“Stop playing with them, Caleb,” I shouted. “We’ve got company.”
I raised my gun and sighted the nearby rooftops as I walked sideways towards the fallen hooded male. I took in the blood splatter, the range and trajectory, and determined the bullet had come from some distance.
Say, eight-hundred metres perhaps.
“Ava.”
I lowered my gun. I’d be well and truly in her sights by now. My Glock was chicken feed compared to her; she’d taken out my target.
I forced myself to ignore the itch I felt where the cross-hairs would be etched onto my profile and pulled the hood back from the dead man.
I let a slow breath out as Adam approached. Gun out, safety off, eyes taking in every inch of our surroundings.
“That’s him,” he advised, frowning at the fight still in progress down the other end of the units. “The one in your apartment.”
And not Caleb Hart.
“Nick needs help,” Adam said, clearly wanting to go aid his boss in the brawl that just wouldn’t stop brawling, but not wanting to leave me.
“Hart!” I yelled. “Can it. We’re not the only spooks here.”
Caleb lowered his arms, took a punch to the stomach and an undeflected knock on the jaw, then stepped back. He bowed, came upright, and swept his hand up in a mock salute, then walked past a breathless Koki, a bloodied Brook, a furious Nick, and a remarkably untouched Abi.
He offered her a wink and flicked a piece of card towards her, which she caught reflexively. His phone number, at a guess. I shook my head, my eyes scanning the distance, looking for the telltale glint of light off a rifle’s scope. Coming up blank.
“You’re a hard woman to pin down,” Caleb announced as he sauntered closer. I fingered my gun in its holster. He watched.
“Are you alone?” I demanded.
“Not all of us are anti-social,” he quipped.
“How did you turn her?”
He smiled, it made his rugged good looks smooth out into an angel’s guise. He did look remarkably like Jacques Thibault, but whereas Jacques appeared a little like a thug, Caleb was more 007.
“Nobody could turn Ava; you know that, Charles. She makes her own mind up. And given the facts, she’s clearly decided I’m legit.”
“Are we friends now?” Nick asked, a scowl on his face as he approached. He looked ruffled, but otherwise unharmed. Caleb had either gone super light on his foes or Nick Anscombe knew how to handle himself in a fight.
I was going with the latter. Caleb had a relatively high level of pride.
That’s why I’d agreed to the meet. Called his bluff. There was no way Caleb Hart would have backed down when he saw the cavalry I’d acquired.
I nodded towards the body Ava had conveniently laid out for us.
“Jacques Thibault,” I announced, making Nick’s eyebrows rise.
“Your double crossing snitch,” Adam provided.
“Exactly,” I agreed, meeting his eyes. “Free as a bird.”
“A dead bird,” Koki offered. We ignored him.
I looked toward Caleb. “Why are you here? He was sent to kill me. What were you sent to do?”
Caleb’s eyes flicked around our audience. All of the ASI team had closed in, fingers twitching above weapons, eyes narrowed at their prey. They didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust him. But Nick was letting this play out, at my command. Did that mean Nick Anscombe trusted me?
Or was it just ‘better the devil you know?’
“We need to talk,” Caleb said. “And if Thibault is here, then you can guarantee he isn’t here of his own accord. Someone let him loose.”
And that someone was our boss.
“Why are you here?” I repeated.
“Charles, we’re exposed. Your trigger happy colleagues are itching to finish what they started. Let’s get under cover.”
I raised my Glock, ran a thumb across the safety, and pointed it at his head.
“Why are you here, Caleb?”
He looked down the barrel of the gun, didn’t flinch, didn’t twitch a muscle. His emotionless eyes lifted to mine.
“You don’t have to do this all on your own, Charles,” he whispered. Familiar words of late, but somehow they weren’t as enticing coming from Caleb. “You never did. We were always there, but you never asked. Only once, and even then your handler sent us in to get you.” He sighed, ran a hand through his tousled dark blond hair, making me take a step closer and shift my gun muzzle to press against his chest in warning.
