by Gennita Low
“The girls’ well-being was her life,” Amber said quietly. “She even went back to take them with her when she wasn’t herself.”
“Yes. The posthypnotic suggestion reversal worked, but who knows how confused and terrified she must have been at all the memories flooding her head. I wonder why her handler never called her back to retrigger the switch.”
Reed listened as he watched the woman on screen make one final quick sweep of the area with those dark eyes. Maybe it was just the play of shadows, but the lone light from the bank machine seemed to emphasize the ones under her dark eyes. He felt sorry for her. If she understood what had happened to her, as they were telling him she did, then she mustn’t be sleeping very well. He wouldn’t want to fall asleep thinking something could talk to his brain and trigger some kind of damn switch.
“We don’t know what she’s doing with the money,” T pointed out. “We have nothing on the girls except for the first group, who we’ve tracked with those passports.”
“She used those passports, T. That tells us something,” Amber said.
“I know she’s your friend, Amber. I have to play devil’s advocate, since we’re sending Reed in after her. We don’t know what her state of mind is, and he has to keep remember that in all his dealings with her.”
“I know.” Amber turned to Reed. “She has a very sarcastic and dark sense of humor. I don’t care if they said her behavior could have been modified. That sarcasm and wicked attitude is innately Lily. And if she asks you to call her Lily, you’ll know that she trusts you at some level.”
“All right,” Reed said, his eyes still trained on the screen. “There’s someone in that corner. I don’t think he’s out on a late evening stroll.”
The three women returned their attention to the video. “He didn’t move from that spot,” T said. “There wasn’t any vehicle following her.”
“But you can see the license plate from his angle,” Reed said. “Can you trace a foreign car from here?”
T glanced back, her eyes thoughtful. “I’ll call in and have that possibility checked right away. So let’s say someone else is also tracking Lily. Why?”
“She has the weapon in her possession,” Reed pointed out the obvious. “So maybe it’s her handler, who wants her back in the fold.”
Nikki shook her head. “All he has to do is to call her and activate that hypnotic trigger we were talking about earlier, Reed.”
“Then it’s someone else, someone who might not know what Lily is,” Amber said, “but still knows what she has.”
“Greta.” T said at the same time as Amber.
“Who’s Greta?” Reed asked. No one had mentioned that name to him yet.
“Too much information for your operation, darling. Rewatch the video. I’m off to start preparations for your trip back to Eastern Europe.” She stood up. “Nikki, you have to brief him about the state of mind of a sexual slave and how that could be used as a basis for emotional triggers.”
“Yes.”
Looking at Nikki, Reed couldn’t imagine the slight woman having lived through such horrors, but she had all but suggested to him that she had been subjected to similar experiences when she’d been captured during an operation. But that was ten years ago. Perhaps there was hope for Llallana.
This was precisely what he wanted to avoid: He was beginning to think of Llallana Noretski not as a target but as a victim.
“What if Greta gets to Lily before we do?” Amber asked.
“You leave Greta to me,” T said. “Reed?”
His reply was automatic. Everything was a state of mind, anyway. He was going into mission mode. “Standing and Ready,” he said.
* * *
Somebody was following her. Lily tightened the scarf around her neck as she continued walking to the bus stop.
She could feel a presence behind her. Or she was just being paranoid again.
Ever since she’d snuck into the library a month ago and done some research with the public computers, she hadn’t been able to shake off the growing sense that nothing was real. Too much information about things that had nothing to do with her world.
She could write the story of her life in a few sentences. A kidnapped girl. Rescued from a brothel. Grown up through shady means to become self-supporting. Now a rescuer of young girls kidnapped by mercenaries.
Not exactly a normal life by any means, but now she could add CIA sleeper cell somewhere in that paragraph. Rescued by the CIA, and, she’d thought, freed after a short stay to recuperate. How could she have known they’d messed with her mind? She wouldn’t have believed it possible at all if she didn’t have these memories now of what she’d done, what she’d believed to be the right thing while she’d been doing it.
When Brad had made her repeat some lines from some poem…Lily closed her eyes briefly at the thought of Brad. Oh God. What she’d done to Bradford Sun was totally unforgivable. But the man had tried to save her, had somehow known the code that would release her from whatever it was that was controlling her mind. If only she could remember what she’d said. That was the key—some poem. But she had no idea what that was, only that she’d said it at his prompting and then…everything had turned into a horrifying realization of what was in her possession and what she was planning to do.
She’d learned new terms from that website she’d found about sleeper cells. Whatever it was she had repeated was called a subconscious trigger. She bit down hard on her lower lip. They’d somehow hypnotized her and inserted it inside her head. How was that possible? She couldn’t remember any such sessions with the CIA.
Lily reached the bus stop and walked into the shelter. There were two other people sitting there—an older lady and a man, both reading as they waited for the bus. She sat down at the far end. If she was being followed, then she would either see a car or someone would join her on the bus.
