Jasmin Parker was trying her best to get Zane to hand me over to the Director of the CIA and head to South Sudan without me. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed information Wolf and his team had; it was the only way for me to end the shitstorm that had become my life. A simple trade.
“That’s not an option,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t give away how nervous I was.
“Why is that?” Jasmin asked, and narrowed her eyes on me.
“Because I have information Zane needs.”
“Information? We don’t need jack shit from you. There’s nothing you have that we can’t get,” she returned.
“Is that right? I believe I’m the one that brought this intel to you. No one in the government knew the platoon was walking into a trap. And the longer we sit here and argue, the more danger they’re in. So, cut the shit and let’s go.”
“You probably set it up. And while we’re on the topic, why the fuck are we trusting her anyway. How do we know she’s not setting us up to walk into an ambush, too?” Jasmin asked Zane.
“Tex has vetted her intel. I don’t have a choice, not with the guys lives on the line, we have to go in. And she’s coming with us, if nothing else I’ll use her ass as a human shield. When bullets start flying, just hide behind her,” Zane snorted at his comment.
Dick.
I’d take his nasty comments until I didn’t need him anymore. He was a means to an end. They all were.
“Who’s responsible for the strap?” Jasmin asked, and pointed at me. I’d kept my temper in check for as long as I could. Hearing her call me a strap had me seeing red. She’d said it to be a bitch, implying I was being strapped to the team and was a hindrance. In a normal operation the extra personnel that were not part of the team such as the linguists, were called straps. They were extra weight, someone the team had to cover because they had subpar, if any, combat training.
“My name is Violet, I suggest you learn it and use it. I believe my job title and clearance are higher up the food chain than yours. Just because these men pussyfoot around you, and think it’s cute to let you play G.I. Jane, doesn’t mean I will. I’ve heard all about your itchy trigger finger, and how you fucked up in Russia, too busy playing Miss Rambo to see the threat. You’re a cautionary tale of what not to do. You think because you’re Zane’s sister-in-law and the President’s niece your shit don’t stink. Well guess what sweetie, I’m coming on this op, and if I have one fucking problem with you, I’ll use your ass as my shield.”
“Can I shoot her now? It’s been weeks since Penelope has come out to play,” she asked.
I knew about that too, her naming her gun Penelope. Yet another thing I didn’t like about her. Who the fuck named their gun?
“You’re on thin ice,” Zane growled. If I didn’t need to go on this op so badly, I probably would’ve run. He scared the shit out of me – they all did. “You forget I was on that Russian op, too. Do you think I was out playing Rambo as well?” Zane stopped and turned to Jaxon, “Blue, she’s your problem. Keep her ass in check, by any means necessary.”
Just a means to an end, I reminded myself.
I could do anything for him.
I would do anything for him, including selling my soul, facing life in prison, and keeping company with a group of people that would sooner kill me than believe me.
Chapter Two
Jaxon
Little Violet was scared shitless, but she still put on a brave front and went toe-to-toe with Jasmin. I was impressed and curious. There was no reason to lash out at Jasmin the way Violet did, which made me even more suspicious of her intentions. She was desperate and that was always dangerous.
Violet was hiding something. She thought she’d covered the shame in her eyes when Zane told the team she was the traitor we’d been looking for. She’d tried to look cavalier, but she wasn’t a good actress.
After Zane had called the President and briefed him, we’d boarded a chartered Learjet Tex had arranged and were on our way to South Sudan. I had to say, the man hooked us up; we were traveling in luxury this trip. It wasn’t often we didn’t get stuck on military transports. Two hours into the flight Violet had finally fallen asleep and I took in my fill. She was a small little thing. fun-sized and feisty. She wasn’t the type of woman that normally caught my attention, but there was something in the way that Violet moved that captured my attention.
I made my way to the front of the aircraft where Zane was going over the mission brief with Eric and Jasmin. Leo and Colin, the two other men on our team, had stayed behind at the President’s request. He’d asked to borrow them for a security detail, and Zane had agreed. Much to Linc’s annoyance, he still hadn’t been cleared for field work and was stuck at HQ with Garrett to run tech and communication for us.
“Anyone else having a problem with the false bravado?” I asked.
“It was fun to watch the billy-badass routine when she stepped to Jas,” Eric said.
“Fun? Is that what you call it? I’m still on the fence about tossing her ass out at thirty-two-thousand feet.”
“I’m not buying it,” I told them.
“We’ll know more when Tex gets back to us. The initial report didn’t say much beyond her work history. She started with the FBI, then moved to behavioral science where she worked with them more as a consultant. From what I gather she is somewhat of a human lie detector. They used her in interrogation. That’s her specialty. The CIA recruited her much for the same reason. Only there she was used to debrief returning agents. She also vetted the Level I agents going under for long-term infiltrations.” Zane stopped and huffed out a breath. “Ironically to see if they were vulnerable and could be turned.”
“Remember when we got back from Iceland and we debriefed the President? After Siles told us his contact was a woman, we’d agreed that women are often easier to blackmail.” I reminded Zane.