He was wearing a vest, I noticed. The bullet would bruise. Hurt like fuck and even momentarily incapacitate. I needed to move my gun back up to his head. I didn’t.
He smiled. I wanted to scream.
“Don’t you see, Charles?” Caleb said. “We’re family.”
Then a fist came out of nowhere and clocked him on the side of the head.
He spun where he stood, eyes rolling back in their sockets, and slumped to the ground.
Adam stepped forward, glowered down at his prey and growled, “She’s got a new family, fuck-knuckle! Back the fuck off, right now!”
Chapter 28
She Was So Far Out Of My Fucking League
Adam
Watching Charlie fight had been both magnificent and terrifying. She’d held absolutely nothing back. She’d fought as though the world depended on it, not just her life. She’d shown no fear. Held no punches. Never once stopped to catch her breath or plan her next move. Everything had been so seamless. And so fucking brutal.
Nothing like you see on TV.
And nothing like she’d fought back in the dojo.
Even now, the rest of us were dishevelled and bloodied, dirt covered and bruised. Still catching our breaths. Still piecing the puzzle pieces together. But not Charlie. She’d figured it all out while firing bullets and fighting off a knife wielding Frenchman and rolling around in the dirt. And she’d looked like she could have modelled for Vogue while she’d done it. Yeah well, perhaps the Battle Barbie version of Vogue, but still.
“Tempus fugit, Charles,” the dickhead said, from where he’d come to on the concrete and oh so casually sat watching us. Killer Ken to her Battle Barbie.
I fucking hated him on sight, even if it appeared he might be on our side.
“Ava!” she yelled, holstering her gun and glaring down at the body of Jacques Thibault.
“No need to shout,” a delicate voice replied from the shadows, making every one of us - except the two spooks already in our presence - lift our weapons and aim toward the sound.
Fuck this! My skin was crawling with the need to shoot one of these fuckers in the bloody head.
A small woman walked out from behind the end of the storage units; the opposite end to the one the real Caleb Hart had been hiding at. Caramel coloured skin, dark hair tied back in a thick, messy knot at her nape, and a sniper rifle thrown over a narrow shoulder. She wore black combat pants and boots - tiny feet - and a skintight black top under a fitted bulletproof vest. She had black paint under her eyes and a black beanie on her head, which on closer inspection, I realised was some kind of helmet. Her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. Her lips were lifted in a small smirk.
One by one Nick, Jase, Koki and Brook lowered their guns an inch or two; about the same distance as their jaws. Ben, still feeling the effects of the throwing star, held firm. Abi right there with him.
And I didn’t budge a fucking inch.
“Who the fuck are you?” I demanded, gun muzzle trained on her forehead.
“Easy,” Hart warned, fingering his own weapon in its holster. And why hadn’t we disarmed the fucker yet?
Ava, or whatever her name was, smiled wider.
“You do have all the fun, Charlie,” she said in a purr. “Why couldn’t I have been assigned this one.” Her eyes trailed up and down the length of me, her intent obvious.
Any other day, any other lifetime…
I chambered a round and re-aimed.
Her chuckle
wasn’t nearly as intriguing as Charlie’s, but I only had that thought for a second, before all cognitive reasoning fled.
Charlie stepped in front of me. Back to my gun, which I immediately lowered, face to the threat. To stop me? Or to protect me?
I moved sideways, freeing up my line of sight, and lifted my gun up again, noting everyone had theirs up as well, including Hart.
Not much of a Mexican standoff. There were six of us, seven if you counted Charlie - and as she hadn’t armed herself again, I sure as shit didn’t - and only two of them.
“Well, this is entertaining,” Ava remarked. Shifting the weight of the rifle into a better position on her shoulder. “But I’ve eaten nothing but ramen noodles and Cheezles for the past few days, and I’d kill for an espresso.” Her smile broadened. “Whoops! Did I say kill?”
