by Geri Krotow
* * *
Kyle King swore under his breath, the interior of the beat-up truck he was hunkered down in filling with the crystallized vapor. He couldn’t run the engine and heater while he was trying to blend in. He had to make it look like the truck was empty, parked behind the Silver Valley Diner. Right next to the town library, where he’d patiently waited for ROC’s thug to show up. He hoped to figure out how the hell they were passing information on illegal drug shipments.
As an undercover agent for the Trail Hikers, a secret government shadow agency, second to none and headquartered in Silver Valley, he knew how critical it was to stop ROC’s trafficking of illegal cargo, especially heroin and other drugs, into Pennsylvania. Silver Valley was a short fifteen-minute drive from the state capitol, Harrisburg, and the epicenter of transportation logistics for the entire US Eastern Seaboard.
Typical of ROC’s blatant disregard for law enforcement, they’d set up their distribution headquarters in the shadow of a nondescript, medium-sized, everyday American town. Of course ROC had no clue about Trail Hikers, but it was public knowledge that Silver Valley and the surrounding county had succeeded in defeating the most heinous criminals over the last few years. Including an ROC human trafficking ring. Which made the fact that ROC still wanted to stake a claim here stick more deeply in his craw. The latest intel from Trail Hikers and FBI indicated that the criminals were somehow using the local library as a way to pass critical information about their local ops.
Kyle had operated on countless global missions for Trail Hikers over the last several years, after a short stint in the Marine Corps. After two tours to Afghanistan, he knew he wanted to continue serving, but in a different capacity. The offer to become a Trail Hiker agent had been too good to pass up.
That was seven years ago. The ROC op had brought him to Silver Valley three months ago to provide much needed support. He’d welcomed the switch and enjoyed being in an American town for longer than the usual few days his other ops had given him.
Fact was, Kyle was tired of the global travel and wanted to find a place to call home in between Trail Hiker ops. He didn’t think it would be Silver Valley, though, as he was born and bred in California and missed the West Coast. He’d purchased land in California while he was still a Marine, needing to know he had someplace to go if he ended up out of the Corps and without a job. But anyplace in the United States was a good place after the rough places he’d been. If he hadn’t been so tied up in this op against ROC, he might have enjoyed Silver Valley a bit more.
Kyle wanted to be the agent to smash apart Ivanov’s reign of terror so badly that he could taste it. The current gang ROC had sent to Silver Valley was responsible for dozens of heroin ODs in this part of the state, and upwards of thousands nationally. After he solved this case, Kyle was due for time off, a full month. He planned to use it to go back west, see if the property he’d been paying taxes on could become home. The director of Trail Hikers wanted him out there for a bit to set up a West Coast office for the agency, so it all dovetailed neatly. Kyle liked things neat.
It’d be sweet if he could crack open this case sooner than later. Pennsylvania winters were colder than he’d imagined. The last weeks since the polar vortex had dipped down had proved brutal. He’d broken down and bought himself foot and hand warmers for the long hours outside, staking out the library, where he’d confirmed the information drop point was. In classic ROC fashion, they used something that seemed so obvious. Most criminal organizations held meetings or passed information in more clandestine spots, places that were difficult to figure out. Not ROC. By somehow passing information in the library, they’d hidden their methods in plain sight. He just hadn’t figured out exactly how yet. The computers were the most likely tools but the Trail Hikers systems forensics expert hadn’t found anything unusual on the desktops. Kyle had done a lot of his own recon inside the library, too, hoping to determine a pattern of behavior or repeat patrons who might be up to no good. He’d used different disguises to avoid any kind of recognition. Not just from Markova or her worker bees, but from the library staff.
The librarian in particular. A woman he’d found himself fascinated with. Portia DiNapoli.
But the librarian he’d also happened to monitor the last several weeks wasn’t going to make his goal of catching Markova in the act possible. Not today, anyway. As an undercover TH agent, he had to avoid any contact with civilians as much as possible while trailing a target. And Markova was a big one. As he watched, he saw that the librarian was engaging Markova. Portia DiNapoli didn’t know Markova was an ROC operative, though.
“Damn it, Portia DiNapoli. Why are you so good at your job?” And why was the town librarian so damn hot? More importantly, why was his dick paying attention at all when he was supposed to be tracking the movements of potential ROC thugs in the library, not Portia’s attractiveness?
You’re lonely.
Damn it, he wasn’t lonely. Okay, he’d appreciate the loving of a good woman right about now, but he was too entrenched in his work to add another concern to it.
Portia DiNapoli was the epitome of distraction. The fact that he was spending mental energy on her when dating her, or anyone else, wasn’t in his best interest or the woman’s, raised his internal alarm. He needed to get it through his thick skull that he had a job to do that a woman, Portia or whomever, would only complicate. He’d had his share of committed relationships over the years but none had stuck. It always came down to him having to put his career first, and there was the added danger of anyone he was involved with becoming a target of the bad people it was his job to take down. Portia DiNapoli’s nearly constant presence in his current surveillance had stirred something in him, though. He probably ought to at least think about dating someone again.