No matter how paranoid she was, one thing was real. Many people were after her and what she had in her possession. She wasn’t sure whether they just wanted what she had or they wanted her too, but, either way, she would be damned if she was giving it to them.
Why would they want you? a voice in her head mocked. Because you belong to them.”
“I belong to no one!” Lily muttered fiercely, then looked up at the other two people in th station. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. They looked at her curiously, and she gave a shrug in answer, as if nothing was wrong. They went back to their reading.
She looked up sharply at the sound of footsteps. A man stepped into the shelter. He was tall and broad, with a thick mustache. He nodded at them as he brushed off the drifts of snow on his thick jacket. Then he sat down in the middle of the bench.
Lily watched him put his hand in his right pocket. If he pulled out a weapon…
The headlights from the approaching bus shone into the booth. Everyone stood up. The man pulled out his hand. It was empty.
Lily lined up behind everyone and got on the bus, heading straight to the back. She could watch the other passengers in front and also look through the back window to make sure no vehicle was following.
She should have taken a taxi, like she had when she’d gone to the bank, but funds were low enough as it was. She wanted to kick herself for not having anticipated that her bank accounts would be gone. After all, she was dealing with the CIA; they had those kinds of powers. She blamed it on her lack of sleep. She really, really needed a good night’s rest.
But at least there was this one account. And the one overseas. She’d been so relieved when the library computer had confirmed they were still active. God knew what she would have done if she’d been totally penniless.
If it was just herself, she would have gotten by, but she had a big responsibility. She could relax a bit now that she had the money in her hands. She had secretly been worried her card wouldn’t work and that there would be nothing in there. As it was, she would have just enough to purchase the passports and pay some bills. She frowned. She needed to
think of a way to make money to pay the usual under-the-table fees to the relevant officials.
The big man with the mustache turned and looked around. Lily kept her eyes on his hands, unconsciously holding her breath as he pulled out something from his coat pocket. It looked bulky.
It was a cell phone, one of the bigger types that had gone out of style a few years ago. “Ya, hallo?”
Lily exhaled slowly. She hadn’t been this jumpy since she was on her own with nothing but the clothes on her back. She must pull herself together or this wasn’t going to work. Right now she needed to be very logical about what she was going to do. She had a lot on her plate. A group of girls was waiting patiently for her to get back. Illegal passports to purchase. She glanced up at the man still on the cell phone. And trying to find a way to get around the phone problem. It was so damn stupid not being able to use one. How on earth was she going to explain that while she made her deals?
Oh sorry, can’t call me, I’ll call you.
Yeah, that was going to make the illegal traders less suspicious of a woman asking for so many passports. Before, Amber had been able to do it through her information channels. Now that she had to do it face-to-face, the traders would probably want a good reason for the sudden change.
Lily became aware of the man on the cell standing up abruptly, still on the phone. He headed for the exit as the bus came to a stop. See? He wasn’t following her after all. There were a few more passengers in the bus, but they weren’t paying attention to her. Everyone appeared normal.
Except her, of course. She was the odd person here. Show of hands, people—anyone here a sleeper cell? She grinned at the thought of standing up and actually asking that. And oh, anyone here own some special kind of bomb? She had one.
She felt herself grinning. She was probably the only woman in Pristina who fit the description she just gave. If she looked at the positive side of things, it couldn’t be easy for those looking for her to go around describing her. Let’s hope so.
Lily got off at her destination, then walked around for a few minutes to make sure the bus wasn’t followed. The roads were eerily silent as she trudged across the median. She caught sight of the restaurants with their bright lights on and suddenly remembered she hadn’t eaten dinner yet.
She could get room service at the hotel. She stopped. No, she couldn’t. She would have to use the damn phone. Shit.
Maybe she’d come down to the café later. Reaching her hotel, she looked up at the lit sign, which she hadn’t noticed before. Welcome to Pristina, it said.
“Welcome to hell,” she muttered, then walked quickly through the foyer into the lobby. She smiled at the proprietor-cum-desk clerk. “Dobro veèer.”
Let’s hope she still had some charm in her to persuade the nice gentleman to help her make a very special call.
CHAPTER 4
Hey man, there’s got to be more than just loving to ride the waves, you know. For me, it’s a quest. I go out there practically naked, just me and my board. The ocean hides everything, son. Sharks. Undertows. You’re out there paddling and then, just like that, it can get you. You can’t be a surfer and be afraid of what the ocean can do. You’re alone and you catch a wave and ride your board like a magic carpet all the way back home. I love that feeling, man! Especially when I see that little curl of a wave on the horizon and I know it’s going to grow for me as I paddle hard toward it and that if I time it right, it’s going to rise up and challenge me. Wooooohoooo! You know what I mean? Son, there’s nothing like that perfect wave crashing all over you. And that’s what the right woman can do for you, too. Now get out there and get laid.
The corner of Reed’s lips quirked at the memory of that particular conversation. He’d been fifteen and horny. Arch had been a rather unconventional father figure, if nothing else. He’d taken Reed to a rather wild surfing party and…Reed looked at his surroundings at the moment. Yeah, this place had a lot of Arch in it.
