Another round of Arabic rang out, and one of the men weakly pistol-whipped the back of Parker’s head. It might have been a pathetic blow, but it still hurt like a bitch. Goddamn terrorist prick. They exploded in Arabic again.
Don’t hurt him. He might be an incentive to make her work.
He ignored the pain and listened to their bickering, as well as the bloody sniffles of the man with a now-cracked nose. He also listened for all things Lexi. For tears or worried breaths. For fear or pain. His senses were on hyper-alert when it came to her, and God help any man who hurt her, because Parker wouldn’t give two fucks for tearing him apart.
Except right this second, he couldn’t protect her. So maybe God help him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It felt like they’d hit a highway, and Lexi’s heart hammered, adrenaline spiking. It was one thing to talk a big game and say she could help infiltrate a terror cell. Sure, jeez, no problem. But with a bag over her head, men yelling in a language she couldn’t understand, and Parker already scuffling with them, this was the very definition of a bad idea.
The bag over her head was opaque and stunk like the bad breath of a thousand abducted victims. It smelled like tears and fear, vomit and blood. While she’d been prepared to be blindfolded, nerves made her stomach slosh.
The wicked words floating around her head were indistinguishable. She didn’t understand anything they said, but they were furious at Parker to the point that she was scared they’d kill him.
They had to stick together and stay silent for them both to make it out alive. The drive felt mostly like interstates. They were speeding by hundreds of cars full of people who had no idea she was in there. But many intelligence operatives did, so she should feel some sort of relief. Parker had a tracking beacon on, and she had a tiny microphone sewn into the hem of her shirt. All she had to say was the job was done, and Titan would descend.
There was the sound of a scuffle and a grunt. Lexi cringed at what sounded like Parker absorbing a kick to the gut. Her heart slammed in her throat for every minute of their long drive.
“Please don’t hurt him,” she whispered.
No one said a word. Not even Parker told her it’d be alright, and that lack of communication made her anxiety grow.
Finally the van slowed, and she toppled over the floor when they made a sharp right turn. Pushing herself upright, one of the men pushed her back down again, catching her off guard.
“God! Ow.” She shirked back.
A presumably blindfolded Parker attacked whoever was next to him, and they returned the hit. Her gut twisted. She needed to stay quiet if for no other reason than every time she made a noise, he lashed out at someone, and they hit back.
“I said don’t touch her,” he growled. “You want someone to push, you push me.”
The van door slid open, and a man grabbed her arm and yanked her onto the ground. She kept the cry of pain to herself as her knees and palms were scratched on asphalt.
Her pusher hocked and spat, the grossness landing close enough to her that it hit the ground with a disgusting smack. “Stupid American slut.”
Well, not so stupid that they could figure out Monarch. But she bit her tongue and wouldn’t go near the slut part. They didn’t like women, right? Second-class citizens?
She rolled away from the sound-of-spit landing zone and tried to get to her feet. Her ears burned for Parker. It sounded as if he had men on both sides, forcing him to walk with them. She was pulled and pushed toward where she assumed Parker was. Their shoulders bumped, and the brief contact was instant relief. She reached for his hand, but no—his were angled behind his back.
“You okay?” he asked calmly.
“Yes.” A hand slammed between her shoulder blades. She lost her footing and went down, her hands scraping again. “Ow, damn it!” Her palms burned, maybe bled. She wanted to wipe them or look for gravel in the cuts.
“Son of a bitch.”
Parker’s struggles reached her ears, as though he was trying to take out the lot of them. Part of the act he’d been assigned was belligerent, antagonistic, overprotective boyfriend. Unplanned, untrained, and reactive. Honestly, she had no idea how much was an act and how much was him trying to kill armed men while blindfolded and handcuffed.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. For her part, she had been told to act scared and untrained, like a hacker who needed her boyfriend. It was easy to play.
The ARO men pushed her and Parker forward across what felt like a parking lot. Everything around them was silent, abandoned. Like they were the only people on earth.
“Step,” the man with broken English ordered.
She stepped high twice before she reached what she was supposed to step onto. An elevated floor. The chilly air smelled like metal. Another round of words she didn’t understand came fast, and she was tugged away from Parker.
“No! Wait!”
But all she got was a push. Still stuck with the nauseating bag over her head, she lost her balance and stumbled, barely catching herself. A hand yanked her up, pulling her arm and making her scream. In the background, far away but echoing in the dark vastness, she heard Parker yelling for her to stay strong.
She couldn’t. She was going to vomit, joining the others who already had in this awful, airless bag. Her legs were weighted, each step closer to wherever erased all of her confidence in her decision, her patriotic duty, her desire to be brave like she thought Parker was. Tears sprang and slipped down her cheeks. This was the worst idea she’d ever had, and it proved, without a doubt, she had no good judgment. He’d tried to warn her, begged her to stand down, but Lexi had been bullheaded and pushed this.
Parker was right. He was right about everything, and she wondered if he already knew what the risk analysis said. He denied it, but could he not? What was the chance she’d make it out alive if they stayed near the sandwich shop? If they took her hours away? If the ARO separated them? She thought of Parker and could almost guarantee that he was running all the computations of her survival, even without the luxury of his war room. She knew he stood by her decision to likely get herself killed all because she’d thrown words like honor and duty in his face.
