by Jen Talty
She typed this time a little slower, making sure the password was correct. “It’s hung up now, not doing anything.”
He jumped from his chair, kicking it to the side, before standing behind her, arms reaching over her shoulders, fingers on the keyboard, and turning off the internet connected to the machine. “Whoever these people are, they’ve accessed your account.”
“What?” She blinked as the screen went black.
“I need to find out if they’ve hacked into mine.”
Normally, she’d consider herself well-versed in technology, but compared to Shamus, she felt like a newbie.
She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest while Shamus hooked himself back to his machine. “Rooster, this is Tail, copy?”
Silence for a few moments.
“Try to log into this email, but route the IP somewhere, anywhere, to protect yourself. It’s [email protected], password 8675309$Jenny.”
She bit back a smile. He used to love that song, and he’d play it all the time. She once teased him he needed to find a new girlfriend named Jenny.
“Rooster, try again,” Shamus said, fiddling with the computer.
“Fuck. What happens when you try to change my password?” Shamus tapped the keys on his laptop, shaking his head as he shifted the screen.
“I’m going to try something,” Shamus said, cupping the mic. “Block my IP.” He continued to tap on the keyboard. “God damn it,” he muttered. “Rooster, can you hack mine and Amber’s accounts?”
“What about other accounts?” Amber asked softly.
Shamus nodded, then his mouth dropped open. “Rooster, I just got a message on my screen. It says, Tail, you can run, but you can’t hide. I’ll find you, and justice will be served. Find out where it came from. I’ll leave it running.”
He pulled the phone his father had given him out of his back pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Hank. We need to get the fuck out of here, and it’s not going to be by horse.”
Chapter 7
“WHERE ARE we going? Better yet, where are we?”
Amber stared at Shamus with wide eyes as he helped her from the helicopter that had landed somewhere, from what she could gather, northwest of Eagle Rock, in the middle of an open field with nothing but overgrown weeds now flattened to the earth by the whooping of the chopper blades above.
He carefully unbuckled her helmet, tossing it to his buddy in the open door. With both of them ducking, he took her by the hand and ran toward the Jeep parked at the end of a dirt road. Even he thought this plan was a bit elaborate and excessive, but Rooster had found that every account Shamus had, including his bank account, had been attacked with a program to let someone know exactly when he logged in, and what he did once inside his account.
The same with Amber’s.
But the clincher was that he no longer believed these people were just after him, using Amber to get to him.
They wanted her, too.
The question was why.
“Are you going to answer my question?” Amber asked, her tone laced with exasperation.
He didn’t blame her for her aggravation. He’d be annoyed too if he had climbed up a ladder into a helicopter hovering over a cliff with no explanation why. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell her, but he, Rooster, and Hank had a million things to set up, all while evacuating the cabin before they were found. Not to mention, collecting paperwork from his missions and her foreign correspondence, trying to find the connection.
The engine revved as he pulled out and headed down the dirt road. “We’re going camping, and we’re dead center in the middle of Blackfeet Indian Reservation.”
“How is this going to help us find out who most likely wants one or both of us dead?” She gathered her hair, separating it into sections and started to put it in one of those braid things.
“I had Rooster set up dummy accounts to try to trace these assholes. Hank called in a favor and got all my ops records, and he’s also getting access to all your reports and assignments.”
The sun’s rays scattered through the protection of the trees. Nothing beat the great outdoors, only it was more enjoyable when someone wasn’t chasing you.
“On my laptop, I’ve got notes that never made it—”
“Someone ransacked your place, and it’s gone.” He hadn’t meant to be so curt, but they had no time to beat around the bush.
“What!? When? Why didn’t you tell me?” She glanced in his direction, hand over her narrowed eyes.
“I just found out as we climbed on the bird. It’s not like I was keeping it from you. We just needed to act fast.”
“Next time while you’re acting, do some talking.”
“Fair enough,” he said, glancing in her direction. “Let’s hope, however, there won’t be a next time.”
“Good point,” she said with a slight smile.
“Pull out the map that was left for us in the glove box and help me navigate. We’re only supposed to be three miles from where the rented cabin is.”
“It feels kind of ridiculous to keep moving around like this,” she said, unfolding the crisp edges of a brand-new map. “Take the next right. Looks like it’s a paved road.”
“This should be the last time. All we need to do is find out how many times your stories crossed with my deployments and missions, then connect the dots.”
She pointed to a road, and he made the turn, noting the sign that read they were entering a national park. He’d been familiar with this area but hadn’t been to this part. Hank had said there was a group of cabins that were used primarily by hikers as there were tons of trails in the area.
“The only time I know of that we were in the same area had been Syria, but I was a good fifty miles from the bombing, and I was covering the refugees and how difficult it was for many to get out of the country at the time.”
“I was there on a top-secret mission with two objectives. First was to find and execute a top Al-Qaida leader, and the second had been to gather and steal intelligence being filtered through Siberia and some militants posing as refugees.”