The right woman in a place called The Beijing Bombshell in Pristina, Kosovo. It couldn’t get any more surreal than this. The Beijing Bombshell was the hottest underground place in town right now, catering to a very exclusive clientele. One needed to pull strings to get into the club—money, influence, illegal trading, or in his case, veza, the Croatian version of returning a favor from the past.
T had told him his identity—an ex-peacekeeper, MIA, now in the arms-dealing business. “You’re still American, darling, so just be yourself,” she’d said. “You know your weapons, so there should be no problem with discussions about types and quality. We’ve set up your MO for months now, so they’ve heard of you.”
“They know me?” Reed had asked.
“Not you. The person you’re going to be. They’ve done business with you before, but not in person.”
“Ah, understood. What about name?”
“Funny thing, that. We used the initials R.C. for our fake setup, and you’re Reed. So you can stay Reed.”
Reed remembered the expression in T’s honey-colored eyes only too well. The woman could speak volumes with just one look. “So do they call me R.C. or Reed?” he’d asked.
“Whatever you like.” She’d shrugged. “It’s your identity now. Make it personal.”
That was the first thing they’d told him at the training workshops. He had to make it personal or it wouldn’t look real. “Okay. Reed to my friends, R.C. for business,” he’d said.
“Now, darling, you have to tell me what R.C. stands for,” T had said.
Reed had thought for a moment, then said solemnly, “Really Cool.”
T’s face had lit up with amusement. “That,” she’d said, “was pretty funny, Joker.”
But the Joker never joked. Not in public, anyway. Reed leaned back against the bar lit up with neon lights, which shot colorful electronic pulses to the beat of the music. He soaked in the strange atmosphere of blond Asian women strutting around in bustiers and fishnets, cavorting in and out of the arms of men that looked as if they had either come out of the theater district or a street fight, depending on the state of their clothing. T had told him that was one of the club specialties—all its women wore Marilyn Monroe blond wigs. It had become such a rage that even the women who came to party had begun to dress up that way. On the weekend they came by the hundreds, partying while making deals involving drugs, weapons, and other illegal activities. All to the beat of some kind of techno tango. The owner was a very eclectic man.
Reed was here to meet with him. He looked around again. Men were openly caressing lines of women, choosing their companions for the night. Some went for the petite Asians; others preferred the taller, more voluptuous, heavily made-up Caucasians. He was supposed to mingle with the crowd so the owner could see where he was, but he really didn’t have any desire to go over there and make a play for any of those girls.
There was a dance floor in the middle, lit up by disco lights and littered with dancing couples. The oddest thing about it all was the music. He’d noticed it the moment he’d walked into the club, but only now realized that it wasn’t just one song. Every song was pure old-fashioned South American music with a techno-beat. Right now everyone was ole-ing to a lone female in the middle stripping to the beat of “Kiss of Fire” sung in accented English. The moment she pulled down her bustier, she disappeared behind an excited group of three or four men. Reed looked away. That was when he caught sight of her.
Everything clicked into place. He’d studied Llallana’s photo many times in the last month and had felt drawn to her somehow, that he’d seen her somewhere before. But her short dark hair had thrown him off.
“I see her,” he said, knowing his mic would pick up his voice.
“Are you sure?” Nikki asked, her voice surprisingly clear over the noise. “Our scouts haven’t seen anything.”
“She’s blond too, you know,” Reed pointed out.
“Ah. So how can you be sure that’s her you’re looking at? I believe the women are all heavily made up at this club.�
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“She isn’t.” He didn’t say he’d seen her in that blond wig before. He straightened up. “She’s heading toward Johnny Chic’s office. Someone’s blocking her path, bothering her. Should I intervene?”
“Is she in trouble?” Nikki asked.
He didn’t think so, but he didn’t care for the way the man had one arm across Llallana’s shoulders while the other reached for a more intimate grope. Reed was about to head that way when suddenly the man was backing away from her, hands held up pacifyingly. The lighting wasn’t good enough to see, but he guessed that she was holding a small weapon against the man’s chest. She had quick hands, he noted.
“She’s knocking on Johnny’s door. Can we trust him to do exactly what we’ve told him?” Someone tucked her hand under Reed’s arm and he turned, finding himself eye to eye with T. His eyebrows lifted as he silently studied her before politely saying, “That’s a nice wig.”
T patted her platinum blond hair. “Darling, I have had better compliments than that tonight.”
He bet she had. Her costume left nothing to the imagination—some skintight, black lacy thing that molded to her gorgeous form. She wore see-through black lace stockings and high heels. Again he wondered at this woman who could put on disguises like outfits. He cocked his head. “Nice garters.”
“Hmm. You’re hurting my feelings.”
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To distract you.”
Reed stiffened. “Why?” T flicked a lazy finger at his shoulder. “Because, darling, despite your cool and collected demeanor, a SEAL is ingrained with honor. You would rush your cute ass over there and save Lily if she got into trouble while negotiating with Johnny.”
