"Oh, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll be floating about in the Indian Ocean relaxing by the day after tomorrow."
"Excellent. You enjoy yourself. That project our organizations were going to collaborate on can wait until you get back.
"Perfect. I'll talk with you later."
"Enjoy your vacation, Agent Churchill."
"Indeed. It was a long time coming."
Jason closed the line and dropped his head into his hands. Okay, that bit of information was off-putting, to say the least. Churchill was probably stretching his authority by contacting him in the first place. If anyone ever discovered the information he'd just relayed… well, Guardian was always looking for good agents. The man would have a place after he was fired. Jason considered the map while he thought. Whomever his counterparts in the UK had on the inside had the straight scoop. At least MI6 wasn't going to jump into the op and fuck things up. He glanced at his watch. Dixon, Drake, and Jasmine should be landing at Dulles within the hour. Tomorrow morning they'd load up with Chief, Ms. Petrov, the security team Chief traveled with and a Guardian flight crew aboard David Xavier's Boeing Business Jet 2 for the long flight to the Indian Ocean. The Wonder Twins and Jasmine would be passengers for the twenty-four hour flight. Double D would pilot the luxurious pontoon plane that normally resided at David Xavier's private island. The aircraft would be ferried over and ready to launch whenever Chief required it. Jason hated waiting for a courier to bring him the last message drop from Chief indicating the time of the meet, but there was no way they'd risk the operation so close to the end game.
He turned back to his desk and peered at the cipher key. He used the book to compose the coded message to Jacob. Louis L'amour's,The Sacketts. They'd all grown up reading L'amour's westerns, and this one was a particular favorite of all the brothers. Even if the hacker intercepted electronic communications between Jacob and Jason, he'd have to have the key to the cipher, and there wasn't a chance in hell this book could be identified. Jewell's team would bounce the origination of Jacob's signal around the world in case the hacker was watching. Jason crossed his fingers that the countermeasures Guardian employed would give them time to ensure the Bravata were taken down.
Jacob, Doc, Joseph, and five hand-picked Guardian operatives were on the ground. Jewell, Zane and a three-man team of IT specialists were en route to the area and would be airborne during the meet. He'd arranged to get her on a Boeing E3 Sentry that was doing exercises off the coast of Thailand. Simply pour some money into the Thai government's coffers and presto the ride materialized. He was getting damn good at PFM. Pure. Fucking. Magic.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chief waited for the limousine to come to a stop and watched his security deploy. His attention focused on the team at the aircraft. He recognized several of the men as Guardian personnel. He'd brief Casey and Thomas on the mission and his true identity as soon as they were airborne. Tatyana shifted beside him. He flicked a glance toward her. He'd lose her in two days. Hell, if he was honest, he'd never had her. He'd meditated countless hours during the last three days trying to find peace in this situation, but there was none. The fates had well and truly fucked him over. The one woman who could complete him, the one strong enough to walk beside him or even allow him to lean on her was going to prison for a very long time. His heart would be locked up with her. Pain, remorse, and regret battled each other while love ripped his heart out.
The trek onto the aircraft took less than a minute. At the sound of familiar voices, Chief glanced back at the passenger seating area and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Jasmine and the Wonder Twins were visiting as if they didn't have a care in the world. Chief chose a seat facing the rear of the aircraft. He watched as his security crew made introductions and settled in.
When they were airborne, the flight crew that Chief had employed for the last eight months started service. Tatyana excused herself to the bedroom for which Chief was immediately grateful. Her absence gave him the opportunity to communicate with his Guardian brothers without being observed. He dropped his hand down and used rudimentary ASL to communicate with Dixon who had a direct line of sight to where Chief's hand began spelling out words.
Good to see you, brother .
Dixon dropped his hand after a stretch.
All on schedule. Team in place. Mission a go.
Chief relaxed for the first time in over a year. He was with Guardian once again.
Pull my security team aside. Brief them. Flight crew not to know. Chief trusted his crew, but they didn't need to know what was going on, nor did they need to be involved.
The woman?
Chief hesitated to answer. His eyes locked with Dixon's before he signed the word he couldn't speak. Bravata.
Dixon stared at him for the longest time before he signed again.Friend or Foe?
Chief drew a deep breath and shook his head. Foe. He intentionally averted his gaze. The conversation was over, at least as far as Chief was concerned. Dixon, Drake, and Jasmine would corner his security and brief them. He had one last thing to do before they landed in the Maldives twenty some hours from now. Chief called over Daphne and whispered his instructions before he headed into the bedroom. As well-meaning as the twins were, he didn't want any interruptions, and he wouldn't put it past either of his friends to come into the room on some made up pretense if they thought he was making a mistake. Interruptions were not welcome or needed. He had one day left before this mission and his time with Tatyana was over. If she were willing, he'd spend it making memories of her.
