by KaLyn Cooper
Tori closed and locked the door. Every one of Katlin’s teammates gazed at her as their jaws dropped. What a fucking stupid plan.
3
“Look, Callahan, I’m no happier about having you along interfering in my mission than you are to be here. I don’t need a gaggle of females to watch out for and then have to worry about sexual harassment charges once we get stateside. We went through this coed team bullshit a few years ago and it didn’t work out before, either. You’d just better remember that on this op, I’m in charge.” Jonathan got into the driver’s seat of the embassy SUV and slammed the steel-reinforced door.
Although she didn’t want to be anywhere near Jonathan, they had to maintain their cover, so she slid into the seat directly behind him. “I was just pointing out that the route you selected is right through the middle of the Shiite-controlled part of Baghdad.”
Katlin was over this pompous asshole. She was a heartbeat away from contacting Section 7 Operations Control Center and have a come-to-Jesus conversation with Jack. She’d talked to the Marine Captain of the Guard about the route suggested by Jonathan’s mysterious informant. The head of embassy security said it was the most fucking stupid idea he’d ever seen.
But had that stopped Jonathan? Hell no. The new information just made him more insistent. Leaving in the middle of the day, practically advertising their route before they left, was one step away from suicide.
Everything about this felt wrong.
Or maybe it was just that she was so aggravated with Jonathan, and everything that man did and said rubbed her the wrong way. Besides, as Jonathan had so clearly pointed out, he was in charge of the operation, so Katlin and the Ladies of Black Swan had to do what he ordered.
When Kurt slid into the shotgun position, Tori crawled into the backseat next to Katlin. Jonathan started the vehicle.
Using the engine noise, Tori said just above a whisper, “This is such a clusterfuck. I have a feeling we’ll be traveling for days looking for a ghost.”
“Did I hear you say that this isn’t the first coed team?” Kurt, the newest agent on the mission, asked.
“Not by a longshot.” Jonathan pulled out into traffic, the other two SUVs right behind him. “When Katlin and Grace first came to Homeland, they tried to integrate women into existing teams. It didn’t work, but Jack sure had a fucking good time when Katlin went undercover as his wife.” He chuckled. “‘Undercover’ being the operative word.” A second later, he added sarcastically, “Or, maybe ‘fucking’ should be the operative word. That’s when Katlin started fucking her way into being a team leader.”
Katlin shot out of her seat and wrapped her long, strong fingers around Jonathan’s voice box. The SUV jerked suddenly at Jonathan’s surprise but Katlin held tight. “Listen carefully, you little pin dick. I’ve never fucked my way into any job, and if you ever again infer that I did, I’ll crush your voice box so you can’t spew your venomous lies to anyone else.” She applied more pressure, digging her short nails into the soft skin of Jonathan’s neck.
She glanced toward Kurt. “To clarify, Jack Ashworth and I were posing as husband and wife while this asshat was backup. I did my job and slept in the same bed with Jack and acted as his wife all day for three weeks. Never, not once, did I allow Jack to touch me sexually or take the pretend relationship to a personal level.”
But Jack had. He tried to rape her, and she fought him off. Very few people knew about that incident and she wasn’t about to share it with Jonathan and Kurt.
“Have I made my point clear?” Katlin seethed into Jonathan’s ear.
“Yes,” he croaked out.
She immediately let go of his throat and sat back while he rubbed his neck and drove one-handed.
“I heard that you and Jack fucked like bunnies during the whole mission, and once he promised you your own team, you shut him off like the ice princess you’re known to be.” Jonathan’s voice was still a little rough, but he managed to soak it in sarcasm.
“If you tell me who’s spreading those lies, I’ll go kill him.” Katlin was serious.
Jonathan chuckled. “I’m pretty sure Jack’s the one who brags about sleeping with you to anybody who will listen. He gets a hard-on every time you’re around.”
Katlin cringed. She wouldn’t put it past Jack to be the source of those lies and she was well aware of his reaction to her presence. It sickened her.
“I guess I’ll just have to kill Jack.” That possibility was growing stronger and stronger as he continued to obsess about her.
Tori whacked Katlin’s hip with the back of her hand in warning.
Kurt turned to gape at her from the front seat. “I should arrest you for threatening the life of the Director of Operations for Homeland Security.”
“I might just let you do that if it means I get to leave this ridiculous manhunt.” Katlin pasted on a smile. “I was just kidding. I wouldn’t kill Jack. I would just shoot him. Maybe in the hip. He’s been a pain in my ass ever since I came to work at Homeland Security. That way, I’d become a pain in his ass, too. Turnabout is fair play.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Katlin watched Tori try to hold in her laughter.
When the caravan crossed the Tigris River, Katlin’s whole body went on alert. They were getting close to the section controlled by the Shiites.
Katlin had to try one more time. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to turn left and circle around this part of the city?”
“Fuck, no.” Jonathan headed straight for Route 2 on city side streets. “My informant assured me that this was the quickest and easiest way.” His lip pulled up in a sneer. “Are you afraid my team is going to kick yours out of that number one spot? Things didn’t exactly go smoothly on your last mission. Your team almost got us into a war with Russia.”
