by Trevor Scott
Jake looked toward the operations building, where Elisa stood against the wall talking on her cell phone.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get on board,” Jake said. “The crew will be here soon.”
She smiled and then gave Jake a big hug. “If there’s anything you need, just let me know. Our family has a little influence as well.”
Jake knew that first hand, having been sprung from the Tunisian prison so recently.
The good professor wandered to the jet, climbed up the ladder and stopped for a second to wave at Jake and then to Elisa.
He turned then and saw the flight crew, a man and a woman in flight suits, open the door for Toni Contardo and then strut across the tarmac to their aircraft. Toni stopped and talked with Elisa and Jake hoped like hell they were either discussing official business or exchanging pasta recipes, not exchanging notes about him. The two women smiled and shook hands. Then Toni came over toward Jake, her use of the crutches getting much better.
“Everything all right?” Jake asked Toni.
“Yeah. I just wanted Elisa to thank Svetla for all her hard work. She really took one for the team.”
“I would think so,” Jake said. “Where is she?”
“After the SEALS brought the yacht into port, they took her out drinking.”
Jake kind of wished he was with them right now. He had no idea what Toni wanted to say to him. They had been really good together years ago, but both of their careers had gotten in the way. Too much separation.
Finally, Toni wiped away a tear and said, “Jake, I still love you. You know that, right?”
He had a feeling. “I know, Toni. I still love you too.”
“But. . .”
“I don’t know if we can be together. You have your life in Washington and you’d have to give me a frontal lobotomy to live there.”
“I can retire from the Agency in two years,” she said.
Behind them the engines from the Gulfstream fired up and Toni seemed like she might break down even more. Jake had heard that her divorce from the man in New York was final almost a year ago. Was she just trying to feel needed? Jake knew it was more than that. The two of them had a history under fire, and couples with that felt a connection that would last until the day they died.
“I don’t even have a place to live right now, Toni. I got rid of my place in Innsbruck.”
“I don’t care. I want you. I need you.”
The pilot of the jet revved the engines, like a high school boyfriend would do for his girlfriend to come out and hop into the muscle car.
“You need to catch your flight,” Jake yelled over the engine noise. He gave her a huge hug and said, “Give me a call when you get home. We can talk more then.”
She pulled away and smiled. Then she pushed herself into him and kissed him passionately on the lips. Without saying another word, she hobbled across the tarmac and got into the Gulfstream.
Jake watched the aircraft pull away and taxi toward the runway. Moments later and the jet streaked up into the air.
Elisa came to Jake and stood a respectable distance from him, her phone still in her hand.
“Everything all right?” Jake asked.
“I was on with our coast guard,” she said. “They found no survivors on that fishing boat. It did not burn completely. All but one of the men aboard were identified as former Greek military. One man they have not been able to ID, but they think he was also Greek.”
“What about the Sicilian Mafia in Siracusa?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nobody is talking there, as you could guess. One man had a bullet destroy his shoulder. He was released from the hospital and has disappeared. Another man had some burns that looked serious, but were only superficial. I didn’t mention to anyone that you might have known these men.”
Jake used to have a decent relationship with the Mafia in Italy, partially due to the fact that he was friends with Toni Contardo, but now he would probably be on their hate list also.
He said nothing to her.
“Where do you go from here, Jake?” She put her phone into her pocket.
That’s a question he wasn’t sure he could answer properly. He had no home. Had no reason to go anywhere. “I don’t know. I could go fishing in South America.”
She smiled at him. “I meant tonight.”
“Oh. What do you have in mind?”
Now she moved in closer to him. “I’m still officially on vacation. And we really didn’t get to spend much time in Taormina. I say we go there and spend a little time in a nice hotel overlooking the ocean.”
He nodded approval. “It’s hard to argue against that logic. But we might want to get rid of that stolen Fiat.”
The two of them wandered off toward the parking lot.
Consider the next book in the Jake Adams Series:
Lethal Force (Jake Adams #9)
If you liked this thriller, please consider these fine Salvo Press titles:
Memory Leak by Trevor Schmidt
Mako by Clabe Taylor
Crown of Thorns by Hank Luce
The Seventh Deception by G. Dedrick Robinson
Spirit Flight by P.R. Fittante
Codebreaker by Katherine Myers
Dog Walker by Heath Kizzier
Hypershot by Trevor Scott
