Edge of Danger

by Katie Reus

  Shaking those thoughts away, Karen increased her pace, enjoying the way her muscles burned and stretched. She ran every day no matter what. If it rained, she used the treadmill in her condo’s gym, but she much preferred being outdoors, even in the cold.

  When she came up to a four-way intersection, she slowed and jogged in place and looked both ways before crossing. There weren’t any cars or people out this morning, which was a little creepy. Feeling paranoid, she unhooked her bear spray from her hip holster and held it loosely in her hand. Her friends made fun of her for the precautions she took, but she’d seen too much bloodshed in her job to take safety lightly.

  As she reached the sidewalk that stretched along the park’s small strip of a dozen parking spots, she slowed. A dark SUV with tinted windows sat in one of the spots, the engine running. The exhaust from the tailpipe was visible, and in the quiet she could hear the distinct hum of the engine. Glancing around, she didn’t see anyone else.

  Not caring if she was being paranoid, she slowed and turned back around to avoid going past the vehicle. She’d just take a different route today that didn’t involve the park.

  At the sound of an engine revving, she glanced over her shoulder. The SUV was pulling out of the spot and heading in her direction. Her heart rate kicked up. She knew she was probably acting crazy but didn’t care. Veering off the sidewalk, she raced through the park where vehicles couldn’t go. As she cleared a cluster of trees without the sound of running feet coming after her, she let out a shaky breath and kept up her pace.

  Risking a glance over her shoulder, she nearly stumbled when she saw a man dressed in all black step out from the trees.

  That face.

  Holy shit. Recognition slammed into her with the intensity of a battering ram. Since he wore a scarf around his neck and a knit cap on his head, she couldn’t spot one of the distinguishing features she’d seen in the file she had on him. But she knew he had a jagged scar around his neck and tended to favor shaving his head.

  She knew it was him from his icy blue eyes.

  Grisha. A murdering psychopath.

  Fear took hold, its unforgiving grip squeezing around her chest like a vise, colder than the winter-morning air.

  Though she wanted to run, she stopped and spun around on the sidewalk, raising her bear spray with a steady hand. No one could withstand this if she shot it in their face, and she just wanted the chance to get away. She certainly wasn’t going to take the guy on in hand-to-hand combat. “Get back!” she shouted, her finger steady on the trigger. She was glad she wasn’t outwardly shaking. She needed to paint a picture of calm even if she was trembling inside.

  To her surprise, he held up his hands and almost looked apologetic as he watched her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Karen.”

  Holy hell, he knew her name. So this definitely wasn’t random. Because why would this guy be in Baltimore of all places, in the same park she ran by almost every day? Did he know who she worked for? God, he probably wanted to torture her for information. She wasn’t going to stand around and ask him a bunch of questions. The facts that he knew her name and was a violent criminal were enough for her to run for her life.

  Whirling around, she raced down the sidewalk, her heart beating out of control, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears so loud she couldn’t tell how close he was behind her.

  She wanted to pull out her phone, but she’d strapped it around her ankle so it would be out of her way. She couldn’t risk slowing down. If she could just get somewhere public, maybe she could flag someone for help.

  As she moved deeper into the park, she cursed herself for coming this way, but he’d been blocking her exit. As she risked another glance over her shoulder, full-blown panic exploded inside her like fireworks. He was about twenty feet behind her and closing. He moved fast for such a big man, and she knew he wouldn’t stop. The range on her spray was thirty feet, so she could take him. She’d only get one shot at this, so she had to do it right.

  His expression was grim and he said something to her, but she couldn’t hear anything above the blood rushing in her ears.

  She could keep running, but he was going to reach her soon. And she knew without a doubt she’d lose against him in any sort of physical altercation. She’d seen pictures of what he’d done to someone who’d crossed him. This might be her only chance to get away or at least get help. Drawing in a deep breath, she let out a bloodcurdling scream, hoping someone would hear her as she stopped and turned to spray him.

  Still screaming, she had started to press the trigger when a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye made her stumble backward.

  A man in similar attire burst from the trees lining the sidewalk. There were two of them!

  Pressing the trigger, she started spraying wildly as the newcomer tackled her. She flew back against the sidewalk, her head slamming against it as she lost her grip on the bear spray.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Grisha shouted.

  But that couldn’t be right. Unless he wanted to be the one to inflict pain. She tried to struggle, but the other man was on top of her and had her in a tight grip. She couldn’t stop gasping, her chest terrifyingly tight. She couldn’t breathe through the panic pressing in on her. Every horrible photo and crime scene she’d ever seen at work crashed in on her at once. She didn’t want to be a fucking statistic! She blinked as everything around her became fuzzy. Stay awake, she ordered herself as the edges of her vision started to fade.

  No, no, no. She couldn’t be unconscious around these monsters. But she couldn’t control her breathing. It was too fast, too panicked. Pins and needles erupted in her hands and feet. Her eyeballs felt as if they were bulging. The edges of her vision closed in. Her body refused to listen as darkness swept her under.