“As if,” Jasmin interjected.
I ignored her and continued, “Blackmail, not turn.”
“If she’s being blackmailed, the question is, who is she protecting and why,” Eric added.
“That we’ll have to wait on Tex for. I don’t think she’s going to give us any answers, and I’m not sure I’d believe her if she did.” Zane went back to his brief.
“Yet here we are trusting her with intel and planning an op around it. No one else thinks it’s weird she insisted on coming with us?” Jasmin asked.
“I don’t trust her with shit. She’s a trained liar. But, if she was sending us into an ambush why would she want to be there?” Zane looked up and handed Jasmin a map. “South Sudan is controlled by warlords. She’d be stupid to send us into a setup, be present, and think she’s walking away alive. Not to mention, she wants something Wolf has. She won’t turn on us until she has it.”
“Well, her intelligence is still in question. I reserve the right to say I told you so if I live through this cluster fuck.”
“Eye on the prize, Jasmin – getting Wolf and his men out alive.”
***
Several hours later I moved back to my seat to get some sleep before we landed. I was surprised to see Violet awake.
“Did you guys figure out if I’m lying or not?” she asked.
I didn’t bother answering, instead I took stock of the woman who might be leading me to my death. Jasmin had valid concerns. If I was being honest, I had thought them, too. Once Violet found out the team had gone on a black op, it would be easy to forge mission specifics and pass them off when no one could confirm with Wolf, or any of the other guys, where they were going. But Tex said he’d talked to Wolf before the mission. While the SEAL never gave Tex all the information, he did pass on some key details, and used him as a backup plan if the need arose. So far what Violet had told us matched what Wolf had told Tex. That’s all we had to go on at the moment.
I continued to stare at her and as I’d hoped, she was shifting in her seat, not making direct eye contact. She was uncomfortable and nervous. She was trying her best n
ot to show it, but she was failing. The woman sitting next to me was trained to detect lies; the slightest shift in someone’s body language, an obscure movement, an unconscious tick, yet she couldn’t get hers under control. Either it was on purpose to look vulnerable or the situation she’d found herself in was emotional and personal. I was betting on the latter. She hadn’t sold anything; my gut was telling me someone had something of great value to her. Family. That was all of our biggest weakness.
“Are you married?” I asked.
“What? No.” her answer was sure and quick.
Definitely not married.
“Brothers? Sisters?”
“Why are you asking me about my family?” Deflecting, interesting.
“No reason. Making small talk,” I told her.
“Shouldn’t we be talking about what’s going to happen when we land?”
“You and Jasmin will be safely tucked in a hotel in Juba while the rest of us go hunting,” I lied, and waited for her reaction. There was no way Jasmin would go for missing the action.
“No. I’m going with you,” she protested, just as I thought she would.
“Why? You do know there is a civil war going on in South Sudan, right?”
“I’ve been trained in combat arms. I know how to shoot a gun.”
“You’re a desk jockey. And you think we’ll be giving you a gun?” I chuckled, and she flinched. “Besides, going to the range once a year to qualify does not mean you’re trained in jack shit.”
“Why wouldn’t you? Like you said, there’s a civil unrest.” She was hung up on the fact we wouldn’t give her a weapon.
“Let’s see, you helped a terrorist kidnap an innocent woman. You helped a known money launderer plan a coup. Oh, and let’s not forget when my team went in to save the girl, the house blew up, almost killing us all.”
“I didn’t know they’d planted explosives.” Her eyes drifted closed and once again, I saw shame.
I believed she didn’t know the house was rigged. She had no problem taking responsibility for the crimes she had committed.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
The woman sitting next to me was very different than the woman back at the barn. Violet had gotten her way and was on her way to Africa with us, but she almost looked defeated and wary, rather than happy she’d talked her way into coming. I couldn’t understand her, and I didn’t like it. She was a jigsaw puzzle with no image to build from, hell, all the flat-edged pieces to make the border were missing too.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she whispered.
“Why then?”
“It was for the greater good.”
“I don’t believe you,” I told her. She may have believed that’s why she’d done it, but I’d bet my savings this was personal for her.
“You don’t have to. I know why I did it, and that’s all that matters to me.” The stubborn lift of her chin brought back the woman who’d first shown up on Zane’s doorstep.
“Unfortunately for you, it does matter. If you don’t want to be locked in a hotel with Jasmin standing guard, you’ll stop playing coy and tell us something.”
I knew Zane had stuck me with Violet because my specialty was extracting information. However, the woman was proving to be a pain in the ass. Her lips were sealed tighter than a dick’s hatband, which was a shame. Had I not known she was a traitor, I would’ve been thinking of a multitude of ways to get her to open her pretty mouth.
“So, what’s it gonna be Violet? Sit with Nightstalker or go hunting with the men?”