The bedroom was vacant, and the bathroom door was shut. Chief took off his suit jacket and tie. He could hear water running as he undressed. He had no right to assume she'd want him, especially after avoiding her for the last three days. Time away from her in a forced separation allowed him to focus on the mission and to come to grips with what was to come. The meeting was stacked in Guardian's favor. That was reality. But he'd survived too many missions when the odds were in favor of one side, and the results were catastrophic. Tomorrow both the Russians and Tatyana would be in custody or Chief, even with his Guardian advantage, would be dead. He could see no middle ground. Tatyana could never know that Dixon, Drake, and Jasmine were Guardian. She couldn't know that the rest of his team and probably the remainder of the King clan, waited on that island for them. He couldn't tell her that she'd be arrested and sent to jail, and he sure as fuck couldn't tell her that he loved her.
On that thought, Chief draped his clothes over the built in rack. The door opened and Tatyana stutter-stepped when she saw him lying on the bed. He dropped his hand to his cock and gave it a long slow stroke. Her eyes traveled over him and the strip of condoms that lay beside him before she leaned against the door jamb. "Presumptuous."
"I am." He wasn't going to deny it.
"Why do you think I would do this with you?" Taty lifted an eyebrow and waited.
"Because whatever else this is, we are good together. We belong together. In a little less than twenty hours we will never be together again."
He watched those expressive brown eyes as she took in his words. Her hands traveled to the button on her skirt but stalled before she opened it. "So you've decided to let the Bravata take me?"
Chief shook his head. "No, they cannot have you, but then again, neither can I."
Tatyana dropped her skirt and lifted the white shirt over her head, her lace bra and thong barely covering her most intimate areas. "I wish there were another way." She leaned down to the bed and crawled up his body. Her hair flopped into her eyes and out of habit he reached up and pushed the riot of curls out of her face.
"This is it, Tatyana. You have your destiny; I have mine. I will not allow the Bravata to take you with them, but you and I have an expiration date. You knew it when you first enticed me. I knew it when I requested your presence in my chalet. This isn't a surprise to eith
er of us."
"I want to close my eyes and make a wish."
He pushed the curls back again before he asked, "What would you wish?"
"To be free, of my past, of my obligations… of everything except you."
Chief saw the sad smile and traced her bottom lip with his thumb as he cupped her face. "We can be free, if only for tonight."
She licked the tip of his thumb stilling the movement and locking his eyes on her mouth. Taty's eyes closed and he gripped the back of her neck and brought her down to him for a kiss. She halted millimeters before they touched and whispered against his lips, "For the first time in my life, I regret my past decisions."
"Regrets change nothing." No matter how much he wished they did. He regretted her involvement with the Bravata. He regretted she would go to jail. He regretted his part in that process but what he regretted the most was there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening short of blowing this mission. That could not happen. Period. Tatyana and her bosses had ruined too many lives, yet, he mourned her loss deep within his soul.
Chief pulled her down. Her full, soft breasts brushed against his chest, her scent enveloped him, and her kiss filled his senses. With one hand he unhooked her bra while the other angled her to deepen their kiss. He broke the connection for a moment and made quick work of the condom moving to focus on her giving her pleasure. He needed her to sense, perhaps to even know, that he was making love to her. Tonight she wasn't in his arms because the mission demanded it. She wasn't an affair or a quick fuck. Hell, his life was a self-imposed crusade against casual relationships. No, here and now, he needed his hands and his body to speak the words that could never pass his lips.
Chief rolled her over and moved the bra out of his way. He started his memorization of her beauty at her delicate collarbone and ever so slowly mapped the contours of her skin, the dips of her taut muscles and the soft swells of her breasts. Lost in the pursuit of something he could never have, he poured every emotion he couldn't acknowledge, every hope he'd never see come to fruition, and every dream that would die when she was arrested, into the way he worshiped her body. Time was irrelevant. Only this intimacy mattered.
Her hands traveled his back and shoulders and did a dance across his chest almost as if she were memorizing him as well. His cock screamed for relief long before he found her hot core. He entered her gently and gradually taking every moaned word, storing them in his heart. Chief held her close to his body and made sweet, slow love to her. The one thing he couldn't do now was look into her eyes. He couldn't let her see how much he loved her. That was a power he could never give an enemy, no matter how true it was. Thoughts faded and his brain slowed until he was lost in nothing but the sensation of Tatyana. He felt her body tighten like a bow before she bit into his shoulder and released a muffled cry. Chief felt his balls pull up, the tingling in his spine morphed into an electrical storm that zapped through him and nearly blinded him with its intensity. He knew at that moment everything he was losing and damned the fates for the tortuous taste he'd been given.
He fell to one side and hugged her into him after he'd disposed of the condom. Her lithe little body tucked up against his as if she was made for him. He held her close and ran his fingers through her silken curls.
"I don't want to say goodbye." Her words were whispered against his shoulder where she lay.
"Then we won't. We will say, Taŋyáŋ ománi, Čhaŋtóčhignake." Chief uttered the words of his people. He hadn't voluntarily spoken any Sioux in at least twenty years, but the phrases fell from his lips easily.
"That was beautiful. What language was it?"
Tatyana's head shifted on his shoulder so he could see her eyes, or rather the flop of curls that fell over her eyes. Instead of brushing them back he kissed her on top of the head and pulled her back into him. "Lakota Sioux, the language of my mother's people. Taŋyáŋ ománi roughly translated means have a good journey."
