by Dawn Ryder
Vitus and Dare shared a look. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The train was getting closer, filling the night with the sound of its metal wheels moving over the rails.
“The game is bigger than we thought,” Dare said to Vitus.
“Who is Kagan?” Jenna asked.
“I’ve got to get Miranda out of the line of fire,” Vitus said without answering her question.
Dare nodded. “I’m going off grid with Jenna.”
“No contact through the nest,” Vitus continued. “Too risky.”
“Agreed.”
Vitus reached out and hit Dare in the shoulder with a closed fist. It was a gentle touch but one that made Jenna’s eyes round with alarm. The guy was gone a moment later, slipping into the darkness like he’d never been there.
“Who is Kagan?” she repeated. The ground was starting to vibrate as the train came into sight. It was moving at a crawl.
Dare looked at the train before looking back at her. “My boss.”
He suddenly cupped the side of her face. “If he’s placing you in play, the stakes are high.”
Whatever else he’d wanted to say, the train cut off the opportunity for conversation. But he rubbed her cheek like she was somehow precious to him.
You’re seeing what you want to see again …
Maybe. But there was no time to ponder her thoughts. Dare was pointing at the boxcars passing them. He shrugged the shoulder strap of his rifle over his head.
Jenna felt her eyes widen as she caught on to exactly what he was planning. She struggled to get the shoulder strap of her rifle over her head before Dare spotted an open door on one of the approaching boxcars. He reached down and gripped her wrist, tugging her after him as he went toward the open door.
* * *
“I don’t know what an ‘Unperson’ is”—Zane wiped his forehead before continuing—“but I love your sister.”
Greer grunted. He had a lot of mixed feelings when it came to his sister Sorcha. More than half of them could have neatly fit under the term “resentment.”
“We’ve got to alert Kagan,” Zane said. “Make sure he puts the other teams on alert.”
Greer nodded and flashed his badge at the security man standing in front of the doors of a DMV. There was a line of people stretching around the building. They let out several unflattering comments as he and Zane made it through the doors without the security officer raising an objection. Inside there were scores of people holding their waiting numbers as the different stations worked through the scores of people needing services.
Greer flashed his badge again as he came through the opening to the back-office area.
“Excuse me?” a clerk declared as she turned around from where a woman was arguing about having to take a written exam for the renewal of her driver’s license.
“Federal Agents.” Zane flipped his badge open.
“Um … hmmm…” she grumbled. “That doesn’t tell me what you’re doing in my office.”
“We need a phone,” Greer said on his way to the back room.
“A private one.” Zane stepped into the path of the woman as she stood up, intent on taking issue with Greer. “We’ll be gone before you notice.”
Greer picked up the phone and dialed.
“We were hit,” he informed Kagan.
“How bad?”
“Zane and I dropped one on our way out,” Greer explained. “Vitus and Dare went for the witness. Four hours ago. We left everything behind.”
“Right,” Kagan replied. “I’ll get a team on it.”
“We survived because my sister called me and gave me a head start,” Greer said.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“I didn’t realize you had a means of contact with Sorcha,” Kagan admitted.
Greer felt his patience wearing thin. “You can be sure it was her idea and no one liked hearing it. We’d be dead if she hadn’t called. It was a full tactical team. They knew location and came in from both sides.”
“Stay off grid,” Kagan ordered. “Check in schedule Charlie.”
Greer hung up the phone. He understood Kagan’s orders and he hoped his section leader had heard him when it came to his sister.
Zane was guarding the door to the back room. His huge frame meant the rest of the staff of the DMV was cutting him a wide path even if more than one of them was shooting Zane a scathing glance.
“Are we done here at the hen house?” Zane asked when Greer reappeared.
“Charlie.”
Zane nodded as he sat down at a terminal and punched in a clearance code. The computers all flickered before he finished typing in another line of commands that had more than one employee muttering an expletive.
Greer held up his badge as the supervisor faced off with him. Zane’s typing finished and he was up and out of the chair as every system in the placed crashed to begin a reboot.
“Give it ten minutes,” Zane informed the supervisor with a wink.
“I think she flipped you off,” Greer muttered as they cleared the building.
“Don’t blame her, but still I’m not sorry.” He pointed down the road. “Civilian police. Let’s grab a lift.”
The police officer was a little more welcoming. A gleam flickered in the guy’s eyes as he disconnected his body camera and killed the on-board surveillance system.
“I’ll admit,” the guy said as he pulled into traffic with Greer and Zane in the back of his squad car, “it’s kind of nice to have something to do that might make the world a better place.” He started to look in the rearview mirror, but Greer cleared his throat and the guy corrected his angle of vision. “You get what I mean.”
“It’s not all fun,” Greer replied.
But he did admit to enjoying the fact that they were still alive. After all, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure they weren’t.
Now that part was fun and it was going to be a blast when he got the chance to bust in the door of whoever had sent a team after them.
A real party and a half.
* * *
Kagan turned a pen over in his fingers. He stopped for a moment and rotated it a few more times.
