SLEEPER (Crossfire Series)

by Gennita Low

  A coded doorway that she couldn’t open. And oh, one more major problem. She stared back at her reflection. Without her clothes, she was totally at Reed’s mercy.

  * * *

  “She’s going to want to get out of this place soon,” Reed said, sitting back in the leather chair.

  He knew that Lily wouldn’t just lie there and wait for him to come back. She would be checking out the suite and, of course, looking for the obvious—a door out of there.

  The suite used an elevator to get around the hotel. It was designed for private use, for special guests—sometimes a politician who wished to have a few quiet days or a family friend. His family had a lot of international connections. Reed had been here several times while off duty after a mission in these parts and hadn’t felt like flying home. He liked it here, where he was neither Joker at his job nor Reed at his family home. He was just “sir.” Almost anonymous, although he was sure his father always knew he was here. Not that the old man bothered him or anything.

  Right now, he was in one of the private offices on the top floors, on a phone conference with Nikki and Amber. He suspected there were others listening in. Like Jed McNeil.

  He told them his location, but not the connection. They hadn’t asked the obvious question—how had he been able to secure a suite that quickly? Instead, everyone concentrated on the events after the first shot. He related how they’d jumped off the bridge and had needed to get out of the cold, as well as Lily’s injury.

  “You’re making progress if she told you to call her Lily,” Nikki observed. “Think of some excuse to keep her there for a few days while T’s gone.”

  “Where’s she?” He was glad to find out the operating chief of GEM was alive and well. He’d been afraid she might have walked into the alley and had gotten shot.

  “She’s taking care of things. By the way, we talked to Johnny Chic after the shooting. We have a name.”

  “The shooter went after Johnny, too? Who is it?”

  “It’s Greta. She was the double agent handler and mole in the CIA who disappeared this year.”

  He knew about Greta only from the CIA files they’d given him. She’d worked as the secretary for some kind of CIA task force for a decade, while in actuality she’d been the real leader behind a network of double agents.

  “Isn’t she about fifty years old? I didn’t see anyone her age at The Beijing Bombshell.” Of course, with everyone being blond and heavily made up…a thought occurred to him. “Should I tell Lily who’s after her?”

  “What’s your reason for telling her?” Nikki asked. “You aren’t supposed to know her background, remember?”

  “I won’t tell her immediately, but if I offer to check around and talk to my sources or even tell her I’ve talked to Johnny and then bring up Greta’s name, maybe she’ll open up and tell me her story.”

  “That might buy you and us the time we need,” Nikki agreed. “It’s very important you gain her confidence in this matter, Reed. Time’s running out. And with Greta after her, we don’t know what she’s planning for Lily.”

  “Understood.” If Lily was still susceptible to her mind trigger, he would have to go to Plan B, something he didn’t want to think about right now. “She’s still concerned about her girls and I’ll have to think of a way out of that problem, too, now that her passports are gone.”

  “She gets very, very upset whenever those girls’ lives are in any way endangered,” Amber interrupted. Reed thought she sounded a little upset herself. “If she gets that way, especially if she starts attacking the system that couldn’t help the girls’ plight, I’m afraid that means she’s still under the influence of whoever was controlling her. She grew more and more volatile the last few times we were together. I remember she would yell at Brad and wouldn’t let him get a word in.”

  “She did ask for me to get the phone working or to bring a cell phone,” Reed told them.

  “That could be just normal concern,” Nikki said.

  “Or an embedded command to get orders,” Jed’s voice came on quietly.

  “You’ll have to watch her actions very closely the next few days, Reed, as well as get her to talk. She might sound almost detached when she talks about her past experiences. That doesn’t mean she isn’t hurting inside. She’s just dealing with the pain through compartmentalization, talking about someone else,” Nikki continued.

  “She’s pushed all her experiences into a make-believe sister,” Amber said.

  “That’s another problem. Part of her memories have been rearranged by previous hypnotic suggestions. Depending on which level, it’s going to be tough to work her out of it,” Nikki said.

  “Levels?”

  “There are five levels for CIA hypnotic embedment,” Nikki told him, “with level five being the deepest. These are the sleeper cells who could live ten or fifteen years with an identity created just for them. When the right time comes, their triggers are activated.”

  “That sounds like Lily, doesn’t it?” Amber asked soberly.

  Reed didn’t want to think about levels of hypnotic embedment. He preferred to deal with one problem at a time. Right now it was to get Lily to talk. Then he’d decide whether she was lying.

  “What’s Bradford Sun’s relationship with Lily?” he asked. He had been curious before because the man in that phone conversation had sounded as if he’d cared for Lily a lot.

  “As you know, he’s the chief of CIVPOL,” Amber replied. “He was also Lily’s lover.”

  Oh.

  CHAPTER 8

  The phone rang and rang. Lily stared at it. So the line was working. Maybe Reed managed to get it turned back on. She was so tempted to pick it up and answer. Who would know she was here anyway? She should answer it.

  What if it wasn’t Reed but his friend or someone looking for either of them? It rang again, insistently calling to her. She reached out and placed her hand on the handle.