“How much of that mission was successful?”
“We got the intel, but we’ve never been able to confirm the death of our target,” he said, his lower back burning with the memory. “And it cost two good American soldiers and ended my career.”
“Anyone else injured?” She pointed to another turn and at the corner sat a small office building with a sign over the door indicating it was the office. She held up keys she’d found in the glove compartment. “I guess we don’t have to check in.”
“Gotta love Hank,” he said, pulling into cabin number six, all the way at the end of the row. “We were a six-man team. The two other men that got out alive, both had been shot. They were far enough away from the blast, they didn’t get hit like I had. The other two were inside the tunnel. Max, one of the men, raced out just before the bomb went off. We were both badly injured, but I was able to pull him out. Then the bomb went off, and I don’t remember anything until I woke up in Germany.”
Her fingers circled his biceps. “I’m glad you survived, but sorry about those who didn’t.”
He nodded, allowing a swell of emotion to engulf his heart. “It was a difficult time all around.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said with a sweet voice. “I need a pad and pen, and I need you to go over some of the details, okay?”
“That’s fine, but why?” He yanked the suitcase the Brotherhood had provided from the back seat.
“I’m connecting the dots.”
“You are the smart one.” He followed her into a two-room cabin that wasn’t much to look at on the inside. The old, wood furniture sported sagging cushions. The metal kitchen table had matching folding chairs. He set the case on the sofa and retrieved the new computer with a military grade internet secure connection. The messaging system that had been set up had new accounts and for even the
smartest of hackers, it would take hours before they would figure it out.
“I don’t know about that,” she said, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, looking around with a scrunched-up nose. “You make me feel like an idiot with all this tech stuff and come on, you were an intelligence officer for the United States Army.”
“I gathered the intel, I didn’t decipher it often. My mind isn’t as logical as yours.” He held up a pad and a pencil. “Promise me you won’t chew on the eraser.”
“I will make no such pledge.”
He laughed as he fired up the computer.
“All right,” she said, sitting next to him on the sofa, foot tucked under her butt, paper in her lap, and she tapped the damn pencil against her lip. “Who had the intel?”
“That would have been Max.”
“Was he one of the men out before you, or after?” She jotted down a few things, and he enjoyed watching.
“Right after me, but he died. Noonan never made it out, and we never recovered his body.”
She looked up from her paper. “You said everyone had been shot. When did that happen?”
“Noonan was first in. He gave the signal when he’d located our target. There were three armed guards. We needed the names of those people pretending to be refugees on the next outpouring. Our intelligence confirmed our target had those names. We managed to take control of the situation, but just as we found the documents, someone shot at us from the far-east side of the tunnel. At that point, it was all about getting my men out. It all happened so fast, but as the other three raced for cover, Max and Noonan struggled with the target as I did my best to cover my other men, grabbing the binder we’d found. Then I heard Noonan shout, ‘there’s a bomb, get out!’ I turned, waiting for them to appear, but only Max came out, shouting something but I couldn’t understand as bullets flew, pelting his body.”
Shamus had gone over this so many times in his head, and during debriefing, and again during the inquiry just before his medical discharge with honors, that it became a rote recollection of any other mission. No emotion. Just facts. Only this time, he was telling it to a civilian and a woman who didn’t have clearance to hear the tale. The tears stung the corners of his eyes as he swallowed the guttural sob threatening to escape.
Amber pressed her warm hand over his biceps. “I know you, and I know you did everything you could to keep your men safe.”
“It was a dangerous mission with a success rate of fifty-one percent Bringing back four of us was a fucking miracle.” He sucked in a deep breath, willing the tears to dissolve into his eyeballs.
“You don’t remember anything after the bomb went off?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head, tapping at the computer. “Hank was able to obtain some of the reports, but I can recap what I was told.”
“I’d rather read the reports, if that’s okay?”
“Sure.” He handed her the computer, wishing they had been given two. He glanced around, hoping to see a printer, but that would have been too good to be true. “How about I see what they stocked for food while you read.”
“Sounds good to me.” She crossed her legs, the computer resting on her lap, the pencil hanging from her mouth, and the pad on the sofa. He cracked a slight smile, remembering how intense she could be when deep in thought.
He rummaged through the fridge and freezer, finding a couple of frozen dinners. It was food, so they would have to make do. The microwave didn’t heat quite right, so it took double the time to heat the containers of mac and cheese. Fifteen minutes to be exact, and he tried desperately not to look in her direction. He’d never understood why in high school he’d thought that insanely sexy, and he still didn’t.
When this was over, they were going to need to have a long chat about the lingering feelings between them, because it wasn’t just lust.
“I’m done.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You said my stories are on this? How do I access them?”
“Should be a folder with your name on them.”
While she searched, he poured two glasses of water from the jug in the fridge and dumped the cream pasta into two metal bowls and set them on the table. He’d been in worse places half of his life.