A full tactical team didn’t come cheap.
And on American soil, it was likely they were ex-military.
He stood up and left, moving through the office building as work continued like he wasn’t there. No one looked up and that was the way he liked it. Washington D.C. was bristling. The approaching election meant a slew of posters were attached to every available surface.
Carl Davis’s name was everywhere.
Kagan turned down a few streets before he entered a bagel shop. He took off his hat and put it on a hook hanging from the wall. The guy serving behind the counter did his part by keeping the customers in front of the case distracted as Kagan slipped through a hidden door in the back. Inside a hallway, there were several agents working at terminals. One of them that was the same build as he was took his jacket and went up to sit in the bagel shop with his back to the street.
Kagan continued on down to where Colonel Bryan Magnus was running his secret research facility beneath the city streets.
“I need assistance,” Kagan began.
The colonel punched in a code on his keyboard. The door behind them locked with a soft click.
“A full tactical team went after one of my teams four hours ago.” Kagan sat down in front of the colonel’s desk. “They knew when and where to find them. I want to know who ran the trace.”
“There are only two agencies that come to mind,” Bryan offered as he typed. “Did Vitus Hale make it out?”
“Yes.”
Colonel Magnus was reading the information coming across the screen. His face tightened as he slapped a command into the printer.
“Homeland.” He said as the printer started spitting out pages. “I’ll give you one guess who requested it.”
“The office of Congressman Carl Davis,”
Kagan answered.
The colonel nodded. He grabbed the sheets from the printer tray and pushed them across the desk to Kagan. “Be aware, Homeland tried to erase the record of the search but we have a catch basin for all federal agents who are identified through the system. It’s a backdoor only those with enough clearance know about.”
Kagan studied the log ins and looked at the picture of Dare Servant kissing Jenna Henson.
“Do me a favor and keep a tight leash on Dr. Damascus Hale. Her husband is working a case for me,” Kagan said.
“Can I assist?” Bryan asked with menace in his tone. “There’s nothing I’d like better than helping bring that prick down.”
Kagan looked up and locked stares with the colonel. “As a matter of fact, yes you can do something. I’m going to rattle Carl’s chain. Make sure he knows he’s not the only one who can use the system.”
Bryan cracked his knuckles. “How can I help?”
“It’s a dangerous game,” Kagan advised him seriously. “He’s threatening to shut down my Shadow Ops teams with an executive order.”
The colonel slowly grinned. “He’s dumb enough to do it, which means we have to keep him out of the White House.” Bryan’s face became serious. “I’m still in.”
* * *
The box car was drafty.
As the train gained speed, it felt like they were in a wind storm. Jenna drew her knees up and tucked her hands between her calves and thighs, but her cotton sweatshirt was little protection against the high-speed gusts of wind.
“Come here…” Dare came close. Gathering her against his body.
She pushed away from him.
He cupped her chin, raising her face so their gazes met. Determination glittered there. It frustrated her because it was too damned noisy to demand an explanation from him. All she was left with was the way he cupped her chin with a tenderness she’d nearly died from having him discard.
Was she being overly emotional?
Fuck that.
There was a stark difference and she felt it nearly bone deep.
She really shouldn’t.
As in.… really … really … shouldn’t trust the guy. Not in the personal sense anyway.
Except he’d just saved her life. At least, she thought he had. Maybe they were just kicking fate’s ass together.
He smelled good.
Jenna! She scolded herself. Remember? Dick? She did and yet, at the moment, he was her rock. The rifle slung across her back made her feel pretty darn cool for being able to keep up with him, too.
* * *
Sorcha McRae let out a sigh of relief when her brother answered the phone.
“I’m good, Sorcha,” Greer informed her. “You saved us. I’m going off-grid.”
“I’ll call again,” she promised.
The called ended, leaving her clutching the phone to her chest as the vision that had sent her scrambling to warn her brother played across her mind again. It was weaker now, the part where she’d seen Greer laying in a widening pool of blood fading like it had never happened.
It hadn’t.
She drew in a deep breath and felt her mind shifting focus. Her grasp on reality increased as her sixth sense stopped broadcasting at top volume.
“Are you in the present?” Major Caxton asked.
Sorcha was very used to the way her commanding officer shadowed her. He was light-footed and too damned keen for her own sense of self at times. He knew her, studied her. All in the interest of being more effective in keeping her alive, but still.
Sometimes she felt caged.
“Yes,” she answered as she turned her attention on him. Her grip on the phone tightened.
“I’m not going to ask for it.” Caxton’s gaze dropped for a moment to the phone. “Just advise you to keep it off so you can’t be tracked.”
“They were going to kill my brother,” she defended her actions.
Caxton offered her a tilt of his head. He had his mirrored sunglasses on, making it impossible to read his emotions.
“I’d be pretty heartless if I denied you the chance to help your own blood when all I do is take you on mission after mission,” Caxton answered.
Sorcha discovered herself uncertain about Caxton. They’d only been together for half a year.
“The look on your face says your last C.O. wasn’t as accommodating.”
