Deep Cover--A Love Over Duty Novel

by Scarlett Cole

  In their night gear and goggles, nobody would be able to ID them anyway.

  Lite, Buddha, and Harley were hidden on the other side of the lot with the required tech equipment: the digital kit to hack the entrance, the pass they’d cloned from Amy’s employee pass to open doors, and the laptop to create copies of the video surveillance before they entered so it could be used to wipe the footage when they arrived.

  Next to Cabe, Six lay on his stomach, hidden in the safety of the trees, with his favorite .300 Win Mag stretched out in front of him. He’d get one shot. The silencer would minimize but not completely eradicate noise. Cabe breathed slowly as Six took his time figuring out wind speed and direction. Cabe didn’t have an ounce of doubt that Six would do what was required.

  But not yet. The pattern of life they’d constructed for the casino over the previous evenings revealed a security team would do a drive-by in a white van at approximately three thirty, which was four minutes away, and wouldn’t return for another hour.

  Mac crouched beside Cabe and blocked his own mic. “Want to tell me why you spent the night at Agent Murray’s house?” he whispered.

  “Relevance?” Cabe asked as he stared straight at the building, completely unmoving.

  “You got to be fucking kidding me.” Mac said, although the humor in his voice was evident. “This isn’t like you. You could have blown the op.”

  “Do we need to talk about this now?” Cabe sighed and shook his head. For once, he didn’t have an answer. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Careful, Cabe,” Six said, without taking his finger off the trigger or his eyes off his target. “The next thing you know, Mac’ll pull the fraternization policy that none of us really give a shit about out of his ass and rub you down with it.”

  He didn’t want to lie to his friends, but he’d promised Amy his confidence. He felt torn, and ambushed. “There’s nothing to tell. After I went to check on her, she was bruised up. I didn’t think she should be alone after something like that, but she isn’t in the kind of situation where she could call up a girlfriend to come over.”

  “Since when do you do the whole comfort thing?” Mac asked.

  Cabe rolled his eyes. “I’d have done the same for either of your sisters. Would you have wanted me to just drive off and leave one of them alone?”

  “Fair point,” Mac said.

  He didn’t want to tell them that Amy had pretty much kicked him out of her apartment after the most mind-blowing sex he’d ever had. It was bad enough that he had a feeling he’d relive the stunned look on her face when she’d come in his arms, those pretty blue eyes of hers going wide before flickering shut, every night when he fell asleep and every morning when he woke up with a raging hard-on. “Can we just let it drop?”

  The white van pulled into the lot, silencing them all. According to the intel they’d collected, the men never got out. They slowed until they were crawling around the rear of the building. And as per the intel, the men gave scant attention to what was happening around them. The beam of a flashlight pierced the darkness, its light aimed at the rear doors for a few seconds before it was switched off.

  It was Breaking and Entering 101. Close the door behind you once you are in, leave the place as undisturbed as possible. Shining a freaking light to check that a door was still sealed was as useless as … well, hiring a dumb-ass security company.

  Finally, the van pulled out of view, and a black sedan picked up the van’s trail. While their intel said the van would return in another sixty minutes, Gaz and Jackson, two Eagle operatives, were going to follow them as a precaution and report in when the van was far enough away to give Cabe and the team time to get in and out.

  Thirty minutes would have to be enough for them to do what they needed to do. As long as Lite could hack into the internal cameras quickly. They needed him to loop the previous thirty minutes of internal camera footage to cover footage that would show them actually being inside.

  With the careful squeeze of the trigger and a silent pop, the camera on top of the large pillar exploded.

  Then they waited.

  They waited to see if Gaz and Jackson would instruct them to stay hidden, to tell them that the security van had been given instructions to return to the casino.

  They waited for a security team to come running out from the shut-down building.

  But the van was never notified, and nobody ever came out. As they’d thought, the building was empty.

  Silence fell between them until the comm lines crackled to life. “You’re clear,” was all Jackson said.