“You’re just jealous that the Black Swans have a hundred percent success rate, knocking you out of that top slot…hmmm...ever since we completed our first mission.” Katlin wasn’t sure why she was poking the bear, but he seemed to deserve it.
As they turned the corner, the city seemed to change. Women were covered head to toe in traditional black abayas and niqabs, most with veils hiding their eyes. Although the majority of men wore a thaub, there were still a few in Western-style suits. All the colors seemed to be drained from the stores. Signs were in basic black and white with most windows covered.
It had been years since Katlin had been in this part of the city. She and the ladies of Black Swan had hidden under abayas, carrying their heavy military packs in the front, preferring to look like fat local women than to getting caught as American spies. After taking out their target in the northern provinces, they had to hide wherever they could as they escaped. She had been so glad to reach the Marine Corps base in Falluja. She doubted the base was still there because U.S. troops had been pulled out of Iraq several years before.
Right after that mission, she and Alex had reconnected.
Katlin looked at her watch and counted the time. It was five o’clock in the morning in Chicago where Alex would be just waking up. The green demon of jealousy flared as she thought about Aleta, the beautiful dark-skinned woman he’d taken as a lover for nearly two years before Katlin had reappeared back into his life.
She swept away the anxiety. Jack had planned to throw Alex and Aleta together again in front of Katlin. Her boss’s plan had failed. Alex had explained to Aleta that he was in a monogamous relationship and would not be dating her ever again. Katlin trusted Alex. She was sure of his love.
Although he was expected to spend another few days in Chicago before moving on to Dallas, his schedule was fluid and changed depending on where he was needed. Until she was able to log into the Guardian Security computer system, she wasn’t sure exactly where he was. He’d be working, that was certain. The man was a workaholic.
She’d sent him a sexy email before she’d gone to bed. Perhaps when they stopped for the night, there’d be a message from him waiting for her.
Th
ey turned another corner onto what must’ve been a one-lane street. Their vehicles could barely fit between the parked cars on each side. Katlin hated tight spaces.
Every one of her senses seemed to burst alive.
Not a single person was walking down the sidewalk, but it was past prayer time.
Her heart beat faster as the SUV caravan crawled through another place where the cars on either side of the street had been parked too close together.
As she glanced out the window, she caught a glimpse of movement in the driver’s side mirror. Leaning forward, she tried to identify what she was seeing as the vehicle bounced over the rough road surface.
On a rooftop behind them, a man in traditional white Arab dress had a green rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder.
“Incoming,” Katlin yelled at the top of her lungs seconds before the car two feet from her exploded.
She bent forward, hiding her hands and face as a piece of the car bounced off the reinforced door and spun in the air before smacking the bulletproof window. Glass rained down on the back of her flat jacket. The percussion of the blast completely deafened her.
Her eyes closed, she thought she was dizzy until she realized it was the entire vehicle flipping in the air.
The side of her face felt as though someone had hit her with a baseball bat.
She fought to stay conscious. This was going to be a mess to clean up and she needed a clear mind to give orders.
Katlin’s body slammed her spine into her seat then bounced her shoulder and head into the door, smacking it hard.
The world started to close in around her. She couldn’t seem to focus as her body rocked side to side, delayed a second behind the swaying of the SUV.
She had to force her eyes open.
Her team was in trouble and they would depend on her for orders.
But she couldn’t open her eyes, no matter how much her brain willed them to do so.
Her heart beat so fast it hurt.
She tried to raise her left hand to touch the side of her head where it pounded, but her brain had disconnected there, also. Able to move her right hand, she swept away whatever was running into her left eye. Blood gushed over the left side of her face and dripped steadily off her nose. Scalp cuts bled like a bitch.
If only she could get her eyes to open, she could figure out how to get out of this vehicle. She’d worry about getting patched up later after her team took out the son of a bitch who shot the RPG at them.
As though completely exhausted, her right hand dropped down.
She finally cracked her lids open but couldn’t seem to raise her head up. All she could do was stare at the blood that dripped off her right hand onto the black floor mats.
Good thing they’re plastic. Blood is a bitch to get out of carpet.
Damn, Katlin. You don’t have time to be thinking of silly things. Wake up.
I think I’ll just take a little nap. Somebody else can deal with this mess.
Aware that she was not thinking clearly, Katlin tried to inhale deeply to clear her mind.
The scream she heard was hers.
Fuck. It hurt to breathe.
She just sipped in small breaths…until even that hurt.
If this was the way she was going to die, Katlin was ready.
As she did before every mission, she visited a local priest who performed Rights of Shriven. These were the Last Rights given in advance should she be killed on unholy ground. At the moment, Baghdad was about as unholy as her Catholic upbringing could imagine.
Her soul was ready to meet her heavenly father, but her heart was still with Alex. What would happen with him?
She gasped in a breath and cringed at the pain.
In her mind, she prayed to God that he would take care of Alex, help him find love again, and have a good life.
Believing that God would take care of Alex, she succumbed to the darkness and let it take her away from the pain.