  This was ridiculous. Her heart was racing maniacally. She was afraid of a stupid phone, how ridiculous was that? She, who had done so much…. She closed her eyes. She who had betrayed friends precisely because of a damn phone manipulating her. She didn’t know what or how, but something about phones had made her do the very things she abhorred most. She’d sold Amber for her own misguided agenda!

  Lily released the phone handle and backed away from the hall table, staring at it as if it were some wild, dangerous beast about to leap at her. She turned and caught sight of her image reflected in the wall mirror.

  Her dark eyes were wide with panic. Her hair, still uncombed, was sticking out every which way. She was clutching at her towel. She looked like a half-crazed maniac. She took a deep breath and sighed as she studied herself. Had she really been reduced to this—a raving lunatic who couldn’t handle a ringing phone? How was she going to accomplish this final task if she couldn’t communicate with anyone?

  She needed to get hold of Tatiana to tell her that she might be a few days late. She’d left them enough cash for food and other necessities but not enough in case there was an emergency. She hadn’t anticipated this delay.

  The girls would understand, of course. They hadn’t complained about their predicament—anything was better than what they’d gone through—but she also realized they were beginning to talk amongst themselves about her odd behavior. She hadn’t told them the whole truth about what had happened between Amber and herself in Velesta, so it was understandable they were confused about why they were running again. She’d just told them that it wasn’t safe anymore and they’d taken her at her word. Fortunately, they’d believed her when she’d lied about Amber needing to leave with Brad for a vacation because Dilaver was getting suspicious. Because she’d saved them when they were kidnapped, they now trusted her implicitly. Because they all wanted to go home or get out of this country, they’d pinned their hopes on her.

  Before, Lily would have relished this responsibility. She’d loved defeating those bastards from whom she had saved the girls, e
ven to the point where she’d had to deal with illegal stuff herself. Getting the girls out of their clutches had been her ultimate goal, and she hadn’t particularly cared how it was achieved, from moving stolen art for her customers to selling information. It’d been like fulfilling a destiny and had calmed the vortex of fury inside her.

  She couldn’t explain to her friends, especially Amber, how angry she was sometimes. The fury was blinding to the point where she couldn’t think properly, unless she had some girls safe and sound in another country. She’d lashed out sometimes, uncaring who she hurt, and when things went her way, she would have that calm in her soul again—for a while.

  Then one day, during that phone call from Brad had said—done—something to her. She couldn’t explain it, but it was as if a door to some bulging closet had swung open inside her mind and every dirty little secret she’d ever hidden had tumbled out. In an instant she’d regained her memory about what she really was.

  “But what are you?” Lily asked aloud.

  What did sleeper cells do when they malfunctioned? She didn’t understand what had gone wrong, but something had stopped her from finishing her deadly task a few months ago. It had something to do with Brad’s call triggering something in her head. Yet, it wasn’t quite like the others. That was all she remembered.

  She’d wracked her brain at night trying to piece the events of the last few months together, but everything was a blur. Only the memory of her fury stood out. She’d been so close to her breaking point and no release was coming because….

  She frowned. “Because I couldn’t get some of the girls out quickly enough,” she muttered. She sat down on a nearby chair, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, trying to remember all the notes she’d made from her library research. Some of the terms she’d jotted down hadn’t made sense at the time. “Mental pressure valve for emotional release…the girls functioned as a pressure valve for me, then.”

  She closed her eyes fiercely, shaking her head in denial. No, no, no! She refused to believe that. She cared for the girls’ safety, more than her own, and her need to take care of them wasn’t just something some stupid mind doctors had put in her head so she could get relief from her emotions. Her need…her eyes flew open and she glared harshly at her image again. That was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t supposed to know, and it was fine and dandy as long as she had some kind of release for the buildup in her mind. The more girls Amber had saved, the more bordellos Brad’s department had raided, the more her frustration with the system had grown…until she blew up.

  She was getting a headache trying to make sense of this. There was no one to talk to and her mind kept repeating the same old same old until she felt like screaming. But one thing was very, very clear. She had to find a way to get the girls out of here, away from her. It seemed the more frustrated she was, the more dangerous she became to everyone around her.

  “I’m a mental pressure valve, that’s what I’ve become,” she announced.

  Her image in the mirror started to vibrate, and with a silent swish, it slid open. Lily found herself staring straight at Reed in a T-shirt and shorts.

  * * *

  She looked mad as hell. Her eyes had that look women got when they’d been left stewing and thinking too much by themselves. Not a good omen.

  Reed walked out of the elevator, turned, and pulled out the trolley that was behind him. Maybe a hot beverage would put her in a better mood.

  “This is all the food I could get them to make at this hour,” he said. “I called up several times to see whether they’ve gotten the phone working. Did it ring?”

  She had her arms around her as if she were cold. “Yes, it did,” she replied stiffly.

  “Why didn’t you stay in bed? It would have been warmer.” He pushed away the mental image of her wandering around the suite just wearing that towel. “Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

  “I…didn’t know who it was and didn’t want to let anyone know we’re here. And I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth. Toothpaste in mouth.” She looked at the trolley. “Are we really staying at Hotel Palazzo, then?”