  Grateful that the rear of the casino was bordered by woodland, they hurried the short distance across the parking lot. Dressed in black from head to toe, they blended seamlessly with the night, their footsteps silent as they hit the asphalt.

  As Buddha began working the mechanical locks, Mac began working the electrical ones. Cabe kept watch until he heard the click that told him they were in. Silently, they crept into the building, and Lite immediately sat behind the security monitors. He cracked open his laptop and went to work. Within two minutes, he looked up and gave the okay.

  Everyone had his plan. Lite was on security cameras, and Buddha was putting the entry panel back together so they could leave quickly. Mac and Harley were finding a way to put a camera near the vault, while Six and Cabe would put one in Woods’s office along with a listening device on his desk. When they were finished on the employee side of the casino, the needed to hit the main floor with a focus on the cashier’s cage.

  Cabe’s heart raced. Flawless execution was required to pull this off. Everybody had to do his part. Leave no trace—that was the goal. Or, more accurately, leave no trace of what they left behind.

  Cabe and Six took the stairs together to Woods’s office. It took Cabe less than twenty seconds to pick the locked door. Wordlessly, they set about their tasks, Six finding a place to plant the camera, Cabe finding a place to plant the bug. Given that they’d have one chance to place it, Cabe wanted to put it somewhere it would last. And somewhere it could pick up the most sound. It was a cliché, but he hid it in the lamp fitting.

  Thanks to DCSNet, the Digital Collection System Network, they didn’t need to tap Woods’s phone. The FBI had already done that with the touch of a button, but the tap had revealed very little. They could only assume that Woods and Sokolov either used burner phones or held their conversations in person at the casino.

  “We’ve got company.” Buddha’s voice crackled through the comms unit.

  “Jackson?” Cabe called out.

  “Security car is still ten miles out.”

  “Who the fuck is it?” Six mumbled, pressing his body against the wall alongside the window. Thanks to their night vision goggles, they hadn’t needed to turn on any light. “Another white van, a second one from the security company,” he whispered. “We must have triggered something.”

  “Entry panel is reassembled. Door closed,” Buddha said.

  “We … wn in … hear … at.” The voice was clearly Mac’s, but Cabe he couldn’t tell what he was saying. He wondered if the vault was protected by poured concrete. It would definitely interfere with the efficacy of his comms unit.

  “Shit. If we can’t hear him, he probably can’t hear us.” Cabe planted the second bug on the underside of Woods’s two-story letter inbox.

  The security guard got out of the van and looked up at the building before saying something into a radio. There was no way he could see them, the interior way too dark. Maybe they’d still have time to plant the cameras on the gaming floor.

  “The guys we were following just ran to their van,” Jackson said. There was a pause. “They’re heading back in your direction at speed.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Six said.

  Cabe watched the security guard look between the van and the building. “Wait. He’s scared. Doesn’t know what to do.”

  The guard walked back to his van. “He’s going to do a loop around the buildi
ng. Everybody out. Buddha, make sure Mac knows to get out.”

  Six and Cabe ran down the hallway, Cabe’s heart racing in the adrenaline-filled way it used to when he was on a mission. Mac, Harley, and Buddha came pounding down the hallway behind them. Cabe stopped, letting them run ahead.

  Last out was Lite, as he made a minor adjustment to the security recording before packing up his laptop.

  Buddha stood by the door, ready to close both the mechanical and electronic locks as Cabe and Lite ran from the building.

  At the far end of the lot, a beam of headlights appeared along the side of the building.

  “He’s turning into the lot in three seconds. Move your ass, Buddha.”

  “On it,” he whispered.

  Lite took off toward the dense tree line.

  The van began to turn.

  Shit, please let the guy be nearsighted.

  “Buddha?” Cabe warned.

  “Easy,” Buddha said, and the two of them sprinted after the rest of the team.