Chapter Three
Violet
It was exhausting living a double life. I was so tired of trying to be brave. I wasn’t any good at this spy game shit; hell, I was a bad liar. It was a miracle none of my colleagues had caught on to what I had done. I couldn’t stay behind with Jasmin. I had to get my hands on the mini drone the SEALs were in possession of. The sooner this was over, the better. I didn’t think I had much more in me before I had a complete meltdown.
“I made a Chinese agent back in Virginia. I let him follow me for a couple of days while I tried to figure out why he was there,” I started to tell Jaxon.
“Wait. You had an MSS agent following you, so you thought you’d lead them to Zane’s house?” he interrupted.
I fought back the eye roll. “No. The agent was neutralized before I left Virginia.”
“Where is he now?” he asked.
“Dead on my living room floor. Another charge I’ll have to face when I get home. Anyway, he broke into my apartment. I was within my rights to shoot him. He had a thumb drive with him, the detailed mission briefs on two different SEAL Teams. Team Bravo had just returned to Virginia from an op in Bogotá, their entire mission had been tracked. I mean, they had a GPS lock on the team while they were OCONUS. Alpha Team’s Sudan Op was outlined as well – every last detail. The Chinese had tracked the first team so well, they had set up the sale of the team’s whereabouts to Wekesa, a Sudanese warlord. When the team lands, they will be tracked and Wekesa will have their exact location.”
“Why does the Chinese government want you dead?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Back to this shit? Violet, if you want our help, you have to come clean. About everything.”
I didn’t know why the Chinese wanted me dead. I hadn’t had any dealings with them until the man started following me. I wanted to tell them the truth, about everything, and unload the burden I’d been carrying for the last six months. I didn’t know how to do this – I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t ask for it or seek it out. He was right, I was a desk jockey. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“And I will. I’ll tell Zane everything and hand over all of the evidence I’ve collected when we get back.”
“What the fuck is so important in Africa that you can’t tell us?”
“The most important thing is getting Wolf, Abe, Dude, Benny and Cookie home in one piece.”
I turned in my seat and faced forward. I couldn’t stand the look of censure in his blue eyes. There was nothing he could say to me that would make me hate myself more than I already did. However, I didn’t have an option. I had to do this one last thing, then I would be free.
If they decided to leave me behind, I’d find a way to break out of the hotel room. I could track the platoon myself. The minute they activated the latest and greatest in mission hardware I’d have a lock. The government had spent millions developing a mini drone. They were much like the ones on the civilian market only smaller, quieter, had better video, battery life, and far better range. An operator could stay under the protection of cover more than a mile away and send the mini drone to scout an area, not putting human life at risk. The operator and the command back at the DOD could watch in real time.
But, there was a fatal flaw in the design. The drone could be hacked and had been.
Zane walked back to tell us we were getting ready to land. Jaxon filled him in on the Chinese agent and he looked like he was ready to explode. If I’d thought he was pissed when I showed up at his house, I was wrong.
“Let me make sure I understand fully. There is a dead MSS agent in your apartment?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Yes.”
“Jesus, fuck! You didn’t think you should’ve had someone to clean up the body?”
“Well, I don’t know Zane. You tell me. Is there a 1-800-pick-up-a-dead-MSS-agent in the phone book?
Jaxon chuckled, and Zane narrowed his eyes. “Yes, as a matter of fact there is. Me! Now you’ve left a rotting carcass in your house. Nothing screams guilt like a dead body. Did you think your neighbors would miss the smell of decomp? Mistake the oh-so-lovely aroma of decaying flesh for you not taking out the trash? For a CIA trained spy, you suck.”
“I’m not a fucking spy!” I blurted out. I was doing the best I could. I was being b
lackmailed, made to do things that were morally incomprehensible, followed, and now people were trying to kill me. There was only so much I could take. “I’m an analyst. The CIA recruited me from the FBI. You think I wanted any of this? I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t want to be involved in any of this. I’m doing the best I can. And I am guilty. I killed him. I’ll answer to it when I get home. I already told you, I’ll admit to everything.”
“Who are you protecting?” The question had come from Jasmin.
“No one.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe for a second you’d help Timothy Clark unless he was holding something over you.”
“Why’s that?” I shouldn’t have asked. It really didn’t matter what she believed about me, but deep down that was a lie. It did matter. I would never have betrayed my country or the oath I took if it wasn’t for Timothy Clark and what he’d threatened.
“I don’t think you have it in you to be underhanded. We know why Timothy Clark did it. He was a greedy piece of shit that roped in his brother Louis and the two of them together sold whatever information they could get their hands on to the highest bidder. They didn’t care who got hurt or what foreign government wanted the intel, they just wanted the money. Neither of them would admit to what they had done. You? Complete opposite. That means Timothy Clark, Siles, Gomez, or someone is yanking your chain. They have something you need. Something you’re willing to die to protect. That something is a person.” Jasmin’s normally tough exterior had softened a fraction before she continued sliding her mask of indifference back into place. “Not that I fucking care who it is. Bottom line is you’re a traitor.”
I couldn’t argue with her, she was right. My reasoning behind what I had done didn’t matter. I’d gladly give up my freedom if it meant he was safe.
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