by K. T. Lee
Ree checked her watch. She tended to get hyperfocused on her work, and she needed to remember to leave soon. Ree had a girls’ night planned with her friend, Joanna Nobelkov, in half an hour, and she stepped away from her samples before she ran out of time to stop at the grocery store for snacks.
Ree’s phone rang as she pulled into the grocery store parking lot. Placing her car in park, she looked at the caller ID and smiled before picking up. “Alex! How are you?” Alexis was a part of the FBI team that had come to her lab to investigate and they had grown close during their time together. Alexis suffered from the same hard-to-contact problem as Parker, but they still managed to stay in touch. They texted frequently, so her call was unusual but not particularly suspect.
“Hey, Ree. I’m good. I actually have a question for you. A professional one.”
“Shoot.”
“We’ve been roped into a joint FBI-CIA task force and the bureaucrats there want a consultant’s perspective. Plus, you know Sandy wants you to stay involved.”
“He did mention that,” Ree said, uncharacteristically brief. She bit her tongue to keep from asking what Parker thought. After they were both nearly killed on Ree’s first and only assignment, Parker probably wasn’t on the same page as Sandy. Since they had only been seeing each other for a few months, he hadn’t voiced an opinion on the matter, but her consulting for the FBI again so soon probably wouldn’t be easy for him. Oh well, one drama at a time.
“So, you’ll help us out? Don’t make me sit in a meeting with Agent No Filter and Agent I Don’t Have Time for This Crap by myself.”
Ree laughed out loud. “Of course–especially if I get to watch the three of you playing nice with the CIA. In fact, I think I’d pay to see that. How did all of you guys get tricked into this?”
Alexis heaved a deep sigh in response and said, “Just lucky, I guess. We’ll call you with details and dates once we know them, but you’ll probably have to come to us.” While Ree was sure there was more to the story, they were on an unsecured cell phone and she understood the rules.
“And Parker?”
“He was there. He didn’t say anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion the man has a serious bug up his butt when it comes to you spending more time with the FBI.”
“He hasn’t said a word.”
“We just found out Sandy wants you in on it a couple of minutes ago. I think he’s trying not to be overprotective. Don’t worry, I’ll talk him down.”
Ree laughed, said goodbye, and hung up. One thing she’d learned while working with the FBI was to expect the unexpected.
8
Dani approached the doorway of a nondescript house in an unfamiliar Romanian city and swallowed hard, hyperaware that she was making a choice to put her faith in two people she had just met. From the outside, the house was nothing out of the ordinary, but that was probably the point. As she crossed the threshold into the small house, she was surprised to find it dim inside, with heavy curtains drawn over the windows. A couple of men turned away from their computer monitors to look at her curiously as she entered, but they didn’t introduce themselves. She followed Cam and Green Eagle past the glow of light from the monitors, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness.
“This way.” Cam flicked on a light and gestured to an old kitchen table that wobbled a bit when Dani touched it. He grabbed a few bottles of water on the kitchen counter and cracked one open before giving it to her.
“You hungry? Stumpy can get you some of the US military’s finest rations,” Cam said in a tone that made her suspicious of how fine the rations actually were. However, now that she didn’t think her death could be imminent, her stomach seemed to have skipped hungry and gone straight to pain. Dani nodded and a protein bar was tossed to her by one of the other men, presumably Stumpy, who left the kitchen to join the quiet grouping of men in the living room.
“Sorry about the hospitality. The boys don’t get out much.” Green Eagle didn’t sit at the wobbly table with Cam, instead pulling a wad of rough paper towels from a roll next to a sink. Looking back at her discreetly, he added a spot of yellow dish soap to the crumpled bundle and ran water over the towels. Folding it into a perfect square, he handed it to her and leaned against the fridge, arms crossed. Cam gave him a look of approval.
“Considering my last restaurant, the service here is pretty good. Thanks,” Dani said, her dark humor returning. She rubbed the cool towel over her hands and face and popped a bite of the dense bar into her mouth.
“Apologies, ma’am. Dani. I skipped right over that part. How are you holding up?”
“Better now, but that’s probably my body going into shock,” Dani said, her voice level and matter-of-fact. Before going to work for her father’s company, she’d been a pre-med undergraduate and then completed a dual master’s degree in pharmaceutical science and biology. Defaulting to a physiologic description of her state of being was something only Dani would recognize as a coping mechanism. Cam studied her for a moment as if trying to figure out if she was joking. She focused on slowing her heart rate, placing two fingers on her wrist as it slowed to track her progress. Each beat of her heart was a sign she was still alive, still breathing. Dani looked at Cam expectantly and when he didn’t speak, she said, “Ask your questions. Pulse is back down to high-normal. Blood pressure still feels elevated, but there’s not a lot I can do about that until the adrenaline fades. Then I’ll really feel like crap. We should talk before that happens. Now is good.”
“I need to ask you a few questions about your captors. Are you sure you’re okay to talk?”
“Yeah.” Dani’s pulse spiked again at the word captors. She removed her fingers from her wrist. She took a sip from her water bottle. Intellectually, she knew she could force her body to revisit the trauma even as her battered soul was shouting that it was barely over. She focused her thoughts and set her mouth in a line.