  “Little more hustle next time, okay?” Cabe said with a grin on his face as they disappeared unnoticed into the trees.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I want twenty-four-seven surveillance of that unit,” Cabe said, relieved they finally had a lead. The target they’d suspected of laundering money had led them to an address they were familiar with. A target they had followed when they were protecting Louisa had led them back to a dated rental unit in San Ysidro. The shakedown had led to a number of petty crime arrests, mostly minor firearm and drug offenses. Carrying without a permit and a few baggies of marijuana weren’t going to lead to any major time in prison, unless those arrested happened to have histories with law enforcement.

  “On it.” Six’s voice sounded tinny inside Cabe’s rental car. He’d arranged for a sedan on the booking form, but when he’d arrived at the airport, all that had been available was a car with less legroom than the church pews his mom had made him sit in as a kid. “It can’t be a coincidence that he ended up in that apartment block in San Ysidro.”

  Cabe slowed as he drove over Memorial Bridge and headed down to the white marble entrance of Arlington National Cemetery. “Agreed. These guys run in very tight circles. Let’s see if we can’t get a list of tenants in that building. And when I get back tonight, let’s head on over there and put a GPS on the vehicle.”

  “You know anyone of the team can do that,” Six said.

  He did. There wasn’t a guy on the team he wouldn’t trust with his life. But this op had gotten under his skin. And he wanted … no, he needed to do more.

  “I know. But where is the fun in that? What about you and me go do it for old times’ sake?”

  Six laughed. Despite being opposites in every way, they’d been the best of friends since kindergarten, and for some reason, having Six around would help Cabe focus. “Fine. I’ll set it up. What time do you want to go?”

  “Let’s plan for midnight, but I’ll keep you posted on travel.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “In the meantime, can you get one of the guys working on a full history on the target, and let’s probe any existing relationship between our target and those arrested during our takedown last year.”

  “Will do. You there yet?” Six asked.

  His early morning flight to D.C. had been painless. What hadn’t? Evading telling Amy the truth. He’d simply explained that he had an important meeting in Washington, which was true. The anniversary of Jess’s death had thankfully fallen on Amy’s day off. He’d wanted to sit down and talk to Amy, but after what had happened earlier on in the week, it didn’t feel like the right time.

  The semicircular building with the view of Arlington House high on the hill behind it was as imposing as it was beautiful. He pulled into the visitor’s parking lot and switched off the rental car’s engine. “Yeah. Just pulled in. Gotta go.”

  “Take care of yourself, brother,” Six said, and the phone connection died.

  For a moment, he simply sat there and cleared his mind of the case. Instead, he thought about how Jess must have felt that morning.

  The night before she’d died, the stars had aligned for the two of them to talk. Looking back, he couldn’t remember so much of what they’d said, only what he’d felt. That he was the luckiest man on the face of the planet.

  He got out of the car, uncertain of what he was actually going to say when he reached her grave. The day they’d buried her had been bitterly cold. Though she’d died in late September, by the time forensics in Germany had finished their investigation and her body had been flown home, there had been a two-month wait before a slot for burial would be available at Arlington. Knowing she was lying alone in cold storage had driven him crazy all those months, but then he’d realized that lying in the cold Washington dirt wasn’t going to be any more comfortable.

  The temperature was significantly warmer than it had been on the morning of her mid-December burial. As he walked to the spot where Jess was buried in the shade of one of the large trees close to the nine-eleven Pentagon Burial Marker, he pictured the caisson being pulled up the hill and remembered the horses’ hooves clipping on the path, the only sounds to break the quiet blanketing the cemetery.

  The silver United States Air Force Memorial glinted in the sunlight as Cabe made his way through the white headstones. He thanked each one as he passed until he reached the one he wanted.

  His heart flipped at the sight of her name.

  Jessica Ann Price.

  Tears stung his eyes as he sat and then lay next to her. “Hey, Jess,” he said quietly. A jogger ran by along the path but was too far away to hear anything. Cabe brushed his fingertips over the meticulously mowed lawn of Arlington Cemetery in the same way he used to run his fingers along the length of Jess’s spine after they’d made love. She’d had those perfect dimples at the base of her spine and would giggle and squirm as he circled his fingers around them.