But never with a beautiful woman.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, scribbling on her paper. She stood and made her way to the table with a frown.
“What is it?”
“I tried to interview the three men on your list. They weren’t very talkative, and I found them suspicious. I said something to the military personnel there, who then pulled them from the line. The next day, I’d heard they’d been arrested.”
Shamus dropped the tin cup on the table; it made a loud noise like fingers on a chalkboard. “When exactly did this happen?”
“I reported them the day before you were nearly killed.”
Chapter 8
AFTER DOING a sweep of the area, Shamus tried to relax on the sofa, but he could barely sit still. The three men on the list, the same men Amber had interviewed, turned out to be a small part of a bigger group of men bringing US military plans to various Al Qaeda leaders. When captured, the men had on their person, a list of special forces teams, their locations, and their objectives. They never intended to go to the United States, just wanted safe passage out of Syria.
Shamus jumped from the couch, rifle in hand, peering out the front window. On any given mission, he knew the enemy. Didn’t matter if he might not know where they were, he could anticipate their movements. However, since he had no idea who was fucking with him and Amber, or why, he couldn’t predict where or how they would ambush.
“Oh my God. You’re making me nuts,” Amber said from behind the computer, still reading reports regarding his missions and her news stories, both written and those that she’d reported for the network. “Why don’t you take over with this if you need something to do.”
“Have you found anything?” he asked, staring at her as he let out a puff of air. He shouldn’t be taking his frustration out on her, but with no one else around, he had no other place to put it. He hated it when he wasn’t thrust into the middle of the mission. Hank warned him that sometimes protection details were just that, nothing more, nothing less, and often a lot of sitting around and waiting.
He could manage the waiting. Half his missions were ninety-five percent hurry up and wait, and five percent action.
“Nothing. Nada. Your target hasn’t been seen since and is presumed dead. There is no other connection between you and me other than those three men. That is the only time we’ve ever been in the same country, other than the US.”
“What about all my other missions?” he asked, knowing the answer.
She tilted her head, lifting a brow, and a smirk formed across her lips. “I just told you there is nothing else that ties us together.”
“We’re missing something.” he said, lowering his gaze to the floor. His combat boots lined with half-dry mud taunted him, reminding him of the man he carried out of that tunnel and the man he’d left behind. “Noonan,” he whispered, shaking his head. “What if he survived?”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” She set the computer aside and made her way across the room, resting her hand on his shoulder. Her warm skin had a calming effect, slowing his pulse. “If he did, that means your target could have survived, and Noonan is being held captive.”
“Anything is possible,” he said, rubbing his temples. “But not highly probable.” The word motive wrapped around his tongue, holding it hostage. Most terrorists from other countries had objectives, and the motives behind them were political. Some had personal motives, but those were single shooters, generally speaking. “The target wouldn’t know my name unless someone told him.” But why would the name of one American soldier matter in a sea of thousands with boots on the ground.
“You didn’t call to your buddies, or they to you during the raid?”
He lifted his gaze to the ceil
ing, as if it had all the answers. “We use code names in the field.” Shamus considered his men to be the best of the elite and would rather die than give up any information that would put American citizens in danger. Noonan had been the newest member of the team. He swallowed the burn in his chest. Noonan grated on Shamus’s nerves, and they often argued.
“In the reports I read, the six other members of the A-Team had been outside the tunnel.”
“If it weren’t for them, I would have died.” Shamus nodded. “We needed to provide cover from three different parts of the side of the hill, so we put two men at each weak spot. Noonan thought we should leave at least two in the first room we found in the tunnels. I wanted more gunfire in case.”
“Turns out you could have used more,” she said, her index finger and thumb tugging at his chin.
“You’d be surprised how many we can take out being only two men. The problem was, they knew we were coming, so the second we went for the notebook, all hell broke loose. We almost didn’t get the information.” Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips, kissing her soft skin, then placing her palm on his shoulders. She had this way of keeping him calm and focused. Forcing his mind to slow down and concentrate on one fact and idea at a time.
“What are you thinking?” Her fingers gently massaged his shoulder, but it didn’t ease the growing pit in his stomach.
“After we were given our orders, while surveying the tunnels, Noonan constantly questioned the plan, wanting to make changes.” God, he hated where his thoughts were headed, but nothing else made sense.
“And did you?” Amber’s calm voice did nothing to soothe his nerves.
“We made some, but Noonan continued to push our commanding officer to go with his ideas.” He rested his hands on her hips, staring into her eyes. “Noonan was an IT guy, like me.”
“Intelligence and Operations position,” she whispered, her beautiful dark orbs widened. “I see that wheel spinning. Come on, fill me in.”
“When Max came running out, I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying. The pain from being shot in the side, the chaos that ensued, the urgency to get out was all I could focus on. Max called out Noonan’s name.”