The thing was, he hadn’t been tempted by any of the women he’d had the opportunity to flirt with, dance with, talk to at the local bar scene in Harrisburg. And he’d been out so rarely, the case taking up all of his time.
His casual interest, and that was all it was, a fleeting second glance, in Portia, was complicated. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, and she was. Big brown eyes with long lashes, a full mouth with lips he’d fantasized doing a lot more than smile at her patrons. She wasn’t short, but at least a head shorter than him. The perfect size to pull her in close and lay a kiss on her rosy lips. She always wore rose lipstick, or maybe that was her natural color. Her eyes dazzled behind oversize glasses and her curvy figure was stunning in her sexily delicious pastel cardigans. Portia seemed to have a collection of those, from what he’d noticed. She was all woman, all sexy curves. It might be a record-breaking cold winter, but the sight of Portia each time he’d gone to the library had warmed him up quicker than any wood stove. Today she wore leggings under a body-conscious, curve-hugging dress. The binoculars in his hands were the best technology on the market, but he didn’t need them to know the shape of her sweet ass under her clothes. Not that he’d meant to notice it. But when she’d bent over to shelve books the other day, well, he’d happened to catch a glimpse of her sexy rear.
Let it go, man.
She probably had a zillion dudes lining up to take her out. He didn’t know, because his physical observation of her began and ended with the library. After he’d found out her apartment was in the one next to his, he’d taken extra care to avoid running into her, using his back entrance almost exclusively. She favored the front, and liked to get a cup of coffee at the shop his apartment was perched over. He knew she wasn’t married. And not just from the confidential dossier he’d run on her at Trail Hikers. From her bare left hand to the hours she kept, coming in before the library opened and staying well past closing, Portia DiNapoli was a dedicated career woman. With no commitments outside the Silver Valley Library, except the local homeless shelter. He’d felt no guilt investigating her. He’d had to; when the center of an ROC op was taking place in her library, he’d had to rule her out as
a suspect.
Not that his background check on her or anyone was ever considered conclusive. The best bad guys, and girls, were good. Really good. They wouldn’t leave any clues that they were doing anything more than visiting a library.
Portia’s stance shifted and he recognized the defensive posture—he’d seen her use it last week with a patron who was angry about overdue fines.
But now she wasn’t confronting a disgruntled library patron, but an ROC operative, a fully trained, lethal agent. His gut tightened and a distinct discomfort filled his chest. The thought of Portia being hurt by ROC was unthinkable.
Now it looked like the dialogue between Portia and Markova was getting heated. At least, Portia’s face was turning red and he’d bet it wasn’t from the frigid January temperatures.
“Fuuuudge,” he said to himself in the truck, where he’d had his binoculars trained on the library’s back entrance since he’d followed Markova here two hours ago. She’d driven from the drab mobile home she kept on the outskirts of town, parked her car behind a restaurant two buildings down and then walked the rest of the way to the library. Kyle figured he was lucky she’d never even looked toward the banged up truck he huddled down in. She never seemed to care about her surroundings but Kyle knew it was all part of her training, to appear as if she were any other civilian—not a trained assassin who didn’t miss details others never noticed.
It was freaking freezing and he couldn’t risk alerting her to his presence by turning on his engine. Parked behind the 24/7 diner, his vehicle looked like many of the other patrons’ wheels: nondescript and dirty from the overdose of salt on the icy roads.
He’d determined that ROC was using the library somehow to pass information but he didn’t know how. And he couldn’t directly ask Ludmila Markova, the woman whose file he’d committed to photographic memory months ago. She had to be caught committing a crime before he could tip off SVPD to arrest her.
As he watched, Markova hadn’t been successful in getting the back door open, which he found surprising, as well as amusing. The thugs Ivanov employed were top notch and knew their way around locks of all kinds. And they usually were smarter than to attempt to sneak into a public building in broad daylight. But nothing was usual for ROC. They did whatever had to be done to accomplish their jobs, whether that was moving kidnapped underage immigrant women into sex slavery and trafficking illegal drugs, or laundering money made from all of the above.
He watched Portia DiNapoli speak to Markova and a cold sense of dread blanketed him. Emotions weren’t allowed during his missions, but he never ignored his intuition. This could go south so very quickly, so very badly. Markova had at least the long knife she’d used to try to pry the door open, and she was adept at using it according to the profile he had on her. Besides her current work for ROC, a number of assassinations were included at the top of the long list of grim accomplishments in her FSB history.
By comparison, Portia DiNapoli’s record was as squeaky clean as they came, and reflected an average American who did her job well and contributed to the community with her entire heart. People like Portia were why the Trail Hikers’ work was so important. She was not someone who deserved to bleed out in the library parking lot because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time with a trained ROC killer.
Kyle eased himself out of the truck’s passenger side, using a car parked next to his to shield his movements. His breath steamed in the frozen air and he kept his movements slow and steady. If luck was on his side, Markova would turn and leave without harming Portia.