She shook her head.
“In that case,” Caxton looked around before pulling his shades off, “make your calls inside the hangar from now on. I don’t need someone reporting it.” He sent her a hard look. “It’s none of their business.”
Sorcha slowly smiled. She took off toward the hangar where she’d been assigned to a bunkhouse. They didn’t keep her with the other members of the military. An “Unperson” wasn’t supposed to be seen, and the powers that be made sure she lived in the shadows.
But Caxton was an interesting surprise.
Oh, he was still as rigid as the last few C.O.’s she’d suffered. Men devoted to their duty and the greater good, and, in many respects, she was on board with it all.
Sometimes though, she wanted to be Sorcha. She wanted to be more than an operative.
Not that she got much of a chance.
More and more she felt stifled. Like she was slowly being pulled off the ground by a noose. There wouldn’t be any quick death from a broken neck. No, she was going to suffer through fighting for every breath until she just couldn’t draw another one.
But you have your phone …
Her next breath came a little easier.
And that was really nice.
Really, really nice.
* * *
“We need to jump.”
The train was slowing down.
“Before we hit the yard.” Dare raised his voice enough for her to hear him. “To avoid the security cameras.”
The boxcar was still jolting along but as the speed decreased, it became more of a lumbering roll that was much easier to walk through. Dare was braced by the open door, looking ahead of them. She came up beside him, and he pointed.
“Ready?”
Jenna didn’t think it through. She nodded and tightened her resolve.
She was keeping pace with him.
Yeah … right … and you’re about to jump out of a moving train!
It terrified her and left her thrilled, too.
She needed to call it the “Dare” effect.
He looked back at her as the spot came close. She aimed her best ready-to-take-on-the-world look back at him. The corners of his lips curved up in approval. A moment later, he was pulling her though the open doorway by a hard grip on her upper arm.
They were weightless for seconds that felt like hours and then they hit the ground with a hard jolt. Dare pulled her into a ball, rolling over and over with her in a tangle of limbs until they stopped in a gully.
Jenna landed on her back, looking up at the sky. She blinked, feeling bruised, and tasting dirt in her mouth.
But she chuckled.
“Fun?” Dare asked as he rolled up and onto his haunches.
Seeing him poised and ready deflated a little of her confidence. “Traveling with you is never normal.”
At least her tone didn’t unmask her. Her voice sounded slightly husky and partially amused. She gained her feet as Dare started off in the direction of a riverbed.
“The guns will draw too much attention.” He stopped beside a tree and contemplated their options. “But I don’t want to leave them where some kids might find them.”
“Here.” Jenna handed her rifle over as she pulled her sweatshirt off. She reached back for the rifle and pulled the garment over it. Dare watched her for a moment before handing his to her. With the hood up and hooked over the butts of the weapons, she could put them against her shoulder like a baby.
Dare nodded. “Guess you’ll have to look like you like me since we have a kid.”
Jenna narrowed her eyes in response. “You would have done bette
r not to bring up—”
“How much of a dick I was,” he cut her off. “Problem is, we’ve got a fair bit of ground to cover before I can feel secure in taking the time to talk the matter though.”
“There is nothing to talk about,” Jenna informed him.
He cupped her cheek, but she recoiled. “I can’t think when you do that.”
It was a confession.
A very deep and personal one.
A weakness …
“I know the problem, baby,” he reached down and hooked her upper arm, pulling her onto the road as he started walking. “Which is why we’re going to have that talk.”
“No need to bother,” she informed him. “You’ve made your position clear enough. I’m just a case.”
He reversed course and hooked her around the waist. She was suddenly up against him, rifle baby and all.
“You’re more.”
He smothered her retort beneath a kiss. She sputtered, but he caught her nape and refused to release her.
But it wasn’t a hard kiss. No, he worked his mouth over hers like it was some sort of reunion. Teasing and coaxing her mouth to open for him.
She melted.
Principles didn’t hold up against the way he tasted. Her insides twisted, and her nipples tightened. Cold logical lectures were no defense against the way his kiss made her feel.
But he was suddenly pulling away from her, turning around to face a truck that was coming down the road. It was a huge big rig and hadn’t really gained any speed. The air breaks hissed, and the cab jerked and rocked as the driver stopped.
“You kids need a lift?”
Dare nodded as Jenna realized he’d stuck his thumb out.
* * *
“Ready to get out of here?”
Ricky Sullivan didn’t want to be eager, but his fucking mouth started watering. Kagan wasn’t carrying the black backpack he always arrived with. Ricky wasn’t stupid.
“Since you don’t have the backpack with you, I can’t really say no,” Ricky said.
Kagan only offered him a bland expression. “Timer is ticking. Are you coming with me or staying here?”
“I’m coming,” Ricky said.
Kagan backed up, leaving the doorway clear. Ricky did enjoy walking through it. He’d stared at the stupid thing too many hours to count. But he wasn’t going to count his chickens before they hatched. Kagan had only kept him alive so the section leader might use him.