  She must have come across something with the hotel’s logo. “Yes,” Reed said, coming over to her. He frowned slightly when she backed away in the chair. “What’s the matter? You’re acting nervous all of a sudden.”

  “You locked me in,” she accused.

  “Of course not,” he said. It was technically a half-truth. He’d known she wouldn’t have been able to get out of the suite without a security code. “I thought you’d be asleep. It’s very late, you know.”

  “You still should have said something about the elevator.”

  He took a step closer. “Were you planning to run away?”

  Her eyes were jewel-bright. “How? In this towel?” She jerked at his touch to her forehead. “What are you doing?”

  “To see whether you have a fever. You look flushed.” He wanted to divert her attention. She wasn’t a stupid woman and it wouldn’t take her long to figure out he was going to keep her a prisoner for a while. “You feel slightly hot. I called up to ask for your dress size so I could leave that with the concierge. He’s going to make sure they deliver some clothes for us tomorrow.”

  She blinked. The challenge in her eyes dissipated a little. She looked down at her towel. “Oh. Will they actually get clothes for us?”

  “There are perks to a private suite,” he told her. Like telling Petr to take care of certain details. “Anyway, I did bring up another T-shirt, but that’s all I could scrounge up. Come on, you have to get back to bed. You’re running a slight fever.” Her forehead felt hot and he realized her eyes weren’t bright with anger, but with fever and exhaustion. “You’re sitting out here in a towel after that splash in the river, Lily. Asking for bronchitis, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine.” She carelessly threaded her fingers through her hair. She put her hand in his and pulled herself out of the chair. “Okay, I have a headache and I feel like shit.”

  She looked like she was in pain. “Take a couple of painkillers,” Reed advised.

  “No.”

  They walked back into the bedroom. She hesitated, looking at the bed.

  Reed looked at it too. “I’ll take the couch,” he said. “Just for tonight, you understand. When you’re better, that’s another story. We have a deal, remember?”

  She looked away. “It’s a big bed. We can share. Besides, we don’t have a deal, since I lost all my passports.”

  He deliberately reached out and caressed her neck. “But that means you need the ones I have even more,” he told her. He had something she wanted, and he intended to keep pushing her. Her skin felt tantalizingly soft. “And I like the idea of keeping you naked while you think about those passports in my possession.”

  Her eyes narrowed, even though her telltale pulse under his thumb was telling another story. “I may be feeling like shit, but it doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.”

  He had always liked her fearlessness. She never backed away in the face of challenge, not in the middle of that mountain road six weeks earlier, not during a shoot-out, not here when she was in a locked suite with barely any clothes on. And each time, he’d wanted to reach out and hug her and shield her from danger. He gently stroked the thudding pulse. He knew he was making her remember he’d touched more than her neck in the shower earlier.

  “We can discuss more in the morning, how about that? I’m too tired right now after having taken care of you all night.” As he’d known, reminding her that he’d saved her took some of the fight out of her. He suddenly scooped her up in his arms. He looked into her startled eyes and added, “You’re running a fever and you’re favoring that injured arm. It’s got to be throbbing like hell, but I’ve a feeling you’re going to stand here and argue all night if I don’t put you into that bed.”

  He walked to the bed and climbed into it with her. “Now, I’m going to get the painkillers and you’ll damn well take them so you can h
ave a good night’s rest. And if you argue, I’ll force them down your throat. You can kick my ass tomorrow.”

  Her face was mutinous. “I—oh!”

  Reed froze. The knot in Lily’s towel had loosened and the two sides fell open. With his body literally covering hers, she couldn’t cover herself. He didn’t move away, couldn’t take his eyes away from her body. This time it felt even more intimate than when he’d held her naked in his arms earlier. Then, he’d been concentrating on the task of cleaning her. Now, all his attention was on the woman.

  He recalled wanting to kiss the tops of her breasts when they were dancing and he’d dipped her. Now he wanted to bury his face between the rounded softness and lick the creamy pink of her nipples till they reddened. As he watched, they hardened into small pebbles under his gaze. All he had to do was lean down and he would have one in his mouth.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” she said, her voice very hushed.

  He looked up from those tempting mounds. Her face was flushed—with desire or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. She made a small movement, pulling at the towel. Part of it was trapped under his knee, and that was what had loosened the knot. He didn’t shift his weight.

  Instead, locking her gaze with his, he slowly removed her hands and carefully, so as not to hurt her, he held them down on the bed. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t fight him. He bent down lower, blowing softly on her skin. She arched, a small gasp escaping her lips. “Take the painkillers,” he said softly.

  “Are you…threatening me?” she whispered.

  “It’s an ultimatum,” he said. “Take the painkillers and I won’t do this.”

  He blew on her skin lightly again, this time moving lower toward her belly button. He wanted to taste that too. He wanted to explore the hidden parts he’d inadvertently touched in the shower. To press home the point that he intended to carry on, he trailed the tip of his tongue down the slope of her stomach. She gasped again.