No one laughed, but if they were anything like me, they felt a little creeped out by her black humour. This woman was as lethal as Charlie. Evidence of such was lying in a spreading pool of blood and brain matter on the concrete floor at our feet.
“Charlie?” Nick asked, his gun trained on Hart, but I could see his eyes darting towards Ava every few seconds. “Your call,” he added, and I watched stunned as Charlie jerked where she stood. Just a little, maybe not perceptible to anyone else, but I caught it.
She hadn’t expected the trust. And I’m not sure it was freely given. Nick was out of his depth. Two spooks, one of which we’d thought the enemy, and so much fucking confusion about what the hell was going on, meant trust was reserved for now. But assets were available.
Charlie was an asset to us as much as we were her assets too.
“Lower your weapons,” she said, sounding like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. “If they’d wanted us dead, we’d be dead.” She spared a glance down at Thibault’s body and then trained her eyes back on Hart.
Who hadn’t missed her use of pronouns: us.
“Can we do this somewhere else?” he asked. We were out in the open and something had to be done with the body.
Charlie nodded. “Koki, Brook,” Nick barked. “Wait here for Pierce.”
“On it boss,” they both said in unison.
“Shall we?” Nick asked, indicating the way to our vehicles with a sweep of his hand.
Hart let his eyes run over Koki and Brook, and then the dead body of Thibault.
“And you can just leave the scene of a crime like that?” he asked, his tone suggesting he could, but we sure as hell shouldn’t.
“Pierce knows where to find us,” Nick offered and turned his back on the man. It took balls. I’m not sure I could have done it. But then, he did have five armed ASI operatives ready to gun the motherfucker down if he so much as arched a brow at him.
“Fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” Hart said, falling into step beside Charlie. I followed, keeping the rifle toting midget in my sights. Jason and Abi helped Ben along behind us, so it was up to me to pull a pistol on the spooks if they so much as twitched a muscle.
“And what do you know about it?” Charlie asked, voice low, but still carrying.
She was fuming; I’m not sure how I knew it, but I did. Charlie Downes was as irate as I’d ever seen her, and to look at her, you wouldn’t even know it.
“I know you know something,” he murmured. “And I know people are not happy about whatever it is you know.”
Charlie didn’t say anything, but I could imagine her mind whirring. She knew about the Director. Did Hart and his sniper sidekick? She knew about the Chinese drugs. About their new distribution and change of management. She knew everything that had led her to us and us to her. But she did not know why Hart was here.
I glanced across the way to Ava, who was humming a tune under her breath as though she hadn’t a care in the world. The rifle was impressive. This little woman who wielded it was not. A surprise, yes. A diminutive bombshell, for sure. But why was she here?
Charlie had mentioned she’d called in back-up, but the back-up had fled. I narrowed my eyes at the woman, unsure what to make of that. She’d abandoned Charlie; she deserved a knock to the head for that.
But she’d come back. Why?
“If you keep eyeballing me like that, big guy,” the woman said, not bothering to turn her head to look at me, “I’ll start to think you’ve got the hots for me.”
Charlie stiffened, but we’d come to the cars by then. The tightness in her shoulders was lost in her halted movement by the first SUV.
“Ava, you’re with Nick, Abi and Ben.” She beeped the lock on the vehicle next to her and climbed in without a further word.
Ava winked at me as she followed Nick towards the second SUV. Hart just offered a contemplative stare.
And Jason, the fucktard, smirked, then murmured under his breath as he passed, “I think she likes you.”
But I couldn’t tell if he meant Ava, whose antics had all been an act.
Or if he’d meant Charlie. Who hadn’t wanted me anywhere near the same car as the sexy sniper was going to be in.
I smiled as I slid into the back seat with Jason, both of us fingering our guns as we watched Hart jump into the front. The tension ratcheted up a notch or two. And didn’t abate as we made our way north to ASI.
So this was Charlie’s family. Two of them at least. I stared at the back of Hart’s skull and mentally dissected it. He’d saved her life once. So had Ava. And here they both were again.