"But you said something else, too." Her hands traced the muscles of his arm.
"I did. It is just a term of familiarity." Chief lied, he'd told her he loved her, but it was an indulgence he couldn't repeat in English or any other language she'd understand.
"Say it again?"
"Čhaŋtóčhignake." He tightened his arms around her when he spoke the words again.
"Čhaŋtóčhignake?" She yawned after mimicking him perfectly. Chief nodded and held her as the drone of the aircraft's engines lulled her to sleep. Chief cast an exhausted glanced at the digital clocks embedded into the wall of the aircraft displaying the current times in New York, London, Moscow, and Beijing. In a little over twenty-four hours, events would seal his fate and hers. He hadn't slept more than two or three hours in the last forty-eight. They'd tracked her use of the Russian phone, but without being able to reach out to Guardian, they'd hit a wall. She'd contacted someone again. The last time the results of her call in advance of their meeting to free fifteen women had been disastrous, but this time he'd ensured he controlled every aspect of the interaction. As soon as they finished this mission the data was going to Jewell and her team so they could take down whoever was on the other end of the communications. They would be able to identify who she'd contacted and add it to the list of crimes that he had firsthand knowledge of her committing. That list was extensive. Human trafficking would garner the most penalties, but extortion and attempted murder were on that list if they could prove she'd set them up at the warehouse. Chief closed his eyes and hoped they couldn't prove it, but knowing what he did, there was no doubt. No matter what her last communication was, Guardian would be in place and waiting. There wasn't a force on this earth that would stop the men on that island from finishing this mission. Chief adjusted Tatyana's weight against his shoulder and made no further attempt to stay awake. He needed to be ready when they hit the island.
"We may have a problem." Dixon and Drake had briefed Chief's security team and had outlined the events of the next twenty-four hours while Jasmine had distracted the current in-flight crew.
"Chief." Drake acknowledged his brother's concerns.
"He is involved with that woman." Dixon knew Mike White Cloud. The man would do his job or die trying, but the addition of the woman was a wildcard. If there was a chance his judgment had been compromised, it could mean the difference between all of them making it out of the next assignment alive or losing a team member.
"Figured as much when they headed into the bedroom. Think he's using her or is she using him?"
As usual, Drake was tracking along the same lines. "I don't know, but my gut tells me Ms. Petrov is more than just an assignment for him."
"Shit."
"I concur."
They looked at each other. Things could get messy, and there was no way to get word to Jacob and the men on the island that there were emotions involved.
"If we get the chance, one of us needs to talk with him. Find out where his head is located." Dixon watched Jasmine talk to the flight attendant about the coffee maker on the aircraft. With some sixth sense that he was watching her, she looked over and winked at him. The woman was a damn good personal security officer. It was Guardian's loss when she signed on to be Chad Nelson's head of security and soon to become his wife. But they were happy, and Chad was a stand-up dude.
"No, we know where his head is, we can't question that. He's proven himself more times than a man should have to...I'm more concerned about what is happening with his heart." Drake leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet stretching out on the reclining seat. They were the relief aircrew and needed to get their crew rest, although that would be a long time coming. They both hated it when others had control of the stick. Sleep wasn't an option. They'd flown tired before. Too many times to count actually.
"It would fucking suck if he finally found someone only to have her be part of something so vile."
"Suc
k? Suck isn't even close to the right word, man. Try eviscerate. If his heart's involved, it will shred him, man." Drake rolled his head toward Dixon.
"Yeah." That was the truth.
"I couldn't imagine being in love with your enemy. Hell, we have enough heartache with someone who is supposed to be on our side."
"God, ain't that the truth. She doesn't even know we are alive."
"She knows it. She just chooses to pretend we don't exist."
"Yeah, thanks. That does wonders for my ego."
"You're welcome." Dixon chuckled but cast a look of longing out the aircraft's window. They'd found out the hard way that matters of the heart were controlled by a fickle bitch who loved to laugh when you thought you had a plan. They'd both developed feelings for the same woman, which didn't surprise either of them. What they were going to do with that wasn't clear. They both wanted the same woman, but she didn't give either of them the time of day or a second of consideration. Which sucked times two. Hell, she occupied way too much of their thoughts, and neither of them had even been intimate with her. With as messed up as their situation was, he couldn't imagine where Chief's mind was right now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tatyana closed the bedroom door and glanced around the forward cabin seating area of the plane. Both of the extra pilots who flew with them appeared to be sleeping, but the dark haired flight attendant was awake and reading a magazine.
"Hi. Couldn't sleep?" The woman smiled over at Tatyana as she sat down.
Taty smiled back. "No, I guess I have a lot on my mind." She reclined in the chair and looked out the window. The pitch blackness was punctuated by the red strobe light of the aircraft's navigational lighting seconds before the flash of green from the other side of the plane illuminated the night. It wasn't annoying enough to pull the shades on the windows, but enough of a distraction that she could lose herself in thought as she focused on the lights.
Chief (Kings of Guardian Book 7) (The Kings of Guardian) Page 20