Kyle never relied on luck. He listened to their conversation, which was taking place no more than ten yards away.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” Portia’s voice, normally gravelly and sexy, sounded angry as she shouted at Markova. Making like he was walking toward the diner’s back entrance, he hoped to be able to shout and startle the criminal, forcing her to leave the library parking lot.
But the word laptop got his radar up.
“Hey, our laptops are for in-house use only. Why are you—” From Portia’s tone, there’d be no working it out. He heard it and so did Markova, apparently, who turned and fled. But not before she shoved Portia, who disappeared into the open exit.
Okay, that made it easier, at least. Portia would be safe.
Except that she’d decided the library laptop wasn’t going to disappear on her. To his surprise and consternation, Portia was back on her feet and out the door in a blink. He watched her long legs stretch out, her arms pumping, and did what any reputable, competent undercover agent would not do. Kyle ran after Portia.
* * *
Portia followed the woman up and onto the railroad tracks, her feet screaming that her simple leather oxfords were no replacement for sneakers or snow boots in the frigid temperatures. Snow crunched under foot and her lungs burned with no scarf to help warm the air.
What was so important on the laptop that the woman would rather risk being criminally charged for taking it than just simply turning it back in and then checking it out again the next day? And why was she running from Portia? Why had she shoved her?
Portia’s mind raced with the possibilities, but right now she needed to get the woman, get the library’s computer. She was gaining on the woman and gave it ten more strides. As she drew close enough to touch her, she reached for her hoodie and tugged. The woman turned and faced her, still holding the laptop in her arm. Shooting Portia an evil grin that was revealed by the curve of bright red lips in the mouth opening of the knitted mask, she brandished a knife with menacing intent, and the winter sun flashed off the blade.
Portia drew up short, barely stopping herself from falling on the woman—and her knife. She felt the wooden train ties under her thin-soled shoes, her legs trembling, no, quaking. But not from the cold. From the shock, the sheer terror of facing down her own mortality. Before Portia could pull back, run from the knife, she saw the woman’s eyes glint, narrow, focused on something behind Portia. Her lips curled upward again, as if the laptop thief liked what she saw. Without further threats, the woman jumped off the tracks and ran into the woods on the other side of town. Too late, Portia realized the pounding of her feet on the railroad track wasn’t what made the frozen wood ties shake. It was a train. The sound of its whistle blowing was the last thing she remembered before being hit sideways by an overpowering force.
Chapter 2
Kyle chased after Portia as he watched the train bear down on the pair in his peripheral vision. He’d seen it pass through the commercial district several times. A lot of times it slowed to a crawl, and then a complete stop as the tracks were switched to allow the container shipments to go to the other part of town that housed many national distribution centers. But this train didn’t slow down, the conductor showing no sign of seeing the women on the tracks as it kept going, way too fast for a local. Kyle figured he had thirty seconds, tops, to prevent Portia from catching up to Markova, or worse, before the train hit them both. Because if Portia caught Markova, the knife blade plunging into her body was the last thing she’d feel.
Kyle couldn’t believe that neither Portia nor Markova had noticed the train as he ran toward them. Portia continued her pursuit of the woman she thought was a mere thief, clearly ignorant of how lethal an encounter with her would be. ROC didn’t put up with interference of any kind and made it a trademark to never leave a witness alive. No matter how trivial the crime, it left no one living to tell their tales. It was what made them so powerful, enabling their insidious network of crime to reach into the most seemingly solid communities.
He ran in a perpendicular line to the tracks, knowing he risked Markova seeing him, wondering if he was law enforcement, but he didn’t care. He had to save Portia. The op would still be there—as far as Markova knew, he was either a Good Samaritan or a friend of Portia’s who’d witnessed their altercation. Or even an undercover cop. Let ROC come after him. He�
�d be damned if they would add an innocent Silver Valley librarian to their tally of victims.
By the time he was within a few feet of the tracks, the women faced one another, the knife in Markova’s hands poised to do maximum harm. He ran toward them and opened his mouth to shout a warning, anything to distract the knife-wielding criminal. But it was futile against the roar of the train engine, the wheels of the old cargo car squealing in protest as the engineer applied the brakes. Too late, though, to save either woman if they didn’t get off the tracks.
He’d practiced so many dangerous scenarios in both his Marine Corps and Trail Hiker training, and experienced countless more in his work as a Marine Scout and then as an undercover operative for the past seven years. There were no surprises as he measured the situation, decided on his course of action and followed through just in the nick of time. Markova jumped the tracks a second ahead of him. As he hit Portia sideways, tackling her off the tracks and holding her as they rolled down the embankment, the roar of the train drowning out all other noise, he had only one surprise.
He hadn’t screamed “look out” or “stop” or even “train.” The word, the name that had scraped past his throat, dry from the cold air, had been the name of someone he’d never met, not in the conventional way.
Portia.
* * *
Portia was aware of a very heavy weight on top of her, her face smooshed against a thick winter coat of some type, the scents of tar, train exhaust, and something else mingling and filling each breath she gasped for. The click of the train-car wheels across the track oddly comforted her, a definite sign that she hadn’t been flattened by the engine but in fact had been knocked off the tracks.