  Wesley glanced at Selene as they neared their destination. The private plane was about ten minutes from its final descent, and he hated that the reason they were returning was that one of his oldest, closest friends had been murdered.

  The whole situation didn’t sit right with Wesley, and even though it wasn’t the NSA’s jurisdiction, he’d be looking at all the files to make sure the investigation was handled properly. He owed Max that much. Hell, he owed the man his life.

  “You all right?” Selene asked softly from her seat next to the window. Her white blond hair was pulled back from the sharp planes of her face and braided tight against her head.

  As if she were his own daughter, the computer genius rarely missed anything when it came to him. She was one of the few people who could read his moods. He could have said he was fine, but there was no reason to lie to her and she’d have known anyway. “No.”

  “We’ll find out who killed him.” Her expression turned fierce and determined.

  His throat tight, all he could do was nod and stare blindly at his open laptop. Wesley had called Mary Southers before boarding the plane in Berlin and she’d sounded as if she was hanging in there. The woman was a rock, the type who could weather any storm. But losing Max . . . hell, it was just unfair.

  Which was a stupid thing to say considering the shit he saw day in and day out. Wesley knew how fragile life was, how bad things happened to good people all the damn time. For some reason he’d just never thought he’d lose his oldest friend.

  Max didn’t even work in the field anymore. And that bullshit about a Shiâ terrorist group gunning for him was just that—bullshit—so putrid it stank. It didn’t even make sense with the intel they’d gathered so far. Not to mention that the news stations had received that tip way too fast. Faster than the DEA, NSA, or CIA had. And that simply didn’t happen. The DEA had done damage control and was currently denying those allegations, but the charges were out there for the public to dissect and conspiracy theorists to latch onto.

  Now Wesley had to focus on the attack in the capital more than anything. He’d been in Germany working with their premier intelligence agency on something highly sensitive when a stolen, U.S.–owned drone unleashed hell on a p
olitical fund-raiser.

  And no one could find the damn thing. Not even his best team of analysts. Whoever was manning it was good, because they’d covered their digital tracks well enough that they hadn’t even left a bread-crumb trail.

  Pulling up his e-mail, Wesley started scanning the most important ones first, trying to sift his way through the mess of them. Karen often went through his messages and alerted him of priorities if he was off-line for a job, but this was his most private e-mail account. No one had access to it but him.

  When he saw one from an unknown address, he opened it and frowned. It was rare he got spam at this address.

  Remember the tip you got on Tasev in Miami? It was from me. I made the call from a pay phone on Bayside Drive and I’m willing to bet you tried to track me even after Max told you the tip was anonymous. We need to talk about Max’s murder. Contact me at this number.

  Wesley quickly memorized the phone number. No name, but Wesley didn’t need it.

  There was only one man who would know all those details. One of Max’s undercover agents. A man known only as Grisha, though Wesley knew it was just an alias. He actually had a file on the alleged criminal and all his supposed past exploits. He’d had Karen look into the man because he’d wanted to team up with Max on another case. That wouldn’t be happening now.

  Wesley checked the time stamp and cursed when he realized the message had been sent two damn days ago.

  He pulled out his sat phone and called the number. Then cursed again when it went to an automated voice mail simply saying to leave a message. He tried it again with the same results. He shot off an e-mail to Karen asking her to get a trace on the number, then finished dealing with more correspondence that couldn’t wait. Nothing in his damn job could ever seem to wait.

  “What’s that look?” Selene asked after he’d tried calling Grisha again.

  “Remember the undercover agents from the Tasev case?”

  Selene’s pale blue eyes widened just the slightest fraction. “Yeah.”

  “I think one of them contacted me. Wants to talk about Max’s murder.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  He nodded. It was very interesting. The DEA and the local PD were handling the case, yet someone who’d worked with Max wanted to talk to him, an outsider.

  And in his experience, that simply never happened.

  Chapter 4

  Legend: an agent’s alleged background and personal history, usually supported by documents and memorized details.

  Karen tried to steady her breathing and gain her bearings. It was difficult when she was hooded, but she knew she was sitting in the back of a vehicle—not the original SUV, because they’d switched vehicles in a parking garage, though she’d feigned being passed out—and there were four men in the rows in front of her. She knew how many there were because of their distinctive voices. Unfortunately they were all speaking Russian. She didn’t speak it, but she understood a handful of words and phrases. Her hands were flex-cuffed in front of her, which was better than behind her but still sucked. She couldn’t stop her heart from racing out of control or her body’s elevated temperature.

  She was so not prepared for something like this. Sure, she’d taken some classes—in a well-lit classroom with trained instructors—but no in-the-field training for being kidnapped. She was just an analyst. She was good with computers and thinking outside the box, but she wasn’t physically strong. Definitely not strong enough to fend off one of the men she’d seen, let alone four. And her imagination was going insane, thinking of all the things these monsters planned to do to her. Rape or torture. Probably both. Worse, she knew that most people cracked under torture.