God, she was an awful person.
Maybe they wouldn’t kill her. She was blindfolded, and according to TV shows and movies, that was a good thing. If she couldn’t see them, then it wouldn’t be a problem to let her live. Even though Titan and whoever else was supposed to sweep in if things got too bad before she completed her assignment.
They came to an abrupt stop, and the bag was ripped off, grabbing her hair with it. “Shit!”
But no one cared. They simply tossed the bag on the floor, and two men were walking away. Oh no—their faces weren’t hidden, and they didn’t look concerned. Prime time TV 101 said that her likelihood of dying just skyrocketed.
Lexi sucked down the desire to puke or pass out and glanced around at where they’d left her. It was the middle of an open area with industrial ceilings, a metal door on the far side surrounded by pallet-made walls. The space was maybe twenty yards by twenty, and there was a desk and computer in the middle.
A man she hadn’t seen before walked from the shadows. He circled her, assessing and judging. His intense scrutiny wasn’t about her as a woman but a hacker. She could sense her people, and this guy was a wannabe-elite hacker, a man with no scruples. He was evil. It flowed in the air as he breathed. His eyes were as intelligent as they were dead. He had no morals, no compass, no thought for humanity. He was as emotionless as she’d ever seen a person. It was completely terrifying.
“SilverChaos.” The man towered over her, just a little shorter than Parker, and he was pissed. In a major way. All because he couldn’t figure out Monarch.
Her objective was the ARO network as much as it was pretending to fix Monarch. She needed to infect their system while she worked, creating a dormant program. Whenever the laptop connected to the internet, the malware would silently, automatically come to life
and trace how large the Arab Resistance network was, both on US soil and abroad. The demon program would hunt and harvest the ARO’s contacts, correspondences, uploads, and downloads. Every keystroke, every one click. Everything.
“It was hard for me to believe a slight woman like you, dressed like sin, was smart enough to be SilverChaos.”
Bam! A gunshot echoed through the air. She jumped, turning toward the noise. Terror ran through her. Parker had been shot? God. Wait. No. In her briefings, they’d said that the abductors might trick her, make her think they’d harmed Parker to get to her react. Or they might have actually harmed him, in which case there was nothing to be done.
Bile burned her throat. Now she was the one running the probability statistics, even though she had no idea what the confidence intervals or variable manipulation factors would be to correlate survival. A small sliver of what Parker had to have been feeling began to overwhelm her.
Bam! As the second shot rang, she cried out. She needed Parker to explain that the shots were simple tricks, that everything would be alright. Her lips trembled, her teeth chattered. With blurry eyes, she squeezed them shut to get rid of the tears and end the nightmare, but neither happened.
“I go by Taskmaster. You will do as I say.” His lightly accented English was articulate.
“Please, I don’t—”
He inclined his head. “I’ve been impressed with you. I will give you that. But I’m done with your games. The ARO revolution is in place, and you hold the key.” Carefully, he reached behind him and unsheathed a long, serrated blade. “Your mentor did not go easy.”
Eyes wide, she moaned at the thought of Shadow under the knife’s blade. “No.”
He nodded then tilted his head toward the desk. “You don’t need all of your fingers to work. We will go one at a time if that is what it takes.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Please—”
“Or you will sit down and repair the Monarch files.”
She sniffled. “Don’t kill me.”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t work, but not before I get what I need.”
She moaned with fear. “I’ll do it, and you’ll let me go?”
“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
“What can I do to”—her hands shook—“survive?”
“You’re a resource. Prove your talent is worth keeping.” A flat, uncaring smile moved on his lips, but he’d just given the reason he might not shoot her dead the second he thought she was done.
All she had to do was make sure he knew she was game. Careful to use the simple words she’d been taught by military psyche-war people, she nervously continued the conversation. “Keep me alive, and I’ll do whatever you need.”
His eyes assessed her again.
“Please,” she whispered, wiping away tears.
“Sit. Work.” He spun the knife in his hand. “We can discuss other options after you have completed your task.”
Numbly she walked to the computer and booted it up, tears still quietly streaming down her face. She wondered if the gunshots were a tactic or if Parker was really dead.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Two gun shots in the old warehouse, and Parker was going to murder everyone that he didn’t recognize as a friendly. The men guarding him cackled after the shots were fired, knowing it had gotten to him. Damn it, his mind was stronger than these petty maneuvers, which were not unexpected. But the mind games got to him more than they should. One of his guards paced closer, delighting in what had obviously made Parker react, and chuckled as if the inevitable had just happened.
“I’m gonna kill you first, fucker,” Parker snarled with his hands still taped behind his back. “Then you next.”
Both men laughed, and Parker seethed. They’d gone through a maze of hallways with his eyes covered before arriving there, where they took off his hood. The room held little that he could use as a weapon when the time came. A few chains hanging overhead. The table, a chair. Metal barrels marked as chemicals. His mind ran over every object, assessing how they could be used, even if right now, he wasn’t in a position to do much but wait.