As if reading her mind, Green Eagle approached the table and sat in the empty chair next to hers. “You don’t have to answer anything if you can’t right now. I’ll fly you back to the States myself and we can have you debriefed there. Isn’t that right, Cam?” Cam nodded and Green Eagle reached out a hand. “I never introduced myself. I’m Tyler.”
Dani smiled at the strangeness of introducing herself to someone who helped rescue her while her kidnappers shot at his helicopter. She met his offered hand and held on for a few beats longer than she would have if she wasn’t still scared out of her mind. “Dani. You can call me Dani.”
Tyler’s easy smile calmed her nerves a fraction. “You’ve been through hell, so you can call me whatever you want. I’ve told Watchman here he can call me the best officer on his team.” Tyler shot her a grin and Cam rolled his eyes. “We’d love to have the information while it’s fresh. That’s usually when things are the most accurate. Your dad is a scientist, so you get that, right?”
“Yeah, so am I.” Cam turned his head at that. It wasn’t the first time that someone assumed the daughter of a successful businessman was out playing tourist instead of working at a full-time job, and Dani wasn’t offended.
“Okay, maybe we should back up. What were you doing in Romania?”
“I didn’t know I was in Romania,” Dani said flatly. “I was presenting at a conference in Vienna. The day after my presentation, I left to use the bathroom and ended up with a gun in my side and a very large man telling me to keep my mouth shut.”
“I’m sorry?” Cam raised his eyebrows.
“I was attending and presenting my research at a conference.”
“I assumed they picked you up a little closer. They went to a lot of effort for one person.” Cam leaned back in his chair and Dani filled him in on the details of her capture. Dani didn’t notice that she had started to shake until Tyler placed a warm cup of coffee in her hands and covered her shoulders with a heavy blanket. He stood behind her and she felt oddly safer, even though the facts of the situation hadn’t changed. Dani stared at the woo
d grain on the table as she answered their questions. When she finally looked up, Dani noticed that the men she had passed on the way into the room had all gathered at the entrance to the kitchen to listen. Her initial assumption that Cam was the brains in the room and everyone else was the brawn may have incorrect.
“Can you think of any reason you were targeted?” Cam asked.
“No. I work on vaccines for developing countries. The foundation won’t be making a profit off our work. We don’t usually make a lot of enemies by helping the people that need it most.”
“Any personal enemies?”
“None that I’m aware of, but now that I’ve been kidnapped, I’m starting to reconsider that hypothesis.”
“Did they say anything to you that would indicate why they would target you, specifically? Were you just an easy opportunity?”
“I don’t know. It makes no sense. I was alone in the hallway, but we were at a nice hotel and I didn’t feel afraid. Well, that’s not exactly true. I didn’t think my fears were rational. The man who kidnapped me was there the day before. I remember seeing him. He was with anti-vax protestors, but then I also saw him attending the conference. He gave me the creeps, but I stayed in public areas with people around. I never dreamed he’d kidnap me at gunpoint in broad daylight.”
Cam crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “We’ll check it, but the protester link is probably a red herring. They’re usually there to express their opinions, not kidnap people. What about your father? He’s well known, he’s in the media. Is there someone out there who could have a bone to pick with him?”
“Would they need money? Someone tried to blackmail Dad once.”
“Potentially. We’ll look into it. In the meantime, do you want to call your family and get back home? I think we can get you on your way as soon as tomorrow.”
Dani managed a small smile. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”
* * *
Tyler Scott didn’t get surprised by much anymore, but the last twenty-four hours had been…out of the ordinary. Not only did they have a new houseguest, she was the daughter of a multi-millionaire who was surprisingly down-to-earth. Dani Christensen had gratefully accepted his offer of oversized sweatpants and long-sleeve t-shirt as if he’d given her the moon instead of his clean gym clothes. After that, Dani had managed to sleep through most of the night–or at least once he told her the door locked from the inside.
In the quiet of the morning, before most of the others were up, Tyler booted up a program to get facial recognition off of Cam’s video. After an hour of total focus on the screen in front of him, he looked up from his work to give his eyes a break. Dani entered the room and settled on the couch, curling her knees into her chest. She held a bottle of water and her eyes followed the movement of the men in the house. Tyler met Dani’s eyes and the corners of her mouth turned up. Barely a smile, but given her circumstances, it was practically a miracle. She was a little younger than he, probably in her late twenties, but the oversized gym clothes made her look younger.
When the room became more crowded, she began to shrink into an even smaller ball, still clutching the bottle of water. He let the program keep running and joined the woman he helped rescue on the couch. The rest of the guys were trying to keep their distance out of respect for their skittish victim, but she seemed to trust him more than the others. He didn’t know how he was going to help her, but he needed to try.
“You holding up okay?” He asked, keeping his voice low and steady. Dani didn’t seem the type to broadcast her pain, and his guess was confirmed when she merely nodded in reply. “Probably ready to go home?”
“Very ready.”