  One of the men she worked with, Ortiz, had told her just that during a conversation they’d had over morning coffee and bagels at the office. It had been in context with a case they’d been working on. He’d said that it was just a matter of time but it was simply human nature before pretty much everyone broke. If you couldn’t channel the pain, whether psychological or physical, you cracked. And if for some reason you held out, one of two things happened. Death, or they found something else to use against you. Meaning someone who mattered to you. It was conceivable that even the bravest patriot would give up secrets because of a threat to a significant other or child.

  That was human nature to its core.

  “Burkhart . . .” one of the men murmured in the midst of their conversation.

  Oh hell. This was definitely about who she worked for. Which was a secret. None of her neighbors or friends knew. They all thought she was an analyst for a think tank, which wasn’t that far off the mark. But no one knew she worked for the government or had one of the highest security clearances in the country. Right about now she wished she didn’t. Or hell, if she was making wishes, she wished she’d stayed in bed this morning and skipped her run. They must want her for national secrets. She’d worked on so many cases over the years she couldn’t begin to guess which one this was about. Maybe something to do with Tasev, a man whose operation the NSA had taken apart not too long ago. She knew Grisha had worked with the man, so that was a logical connection. Anyone who worked for Tasev had to be savage.

  She swallowed hard as beads of sweat rolled down her spine.

  After a while the conversation in the front trickled off, but there was a tension in the vehicle. Almost a palpable one that could be cut with a blade. She wondered if there was dissension in the group. If maybe she could use it against them to escape.

  Because she was going to try as soon as she could. She knew it was better to let an attacker wound you instead of letting him force you into a vehicle at gun or knifepoint. She’d certainly failed that with her freaking panic attack at the park—though with four against one, she hadn’t stood a chance. She still wasn’t giving up hope.

  Statistically speaking, she had the best chance of escaping immediately upon capture and before her attackers took her to their compound. Wherever that might be. She was all about statistics, and while she might not be physically strong, she was smart and held on to that shred of hope that this wasn’t the end for her. She had to try to escape before they locked her down completely.

  The vehicle slowed and turned. When it did, the road became bumpy as if they were on a dirt road or maybe gravel. They were going slow enough that they weren’t on a highway or even a main road anymore. It was hard to know the exact amount of time that had passed since they took her, but she estimated a little over an hour. Which wasn’t a help at all. She could be in D.C., Virginia, Delaware, or even Pennsylvania. Or they could have just driven around in circles so that they were still in Maryland. She didn’t think so, or it hadn’t felt like it, but she was too out of sorts to swear to anything.

  “Karen, we’re almost at our destination,” the one named Grisha said without the slightest trace of an accent.

  So they knew she was awake. She’d figured they had but had kept her head lolled to the side on the headrest. Now she didn’t bother with the pretense. “What do you want with me?” Her voice was raspy and probably muffled to them.

  “We’re not going to hurt you. We just need to talk to you. We hooded you for your own safety. It’s better you don’t know how we got here, but I’m going to help you out of the SUV once we stop and take off your hood.”

  “What about my cuffs?” she asked calmly. Because she could play nice for a little bit, pretend she bought their lies about not hurting her. Maybe if she did they’d let their guards down. And the clock was ticking. Her window of escape narrowed each second that passed.

  There was a short pause and she was under the impression the men were communicating. She heard slight movement and possibly whispers.

  The man sighed. “We’re going to take your cuffs off once we’re inside. There are four of us and we’re all highly trained. We don’t want to hurt you and we will not, but if you try to escape we’ll restrain you again. All we want is for you to hear us out.”

  She called complete and t
otal bullshit, but nodded. “Okay.” Oh yeah, she’d play along and act like the docile female until the time was right. Her heart pounded wildly against her chest at the anticipation of having her hood removed, of seeing where she was and gauging her escape.

  The engine cut off as the vehicle suddenly stopped. Just as quickly, the hood was lifted and she found herself looking at Grisha and another man with blond hair sitting in the middle seat of the SUV. Instinctively she squinted. Even with the tinted windows, the sudden light affected her eyes.

  She was in the third row, which she’d guessed, but now had confirmation. Two more men were in the front. One had black hair, green eyes, and a feral look to him that made her shiver in fear. The driver had dark brown hair and a beard that made him look as if he could be an extra on Duck Dynasty. And all of them were clearly fit and muscular. Just great.

  She didn’t say anything, just looked out the side window and was surprised to see a normal-looking log-and-brick home. It was fairly large, probably twenty-five hundred to three thousand square feet if she had to guess. As she stared they started opening their doors, in one coordinated motion. All the men exited, and then Grisha pulled down one of the seats in the middle row and held out a hand for her.

  She didn’t want to touch him but gritted her teeth and let him help her out. She was going to play a role, and the more helpless she acted, the better. For now. An icy breeze kicked up and a shiver that was part fear and part cold swept through her.