falling in love with the quarterback of the football team.” That she could see. “Then she fell in love with you.”
Greg was silent for a long, long moment. Finally, he whispered, “Yeah, she did.” He sighed. “We got married, had a wild and crazy two years while I got my masters and she finished up her undergrad. We made Hunter, simply the most amazing boy. He had her eyes, my hair and there wasn’t anything inside of four yards of him that he didn’t inspect and try to take apart.”
Mykael could feel the love he had for his son as a tangible thing in the room. “He sounds wonderful.”
“He was.”
A shudder ran over him, and she linked her hand more closely with his. “What happened, Greg?” “Robyn was pregnant. With my–our daughter. We’d just been to the doctor the day before and had the ultrasound. Long fingers, such a beautiful face. Six months. Hunter used to kiss her belly good-night. Night-night, baby.”
Mykael’s eyes stung and she blinked hard and kept her mouth shut. She’d wanted to hear, hadn’t she?
“She was so beautiful pregnant. So full of life. So happy.” Greg blew out a quick shot of air. “So horny.” Mykael smiled, relieved when
he dropped her hand, rolled to his side and settled his hand on her waist. It pushed back the strange and totally inappropriate jealousy pulsing through her. Kept him connected to her, here with her, where she needed him. “I remember the horny.”
She could almost feel his smile. “Yeah, well, somehow I didn’t remember it from the first go round. She couldn’t keep her hands off me. Four o’clock in the morning. My favorite time.” “Enough time to fall back asleep together for a while before morning.” She moved closer, craving a more solid connection, relaxing when he kissed her. “Nothing better.” He kissed her again and Mykael knew only that there were tears. She couldn’t tell who they belonged to. “I put her on a friend’s jet. They were going to Jackson Hole–our family had a lodge. I was to follow by the weekend, but it was so hot in Virginia, and I wanted her and Hunter to start vacation early. My aunt Peggy went too.”
She soothed her hand over a shoulder that was stiff, rigid with an agony she shared in her heart. “You don’t have to–“
He ignored her. “Hunter’s face was plastered against the little window. I could see Robyn trying to get him to sit down, but he kept his eyes on me. Bye-bye, Daddy.”
Mykael threw her arms around him but it was like trying to embrace a giant granite rock. Greg cleared his throat and rolled away from her. “The plane blew up. Knocked me on my ass and out cold. The doctor told me I was lucky to be alive. I told him to fuck off.” “Who did it?”
She felt his fist collide with the bed next to her hand, knew he wished it was something solid. Something he could hurt. “Cobra.” She’d never heard a voice so cold. Then he sighed, and rolled back to face her. “Or someone pissed off at my dad. Or someone who’d just figured out how to make a bomb and decided that jet was a good place to test it.”
“You really don’t know?” That was surprising.
“Not enough left.”
“Of the bomb?”
“Of anything. Hunter’s stuffed puppy was next to my hand when they found me. Like he’d brought it to me himself. It was the only intact thing on the jet.” His voice was cool now in the darkness. This was Ghost, not Greg talking. Mykael relaxed just a bit.