“Good news, then. You’ll be flying back with Cam and me in a couple of hours. You’ll also get Noah and Ike in the back of the plane but if they do their job right, you won’t see them.”
“You aren’t flying us back?”
“There’s no reason not to just take you back on a commercial flight. It’ll help us keep a low profile when we leave.”
“Green Eagle, we good to go?” Cam said, as he passed through the small living room. Tyler nodded and Dani looked at him curiously.
“So, I get the Eagle, but why are you Green Eagle?”
Tyler rubbed his forehead. “Would you believe it’s because my first helicopter was green?” Dani gave him a doubtful look and he grinned sheepishly. “No? Well, I was christened with my call sign on my first flight. I joined the Air Force ROTC in college and I’d known I wanted to fly pretty much my entire life. I didn’t want to barf all over the helicopter if, you know, I found out the hard way I needed to get used to flying. So, I tucked a few bags in my pocket, just in case. Unfortunately, one fell out.”
“Oh no.” Dani clapped a hand over her mouth and her body began to shake with quieted laughter.
“Yeah. I was trying to be a world-class helicopter pilot and when the guys realized I brought my own barf bags, the name stuck. Some of us changed careers to come work for the CIA. So, the name came with me.”
“So, did you? Throw up, I mean?”
“No. But it didn’t stop the guys from a good laugh. It’s alright.”
Cam walked by again and said over his shoulder, “Of course he’s fine with it. He’s saved every person in this room at least once.”
“Including me,” Dani said, her voice soft.
Cam shot back, “No, no. None of that. The last thing the kid needs is more confidence.”
Tyler waved a hand. “I was picking up Cam anyway. They’d fire me if I left him–even if he deserves it.”
“I heard that!” Cam shouted from the kitchen.
Tyler smiled and stood. He brushed his hands on his pants before offering her a hand up off the couch. “Let’s get you ready to go, okay?”
* * *
Dani hefted a heavy black bag over her shoulder from the pile in front of the door. She was so grateful to Cam and Tyler, she didn’t know how to thank them. So, she settled for helping carry some luggage. She heard Cam’s voice behind her. “Hey, put that down. We’ve got it. How are you holding up?”
“Doing okay, Cam. Thank you for asking. And for your hospitality.”
“Look, when you get home and things sink in, don’t be afraid to go talk to someone.”
Dani dropped the bag to face him, not understanding. “Someone?”
“Like a therapist.”
“Aw, come on, you guys haven’t been that hard to be around,” Dani deflected while studying what remained of her dress shoes.
“I’ve been in your shoes, kiddo,” Cam said, and Dani lifted her head.
“Kidnapped?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Not exactly,” Cam said, lifting his pant leg to show her an artificial limb, and Dani’s eyes widened. “But PTSD is pretty common for victims of violence and you definitely qualify. Just keep an eye out for the signs and make sure you find someone to talk to if you need to.”
“I can tell them the CIA rescued me from a kidnapping?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah, not exactly that. We’re going to need you to say you escaped because they didn’t tie you up well enough and you ran for help in a nearby village, if that’s not a problem. We have a scenario report we’ve put together for you to memorize. I know we’re asking you to cover for us…” Cam trailed off, scratching his neck.
“It’s the least I can do. Just make sure you don’t make it too complicated.”
Tyler threw a small bag to Dani, who caught it easily. “No slacking, science girl.” He winked at her as he passed. Dani gave him a smile and hoisted a bag over each shoulder, grateful for the hint of normalcy. It was time to get back to the real world.
The airport was only a few minutes away, and the team passed through security as American tourists. A passport had been procured for Dani in short order. How or if it was a legal one, she didn’t ask, and it disappeared into Cam’s backpack as soon as it was no longer needed.
Dani slept
hard in the middle seat between the two officers. She awoke only when she felt something unusual and realized it was Tyler covering her with his coat when she shivered in her sleep. When the plane touched down in New York and the passengers dispersed, they led Dani down a restricted-access hallway. They showed ID to the security guard and passed into a small room between customs and the main terminal.
Cam gave Dani a business card. “Thanks for answering all of our questions. Tyler and I both put our cell numbers on the back. Call the main line if you think of anything that could be important, but if you need to get in touch quickly, go with the cell numbers.”
Dani swallowed hard at the realization she’d be facing the rest of the journey back to her home in Minneapolis alone. However, being back in the US gave her a measure of comfort. She turned to the men who had rescued her and said, “Thanks for this and for saving my life, guys. I know I said it before, but I can’t say it enough. You and your team–I appreciate what you did for me.” Cam reached out his hand to shake hers and she pulled him into a hug. She turned to Tyler and did the same.
Tyler squeezed her shoulder. “Good luck, Dani.”
The two CIA officers left to catch their connecting flight and Dani felt a twinge of disappointment when she realized she’d never see them again. As she watched them turn the corner, she shook her head. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were old college buddies instead of CIA officers. Dani wondered if she’d ever see life the same way again and decided, probably not. However, she had her day job to get back to. She would also have to explain to her parents that when she called to let them know she’d had a nice time on her trip, she left out the small but important detail of getting kidnapped.