4
Jack Ashworth walked into his pristine office at exactly six forty-eight in the morning. Since it had been raining when he left his Georgetown home, he brought a light overcoat with him in case he had to go to The Hill or the White House. Although it didn’t happen often, as Director of Operations for Homeland Security he occasionally had to report in-person. He certainly didn’t need the coat while getting to work. His new Mercedes sedan was kept inside his garage, and at work, he had a reserved space close to the executive elevator.
After hanging the coat on the antique rack just inside the door, he strode to his desk and started all his equipment with a palm scan and code. Several screens lit up. He scanned his appointments for the day, quickly memorizing them before he looked at the world map that occupied the largest screen. Colored dots where he had agents blinked according to trouble priority. One glance at the large red pulsing circle in Iraq had him bolting out of his office.
Katlin was there. He had to make sure she was okay.
He blew into the Operations Center and froze. The room was enveloped in controlled chaos. He’d been prepared to rant, ready to question everyone as to why he hadn’t been notified but decided to watch and listen. An expanded view of Baghdad filled one screen. Live satellite streamed on another showing a wrecked black SUV lying on its driver’s side. The carcass of a car smoldered twenty feet away, its bumper sticking out of a car’s back window fifty feet down the street. A car door teetered on the roof of another. Windows had been smashed on most vehicles and pieces of the exploded car littered the street.
This didn’t look like a car accident. It appeared to be a bombing.
And his Katlin was somewhere in the fracas.
He watched the live satellite feed, hoping to see her curvaceous body ordering homeland security team members through the rescue. He easily picked out Grace, thanks to her red hair. Jack was pretty sure that was Nita leaning over a male body stretched out on the ground. He recognized a few members of Jonathan’s team who were attempting to extract people from the SUV.
“Her blood pressure is dropping,” the technician at the biofeedback station announced without inflection. “Heart rate is down to forty-two beats per minute.”
Panic swept over Jack. “Whose?” He demanded before he could stop himself.
“Lady Hawk,” the tech replied.
No. No. She can’t die. She’s mine. Forever. We’re supposed to have children. Grow old together. Jack strode across the room and stood at the command center.
“Fill me in,” he ordered the operations manager on duty. He had to keep his cool, externally calm and professional, especially where Katlin was concerned. He’d finally convinced the agency shrink that he was no longer obsessed with her, finally ending his weekly sessions. Any tiny indication of his continued feelings toward her could get Jack fired.
The agency needed him; they just didn’t always realize it. They being the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, the idiot civilians appointed by whoever occupied the White House at the time. Jack had been in Covert Operations since the inception of the Department of Homeland Security’s creation in November of 2002. He knew more secrets than he could ever use in his lifetime. With the right word dropped in the wrong place, he could start a war…or end one. At the moment, though, he needed more details on what was happening in Baghdad.
“One dead, one dying, one critical, several with concussions and cuts. Nita Banks is performing triage. We should have a complete report within minutes after they extracted Katlin Callahan from the wreckage.” Robert’s report was concise.
Jack scanned the screens and noticed one had grainy pictures. “We have two satellites feeding us video?”
The Operations Manager scowled. “Someone is streaming live feed.” He pointed to a very young man in the far corner whose fingers flew over the keys. “We’re trying to pinpoint the origin and destination now. It hasn’t been a priority. I’ve been much more concerned about how exposed our two teams are and arranging their extraction.”
/> Everything Robert had done was by the book.
“Who’s dead?” Jack managed to ask the question now that he was sure that Katlin was still breathing.
“Jonathan Cummins. We’re not sure if it was his proximity to the grenade or if he was hit by debris. The explosion was less than three feet from where he was sitting in the driver’s seat according to initial reports.”
Fuck. Jack hated to lose anyone under his command, but Jonathan had been with him for several years. He was friendlier with the team leader than any other agent. His mind immediately went to a list to replace the fallen man.
“Heart rate is at thirty-eight. Lady Harrier, do you have platelets ready?” The biotech asked.
“Not yet.” Nita’s voice came clearly through the background noise over the speakers in the room. “I’m working on Ben’s gunshot wound. It was a through-and-through but I’m dealing with arterial bleeding. It looks like just a nick, but I don’t want him to bleed out on the way home. Kyle’s busy holding onto both ends of the artery at the moment. Besides, Will and Lady Kite still haven’t gotten Lady Hawk out of the vehicle.”
Jack’s gaze shot to the photo of the mangled SUV. He had no idea how they were going to get her out of there.
“We’ve got action.” The young blond guy who had been working on the video streaming excitedly yelled. “It sounded like someone busted through the door and gunned them all down. Still recording, but whatever, or whoever, was holding the phone camera, dropped it. It’s now showing a close-up of a dark-brown-skinned man in Arabian style clothing with a large bullet hole in his head. He seems to be lying on the floor.”
Robert clicked a few keys and the video filled four screens on the wall. He turned up the volume but heard nothing but soft footsteps. A light brown desert boot stepped onto the man’s wrist and a large white hand picked up the phone a second before it went black.
“Director Ashworth, you have a video call coming in from CIA Deputy Director Tom Gillpatrick.” A man with silver at his temples looked at Jack. “You want to take it here or in your office?”