I couldn’t help the feeling of desperation that consumed me, as the SUV made its way on near empty streets.
If they were her family, would that mean she’d pick them over me?
Douche! When had I ever been able to predict Charlie’s reactions? She was so far out of my fucking league.
Chapter 29
We Protect Our Country
Charlie
By mutual consent no one spoke on the journey north to ASI. But I could feel Caleb’s eyes on my cheek as I drove us. Contemplative, patient, calculating. It took everything in me not to smash my fist into the side of his face, and dash that look of bemused interest right off his dial.
Anger simmered beneath the surface and for once I didn’t baulk at feeling an emotion.
Caleb thought he knew me. But the old me had disappeared. She’d been shattered. The person who sat in the seat next to him felt. Fuck did she feel! I felt every-damn-thing.
My eyes flicked up to Adam in the rear view mirror. His were eyeballing the back of Caleb’s skull. Murderous intent in the deep blue. And then they shifted to the mirror, catching me watching him. He didn’t smile, but I could have sworn the look in his eyes changed.
I’ll catch you.
My gaze returned to the road, my heart thundering inside my chest. The fall I was about to take was too high for one man to cushion. Even a man like Adam Savill.
Why the hell was Caleb here?
I pulled the SUV into ASI’s underground garage. Nick’s car right behind us, practically on our bumper. Tension wound tight around my frame, and seeing Ava alight from the second vehicle only magnified the sensation. No amount of stretching my neck or rolling my shoulders made a difference. Nothing I did, nothing I’d been trained to do, helped.
We all rode up in the lift silently. Hard stares, narrowed eyes, strained muscles. Thank fuck there was no elevator music.
Stepping out into ASI’s reception and seeing Carmel with her hand under the desk, waiting, was the final straw. I didn’t realise I had one. But I was about to allow two of the most deadly agents into ASI’s inner sanctum and something about that made me snap.
I spun where I stood, heel of my palm coming up in a blur of colours, and smashing against Caleb’s chest before he could react. My other hand removed his Beretta from its holster and tossed it away leaving me free to deal with the fallout.
He responded immediately. Right hook, left to solar plexus, swipe of his leg across ankles, elbow to face, jab which I fended, slash downward towards my carotid, fist aimed at my jaw, fingers tangling in m
y hair, knife to throat - his throat not mine.
“Stop!” I yelled, just as Carmel pumped her shotgun in warning and voices shouted out all around us, guns finally being raised. “Calm the fuck down!” I ordered.
“I don’t know, Charles,” Caleb drawled as a drop of blood slowly slid down his throat. “I’m not feeling particularly agreeable right now.”
“Release my hair,” I growled.
“Remove the knife.” I pressed it in harder and he slowly - so very slowly - lifted both hands in surrender.
“Now your back-up,” I ordered.
Caleb let out a huff of breath. “You only had to ask, Charlie. Why the fight?”
Because I was mad. Raging with anger. Because I was sick of constantly being behind the eight ball. Awash in emotions I had no hope in hell of containing. Because I may owe Caleb Hart my life, but I sure as fuck was not going to hand it to him on a platter.
“Because you emailed me on the Department’s system,” I finally growled.
He removed a back-up Glock, a knife, then another, two magazines, and a garrote. The items clunked down on Carmel’s desk and echoed into the strained silence. Not once did the grandma lower her shotgun. I flicked my gaze around the room quickly. Nick had a gun to Ava’s head. Adam had one to Caleb’s back. Jason had removed Ava’s rifle and was going through her pockets. And Ben was slumped against the reception wall, Abi, keeping guard over her partner, had her gun out, but lowered.
I checked the big guy’s face, noted the pale colour, unusual for a Māori, and decided we needed to hurry this along. The throwing star had clearly missed his lung, but he’d lost a lot of blood before it had been staunched. He was fading. And knowing these guys, none of them wanted to show a weakness.
“That was a necessity,” Caleb finally replied, as though he’d recognised the heightened emotions in the small room and was using them for dramatic effect.
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