  But secretly she’d loved it. He’d known. Just as much as she’d loved him.

  His army brat.

  God, he’d missed her.

  “There’s so much to tell you. So much is changing.” He looked up at the leaves in the tree above him. They were still clinging to summer’s green, but he knew within a month they’d be turning brown and falling to the ground. Another season, another circle. “I’m envious of them, Jess,” he said. “It’s wrong, isn’t it, that I’m jealous of my best friends?”

  Brilliant white clouds scudded across a sky so blue it looked fake. Like a child’s painting. There had been many days during his deployments when he’d yearned for a sky exactly like the one above him. At night, when he’d lain in bed, unable to sleep for the perpetual noise that always existed on a deployed military base, he’d imagine the sky over Encinitas. A sky under which he’d skateboarded down E Street with Six or played football on the beach with Mac. Thirty years of friendship meant he should be happy for them, right?

  From his spot lying flat on his back in front of her headstone, he imagined Jess responding. She’d place her hand on his shoulder blade and run it in circles. Hair the color of sable would fall over her face as she tilted her head to one side, pondering his question. Then she’d smile, the perfect dimple in her left cheek teasing him. “No,” she’d say. “It’s not wrong, it’s normal. You’re only human, Cabe. When are you going to learn that?”

  You’re only human.

  Only human.

  A faint breeze messed with the ends of his too-long hair, but the sun warmed his skin.

  Jess had loved the sun.

  Hell, she’d even loved the dustbowls and the sandstorms. It was why she’d signed up for her third and final tour. She wasn’t going to re-enlist again, she’d promised, even though she’d never pressed him to do the same. Time had come for her to focus on them, she’d said, and the idea of growing their family.

  He rolled onto his side to look at her headstone.

  “Six finally got down on one knee and proposed to Louisa. I was
certain they’d elope. Go off on vacation one day and come back married since there was absolutely no way Louisa would want a big wedding.” Cabe grinned. He was grateful that running away and coming back hitched wasn’t in the cards, though, because as much as he would have understood, he didn’t want to miss the day his oldest friend was felled officially by the love of a good woman. “You would love her, Jess. She’s shy as shit, the complete opposite of you, but she’s gold inside. Believe it or not, Six is doing most of the arranging so she doesn’t get too overwhelmed. And he’s roped in me and Mac. The only thing she’s picking out is her dress, which I know would have driven you crazy.”

  He wondered what Jess would have looked like in her wedding dress. He swallowed tightly at the memory of having gone to the bridal store to cancel her order. They’d already received it, they’d said, but had offered to return it. Though it had been a stupid idea, he’d asked if he could see it. A teary sales assistant had gone into the back room and then called him to join her about five minutes later. She’d put it on a headless mannequin, but he’d fallen to his knees as his mind took over and put her firmly in it.

  Jess would have looked stunning. He’d have been proud to stand at the top of the church aisle to wait for her to reach him.

  He wondered if she would have been proud of him, of what he’d accomplished since her death.

  Cabe coughed.

  “Eagle is doing great. I wish you could see us. Me, Mac, and Six have offices. Freaking offices with professional-looking furniture.

  “And Mac and Delaney are so loved up they may as well be married already. I wish you could meet Delaney too.”

  But Jess never would. She’d never get the chance to meet the growing families his brothers were creating.

  As suddenly as he’d thought this, the image of Amy laughing at something Six had said flashed into his mind.

  Guilt flushed his cheeks, thinking of her as he sat by Jess’s grave. The first twelve months after Jess’s death, he’d done nothing. Literally nothing. He’d returned to his deployment after her funeral and hadn’t spoken a word about her. He’d known Six was worried. The man had gone on at him like an old lady, desperate to hear Cabe spill his emotions all over his military-grade bedding. Mac had given him pep talks about bottling stuff up and kept reminding him that he was only a bunk away.