Another man walked into the room. His dress varied from the men who’d taken him. Motherfuckin’ terrorist middle management.
“Ah,” he said in a light accent, “I see we have SilverChaos’s boyfriend. Unexpected, but a useful incentive if need be.”
“You hurt her, so help me God, I will tear you apart.”
“See?” He grinned like death. “We all do things in the name of our god. You want to kill me.” He made a face as though he found humor in it. “And I want to kill you.”
“I will.”
“You might try.” The man clapped. “She was hard to pin down, but I assume that has something to do with you.”
“Eat a dick, asshole.”
“Stupid American. All muscles, no brain.”
How many minutes had gone by? If the ARO had put her on a computer already, they were almost golden. He needed to drag this out for another fifteen? Maybe? Then she would have done what she needed to to infect their system in a way that this dumbfuck never saw coming.
“You don’t like a smart woman, do you?” Parker goaded.
“Smart and useful are different.” A snide, self-important sneer crossed his face.
“Sucks to be outmaneuvered by a female, right? Is that what bothers you most? Or that your attempts to get her before were amateur?”
“You aren’t worth my time.”
Parker turned to the two men at the door. “Your boss was one-upped by a woman. God—Allah—whoever you fucks pray and kill for is laughing.” The guy smacked Parker across his face, making him laugh. “No wonder a woman outsmarted you. You even hit like a girl.”
That time, his captor roared back and punched him in the gut.
Parker laughed harder, arms still taped behind his back. “Pansy ass.”
“Kill him.”
Parker caught the man’s eye. “Another thing you can’t do yourself.”
With a maddening look, the man charged. Parker dropped to the ground, pulling his legs up and sliding his duct tape-tied hands from behind him in the split second it took to fall. Wrists now in front of him, Parker wrapped them around the captor’s neck, locking him inches from his own face. Parker slammed his head forward, rendering the other man stunned, then pinched his neck with his forearms, suffocating the leader as the other men ran forward, guns drawn.
“Don’t shoot your boss.” Parker released the stranglehold on his neck, keeping him alive and worthy of a terrorist-human shield.
The man gasped and sputtered in Parker’s face. They backed into a hall as the guy fumbled for his side, trying for something, likely a weapon. As they rounded a corner where Parker had sufficient cover, he slammed the leader’s head back against the wall then dropped the unconscious body. A serrated knife clattered to the floor.
After grabbing the blade, Parker ran down the hall, needing a place to hide and ditch his tape cuffs. Door after door was locked. Foreign voices echoed as people looked for him. When they found their leader, alive or dead, their rage wasn’t good news for him, but it was potentially detrimental to Lexi.
Needing to find her quickly, he tried one more door and ducked into a dark bathroom. For the next forty-five seconds, Parker held the blade between his knees and sawed like all hell through the tape, nicking and scratching, slicing and tearing apart both skin and restraints. Finally he ripped his hands apart and palmed the knife.
The searching voices had quieted, and that was fine. As long as they stayed away from his woman, they could search all they wanted because now he was hunting them.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Lexi typed as fast as her mind could process and juggle both of her tasks. A ringing cell phone startled her, but she kept going. The man answered, snapped in foreign-tongued surprise, then her guards split. One with a full beard came at her while the other ran out.
“Hey!” She jumped from her ch
air. “I’m working. I swear!”
He pushed her back into the chair and pulled cable ties from a pocket. He grabbed her kicking feet and tied them to the chair legs as she fought. Next, he yanked off his belt.
“Hey, no!” Her eyes went wide. Her ops briefing had very quickly run through the types of attacks on women that could be expected, but this made no sense. Not now. Not when she was doing what they wanted. “I’m working. I promise. See!” She pointed at the screen. “See! Don’t touch me!”
She batted his hands, but he didn’t grab her how she expected. He wrapped the belt around her torso and buckled it behind her back, securing her to the chair.
“I was working.” What had changed?
Her lone guard didn’t say a word but used his foot to push her closer to the table and computer. Was something wrong with Parker? Was Titan there? Her mind raced, and her hands slowed. The man yelled at her, slamming his hand on the table and pulling her from her thoughts.
“Okay, I’m working.” She picked up her speed, letting her fingers dance on the keyboard until finally she stared at the masterpiece before her. The malware was ready. It looked right. It read like it would do what she wanted, what the DIA had asked of her.
Another slam on the table, and the man yelled unknown orders in her face again. She pressed Enter without looking at the keyboard, just staring at his face.
“The job is complete,” she said flatly, praying her hidden microphone announced to the world that she needed a rescue.
Her gaze dropped to the screen as the man stood down. Nothing changed on the laptop’s screen, but it was working. An error message would have popped up if not. Her heart warmed that at least she was able to accomplish that. In addition to the malware, it looked as if the Monarch exploit program had been completed, but in reality, all the data would be siphoned and manipulated with any search the ARO tried. It switched like-named cities in different states and reversed specific numbers on street addresses with identical names on the file. If the Taskmaster did little more than a cursory check, her work would look correct.
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